Thick and Chewy was nothing like Pan Pizza. T&C was cut into balls, wrapped in saran wrap, and proofed in a refridgerated tub for a number of hours before use. When you had an order, you removed the saran wrap and worked the ball of dough so the edges were thicker than the center of the dough.
T&C, in my opinion, tasted much better than Pan Pizza does. One reason is I hate all the oil in Pan Pizza. T&C used just a tiny bit of oil to allow you to stretch the dough out to the edge of the cooking pan. I think the flavor of T&C (ignoring the oil) was better too.
T&C pizza's were cooked in thin & crispy pans. No deep, deep pans came around until Pan Pizza was debuted around 1980ish. Back then, you still had the "super style" pizza's which featured more cheese. You had red Lexan cups for "regular" cheese and larger green "Lexan" cups to measure out the superstyle cheese. A T&C pizza using SuperStyle cheese was absolutely fantastic.
Also, back then, you made all the dough fresh in the morning by hand. Thin and Crispy dough went into a small Rubbermade trash can using a food safe liner and had to proof near the oven for a few hours before use. T&C went into the walk-in to proof. Pan Pizza, when it came out, went into rolling trolleys which went into a roll in electric proofer. Early Pan Pizza used a round flat piece of plastic and you'd often have a stack of pan pizza's fall over. Also, if you did not roll the pan pizza dough out properly, you'd have the center of the dough rise too much, stick to the plastic ring above it, and ruin the dough. Pan Pizza was a real pain in the neck back in the early days unless you knew what you were doing. I can kind of see why PH wanted to switch to frozen Pan dough. However, the frozen thin and crispy dough is simply nasty. Dry and tasteless. As someone stated, you might as well get Digiorno. Thin & Crispy is easy to make and easy to roll out. They should have continued to use fresh T&C dough. I no longer eat PH because the dough tastes so bad. I'd rather have Dominos.
Pizza Hut was fun back in the day. I was a manager from 1977-1988 in various cities and had tons of fun. I couldn't imagine working there today with the cheap dough and $10 pizzas.
