A television show done in the style of The Office or Parks and Recreation, except it takes place backstage in a touring company of a failing Broadway musical.
We never find out what the musical is ever about. We just get shown bits and pieces of dialogue, songs, and choreography throughout the episodes. But every new piece of the musical that’s revealed only adds to the mystery… it’s just a confusing hodgepodge of genres and seemingly unrelated side plots and characters.
And AND a bewildering number of Broadway greats are in the show but we only see them or hear them in passing or in the background. Just enough to make us go “Hey, was that…?” and we never see the same person more than once.
There has to be a running gag of someone ALMOST saying the name of the production, but being interrupted by Steve The Sound Guy for increasingly ridiculous reasons. Near the end of the first season, the reason is that Hugh Jackman is on fire. “Yeah, he’s a really great dancer, isn’t he?” “No, I mean he is literally on fire. He leaned on one of the candles, and no one can find the fire extinguisher”
Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home. The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”
If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese. Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.
Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)
Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.
From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.
the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.
volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.
so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.
of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.
it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.
Oh god… I had heard about the “restaurant meals are actually two meals in America” but I assumed it meant you were supposed to order one dish for two people, and not that you’d take the lertovers home.
That’s pretty common between parents & young kids, parents with broke af older kids, siblings, and close friends in my experience at least. Most restaurants are perfectly chill with one person ordering and asking for a second plate for another person to split the meal, but it’s a Certain Intimacy Level Required thing or it’s gonna get you some weird looks if your body language doesn’t match the meal-splitting.
It’s common to trade food items too with the next level out, like I regularly offer to cover the upcharge at IHOP with my Aunt and not-quite-close-enough-to-invite-for-holidays friends if they get blueberry pancakes instead of regular, which automatically comes with half the menu items there, and trade them for one of the sides that comes with my pancake-less meal. It’s nice and a bonding activity working it out and everyone is happy because I get those pancakes for maybe 30c instead of as a side for like $1.50 or whatever and they get a side that they would have paid $1+ for and we both save money! Good stuff. We still all have an extra meal to take home. Also applies commonly to teammates!
If it’s someone from work & they’re not a friend, an acquaintance, a family member you almost never see, etc? No. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just Do Not. It’s weird and a bit creepy to try to instigate trading. You both eat your own meal and take home your own leftovers.
so i just caved and got a moss ball (with dedicated plastic tank) of my own to take with me back to school. i was gonna name her barb but shes HUGE and is about to split in like 2 places so i may have to reconsider names but i need to set up her house first
footage of barb about to split into 2 barbs. the barb fault line
upon review i may need either a smaller decoration or a bigger plastic tank
some of you never killed your sims on the sims 2 by using the fire starting machine and taking away the pool ladder while they were swimming and it shows