It's true. I love the Spice Girls.

Confession: In 8^th grade, my BFFs formed a Spice Girls tribute band. This brilliant slumber-party idea was born immediately before voluntarily “sleeping” in a tent in Lindsay’s backyard, whereupon her clinically insane neighbor threatened to shoot us if we didn’t shut up (true story).

We claimed we hated the Spice Girls and that our music videos (lost forever) and costumes (photographically preserved) simply mocked the fab five, but I think we secretly loved them. At least I did. In the junior high incarnation, I lovingly emulated Sporty Spice, mastering her trademark karate kicks while lip-synching “2 Become 1.” Ten years later, when the13-year-old girl inside of me discovered the beloved Girls were getting back together for a reunion tour, 23-year-old me audibly shrieked with delight and immediately decided that seeing them lip-synch live was not optional.

On February 15, 2008, my tween dreams came true when I breathed the same air as Lady Beckham & Co. Along with thousands of other regressing twentysomethings and their main gays, the dragtastic histrionics and fake friendship were ours to behold! Alas, the tour was doomed to implode (please…there’s no way Posh would share the limelight for long), but thankfully, I was privileged to scream myself hoarse, sing and dance in my nosebleed seat with the Spice Girls!

After I spiced up my life (all you need is positivity!) (ha ka!), I had to watch Spice World, which I own on VHS, natch. Spice World should not be a funny film, but against all logic, it is hilarious. Whether you deem it a guilty pleasure, an unappreciated masterpiece, or--simply in a word--craptastic, Spice World is awesome. What other movie has a high-speed boat chase, a bomb on a bus, aliens, and Alan Cumming as a documentary filmmaker?! Hijinks galore! Never-before-seen concert footage! Wonderful!

To reminisce further, and since they claim to be older and wiser (psshaw!), let’s see how much our timeless ladies of high camp have changed since they pounced around London in a giant, Union Jack emblazoned bus (driven by Meatloaf!).

Posh (aka Victoria Adams/Beckham):

Easy V doesn’t come for free (she’s a real lady!)

Spice World Posh: Snobby, monochromatic wardrobe, hates getting wet (after a motorboating adventure gone awry, she is forced to take a dip in the Thames), can’t sing, can’t dance, refuses to take part in Spice Bootcamp, but heroically drives the Spice Bus (with a bomb on it!) across London so they can make it to the show on time. The lady is a vamp!

Spice Reunion Posh: Pretty much the same, albeit tanner, skinnier and boobier. Married to pretty boy David Beckham, half-assed the show and no one minded, strutted a runway in lieu of a solo so fiercely that somewhere Tyra Banks is weeping.

Best Spice World line: “It must be so hard for you, Victoria. I mean, having to decide whether to wear the little Gucci dress, the little Gucci dress, or... the little Gucci dress!” –Sporty, about Posh

“I had a nightmare too! I had a face but there was no makeup on it!” --Posh

Scary (aka Melanie Brown):

She slams your body ‘round and winds it all around!

Spice World Scary: Very loud, big hair, big costumes (leopard spotted body suit in one scene, astronaut jacket in the next), roars

Spice Tour Scary: Voluntarily slept with Eddie Murphy, which makes me think her judgment is…off. Definitely mellowed out a bit, still had a penchant for animal prints and being outrageous, even simulating a blowjob on a back-up dancer. As you do.

Best Spice World line: Any time she says “baby” in her Leeds accent, “beh-beh.”

Sporty (aka Melanie Chisholm):

Heyah!

Spice World Sporty: Plain. Sporty. Good voice. English teeth. You can’t understand one word that comes out of Sporty’s mouth in the film, due to her thick accent. Seriously. I have no idea what she says in the movie (save the line about Posh’s wardrobe) but she wears workout clothes the whole time and rides an exercise bike in the giant tour bus.

