Coffee Jerks
September 2, 2011 11:11 AM   Subscribe

Husbands, tell us how you really feel about the coffee. (SLYT, 0:53) The jerk store called, and they're running out of coffee drinkers.
posted by Greg Nog (94 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



 
"Honey, your coffee's no good, but for some reason my penis keeps falling into the pot, so I clearly can't make it myself the way I like."
posted by klangklangston at 11:14 AM on September 2, 2011 [15 favorites]


mrs ozzy brought home an emergency can of Folger's yesterday because we were out of real coffee. It went kind of like this.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:15 AM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


When you buy shit coffee and make it in a percolator, this is what happens.

I don't even drink coffee and I know this.
posted by GuyZero at 11:16 AM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


Regardless of whether it's supposed to be a joke or not, it's kinda misogynistic for an FPP. Not really that funny either.
posted by TheBones at 11:16 AM on September 2, 2011


The censored version is mildly more entertaining.
posted by asnider at 11:17 AM on September 2, 2011


What I lack in coffee and being pregnant, I make up for in sandwiches and bare feet.
posted by phunniemee at 11:18 AM on September 2, 2011 [13 favorites]


I have a non-sexual crush on the Prelinger Archive.

Confidential to the Prelinger Archive: ♫ I'm lyyyiiiing ♫
posted by griphus at 11:18 AM on September 2, 2011 [13 favorites]


I think the very last one is Pete Campbell of Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce.
posted by Babblesort at 11:18 AM on September 2, 2011 [7 favorites]


Mrs. Olsen should've slapped 'em upside the head.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:21 AM on September 2, 2011 [3 favorites]


Regardless of whether it's supposed to be a joke or not, it's kinda misandrist for an FPP. Not really that funny either.
posted by found missing at 11:23 AM on September 2, 2011 [8 favorites]


WHY DOES GREG NOG HATE WOMEN AND MEN, IS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW.

AND COFFEE ALSO.
posted by everichon at 11:25 AM on September 2, 2011 [31 favorites]


Interesting variety of jobs depicted there, as opposed to Everyone Is Upper Middle Class All The Time of current commercials.
posted by The Whelk at 11:25 AM on September 2, 2011 [11 favorites]


Everyone is Upper Middle Class, Whelk. Some are just more Upper Middle Class than others.
posted by griphus at 11:29 AM on September 2, 2011 [3 favorites]


I guess it's pretty anachronistic to show anyone having a job period.
posted by The Whelk at 11:33 AM on September 2, 2011 [29 favorites]


Every morning at 7:00 Evelyn pours a teaspoon of dirt into the percolator and smiles sadly to herself, thinking of lost dreams. When Bill complains too loudly, it's a double teaspoon the next day. Their cat is the only witness.
posted by Kevin Street at 11:33 AM on September 2, 2011 [85 favorites]


Their cat is the only witness.

Ready for the twist? It was the cat all along. DUN DUN DUN DUUUUN.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:37 AM on September 2, 2011 [3 favorites]


That's not dirt...
posted by Kevin Street at 11:37 AM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]




If those are the worst coffee commercials of yesteryear, these are by far the best.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 11:37 AM on September 2, 2011 [66 favorites]


Nothing that a couple of drops of Visine can't cure, ladies.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:38 AM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's kind of unfair to blame the men for this. It's the ad agencies that make these things to deliberately brow-beat the wives (i.e. the ones who do the grocery shopping).
posted by DU at 11:40 AM on September 2, 2011


Regardless of whether it's supposed to be a joke or not, it's kinda misogynistic for an FPP. Not really that funny either.

Regardless of whether it's supposed to be a joke or not, it's kinda misandrist for an FPP. Not really that funny either.


Misandry and misogyny go hand-in-hand, skipping around the park.

What I found interesting was how the coffee was always personalized -- at least once in each skit it's referred to as "your coffee," not "this coffee" or "the coffee". Seeing all the commercials in sequence like that highlights that it was probably a deliberate choice by the ad agency to emphasize that the badness of your coffee is a statement about you, personally, and not about, say, the coffee.
posted by endless_forms at 11:44 AM on September 2, 2011 [12 favorites]


The irony, such as it is, is that these days men, most often husbands, are the ones painted in ads as incompetents. The one that gets my goat is the one where the man stands paralyzed in a grocery store, perplexed by the array of toilet paper before him. And then his wife comes to rescue him.

