By Josh Gondelman — 25 Aug 2025

#146. The Old Cracker Barrel Mascot and You

"For five dollars you can peek in the barrel. For twenty, you can get in there with the crackers."

Hi everyone,

I had what I'm going to call a Very Normal Week last week. Some shows. Some writing work. Good times with Maris and also Maggie the Pug. It felt terrific.

On Saturday, Maris and I made a quick trip sans Maggie to Philadelphia for the first annual Philadelphia Comedy Festival, put on by my very funny friend Jamie Pappas. I did two shows at the cozy Plays & Players Theater, and they were both so much fun. I love performing in Philadelphia because the audiences are as hostile and skeptical as Boston crowds, but it only takes half as long to get there. (As a Massachusetts native I mean this as an extreme compliment.)

I also was part of the industry panel for newer comedians, where I got to share one of my favorite comedy stories of all time. I don't think I've shared it in the newsletter before, but if I have it's been a while. Here goes:

In 2013, I was booked at Helium Comedy Club in Philadelphia (one of the country's great comedy clubs!) to open for Paul Mooney. Mooney, who passed away in 2021, was a close friend and collaborator of Richard Pryor. His act included incendiary material about race and also some of the wildest sentences I've ever heard. (Example: "You all know that Chris Brown fucked Oprah, and it was her pussy that drove him crazy, right?") He was not there to make friends with me; in fact, I only spoke directly with Mr. Mooney twice the whole weekend. The first time was after show 4 of 6. On my way out of the club, I stopped by his merch table to say goodnight and that it was an honor working with him. His response: "Who are you?" I replied that I was the opening act all weekend, to which he said: "Oh...you're that guy." Message received! No illusions of a blossoming long-term relationship here!

My job on the shows was to tell jokes until Paul Mooney arrived at the club, at which point I would bring his assistant (an extremely friendly and kind middle-aged Black woman) onstage where she would introduce Mr. Mooney by asking the audience to please rise, as if he were a religious figure. My shortest set was about 10 minutes. My longest came in around 25. On the first show of the week, he sat down and performed for two hours and forty-five minutes. He had a mesmerizing habit of pretending not to recall one fact or another at various points in the show, allowing the audience to fill in the "gap" in his memory. I learned over our week together that he did this reliably at similar points in his set. It created a sense intimacy between the performer and the audience, who believed they were helping out an older man with memory issues. Really they were playing right into his hands. I'll never forget that little craft detail.

The only other time Mr. Mooney and I spoke directly was between the 5th and 6th shows of the weekend. I was sitting in the greenroom chatting with his assistant, whose name I've rudely forgotten in the twelve years since we shared the stage. She asked if I was driving home to New York by myself after our shows ended. I told her that a friend of mine was riding back with me so she could visit her brother. "It's good to have company," was her genial response. As we talked, Paul Mooney had been (fake) sleeping beside us sitting up on the couch. When the prospect of a solo drive came up, he snapped to attention.

"Never drive alone if you can help it. Cops are lying motherfuckers, and you need a witness with you at all times," he warned, before falling immediately back to (fake) sleep. We didn't speak for the rest of the night (a situation facilitated by his propensity to feign slumber specifically in order to avoid talking to me), and we never crossed paths again before he died. Rest in peace, Mr. Mooney. And thank you for the opportunity to learn from a master, Helium Comedy Club!

On this recent Philly trip, Maris and I ate dinner at a little Italian restaurant nearby that advertised "Fine Dining" but offered more like "...fine dining." That was totally...fine! The premium was on convenience and speed, and the prices were reasonable. I am not bitter that the "risotto" was literally just damp rice. I bought my ticket and I rode the ride.

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to the shows, especially the two people who recognized me outside the hotel and bought tickets after I told them what I was in town for. And huge congratulations to Jamie for getting her festival off the ground so smoothly! Back home in Brooklyn, I had a spicy plum and tequila cocktail called This Is Just To Say. It was delicious and made me feel smart for getting the reference (one of the four-ish poems I know). Big weekend over here!

Also last week: I read Charlie Warzel's very, very good piece about generative AI for The Atlantic as well as the excellent most recent installment of Hamilton Nolan's always excellent newsletter.

