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Fast Food

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KFC Demands Candidates Mention That Chicken Defeats Hunger

KFC is terribly concerned about starving third world children's lack of access to Original Recipe® buckets and Crispy Twisters®! So the chicken chain is offering a cool $20,000 to solve world hunger—if one of the presidential candidates mentions the issue at the debates tomorrow. 1. What a skimpy amount to offer. 2. The purest form of charity is that which is given anonymously, not that which is accompanied by a gimmicky TV ad. 3. If they don't mention it, will KFC just let the kids starve? Watch the trite attempt to glom onto the news cycle below; thankfully, the ad is silent: More »

marketing

Band Sellout Prices Reach An All-Time Low

The entire music industry is slowly becoming a simple extension of corporate marketing programs—but at least most companies are forced to pay a lot of money for their new pets. Taco Bell, though, has learned that it doesn't take that much to have an "indie" (Ha! Ho!) group cosign your company. The souls of musicians used to cost at least a bag of heroin; now, an entire band can be purchased for as little as a Chalupa value meal! More »

Real Men Eat Brains Ha, Wendy's is being humorous with its new "Meatatarians" ad campaign, cause it's like, fuck vegetables, eat cows! "Our goal is to continue our dominance atop the food chain," reads the website, which has no content except a box for Meatatarians to sign up for mass emails from Wendy's. You won't see any cows signing up. Now who's smart?

Fast Food

Do Not Think About What This McDonald's Ad Could Imply

Fast food is essentially made up of low-quality byproducts of better food. Leftover cow parts, ground pig parts... you can use your imagination. So it's best for fast food companies to stick with happy clowns and assorted other mascots in their ads, staying as far as possible from any image that could make you consider what's actually in the food you're buying. And they should especially make sure they never draw any parallels between their product and human flesh. I mean, yuck. So tell us, McDonald's, what went wrong here?: More »

marketing

Five Irresponsible Celebrity Endorsements

The public irritation with Michael Phelps gathers steam! Instead of being on the Wheaties box like a real American champion, Phelps has signed on to endorse Frosted Flakes. Yes: Michael Phelps wants your kids to choke down these sugar-encrusted corn scabs rather than the high fiber of Wheaties. The papers already found some doctors to condemn him. Though we shouldn't be surprised considering Phelps' addiction to Big Macs, the goofy-ass swimmer really should have been smarter in terms of his image. After the jump, five more idiotic celebrity endorsements that can't be explained by mere logic: More »

Champions

Heroic Phelps Inspires World To Gorge On McDonalds

Are you sick of hearing by now how Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day to fuel his superhuman championship swimming for the gold? Too bad dude! Because what has not been adequately discussed by the media is how awesomely all-American Michael Phelps' calories are. He eats McDonalds! And you can follow his championship diet, too! Allow one of our nation's most prominent journalists to tell you all about it: More »

marketing

Here, Kiddie Kiddie

Children under 12 are the targets of almost $1 billion in marketing spending from food companies every year. What are they being sold? Pop-tarts, fast food, crackers, gum, sugary cereals, and the other things that good moms don't let their kids eat. But! The food industry has graciously decided that they will get their rampant advertising to kids under control, to ensure that the kids aren't, you know, encouraged to buy the carbtastic products that these companies make. And who is determining just what the standards will be for protecting kids? These very same food companies! In related news, kids are all fat. Let's break it down: More »

Hypocrisy

Pamela Anderson Doesn't Need Your Tainted Money (Pockets Money)

Not to shock all of you, but evidence has arisen that indicates that breast-toting sex symbol Pamela Anderson may not be the beacon of morality you all thought. She's a prominent vegetarian and opponent of KFC and all its chicken-slaying ways. So while she was down in Australia filming Big Brother, she took the opportunity to hand-deliver a letter of protest to a KFC outlet. The twist: Pam is getting paid half a million dollars to be on Big Brother—and the biggest sponsor of the show is KFC. I guess she can say she's milking them dry of all their dirty blood money? Yes, that'll work. Below, the text of her missive, explaining the difference between a chicken and a superstar: More »

journalismism

Spelling Mystery Behind Hardee Obit

Setting aside the health implications of fast-food pioneer Wilber Hardee's death at the advanced age of 89, one is drawn to the mystery of his first name. No one seems to know how to spell it. The Times went with "Wilber" for its obit. But hey, Times, how about fact-checking your journalism with that most august and reliable of primary sources, the Hardee's Cool Kids website? As show above and to the right, it renders the name "Wilbur," as do about 3,140 Web pages in Google's index in an exact-phrase search, vs. just 1,510 for "Wilber." And "Wilbur" also wins in a Google News search, with 54 uses (including AP!) vs. just "about 10" for "Wilbur." But wait, there are so many more wrinkles to this obit mystery! More »

life expectancy

Five Deaths That Prove You Should Eat Fast Food

Neatly encapsulating the prevailing foodie conventional wisdom, science-fearing New York Times contributor Michael Pollan has famously advised America to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He also believes we should eat like our ignorant, backward ancestors ("Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food") instead of like modern human beings. But as regular Gawker readers know, heavily-processed, contemporary American fast food has preserved an inordinate number of its inventors and purveyors well past any reasonable life expectancy. This morning's Times brings word of the death of hamburger chain founder Wilber Hardee at the ripe old age of 89. Granted, he was felled by a heart attack. But he joins no fewer than four other fast food pioneers who have kicked the bucket over the past six months at extraordinarily advanced ages:
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