Advertising has changed less than you think.
posted by GuyZero at 11:46 AM on September 2, 2011 [5 favorites]


Misogyny, misandry, nothin' - the coffee's always to blame in this video. As a cup of coffee, I demand restitution, and some cream.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:46 AM on September 2, 2011 [3 favorites]


This is coffee
posted by The Whelk at 11:48 AM on September 2, 2011


I am a raging feminist (no sarcasm intended) and I heartily approve of this post. It's not misogynist to point out that ads aimed at women used to be pretty damned misogynist. Or perhaps I should say much more blunt about their misogyny.

I am also a coffee drinker and my husband is not. He consistently makes coffee that tastes like scent of day-old cat piss. However, I love him anyway for trying. And I've never poured in on a plant. At least not in his sight.
posted by BlueJae at 11:48 AM on September 2, 2011 [18 favorites]


To the folks who disapprove: may I suggest a fresh, steaming cup of my new Fiamo Blend coffee?
posted by phunniemee at 11:50 AM on September 2, 2011 [5 favorites]




Oh also I would love to see this ad compared with modern ads on an episode of Target Women.
posted by BlueJae at 11:51 AM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


"I guess it's pretty anachronistic to show anyone having a job period."

In this economy, anyway.
posted by klangklangston at 11:52 AM on September 2, 2011


make it in a percolator, this is what happens.

I must respecfully disagree, percolators are awesome, the Bialetti Moka Express is the best thing ever.
posted by Ad hominem at 11:55 AM on September 2, 2011


At least they're not hipsters, like those soda jerks
posted by grobstein at 11:57 AM on September 2, 2011 [3 favorites]


Mrs. The Potate's coffee is the best I've ever had. She roasts her own beans, and filters it through some clear glass contraption that isn't a coffee press. Jesus it's good.
posted by The Potate at 12:02 PM on September 2, 2011




Uncleozzy, I have always mentally pronounced your user name as "un-clee-OH-zee" to myself, and wondered what it meant. Knowing now that it's 'uncle ozzy' makes you suddenly less mysterious to me. FYI.

In other news: my wife makes the coffee in my household, mostly because she's the only one who can figure out how to program the coffee maker*. If I were to malign her coffee as roughly as the gentlemen in this video are doing to their wives, she'd punch my nuts, and I'd deserve it. These men are heartless cads.

* I make up for this inadequacy by claiming to know the secret to making the perfect cup of tea, which I refuse to tell her. She doubtlessly sees past my feeble ruse, but as it nets her an effortless cup of tea whenever she wants it she leaves me to my self-aggrandizing.
posted by Pecinpah at 12:08 PM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


I'd love to see a remix of the misogynist coffee ads and those Jim Henson coffee ads linked above . . .

Fade in on housewife standing at kitchen counter with hand on dynamite plunger.

(Man enters stage left with mug in hand and sour look on his face).
Husband: Jesus, honey what did you make this coffee with? Shit?

(Housewife looks at camera)
Housewife: Sometimes people who complain about my coffee just blow up!

(Presses plunger and husband explodes into a million pieces.)
Housewife: See what I mean! (Smiles).
posted by jeremias at 12:08 PM on September 2, 2011 [16 favorites]


My fiancé worked at Starbucks. I only drink coffee if I'm half-dead in the morning. My fate is sealed when I offer to make coffee.
posted by spamguy at 12:10 PM on September 2, 2011


This is coffee [link]

From the look and feel of the clip, I suspect the Coffee Brewing Institute is a division of the DHARMA Initiative and that this is a hitherto unseen station orientation film.
posted by aught at 12:21 PM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


Were all the kitchen scenes shot in the same kitchen set?

Anyway, there's something kind of charming about shitty coffee. UNLESS IT'S TOO WEAK.
posted by oinopaponton at 12:23 PM on September 2, 2011


may I suggest a fresh, steaming cup of my new Fiamo Blend coffee?

Please, MeFite graphic designers who are bored on their Friday afternoon, make a pretty billboard ad for this?
posted by gladly at 12:27 PM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


UNLESS IT'S TOO WEAK.