Spice Tour Sporty: Nice bangs, classier outfits, but I get the impression that she’s the least popular girl, like they just put up with her because she has the best voice. Behind the scenes story: During the performance of “Mama” all the girls brought their babies on the stage; very sweet, very Beckhamy. But poor Sporty, she has no babies, and so she resigned herself to jumping and spinning around in the corner. Do you think she ever wanted to wear a dress but the other girls were like, “No, luv, you wear pants. You like it! You’re sporty, a one-note character!”

Best Spice World line: I have no idea. Unintelligible.

Ginger (aka Geri Halliwell):

Girl Power!

Spice World Ginger: Drag queen hair, drag queen outfits. And then there’s that ubiquitous Union Jack dress. She posed topless, had a failed solo career, rumor is she broke up the Spice Girls by leaving the group. Ginger, we might have bad blood between us if it wasn’t for how classy you turned out…

Spice Tour Ginger: Tres chic, strawberry blonde hair, performing sans trousers, not ashamed to reinvent the Union Jack dress. Very mellowed out and dare I say it? Lovely.

Best Spice World line:

[Geri and Mel B are playing chess on the Spice Bus]
Ginger Spice: Check!
Scary Spice: What d'you mean, "check"?
Ginger Spice: I mean, check; my bishop's got your king.
Scary Spice: Where?
Ginger Spice: There! You've either got to move it in front, or move it out of the way.
Scary Spice: Well I'll move that fairground horse to there. Sort that out!
Ginger Spice: You can't do that!
Scary Spice: Sez who?
Ginger Spice: Says Mr. Chess! It's been in the rules for thousands of years!
Scary Spice: Well I'm gonna break the rules and set this little fairground horse free amongst all these little square fields, like that. There!
Ginger Spice: I'm gonna slap you in a minute!

Baby (aka Emma Bunton):

Em in the place who likes it in your face!

Spice World Baby: Plays up the Baby-persona, constantly with a lolly in her mouth, smiles her ways out of scrapes, likes stuffed animals

Spice Tour Baby: Still cute, but more mature. Really liked her solo where she channeled sixties mod. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if she still dressed up in the platform shoes and pigtails.

Best Spice World lines (she gets two!):

“Yeah fun, you know like, HAHAHAHAHA-HA?!”

And when Posh is emulating Baby during a mock photo shoot: “My mummy’s my best friend…shhh!”

So, which is better, Old Spice or New Spice? 4-inch platforms or 4-inch heels? Baby Spice or Spice Babies? Melodrama and fighting or… melodrama and fighting? (Hey, some things don’t change.) Maybe the right question isn’t which is better, but is one better? Spice Girls circa 1998 were exactly what thirteen-year-old me needed: loud, brash, and deliciously drag-queenish. Spice Girls 2.0, however, appeal to my 23-year-old tastes: classy curls and more sophisticated outfits, still balanced with a generous dash of camp. However, that 13-year-old inside of me will always enjoy another viewing of the “Wannabe” video. Zig-a-zig-ah!

Guacachip Supermachine*

[We two girls of Doublentente have finally taken a break from watching Lost and self-diagnosing our assorted ailments on WebMD (did you know a sty is essentially an eyelid pimple?) to write another entry. Our apologies for the delay. Of course, in our long hiatus, Lauren Graham was robbed of her last chance to win any award for portraying Lorelai Gilmore when snubbed during the most recent round of Golden Globes nominations.We desperately hope karma somehow bites the nominee committee members in their asses, hopefully in literal methods involving asps and cockroaches.]


Recently, we've noticed a few fictional foodstuffs featured in older television series that, while reviled or questioned on their respective programs, were later created and distributed in the real world. Perhaps 80s and 90s sitcoms were ahead of their time in the food department, or maybe food manufacturers were really hurting for ideas and turned to NickAtNite. This relationship between two of our favorite things (snacks and TV), of course, needed further exploration. We decided to launch an occasional series here at Doublentente, in which we document TV shows featuring fictional food that eventually made it to market.

