Pretzel - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

The pretzel has become an element in popular culture, both as a food staple and its unique knotted twist shape which has inspired ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena. Although historically, the pretzel has influenced culture it has recently been heavily influenced by mass media.

• Landscape architecture and sculpture memorialized the strong identity that the City of Philadelphia had with pretzel cuisine of local bakers and popularity in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Recreation Department renamed in 2004 a facility formerly identified as Manayunk Park, located on the 4300 block of Silverwood Street as "Pretzel Park." The re-designed park includes pretzel like looped pathways and a public art statue in the shape of a pretzel sculpted by Warren C. Holzman.
• Municipal government adopts pretzel logo as trademark by the City of Freeport, Illinois, also known as "Pretzel City USA".
• Dance steps developed in swing dancing became the "pretzel dance move", which dates back to the 1920s.
• Furniture Design inspired Pretzel Chair designed in 1952 by George Nelson.
• Amusement ride of the Pretzel Loop design in Roller coaster elements maximizes the g-forces on riders, increasing the "thrill element" of riding a roller coaster. On a pretzel loop, riders are upside down at the beginning, and on their backs and going backwards at the bottom.
• Fashion inspired sling bikini is a pretzel bathing suit design emerged in the early 1990s, as a new fashion product of Spandex. It is a bikini variant, haltered maillot that criss-crosses the front and fastens to the waistline. With the advent of the 1990s fabric known as Lycra, these bikinis first emerged and became most popular on the beaches of Europe, including Saint Tropez, Marabella, Mykonos and Ibiza.
• "Pretzel Logic" is the name of a single released by the pop music group Steely Dan from their album Pretzel Logic, originally released in 1974. Pretzel Nugget is a 1994 EP by the Beastie Boys, released on the Grand Royal records label.
• Slang "Pretzelphyte" meaning a follower loyal to soft pretzels; or a soft pretzel aficionado.
• Ecosystem ecology The "SolVin-Pretzel" because of its shape was the name given to the inflatable United Nations Global Canopy Programme's light weight research platform which is placed on top of the canopy of rainforests to study the ecology below.
• Viral Media President George W. Bush faints in January 2002 after choking on a pretzel. He tells a press conference, "When you're eating pretzels, chew before you swallow. Listen to your mother."