I've got an aunt who makes coffee the color of slightly-murky river water. I have to remind myself every Easter to drink tea instead.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:28 PM on September 2, 2011


Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:32 PM on September 2, 2011 [5 favorites]


Jim never vomits at home.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:32 PM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


Don't complain that the coffee is old and weak because someday you will be too.

[insert ASCII picture of a cat peeking around a coffee mug]
posted by straight at 12:47 PM on September 2, 2011


Gale makes the best coffee.
posted by mrhappy at 12:48 PM on September 2, 2011


And while we're on the subject, you also have waxy yellow buildup, bad breath and my shirts all have ring around the collar.
posted by tommasz at 1:02 PM on September 2, 2011 [3 favorites]


That ring around the collar is from all the noose fitting.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:15 PM on September 2, 2011 [3 favorites]


I blame the Wilkins coffee.
posted by tommasz at 1:19 PM on September 2, 2011


Uh-oh. What if my wife feels that way about my coffee but she just hasn't been saying so?
posted by Zed at 1:25 PM on September 2, 2011


There was a fish in the percolator?
posted by shakespeherian at 1:34 PM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


Kona, burr grinder, and french press. That is all.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 1:36 PM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


A burr grinder has changed my life.

My wife doesn't drink coffee at all. She usually gets up before me, though. I'm kind of obsessive about coffee, roast my own beans, only brew in a french press, and so forth. But I always had one of those crappy spinning blade grinders, and you sort of have to have the touch to get stuff ground decently with one.

Then a couple years ago my father gave me a nice burr grinder for Christmas. Suddenly, the last difficult step in making coffee only consists of "scoop 2.5 of this scoop into the top, turn the switch until it's done, put in french press with hot water." And lo and behold, my wife makes coffee for me now, not every single morning, but frequently.

Oh my god, it's like heaven. If I had thought of this result, I'd have coughed up the money for a burr grinder years ago. So this is my public declaration that my wife makes awesome coffee.
posted by rusty at 1:41 PM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


(PS: Kona is so, so wildly overrated. Even the extremely tiny amount of real high-mountain Kona that actually exists. If you happen to be on a Kona coffee plantation, enjoy it. Otherwise, save your money.)
posted by rusty at 1:46 PM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


I got this little in-cup French Press (it hooks to the side of your coffee cup) and tried it while housebound during Hurricane Irene, and it was a total fail. Really really weak. I had been hoping I could take it for travel.
posted by sweetkid at 1:47 PM on September 2, 2011


And I've never poured in on a plant. At least not in his sight.

Feel free to pour out your coffee onto the plants-- they love it! And no, it is not too acidic. Coffee grounds, too, are great free fertilizer. Just don't make the mistake I made last winter and put your used grounds on your indoor plants because they will attract fruit flies.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 2:00 PM on September 2, 2011


My colleague mentions coffee made by their non-coffee-drinking partner. My colleague says that it is not good.
posted by everichon at 2:20 PM on September 2, 2011


So, since this might be a decent place to ask, anyone got recommendations for a decently priced metal french press? Our last two plastic ones have gotten cracks, and unfortunately, we've proven ourselves too irresponsible to be trusted with glass. I've heard that there are reasonably priced metal ones, but Amazon had them for an insane price. Otherwise, got plastic ones that won't crack in under a year of daily use?
posted by klangklangston at 2:28 PM on September 2, 2011


So, since this might be a decent place to ask, anyone got recommendations for a decently priced metal french press?

To piggyback onto this, any recommendations for burr grinders? We've been using our French press more lately, and I'd like something that can give a more consistent grind than our blade grinder.
posted by malthas at 2:37 PM on September 2, 2011


Any recommendations on a French Maid to make the coffee for me?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:41 PM on September 2, 2011 [4 favorites]


The irony, such as it is, is that these days men, most often husbands, are the ones painted in ads as incompetents.

Previously: Dumb men commercials.

Also, I remember when I was at home during my son's first year, it seemed like every TV commercial product had the world "ultra" in it. As if we could all be better housewives by using their ultra dish soap or ultra toilet paper.

Just glad we aren't required to wear those uncomfortable clothes anymore. Ugh. I won't even wear pantyhose, let alone a girdle and a Cross Your Heart bra.

