The Last of Us is a video game turned TV series and there are zombies in it. But did you know a food-based rip-off called The Last of Couscous is FAR superior a form of entertainment?!

Commissioned as an obscure straight-to-YouTube series in the summer of 2024, the show stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and a hell of a lot of couscous. Most of the show’s budget went on funding tonnes of the semolina made from crushed durum wheat, ruining the wider production values and tanking the series fast.

Schwarzenegger’s increasing frustrations on set led him to be called CussCuss (due to his rampant swearing), leaving this one as a cautionary tale of… not making a TV show about a dystopian world of no couscous.

Horror and Semolina in The Last of Couscous

“Big words parted from lips, heads nodded in agreement, heads shook in disagreement, the occasional fist was waved belligerently, and over the course of three months of intense bureaucracy and decision making, absolutely no decisions were ultimately made.” Posthoumous, Mr. Wapojif

Here at Professional Moron, we’ve been there and done that. Our dystopian short story Posthoumous never did get published and the world is probably a better place for it.

But some creatives just never learn!

That’s why The Last of Couscous received a $200 million budget, 70% of which went on couscous, 10% on Schwarzenegger’s budget, and the rest on other stuff (gaffers, janitors etc.).

In the show, Schwarzenegger’s character is called Jeff. He’s a chef at a greasy spoon caff in Bolton of Greater Manchester, serving tabloid readers fried eggs, pies, and all that sort of stuff.

However, one day he accidentally orders in a vast shipment of couscous (having really wanting to order several metric tonnes of baked beans). Having wasted all of his food budget for that month on semolina, Jeff has no choice but to serve it to the Northerners. Concerned, he opines:

“What is best in life? To couscous your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”

After cooking a batch for some Daily Express readers, they’re transformed into the living dead and immediately start trying to eat everyone else’s brains. Jeff, realising he’s triggered off a dystopian hellscape thanks to his lack of organisation, must now try to stay alive!

That was the show’s general concept.

Sadly, it met with the worst reviews in the history of reviews, so bad the show’s director has been imprisoned for life (no chance of parole) due to the abomination.

The Big Arnie One Liners From The Last of Couscous

The Last of Couscous now has a cult following and there are certain moments now seen as iconic. All of them to do with Big Arnie’s famous one liners, which include:

• If it bleeds, we can couscous it!
• Couscous that a divorce!
• I’ll be back… with couscous!
• Couscous, baby!
• Get to the couscous!
• Come with me if you want couscous!
• Put that couscous down! Now!

Sales of semolina briefly rose thanks to the series but, after a misinformation piece was published in British tabloids, a moral panic arose regarding salmonella.

This promptly caused salmon sales to drop significantly, leading to several restaurants having to let a commis chef go. All because of couscous…