cops/donuts meme

[Marc Sacks]

Charles Doyle writes:
> The history of specialty doughnut shops might be traceable--and not just
> Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme. In the early 1960s, a place called
> Spudnuts opened in Austin (the gimmick was an undetectable quantity of
> potato flour added to the doughnut dough--WHY I can't imagine); I think it
> was a chain. But I'm guessing that doughnut traditions flourished in the
> Northeast before they reached the South.
>

I remember a Spudnut outside Pittsburgh in the 1950s. It was gone before I
was old enough to remember it in more than a childhood-ephemeral way, but
my parents knew about it and indicated it had been around for a long time.

On a related note, before there was a cops/doughnuts meme there was a
trope about cops picking up and eating fruit from outdoor stands. Part of
the stereotype was that the vendors gave free fruit to the cops. This
antedates me, but I recall seeing it in a number of old cartoons.


Marc Sacks
msacks at theworld.com

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