The title this video has been given on YouTube is “Racist KFC Advertisement?” It’s generated a little bit of coverage so far, and most people seem to be suggesting that the ad is, in fact, racist.  In the title of its post, BuzzFeed is calling it “racist”, while Make the Logo Bigger asks  “Another racist KFC ad?”  MediaBistro’s AgencySpy doesn’t use the actual word racist, but the language used in framing up its blog post strongly suggests they feel that way as well.

So is the ad racist? Or is that just the way we American’s view it? That’s what one commenter at Buzzfeed suggests:

I don’t think the stereotype of black people loving fried chicken is popular anywhere but the USA, this ad would be pretty harmless in another country

On AgencySpy, another commentator named “Nancy” seems to agree with this sentiment, noting:

This is only racist when viewed through the prism of americans and their limited view of cultures and the world…..awkward situation is : Cricket World Cup took place in the west indes recently, of course Australian fan, lone among the jubilant west indian fans…tries to make friends …so what he offers chicken…in the west indes, we don’t survive on daily ingest of junk food, it is just eaten during lively, fun times like that

While a commenter named “Juan” adds:

The ad is meant to be satire, not demeaning, it could be misperceived as a racial stereotype, but its not aimed at the super sensitive U.S market with our out of control “political correctness” and our pretense at racial equality

However, in the original blog post, Agency Spy notes the clear racial undertones of a white guy describing himself as being in an “awkward situation just because he’s  stuck in a crowd of happy, cheering black people.” Meanwhile, other commenters call the ad “truly embarassing” and one asks, “Is KFC’s agency headed by Strom Thurmond?”

Haven’t heard of this commercial yet? Well lest you think this is going unnoticed, it’s the #18 most viewed video this month for the Australian version of YouTube and has received over 2,300 comments.

What do you think So Good readers? Racist? Unfortunate idea for an ad? Misinterpreted by American’s?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Yes, it’s a “sandwich” containing bacon, cheese and Colonel’s sauce, with two fried chicken patties serving as the bread.  Now some of you may be thinking, “Eick, I thought So Good was supposed to be on the cutting edge? I already read about this someplace else, why didn’t you see this sooner?” Valid question, and one the 15 (no exaggeration) people who have e-mailed me about this new product have asked.

I actually came across this last week, in the form of a post on Food Geekery that dated all the way back to July 28.  But do you know why I didn’t write about it right away? I didn’t believe it. Thought it was a fake. A spoof. A hoax. No WAY a national chain is actually using pieces of chicken as buns I thought. Considering it’s been a few months since I broke a major story on So Good, despite having done it quite often last year, I thought this was my golden bullet. I was going to expose the Double Down as a grand and elaborate hoax and reap the traffic benefits as everyone praised So Good for exposing the fraud that was the Double Down.  I Googled around. I read and re-read the post on Food Geekery. I freeze framed parts of the commercial on YouTube for clues that it might be a fake. At one point I even thought some of the “evidence” it was a hoax was that one of the actors in the commercial kind of, sort of, looked like one of the sketch comedy actors from Barats & Bereta.

With no clear evidence confirming or denying this products existence beyond the one initial source online,  I called the location in Nebraska where Foodgeekery allegedly bought this. No answer when I called twice on Thursday. When I called back on Friday, they did answer, and informed me that yes, they carried the Double Down sandwich.  Dammit. I was all primed to be the one that exposed to the world the great hoax that was the KFC Double Down. Alas, I was wrong. Dead wrong. And with that, my motivation to write about it before leaving the office vanished. The weekend awaited. That magical time of sleep, sex, drinking, more drinking, watching baseball and sleeping again.  The story would have to wait, because the sandwich is real, and it’s being tested in Nebraska and Rhode Island.

There were other skeptics out there, which is why Foodgeekery went BACK to the KFC and snapped a few confirmation photos:

KFC public relations finally got into the act and shared their “estimated” nutritional info with Huffington Post. They claim it is 590 calories with 31g of fat and 10g of saturated fat.

