Have It Your Way, Mr Bond
by Dave Rappoccio on January 11, 2023 at 12:01 am
There's always one. Always one. Every damn year some company (usually insurance) makes every commercial break a ticking time bomb until you end up envying Hellen Keller. This year, Burger King earned their crown.
Wear it with shame, you assholes. Now get this damn jingle out of my head. I've eaten Burger King exactly once in the last 20 years. I had to get my driver's license renewed and during the 4-hour wait at the DMV I walked over to the only nearby food joint, got a double whopper combo, and ate it in the car because it started pouring rain. The rain got my hair messed up and now my drivers license photo makes me look like a hobo. The burger sucked. The fries were okay. It wasn't worth it.
Nobody asked, but Carls Jr (Hardees, for the east coasters) is probably the best national chain burger I've had. That's not a high bar. McDonalds was my burger of youth, but the last time I had it was deeply disappointing. I've always found Wendys burgers severely overrated. Jack in the Box was vile. White castle isn't even food. Places like 5 guys, Whataburger and In-and-Out are higher quality burgers but not as widespread. The Pacific Northwest has Burgerville, which is pretty decent but overpriced and the milkshakes are the real reason to go anyway.
Burger King is like, the middle of the pack. The Ryan Tannehill of fast food burgers. I never want to go there again thanks to this ad campaign. That's my way, and that's how I'll have it.
└ Tags: Burger King, Commercial
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TargetToad
January 11, 2023, 12:03 am | # | Reply
Burger King is easily the worst place. everything is dripping in mayo, even if you ask to have no mayo. Not sure how you can even compare it to Tannehill. It's more like Blake Bortles.
Trout Jefferson
Hell yeah Bill Nye!
Stunkei
January 11, 2023, 1:42 am | # | Reply
Oh hey, it looks like my request from a few months back was answered!
All joking aside, I still believe this line of BK ads is quite possibly the worst thing to ever abide in the history of existence. With most annoying ads, they usually end up becoming hated due to being overplayed over a long stretch of time. They start out tolerable or even enjoyable in some cases, but you grow sick of them after being forced to see/hear it 15x during one full game of football every Sunday. That is not the case with these ads. They started out as noticeably terrible and were beyond insufferable before we even got out of the first half of whatever game they debuted in. The crappy, generic beat. The crappy lyrics. The atrocious singing. And that stupid fucking corny "YEW ROOL!" at the end to cap it all off… shit man it's not even 5AM here and I'm already furious thinking about it.
There is something truly diabolical about what Burger King has created here. I hope they go bankrupt for this.
There are definitely a few more that started out hated and only got more despised with time. Do you even remember Saved By Zero? I won't link it here because I don't want to do that to anyone, but if you're curious I'm pretty sure it's on youtube.
Settling for 6-10
I think Saved by Zero was referenced in an earlier annual awful ads comic.
jfarbzz
Indeed it was: https://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/draftkings-and-fanduel-need-to-jump-off-a-bridge/
I'm aware of other ad campaigns that were also widely hated upon arrival, though I will admit that I was too young to remember the whole Saved By Zero campaign. I have seen the commercial, and honestly, I didn't find it that terrible, but I'm aware that I never went through the gameday experience of having to hear it at full volume 15 times a game, which definitely plays a major factor.
The reason I single out these BK ads is because it feels like they tick literally every box in the checklist for how to make the absolute worst type of advertisement possible. Someone mentioned that they did this on purpose and I 100% believe it because these ads are a clinic on how to make the literal worst piece of content ever concocted by mankind.
This is on purpose. The awfulness of the campaign, in particular how off key the singer is, is intentionally bad to be memorable. It's basically a culmination of what Burger King ads have been aiming for since the turn of the century, ads memorable enough to overcome how bad (even compared to other fast food burger joints) BK is.
The big question I have is, was BK always this bad (and as a 9 year old I didn't realize or care) or were they legitimately decent 30-40 years ago and fell off a cliff? As a kid their Bacon Double Cheeseburger was my go to, and I was the rare 80's kid that didn't even like McDonalds burgers (though Chicken Mcnuggets and Egg McMuffins were OK).
