Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Just when you started to believe the excuses for the Australian KFC “crowd pleaser” commercial (e.g., that “not one person [polled] in Australia had any idea of the American stereotype of black people and chicken”), I uncovered another Australian gem–from back in the day (1992):

Now, admittedly, I’ve never eaten at Chicken Treat, but it’s probably a safe bet that, at $2.75, their “Chick’n Ham’n Cheese Burger” is no better than, say, Wendy’s Bacon Swiss Crispy. (Though Wendy’s wins on style points, for placing their adjective at the end.) In other words, Chicken Treat isn’t putting out an exceptionally delicious sandwich that’s universally known as the best. It’s just a regular-ass, fast-food, factory-farm chicken sandwich. So the fact that the black guy can’t contain himself around it—hungrily licking his chops while visually fixating on it at the beginning—says more about the guy than the sandwich.

Wendy's Bacon Swiss Crispy

Then there’s contrast between the two characters, which couldn’t be more stark. On the one hand is the cool, collected White guy with his deep voice (and exceptionally bushy, expressive eyebrows). He’s a wearing a conservative button-down shirt, buttoned to the very top, and a deliciously Fantastic Sams hairdo, circa 1988. On the other hand is the out-of-control, screaming black dude carrying on about the sandwich in his shrill voice. He’s got on the loudest—and frankly, nicest—floral shirt I’ve seen in years, as well as a flattened-bill baseball cap rested on the rear three-quarter on his head. I swear, the only thing missing is the original tags hanging off of his hat and a spinning basketball on his finger. Oh, wait, he’s probably busy licking those fingers.

So, Australians, I call bullshit.

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