Power Rankings!: Bazooka Joe Raps

Nobody buys Bazooka Joe Gum for the actual gum. It's quite possibly the lowest quality gum available on the market, right below stale gumballs from a machine and Double Bubble. It's like chewing flavored shoe leather and even then the flavor doesn't last more than a minute. No, the only reason anyone would ever willingly purchase Bazooka Joe Gum is because of the sweet comics that accompany it. For over 50 years humorous little vignettes, plus jokey fortune readings, starring everyone's favorite one eyed (I always wondered how he ended up losing an eye at such a young age), blue baseball cap wearing teen protagonist and his ever changing gang of oddball characters have rewarded those willing to purchase a piece.

The success and longevity of the Bazooka Joe comics can be attributed to its many changes over the years to keep up with emerging trends. Through the decades, Bazooka Joe and crew have demonstrated a Madonna-like ability to constantly reinvent themselves; from evolving drawing styles, tweaking fashions, shamelessly co-oping fads, to straight up replacing members of the gang. Sure the eyepatch and cap remained but the modern day Bazooka Joe is a far cry from the moon faced youth of the 50s.

As someone who came of age in the 90s, it's that 90s era Bazooka Joe gang (actually "gang" was replaced by "and Company" due to negative connotations with all the gang violence going on at the time. Hey this was the same decade the the Bullets become the Wizards.) of Bazooka Joe, Metal Dude, Mort, Zena, and Ursula that I'll always associate the comic with. In addition to the hip new 90s cast, the comic creators also co-opted the emerging new genre of "Rap" music by releasing a set of Bazooka Joe "Raps" comics featuring all of the characters laying down some laughably crude rhymes about themselves and their wild gum fueled times together. Of all the comics I read then, these definitely stand out the most prominently in my mind; I'm afraid to admit I can probably recite a couple of these from memory. So given that I've had about 20 years of reflection and hindsight, here are my definitive Bazooka Joe Raps power rankings:

7. Bazooka Joe (#37)

Bazooka Joe may be "extra cool" and the iconic leader of the gang but his rap skills leave much to be desired. Here he's sort of all over the place. He starts with a possible shout out rap about his loving girlfriend Zena and then suddenly he throws in a line about how he likes to prank on people (and yes he actually used the word "jive") only to end with essentially a promotional message to buy Bazooka Joe gum. I guess since he is the namesake of the product he has to plug whenever he can. Overall, the weakest of the Raps.
Fortune: The fortune was pretty clever. I liked the visual pun of the upside down message; not easy to pull off. Additional points for being a line that could actually be a fortune, some times Bazooka Joe fortunes are merely just punchlines.

6. Bazooka Joe (#15)

The bottom two Raps and they both turn out to be ones by the great Bazooka Joe. While the fact that he is the only character that gets multiple raps does make it more likely that he would be pulling up the rear, it's still a poor showing. Once again, Bazooka is done in by the lack of focus in his lyrics. The image on the left of a football uniform wearing Bazooka with a hockey stick and a basketball is symbolic of his slapdash approach to these Raps (plus, as we all know, the Chicago Bears Shuffling Crew has been the only hip hop artists to successfully merge the disparate elements of sports and rap). I also get the feeling that he's dissing on baseball, since his one positive line about ballplayers is they "pose for cards". Compared to the high praise he heaps on the other 3 sports, it does come off a little insulting. He also once again concludes the Rap with another plug for his gum. Give it a rest, Joe.
Fortune: Some nice word play there. It may be an irreverent pun, but it also has a relevant implied message about the importance of independence and being self reliant.

5. Zena

Our first contribution from a member of Joe's crew. I will give Zena credit, her Raps' themes of gross materialism and conspicuous consumption are a bit ahead of their times for the early 90s. I could totally see Lil' Kim or Nicki Minaj dropping similarly themed lyrics, perhaps with a bit more complexity. Had she stayed on her original topic for the whole rap she would have been ranked higher. However Zena loses significant points for turning her rap into a declaration of love her for beau Bazooka Joe. You can't talk about how bad you are and how much you drop at the mall and then say how all those things are secondary to your love of Bazooka Joe.
Fortune: This one sounds like a real fortune that you'd get from a fortune cookie or wherever. The humor element is a bit too subtle for what I expect from a Bazooka Joe comic. The best ones are groan inducing and read like they need to end with a rim shot. It's still good advice I suppose.

