My doctor has been very concerned that I’m not getting enough donuts in my diet, so much so that she demanded I get more vitamin donut, stat, or she’d send over some medical goons, paid from my own insurance, to work me over but good. I didn’t need that kind of hassle, so I got my ass over to Dunkin Donuts and presented my prescription for donuts. While selecting donuts based on the bloodwork paperwork I was given, one particular donut caught my gaze and gripped it, hard, maybe squeezed a bit. Here’s why: it was a taillight donut. Yes, a donut themed around taillights, the crux of my spiritual and social life. And yet I can’t figure out why this particular donut is a “taillight” donut? Luckily for Dunkin Donuts, though, I have ideas.
First, I need to show you the donut that Dunkin Donuts calls the Taillight Donut:
Now, immediately, I bet you noticed one thing about the Taillight Donut: it’s not red! Arguably, the one truly defining trait of a taillight, and its entirely absent! This seems like madness to me. Unless, maybe they were going for the blacked-out-and-white-plastic-ribs look of a 1980s Trans Am taillight?
I suppose this is possible, but only in the sense that it’s possible an octopus placed in front of a laptop could bang out some top-notch car blogs for me. Possible, but not likely. These were very much outlier taillights, and I think if anything, the visual association of the Taillight Donut with genuine taillights may be how the streaks of white frosting suggest a sort of possibly ribbed lens, or the play of light on a plastic lens? It’s really not clear.
I did reach out to Dunkin Donuts media relations department and asked them for the full story behind the Taillight Donut, and if they actually get back to me with real answers, I’ll do a whole follow-up article. Unless that follow-up proves to be a drunken phone call from Nathan “Dunkin” Deauxnaughts, and he tells me that if I know what’s good for me I’ll stop asking so many fucking questions about the Taillight donuts, lest he needs to “make the donuts” on me, with a crowbar.
Interestingly, the “taillight donut” concept exists outside of the Dunkin Donuts Cinematic Universe, with other practitioners of the donutty arts producing items that feel a lot more, well, taillighty:
The key difference here is, of course, the presence of red, in this case provided by the exposed jelly. This definitely feels more like a taillight, but not much more, and I think the correct way to go here is close to what Dunkin already does, just adjusted for color.
In fact, the easiest change would be this:
Let’s change the frosting from chocolate brown to whatever flavor red is. And maybe let’s make the white streaks a bit more regular, while we’re at it. That already feels way, way more like a taillight. But we can go further!
Let’s add in an amber turn indicator section, for safety reasons and a nice European flair. It feels even more like a taillight now! Shit, why are we stopping here, though? What is this, 1955? Reverse lamps should be standard! Let’s add some:
Yeah, now we’re cooking with taillights. That feels like a fun taillight. But could we go even further? I think so. What if we get rid of the reverse lamp done in icing, and instead plug that donut hole with a powdered sugar Munchkin/donut hole thing? Like this:
Oh man, now we’re really getting somewhere. Somewhere…specific! Let’s re-arrange some of these colors: white frosted reverse lamp on the main donut, and let’s get an orange frosted Munchkin, and…
We now have a donut version of the famous BMW 2002 taillight, arguably the finest round taillight ever crafted by human hands.
I think any of these suggestions would improve Dunkin Donuts’ Taillight Donut offerings, and if that organization has any sense whatsoever, they’ll listen to me. Otherwise, I’m taking these drawings right to Krispy Kreme, I swear it. I’ll teach you to ignore me, Nathan Deauxnaughts!
Slow news day Jason?
Can we start a Go Fund Me to Jason’s Octopus blogger? I want to see the results.
Results are fine, but I’m only donating if we also get to see the process.
Is it possible that it’s not supposed to look like a tail light? You eat it while standing by your tail light.
I stopped buying the donuts from Dunkin Donuts in Germany after they shrunk donuts and increased the price to €2.65 each this year. I could get bigger ones at cheaper price from German bakeries (usually €1.20 or thereabouts).
The company has been taken over by a private equity firm. They get a huge loan, buy the company, then have the company pay off the loan. The money comes from cutting everything to the bare bone, including salaries, staffing, ingredients, reducing the size of the product and raising the prices. Eventually the company declares bankruptcy when sales drop from all the “finding efficiencies” starves it to death. Look at the size of your local newspaper. That’s just one example. Cerberus, as an example, did the same to Chrysler, and almost killed the company.
What about the Italian ones? Ferrari, AR 8C etc.
