Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of Fat Trendsday. I guess that makes it sound like it's Fat Wednesday, but it's Fat Tuesday. It's a play on Fat Tuesday. People, Happy Fat Tuesday.
Hey you imagination.
My name is Jack O'Brien. That is Brian the editor.
It's me.
Your vocals sound nice. Your mic sounds nice.
Yes, yes, and and your mic unto you as well, sounds nice.
Oh my god, that's my vocal warm up for the week. Because I didn't feel like I got to hear enough of it during the Super Bowl. I wish he had.
Gone it works with once was not enough?
Once not enough? All right? Should we tell the people what is trending?
Let's do it.
KFC is transmogrifying chicken into jewelry for Valentine's Day. It is Valentine's Day tomorrow, so fast food companies understand one thing, and that is the search for content. Brian, what were we doing right before we hit record? We were googling Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day content, give me Valentine's Day and finding, uh, not much. There's not a lot of Valentine's Day content. KFC knows that shit. They're smart. They step in step into that void. KFC Thailand, yes, of course, is KFC
is a holiday treat for Christmas. I think in some country. I think in Japan maybe. I think Miles told us that at one point. But they're trying to get in on some other holidays because, uh they have created one of the weirder Valentine's Day promotions. Pizza Hut of course, as we were talked about, recently created the breakup pie, which is where you can order someone else a pea that tells them that you are breaking up with them.
And it's spelled out in pepperoni, but it's not.
Your name goes on the box and it's and then it like leaves a mean like a not a mean, like a silly message like I've chosen to go explore the forests or something like that.
Okay, all right.
And Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC, I guess they're not called Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore. They believe in love, they're not. They're not this cynical Pizza Hut company. Uh wait, they're owned by the same company, nevermind, but they are the young brands imprint with whom Hope Springs Eternal and Love Springs Eternal. They're giving away fried chicken rings in Thailand.
These are not, unfortunately, edible rings made of chicken. They actually have real gems because the fried chicken was transformed into a ring by a quote an organic matter conversion specialist. All Right, it's like kind of like the fly with chicken and jewelry.
Yeah, that's why.
And plus, hey it'll be uh, you know, it'll be easy to get that ring on and off with your greasy chicken greasy fingies.
Yeah, I mean go together with yeah, and then yeah, right right off your finger. If you're not a fan of having a fried chicken diamond, so shout out to our Thailand listeners, go out get your fried chicken diamond ring. Or I think it's actually like part of a giveaway.
So yeah, it's one of eleven lucky fried chicken covered couples.
Yeah that's hot, greasy fried chicken greasy bodies, you know, just coming to.
Get covered in gravy.
Yeah, oh man, the bowl. Did you ever fuck with the KFC Bulls?
I did, actually, and I have to say I was I was a fan.
I was a fan of the bulls. I always liked KFC.
That was a period of my life, like when I was just you know, in my early twenties, and I was really trying to stretch, Like I was paying a lot of attention to the number of calories I could get per dollar, And that was I think one of the best bangs for Buck that I ever came across was the ball. The density of the bull was absolutely no joke. You know, fried chicken, great mashed potates, corn off the cop you know, it was a blast. Anyways, we're gonna do it all. We're going to do the
it's a we're hitting for the Young Brands cycle. On this episode, we talked about the Pizza Hut, talked about the KFC. Well, guess what, Taco Bell is out here creating a new type of content, ushering in a new era wherein you don't have to be Apple to have like a keynote where you reveal a new thing. You fan be Taco Bell. And so they debuted new menu items at a keynote that was seemingly designed. It was like if a Apple keynote took place inside the world of Demolition Man.
You know, yeah, where they won the franchise Wars.
They won the Franchise Awards and defeated Apple, and this is like what we have instead of the Super Bowl. We just.
I'm like, dude, did they win?
Oh? Yeah, they won and we all won two. So the first half hour was like, you know, the CEO of Taco Bell coming out being like, as this tweet says, Taco Bell is one of the last great melting that transcends class in the United States that somebody had tweeted
as a joke, and the CEO took it seriously. There were some guys playing acoustic guitar love songs to Taco Bell got off to uh not promising start, and then they started to reveal products and it went from underwhelming choosed swhelming, like definitely some people were whelmed in the audience. So Taco Bell wants to and plans on making its popular nacho fries permanent menu items.
Whoo.
But they're still trying to figure out how.
It's hard. It's hard out here.
It's just like, I don't know, man, Like it's hard. We have to like worry about supply chain shit.
As a massive fan of sloppy, sloppy fries of any kind, this is this is to my.
Ears, it's good news for sure. Like on the broad scope of history humanity, this is good news. The fact that they haven't figured it out yet doesn't mean they're not going to figure it out yet, especially given that Taco Bell Keynotes appear to be here to stay. Because this was a, you know, huge success. I feel like they're not going to go up there next year and be like, we almost got it this time, guys. So I feel like we're we're gonna get these permanent fries.
But maybe that's not the one I would have opened with because they're still trying to figure that one out. However, they announced a new cheesy chicken Crispada Crispanda.
I feel like the article that's a typo in the article because I feel like it should be cris Banada.
