Thursday, June 18, 2009

Best Retired Crayola Color?

Lowbrow Answer: Magic Mint (introduced in 1990, retired in 2003)
This one is so terrible it only lasted thirteen years. I'm not sure why they decided to suddenly associate the mint flavor with the color blue. Everybody knows that mint is green. It's part of the American flavor heritage. Grape is purple, lemon is yellow, licorice is black, and mint is green. Dumbasses. Next thing I know, you'll try to tell me that brown is cinnamon instead of poop.

"Magic" is one of those words that marketing people to use to make boring shit sound awesome. Kinda like "Super" or "Ultra." It's like dressing your crackhead, prostitute girlfriend in an evening gown before you take her to meet your parents. I can just picture it: "Hi mom and dad. This is my girlfriend, Ultra-Tanya."


Middlebrow Answer: Maize (introduced in 1949, retired in 1990)
What a nice earth tone this is. Reminds me of the sand on all the beaches I've been too that you wouldn't be able to pronounce, you prole filth. I bet most kids don't even know what this is and are confused about why a color would be named after a labyrinth. This is one of only seven colors of the standard 133 that has a 'Z' in it, and of those seven, it's the only one you'd want to use. The others all have dumb names like "Razzmatazz" or "Blizzard Blue" and look like the colors that a dog throws up after its eaten a pie.

I'd bet money that this was retired because somebody figured out that it's probably racist toward Native Americans. You might disagree with me on this, but remember, Crayola is the company that named a pink color "flesh." They are not the most accepting of minority cultures. I'm surprised this color isn't called "Broken Treaty" or "Smallpox Skin."


Highbrow Answer: Raw Umber (introduced in 1958, retired in 1990)
Now this is a color. Look at it. Absorb it. Taste it in your eye pallet. Feels like the kind of color you'd want for the binding of your biography, huh? That or the frame of your portrait that hangs in the Louvre after your die. Sorry, too late, I've got dibs on both. This color gives me a socialist boner. Can I get custom-made condoms in Raw Umber so that even my humppery is highbrow?

"Umber" is defined as an earth consisting chiefly of a hydrated oxide of iron and some oxide of manganese. So let me get this straight. You've got colors with names like "Cotton Candy" and "Wild Watermelon" and "Blush" but THIS is the one you choose to retire? Are you TRYING to be lowbrow swine? I'm insulted that this color ever had to sit in the same box with all the others. Couldn't it have had a separate little apartment on the back?

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