Hippo Burger and Other Random Stuff

I finally got the cool hoodie I’ve mentioned to a number of you. There’s a photo of it on my Flickr page. Well worth the look if I do say so myself.

When I was a kid in the early 1970s and living in the Bay Area, there was a place called Hippo Burger. It was way before the internet, and I’ve long given up on anyone knowing what I was talking about it. From time to time, I’ve searched for it and gotten no proper matches. (There’s are matches on the term, but they’re not related.) Lo and Behold, for this has appeared on Flickr not even a month ago. Yeah, it’s the cover from Hippo Burger menu.

Hippo Burger was pretty awesome. They even had an ice-cream burger — as a kid that sounded good. In practice. it was an epic, messy, fail. Better was the chocolate burger with bacon.

It was on Van Ness Avenue — closer to the Golden Gate end than the Market Street end in San Francisco. Their signs famously claimed “Burgers Made 100 Ways.” Their claim to fame, what made them known, was the The Hearst Kidnapping Burger — it was a bun with no Patty. Many of my readers may not be old enough to get the reference.

There are a few websites that have passing references to Hippo Burger (here, here, here, and here). The last one references a cookbook called The Hippo Cookbook which is on Amazon. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one with fond memories of Hippo Burger. I’ve called it “Hippo Burger” because all these other articles do, but I remember that big red sign and was sure it was one word “HippoBurger” — but in absence of evidence, I’ll have to accept it.

For those of you who have been to London and tried to navigate your way through Oxford Circus, you know it’s almost as bad as the traffic in Paris. They have, as of today, fixed it. Here’s the BBC article and it includes a video so you can see what they’ve done and what’s still to come. I am mightily pleased. Jay Leno said today he’d be willing to return to the Tonight Show. Dear Lord, let’s hope not. I never watched it when he was host because I’ve never been a fan of him or his comedy. His replacement, Conan O’Brien is much better and I can even watch it sometimes — when I’m up and if I’m not watching Letterman. His new show is bombing, and I feel bad for him, but it’s him. The show’s being panned and he’s going to be out of a job, and I think he knows it. I’m not sure what NBC was thinking. Then again, NBC hasn’t been thinking for a few years. Speaking of TV, I’ve decided I’m going try and watch the re-make of the series “V.” You may or may not remember it and how cool it was then and how badly it’s aged. Horrific acting, effects, and plot. Almost nothing redeeming. Yet we all watched it in my dorm room when the first V series aired back in the 1980s. It was significant because my roommate Andy Fischer had the only colour TV on the floor of our co-ed dorm. I remember this period well because, Domino’s pizza — before it sucked ass — was having a contest to see which dorm floor out of the four dorms could eat the most pizza in a one-month period to win a pizza part of course. We didn’t win, but for the first ten days or so, because of the V thing, my room was winning the contest. Not the floor, but my room. Hawaiian pizzas with double cheese. I called, gave my room number, said “the usual” and there it was. No computer tracking then. Lastly, an interesting article about Google maps. It’s invented a town that doesn’t exit. It’s too bizarre to believe, yet here it is. And the Bay Bridge re-opened today, which I am sure is a relief to the people in the area. I have a brutal headache. Welcome home Mom. Those two things are not related.

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