Cate Cropp, a Jersey girl living in Portugal who just can’t give up American TV, is back guest clacking for us again today.
I’m from New Jersey, a place that TV writers like to poke fun at, well, often. How I Met Your Mother dedicated an entire episode to making fun of the state as Ted contemplated moving there. Ted going to the bathroom to drop a huge New Jersey ring a bell? So I’m used to my home turf getting made fun of, and for me it’s always good for a laugh.
When I moved to Portugal almost five years ago, I never expected to get the same kind of gratification with my new home. However, the more TV I watched, the more jokes about Portugal I noticed. I remember in particular one episode of Judging Amy, where they’ve just moved into a new house. They have practically no food in the house and in the morning, before school, Amy serves her daughter some stale-looking toast with waxy, not-quite-melted cheese on top and some green pimiento-stuffed olives and says, “Eat up, we have to go!” The little girl looks at it and says, “That’s not breakfast!” and her mom replies, “it is in Portugal, now eat!”
Well, John Malkovich’s opening monologue for Saturday Night Live this past weekend took the cake. I was already laughing at his creepy attempt at bonding with the kids he was reading to, by telling them horrific facts that shattered the magic of Christmas, but then he said, “You know in Portugal they don’t call him St. Nick; his name is Pai Natal, and unless children leave him a stick of butter he steals one of their toes.”
Well Mr. Malkovich, as you said to Vinnie Vedecci later in the show, that is patently untrue! Luckily for my daughter, Pai Natal (or Father Christmas) is nowhere near that interesting. In fact, he’s the same commercial jolly fat man with a white beard and red suit you see at malls everywhere in America this time of year (although the Mall Santa is an admittedly scary breed). And just for the record, if Pai Natal did need something to stave off his craving for little childrens’ toes, it would probably be something like a jar of olive oil or some grilled sardines, not a stick of butter.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Dec 11, 2008 @ 15:00 EST5EDT
Sorry but this is all you.
It’s the same with getting a new car. Suddenly you see it everywhere on the streets even though you thought that if you get this specific model, you would/could be novel because you never noticed it that much before.
There are more jokes about germany currently on US TV.
How do I know?
I’m from Germany. I noticed… oh wait…
I think you misunderstood me. I wasn’t claiming that there are more jokes made about Portugal than anywhere else, just that I never noticed it until I moved here. The title
is just me being goofy, but also there’s a huge Portuguese population in NJ. No contention about jokes on Germany, I know it gets its fair share.