That said, I found this post incredibly fun and remember Madge?
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 2:45 PM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


To the people looking for recommendations: CoffeeGeek has reviews as well as tons of other information.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:52 PM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]






really, MeFi has become the old Reddit.
posted by Substrata at 3:32 PM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


Substrata, can I pour you a cuppa?
posted by phunniemee at 3:35 PM on September 2, 2011


Make your own damn coffee, then.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 3:41 PM on September 2, 2011


(PS: Kona is so, so wildly overrated. Even the extremely tiny amount of real high-mountain Kona that actually exists. If you happen to be on a Kona coffee plantation, enjoy it. Otherwise, save your money.)

Redbird Kona coffee is available via mail order for $25/lb, and you can usually get 1 lb free with a 5 lb order. I realize this is not frugal, but it's real delicious Kona, and a serviceable replacement for Xanax.

Failing that, my farmers' market has a really nice Honduran coffee for $14/lb, and I know not where it really comes from, but it ain't bad...
posted by Ella Fynoe at 3:53 PM on September 2, 2011


klangklangston, malthas:
Pour-over brewing equipment with a consistent grind will yield far better results than a French press. A Chemex pot or Hario dripper with a halfway decent burr grinder and a controllable kettle can be had for a total of $200 or so. My set of equipment has lasted me for two years of daily use with no signs of wear. If you're really anal about it, an IR thermometer and a scale with a tare reset button will improve consistency. The trouble is that you start spending more and more on coffee once you can actually taste all of it.
posted by pmugowsky at 4:06 PM on September 2, 2011 [7 favorites]


Yeah, I don't understand this. Coffee, in the morning, that you didn't have to make yourself tastes like heaven. It's not as though it takes more than 45 seconds of effort to operate the coffeemaker, but when it is someone-not-yourself's effort, and then they bring it you ... Jesus! That coffee is delicious!

I have been single a very long time.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 4:12 PM on September 2, 2011 [7 favorites]


We drink Folgers out of a percolator. And we likes it that way. Come on over I got a squirrel on the stove and the coffee is really hot.

When we've bought nice coffee, which I do like if I'm conscious enough to taste it, it's totally lost on both of us. I'm catatonic in the morning.

Also both adult members of the house are capable of making the same shitty coffee and both of us can tell a petunia from a daisy.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:14 PM on September 2, 2011


Folgers ad - NSFW language
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:23 PM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]






pmugowsky, thanks for the recommendation. We're pretty happy with our Aeropress/hot water pot setup -- we mostly use the French press when we want to spend less active time making coffee. I'm just not a big fan of the really inconsistent grind our cheapo blade grinder gives us, especially when trying to do coarse grinds. And yeah, we passed the point of no return on expensiveness of our coffee a long, long time ago.
posted by malthas at 4:31 PM on September 2, 2011


just make it strong. best coffee in the world is wasted if you cheap out and brew it weak. or more to the point, you can always make too-strong coffee a little less intense (just add some hot water), but weak coffee stays weak and all of civilization suffers ...
posted by philip-random at 7:14 PM on September 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


Is this something I'd have to like coffee to be a dick about?
posted by frenetic at 7:23 PM on September 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


goddammit I'ma just make my own coffee then
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:37 PM on September 2, 2011


rory: A burr grinder has changed my life.

Yep.

pmugowsky: Pour-over brewing equipment with a consistent grind will yield far better results than a French press. A Chemex pot or Hario dripper ...

Double yep.
posted by stp123 at 8:31 PM on September 2, 2011


If you're really anal about it, an IR thermometer and a scale with a tare reset button ...

You don't say.
posted by spitbull at 9:39 PM on September 2, 2011


Each of these women needs an aeropress. Problem solved.
posted by sunshinesky at 9:43 PM on September 2, 2011


*Thinks to self. "Hmmm. He never has a second cup at home.*
posted by three blind mice at 10:10 PM on September 2, 2011


I have dranked pmugowsky's coffee and can vouch for that advice.
posted by fake at 11:00 PM on September 2, 2011


In fairness, sixty-year old coffee isn't going to be at its best.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:25 AM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


That said, I found this post incredibly fun and remember Madge?

You haven't seen a Madge until you've seen an Australian Madge.