Oh, and my friend Samantha Ruddy wrote some nice things about my set on Late Night with Seth Meyers from a few years ago! I was very flattered! I love Sam's joke writing and joke telling!

Sup, Bro? A Comedy Show graphic featuring me and Leiby cracking each other up in front of the multicolored background from Littlefield. — Two bros. Suppin'.

New Yorkers: Alison Leiby and I are hosting another Sup, Bro? show at Union Hall on Saturday 9/6. It's a 10pm show, so not one for the sleepyheads. But it's on a Saturday night so you may have a little more recovery time built into your week. The lineup is still coming into focus, but we've got Jonathan van Halem and Jake Cornell locked in already!

In September, which is weirdly soon (how did this happen?), I will also be hosting a Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!-adjacent show at the Bell House (9/12), headlining a show in Fairfield, CT (9/13), and popping up to Boston for a live Normal Gossip tour show at the Wilbur Theater (9/14). I'm doing lots of other stuff too, but those are coming up soonish! So...there you go!

PEP TALK FOR THE OLD CRACKER BARREL MASCOT

Did you know this guy's name was Uncle Herschel?

Last week, Cracker Barrel, announced a corporate rebrand. If you don't know, Cracker Barrel is like chicken-fried IHOP attached to what amounts to Spencer's Gifts for southern grandparents. Their former logo was made up of the chain's name written in brown over a big mustard-colored kidney bean (?). Beside that graphic was a brown and mustard picture of an older man seated in a wooden chair with his elbow propped up on one of the venue's famed barrels. His vibe is like: "Nice barrel I've got here, don't you think?" Maybe he made it himself? He seems very proud of it.

I guess that's a barrel?

BUT NO MORE! The new logo is all blob, no guy. The graphic design seems like it could be the icon for an app called BUZZ that calls a drone to deliver a fresh beehive right to your front door. The change in design has caused two kerfuffles, a minor real one and a major fake one. The real unrest concerns that everything in life lately feels more blobby than human. And seeing a focus group ass new brand identity for an establishment you frequent is a humiliating reminder that the publicly traded companies you care about don't always care about you back.

I have no criticism of the people who are annoyed by this refreshed imagery, which stops just short of renaming the restaurant: "The Barrel" (a title obviously better used as the name of an FX drama about a sentient gun). I would be a hypocrite to talk trash about these people. When Dunkin' Donuts rebranded as simply Dunkin' in 2019, I very nearly invented the concept of January 6th at the company's corporate headquarters. We all have our humiliating brand allegiances.

The second, much larger commotion comes from right-wing idiots who are completely full of shit and have tried to raise a ruckus about Cracker Barrel being "woke" now. Does that mean that a company isn't allowed to have a female CEO? That every brand must have an old white guy as its mascot? I have no idea. Neither do they. They don't mean a single bit of what they're saying. Donald Trump Jr. jumped all over this stupid fake controversy, and he wouldn't set foot in a Cracker Barrel if he was diagnosed with cancer of the slicked back hair, and the only remedy was biscuits and gravy.

Honestly, when I saw who was pretending to be mad about the erasure of a friendly old guy from the logo, I immediately assumed the character had a racist history I was unaware of. These are the people who think that the Smithsonian contains too many references to slavery and that Superman should enlist with ICE, after all. I half-expected whatever Fox News personalities haven't been bounced from the network for being sex pests or promoted to the highest levels of government for being sex pests to take to the airwaves like: "You cannot erase this man from the history of a proud institution like Cracker Barrel. This man is a titan of the English language. He invented the n-word!" Or: "How dare the woke left ignore the legacy of John W. Cracker, who fought nobly for the Confederacy and was put to death in 1906 for trying to enslave his Italian neighbors while shouting: 'Close enough!'"

In reality, the graphic was a picture of "Uncle Herschel," the brother of the Cracker Barrel founder's mother. Uncle Herschel (Do the racist dumbasses demanding his reinstatement realize how fucking Jewy that name is? Is this part of their vision for "fighting antisemitism?") served as a "goodwill ambassador" for the company for many years and was not, as far as Google tells me, proudly racist. There is even a memorial to him in Lebanon, TN so he is still a part of Cracker Barrel's history, a statue part. These chumps love statues. How is that not enough for them?

