X

Marie Callender's burns Sharon and her disastrous viral Thanksgiving pie

Christmas is almost here, but that torched frozen pie from Thanksgiving memes lives on.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
See full bio
Gael Cooper
2 min read

It's been a few weeks since a post blaming restaurant chain Marie Callender's for ruining someone's Thanksgiving dessert turned into a charcoal-coated meme. But instead of shying away from its viral fame, the company, which also sells frozen pies, is serving up a perfectly baked reaction on its Facebook page.

Background: Around Thanksgiving, a woman named Sharon (her full name is everywhere if you want it) posted a photo on Marie Callender's Facebook page calling out the chain for "ruining Thanksgiving dessert." But the photo didn't garner any sympathy for the cook -- the pie was so blackened it was hard to believe this wasn't the customer's fault. 

The burned-pie photo immediately took off. One Facebook group devoted to the pie meme now has more than 150,000 members.

At the time, a representative for Marie Callender's apologized for the singed pie. And this week, the company brought it up again with a wry post on Facebook and Twitter.

"We wish you a holiday filled with joy and reasonably well-cooked pies," the post read in part. "We're all trying our best and we've all been there, so let's try our best to be there for one another... especially Sharon." The post closed with the hashtag #SharonSomePie.

Happy Holidays and enjoy #SharonSomePie 🥧

Posted by Marie Callender's on Monday, December 20, 2021

The original burnt-pie post on Marie Callender's page has been deleted, but the meme lives on, with the pie photo being used over and over, often when someone blames another person and doesn't fess up to their own mistakes. Or just for photos of solid black or burned items of all kinds.

"Things caused by Jennifer Garner during their marriage, according to Ben Affleck: Sharon Weiss' Marie Callender's burned pie," wrote one Twitter user after Affleck made waves for appearing to blame his unsatisfactory marriage for his drinking.