Maybe chris Banada.
Yeah, I'm like, maybe it's I think that's just the type.
Yeah, yeah, no, people don't have what do you think they have time for that money for a fucking.
It's genuine hard to like, we don't give a fuck. How it's spells Crisponda whatever.
Yeah, Chris over here. It's a shredded cheese filled chicken stuffed and Panada. Yeah, so it's got to be Chris Binanda.
It's got to be right.
People were gasping in the audience, which that just helps me know that I'm not alone out here.
I'm pretty sure those are just farts.
Just loose assholes. Yeah, a collection of the loosest assholes in America at Yeah, you would think so. They're also redesigning the sauce packets, which I personally am going to go out and grab all the existing packets because you know, they are a piece of nineties design that I don't want to I don't want to say goodbye to quite yet.
The new design for an exorbitant price.
Exactly the new design is, you know, exactly what I would expect the design to look like. It looks like it. It looks like an Instagram filter of some sort.
It's pretty clean, it's it's very veratable, Yeah, for sure, instantly recognizable.
They're going to bring chicken nuggets to the menu. You know, they can't all be winners. I personally don't go to Taco Bell for this unless they're like, you know, you could throw these on your grilled stuff burrito and then you know, if there's like some pricing magic. I could work out where if I do a grilled stuff burrito without the chicken, but then I can stuff some chicken nuggies in the grilled stuff burrito and it actually comes out to cheaper than a grilled stuff chicken Burritoh.
Yeah, the menu hacks are gonna be insane this year.
Yeah, Like chicken nuggets seem specifically designed for menu hacks.
Yeah, TikTok is gonna go nuts with the menu hacks. So I look forward to the reporting on that from a super producer Beca and Miles and people who keep track.
Of that sort of thing.
I am not. I am a fan of Baja Blaft. My heart does pump Baja Blast. That is the color of my blood. That is my blood type. They announced Baja Blast ice cream not here for it. I don't. I don't give a shit. Yeah, I don't care. I don't. I don't want Baha. I don't take my Baja Blast with cream unfortunately. Yeah. Superroducer Victor said, why is it not sorbet? And That's what I would say exactly. I take my Baha Blast black like my coffee, you know, like just give it to me straight up. Don't give me,
don't get me cream with my Baja blast. So the big one, the thing that like really captured all the headlines all the attention was the crunch rap where the guy, So, the guy opens his like looks like a regular crunch rap, right, and there is your first clue that this guy's about to try and trick you. Someone says, hey, this just looks like a regular loaf of bread. That ship's got a handgun inside it, but in this case, it has a giant cheese it inside. Brian, you've been Brian the
editor for a long time on this show. Yes, I have we covered this ship, didn't we? Like years ago? I found a like news release where they were like test kitchening this ship like a year and a half ago. I was like, why do I have a very specific sense memory of a giant cheese it because like a giant cheese it being revealed via X.
Ray it was it was like a taco, right, it.
Was there's a costada and then there was also this like specifically giant cheese it inside a crunch trap supreme. But I guess that had escaped people like I don't know what was wrong with America that they missed but they did. I feel like.
Their food science might take a while.
I feel like, if you'll remember during the the chicken sandwich wars, I can't remember which chain had some shortages, but they had to take a few months to nail down their foods. Yeah, I think it was Popeyes, where you guys had some inside baseball or somebody somebody from Zgang was like, yo, my dad's such and such, and it's like they're refining and tweaking and doing all this
stuff and making sure Popeye. But I think, yeah, like you know, from idea to fruition, might take a while to uh to get all this quite up to Taco Bell standards. So yeah, maybe they were just you know, doing a little pilot pilot program of uh yeah, of cheese at products and they finally found one.
They finally found the consistency, the density. I'm I'm pretty excited about that one. I'm excited that it's going now in the spring. I'm excited about a lot of these. I'm looking forward to trying them. I'll probably even try the Baha Blast ice cream, but we'll see. Let's take a quick break to kind of wrap our minds around this no, this new future that we've entered into the future of Taco Bell keynotes, and we'll come back and we'll talk about other things. We'll be right back.
Okay, and we're back.
We're back the Golden Bachelorette. So the Golden Bachelor was not just a one off experiment. It was very popular. It is very successful. People enjoyed it. It was a reality show event that even caught my attention. They don't always do that, and.
That fuck boys never grow up like Peter Pan.
That's right. And now we are going to get to see a whole bunch of elderly fuck boys because The Golden Bachelor Urett is coming Fall twenty twenty four. So I don't think they've announced who it is quite yet, but exciting news for fans of reality TV. I'm sure Miles will have more to say about this when he is back tomorrow. Let's see Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is back in the hospital.
Because it's just so chill there.
Yeah, so this is he's the person who like didn't want to tell anyone he had to go to the hospital and people freaked out because they're like, you're there's Donald Rumsfeld from years past, like you have an important job, you got to tell us, and you know, so he didn't disclose his previous hospital stay. It was actually related to a prostate cancer diagnosis. And now there's like a real strike and effect going on here where you know, he didn't want to disclose his medical situation because he's
such a private person. But now there's heightened attention to his hospital stays as a result of that controversy, which is a total bummer for him and for us. I just wish him the best with his You know that that disease is no joke. And finally this is you know, we try and keep an eye on box office to see what people are watching. We say, you know, the movies have a pretty important impact on how people view, how people picture things that they haven't experience for themselves.
