Fast Food Commercials

Fast Food Commercials

Wendys

If there was one corporate mascot I would loathe seeing on my lunch run or at any occasion where I had to pick out something to eat, I’d have to go with the Wendy’s lady.  Every time somebody is eating a mildly disappointing meal she magically appears with a snotty remark about how much more satisfying her collection of grease is and how she saved 40 cents unlike some loser she knows.  In short, she’s a spirit crusher.  The non-Wendy’s eaters in her commercials are young professionals who are coming to terms with the fact that they have sold out their youthful ideals for a secure but boring lifestyle.  They have become part of the corporate culture and have realized that they are now part of the problem.  The only solace during the workday these young sellouts have is the thirty minute to an hour lunch break where they can break free of their soul crushing institution and enter a world where only getting a decent meal matters.  While these various young professionals are quietly contemplating what went wrong after college (or University) with a decent sandwich from a local eatery, they are approached by the one person in the world not affected by eating Wendy’s on a daily basis.  Instead of sitting down and starting and joining in on a discussion on last night’s thrilling television twist or riveting sport event, this red haired lady decides to further kick these poor people to the curb by mocking the only food that fits their expense to health ratio.  The young professionals try to explain to the redheaded woman that they had Wendy’s a week ago with her, but she will not listen to their pleading nor will she take pity after hearing the waver in their timid voices.  She cackles at their pathetic looking sandwiches (on wheat bread no less) and proudly eats her new Asian/Mexican/California/something salad soaked with more calories than you can shake a Whopper at while forcing a bacon cheeseburger down Fred the vegan’s mouth while shouting “now that’s better” .  Lunch has been ruined again.

Taco Bell

If I may pull a Seinfeld for a minute, what’s the deal with all these Taco Bell Ronald McDonald commercials?  Telling me that somebody with a similar name to a famous clown does not make me crave Taco Bell; it makes me feel sorry for people named Ronald McDonald after 1963.  What kind of a thoughtful parent would name their child after a grotesque hamburger hawking clown?  Those poor young Ronald McDonalds must have had it tougher than the rest for a long, long time.  But if I may return to Taco Bell, having people merely named Ronald McDonald support your breakfast heart attacks does nothing more to make me want to purchase them than having a guy named Henry Ford support a Toyota.  If it was the Henry Ford supporting a Toyota over a Ford I would consider taking his advice (but not really because Henry Ford was an anti-Semite).  Same goes for the Ronald McDonald fiasco.  If it were the actual people behind the makeup shilling for Taco Bell, then I’d consider going down and clogging my arteries with eggs and bacon wrapped in a waffle.  But, as with the Henry Ford scenario, I would not take these former clowns advice (for the record it would be for a completely different reason than the Henry Ford anti-Semite reason).  In the end, a clown mascot is just a clown mascot.  What does a guy in clown suit know about which product is better?  Chances are the guys in the clown suits have only ever eaten at McDonalds and would be ill prepared to give me a sound judgment on which fast food chain is less nauseating to eat completely sober.  For this query I would like the opinion of the food scientists who engineered such meals to put on our plastic trays and keep us clamoring for more.  So if Taco Bell wants me to eat whatever they are hawking, wheel out some empirical data and people in lab coats to tell me that this egg sandwich is slightly superior to the egg sandwich at McDonalds.  Is that so hard?