So The Colbert Report is coming to the Zellerbach theatre from April 14 to 17. Want tickets? Too bad. I think they sold out thirty minutes before Stephen even made the announcement.

But alas, this column is not about Stephen Colbert. Nor is it about selling out. It’s about Doritos — as in the sponsor of Colbert’s visit, officially titled “The Colbert Report: Doritos Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania Primary Coverage from Chili-Delphia — The City of Brotherly Crunch.” And this column is about America. And maybe, just maybe, it’s about a collision of the two. (Missy Elliot not included, but we might just be able to get OK Go.)

Doritos, you see, are an American snack food. For one thing, the Doritos headquarters are located in Dallas, Texas — the most American state we’ve got. (Despite that whole “annexation” thing.) For another, the execs over at Frito-Lay have managed to come up with a wide array of Dorito flavors to parallel this country’s diversity: Blazin’ Buffalo & Ranch (delicious), Nacho Cheese (traditional), even Cheeseburger (fire that guy).

But perhaps most importantly, Americans consume more Doritos per capita than any other nation on any other continent. And sure, that might make us the most obese country in the history of the universe — but that can’t be blamed on just one snack, can it?

So call me crazy, but I became overwhelmed by a blaze of angry patriotism when I read that Britain’s University of Leicester is planning to beam a Doritos commercial into outer space in an effort to communicate with “possible inhabitants of a star system known as 47 Ursae Majoris.” That’s not to say it isn’t a great idea; after all, if anything’s gonna convince aliens to pack up and head to Earth, it’s a Doritos ad. But I can’t help but feel that Britain is stealing America’s snack — as well as our historic obsession with aliens — in its attempt to lure extraterrestrials into a dangerous (if delicious) death trap.

So instead of channeling our patriotism towards next month’s primary vote, we need to fight a more tangible and immediate threat: those hapless Brits. Maybe Frito-Lay should back out of this universal product placement before it’s too late. Or maybe we need to go as far as JFK did when he saw Sputnik, and inject millions of dollars into NASA to defeat all of Europe in one move. After all, it’d be a better use of our budget than most of Bush’s endeavors, and I can already envision a catchy motto: “Space Race Part II: Getting Aliens Across Our Border.” Perfect.

Tags: aliens, hapless Brits, Missy Elliot

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Higher Education, Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.