Times are tough for the lowly peanut. Pro-legume president Jimmy Carter is long gone from the White House. Schools and airlines have started banning the snack because of potentially fatal allergies. And peanut sales have sputtered in recent years.
So the National Peanut Board did what anyone else would do in such circumstances: It built a 32-foot-high peanut out of steel and foam and began driving it around the U.S.
It also hired a costumed mascot named Buddy McNutty, not to be confused with a certain monocle-wearing peanut who works for the Planters company.
"I am not Mr. Peanut," McNutty stressed during an interview. "Mr. Peanut wears tights. I wear leggings."
Over the weekend, McNutty and his entourage visited Los Angeles as part of the National Peanut Tour, a traveling exhibit of peanut propaganda. They parked their giant peanut outside the L.A. Zoo and entertained visitors with peanut trivia, recipes and paraphernalia.
They also had a peanut museum that displayed a video on the making of peanut butter ("Find out what jelly is so happy about"), a replica peanut plant (peanuts grow underground, not on trees) and amusing peanut facts:
* In 1500 BC, the Incas of Peru used peanuts as a sacrificial offering to their deities.
* Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.
* Two peanut farmers have been elected president--Carter and Thomas Jefferson.
* Mountaineer Tom Miller used his nose to push a peanut to the top of Colorado's Pikes Peak in four days, 23 hours and 47 minutes (if true, that beats the record set by Texan Bill Williams, who took three weeks and went through 170 pairs of pants to accomplish the same feat in 1929).
* The world's largest peanut butter and jelly sandwich was 40 feet long and contained 150 pounds of peanut butter and 50 pounds of jelly. It was assembled in 1993 in the town of Peanut, Pa.
* When making PB&J sandwiches, 96% of Americans put the peanut butter on before the jelly.
Also joining the tour was peanut chef Duane Nutter (yes, that's really his name, and he has a Georgia driver's license to prove it). Normally, Nutter dishes up a mixture of comedy and cooking, but the zoo didn't have room for his kitchen, so he paced around in his peanut-shell foam hat, greeting visitors.