This is going to be our first box office report where we're talking about what people aren't seeing. Because it was complete dismal weekend for movie theaters.
Was was it expected to be?
I mean, what were they projecting because it is February. It's February traditionally, this is not.
Like a huge month for movies. Is that correct?
No, leading the witness, but you are correct. Your Honor. It was not expected to be big. The other thing they're dealing with is the like they people really spaced out there release schedule because of the strikes and you know, production shutting down for a while last year. So nothing came out this weekend other than Lisa Frankenstein from Diablo Cody of Juneo Fame. That one made about three million.
They were hoping that it would be like counter programming to the Super Bowl and didn't quite work out that way.
Lisa Franken Bowl, Lisa Franken Bowl.
Yeah, it's it's not the Puppy Bowl, it's not the bud Ball, It's the Lisa Franken Bull. Get Ready. The number one movie was Argyle, despite the fact that nobody in the world seems to actually like Argyle came in. Yeah, spoiler alert, people don't.
Know plane or you know, Yeah, I feel like.
It's a great plane movie.
While you're falling asleep in a hotel room or something.
Yeah. That being said, it was actually a good weekend for independent films. Several movies that are nominated for Best International Feature at the Oscars got a lot of baffo bio. There were some art house movies there's a new Harmony Corinne movie Aggro Drift.
With a one.
Yeah, that that Drift's gonna have a one that grows a g g r O and then Drift with a one because it's the future. But it's a experimental action narrative shot in infrared that if you just like go look at a trailer, it's actually kind of cool looking. But that that amassed forty six thousand three dollars in five shows over four days. Madam Webb we'll talk about on tomorrow's episode. But Madam Web is coming out this weekend. That is like the thing that's coming through to hopefully
save the box office. And the reviews are in, they're not great. We'll talk about it. But like the reason Madam Web is even even exists is because Sony needs to like keep their claim to Spider Man ip alive while making a movie that doesn't have Spider Man in it.
Yeah, it's the tone of everything around this film has been very strange. Dakota Johnson's press tour has been very strange.
Like impressively, so I'm actually a huge fan.
Now this is just like a weird like tax thing essentially or something that's.
The thing, so like there's gonna be all this media that's like the movies are dying. But like you know, as Jam pointed out, there was a good weekend for independent films. Obviously they're not making like trillions of dollars, but they did pretty well. I just feel like we can't be surprised when the studios and the big corporations who are in charge of making the big budget movies are treating them like fucking tax right offs and like deleting.
Like they just announced that that Wiley Coyote verus Acme movie is being shelved and deleted because like they didn't want to sell it for like seventy million dollars. So it's just a tax right off for David z As
left the whole. So when big budget movies are made and released to like keep an ip alive and not because anyone thinks it's going to be good or entertaining, or you know, when interesting movies are deleted as a tax right off, we're gonna get shittier and shittier movies at that tier, and then you know it's going to be up to lower budget movies to be good, I guess, And I feel like we're going to see more people going to independent movies hopefully, or the whole thing's just
going to die off. But I don't like the narrative of like man, movies are fucked because it doesn't feel like that's true. I don't think it's the movie's fault. I think it's the corporations who use movies as a fucking tax shelter like that. I think that might be the issue.
It's like, traditionally, like this is less true probably in recent years, but it used to be that if you had a real fucking stinker that you were going to take an l on you dump it in January of February, as a matter of course, and that's when all the trash movies come out that no one wants to see.
And yeah, I mean.
They're they're definitely keeping in with that tradition because there's a lot of Spider Man love out there. Oh yeah, that's very apparent. People fucking love Spider Man. And I'm really not seeing the excitement in those communities online. People are confused by this canonically. I mean, I think they understand business wise what's going on here, but canonically, what the fuck is this?
Is what I'm getting from people.
Yeah. When we got off done recording tomorrow's episode, to producer Justin was like, you guys like, don't really understand Marvel And I was like, oh shit, were we unfair to Madam Webb? He was like, no, not at all. Madam Webb is a fucking mess. So yeah, I don't know. I guess they can all be winners. Maybe that should just be we'll give it. We'll give Sony a pass on this one. But yeah, we'll talk more about this on tomorrow's episode, specifically Madam Web. But go see an
independent movie this weekend. How about that if you're not going to see Madam Web.
Yeah, Curny Karen is fucking weird. Check that out. Let us know.
Yeah, this shill looks interesting. All right. Well, Brian the Editor, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you? Follow you, come surprise you on your doorstep in person?
Yeah, you can find me on Twitter.
Brian the Editor's Brian with a y.
I'm at Jack underscore. O, Brian, that is gonna do it for this episode. We are back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other, Be kind to yourself at the vaccine, don't do nothing about white supremacy, and we will talk you out tomorrow.
Bye bye