4. Bazooka Joe (#23)

Bazooka Joe comes back for his third and final appearance on the rankings. It's not that much of a leap forward from the previous two Raps but I do like how it gives a nice overview of the entire gang. Metal Dude may be a wild man but I don't know how well he'll take being labeled a "maniac". As for his view of Ursula, nobody wants to brag about a new pair of sweatpants. Really this should have been the first Bazooka Joe Rap in the series but going by comic numbers it's apparently the fourth. While the rhymes are lacking I do have to admit it's quite impressive how he can spit them out while blowing a gigantic bubble gum bubble. Of course no Bazooka Joe helmed rap can be complete without another aggressive push for the gum.
Fortune: This one is even more a straightforward fortune than Zena's. I can't really find the joke here. Nevertheless it's a good message about living for today and making every moment count. You won't get that from a pack of Chiclets.

3. Ursula

If I were the sort of person to rely on broad generalizations and unfair stereotypes I may have assumed that Ursula, being the only black member of the group, would have been the odds on favorite to top the Power Rankings. Fortunately I don't see color and it's not the case here. Overall Ursula's risque gym room rap is commendable and does come up in the top half of the the rankings. I find Ursula's steamy rhymes about looking hot in tights, checking out the sights, compromising workout positions, and making many "friends" at the gym to be the perfect compliment to Zena's previous rap about her obsession with shopping and her envious high end lifestyle. Put those two together and you get the ultimate empowered female rapper. This Rap also looks like the comic version of Oliva Newton-John's music video for "Physical" with its mix of sexy exercise chic and rampant homoeroticism.
Fortune: Now this is an example of a classic Bazooka Joe fortune. It starts off with a well known saying and then flips it at the end with a cheesy one liner. The fact that the joke is about jokes itself, just makes it all the better.

2. Metal Dude

Metal Dude's Rap is quite an important and pioneering track. Instead of insulating himself in his familiar genre of heavy metal rock, he took the impressively progressive step of incorporating his metal with the emerging rap sound. As far as I'm concerned, Metal Dude's Rap is right up there with Anthrax and Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise" as critical landmarks of 90s rap metal. You also get to see a rare vulnerable side to the usually wild and outrageous Metal Dude when he talks about his admiration and loyalty to his friend and shockingly admits his long held secret that he is actually deaf. Heavy stuff, dude.
Fortune: This is one of those fortunes you get from a cookie where instead of predicting anything it just gives you a random observation about yourself. It still has a bit of the classic Bazooka Joe cheekiness to it.

1. Mort

Full disclosure, I admit that there is a little bit of personal bias here. Mort was always my favorite Bazooka Joe character and the Mort Rap comic is by far the Rap I received the most growing up. I'll probably be able to recite it until the day I die. That being said, I also remember it so well because it's a pretty decent rap. It stays true to the Mort character (gifted in the sciences while lacking even the most basic of social skills) and the lyrics don't sound as arbitratry or forced. Anyone else always suspected that Mort's unseen lower face was horrifically scarred, possibly from an unfortunate lab accident?
Fortune: A solid Bazooka Joe fortune pun, having fun with another tired old saying. Compared to a lot of the other fortunes, however, that preach seizing the day and being self sufficient, letting nature takes its course and hoping for the best seems somewhat incongruous.


Finally, I would like to give a hearty shout out to The Bazooka Joe Page at Caltech, clearly a holdover website from the early days of the internet when only members of large research universities had the technology and the time to create websites devoted to trivial pop culture minutiae, which featured quality scans of all 90's era Bazooka Joe comics.

Power Rankings!: Twilight Zone Episodes Featuring Star Trek Actors

I believe I've made it pretty clear over the years that I am a huge"Twilight Zone" fan. Aside from the writing, acting, filmmaking, etc. one of the great supplemental joys of watching the show is all the interesting guest stars you get to see. Since the show was a strict anthology series with every episode featuring a completely different story and set of characters, the large list of actors who found themselves in the zone range from young future icons (Robert Redford, Carol Burnett, Burt Reynolds), old Hollywood stars (Buster Keaton, Joseph Schildkraut), BURGESS MOTHER FUCKING MEREDITH, and every quality contemporary character actor in-between.

