SpaghettiOs have been around since 1965, and remain one of the best selling canned foods
in America. They're a food everyone can get nostalgic about. So pull up a bean bag, put
on some classic cartoons and grab a spoon to dig into the untold truth of SpaghettiOs.
As a general rule, national tragedies aren't really something companies should be using
as marketing opportunities. Yet on the 72nd anniversary of Japan's surprise attack on
Pearl Harbor, the one that killed more than 2,400 Americans and launched the U.S. into
World War II, Campbell's, the parent company of SpaghettiOs, decided it would be a good
idea to trot out its cartoon mascot named TheO on the SpaghettiOs Twitter page to encourage
their canned-pasta-loving followers to share the day with them. As TheO gleefully hoisted
an American flag in the air like an astronaut about to stab it into the moon, the tweet
read,
"Take a moment to remember #PearlHarbor with us."
This not-so-thinly-disguised attempt at self-promotion landed with a resounding thud. One Twitter
user replied,
"Really invokes the warfare and death of that moment."
Comedian Patton Oswalt commented,
"Dear SpaghettiOs: Genuinely afraid to scroll back & see what you Tweeted on the 50th anniversary
of JFKs assassination."
Realizing its mistake, Campbells deleted it 13 hours later, with this apology:
"We apologize for our recent tweet in remembrance of Pearl Harbor Day. We meant to pay respect,
not to offend."
A 23-year-old Georgia woman named Ashley Huff went to jail just for eating SpaghettiOs.
In 2014, Huff was pulled over for a routine stop when policemen came across a spoon in
her car with a, quote, "clear, crystal-like substance" on it. She claimed it was SpaghettiOs,
and that she had thrown away the can. The police said it was meth, and hauled her off
to jail. There she sat, waiting for the crime lab to test the spoon residue, but crime labs
take time. Two weeks later they still had no answers, so they let Ashley go on the condition
she regularly attended appointments made by the court.
After missing one appointment, Huff ended up getting thrown back in the clink for over
a month, until the lab analysis finally came back showing they had found nothing but tomatoey
sauce on the spoon. So what made them think it was meth? The arresting officer wrote in
his report he
"[...] found it strange that she would eat SpaghettiOs with a metal spoon while riding
in a vehicle, and then put the spoon back in a bag."
"Why do I -- I don't like this. There's somethin' about this I don't like one bit."
Campbell's announced in November of 2015 that it was recalling more than 350,000 cans of
SpaghettiOs. And what was in those cans? Salmonella? Botulism? Dead bugs? Nope. It was small bits
of red plastic, which may seem relatively harmless compared to deadly bacteria, but
there was a clear choking risk.
In attempt to put everyone's mind at ease, Campbell's pointed out the plastic was "food
grade" and therefore harmless to the digestive system, but the fact remained it could get
stuck in the throat of the person most likely a child consuming it. Luckily, it never came
to that. But let it serve as a reminder to chew your SpaghettiOs well.
Over the years, SpaghettiOs have come in various shapes. Nineties kids might remember TeddyO's,
the SpaghettiOs with teddy bear shapes; or SportyOs, with skateboards, roller skates,
and bicycles. Where's WaldOs had Waldo heads, hats, striped shirts, and canes. A to Z SpaghettiOs
taught you the alphabet. And, remarkably, the SpaghettiOs recipe stayed the same for
50 years.
But in 2015, Campbell's hit the mother lode of licensing agreements and came out with
a Star Wars-themed version of SpaghettiOs and they had to change the recipe to do it.
Why?
Translating a character into a pasta shape isn't easy. It takes what they call "pastabilty,"
and according to a representative of SpaghettiOs,
"C-3PO and Chewbacca don't have as distinctive facial features as the other characters, so
were not very 'pastable. Having a lot of lines is difficult because when pasta cooks, it
swells, so the shape can be lost, making the character unrecognizable. We tweaked the pasta
dough recipe and our production techniques to make sure that each character held its
shape after cooking."
Apparently Campbell's worked it out, because not only did C-3PO and Chewy get the SpaghettiO
treatment, so did Yoda, R2D2, and Darth Vader.
Experimenting with different food combinations is part of the fun of cooking. Everyone from
four-star chefs to curious children have mixed and matched different ingredients in the hopes
of emerging with something palatable, and as fate would have it, some seemingly disgusting
food combinations are actually quite amazing. Apple pie with cheddar cheese, for example.
But two great tastes don't always taste great together, and Jell-O with SpaghettiOs is definitely
one of them.
When the recipe for this retro-themed monstrosity first appeared via Shared Food, it wasn't
exactly well received. One commenter said.
"I don't want to live on this planet anymore."
Another chimed in,
"I'm calling child protective services on whoever posted this. This meal is child abuse."
The arrangement of raw Vienna Sausages in the middle certainly doesn't do it any favors
either. It's like the food version of an ugly sweater contest. Thanks, but we'll pass on
this one.
Steve Gleich, bar manager of Chicago's Luxbar, doesn't back down from a challenge. So when
he was tasked with creating a drink using SpaghettiOs as part of The Chicago Reader's
Cocktail Challenge series, he dug in. Not one to just throw some vodka in the can and
call it a day, Steve created the "Uh Oh," a saucy spin on the Bloody Maria.
At first, the thought of having to use SpaghettiOs sounded like a nightmare.
"It's so processed. There's, you know, so much artificial flavoring in there."
Not to mention a whole lot of pasta, which never made it into the Uh Oh. Instead, Gleich
added fresh tomato juice to the SpaghettiOs can to water down the sauce, strained it,
and mixed it with a little watermelon juice to temper the processed flavor. Once he added
mezcal and a few other ingredients to the tomato mixture, he at least ended up with
something drinkable. He used the can as a glass, along with a fresh sprig of mint, a
sprinkle of paprika and a pasta straw.