Back on topic however, if you want real sexism in your coffee then you want Dare iced coffee (having said that, they also backed it up with this).
posted by h00py at 6:29 AM on September 3, 2011


Coffee complaints seem like a coded pretext to have an affair or two in that context.
posted by thebestusernameever at 6:52 AM on September 3, 2011


If those are the worst coffee commercials of yesteryear, these are by far the best

Sure, that seemed like a harmless enough statement to make, but with YouTube one thing leads to another, and I ended up here:

Elmo Reacts to Katy Perry Controversy

Damn you!
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:08 AM on September 3, 2011


Madge? Please.
posted by blucevalo at 7:14 AM on September 3, 2011


h00py that first Dare link showed up as the Nescafé Gold soap opera saga. The Dynasty of coffee commercials!
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 7:15 AM on September 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


The "shitty coffee wife" theme wasn't limited to the 1950s-1960s either. "Oh -- I wish I could make coffee he likes!" And the 1980s gave us the New Coffee Generation, holding tight to their ELO dreams. By the mid- to late 1980s Colombians were doing most of the coffee picking and serving and Americans were listening to a lot of Kenny G in the morning, and by 1988 husbands were suddenly cooing at their wives (albeit patronizingly, because their wives still lacked proper gourmet coffee discernment powers) instead of browbeating them about their horrid coffee-making skills.
posted by blucevalo at 7:31 AM on September 3, 2011


And the 1980s gave us the New Coffee Generation

Wherein Dionne Warwick takes a pleasing of the java and the voiceover says, "Coffee gives you the time to dream it, then you're ready to do it." At which point she smacks some guy in the face (all smiles).

Better part of thirty years later and that's still how most of my days begin.
posted by philip-random at 10:07 AM on September 3, 2011


Rusty writes:
(PS: Kona is so, so wildly overrated. Even the extremely tiny amount of real high-mountain Kona that actually exists. If you happen to be on a Kona coffee plantation, enjoy it. Otherwise, save your money.)
Ironic that you'd say that, because theres a well-respected coffee growing company on the Big Island that shares your name: Rusty's Coffee. I'd buy that exclusively if it weren't so expensive to get on the mainland.

@Ad hominem, I don't think when people talk about percolators they mean to include Moka pots.
posted by Hither at 1:10 PM on September 3, 2011


My Dad was a big coffee drinker most of his life, but almost all the time I was growing up (his late 20s and 30s) he drank the awful instant coffee of the late 50s and 60s. He'd usually get my siblings and I to make it for him, a cup at a time, with hot tap water (because he didn't trust us kids to boil water on the stove, most of that time). It was a pain to get instant coffee of that era to dissolve in hot tap water, and you stirred like crazy for a couple minutes, and there was still a kind of crappy white "foam" on the top of the vile stuff, even when there weren't any obvious lumps of undissolved instant coffee floating around.

And yet he drank it, cup after cup, year after year, along with his cigarettes, and ordered more. Up to 10 cups of that stuff a day on a Saturday or Sunday around home, and still, in the evenings, if he'd had a bad day, the best way to cheer him up was to bring him, unasked, another cup of that garbage.

Finally, in the last decade of his life, as he took over all the kitchen duties from my increasingly bed-ridden mother, he switched to making coffee in a Mr. Coffee drip maker, one 4 cup "pot" at a time, although he mostly stuck to drip grind Folgers or sometimes Yuban, or whatever else was on store special. Still, it was a quantum leap forward from all those years of instant. So I asked him, then, how it was he'd put away so much instant coffee all those years.

"Well," he said, conspiratorially, outside Mom's earshot, his voice nearly a whisper "at least it wasn't your Mother's coffee."

He really loved that girl.
posted by paulsc at 5:55 AM on September 5, 2011 [5 favorites]


Probably way too late, but I think $25.00 - $35.00 a pound pretty much proves my point about Kona. I didn't say it wasn't good stuff, just that you'll pay out the wazoo for the real thing, and it's not $25.00-a-pound good, when it closely resembles a lot of South Americans that sell for half that, or less.

If you're that keen on good coffee, buy green and roast it. The most expensive thing on Sweet Maria's right now is $18.00 a pound. Mostly they're in the $6.00 range. And all of them are better than almost anything else you can buy.
posted by rusty at 7:03 AM on September 8, 2011


There was a fish in the percolator?

As long as it isn't one of those voodoo Albanian vagina fish it's OK.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:34 AM on September 13, 2011


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