Nickelodeon short: "Fast Food"

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When I was little, I never tried a shamrock shake or lime Kool-aid, and a green congealed salad?  Forget it.  That's because this innocuous little cartoon taught me that green food coloring comes from live frogs.

The premise of the short is basically Iron Chef: Frog Edition.  It's St. Patrick's Day, so the three competing chefs must each make a green-colored dish using the frog provided.  The frog, for his part, makes futile pleas for help from his bell jar prison.

The chefs squabble over which parts of the frog they will use for their Swamp Mist Bleu, Frog-a Souffle, or Ribbit Rarebit.  A food fight ensues--clunk! pow! bonk!--as they clamor for the frog's liver, fat, or the whole darn frog.  Suddenly, the announcer says there has been a "terrible mistake"-- it's not St. Patrick's Day; it's Valentine's Day!  (Meanwhile, the frog has escaped in the melee.)

There is a pause in the action and we see a very red parrot looking quite worried.  "Uh oh," it says.  "Polly wants a cracker.  Polly does not want to be a cracker."  We are only left to speculate about the poor bird's fate after the credits.

Lesson learned:
Red velvet cake may contain trace amounts of scarlet macaw.


Watch "Fast Food" via Retro Junk