> The idea that he would hold a tobacco pipe was so bizarre to me I assumed it was a regular pipe I think the bit started as a spoof of a character that I assu

> The idea that he would hold a tobacco pipe was so bizarre to me I assumed it was a regular pipe I think the bit started as a spoof of a character that I assume held a pipe. It doesn't seem too bizarre to me, so they were being true to that. Holding a regular pipe would have been a non sequitur. When I grew up, smoking was definitely presented as bad, but I still got licorice tobacco pipes at a candy store on a couple occasions (e.g. https://economycandy.com/product/red-licorice-pipe/ https://economycandy.com/product/red-licorice-pipe/). It seems like now they don't want kids to even know what smoking is.