“Let’s change the frosting from chocolate brown to whatever flavor red is.”
Keep it chocolate and dye it. It’s fine. Unless you just want fruit flavor.
“This one has purple stuff in it. Purple is a fruit.”
Admittedly, the easiest solution is the savory donut with ketchup and mustard, but that just seems wrong somehow.
How savory are we talking here?
Because we could take this in a very different direction: how about a burger patty with a hole in the middle of it?
Added bonus: ketchup + mustard make orange, so the coloring can be customized appropriately. Or we could use different varieties of [dyed] cheddar cheese for the orange.
“Go tailgating with the taillight burger!”
Technically it’s called graple.
Honestly, respect to the DD media relations team for responding with real answers. I’m unironically intrigued for the follow-up donut taillight tell-all … because it makes no sense to me whatsoever.
I’m surprised the bean-counters at DD didn’t try and sell you 6 red-frosted donuts as the Corvette taillight special.
Just use red frosting with orange drizzled over it LOL
Hopefully your doctor told you to stay far away from the lead donut. You already have enough lead in your diet.
That last one… Torch, you made a pokeball.
Dunkin’s taillight donut has so little to do with a car taillight, it must be named after its inventor, Julius P. Taillight.
No, it’s car taillights. Cops like smashing both.
How about just a glazed red velvet donut with orange sprinkles on one half?
It could come with a plain glazed donut hole on the side for that separate reverse light look.
I suspect a conspiracy here. Torch is known far and wide as an aficionado of ass-end auto illumination (or at least in that corner of Warp Carolina he calls home), as well as being a devotee of decorated deep-fried dough delights. I think his local Dunkin dealer keeps a “Tailights Donut” label behind the counter and quickly inserts it in the display case when employees see Jason approaching. The sign is sure to catch his eye and virtually guarantee a doubling of his intended purchase. Donut go into the taillights Carol Ann … er, Jason, I mean.
IDK what the hell the guy who created this “Taillight” donut does to his taillights to get that coloration out of them but all of the ways I can think of someone doing that is definitely on the extreme end of the NSFW category.
I once broke up with a girl because she pronounced it “Doug-nuts”
Is your name Doug?
You did the right thing.
That’s definitely not how you pronounce “it”.
What a weirdo.
Dammit, now I want a donut. Thanks a lot.
I went to high school with Nathan Deauxnaughts’ cousin, Bialy.
Do you think the hosers over at Tim Hortons have a taillight doughnut? I bet they do it right.
These days I think Restaurant Brands International is too busy with their American brands like Firehouse, Popeyes, Burger King etc to do much with Timmy’s.
I imagine they’d have a daytime running lamp donut, eh?
“…arguably the finest round taillight ever crafted by human hands.”
Those are nice but my favorite is to be found on the 1959 Ford. It warps time and space (or at least the rear bumper) in order to accommodate itself and it sports a nearby, and also round, backup light as a jaunty accessory:
https://live.staticflickr.com/7326/9661460009_3454978028.jpg
now THAT’S a taillight!
He’s not wrong.
I believe they prefer to be called Oompa-Loompas.
In my regular rotation is a t-shirt from TunerCult that is a parody of the Dunkin Donuts logo: Doin Donuts – America Runs on E85. (The shirts are now hideously expensive for some reason.)
However, searching Google Images for “doin donuts” reveals a lot of other merch bearing a similar image, though without the E85 tagline and replacing the cartoon fuel pump with a cartoon turbo. That’s fine, of course, but my concern is that there will be a generation of new auto enthusiasts who think that “donut” is a slang term for a turbo. They are more properly called “snails” or “spinney boys”. Thank you.
38 bones for a t-shirt? Fuck me running…
Right? That’s excessive. Even their clearance shirts are $30. :-O
is this a challenge? I can run pretty fast…
Jason you left out the most omportant information. Who is your Dr. and is she accepting patients? Can I get her hooked up with my weed Dr. and get properly regulated amount prescriptions for weed and donuts? Will she send a prescription by email? These are the topics that try mens souls and you left them unanswered. I assume Caduceus the Greek medical god or something or other rendered your Chang Li unusable for just this slight.
Only on the autopian do we have a donut taillight discussion
Damn right! This is why I’m here!
This is even more unhinged than normal and I can’t help but agree with every word. Shit, I’ve got the itis, don’t I?
Embrace the itis, TikiBunny! Be one with it!