Of the varied group of actors to have appeared on the show I've always found it interesting to see future main cast members of another highly influential 1960's science fiction series, "Star Trek", finding themselves crossing over into the Twilight Zone. While Shatner's two appearances on the show are by far the most well known, future Enterprise crew members Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, and James Doohan have been part of some (mostly) choice episodes. How would I rank all five of these episodes based on my personal opinion as a fan?

Well, I'm glad you asked:

5. "A Quality of Mercy"

I said that not all the Star Trek cast featuring episodes would be home runs and this is one is the unfortunate odd man out. The story takes place during the waining days of World War II in the Pacific where a platoon of war weary American soldiers are laying siege to a cave of starved Japanese soldiers. The hawkish, newly promoted, asshole Lieutenant (played by Dean Stockwell) wants to show no mercy to the enemy and orders a full assault on the cave much to the anger of the platoon. Before the assault is carried out, the Lieutenant suddenly finds himself as a Japanese soldier in 1942 in an exact reverse of the previous situation (OMG!), laying siege to a cave of starving Americans, which gives him a new perspective.

The whole thing comes off about as simplistic and preachy as it sounds. The performances and production are still pretty good (although the "Japanese" makeup job on Stockwell is pretty flimsy) but there are no real surprises here. As for Leonard Nimoy, he's in it for like 30 seconds as one of the American soldiers and has about one line of dialog; also quite weak. Additionally, aside from being an average episode at best, it's also indirectly responsible for the deaths of Vic Morrow and two child actors since they were killed filming a remake of the episode for the ill-fated "Twilight Zone: The Movie" in 1983.

4. "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

I already gave my two cents on this classic "Twilight Zone" episode in a blog post few years ago.

"What more can I say about this episode that most already don't know. If you somehow have no idea what this episode is about, by all means watch it before someone ruins the entire story for you. A sharp looking William Shatner plays the mentally fragile airplane passenger desperately trying to stop a mysterious monster from downing the plane while struggling to find someone who believes him. This episode might be better known to you many as that Simpson's Treehouse of Horror segment "Terror at 5 1/2 Feet". While it has lost some of its power, the tense, claustrophobic directing of a young Richard Donner and Shatner's going mental performance still make it a keeper."

The Shat may have plenty of criticisms about his idiosyncratic acting style, but he is one of the all time masters of playing crazy.

3. "Valley of the Shadow"

I have also visited the "Valley of the Shadow" in a previous post.

"A young man accidentally stumbles across a town where its inhabitants possess scientific knowledge that is light years headed of our own time. This is one of the few hour long Twilight Zone episodes I like. This is not a real famous episode or anything and the main plot itself is fairly flat, but I just dug the soliloquies the town leaders give about how screwed up modern civilization is. The Twilight Zone was always good at waving its finger at modern times, in an entertaining way."

I didn't bother to mention James Doohan's role in the episode back then because well, I didn't even notice him. He plays some random guy in the town that does some exposition and we never see again. I probably watched this episode three or four times before I even noticed that he was in it. As a fan of mainly the "Star Trek" movies, I've grown up with lovable fat, white haired, mustachioed Scotty as opposed to the younger version.

2. "The Encounter"

The setup of the "The Encounter" involves a bigoted World War II veteran and a young assimilated Japanese-American hired to help him clean his attic finding themselves trapped there by some mysterious force. Forced together in this tense, hot, cramped space surrounded by the veteran's old WWII items (including a samurai sword that he took from a dead solider) the two start to go crazy, not unlike that Simpsons episode where Homer and Mr. Burns got stuck in a mountain cabin, leading to a pretty shocking conclusion.

It would ostensibly appear by the premise that the episode would touch upon similar themes of compassion and empathy as "A Quality of Mercy", but it really gets more interesting and complicated then that. The theme of the episode is really an exploration of guilt and the inability to escape the ghosts of the past, figuratively and (since this is the "Twilight Zone") somewhat literally, with both sides coming off as never completely being good or bad. It's a really well made bottle episode carried by the excellent, increasingly sweaty performances of George Takei and Neville Brand (who was a real life war hero). I can't imagine there were too many opportunities for an Asian actor to have such a featured role on a major prime time program in 1964. In an unfortunately note, it is almost impossible to find this episode rerun on syndication since it has received complaints in the past about the racial epithets and characterizations in the story (sort of like how it's difficult to catch the infamous "Puerto Rican Day" episode of "Seinfeld")

1. "Nick of Time"

"Nick of Time" has slowly grown on my over the years to become one of my all time top 10 episodes. One of the things I like about it, is it's a well known episode but isn't doesn't have quite have the level of fame (and number of parodies) as episodes like "Time Enough At Last" or "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", which kind of makes it feel more "mine" like an great album track from your favorite band. If you don't know, the story is a simple one about a young couple on their honeymoon who stop at a random town dinner while their car is being fixed. The husband eventually discovers that the novelty fortune telling machine at their table can magically answer all their questions (in yes or no, maybe later, 8 ball form). However he becomes obsessed with the machine's ability and finds himself unable to leave the dinner and continue his life without its guidance.

