S09.E12: Subway

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Main topic:  Subway

Also:  PA Governor race; some things they say in Texas

Original air date 2022.05.22

[scarynikki12]

"Shortest term to ever be served by a little bitch." Snicker.

Glad Ollie pointed out the dangerous positions of Mastriano including his promise to rig future elections.

A man wearing a flag ensemble gave him a sword. Batshit crazy.

I'm also glad he pointed out that Shapiro boosting Mastriano to be his opponent is risky as it doesn't guarantee an easy win. I agree with Ollie that I hope they know what they're doing.

I suspect that no one in Texas ever actually says any of those phrases and the ones they do say just don't make it on tv.

Subway: Dad's attempt at dinner. Ok that was more entertaining than I expected. 

The Subway product placement was always so over the top that you couldn't avoid it no matter how hard you tried. I did love watching Ollie explain the plot of that one Korean show. He should do a web series explain ridiculous plots of various shows.

[Annber03]

3 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

I suspect that no one in Texas ever actually says any of those phrases and the ones they do say just don't make it on tv.

I'm still trying to figure out that alligator/hummingbird one. Just...what? Didn't realize how many of their supposed sayings seem to involve dead animals.

For the love of all that is good, how much longer is Trump's freaking grip going to last on the GOP and this country as a whole? He lost two years ago and we still can't get rid of the guy or his influence on other candidates. Go. Away. Already. 

Really loving, too, all the GOP candidates talking about how they're going to push all these abortion restrictions while in the same breath talking about protecting the second amendment. That good ol' "Christian/pro-life" hypocrisy rearing its head again, I see. Just so insane. 

I was hoping John would mention the Subway product placement that appeared on "Community" :D. I didn't realize Korean shows apparently loved to do it, too - that clip from that one with the woman telling the guy she liked him was truly something. Especially since the guy's only response to anything seemed to just be, "What?" Communication clearly isn't going to be that couple's strong point, I see :p. 

I also laughed at John pointing out that Subway's new logo is just two arrows 69-ing each other XD. And god, that Fogle clip... So awkward. So, so hideously awkward. 

I was surprised at the info about Subway being the biggest franchise at first, but once John explained how comparatively easy it was to start up one of those, as opposed to a McDonald's or Starbucks, that explained that. Even then, though, all this other information about how that company does its business was very eye-opening indeed. I mean, when you wind up having to testify before a Congressional committee about the shady stuff happening in your company, or, as John noted, you have to hide in shadow and use one of those voice modulator things to even do an interview, you know you've taken a deeply wrong turn somewhere. I'd like to hope there is some effort being made to regulate this stuff better, but given all the other issues we're struggling to tackle right now, well...

[kittykat]

So I'm a little conflicted.  I'm glad we got the drop that Cawthorn lost his primary.  And that GOP governor is a piece of work.  I do understand the Democrats wanting to go against a far righter vs a centrist but it is still a way too risky move that could backfire horribly. 

My issue was that there was not one single mention of Buffalo, arguably the most important, terrible event that happened all week.  Especially with last week's disclaimer that the episode was filmed before the news broke.  Maybe John just didn't know what else to say that hasn't been said already or a future main story has been marked.  I mean when John mentioned they were going to talk about sandwiches I thought it was going to be a two minute joke and then John would be all haha you think I'm talking about sandwiches for 25 minutes?  Wrong!  The main story is shootings.  But then.. he talked about Subway for 25 min.

Don't get me wrong the story was informative and now I wanna delve into the rabbit hole of Korean sandwich dramas but definitely not the direction I expected the episode to take.

[ahisma]

58 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

A man wearing a flag ensemble gave him a sword. Batshit crazy.

And for a candidate who likes to wear ties with Biblical sayings, he brandished the sword and said, “Where’s Goliath?” Who was famously killed by a stone from a sling…

[paigow]

Ben Kim from Billions!!!

[Lantern7]

Watched the episode this morning. In three words:

I like Subway. I don’t eat it all the time, but I felt dirty watching. John was informative as always, showing the franchise’s expansion lust. Now I realize where Jimmy John’s use sandwich mafioso as their competition in their commercials. But I like Subway. I wanted to get a Sweet Onion Steak Teriyaki sandwich, and now I got John and sponsored K-dramas in my head.

Pennsylvania . . . yikes. Too close to home, in that I live in New York, and only New Jersey is between us and state where a very unhinged man could possibly become governor.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Lantern7

[Welshman in Ca]

There was a Simpsons episode where Marge opens a sandwich shop franchise, a very good & sometimes eye opening episode obviously aimed at Subway.

[paigow]

53 minutes ago, peeayebee said:

Mastriano is a nightmare. I hope to God that the Democrats can defeat him, ...

by recruiting Madison Cawthorn to fully endorse Mastriano

[arachne]

Finally, a LWT main story that I can actually do something about -- as in, never eat from Subway again! 

