People Crackers: A Doggy Delicacy
Chris Zasada September 2, 2005

The world is full of really weird products that average schmucks like you and me can spend our hard-earned cash on. While most of the name-brand products are fairly normal, the cheap, off-brands can offer not only shoddy quality, but some of the oddest names, designs, or generally absurd concepts in the history of the world. If you're having a bad day, just stop in your dollar store or other low-rung retailer and have a laugh at the expensive of the companies that make these cruddy product lines.

The credit goes to foreigners. Since a lot of this junk is manufactured in some Asian country or other nation with equal production values, companies based in these places aren’t concerned with quality so much as selling a lot of cheap crap to thrifty Americans. I can’t condemn this, since Pocky Box is probably single-handily supporting the entire cheap foam dart gun industry, so we’ve benefited from this lapse of quality over price and the Asian corporations can continue selling inferior items. It’s the circle of thrift

The point is, when you shop for junky foreign corporation merchandise, you’ll get a lot of poorly-made products, or they’ll turn out to be laughable imitations of more popular brands. The packaging of foreign products is usually half (or sometimes all) the fun. No one can butcher the English language quite like those wacky foreigners, whose linguistic skills take an innocent concept and turn it into some absurdly stupid or even perverted imagery that is the gasoline to the fire of websites like this one. Not that I’m saying Americans are any better at international appreciation, because we suck worse than a cheap foreign corporation vacuum cleaner, but I am saying when these companies get their own opinions site, then they can talk.

The product we have on hand today is completely real, or if it isn’t, I really have to stop feeding it to my dog. Last Christmas, I was browsing the pet treats aisle at the local dollar store, because nothing is too good for my dog. It took approximately three-fifths of a second for me to notice a peculiar product that was intended to be a cute little theme for dogs, but when it was processed through a cynical mind such as mine, the entire idea took on a macabre mood. This was the mood when I discovered People Crackers.

Just look at these things. especially that slogan, which seems to say it all. Clearly cheap foreign product corporation Sergeant’s (the manufacturer behind this product) decided to appeal to the pet owner with a cute obsession and had it backfire on them. I mean, is the name supposed to describe the main ingredient in the product, like Corn Flakes, Honey-Nut Cheerios, or Fruity Pebbles?

(Little known fact: Fruity Pebbles are indeed made from an actual form of rare edible rock that tastes like fruit. The evil Post cooperation horded the world’s supply and covered its existence up. This proved fatal to the now-extinct dodo, whose natural diet consisted entirely on these rocks. The entire incident has been covered up by the US government due to pressure put on by Post. But Fruity Pebbles are really tasty, so I think the trade-off was worth it)

Are we feeding our dogs crackers made from the parts of human beings?

This doesn’t really matter either way, since the shape these crackers were molded in clearly shows their sinister purpose. If you look closely at the picture, you’ll see these cookies are in the shape of a paper boy, police officer, and milk man. I suspect the US postal service has something to do with this conspiracy, since the dog’s true natural enemy, the postman, is curiously absent…

But seriously, what’s up with making a dog treat in the shape of a police officer? The paper boy I can see; the little scamp could use some terror-induced character, especially the one featured on the bag, who looks old enough to father high school-aged children. The milkman is a long-extinct species, so putting one of those on a cracker doesn’t seem like it would cause any harm. But what about putting the image of those courageous souls sworn to protect us average Joes? The brave men and women who keep this country safe? The officers of justice who pull us over if we go even one mile over the speed limit because they’re having a bad… you know what, never mind. It makes sense if you think about it.

Well, maybe not when you open the actual bag, revealing the shapes of these morbid canine snacks. Most of the crackers that really come in the bag look like mutants who are more half man/half beach ball than your friendly neighborhood milkman. Some of them just look like balls of food-colored snot, which makes me think the company wanted to appeal to the anti-newspaper boy/milkman/police officer crowd, but actually is part of an anti-mutant/snot movement, which I think that we, as Americans, should find even more appalling.

Fortunately, the People Crackers seem to be tasty, at least by dog standards. Sandy took a good, long sniff at the first one, an ancient dog practice created to reveal that any potential food object is not actually something inedible, like a rock, or worse, food from Hot and Now. After feeding her a few, I informed her that she had had too many People Crackers and proceded to put them away, which may have been my gravest mistake. Just look at the murderous look in her eyes! If these People Crackers really contain actual people as I suspect they might, my mild-mannered dog just got her first taste of human flesh, and like potato chips, you can’t have just one.

So this may be my last article, or any other Earthly action, but I think we can all agree it was worth it. I encourage everyone to run out to your nearest dollar store and demand People Crackers, even if you don’t have a dog. Think of the advantages! If other people see you walking into the bank munching on People Crackers, they’ll probably let you up in front of the line and have your withdrawal ready, even a withdrawal from other people’s accounts! You can thank me by using your new-found wealth to make a donation to the site, which I’ll use to buy more People Crackers, because Sandy’s been looking at me way too intently. I’ll also use it for shotgun ammunition, because I’m running out of that, too.