I don’t need to make some grand proclamation about what this sort of food offering says about our culture. I think these photos pretty much speak for themselves.

Additional coverage on Consumerist, This is Why You’re Fat and Slashfood.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Now, what dare I ask are Mega Mighty Bites?

When I consult their wonderful website, I am told there isn’t any Trans Fat in MMB’s.  Also, it’s made of all white chicken.  That great!  You see, according to the commercial, Mega Mighty Bites are:

“Fully cooked all-white-meat-chicken stuffed with four wholesome fillings, such as cheeseburger, pepperoni or cheese pizza.”

So, we know that there is chicken, and not the evil dark chicken of legend.   Beyond that, I don’t know the sodium count, the caloric intake or anything at all in terms of nutritional value.  I hate to split hairs, but if you claim to provide nutritional information and then provide none, I’m going to raise a red flag of, “This product is probably not good for you.”  As far as I know, the chicken is filled with styrofoam and bits of rubber.

Now, let’s wrap our minds around eating a stuffed chicken product.  Good lord.  Imagine eating chicken and pizza simultaneously.  Or, the even more repulsive chicken and cheeseburger combo.  The prospect of that sounds overwhelming, if not completely nausea-inducing.

This is not to say I don’t enjoy the occasional stuffed mushroom or pepper.  Stuffed vegetables are incredible (and usually terrible for you), and a decent turducken would at least be fascinating to consume.  Mega Mighty Bites, however, are not fresh vegetables or meats.  This is a shredded chicken nugget filled with tomato sauce and weird chunks of either beef chuck or pepperoni bits, as well as cheese.  And it is chock full of preservatives and other ungodly acts of nature.  I wish I could defend these Mega Mighty Bites, but I simply have no idea what they’re made of.

This product asks us to imagine a world where Hot Pockets are so yesterday.  It pushes the envelope from “Barely Edible Lazy Fat Food” to “Holy Shit I’m Eating This For Novelty Purposes,” and it does so in stunning fashion.

Perhaps I will expose myself to this bastard of nature soon.  Perhaps I will one day pull a bag (yes, they come in a bag!) of Mega Mighty Bites out of my freezer and use their super catchy slogan, “Three minutes from freezer to face!”

Hopefully, it won’t be my face doing the eating.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

So why wouldn’t KFC just accept this coupon on Mother’s Day? Well maybe they didn’t want to lose business? According to a post on Business Insider, Mother’s Day is, “one of their busiest days of the year.”

I’m going to say something that I imagine will not be at all controversial:  if you take your mom to KFC for Mother’s Day, you are a shitty son/daughter.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Restaurants summoned extra help to keep pace with the crowds, yet some customers waited an hour and a half as the chain gave away millions of the meals Tuesday, Wednesday and part of Thursday.

Overwhelmed KFC locations eventually began refusing to take the coupons, prompting reports of sit-ins.  KFC ultimately determined that they were unable to handle the current demand. Yesterday, KFC’s President, Roger Eaton, posted a YouTube video telling consumers the chain would no longer be accepting the coupons, but customers could come into a store and exchange the coupon for a “rain check.”

First off, yes you heard that correctly, the President of KFC is most definitely not an American by birth.  In fact, he was born in South Africa. Now normally I could care less about the country of origin for a company’s President, but uh, that’s not really who you expected to be representing KFC is it? Plus he sounds an awful lot like Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. I’m not sure if this guy is apologizing to me or urging me to go taunt a Wallaby. I kept expecting to hear him proclaim “CRI-KEY!” at any moment.

Now you might be thinking that if KFC can afford to give everyone a rain check, this must not be a cost issue, so why couldn’t they just give away the free chicken this week? Well according to Business Insider, KFC is currently “scrambling to source more chicken,” reporting:

A franchisee today told me KFC is projected to strip their entire supply chain of bird by Saturday.

Yikes. Looks like they had no other choice but to stop accepting these coupons or all their franchises would have been fresh out of chicken.