As someone who is always anxious about the future, this show really does hit close to home. It is a timeless, life affirming, message of living for today and not being paralyzed by the future told in the Zone's uniquely dark manner. It also has one of the more surprisingly satisfying and positive (well, sort of positive) endings of the series. As for Shatner, it is similar to his other performance as he is an anxious man that's gradually being driven mad, but this is a more subtle and subdued type of madness for him. I also have to give props to the "mystic seer" machine itself which was a really well designed prop piece and gave off a creeping malevolence that made the story work (and is available as a replica bobblehead on Amazon if anyone is looking for a present for my birthday this weekend).

Power Rankings!: Cosby Show Opening Credits

Despite my prodigious consumption of sitcom television going up, in my life I've probably seen a grand total of maybe 3 or 4 full episodes of the "Cosby Show". In fact, the only episode I can actually recall is the one where Rudy and her friend Peter go to the dentist played by Danny Kaye. The bulk of its run was pretty much before my time and by the time it started entering excessive re-runs in syndication, I just didn't really get into it. Now before you start accusing me of network sitcom racism, to my defense I've watched practically every "Family Matters" from its TGIF heydays to it's sad, slow death on CBS. I also think that the "Fresh Price of Bel-Air" is totally underrated and is one of the few series that I still find just as (if not more) hilarious today as I had in middle school. There's just something about the Cos that I just didn't dig. I think it was because the humor was just too realistic and subtle for my tastes. There were no wacky neighbors or slapstick physical antics or cheap laughs, just ground breaking naturalistic family based comedy; not really my bag. On the whole I usually prefer more thrown pies and kicks to the groin when it comes to my network family sitcoms.

Despite the fact that the Huxtables and I never really hit it off, I was always a fan of their classic opening credits. During my elementary and middle school years I, like every other kid of my generation, would watch the Disney Afternoon after every long hard day of school. The conclusion of the programming block at 5 pm would signal the start of my homework time. However, after the final credits of "Darkwing Duck" or "Gargoyles" ran, I'd stick around just a minute more to catch the opening credits of the Cosby Show rerun that ran immediately afterward.

It was over these years of viewing that I developed an admiration for the Cosby show's dedication to providing new and ambitious opening titles nearly every season (7 opening credits over 8 seasons). In addition to new visual sequences, the general theme song to the show was performed in a completely different style (I was totally unaware it was the same song until I had a mind blowing epiphany a few years ago). Unlike most of the shows today where the opening credits, if they even bother to have one, stays stagnant and listless over multiple seasons (I'm pretty sure "The Office" has been using the same intro since the first episode, ditto with "30 Rock"), the openings to shows like "The Cosby Show" grew and changed with the characters. Whether it was watching Tempestt Bledsoe blossom into a young woman or following the wild fashion roller coaster ride of Malcolm-Jamal Warner or being introduced to a cute little Raven-Symone, every new opening credit provided a lasting, distinct snapshot of the season, while telling a general story of about the series.

While every intro was different, there were clearly ones I preferred over others. As the debate rages on among Cosby fans about which intros were superior, here are my definitive Cosby Show Opening Credits power rankings:

7. Season 8 Intro

According to wikipedia, the season 8 opening credits were suppose to be the for season 7 but legal issues regarding displaying the mural delayed it until the 8th and final season. While most of the other Cosby openings had a timeless, classic feel to them, this is by for the most painfully dated. It's a bizarre amalgam of what the show's producers must have thought mainstream hiphop culture was like in 1992, an ugly pastel colored mix of early Fresh Prince and TLC videos. I half expect Malcolm-Jamal Warner to come in with a condom over his left eye.

