The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, one of New York City’s foremost Forrest Gump-themed restaraunts.

Though I went inside last month, the picture is actually from my September 2005 New York City trip. However, you don’t know that. It is important to mention, ehhh, because I did not visit at night. As you know, the freaks come out at night. Prior to then, they occupy the Bubba Gump Shrimp company beyond logical capacity.

The first thing the waiterist asked after placing us (me and another human) was “You guys been here before?” At the time it seemed unfathomable to me that anyone could have truthfully answered yes. After waiting for twenty minutes near the loud, cramped, crowded entrance and five more minutes in the loud, cramped, crowded… corral is the only word I could use to describe it, only to be led to a place just as loud and rather poorly lit, I was ready to leave before I’d really been anywhere.

I am informed that, at least the waiting, even at junkety places like this one, is common in The Big City, which makes progress toward explaining why anyone would seek out one of those boiled hot-dogs the street vendors are ah vending. A wait for that is unlikely.

When attempting to reserve a space at Bumpagumpa, instead of a name, the note-taker asks for the favorite movie of one of the eaters. For some reason, probably because I hate more than I like, and so would be less likely to disgrace another diner with my choice, the task of selecting one was given to me. Alas, I thought about it more deeply than I should have, and the non-existant “Beans” was all I could think of. I realized not until later it sounded like I meant “Bean,” the Mr. Bean movie, which I actually don’t remember much about, just that something bothered me.

I was going to lay out some comment about it being made too long after the original television series, which I assumed, based on the production values was made in the 1980s, but, the truth revealed, that actually happened from 1990 to 1995 and only 14 episodes total were ever made, and they must have been fairly new when I saw them. Although if we trust 82.47.121.109’s timekeeping, they actually had not yet been made.

It’s nice to know I’m not the only person who’s completely unremarkable when it comes to pranks.

If my brief bean-related commentary seemed confused and distracting, it was hard to think about most moving-pictures in the restaurant, for
there were television screens strategically positioned throughout the place to ensure there was no direction you could look to not see Forrest Gump, doing his gump things. Though the film was mercifully muted, the garbagey 1960s music and crowd noise which filled the aural void were little improvement.

I couldn’t stand the music, but it certainly could not have hurt its cause to have the “50 First Dates, party of four” announcements interrupting constantly. Even through the noise apparatuses in the actual eating quarters. What I mean is everyone everywhere could hear everything and always. Even if I wasn’t too despirited to speak I would have had difficulty being comprehended. More so than usual, I mean.

Some visitors, when prompted, signed in with “Forrest Gump.” Even the unhealthily perky announcer had difficulty masking contempt. Them, they’re so used to just taking what they’re given and liking it that they see “Gump” on the sign from the outside and that’s all they can think of until they turn around and see the huge ads for Another Pengiun Movie. Fortunately, none of those people are coordinated enough to walk backwards, so this didn’t happen, though I would have enjoyed having their weakness exposed by a film not yet released. I thought this had happened, but “Shrek Thathird” (party of three) had supposedly been in theaters for two days. That I could recall Bean at all, however vaguely and unintentionally, is astounding.

At least, as far as tacky decorative junk is concerned, Forrest Gump covered a lot of territory, chronologically and geographically. Imagine a Breakfast Club themed restaurant (except with breakfast available). That one took place all in one day and one building. Yet still I think the owners could have done better.

Paramount owns the building, I was told, which explains the funding. What it still doesn’t explain is why this particular property was chosen to create an immersive environment about. Obviously, you couldn’t go with Braveheart or Popeye or Friday the Thirteenth because of assumptions people could make about the food (in the case of Popeye, if you assumed, rather than spinach that fried chicken was a specialty, and it was, there’d probably be some legal issues).

Paramount handled all the Star Trek movies, and people are pretty memphis for that. It would certainly allow for more interesting doohickeys to hang on the wall. But again, as I noted on the page I wrote three years ago which mentions Bubba-Gump somewhere on it, future cuisine is, or rather will be pretty bland. If it’s not bacon fat in a glass, it’s little pills which you may dissolve in the bacon fat if that suits you. There is no bacon. Good for the pigs, but there are no pigs, either.

And now some dark pictures unrelated to that. There’s so much darkness, if I equipped the Illumina sword it would inflict more damage than usual.

There was, but I cleaned it off! Yuk yuk!

Yuck, it was kind of gross, actually.

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Oh, this item is so very popular with the robots!