The subject of the top ten countdown on the Letterman show this evening was "Discontinued Guy Fieri Menu Items" at Fieri's Times Square restaurant, which was the subject of a zero-star "poor" New York Times review today that caused a sensation.

First, Dave read a couple of descriptions taken straight from Pete Wells' review -- which Paul Shaffer and Letterman quipped about, saying things like "Sounds pretty good to me." -- then made mild fun of the Times as a newspaper. Finally, Letterman launched into the top ten list of dishes rejected from the menu of Guy's American Kitchen & Bar:

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thesmarterwallet.com

Good parenting or bad? Depends on how how much you like hamburgers.

Too early to start thinking about your Halloween costume? Hardly. Remember there are only two more weekends until the sainted holiday, and some of these costume ideas will take some sawing or sewing.

What case can we make for attiring yourself as a hamburger? Well, if everyone did it, wouldn't it be far out! Imagine Christopher Street as a sea of bobbing hamburgers around midnight. Who doesn't love a hamburger? Who wouldn't love to be a hamburger? Here are the foremost examples we found on the Web.

[See More Bad Food Jokes: How To Make Lunch Without Leaving the Office | Toothpaste & Orange Juice Ice Cream]

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East 5th Street, 12:40pm

Check out our archive of Bad Food Jokes

imgur.com

And then make some coffee before returning to work.

[See More Bad Food Jokes: Toothpaste & Orange Juice Ice Cream | It Happened One Sunday Afternoon . . .]

Could this be the ice cream of your dreams? Or nightmares?

[See More Bad Food Jokes: It Happened One Sunday Afternoon... | Jon Stewart Dishes on Chick-fil-A's Dan Cathy]

Update: As we suspected, based partly on the unnatural color of the toothpaste chunks, this new Ben & Jerry's flavor is a complete hoax. We heard back from Sean Greenwood at Ben & Jerry's, and he was emphatic, in a nice way: "No toothpaste concoctions here. Not fo' reals at all." He went on to suggest that Chocolate Therapy is about as strange as it gets up there in Vermont: "Chocolate Therapy ice cream (choc ice cream, choc pudding and choc cookies) is one of the crazier concoctions and should be available in prescription strength!"

Read our original story, below:

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eatitdetroit.com

Thanks to the blog Eat It Detroit for publishing this.

On December 9, 1978, 17 years after Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published, and after Julia Child had become a beloved household name, Dan Aykroyd donned a wig and did a parody of her hit show, The French Chef. Now, in anticipation of the Julia Child centenary next month, and the publication of a new biography entitled Dearie, we've dusted off the ancient clip.

Next: Jacques Pepin reveals the skit was based on an actual incident.

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1. Insulting signage, even when humorously intended, will still be seen as insulting by many, and the more thoughtful will realize it's also seriously passive-aggressive. It makes you not want to go inside.

[See More Bad Food Jokes: 5 Funniest TV Food Commercials of Stan Freberg | 10 Funniest Food Hats]

You've probably noticed the proliferation of chalkboard signs in front of restaurants during the last couple of years. It makes sense for restaurateurs for a variety of reasons -- it's a free form of advertising; it commandeers unpaid space in the common thoroughfare; and, when cleverly used, can be instrumental in drawing patrons into an establishment. Moreover, there is no limit to the creativity that can be exercised with colored chalk and an imagination. If one approach proves ineffective, different layouts and messages can be tried.

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Starring character actor Jesse White, this commercial, circa 1960, treats Esskay franks as if you could smoke them.

Born 1926, Stan Freberg was an American satirist, active in the 1950s through the 1980s. Something of a Renaissance Man, he was a radio personality, comedian, wrote books, voiced animated characters in films, and worked in the Mad Men-era advertising industry, writing and producing commercials for TV. In that capacity, Freberg is often credited with introducing humor into commercials for the first time - previous TV ads were usually deadpan endorsements of products by talking heads. His high concept/low tech approach is still influential today. Many of his commercials involved food products, and here are the five funniest.

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