I’d like to start by taking a moment to once again thank Kroger for its swift action to rectify an issue I had back in 2010 (typically, there would be a link to an older blog there, but the WBAP website was recently redesigned and the old blogs disappeared. You have to click on this google cache, instead).

Having said that, another issue has arisen that I feel like I cannot ignore. While walking past the seafood section of the Kroger by my house the other day, I noticed the sign to the left.

This particular sign did not offer any details on what, exactly, Crab-a-Ganza is. I suspect Kroger had launched some sort of crab initiative aimed at increasing sales, but that sign did not make me want to find out. It only made me want to take a picture while hiding behind the olive oil.

Here is a list of things I would consider the phrase “Crab-a-Ganza” more likely to describe than a crab sale:

1.) Venereal disease (obviously)

2.) Pilot in the German Luftwaffe: “The Great Crabaganza shot down a record 204 Allied fighters before crashing off the coast of Marseilles when he thought he thought he saw Marlene Dietrich inside his aircraft and began licking the altimeter. This is how the Germans learned pilots can experience oxygen deprivation at high g-forces.”

3.) 1920’s era magician. But not a legendary magician. A sickly, less talented magician who ekes out a living by traveling with Vaudeville shows and eventually dies after the ventriloquist’s dummy punches him in the stomach: “Having not heard from him or received his rent, the slumlord left the Great Crabaganza’s meager possessions strewn along the street.”

4.) Sitcom starring Tony Danza as Tony Crabaganza, a street-smart New York City police detective who is also a single man trying to raise the precocious young daughter of a mobster he put away.

All of those things sound just horrible. None make me want to buy crab.

Certainly, Kroger’s marketing department faced a daunting task: how can you spur crab sales without sounding strange? The word, “crab,” just doesn’t fit handsomely into other words.

Consider the options: Crab-a-palooza … Holiday Crab-tacular … Crab-a-baloo … Festival of Crabs-giving … Saturnali-Crab.

I could go on (12 Days of Crab-Mas!), but the point is clear: nothing sounds good when you add crab to it. Instead, Kroger should consider broadening the name of its campaign.

I would have curiously wandered over to a display called “Crustacean Village” and taken a look around. A sign reading “ScuttleFest” would have been adorable, maybe with several cartoon crabs walking in formation across a beach toward an attractive lady crab. The crabs in this scenario would be wearing sunglasses, of course.

I love arthropod-themed wordplay as much as the next guy (The Great Crab-Opolis!), but it just doesn’t seem like crab is ready to headline an advertising campaign.