Uncle Herschel, I don't know a ton about you, and honestly I don't care to know much more. But in terms of restaurant mascots, you are at least less racist than Colonel Sanders and Papa John. And we have NO idea who Ronald McDonald voted for in 2o24. Maybe it's best that your image, like your body, is put to rest. The normal people will get over your removal. The freaks never cared in the first place. You weren't enough of a monster to really matter to them.

This is, obviously, a non-story, which is why I spent so much time exploring it. The world feels bad right now and I'd rather make fun of losers for 800 words than offer sincere encouragement to the people of Washington D.C. who are trying to fend off an invasion of America by America. Although I do love seeing them bully ICE out of their neighborhoods with tenacity and numbers.

A LITTLE PLUG

My friend Ana Marie Cox is once again running her writing workshop Third Story! She's great, and the program sounds really cool. Ana Marie says: "It’s for people with too many thoughts and not enough places to put them. We write, we reflect, we revise—but gently." Fall session starts Sept 2. Code TSW10-JOSH gets 10% off: anamariecox.com/workshop Worth checking out if you're looking for a little jumpstart and guidance for your creative process!

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I've left this request basically unaltered. It is very clear and very vivid.

We have had a series of colds, probably caused by the infant being in daycare, and we fear we will never be healthy or see the summer sun again. Morale is low, mucus is abundant.
- Germs of Endearment

The best parts of having a child seem (to me, an outsider) to be the ways in which your capacity for love is expanded in ways you didn't know you didn't know were possible. Among the worst parts are the myriad diseases that your tiny precious child collaborates on with other little kids they know, which they then bring home and sneeze directly into your mouth and nose from point blank range.

Summer colds are their own specific indignity as well. Summer, as we know, is the time for hot. So it feels definitionally wrong to contract a cold during this season. Any vacation or near-vacation illness feels like adding insult to injury. You're telling me I have to feel like wet newspaper, and I don't even get to call out of work to convalesce? That's a sashimi grade raw deal.

For your own beloved infant to visit plague after plague upon your household during the waning days of August is rude, but it's extraordinarily unlikely that the baby is doing this on purpose. And soon they won't be a baby at all. They'll be a big kid who knows how to blow their own nose and sneeze into their elbow instead of challenging the strength of your immune system with every breath they take.

Your home's status as a house-shaped vector for disease will abate. It always does. If it didn't, more children would be shipped off to boarding school at age six for the sheer relief from the sniffles it would offer their parents. And even in this dark time, you are getting extra opportunity to watch the baby grow and develop during this period of massive change. Sure, you are observing this while groaning in misery on the couch. But is there a better vantage point from which to groan? I propose there is not.

(I could be wrong on that last point; as I mentioned, I have no kids of my own. Get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fluids, and hang on until...I don't know...first grade?)

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK:
Hayes Carll - "She Left Me For Jesus"

I learned about Hayes Carll from the interview my friend Natalie Weiner recently published with him on her country music newsletter Don't Rock the Inbox. (I'm not a huge country music guy, but I love reading what Natalie and her co-newsletterer Marissa R. Moss have to say about it.) I found Carll's thoughtfulness really compelling, and Natalie pitched "She Left Me For Jesus" as an entry point for his wry, twangy catalog. It's funny! I liked it! Will listen again!

Also: The new Superchunk album Songs in the Key of Yikes is out now and it's very good!!! I recommend listening to that too! (I included the single here a couple of weeks ago though, so I'm rotating my official pick-me-up artist.)

Similarly, the Clipse feature on the new JID album is downright sinister. I love it! I didn't know a lot about JID until Donwill recommended the new record in his newsletter, which is a must-read if you want to stay on top of new hip hop music releases.

And finally, if you're looking for a fun thing to enjoy, my friend Eli Yudin put out a new standup special called Humble Offering. Eli is SO funny and uses language in such specific and considered ways. He reminds me of the early Patton Oswalt records (and later the early Kyle Kinane records) that changed the way I think about jokes! Eli's style is distinctive, but I think that's my best "If you like _____, then you'll like ____." comparison. Every joke has a phrase in it that could have been the title of the special.