Sandwich Gets a National Nod

Our humble hometown has been getting some national press over the past couple of months.  

First, Lays Chips shot a commercial for their potato chips in town, in early January.  As part of their 'Do Us a Flavour' campaign, they came to town to debut Lobster Roll flavoured chips and shot the commercial at Beth's Bakery and Cafe', on Jarves Street.  Unfortunately the chips shown in the commercial, which even has Boardwalk on the bag, were just prototypes for the ad.  This has not really been released.  Not that I would ever actually eat them because, well, gross.  But it would have been nice to have a bag for posterity, and to send to friends and family that have moved away.

It tickles me every time the commercial runs on TV. It's cool to see on You Tube and all but to hear your humble hometown's name and see images of it on TV are neat.  Here's the commercial.  The only person Russell recognized in it is the fireman, who went to high school with him.  I only remember what he looked like in the 70s....he doesn't look familiar to me at all now.  

Then we reached the pinnacle of 'on the map' when George Takei shared a Sandwich Police meme on his Facebook page.

In all the years I lived there I never once thought of 'Sandwich police' .  Of course over time whenever people would ask where I was from, I would also get the inevitable chuckle and bad joke, "You're from Sandwich?  You're full of baloney!"  Or, "East Sandwich?  Is that near the crust?"  But the obvious Sandwich Police joke was never made.  

A quick google image search of 'Sandwich Police Meme' yielded these results:

And my personal fave,

HERE is a link to the Cape Cod Times article about the Sandwich PD's 15 minutes of fame on George Takei's Facebook page.  I've copied and pasted the text of the article below because the Time is a bit nazi about how many times you can access their website before paying (3 times a month).

SANDWICH — They are the protectors of the peanut butter and jelly, the guardians of the grilled cheese and they take no baloney.

They are the Sandwich police — giving new meaning to a hero sandwich.

Fresh off its fame in a Lay's potato chip commercial, the town with the best name invented since sliced bread is hamming it up on Facebook.

George Takei, an actor known for his portrayal of Sulu on "Star Trek" and now a social media icon, shared a Sandwich police meme on Feb. 23 that, as of Friday had 174,000 likes, 5,179 comments and was shared a whopping 51,799 times.

Forget the viral photo that had people trying to decipher the color of a dress in a store — these people have been seeing the black and white of a Sandwich police cruiser with a caption that reads: "Sorry ma'am, you’re under arrest, too much mayo."

Takei’s one-liner: "Criminals are just toast."

Glen Watson of Forestdale is one of the people who shared the meme. "We have achieved George Takei fame," he wrote.

Watson said it's great exposure for the town.

"For such an icon in the social media industry and genre to give attention to the town of Sandwich is a pretty cool thing," Watson said.

The meme was shared on former Selectman Linell Grundman’s wall by one of her first bosses with the U.S. Department of Defense.

"I didn’t get it at first," Grundman said laughing. "It took me a while."

Sandwich Police Chief Peter Wack is relishing the buzz his department is creating.

"Sorry it took so long to get back to you, we are running an undercover operation in the condiment aisle of the local supermarket," Wack said when contacted by the Times.

It’s not the first time Wack and his officers have heard the joke. It won’t be the last.

"Typically, a tourist might say something or if I’m out of the area, travelling, and they ask me what I do, I get a chuckle when I say I’m the Sandwich police chief," Wack said.

There certainly won’t be any complaint from Jay Pateakos, executive director of the Sandwich Chamber of Commerce, who is already getting a lot of calls from places like Alabama and the West Coast after the Lay's commercial aired across the country.

"It’s free exposure. There are towns trying to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to attract people," Pateakos said. "People know Sandwich now and we didn’t have to spend a cent."

The attention from Takei certainly won’t hurt, but it does put the town in a bit of a pickle.

"Now we have to be prepared for the people it will bring," Pateakos said.