[wordup] "Oh, daddy, this tastes like grandma!"

[Adam Shand]

From: http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,61091,00.html

Simpsons Plant Seeds of Invention 
By Kristen Philipkoski
02:00 AM Nov. 07, 2003 PT

Homer Simpson is not a guy people want to emulate. "D'oh!" is his 
most-used expression, and with good reason. His endeavors tend to go 
horribly, horribly wrong.

Nevertheless, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, dreamed of bringing to 
life his favorite The Simpsons episode, one from 1999 in which Homer 
grows "tomacco," a combination tomato-tobacco plant. Even though it 
tastes foul and has a brown, gooey center, the entire town becomes 
addicted to the fruit after one bite, and Homer gets rich.

Baur grafted a tomato plant onto tobacco roots, and voilà, he had a 
real, live tomacco plant. The two plants can successfully become one 
because they come from the same plant family, which also includes 
eggplant and the deadly nightshade. The tomacco even bore fruit, 
although Baur said he believes it's poisonous because it likely 
contains a lethal amount of nicotine.

"I've got this one plant growing, and it's blooming again," Baur said. 
"I accidentally left the tomacco on the kitchen table, and my wife 
yelled at me, 'Get that thing out of the kitchen, you knucklehead!' 
Because it looks like a regular tomato."

Earlier in the summer, Baur tried grafting a tobacco plant onto a 
tomato root and got a "tobato," but when he removed the bandage from 
the graft it fell apart and later died.

But the tomacco grafted together well. Baur wanted to know if it was a 
true hybrid, so he asked a forensic researcher to test the plant's 
constitution. The results showed the leaves did indeed contain 
nicotine. The local Fox News station, KPTV, did a segment on Baur's 
accomplishment.

"He only had the one fruit, and we didn't get a chance to test that," 
said Roy Grimsbo, the forensic scientist who performed the test and 
director of Intermountain Forensic Laboratories in Portland. "We just 
tested the leaves. It had regular green fresh leaves."

Grimsbo did the work for free and said he hopes Baur will bring back an 
actual tomacco fruit for testing.

The Simpsons tomacco episode struck a chord with Baur, who is an 
operations analyst for a municipal waste water-treatment plant. He 
remembered a 1959 study he had read for a graduate chemistry class at 
Western Washington University in Bellingham, in which researchers 
crossed a tomato plant with tobacco. Since his work involves chemistry, 
he had saved his textbooks and was able to find the 1959 study.

"I thought, 'Aha! I bet the writer of this Simpsons show had to have 
seen this too,'" Baur said. "I felt a bond with that Simpsons writer."

It turns out that George Meyers, a writer for The Simpsons at the time, 
got a degree in biochemistry from Harvard. However, he didn't write the 
tomacco episode. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham, who majored in 
English at Brown University and has said in interviews that he's a huge 
fan of Meyers. Neither could be reached for comment.

The tomacco episode also resonated with Baur because he's not a big fan 
of the tobacco industry. His mother, a lifetime smoker, died of lung 
cancer. His father, who also smoked all his life, had one lung removed 
and later died of colon cancer. Baur also lost an uncle to lung cancer.

"It really showed big tobacco for what it is, and the ridiculousness of 
this stuff that tastes bad, but then you're addicted to it, and the 
lengths people will go to get it," he said.

In the episode, Bart Simpson says, "It's smooth and mild -- and 
refreshingly addictive," when he eats tomacco. Another scene shows 
Ralph taking a bite of a tomacco. "Oh, daddy, this tastes like 
grandma!" he says.

Baur said his kids think he's nuts, but he said he'll have the last 
laugh.

"We'll see who's saying 'D'oh' when I'm on the cover of TV Guide and 
Scientific American the same week," he said.

At least he didn't try to make "Skittlebrau."