2006-03-10 - 12:15 a.m.
OH, THE CHEESE
There's an upscale fast food chain around here that, to the best of my knowledge, only has locations in Kansas. And you'd think that fact alone would mean they kinda have the local marketplace cornered already, but they don't seem to agree because they run a lot of commercials. I mean, a LOT of commercials.
And it's like they base their advertising around the few, specific shows on TV that I like to watch. Take however many commercials for McDonalds that you might see in a given week, multiply that by 10, and that's about how many ads I see for this place from 7 to 10 at night.
The thing about their commercials is that they always, ALWAYS, involve singing. Their slogan is even a sing-songy slogan. You can't say it, you have to sing it. The rare exception to the singing rule were these ads they did when they had a new Philly cheese steak, and the commercial had some older mobster guy named Rocky (also my dog's name!) who got sent by "the boys back east" to find out how such good Philly cheese steaks ended up in Kansas. I know, right. The Philly cheese steak mafia is just shaking in their boots.
Aside from that one, though, there's always singing. If there's not music playing during the ad... and not a song you'd actually know, it's always some original (crappy) song about the place and it's food... then there's somebody in the ad who's singing. There was one for a while that was supposed to be like The Ed Sullivan Show, and they got an Ed Sullivan impersonator and some girl dressed up like Marilyn Monroe sung about milkshakes. She had on the white dress and had Marilyn Monroe style hair, and she looked good, but I think it would have been a little more authentic if they'd gotten her to take out her nose ring before they shot the commercial. Just my opinion.
Then about a year ago, they started running one ad that really takes the cake. Let me set it up for you. There's 4 guys in suits standing in front of a choir, and they're all inside an empty auditorium. The choir is... a choir. Not a very big one. The 4 guys are like acapella singers or whatever, with one guy singing low, and one high, and all that. 3 of the 4 singers are young, probably early 20's, and one is like 45, so he stands out. One of the young guys has a tough, edgy look to him... well, as tough and edgy as a dude in the glee club can look. Then one is a preppy looking guy. And the last guy is fat. I don't really like referring to someone as "the fat guy", 'cause that's quite rude, but I have no other way to describe him.
So the 4 guys start singing about a Bacon Turkey Ranch sandwich, which is a sandwich with sliced turkey, a piece or two of bacon, and ranch dressing, I think on a sourdough bun/roll. And while they sing, the choir kinda hums in the background. I'm pretty sure the old guy is the one singing at the normal voice level, while the fat guy sings the high stuff, and the two others have varying degrees of bass in their voice. So it's like this. Old Guy: "You got the lettuce, tomato, the melted cheese." Fat Guy (high voice): "OH, THE CHEESE!" Old Guy: "Give me some bacon and some smoked turkey, please!" I don't know if those were the exact words, but it's something queer like that.
They sing for a while about the various ingredients, and then, naturally, they start singing the sing-songy slogan. But... and here's where business picks up... as they're all harmonizing on the last note, all of a sudden the fat guy breaks away from the pack and sings "it's allllll about the raaaaanch! YEAH!".
First of all, I don't get that. Of all the things in the sandwich, why is it all about the ranch? If you didn't have ranch dressing on there, you've still got a decent sandwich. And you could always have mayo. If anything, you'd think it would be all about the turkey. Without the turkey, what do you got? Two pieces of bacon and some ranch dressing. Whoopdie damn doo.
But here's the thing. When the fat guy breaks away and sings that line, the other 3 guys start acting like they're upset with him. The older guy kinda shoves him, the rocker guy rolls his eyes, and the preppy one puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head disapprovingly. Now if they're upset with him for saying it's all about the ranch when, really, it's all about the turkey, then I can understand. But that's not it. From the look on their faces, especially the preppy guy who's shaking his head, it's like they're saying "man, I'm sick of the fat guy always hogging our spotlight!" Then the commercial ends.
Now if you see this once, you might chuckle. See it two or three times and "Ode to Bacon Turkey Ranch" might get stuck in your head. But when you see it over and over and over again, 5 times a day for days and weeks and MONTHS at a time, you start to think about what it is you're seeing. Why are they in an empty auditorium? Why are they so happy about this sandwich? And, most importantly, why are they so upset with the fat guy? He looks like a nice guy, pretty jolly. Can't they cut him a little slack? It's very perplexing.
As you can imagine, these questions haunted me for quite some time. Then the commercial disappeared. We got a new one with the nose-ringed Marilyn Monroe, except now she was a country singer, and one for a fat-free chicken pita with a little girl talking about how her mom wants to eat healthy because she thinks she has a fat ass.
THEN, back around the new year, we got a NEW Bacon Turkey Ranch commercial! This one had the entire glee club, several guys and several girls, all sitting in booths at one of the stores. But the old guy was gone, the preppy guy was gone, the fat guy was gone... only the edgy one remained. They sung the same song as the previous ad, and then, at the end, one of the girls sings the "it's all about the ranch" line. Just like the fat guy.
But do they shake their heads in disapproval? Do they shun her from the group? No! They do not! They're all smiling and happy, like they couldn't possibly care less that this girl sung the line... whereas the poor fat guy got all kinds of grief for the same thing. It was downright offensive!
The commercial played for about a month, mocking those of us who felt so badly for the fat guy's plight. And then it disappeared. All of a sudden, they started playing a new ad with shots of the Bacon Turkey Ranch sandwich, but the same song from the first commercial. Very interesting. They usually run their ads for months and months, so the fact that they pulled the new ad so quickly was quite puzzling. And then that ad disappeared, too!
THEN... just days ago, in a completely unexpected surprise... the original Bacon Turkey Ranch commercial started airing again! The one that started it all! I was blown away, I tell you. The only explanation I can think of was that concerned viewers like myself were so outraged by the second ad that they complained, and it was pulled as a result. Then maybe they thought that we complained because we liked the first ad more, so they started running that one again. Actually, what I want is a sequel to the first one where they apologize to the fat guy and let him sing that line all he wants, but I'm not holding my breath.
Surely I can’t have a whole update with just that story. Say, guess which comedian will soon be performing in my area? Does the name MICHAEL WINSLOW mean anything to you? No? Well, how about the name JONES from a little series of movies I like to call... “Police Academy”? Yes! The guy who did all the sound effects, you know the one. I didn’t even know he was a comic, to be honest. Nor that he was still performing and/or alive. But he is! And I understand tickets are disappearing quickly. If you could hear me right now, you’d hear me making a noise like a car zooming by real fast. VROOM. Now I’m doing a robot.
I gotta go.
