Least-Common Pizza Topping
"We'll have one with everything but anchovies, and one with my all-time favorite topping, anchovies."—Philip J. Fry, Futurama
"Reindeer goat cheese pizza?!"—Eddie "Hudson Hawk" Hawkins reading from a menu
The characters are hungry! Who wants to cook a meal when calling the pizza delivery place is so much easier? So they call the pizza place, and what do they say?
"I want a large pepperoni pizza with no anchovies!" (Anchovies, by the way, are small fish, similar to sardines. They're really salty and really smelly - very much an acquired taste as a pizza topping.)
Fridge Logic dictates that no real pizza place would indiscriminately add the Least Common Pizza Topping to every order that did not specifically ask for it (and that chain pizzerias generally don't even carry anchovies). Nevertheless, it's been seen a million times and it is, very sadly, often Truth in Television — as Pizza Hut is your witness, this is how every small child envisions ordering a pizza.
Slightly more justified if the person is ordering one of the specials, which might otherwise include anchovies.
Examples of Least-Common Pizza Topping include:
Comic Books
- In one Spider-Man story, a hostage situation at a military base turns humiliating for the hero when the Scorpion (the hostage holder) tells him to bring him a pizza. Scorpion's reasoning is he can't ask the army-types to do it because "they're too good at killin' people" but he probably enjoyed seeing Spidey do it. Spidey, however, gets even by deliberately getting one with anchovies.
Film
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has Michelangelo ordering a pizza near the beginning of the movie as Splinter talks about the "art of invisibility". As Splinter is finishing up his speech, Mikey is just about to finish the order, and he says, "Oh, but no anchovies, and I mean no anchovies. You put anchovies on this thing and you're in big trouble, okay?" right before Splinter throws a book at his head.
- In Loverboy, teenaged Randy takes a job as a pizza delivery boy. Not long after, he stumbles into a job as a gigolo, and the women use the code "extra anchovies" to signal that the "delivery" is a "house call." The manager can't believe how popular that particular pizza topping has gotten.
- Inverted in Nick Danger in the Case of the Missing Yolk:
"Hello, I want to order some anchovies to go, and hold the pizza."
Literature
- In Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon, this is a Running Gag between Amber and Justin. They always ask for a pizza, "hold the anchovies," and then laugh at the mental image of the pizza boy holding an armful of anchovies.
- In the British Sonic the Hedgehog novels, the Metropolis Zone rats like pizza with anchovies and olives, both of which the other characters find repugnant.
- In Good Omens, after Famine stops at a biker bar, the bikers find that the only food left is a cold slice of anchovy and olive pizza.
- In the teen novel Stargirl, the Cloudcuckoolander protagonist is trying to fit in as a normal teen, but seems to have trouble grasping certain concepts. When she orders anchovies on her pizza, her boyfriend has to inform her of this trope.
Live Action TV
- 21 Jump Street episode "Gotta Finish the Riff"
Reginald Brooks: [ordering pizza for his hostages] I want 10 with sausage, 10 with pepperonis. And no anchovies. I see one anchovy and I kill the librarian.
- In Cheers, Norm likes his pizza with anchovies, which also assures that nobody asks him to share it.
- Friends episode "The One the Morning After" when Rachel is very pissed off with Ross:
Rachel: Yes, I'd like to order a large pizza.
Ross: No anchovies.
Rachel: With, uh, extra anchovies.
Ross: That's okay, I'll just pick 'em off.
Rachel: Yeah, and could you please chop some up and just put it right there in the sauce?
- This is one of Jane Espenson's Pet Peeve Tropes. She got her revenge by writing a Buffy the Vampire Slayer scene in which Dawn orders an anchovy pizza, then sings "Anchovies, Anchovies, you're so delicious/I like you better than the other fishes!"
- Fran at the end of a Power Rangers Jungle Fury episode has the others try chocolate-covered anchovies as a joke dish. Only RJ likes them, but since he's the owner of JKP...
- The Electric Company: In the original, common joke of many skits involving pizza, particularly (but not limited to) those with The Short Circus (the show's singing group of kids.
Music
- The J. Geils Band's "No Anchovies, Please" is all about this.
- Tom Smith's song "Domino Death" references this with adding "no anchovies, please" to the list of the many offenses that will garner your death at the hands of the psycho narrator.
Newspaper Comics
- Garfield is the only one in his household who likes anchovies, and finds it a useful way of hogging the pizza.
- In the newest cartoon adaptation, he hates anchovies as well. Odd, considering he likes fish as much as any other adaptation.
- In one old strip, Garfield is pretending to be a shark, and attacks a pizza in a feigned "feeding frenzy". His game is ruined in the last panel where he spits out the bite he took and says "Yuck! Anchovies!"
Recorded and Stand Up Comedy
- The Firesign Theatre: "No anchovies? You've got the wrong man. I spell my name...Danger!"
Video Games
- In World of Warcraft, Pineapple Pizza[1] is an item you can find in a Sealed Darkmoon Crate, which is found via fishing at the Darkmoon Faire. Clearly it's not very good, as it restores no Health or Mana at all, and reduces Stamina by 5% for 30 seconds.
Web Comics
- In the first K'Z'K arc of Sluggy Freelance, the heroes order a pizza after defeating the demon, and are more concerned about the fact that the pizza has anchovies on it than the fact that Gwynn is in a coma.
- In Wapsi Square, not only does Tina yell at... well, herself for ordering anchovies, but Monica's dog won't eat the things.
- Happens also in Irregular Webcomic with the greatest minds of all times
Western Animation
- Used to hilarious effect in a Disney's House of Mouse episode, in a song Goofy sings about being a waiter. The line "hold the anchovies" is juxtaposed with a shot of Ariel.
- Played with in Futurama. Fry is a huge fan of anchovies, but when he finally gets some to share with the rest of the crew, everyone hates it except for Fry. And Zoidberg. Anchovies are actually extinct (because Zoidberg's people ate them all), but no one cares. Except Zoidberg.
- In another episode, the crew gets trapped in a cave with only pizza as food... which they all refuse to eat because, as Hermes points out, they've all been "poisoned with pineapple."
- This What-a-Cartoon cartoon features a pizza boy who delivers a pizza to the Arctic Circle, and is denied a tip when it contains anchovies.
- In an episode of M.A.S.K., the weakness of a giant blob to salt is discovered when it avoids eating the anchovies from a pizza. Every time this is mentioned, someone inevitably says: "Well, I can understand about the anchovies!"
- In The Batman, the Penguin likes pizza with anchovies; of course, he tends to like fish in general in most incarnations.
- Another group of villains that like anchovies are the Delightful Children from Down the Lane in Codename: Kids Next Door. The Kids Next Door, however, are repulsed by them.
Real Life
- Developing a taste for anchovies is a reliable way to prevent others from stealing pizza, unless of course the other members of the group have learned the same strategy.
- Along with ordering more than five pizzas, ordering pizza with anchovies is sometimes taken as a hint that the order is a prank.
- There's a restaurant in Tucson, Arizona called "No Anchovies". They have an order which goes "And, if you must... Anchovies."
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