I just checked a map and L.A to Albuquerque to Oklahoma looks pretty much like a straight route.
Not factoring in road improvements, alignment changes —
The straight route using route 66 (I40 was not completed) is 787 miles.
The then-contemporary route through Phoenix then up to Payson-Heber-Holbrook (neither I10, I17 or SR377 existed) is 811 miles.
So actually not as much difference as I have always thought. I’ll have to stop maligning the song. 
Though…without a lot of interstate miles, it is going to be slower either way. I don’t think he’ll make Albuquerque before her lunch break.
Oops.
That’s the only place it’s called “New York Style”. Everywhere else, we just call that style “pizza”.
I think the bottom line is that they’re not trying to appeal to people from the location in the commercial. They know that 99% of the audience doesn’t know or care about directions in Philly. What’s important is that it sounds like something a local would say.
No, there is deep dish, Chicago style, Detroit style, and even California style (which we Californios never call it that). New York Style- (wiki)
New York–style pizza is a pizza made with a large hand-tossed thin crust, often sold in wide slices to go. The crust is thick and crisp only along its edge, yet soft, thin, and pliable enough beneath its toppings to be folded to eat.[1] Traditional toppings are simply tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella cheese. This was a popular meal among poor Italian Americans due to its low cost.[2]
Seems pretty targeted to us. Has anyone else heard this ad? I hear it several times a day.
Yes, exactly, that’s ordinary pizza like you can get in any city in the country, and like you do get in most of them if you just ask for “pizza”, without specifying a style.
Hard disagree, sorry. What seems to make New York pizza its own thing is the soft, foldable crust; it’s not the default for “pizza” across the country. Even two of the biggest pizza chains in the U.S. which offer that style — Sbarro and Dominos — call it out as New York or “NY” style.
Well, Chronos has a point- generic “pizza” looks similar to NY style, but it is not quite the same. There was a place in Hollywood which had “Genuine NY Style” and yes, it was different- but not as different as say Chicago style. But yeah, true NY style is a bit differnt.
And yet, no New Yorker has ever been able to describe how it’s different. It’s not the foldable crust, because if you get “a pizza” from Pizza Hut or Domino’s, the crust will be foldable. Likewise for every other trait of “New York Pizza”.
It’s just yet another example of New Yorkers thinking that the entire world consists of nothing but New York.
If you can’t fold a slice of pizza, it’s just flatbread to me.
Well, no. If that were true, those same chains would never sell New York Style pizza, as they would be identical.
I’ve had New York Style pizza from those places, and you cannot pick up a slice without it drooping and stuff starting to slide off. You have to fold long ways to eat it. You do not have to fold the standard fast food pizza. The crust is a bit thicker.
There is a thin crust variation of the standard pizzas, but they aren’t foldable, nor do they droop. You can sometimes bend them a bit, but if you fold them, they break.
I’m just waiting for the Geico commercial where they say that, as proud Philadelphians, they love the Dallas Cowboys.
Nope, NY style is floppier.
True, it’s not as immediately distinctive from your average pizza as, say, Chicago deep dish is, but once you know what to look for — floppiness — you can’t miss it.
I’m willing to give people (who aren’t broadcasters, where you’d expect a modicum of research first) credit for trying to pronounce an unfamiliar Native American name for a small town in Wisconsin.
But…
WHERE do people get that? And they really emphasize the “WES”.
I hear that a lot, and I’m flummoxed by people substituting an entirely different vowel.
I wonder if they put their MELK in a grocery BAIG?
Geez, they probably say Illi-NOISE for the next state, too.