So KFC couldn’t accept the coupons at this moment in time. Fair enough.  But that being said, if KFC really wanted everyone who had a coupon to get the opportunity to eat Kentucky Grilled Chicken for free, why didn’t they simply pick a one-week period a month or two from now and announce that the coupons would be honored at that time?   You might be wondering why KFC would want to spend all the time and money necessary to mail out those rain checks and take care of all the that paper work.  I’ll tell you why: because they are trying to save money.

The old “rain check” routine is one of the BIGGEST scams around. If you want to cash in on your free food, they make you come down to a KFC, fill out a form, give it to the manager, then 6 weeks later they mail you a rain check coupon.  That’s a pretty big hassle for $4 in free chicken. Plus, a lot of people feel guilty coming in just to fill out a rain check form, so they’ll pick up some food while they are there.

KFC knows full well that this system will result in having to give away FAR less free food than if they simply honored the coupons during a future 2 week period. So why are they trying so hard to save money and prevent consumers from getting the free food they were promised?

Lame KFC. Very lame.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Tracy from I Hate My Message Board took the photos. Head over to her post to see a bunch more pictures!

H/T to Buzzfeed and Food Network Humor.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

This has all the makings of an all-out chicken war, as El Pollo Loco attempts to prevent KFC’s new grilled chicken from cutting into their business.

El Pollo Loco Chief Executive Officer Steve Carley has even challenged KFC to a public, side-by-side taste test:

“Let’s see if our opponent is too chicken to go at it toe-to-toe — or rather leg-to-leg — in a taste test.”

Let the chicken wars begin.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The website features an image of a big bucket of the new Kentucky Grilled Chicken with a button that says “Try it Free April 27. Click for Coupon.” But when you click the button for the free coupon, instead of taking you to a page to get a free coupon, it instead gives you this message:

LOL indeed! Oh KFC. You are the living end!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Update: Voting on this match-up is now closed.  Bacon defeats Chicken 60% – 40% and advances to the final!

Final Four voting has begun! From Noon today until noon on Thursday we will be voting to determine who will advance to the championship match-up, Chicken or Bacon.  The winner of this match-up will face the winner of the Steak vs. Crab match-up.

As usual, please utilize the comment section to vigorously argue for which meat you think should advance.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Update: Voting on this match-up is now closed. Chicken defeats Turkey 71% – 29%.

In yesterday’s match-up, Steak brushed aside Lamb to easily win the Red Meat bracket and secure itself a place in the Final Four. Today we determine the winner of the Poultry region, and it should be quite a battle of heavyweights, with #1 seed Chicken taking on #2 seed Turkey.

Voting will be open until noon tomorrow.  Please use the comment section to argue for the meat you think should prevail and why.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Update: Voting on this match-up is now closed.  Chicken defeats Rabbit 91% – 9%. Turkey defeats Duck 57% – 43%.

Now that we are in the second round and the weaker seeds have been weeded out, we should have some tough, tough battles ahead.

Here’s what we have to look forward to Wednesday and Thursday: Lobster vs. Shrimp, Crabs vs. Scallops, Bacon vs. Pulled Pork and Proscuitto vs. Ribs. DAMN. Those are some heavy hitters of the meat world.  Every single one of those match-ups should be great.

Today we return to the Poultry region where #1 seed Chicken faces off against #4 seed Rabbit (yes, I know Rabbit is not a bird, we went through this already) and #2 Turkey takes on #3 Duck.

In the first round, Chicken got egg on the face of Pheasant, winning with a solid 89% of the vote, while Rabbit hopped away with 62% of the vote against Ostrich.   Turkey gobbled up 83% of the vote vs. Quail, while Duck waddled it’s way to 71% of the vote against Cornish Hen.

Voting will be open until noon tomorrow. Please use the comment section to argue for which meat you are supporting in each of these two match-ups.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Click HERE to head back to the main post about Meat Madness and view the entire bracket.

Update: Voting on this match-up is now closed. Chicken defeated Pheasant 89% – 11%. Rabbit defeated Ostrich 62% – 38%.