6. Season 1 Intro

Season 1 has the most strikingly primitive opening credits of the entire series. It's the only one that strays from the whole family dance sequence theme; in fact it doesn't even have moving pictures. The whole thing looks like something off of Cliff Huxtable's screen saver (complete with annoying wipes). While this generic 80s sitcom opening is defiantly the worst intro in terms of originality and production quality, its only saving grace is its version of the title song, a breezy sax flavored affair, that is in my personal top 3. Also, on a random note, doesn't it kind of look like the Huxtables are exiting out of the A-Team van?

5. Season 3 Intro

Season 3 doesn't really add much to the evolution of the Cosby intro. It's essentially a continuation of the Season 2 intro. You get the family out there doing their thing, this time to a spicy Latin take on the theme. I find Cosby far too spastic for my comfort here; as the continuing rankings will show, I prefer a more deliberate and restrained Cosby dance. I'm also going to have to give negative points for Tempestt Bledsoe's whole too cool for school, "I'm not dancing stance".

4. Season 2 Intro

Season 2's intro is more important than it is actually good. It's sort of like the Model T, it's notable because of its groundbreaking firsts but in relative terms it's not actually all that advanced or proficient. Season 2 lays out the fundamental blueprint for all other openings to follow: individual cast introduction shots, flamboyant dancing, reworked music, and (most importantly) a spastic Cosby. However, there were greater, more ambitious heights to be reached. Also, interesting to note is that Season 2 and 3 are only ones where the Cos is sporting those glorious sweaters.

3. Season 4 Intro

Season 4 is a truly noteworthy departure point. Given the high flying success of the show at the time, entering what would be their third of five consecutive #1 Nielsen rated seasons, the show could have remained with another conservative tweak to their previous two intros. A slight rework of the theme and another garish sweater would have been good enough, but they decided to up the ante. This is probably the classiest of all the intros: with everyone dressed in vintage formal wear (Phylicia Rashad looks absolutely stunning, definitely her best looking intro appearance), a minimalist jazzy soundtrack (a total Bobby McFerrin vibe), and a cool subdued Cosby grooving along. For better and for worse this would end up being the starting point for the grand experimentation for the rest of the series.

2. Season 6 and 7

An intro so nice they used it twice! By the 6th Season all the cast members had pretty much refined their dance techniques. What results is an intro with some of the fanciest footwork seen throughout the entire series. As soon as that wild sax comes in the whole crew puts on a show worthy of the Apollo theatre whose sign is used at the backdrop. Even the once, tepid, Tempestt is burning up the dance floor. This intro is also important in that it has the return of Lisa Bonet from her "A Different World" exile and the introduction of a young, cute as a button, Raven-Symone In an interesting contrast to the prolific dancing of the rest of the cast, Bill Cosby is at his most deliberate here, grooving along, in an almost penguin like display of subtle movies. I like it.

1. Season 5 Intro

The opening credits to the 5th Season of the Cosby Show is quite possibly the greatest opening credit in the history of television. When I first came across it, it positively blew my mind. The theatrics, the choreography, the grandness of it all. The theme had been reworked into some sort of majestic John Williams-esque score that just jumped off the small screen. The dancing, a colorful, hypnotic, maelstrom of organized chaos with the Cos being the goofy calm eye in the middle of it all. The whole thing felt like a classic Busby Berkeley musical number. It was ridiculous, it was totally removed from anything the show was about, it was amazing. Unfortunately with an opening so stirring and explosive, any episode proceeding it would be ultimately disappointing in comparison.

Power Rankings!: Subway Five Dollar Footlongs

I'm sure all you regulars have already noticed that the blogs haven't been flowing as freely as they once were (which isn't to say that the blogs were all that freely flowing to begin with). It's been less than a month since school started up again and, alas, the daily nuisances of classes and summer job mining have really gotten in the way. Besides, overall, nothing really interesting goes on in January anyway. The year is still new and still struggling to establish its identity.

One thing about going back to school in the boondocks of Jamaica, Queens is that I once again resume my regular schedule of eating Subway footlongs. One part of my reason for kicking it Jared style is preference. If you broke down what my favorite food was, it would be basically any piece of meat between two pieces of bread. Also from a cost/fullness ratio, the five dollar footlong is pretty much the best option out there. In addition, it's marginally healthier than all the other fast food options available. That sort of goes to my other reason for Subway, and that is that there's NO OTHER FUCKING PLACE AROUND CAMPUS. Seriously, you'd think a rather large and diverse university would draw healty variety of food options surrounding the campus. Maybe there's some obscure town ordinance that prevents new restaurants from opening up in the area, but it is as if the college just fell out of the sky and right in the middle of a quiet suburb with no other major businesses in sight. Without actually driving out onto the highway to other places; between the Subway, a pizza place or two, and generic campus dinning your options are pretty slim. I should just quit school now and open up a Jamba Juice or something. It'd be a license to print money.