[JustHereForFood]

14 hours ago, kittykat said:

I mean when John mentioned they were going to talk about sandwiches I thought it was going to be a two minute joke and then John would be all haha you think I'm talking about sandwiches for 25 minutes?  Wrong! 

Haha, I totally thought the same. I didn't have any guess for the real topic, but I thought that no way it will be sandwiches.

Then, I almost expected John to say at the end that he opened one restaurant, just to show how easy it was and he would donate all earnings to some struggling owner next to him or something. And have some ads saying "Our bread IS real bread" and "Our tuna is TOTALLY tuna".

Not sure what was the point of having all those sandwitches delivered to him in the end of the episode. Was he going to offer them to staff or guests, or just throw them away?

[swanpride]

Subway doesn't sell bread...and due to the lack of bread in their products, I never quite got how they even managed to spread out in Germany so much when you can get and actual bread roll with proper topping at every bakery. The only explanation is that it is this cool American thing young people fall for.  But I am aware that there have been lawsuits against and by subway in Germany too. 

[Wilbur Whateley]

16 hours ago, kittykat said:

So I'm a little conflicted.  I'm glad we got the drop that Cawthorn lost his primary.  And that GOP governor is a piece of work.  I do understand the Democrats wanting to go against a far righter vs a centrist but it is still a way too risky move that could backfire horribly. 

My issue was that there was not one single mention of Buffalo, arguably the most important, terrible event that happened all week.  Especially with last week's disclaimer that the episode was filmed before the news broke.  Maybe John just didn't know what else to say that hasn't been said already or a future main story has been marked.  I mean when John mentioned they were going to talk about sandwiches I thought it was going to be a two minute joke and then John would be all haha you think I'm talking about sandwiches for 25 minutes?  Wrong!  The main story is shootings.  But then.. he talked about Subway for 25 min.

Don't get me wrong the story was informative and now I wanna delve into the rabbit hole of Korean sandwich dramas but definitely not the direction I expected the episode to take.

I suspect there is a big episode coming up soon about The Great Replacement/Replacement Theory, and it will be mentioned there. That's a new angle and is worth discussing.  But I don't think they have a lot of interest in just ticking off boxes and mentioning things just because they were in the news, so it doesn't surprise me they didn't cover it.  Despite their broad name, they're really pretty selective in their topics and try to talk about more obscure issues if they can.

[vibeology]

So the Subway franchise program is like a pyramid scheme? It's LuLaRoe. You pay a butt ton of money to get in, you have to compete with other people directly with total approval from the company, once you're in you can move up the line as a development manager and then you have a downline you make money off of. And like LuLaRoe, the product has taken a turn for the worse. It's quite fucked up.

[Lugal]

On 5/22/2022 at 8:41 PM, scarynikki12 said:

Subway: Dad's attempt at dinner. Ok that was more entertaining than I expected.

Funny, because when my dad came out to visit me, we usually would get dinner at Subway (until it closed).

I saw comments from Irish lawyers that apparently due to the sugar content in Subway's bread, it was classified as cake, which is important because bread is considered a staple and taxed at a lower rate, while cake is considered a luxury and taxed higher.

And John answered the question of why Subway shows up in every K-Drama I watch.  I loved the drama at the end.  "You carried that in your pocket all day?"  "Don't eat it, we don't know if it's really meat."

As for Pennsylvania (I grew up there), it reminds me of the old joke: Pennsylvania, it's Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other and Alabama in the middle.

[Enigma X]

Subway has always struck me as one sandwich away from food poisoning. Therefore, I have always avoided it. 

[DoctorAtomic]

Please tell me someone else thought this was going to be about public transportation. 

I couldn't tell you where any Subway was located in my (mid size) city, but I looked on google maps and there's 10. Close enough I could drive to each and get a footlong like John did. 

[paigow]

54 minutes ago, Lugal said:

Funny, because when my dad came out to visit me, we usually would get dinner at Subway (until it closed).

Your town only had ONE Subway??? Someone at head office is gonna get fired....

[peeayebee]

1 hour ago, Lugal said:

I saw comments from Irish lawyers that apparently due to the sugar content in Subway's bread, it was classified as cake, which is important because bread is considered a staple and taxed at a lower rate, while cake is considered a luxury and taxed higher.

Thanks, I wondered what the significance of the argument was.

[iMonrey]

I kind of thought the Subway piece was unworthy of this show and the closest they've come to doing a hatchet job. Buying into any big-name franchise comes with risk and I don't really think Subway is any better or worse than any other. Good people buy into this franchise and a lot of them are doing good work and selling a decent product. A piece like this could potentially damage their business. John isn't usually in the habit of endangering the livelihoods of people. 

I don't have any skin in this game, I don't work for Subway or anything, but this felt like low hanging fruit. I'm guessing you can dig up dirt equal or worse with minimal work on any similar franchised business.