"Uh oh, SpaghettiOs" is one of the catchiest slogans ever written for a TV commercial,
and Campbell's still uses it today.
What you may not know is that it's based on a love song recorded in 1958 by teen idol
Jimmie Rodgers called "Oh-Oh I'm Falling in Love Again." Seven years later, when Campbell's
commissioned him to write a few words about their circular pasta, Jimmie "borrowed" the
tune from his bouncy hit single, changed the words, and made marketing history. Jimmie
Rogers also sang the SpaghettiOs song in early ads, and for years afterward, he would even
close his own shows with it.
Colleen Ballinger, actress and creator of the now-cancelled Netflix series Haters Back
Off, found out the hard way that SpaghettiOs are perhaps the grossest food to bathe in.
Colleen played Miranda Sings, an appallingly obnoxious, untalented, wannabe YouTube star
who, during an extremely nauseating fantasy sequence, submerges herself in a bathtub full
of what looks like dozens of cans' worth of SpaghettiO's. Even though she wrote the segment
in question, she publicly regretted it later, saying:
"It wasn't my favorite part. In the writers room, they said, 'You know, what you write,
you will have to end up doing.' It was a surreal moment to be sitting in a bathtub full of
SpaghettiOs and being miserable but thinking, Oh my god, this is a dream come true to have
this show.'"
One thing's for sure, the girl definitely has guts.
"Oh my Gosh!"
The pasta in SpaghettiOs doesn't really taste like much. And in its original formulation,
the sauce is pretty bland, too, to be honest. So the powers that be decided that, to keep
this SpaghettiOs thing going into the next century, they would need to get clever and
add a few new flavors. It's called "line extending," the long established branding strategy of
switching up a product just enough so that it's still identifiable as the product, but
different enough to be something new. Line extending is why we have Gummi Savers and
Hershey's Chocolate Milk. In the '80s it gave us PizzOs and CheesOs. And in 2013, bizarrely
enough, CheeseburgerOs.
We shudder to think about what makes pasta and tomato sauce supposedly taste like cheeseburgers.
The two have nothing to do with each other. But one YouTuber claims "it almost feels like
a dumbed-down SpaghettiO." Your guess is as good as ours what that means.
Have you ever noticed that SpaghettiOs have a bit of a weird texture? Compare your dish
of delicious Os to "regular" pasta, and you'll find there's definitely a little bit of gumminess
going on there. If your plate of spaghetti bolognese tasted like this, you'd toss it
and head off to Little Caesars.
So, what's the deal? According to The Washington Post, it actually has to do with how the pasta
is canned. Check out the ingredient list, and you'll see the first thing is water. That's
because all that water is needed for the canning process. When SpaghettiOs are packed into
the can, the pasta is dry. Then, that very watery sauce cooks the pasta as it's being
canned, and that's why it has that distinctive texture. They're cooked in the can. There's
a bonus to doing it this way, too: it helps infuse the flavor throughout the whole O.
Now you know.
SpaghettiOs might have been the best thing ever when you were a kid, but chances are
good that now that you're an adult, they've become something of a guilty pleasure if you
still eat them at all. But here's the weird thing they're not nearly as bad as you're
expecting them to be. A serving, which is one cup, has just 170 calories, 1 gram of
fat, and .5g of saturated fat.
SpaghettiOs actually got a 21st century makeover, and you maybe didn't even notice. In 2009,
Campbell's announced it was lowering the sodium in SpaghettiOs by around 35 percent. Then,
in 2010, the company confirmed that each serving of Os contained a full serving of vegetables,
as well as five essential nutrients including calcium and vitamin A. There's also a full
serving of grains in each one of those servings.
"Not bad. Not bad."
There is still a ton of sodium, though: 600 mg per serving. So avoid if you're trying
to lower your blood pressure.
If you're looking for something super fun and unique for that birthday cake or that
"this day was terrible, I need some cake" cake reach for a can of SpaghettiOs. We're
not kidding. FoodBeast made a SpaghettiOs cake with a box of yellow cake mix and one
can of SpaghettiOs. While you'll have to adjust for texture and add more or less water, it
can definitely be done, and it's weirdly delicious.
And for SpaghettiOs' 50th birthday, Campbell's released a recipe for red velvet cupcakes
that used SpaghettiOs sauce as the liquid for the cupcakes, and the Os as a component
in the topping, which also included strawberries and sugar. Weird? Definitely, but it's also
definitely a conversation piece.
According to Campbell's, the idea of a tomato-based spice cake dates back to the 1920s, and its
official version, which uses Campbell's tomato soup, was first published in October 1940.
By 1966, the company updated the idea to use boxed cake mixes. Using SpaghettiOs in the
place of the tomato soup is basically the same general idea.
Think you love SpaghettiOs? Thomas Grasso certainly did. The convicted killer requested
them for his last meal as he sat on death row.
According to The Oklahoman, Grasso was scheduled for execution on March 20, 1995, after being
found guilty of killing two senior citizens, one on Staten Island in New York and one in
Tulsa, Oklahoma. Although originally ordered to serve a 20-year sentence in New York first,
he was ultimately sent to Oklahoma and executed well before those 20 years were up. He requested
a last meal of steamed mussels, a double cheeseburger from Burger King, a strawberry milkshake,
pumpkin pie, a single mango, and a tin of room-temperature SpaghettiOs with meatballs.
Before he died, The New York Times says he issued several messages and poems and his
last words were a complaint:
"Please tell the media, I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know
this."
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