Interviews Through the Time Machine
This Episode:
The Four Food Groups
Announcer: And now we take you to that ever-fascinating segment of our show — “Interviews Through the Time Machine.” This week, Freddy is sitting in for Delmar, who was last seen wandering through a Roman bathhouse during the time of Nero wearing nothing but an instamatic camera. Let’s toss it to Freddy.
Freddy: Thanks Bob. Today we are going to interview the world’s first dietician, Richard M. Ogg. We stroll over to the Time Machine, put in three dimes (clink, clink, search, fumble, whispers of “Hey, anybody got a dime, thanks man, see me on payday,” clink.) We set the dial for 12,000 B.C, as we drop in on a tribe of post-glacial hunter-gatherers. (Strange chanting noises in the background.) Mr. Ogg! Over here! Greetings and welcome to “Interviews Through the Time Machine.”
Ogg: My pleasure. I think.
Freddy: Well, Mr. Ogg, what do you consider your greatest contribution to the science of diets?
Ogg: I invented the four food groups.
Freddy: You invented the four food groups?
Ogg: Correct. For thousands of years people have been depending on dead animals and rotten fruit. I wanted to change things. Shake things up.
Freddy: (Looking off toward the horizon, amazed.) Wow! Would you look at the size of that thing!
Ogg: What?
Freddy: Over on the ridge. That’s the biggest cow I’ve ever seen.
Ogg: Cow?
Freddy: That thing up there.
Ogg: We call them aurochs.
Freddy: Call it what you want, but that’s the biggest cow I’ve ever seen.
Ogg: Well, they are certainly unruly, but we do what we can. And that, indeed, is a big one.
(We hear the approaching sound of derisive laughter.)
Freddy: Who are these guys?
Ogg: The neighbors. Don’t pay any attention to them.
Frank: Hey look, it’s that crackpot Ogg! What ya doin’ Ogg?
Ogg: None of your business.
Ralph: Hey Frank, I’ll bet he’s running his mouth about that New Food Plan.
Ogg: Buzz off.
Frank: Tell him about the grass seeds, Ogg.
Harry: Yeah! Ogg has this idea that we should all go out and collect these tiny, tiny, tiny grass seeds. Then, when we’ve got a million of them (guffaw), we break our backs crushing these seeds up, then we burn a pile of fuel boiling and baking them! (More mockery, needling.)
Frank: Hey Ogg, why don’t you use that opposable thumb of yours and get a digging stick? (Laughing derisively as he speaks.) Three inches down you’ll find big, fat, succulent roots. (Unable to control himself.) No muss, no fuss. Food to go. (Laughing so hard he can barely stand it.)
Ogg: Why don’t you take that opposable thumb of yours and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Harry: (Gesturing rudely as he exits.) Check you later, Ogg.
Frank: (Also exiting, also gesturing rudely, also laughing, and mocking.) What a dunce.
Freddy: Friends of yours?
Ogg: What the hell do they know! (Long pause.) Well, before that aurochs wanders off, I better run and grab it.
Freddy: Grab it?
Ogg: Wrestle it to the ground and suck on it.
Freddy: (Blankly.) Suck on it?
Ogg: Yeah. Them little hangy-down things on the bottom. Well, gotta run, she’s getting away.
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