Guacamunchies

Who's the Boss? episode: "Custody [Parts 1 and 2]" aired: November 5 and 12, 1985

We're two girls who like our guacamole. How convenient would it be to procure chips with guacamole already on them? In a two-parter (!) series on the cheesy Danza show, our attention was caught not by the drama surrounding custody of Angela's son Jonathan, but by Angela's announcement about her recently-acquired account early in part one: "Guess what? I got Guacamunchies!"

Sam and Tony's reactions, however, were less than enthusiastic:

Sam: Angela, you got a fresh bag? These are green.
Tony: Eeegh.
Angela: They're supposed to be green. They're avocado flavored: guacamole and chips in one convenient bag.

We're with Angela on this one. Any chip advances that shorten bag-to-mouth time are A-okay by us. What's Tony and Sam's problem?

IF
guacamole=good
AND
chips=good,
THEN
Guacamunchies (guacamole + chips) therefore, must be at least > good.

But hark! Our longing for chips coated in guacamole-reminiscent powder is not in vain! Doritos had/has a Guacamole! flavor option (which may or may not be discontinued...? [Warning:the first web page has quite the irritating sound file]). By kicking our lazy asses into gear and doing a little more research (actually visiting the Doritos website ), we found Guacamole!--yes, the official name includes the exclamation point--absent from their list of current flavors. Oh noes! What's an avocado-loving girl to do? (One option: stare at the Doritos website's "Flavor Lab," where bags of differently-flavored Doritos float angelically around what appears to be a giant glass column of beer, and a Doritos employee randomly speeds by on a Segway. We wonder what chip-related emergency she's rushing off to. We're sorry, random Doritos girl, but the only person capable of pulling off Segway use is one Niles Crane.)

Despite the irritating punctuation and spelling choices made in the guacamole chip industry (it's not limited to exclamation points--read on, and oh, you will see), there are still other options. A California-based snack purveyor, Snak King (No C?), also carries their own line of guac-dusted chips, El Sabroso Guacachips. These we know, based on personal research facilitated by work-adjacent vending machines, are still manufactured. Unfortunately, they still seem a little hard to find. But according to the Snak King website, Rachel Ray has endorsed them; hopefully her wide-grinned recommendation may lead to greater distribution (instead of the ruination one might expect after her endorsement). In addition, Amazon.com now carries them, if you're interested in ordering them in 60-packs. (Thanks, Amazon! Now we can order Freaks & Geeks and our junk food of choice without the hassle of opening a new browser window!)

Additionally, while taking a break from conducting important chip research to go grocery shopping last weekend, I stumbled across a wonderfully green discovery at Meijer: Krunchers! Guacamole flavored tortilla chips. (Another exclamation point. Those in the chip biz must be really excited about their products.) Krunchers!, best known for the thick-cut potato chips served at Panera (which are just "natural" enough for me to not feel too bad about not getting the apple instead), is also in the business of delivering guacamole goodness in chip form. However, we can't seem to find them on the website for Jays Foods Inc., the company that manufactures Krunchers! (Irritating exclamation point, and now no apostrophe in "Jays?" Aaargh! Is the company named after blue jays?) Jays is an Illinois company, and they don't distribute outside of a handful of Midwestern states. (Sucks to be you, Florida!) Jays links to an online store, MyBrands, that supposedly sells their products, but Jays is not on their list of manufacturers, and a search for Krunchers! brings up... squat. But hurrah, Walgreens sells them in large bags.

One note: unlike the Snak King Guacachips, Krunchers! does not have avocado on their ingredient list. (Maybe they're covered under "artificial flavor?" Shudder.) Still, we hear that after a long day at work, Krunchers! make an excellent dinner with salsa, sour cream and sangria-flavored pop. It's probably even better with real sangria. We hear.

