Mama explains to Forrest that promoting a ping-pong paddle was only a ‘little white lie’.
Sixteen years ago, I started performing for the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. My job was to sit in front of the restaurant on a park bench talking to tourists and potential shrimp consumers. My task was pretty simple. I engaged people in conversation and created a gump-like experience for them. It was a soft sell: Come sit with Forrest, take a picture, enjoy yourself, and if you’re hungry we have great shrimp, burgers, etc. It worked perfectly.
Except … I was asked one question that initially I didn’t have a good answer. I tried telling the pure truth, but that didn’t work out so well. So I created my own ‘little white lie.’ You’ll remember in the movie when Mama encouraged Forrest to promote the Flex-O-Ping-Pong Paddle. She acknowledged that it was just a little white lie and wasn’t hurting anyone.
Here is the question that I was asked and the little white lie I created to better fulfill my mandate of creating a gump-like experience for the tourists visiting Cannery Row in Monterey, California.
