The Mystery of the “Y’a Bon!” Fez Man Revealed!

In a word of explanation of the horrifically racist “Banania” print inexplicably hanging upon the walls of my German kitchen, garrulous frog Guillaume writes:

Cher John —

Never heard of him.

As an arrogant Frenchman, I will not let you tarnish a proud part of France’s glorious colonial advertising past. The tirailleur sénégalais (tirailleurs sénégalais were Senegalese soldiers enrolled in the French army back in the 19th and 20th centuries) on the Banania ad is definitely not eating banana custard, but rather drinking chocolate milk.

I am relieved to hear it. A stereotypical African eating a dessert made entirely of bananas might have pushed the boundaries of social taste in a way that a black person smacking his lips over a tin can full of chocolate milk would not. Chocolate milk! It’s dark milk for dark people!

Banania is a cocoa powder brand still popular in France. Paradoxically, the ingredients never included bananas in any way, but the name must have sounded exotic at that time.

The slogan “Y’a bon” means “It is good” in petit-nègre (literally : little nigger) which is the French equivalent of broken english.

Again, let’s congratulate the French on their progressive stance towards renaming their linguistic dialects.

Due to legitimate complaints, the current Banania ads are slightly less racist.

I was in Dijon a few weeks back. No joke: I stumbled across an entire licensed shop selling nothing but vintage Banania memorabilia. There, I bought a cafe au lait cup larger than my hydrocephalic head with the “Y’a Bon” guy on it. I love it, but let’s face facts: obviously, they are still cashing in on this guy.

No, seriously, thanks Guillaume for setting the record straight. This is the best comment we’ve gotten all week.