Okay, so a shortish run at Doritos and distribution by a couple regional snack food manufacturers aren't huge successes for Angela Bower's green chips, but if other Bower-related successes are any indication, then there's hope for Guacachips. See: Judith Light's brilliant turn as Claire Meade on Ugly Betty. Highlights include pushing Wilhelmina (Vanessa Williams) into a grave, as well as the oft-quoted (at least here in Doublentente-ville) "That's not the boob you think it is," delivered with the perfect amount of droll disdain. For reals, readers, have you seen Who's the Boss? After the age of eight? I mean, we (well, one of us at least) recognized that the show scaled new altitudes of horrid even at that young age. (The other one of us, who will remain nameless, developed a tiny crush on Tony Danza. Shut up! He was... cute? Funny? Really, I have no excuse.) The only requirement for getting a part on WtB? was apparently a conscious state. Anyway, after the cheesy lines Judith Light spewed on that show, it's quite a shock to see her talent exhibited on Ugly Betty. So if the gods of television saw fit to grant her new-found acting talent (or, to be more fair to Ms. Light, an environment in which she can properly use the talent she always had), perhaps the snack food gods can sprinkle magic fairy/guacamole dust on our beloved, violently green chips and rocket them to nationwide success. If you find guacamunchies at a local store, let us know!

Rockin' it guaca style,
Steph & Sara

P.S. Next up: muffin tops a lá Seinfeld!

*During our multiple emails discussing this post, Gmail spell check underlined "Guacachips;" their suggested word is "Supermachine." How are these two words remotely similar? Does Gmail know something we don't? Are guacachips the Antichrist?

An Open Letter to Lauren Graham

Dear Lauren Graham,

We were so sorry to hear about your seventh Emmy snub. (And the role in a movie about windshield wipers. We adore you, but Lauren... windshield wipers? We admit we're a little confused.) Our only conclusion is that the world is not yet ready for your awesomeness. Let us console you with a boozy anti-Emmy party and a role in the brilliant movie we are writing. It will co-star David Hyde Pierce! (Pending negotiations with his agent.) Oh Lauren Graham. Why does the world not appreciate you properly?

Lauren, you are a goddess. You are an anomaly—an actress who can ACT. The times that you have broken our cynical hearts with a simple facial expression are too many. You act circles around most television stars and yet, are unrewarded. Injustice! We remain convinced that if "Gilmore Girls" had aired on NBC, CBS or ABC, your nominations would be myriad. But alas, the CW (née WB) insisted on being a mélange of shows that needed to be charged with reckless endangerment (see "7th Heaven"), productions seemingly built solely on (admittedly fantastic) homoerotic sexual tension ("Smallville"), and the rare brilliant offering ("Gilmore Girls," "Veronica Mars") that was all too often drowned out by the putrescence. I’m sure somewhere in this Brenda Hampton is at fault.

While you are still without the statuette—nay, even a nomination—the list of craptresses who do possess said Emmy include Debra Messing, Patricia Heaton, and Jennifer Aniston. And heck, even most of those desperate housewives (does anybody watch that show any more?) got nominations. The mental images of Emmy statuettes occupying these women's bookshelves are filed under “Things that make us vomit.”

Oh, Lauren. We had high hopes for you this year. With our beloved "Gilmore Girls" going off the air we figured the Academy would at least give you the nomination as a nod to the culmination of the show, if they insisted on ignoring your talent. But no. Turns out there were just too many Seattle Grace interns.

As a result of this and the pestilence of Ryan Seacrest as awards host, we have decided to drown our television-loving sorrows in appletinis and homemade cookie-dough ice cream on September 16th. Lauren, won’t you join us? Please invite Kelly Bishop too, as we feel that she was also ignored for seven years. Vengeance shall be ours.

Our anti-Emmy slumber party will be magnificent. Once appropriately juiced, we will tune into Fox (The hell? How did Fox win that lottery?) and begin our night of raving bitchery. Wearing footie pajamas, we will French braid our hair, drink still more appletinis through Twizzler straws, laugh hysterically when our nacho cheese falls on the carpet, heckle the Academy, and implore the television oracle that Seacrest will come out on the air.

Even if you can't make it, we shall clink our glasses together in your honor as the nominees for Best Leading Actress in a Comedy are announced. Our fingers are crossed for the Golden Globes!

With love,
Sara and Steph