By
Laura Winsky
Penn and Teller have been a comedy duo for, what, 20 years? But they've never really made it huge. They're no Cheech and Chong, Amos and Andy, George Burns and Gracie Allen. I mean to say that perhaps comedy is the way in which they make their living, more than it is their hobby.
So you probably can't blame them for what happened Thursday night. Shall we blame Pizza Hut? Did they fail to keep their promise last Thursday night? Or shall we blame the CEO of Arizona's branch of NBC? Because somebody really screwed up.
I should start from the beginning. Tucson was injured as a community when a triple homicide occurred at a local Pizza Hut. Although it is a growing metropolis, Tucson is still very much a small world. At the time of the horrific incident, it seemed like the whole town stopped, because everyone had been affected in at least a small way. The perpetrators had been minors at the time. That only adds to the tragedy. The key element to this story is that the tragedy wears on for the three victims' families.
Just this month, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Glock, Inc. Obviously, the victims haven't been able to move on with their lives. Nor should they be forced to. Whether you agree with the merits of the case or not is left to your opinion, but the case clearly demonstrates that the wounds of the incident are still very fresh.
Which brings us to present day. Pizza Hut started a new advertising campaign. Nothing wrong with that. They hired Penn and Teller as their spokesmodels and made a series of clever commercials.
One of those commercials features Penn asking his lovely assistant Teller to pose while he throws knives at him. Penn starts paying attention to his slice of pizza and Teller suddenly has a dozen knives pinning him, thanks to television technology.
Here's the amazing thing: Pizza Hut recognized the error of their ways, and before they released the commercials, they promised that the specific commercial mentioned above would not be shown in Arizona. All major Tucson news stations read the press release revealing that the commercial wouldn't be shown.
How nice. That's sensitive corporate ethics for ya'. And it was thoughtful. Maybe the vast majority of Tucson wouldn't have been offended or noticed the correlation. But there are five tormented Tucson mothers out there: the three victim's mothers and the two perpetrators' mothers. These women would have noticed. And they did. Thursday night.
I could try to make an excuse for myself and say that I only watched the special 40-minute "Friends" episode because I was sick, but it was actually a little entertaining.
But I felt a little sicker when, halfway through the show, the Pizza Hut commercial came on in full color, with all the knife-throwing gore we had heard it contained.
What happened? Did Pizza Hut renege on their promise? Did NBC ignore Pizza Hut's intentions and run the ad anyway? Or was it just a screw-up? A terrible, horrible screw- up? Broken promises don't ever go over well where I come from.
None of the above parties are responsible for the root of the problem. Ultimately, society has a serious problem when a crime like the Pizza Hut triple murder occurs. Society has a serious problem when the government wants to introduce the subject of capital punishment when the accused are minors. Society has a serious problem when the government thinks the solution is to kill the minors to show other minors that killing is wrong. That's where the focus should be.
But until we can focus on our real problems, we can't excuse what happened Thursday night.
Next Friday night, when you're feeling the munchies, call Papa John's. I hear they're running a special.