Big Bluberries
To your point about being memorable, I can call Empire Carpet TODAY – or any day – regardless of how many years have gone by since I last saw the ad. It's more permanently burned into my brain than my wife's phone number is. 800-588-2300 Empire… TODAY!
All because of that stupid flashy jingle that just hit the certain balance of bad enough to be memorable.
Jedibob5
Eh, I don't think the Empire commercials were really even particularly bad. The jingle was incredibly memorable, for sure, but I don't feel like the commercials themselves were particularly aggravating. They didn't insult the viewer's intelligence, and I don't *think* they were intentionally trying to be obnoxious or annoying for the sake of memorability as so many commercials do (i.e. the BK ad, every insurance commercial ever). They pitched their product, then added a really catchy jingle for their phone number.
Maybe it's just that other ads have gotten so much worse since then, but I've hated most advertising ever since I was a kid, and I don't think I've ever considered Empire to be particularly obnoxious.
January 11, 2023, 1:12 pm | #
I don't think I was clear enough in my original comment, so allow me to clarify. I'm not trying to say the Empire commercials were in the same galactic ballpark as the !#&$!& BK ads, or the equally repugnant Saved by Zero ads. Not even REMOTELY. I'd willingly listen to those ads 1000x before listening to the BK ad once.
I brought it up only to agree with Settling for 6-10 that a mildly annoying tune can sometimes get stuck in your head for a very very very long time. 25+ years later, the phone number is STILL THERE. That's the horrifying part to me. It's like malware for your brain. I never granted them permission to store that phone # in my head while I was watching the likes of Looney Tunes and The Tick. But they did it anyway!
But can you tell me what number to call if you have a structured settlement and you need cash now?
15 or so years ago BK was using songs from the 60s or some crap to sell their burgers and I remember a LOT of people actually liking that ad campaign. I utterly despised it, but I know a bunch of people dug it. WHOPPER WHOPPERR WHOPPER WHOPPER is worse, of course, but those still grated on me. At least it wasn't the creepy-assed king showing up in my bed, though.
No. No, I cannot. Karz4Kidz and Empire are the only numbers I can consciously regurgitate on command. The other garbage is just wallowing in some giant trash bin in my head. I know it's there, but I'd have to spend a lot of time digging, and I'd really rather not. XD
I don't remember the 60s Burger King songs, but I do remember this one for McDonald's from the late 80s, and it only took BK 30 or so years to blow it out of the water. I think I still have this record in my basement somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzX8lpXXdEI&t=68s
Subservient chicken has to be up there with infamous BK ad stunts.
As questionable law firm ads go, I honestly don't mind JG Wentworth.
He's certainly better than the "Heavy Hitter" ambulance chaser ads that seemingly every local market has https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKMN2o-IuY (Martin, Harding & Mazzotti repin' the 518!).
Possibly this is because Wentworth is nationwide.
Speaking of nationally advertising law firms of yore (and bringing it full circle to the NFL today) Jackobi Meyers has to have been named after the law firm, right?
To answer your second question, yes and no.
The problem with Burger King has always been the consistency of their food quality between locations. Hell, the whole "Have It Your Way" slogan started because every Burger King was so wildly inconsistent when it came to how they made Burgers that they just put an emphasis on allowing the customer to modify their order when they got to the counter to make up for it. I've always said that the best Burger King can compete with and likely beat out any burger joint on the market, but the likelihood of finding that GOOD Burger King is so low that it doesn't matter.
When you stop at a McDonald's, regardless of where you are, you pretty much know what you're going to get quality-wise. Same goes for Wendy's, Hardees/Carls Jr, Five Guys, etc. When you stop at a Burger King, you could either get the best burger you've ever put in your mouth or literal catfood squished between two buns, and it's usually the latter. That's why most people hate them.
billytheskink
Be glad you weren't watching ChampCar racing circa 2005. Bridgestone somehow built 3 different insufferable jingles about the phrase "the wheel goes 'round". They played every commercial break because they were one of the series' 3-4 sponsors. It was hell.