[paigow]

4 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Good people buy into this franchise and a lot of them are doing good work and selling a decent product. A piece like this could potentially damage their business.

Agreed. However, Subway is undermining these good people with saturation / cannibalization... A Starbucks on every corner is a differently striped cat because those are corporate stores, not franchises.

[wknt3]

18 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I kind of thought the Subway piece was unworthy of this show and the closest they've come to doing a hatchet job. Buying into any big-name franchise comes with risk and I don't really think Subway is any better or worse than any other. Good people buy into this franchise and a lot of them are doing good work and selling a decent product. A piece like this could potentially damage their business. John isn't usually in the habit of endangering the livelihoods of people. 

I don't have any skin in this game, I don't work for Subway or anything, but this felt like low hanging fruit. I'm guessing you can dig up dirt equal or worse with minimal work on any similar franchised business.

I can see why you would feel that way, but I think they spent a fair amount of time on the piece on why they ARE worse than other big-name franchises. Specifically the lack of exclusivity, not giving any sort of financial projections, and higher fees. The hit piece aspect was in the discussion of the food and to some extent the material about their Asian marketing strategy. That is par for the course. I'm not sure if that was just to "sex up" the piece or if they couldn't find a comic hook in the exploitation of what are all too often good, but naive people.

I wish the piece was more tightly focused, because I work in banking and can say I have witnessed what John is talking about and more. The company simply does not have the same business model as other big-name francises in many respects. They act more like a startup trying to go national quickly than a market leader. And while there are a lot of good people doing their best that doesn't mean it's not worth exploring how many of them are being exploited. After all there were a lot of good but naive people involved in the opioid epidemic and nobody said John shouldn't expose the corporate liars who roped them in.

Edited May 26, 2022 by wknt3

[JustHereForFood]

15 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I kind of thought the Subway piece was unworthy of this show and the closest they've come to doing a hatchet job. Buying into any big-name franchise comes with risk and I don't really think Subway is any better or worse than any other. Good people buy into this franchise and a lot of them are doing good work and selling a decent product. A piece like this could potentially damage their business. John isn't usually in the habit of endangering the livelihoods of people. 

I don't have any skin in this game, I don't work for Subway or anything, but this felt like low hanging fruit. I'm guessing you can dig up dirt equal or worse with minimal work on any similar franchised business.

I don't have many illusions about what gets picked up as a topic and what not. This is the most famous show of this format, so there must be a lot of lobbying behind the scenes. I suppose someone might have been interested in exploring this particular brand.

[wknt3]

2 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

I don't have many illusions about what gets picked up as a topic and what not. This is the most famous show of this format, so there must be a lot of lobbying behind the scenes. I suppose someone might have been interested in exploring this particular brand.

I doubt topical comedy shows have any effects on second tier fast food chains. Just ask John's old boss. Arby's is still in business...

[iMonrey]

Quote

However, Subway is undermining these good people with saturation / cannibalization... A Starbucks on every corner is a differently striped cat because those are corporate stores, not franchises.

Nevertheless, boycotting Subway because of their business practices only further hurts the franchisees. That's really the only likely outcome of a piece like this - people who see it and decide not to patronize the eatery because of it. 

Quote

After all there were a lot of good but naive people involved in the opioid epidemic and nobody said John shouldn't expose the corporate liars who roped them in.

Apples and oranges. (Or, food and drugs.) The only people who lose money due to bad publicity on pharmaceuticals is the pharmaceutical makers themselves. A story like this is more likely to harm the franchisees than their corporate overlords. 

Granted - the people who are in charge of the franchise are definitely guilty of disreputable business practices, no doubt. I just thought the angle of this story was one-sided and tone deaf. 

[Rlb8031]

On 5/26/2022 at 6:19 PM, iMonrey said:

Nevertheless, boycotting Subway because of their business practices only further hurts the franchisees. That's really the only likely outcome of a piece like this - people who see it and decide not to patronize the eatery because of it. 

Apples and oranges. (Or, food and drugs.) The only people who lose money due to bad publicity on pharmaceuticals is the pharmaceutical makers themselves. A story like this is more likely to harm the franchisees than their corporate overlords. 

Granted - the people who are in charge of the franchise are definitely guilty of disreputable business practices, no doubt. I just thought the angle of this story was one-sided and tone deaf. 

You've got to look at this the other way though. Because of the things John mentioned (frequent and abundant advertising, lower entry costs) Subway is an attractive franchise for someone looking to open a business. If you've ever watched Undercover Boss, you'd see how often people buy into franchises and don't really understand their agreement, or what is required of them to make the franchise successful. If this piece saves someone previously considering it from buying in, then it actually is beneficial to the current franchisees. 

The public (and the regulators) are now aware of the problems with the company and it reduces the odds Subway will open another store RIGHT NEXT DOOR reducing their profits and devaluing their current business. I'm sure even the blackened, silhouetted, franchise owner would try to discourage others from making the same mistake.