In the November 29 New Yorker, a “Shouts and Murmurs” piece by Paul Rudnick, “Nutty”, that begins with the newspaper story:
Mr. Peanut has a new sidekick, much like the Jolly Green Giant has Little Green Sprout. Mr. Peanut’s buddy is named Benson, and to make sure that snackers understand the pecking order between them, Benson is shorter than Mr. Peanut—one nut in his shell rather than two.
“Benson is quite enamored of Mr. Peanut,” Mr. Levine said, but they are, as the saying goes, just good friends.
—The Times.
The body of the piece begins:
I am Mr. Peanut, and I can be silent no longer. While I have only the greatest respect for Mr. Levine, who is the senior director for marketing at Planters, I cannot live a lie. I’m a gay nut, and Benson and I are in love.
And continues with a cascade of double entendres on nuts and with other puns, and a hilarious detailing of Mr. Peanut’s (clandestine) hook-ups with a long chain of advertising mascots, for other foods and much else (San Francisco leather daddy Mr. Clean among them).
But then Benson came along, and it was true love [reader alert: punch line coming up!]:
What can I say? I’m nuts about him. And in bed, well, I’ll be discreet, but you know how whenever you pop open a new, freshness-sealed can of Planters it sighs? That’s how I feel. And that’s why I’m just like Portia [de Rossi] and Ricky [Martin], because I want everyone to know who I really am. I want people to see that I’m just like any other delicious, all-natural treat. So please—understand me. Embrace me. Eat me.
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