In the second Meat Madness vote yesterday, Bacon trounced Pork Chops 90% – 10% and Pulled Pork defeated Ham 68% – 32%.

For today’s match-up, we head over to the Poultry region.  #1 seed Chicken takes on #8 seed Pheasant, while #4 seed Rabbit takes on #5 seed Ostrich. And yes, I am fully aware Rabbit is not poultry. I explained at the beginning of the tournament that this was a random bracket assignment for Rabbit.  Polls will be open until noon on Sunday,  so get your votes in.  Feel free to use the comment sections to explain your vote or argue for who you think should win.

Make sure to come back to visit So Good on Monday for what should be an exciting day of match-ups:  Lobster (1) vs. Clams (8) and what I expect to be a bare-knuckle drag out fight between supporters of Tuna (4) and Shrimp (5).

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

(Click on bracket to see a larger, easier to read version)

There are no rules and no criteria other than to answer the question: “What is the #1 meat?” You can base your vote on taste, cost, convenience, prestige, flavor…anything you want.  Just like the NCAA tournament, when a team from the East coast will randomly get sent into the Western bracket, there are a couple minor exceptions with our regions.  For example, Rabbit has been placed in the Poultry Region and the “Red” Meat Region contains a few reddish meats that technically aren’t actually red meat (Lamb, Veal, Venison).

Obviously March is the time of year when people do brackets for everything – and So Good is no exception. I don’t know if something like Meat Madness has been done before, but this is certainly the debut offering of such a tournament on So Good.  There are similar brackets going on right now, such as Washingtonian’s Burger Bracket to determine the best burger in DC.

On Wednesday we will begin voting on our first round match-ups. Two first round match-ups a day for 8 days, then we move on to the second round.  Finally, thanks must be given to one of my readers, Jenelle, who suggested this idea to me 4-5 months ago.  I’ve patiently been sitting on the idea until the NCAA tournament arrived (which was really tough because I LOVE the idea of  a Meat Madness bracket!).

Click “Read More” to see each Region up close and read a little analysis of some of the early match-ups we have to look forward to.

We have four regions, “Red” Meat Region, Poultry Region, Pork Region and Seafood Region. Let’s take a look at each one.

First up, the “Red” Meat region.  Steak (1), Lamb (2), Ground Beef (3) and Veal (4) are the top 4 seeds in this bracket, and I think there is no doubt that Steak and Ground Beef are forces to be reckoned with.  Will Lamb be able to protect its #2 seed? Or will Corned Beef present a threat in the midst of Lent?  Veal and Buffalo could be an interesting first round match-up as well.

The Poultry region presents us with a wide-range of tasty birds – plus Rabbit.  The top four seeds are Chicken (1), Turkey (2), Duck (3) and Rabbit (4).  Will the more widely used and readily available Chicken and Turkey prove impossible to stop? Or will advocates emerge for more tasty alternatives?

The Pork Region sees a bevy of 8 different meats all coming from the same animal.  The top 4 seeds are Bacon (1), Sausage (2), Prosciutto (3) and Ham (4).  Yes, I am aware that Prosciutto IS Ham, but we are going by the English definition here.  According to Wikipedia, “in English the word is almost always used for an aged, dry-cured, spiced Italian ham that is usually sliced thin and served uncooked.”  Bacon has proven to be the darling of the food blogosphere in the past year, but this bracket is stacked from top to bottom. Potential upsets abound with extremely strong lower seeds in Pulled Pork (5), Pepperoni (6) and Ribs (7).

The Seafood Region is just that – seafood.  The top 4 seeds are Lobster (1), Scallops (2), Salmon (3) and Tuna (4).  Like the Pork Region, this region has depth – Crab (6) and Shrimp (5) look like potential first round sleepers, and Clams (8) and Mussels (7) both certainly have their supporters.

Voting on first round match-ups will begin on Wednesday.  Use the comments on this post to predict potential first round upsets, your pick to win the title, or any debates over seeding.  Let the Meat Madness begin!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Via Unique Daily.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites