A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from March 27, 2011
Rectum Rocket (White Castle hamburger nickname)

White Castle’s hamburgers have been unofficially called “rectum rockets” since at least 1986 because of what the hamburgers supposedly do to the human digestive system. Other nicknames for White Castle hamburgers include the unofficial “belly bomb(er)” and “whitey one-bite” and the trademarked “slider/slyder.”
 
   
Wikipedia: White Castle (restaurant)
White Castle is an American regional fast-food hamburger restaurant chain in the Eastern United States, and the first of its kind in the US. It is known for its small, square hamburgers. Sometimes referred to as “sliders”, the burgers were priced at five cents until the 1940s, and remained at ten cents for years thereafter while the burgers became smaller. For several years, when the original burgers sold for five cents, White Castle periodically ran promotional ads in local newspapers which contained coupons offering five burgers for ten cents, takeout only.
 
Urban Dictionary
rectum rockets
A hamburger from Tha Castle. It goes in easy, but comes out like a rocket, with an added gas blast.
Man those rectum rockets were killer.
by J dizzle Sep 3, 2003
   
Google Groups: rec.humor
Newsgroups: rec.humor
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Bryan Hannahs)
Date: 23 Jun 91 09:59:34 GMT
Local: Sun, Jun 23 1991 4:59 am
Subject: Re: American food, etc.
 
> How about:
> White Castle == The Black Shack, home of the gutt bomb
 
and…rectum rockets, ratburgers, sliders…
Why are there always 5 holes in WC’s hamburgers?
Cause it takes 5 bullets to kill the rat!
   
17 October 1986, Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, “David Dale’s America,” pg. 13, col. 1:
White Castle burgers are known affectionately in Columbus (Ohio—ed.) as “sliders” or ” rectum rockets”.
       
Google Groups: rec.humor
Newsgroups: rec.humor
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (George Goble)
Date: Sun, 1 May 1994 12:47:14 GMT
Local: Sun, May 1 1994 7:47 am
Subject: Re: Rectum Joke (White Castle Hamburgers)
   
In Lafayette, In, White Castle Hamburgers are often called “RECTUM ROCKETS”... They were even called that on the air by a local DJ (Rick Mummy then at WKHY).. Also called “sliders” or “gut bombs”.. 5 or 6 years ago, the Lafayette White Castle opened, the Purdue Exponet reported the sales of 22,000 “sliders” on the first day of business.
—ghg
   
Google Groups: ne.food
Newsgroups: ne.food
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Jerry Natowitz)
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 1994 10:30:35 GMT
Local: Thurs, Aug 18 1994 5:30 am
Subject: Re: White Castle Belly Bombers?
 
There are a few unusual features to White Castles (aka Whitey Castels aka Porceline Palace):
1) The patties are square and have holes in them to cook evenly - hence the additional nick-name of “Little Square Sewer Lids”
2) Despite being made from lean beef, they are still hard to digest, so there are a few more nick-names: Tummy Torpedos, Duodenal Depth-charges, and Rectal Rockets.
 
Google Groups: misc.writing
Newsgroups: misc.writing
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Dick Harper)
Date: 1997/04/26
Subject: Re: I can slide.
 
Hound eloquently barked in misc.writing
 
>  [snip] “Sliders” are white castle hamburgers. You can
>  only get them one way (none of this namby-pamby “special sauce” garbage).
>  They are called “sliders” because of the interesting results they have on
>  your lower intestinal tract.  Once you’ve eaten them, you’ll never forget
>  it.
 
We always called ‘em White Castle “Cramps” for exactly the same reason.
—Dick
(Please note pleasantly I didn’t dredge up the rectum rocket, jelly belly, or belly bomb sobriquets)
 
Google Books
The Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures:
1001 things you hate to love

By Sam Stall, Lou Harry and Julia Spalding
Philadelphia, PA: Quirk
2004
Pg. 305:
He must have had bowels of iron, because Slyders (also known as “Belly Bombers” and “Rectum Rockets”) are famous for their laxative effects.
 
Serious Eats
Food Nicknames
Posted by smallkitchen, October 31, 2009 at 8:40 AM
(...)
COMMENTS
white castle hamburgers were always known as rectum rockets!
pooch at 2:01PM on 11/02/09
 
Where I come from White Castle burgers were always known as “belly bombs”....
onepercent99 at 2:26PM on 11/02/09

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityFood/Drink • Sunday, March 27, 2011 • Permalink


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