Pizza as a Punch Line

The Jerk (USA, 1979). Back when Lipton Cup-a-Soup was still a novelty … Naive carnival worker Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) invites cosmetician Marie (Bernadette Peters) over for dinner in his trailer and explains that he got all his furniture cheap when the Cup o’Pizza restaurant shut down. Joke’s not finished yet: The couple starts eating something from plastic containers with red lettering. “Oh, this is the best Pizza in a Cup ever!” Navin raves. “This guy is unbelievable! He ran the old Cup o’Pizza guy out of business.”