Regardless of the sad state of affairs around the school, I still enjoy the wide varieties of Subway five dollar footlongs. So since the grand purpose of all Internet blogs are to assign subjective personal rankings of things, I've decided to provide my overall power ranking of the eight five dollar footlongs on Subway's everyday value menu. You can keep your fancy regular menu items like Roast Beef and Chicken Teriyaki, it's time for a value priced five dollar throw down!:

8. Veggie Delight

I don't even consider this pretender to even be a sandwich at all. Masquerading itself as the "vegetarian alternative" sandwich, it's just a standard sub without the meat. So they take out one of the essential elements that make a sandwich a sandwich and charge you the same as an actual sandwich. I'd be like a bar offering light beer by giving you only half a glass of regular beer. I'm actually all for options for vegetarians, but this is obviously a scam. Couldn't they have put in some tofu meat alternative or chickpeas or something?

7. Tuna

I am actually a big tuna fan myself, but Subway's attempts at the classic tuna salad sandwich is a bit lacking. I don't know if it is all that possible to make a distinctively sub par tuna salad sandwich, but Subway manages to bring out the boring tuna. On top of it being sort of bland, it's actually the second worst thing you can order, calorie wise, on the menu; so it even loses the potential "healthy" appeal.

6. Oven Roasted Chicken Breast

Oven roasted is a bit of a misnomer. I guess those chicken breast slabs were cooked in an oven at some point in their lifetimes; how else can you explain the suspicious grill marks? As for the in store cooking, the whole "freshness" appeal is lost when you see them being thrown in and out of commercial microwaves before being put on your sandwich. The chicken pieces themselves may look like unappetizing rubber chicken parts, but overall the taste is alright, although I find them a bit dry.

5. Meatball Marinara

The meatball marinara is defiantly the most interesting of the sandwich choices. A true iconoclast: it cares not for caloric restraint, is incompatible with nearly all fixings and condiments, only comes in hot, and is terribly messy and inconvenient to eat. You have to really be in a specific meatball marinara mood to get this option. If you come in considering any other sandwich, it's quite unlikely you'll make a radical switch to the marinara as your second option. I for one have found myself in many a situtaitons where I found myself with a specific hankering for the big M.

4. Cold Cut Combo

This sandwich is best remembered for its featured role as Happy Gilmore's preferred choice of footlong. It's essentially a poorman's Subway Club with the higher end ham, roast beef, and turkey being replaced by the cheaper turkey bologna, turkey ham, and turkey salami. For these lean economic times, it's a solid, frugal substitute to the relatively extravagant Subway Club. I think the whole thing might actually qualify as a Giffen good.

3. Ham

Sometime you've got to eschew all those fancy gimmicks and meat combinations and just go back to basics; and it just doesn't get any more basic than a ham sandwich. From the Earl of Sandwich to Mamma Cass, who doesn't appreciate a nice ham sandwich? While I'm more of a beef man, when it comes to sandwiches, ham is definitely the go to meat.

2. Spicy Italian

Pound for pound, the spicy Italian is most likely the best deal among the five dollar footlongs. Unlike the cold cut combo which cold cuts its corners to provide its multiple meats, the spicy Italian gives you two quality cuts (Genoa salami and pepperoni) for the value price. The spicy Italian's condescending bigger brother is the Italian BMT which throws in an extra addition of ham to up the ante. I sometimes find that extra ham to be a touch too decadent though.

1. Turkey Breast and Ham

If you've been paying close attention you've probably noticed that this particular sandwich is not included in the official website's everyday value menu. Through some distinctive franchise quirk, my local Subway has this sub instead of the standard BLT on its everyday value menu. It's no doubt a conservative choice, but I've always been adamant that the best sandwich combination is turkey breast and ham. Sure there are more adventurous and interesting sandwiches out there and I appreciate them all; however when it comes down to a sandwich that never disappoints you've got to go with this classic duo.