#1194 – Force

Why did ketchup stay in glass bottles for so long? Regular yellow mustard has come in squeeze bottles as far back as I can remember. Maybe Heinz also owned a bunch of glass bottle factories as well and had a few decades of raw materials to burn through before they could switch. I’m guessing they never owned a soda company.

Tags

36 thoughts on “#1194 – Force”

  1. Grug says:

    O_O I saw the burger before the caption. I’m not so sure if it’s ketchup.

    Very glad to see more Giant Robot Hand love. Needs to be a Giant Robot Hand week.

  2. Miles says:

    At first glance (before reading the text) I thought ‘catsup’ (and I refuse to say or write it the other way), but then I read ‘new pet’ and I was scared! Then I looked more carefully and saw the broken bottle parts and was relieved once again.

  3. tekaramity says:

    …that *is* a sesame seed hamburger bun this time, right? o_o

    Just checking…

  4. RedtailedKitsune says:

    Wow. *Snerk* Yeah, that needs a bit of calibrating-and for a moment I’d honestly thought he’d hurt a pet! In any case, nicely done-I haven’t been that surprised in awhile.

    At least until I saw the glass. But true, so true. You have to wonder about why they didn’t switch to squeeze bottles sooner for Ketchup. Those glass bottles were just so…well, annoying…I kept putting water in mine to get the last bit out.

  5. Chuck says:

    At first I couldn’t figure out why he was trying to put his new pet on his burger.

  6. Nicoli20 says:

    I instantly thought it was blood. =p

  7. PTTG says:

    I can’t find good glass bottles anyware. The difference is, glass bottles don’t leach hormones and they pay you more to recycle glass, generally.

  8. Xpis says:

    But stuff in glass bottles tastes better! Like Coke. Apparently the plastic bottles react with the battery acid or something.

    Also, on reading the text and looking at the picture I was very glad to see that it wasn’t actually pet-blood in Biff’s hand…

  9. Somnule says:

    …that’s ketchup.

    Okay.

    With that caption I was very worried for a few moments. It seemed very un-Biff-like.

  10. Micah says:

    I hate destroying my pet ketchup bottles.

  11. corjoth says:

    Probably a good idea, i should do that too

  12. ver says:

    Well, it still is often sold in glass bottles. And no wonder. I hate all that plastic. 🙂

  13. Jw714 says:

    Perhaps they were aware that glass, unlike other containers, doesn’t affect the contents of the bottle. There’s a reason you don’t find good wine or beer in plastic bottles or boxes. I remember when gatorade (TM?) came in glass bottles, and actually had a flavor other than “strained through cardboard”. The move to plastics was a thing of convenience. Easier to use, less likely to smash and go everywhere. All things considered, i’d rather it was still in the glass containers…

  14. Sean says:

    Wow, did anyone else completely miss the fact that he was preparing a burger at first glance?
    That made for a slightly more… violent comic.

  15. lt_amazil says:

    i’m confused what does ketchup have to do with pets?

  16. -2! says:

    It returns. The Giant robot hand :D.

  17. Cynic says:

    Nice save.

  18. Penthoplayer says:

    You mean ketchup actually DID come in glass containers at some point? Must have been before I was born in 1993.

  19. Chris says:

    Yeah, maybe flavor was a big reason. Perhaps there is an ingredient in ketchup that isn’t in mustard that has a bad reaction to plastic.

  20. Radical Edward says:

    I remember that most of the restaurants I’ve been to in my childhood had ketchup either in packets or glass bottles!

    Still, I was a little worried about todays comic!

  21. 7 letters vi-ne-gar heinz puts it in every thing and even when diluted it is still strong in taste and i totally thought that biff squished a hamster almost like my sister did to our last hamster he was in the couch and she jumped on it and a splinter through his heart poor nemo :,(

  22. soilent says:

    Saw giant hand. Much red color. Read caption. °o° < HOLY S***! )
    looked closely. Great one. really really good.

  23. Gwid says:

    O.o Wait, what are y –
    Oh, okay. I feel stupid.
    It’s tomato sauce over here, not ketchup.

    As for mustard…
    I don’t eat mustard.

    When I first saw this comic, I thought it was implying that a certain “ham”burger was actually a “hamster”burger.

    ~Gwid

  24. Pennsylvaniac says:

    Glass bottles take better advantage of the thixotropic, or shear-thinning, property of ketchup. Hold the bottle at an angle, thwack it sideways (supposedly on the “57”), and the ketchup will momentarily thin, and flow will start. Once started, it will continue slowly and smoothly. I tried this, and either I’m not so good at it, or it just isn’t that good a technique. However, the brilliant scienticians at Heinz Labs thought it was, and that’s probably why we had glass bottles for so long.

    Or just put it in a plastic squeeze bottle that’s stored upside down. But beware! Remember what happened to Galileo when he got too far ahead of the times.

  25. Cyndaquazy says:

    At first I was all like (O_O), then I was all like D:<, but when I saw the broken bottle, was all like ( -_-').

  26. i.half4 says:

    Whoooooa! Biff 89 was sure sketchy, but those animastatics were AWESOME!

  27. John says:

    I’m going to assume that’s ketchup

  28. AmanoYuki says:

    Took me a while to see the broken glass.
    You’re lucky I did, I was going to report Biff for animal cruelty!
    (*joke, obviously*)

  29. Rex says:

    Make sure your public reaction sensors are calibrated before putting in the caption! 😀

    Also, I saw this comment by someone born in 93 never seeing a glass ketchup bottle, I’ve seen them throughout all my life and I was born in 90! maybe you just thought it was very clear and thick plastic?

  30. Prior Semblance says:

    I only see glass ketchup bottles in restaurants, I don’t remember ever having them at home but maybe that’s just a detail I’ve forgotten.

  31. Rodrigo says:

    Insert “MY HANDS! THEY ARE MADE OF STEEL” comment here.

  32. Hemlock says:

    You might be surprised how resistant consumers are to change, even when the change is in their favour.

  33. KaiserZonvolt says:

    Hmm. Kind of looks like the FISTS OF STEEL the Heavy Weapons Guy gets as an alternate melee weapon in Team Fortress 2.

  34. Tech says:

    I’ll love him, and feed him, and name him George.

  35. Arcan says:

    The ketchup containers I hate the most are the ones in restaurants where the entire bottle is ketchup colored. You can never tell when those are empty, and because of that they never get refilled. You can scour an entire restaurant and fail to find a single bottle with a thimbles worth of ketchup.

  36. Biff says:

    🙁 I miss you Pet the Pet

Leave a Reply to corjoth Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *