Kitchen Fresh Chicken By That Fancy Coffee Place
Last night I was folding laundry and watching the Suns/Raptors game with Jane. Actually, I think Jane was watching me fold laundry while I watched the game.
Then a commercial for KFC came on. You might recall the days when they called themselves Kentucky Fried Chicken, but those days are long gone. Did they abandon their heritage to avoid the association with a Southern state like Kentucky? Or was it the "Fried" that got them down, since Fried Foods get a kind of bad rap these days unless you're in Woody Allen's Sleeper?
For whatever reason, Kentucky Fried Chicken wanted to take their product to the world, and even though they were already a global conglomerate owned by the same people who bring us Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, that "Kentucky" bit had to go. Voila! They became KFC. It just rolls off the tongue, "KFC".
But now, as the commercial last night told me, "KFC" really stands for "Kitchen Fresh Chicken". Oh, really? You might have thought this chicken was fried. You thought wrong. Not fried. Fresh. Man, that is some fresh chicken. This chicken didn't suffer for weeks in a Poultry Dachau that my father-in-law helped to create. (I should explain that: He's an engineer that makes chicken-confinement systems. If you happen to have any stray birds that are giving you trouble, I know a man who can help you.) But not to worry, because your chicken didn't come from that. You're chicken is fresh, like a bouquet of flowers or just-laundered baby blanket.
And where did that chicken come from? Not Kentucky, silly. It came from the kitchen. Not from a deep fryer, not from a prep line that's so greasy you can scrape it off the counter or floor with a spatula. No, it came from a kitchen. Maybe even a kitchen just like yours at home (but probably even a little nicer than that). "Hey, honey, let's go down to our other kitchen where we don't have to cook, and we don't have to eat these thawed frozen chicken parts. Let's get us some Kitchen Fresh Chicken!"
So, I was amused by that sneaky little image change. But then this happened:
Two guys are on the street. One guy asks the other if he wants some Kitchen Fresh Chicken. The other guy says something like "Hot damn! I'm gonna get me some!" Then he says: "I think there's a KFC by that fancy coffee place." And they go get them some Kitchen Fresh Chicken with grins as big as corn cobs.
"By that fancy coffee place?" What the fuck is that? I was stunned when I heard it, and made sure Jane understood the depths of my bewilderment as I mismatched pairs of socks. First, we know that nothing, absolutely nothing, gets said in a commercial without a total examination of what is said. That actor in that commercial wasn't just winging it. He wasn't standing there before the shoot saying, "Should I bust out with the "Fancy Coffee Place" line, or go with the "Jenny Craig store" bit?" No, somebody told that guy to say "Fancy Coffee Place".
We all know what they wanted the guy to say, but the lawyers wouldn't let them do it. We all know what "Fancy Coffee Place" he's talking about, and it ain't Caribou. And, since there is a Starbucks on every corner (including alley corners) in this country, his statement is nearly certainly factually true in hundreds of instances.
But the fine people at KFC don't want you to think it's a coincidence that they shovel out their chicken next to such a high-falootin' coffee shop. No, they want people to know that it's OK to eat their chicken, and that it doesn't make you a 300 pound slob, a southern bumpkin or anything else. Because, you see, it's perfectly natural for people who know where a Fancy Coffee Place is to also know where they can get Kitchen Fresh Chicken. In fact, people might even drinking Fancy Coffee with their Kitchen Fresh Chicken. I doubt that's happened, ever, but this commercial lets us know that, yes, it really could happen. An alternate commercial might show this guy chowing down on the chicken while waiting in his Hummer to get some Fancy Coffee from the drivethrough.
I guess I didn't realize KFC had such an image problem. I can see their marketers sitting around a big walnut table, saying things like, "We have to grow our market share! We have to appeal to the Starbucks crowd, to let them know that our chicken isn't from Kentucky and it isn't Fried. It's from the Kitchen and it's Fresh! Booyah!" Then the lawyers chime in, mention that you can't really mention Starbucks, and before you know it, some guy is reading a line about a Fancy Coffee Place.
You are what you are. You make greasy fried chicken that comes from a prep line that would make any customer swear off the stuff if they ever got behind the counter, and every chicken you cook comes from a factory farm where it led nothing resembling a life. And damn if it's not lunchtime, and some KFC sounds really good to me right now. I'll skip the Fancy Coffee, though.
11:49:52 AM 
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