Whirlwound
Burger King's gone nuts here. Some of their stuff they're charging north of Five Guys prices for, and they're nowhere near as good.
They've been that way for a few years now. They had a Chicken Parm-style sandwich a few years back that was pretty good for what it was, but it wasn't much bigger than a McDonald's Filet-O-Fish and they wanted close to $8 just for the sandwich! That was a whole meal at a place where the fires are better and all the nozzles on the soda fountain actually work.
Oh Christ, not a parmo. Ick. The national dish of Middlesbrough. You can feel your arteries harden just looking at a picture of one.
As someone who moved a tad inland closer to the East Coast I must say that I've converted to the church of Shakeshack.
I told myself that I hated thin well done burgers with American cheese, because that's what I got from every fast food place. It turns out that if you use better ingredients it's delicious.
Shakeshack is good but they are always crowded, and if it's a location where they handle this by texting you when your order is ready they are liable to fuck it up.
Pessimistic Texans Fan
Bond would still look better after listening to the Burger King jiggle 24 straight hours than TCU did during the national championship game.
WW2 Alternate History Point of Divergence:
American POW: "Do what you want! I'll never talk to Nazi trash like you!"
(Nazi turns on record from the future)
Record Player: ♫ 1-877-KARS-4-KIDS. K-A-R-S, KARS-4-KIDS. ♫
American POW: "AHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! D-DAY! ITS JUNE 6. NORMANDY! GIVE ME A MAP! I'LL SHOW YOU WHERE! JUST TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
oh god that fucking commercial makes my ears bleed
Speaking of awful radio ads, I'm at the point where if I were given the option of persistent sleep deprivation to in order to never hear another ad for Navage I'd be seriously tempted.
MadScientist520
I never had the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch, but the commercial jingle will always be seared into my memory. Mainly due to YTMD but still
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cffi7vkQZcI
It is really too bad because Burger King once had one of the best NFL-oriented ad campaigns in recent memory, where they edited the creepy King mascot into various clips of actual NFL games. Those commercials were up there with the Coors Light dopes in the coaches press conferences, which I always found much funnier than I ought to have (I still quote Brian Billick's "lets wedge it, let's wedge it!").
Burger King should know their way around a jingle, which makes these ads all the worse as they play off one of the most famous commercial jingles of all time. Oh well, I guess Darius Rucker can't perform all of the BK jingles, can he?
Dave Rappoccio
The King was a legitimately good mascot for ads, especially when they leaned into how creepy he looks. This terrible jingle ad is just obnoxious
MiddleAgeYOLO
WHERE MAH FREDDY'S STEAKBURGERS CREW AT?!
As someone who doesn't even like hamburgers I feel like the outlier here
Doug's Kin Flutie
… and this is why we need SimSub.
Burger King is doing well enough to have that much of an ad presence? In the area were I live, they are closing restaurants like crazy.
Jeb!
I had Burger King twice that I can remember. I got food poisoning both times. It's the Zach Wilson of burgers.
SIXBURGH
GODDAMMIT BURGER KING
LotusRonin
I may be the odd man out, but I've always preferred BK over the other larger fast food joints. I'm talking about McD, Wendy's, Arby's, etc. because let's be honest, that tier can't compete with the In 'n Out/5 Guys/Shake Shack tier.
I just think a Whopper Jr. straight-up tastes better. Maybe I'm buying into the flame-broiled marketing from when I was a kid, but I tihnk the balance of beef, bun, veggies (they have the best pickles btw) and condiments is better than the others. Their newer fried chicken sandwich is also incredibly good as well. I won't argue it has better fries/chicken nuggets (even though they do have spicy nuggs from time to time), but straight-up burgers and fried chicken? I think it gets a bad rap.
Sweeps McGee
As someone from the PNW I always tell people that the worst thing on the menu at Burgerville are the burgers. They're fine, but the shakes and seasonal items are where they are at.
The eye scar switched eyes in panel 5.
Or maybe it's switched in the other panels because in the movies, Blofeld's scar is on the right eye.