So let me get this straight: Our government tells us steroids are bad, and they persecute athletes who use them, but then they have some secret experiment that proves how good they are? And then they name him after our country, so everybody will associate his steroidy-personage with our country! What’s wrong with this picture?
Look, we all know steroids are awesome, or we wouldn’t have elected Arnold Schwarzenegger the Governor of California! Or maybe we just like sex scandals with our politics. Or perhaps it’s both. And like when you get your chocolate in my peanut butter, and I get my peanut butter on your chocolate, the results are delicious! And so also are steroids delicious!
Look, nobody wants to watch a movie about some skinny smart guy trapping bad guys with intelligence: that’s for losers! No, we all want to see some lout with rippling muscles beat people up! That’s why we have boxing, wrestling, MMA, kickboxing, etc., etc., etc. (Not that they use steroids, or are louts, but they’re all muscley and stuff, and they beat people up.) And when we go to the movies, we want that “larger-than-life” thing, so they’ve got to be on steroids! Like the Smurfs are! (That's why they're so popular!)
There is a question that poses itself like a mannequin and refuses to go away like an annoying drunk jerk at a party, however, and that’s this: If this “serum” (a.k.a.: steroids) worked so well on that skinny, 99-pound weakling, then how come they didn’t use it on some big, strong, athletic guy? Wouldn’t that guy then be able to beat up Captain America, just like he did before they got the “serum”? Or is that cheating to use an already-strong guy? I’m never clear on these rules about what is and isn’t ethical when it comes to human experimentation. But I say if it seems like it might make a superhero, you’ve just got to go for it, whatever the risk! (But if they just stopped after it worked so well to make the weak guy strong, it just seems like a big missed opportunity to have lots of even stronger Captain Americas! Perhaps had they made a bunch of guys with the serum, they could have named them according to rank based upon how big & strong they were, so the biggest guy would be “General America”, and wimpiest one would be “Private America”, etc. Maybe for the sequel?)
But I also wonder stuff like this: If Captain America is fighting Nazi super-villains, why is his main enemy the “Red Skull”? Doesn’t that guy sound like a commie? Shouldn’t Captain America’s WWII wartime enemy be called: “The Swastika”? Then he could throw swastika-shaped throwing stars, and he could always stand posed in a swastika shape, with his arms and legs all bent and stuff, sort of like that ancient Egyptian pose we always see people doing with the bent arms, but with his legs doing that too, and him leaning at a 45° angle. And that could be his “fight stance”, like in martial arts, only this one would be really stupid-looking and uncomfortable and unstable, like a Nazi ought to be!
Or perhaps Captain America’s big adversary could have been called: “The Hitler Moustache”! So this guy would have a Hitler mustache (obviously), and he’d also have a big square “M” on his chest, but made out of hair (like a mustache); and he’d have little Hitler mustaches on his fingertips, so he could always tickle whoever he was fighting, so they couldn’t fight effectively. Oh, plus, he’d look so dumb, they’d be laughing anyway, and so he could defeat them easily! And on top of it all, he’d have a short, black, square-shaped cape made out of yarn, so it would look like a big Hitler mustache flying in the wind! And whenever he’d kill someone, he’d leave a fake Hitler mustache taped to their upper lip as a calling card, so everyone would know this dastardly deed had been perpetrated by “The Hitler Moustache”!
I think it’s a missed opportunity, but hey: Maybe they can use these guys in the sequels!
Here’s a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups ad from the 1970s:
And here’s one from the 1980s:
Oh, and my joke about the ATF flag that says: “3 Great Things That Go Great Together!” comes from this ad campaign! I grew up with it. (“Mmmm! Delicious!”)
