A recent tweet of mine is probably what prompted Will Partridge to send the following…
I've seen several references to how much you hate cole slaw. I wondered if you wrote a kid's comic book I read when I was about seven years old that always stuck with me. I think it was a Hanna-Barbera book. The characters were a trio of bears. One of them really hated cole slaw and kept encountering it everywhere he went. At one point he goes to a bubble gum machine, puts in a coin, and gets a cup of cole slaw. It's the final straw and he goes into a rage which fuels the climax of the story. Can't remember anything else about the plot, but the cole slaw gag struck me as really funny. Was that one of yours?
You are remembering a story of some characters called the C.B. Bears, who then had a cartoon show on Saturday morning. The comic book was Hanna-Barbera TV Stars #2 (October, 1978). The story was "The Great Cole Slaw Conspiracy," written by me and drawn by Jack Manning. The editor of the comic wholeheartedly agreed with me on the evils of cole slaw and the necessity of educating children to avoid it at all costs. (The editor was, obviously, wise and socially responsible and me.)
So you see, this cole slaw thing is not a new crusade of mine. I've been planting propaganda about it for some time now.
I'm amazed at the number of folks who feel threatened or insulted that I don't like cole slaw. Come on, folks. It's not like I might someday have the power to ban it and deprive you of something you love. It's also not like there aren't some foods you think are repulsive. When I gave the script for this comic book story to Jack Manning, he read it over and said to me, "Hey, I like cole slaw. Could we make it cottage cheese instead?" Since I outranked him, it stayed cole slaw.
Years later, writing the Garfield cartoon show, I tried to do an episode on much the same premise. Jim Davis read over an outline I wrote, called up and said, "Hey, that's a funny idea but I love cole slaw. Could we make it raisins instead?" Since he outranked me, I never wrote the episode and I stopped writing outlines.
A year or two ago at Comic-Con, some reader of this blog cornered me and began arguing the case for cole slaw as if its greatness was a factual matter and he could talk me into loving the stuff. I told him, "Hey, I happen to prefer potato salad," and he reacted like I'd said, "I'd rather eat raw dead puppies," and he began making vomiting sounds and saying all the things about potato salad that I say about cole slaw.
Let me tell you my real problem with cole slaw. It isn't just that I don't like it. It isn't even that I'm allergic to cabbage and other, less frequent components of cole slaw.
It's that restaurants give it to you without warning you it comes on the plate — or in some horrid cases, on the sandwich. It's that in some places, it's so damn unavoidable. One of my favorite restaurants in Downtown L.A. is a very old diner called The Original Pantry. When you sit down at your table, the bus boy comes by and automatically brings you a place setting, a glass of water and a rather large dish of cole slaw. I can kinda tolerate it there because it's in its own dish and they serve it to you before you've even ordered. So you can have them take it away and there's no chance of cross-contamination with actual food. Other places, it's more of an unwanted intrusion.
That's why it wouldn't have been funny to have the C.B. Bears story be about cottage cheese or for the Garfield one to be about raisins. Very rarely do people force cottage cheese or raisins on you. There is no noticeable conspiracy to push those foods on people. When was the last time you ordered a hamburger and it came with either of those two things on it?
I finally learned how to (usually) prevent cole slaw from occurring but before I did, I don't know how many times I'd politely ask them to hold the slaw and when my plate came, there it would be: A heaping mound of cole slaw with its dressing oozing into all the items there I wanted to eat.
I'd say, "I asked for no cole slaw" and as often as not, the server would say, "Oh, they didn't charge you for it. Just don't eat it." Half the time, they'd deny I ever said it…and believe me, I always said it. If I made them correct the error, they'd do one of two things, neither of them satisfactory. One is that they'd take the plate away, scrape off 90% of the cole slaw and about half of the watery dressing which was bleeding into my fries, and bring the dish back to me. The other is that they'd completely remake the plate but that usually took forever. They'd make me wait and suffer as punishment for not wanting their friggin' cole slaw on or around my dinner.
So what I've learned to do when ordering is to make a big joke out of it. I say, "I would like no cole slaw on my plate. In fact, I would like no cole slaw on anyone's plate, today or at any time. Have the chef throw out all the cole slaw in the kitchen, have the manager take cole slaw off the menu and if this is a chain, call the home office and tell them to never serve cole slaw ever again in any of their restaurants. Thank you."
This accomplishes two things. One is that it always makes the server laugh, and that's a nice thing. Secondly, after that they wouldn't dare bring me a plate with cole slaw on it. It makes them remember. They can't say, "Oh, I didn't hear you." And if the chef out of habit scoops slaw onto my plate, they usually catch it and have it corrected before the meal ever gets near me.
The only venues where I have the problem now are the ones where one person takes your order and a different person brings the orders to your table when they're ready. Even in those situations, when I flag down the order-taker and point at the offending slaw on my plate, they shriek, "I told that chef no cole slaw!" and they move like gangbusters to correct the affront. They can't deny I didn't want it. Once in a while, I've even had the server quickly replace the entire order sans you-know-what, then offer me a free dessert in apology. I don't eat desserts so I just thank them, tell them I know it wasn't their fault and add, "I'm so impressed with your anti-slaw diligence, I may even tip."
Please, please…don't write and tell me how you know a place that serves great cole slaw. That's an oxymoron around these parts and I get real sick if I eat cabbage anyway. I promise I will never interfere with your constitutional right to eat cole slaw (it's one of the few we haven't scaled back since 9/11). Don't interfere with my constitutional right to say that it's evil and that anyone who makes it should be put to death. Or worse, forced to eat the stuff.