![]() It’s like you’re at the circus, only you’re drinking an overpriced margarita and you’re the beautiful freakshow. Señor Frog’s is at its most Señor Frogg-y, forcing a crowd to sing for you and parading you around with a balloon animal stuck to your head. On a birthday-when you’re there to be big and loud-a chain restaurant fulfills its true calling. But here, unlike in other restaurant settings, that type of ego-trip is forgivable given that the entertainment is just as much for bystanders it is a friendly reminder that they could have it this good too. In the glare of a restaurant's fluorescent lighting, flanked by an army of identically dressed performers, you are undeniably star of your own birthday show-the center of attention in a competitive world of onion blooms and totchos. ![]() That even extends to the song performed in front of your table, which might include lyrics like, “Fried chicken, country hog, it’s your birthday: Hot dog!” (Until recently “Happy Birthday To You” was copyrighted.) A birthday celebration is a distillation of each restaurant’s signature brand of kitsch. Friday’s) Tacky Italian-Americana? (Olive Garden) Spring Break Bonanza? (Señor Frog’s) Pyrotecnics ? (Benihana ) Breakfast when you’re wasted after forcing your friends to buy you shots all night? (Waffle House). In effect, these over-the-top parties are brilliant marketing ploys to celebrate life's biggest events, and ones that can be spun for any corporate identity. Witnessing the experience firsthand harkens back to childhood nostalgia (or spring break in Cabo) but, even more so, it reminds us of their show-stopping power, a spectacle that predates the "OMFG" reaction elicited by doughnut cones tailor-made for Instagram. Fridays, Olive Garden, and Señor Frogs, whose artifice and kitsch are a fertile breeding ground for a specific brand of gonzo celebration. ![]() While those traditions live on in homes across the country, they are peculiarly enshrined in the culinary halls of corporate America too: chain restaurants like T.G.I. ![]() The soundtrack to these events, "The Birthday Song," appeared in the 1930s, and with it came a new era of American birthday parties featuring cake, entertainment, and singing-and maybe some party hats, if you were lucky. Freestanding cakes came into favor with the invention of the freestanding stove. In the 19th century, wealthy parents realized a great way to show off their wealth was to throw over-the-top parties for their children, which doubled as a way to teach their tykes proper etiquette. The Greeks may have been the first to put candles on their cakes- to make them glow, as a tribute to moon goddess Artemis-but we can thank the Victorians for shaping American birthday celebrations as we know them today. ![]()
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