Del Taco: Chicken-Checkers

So I'm cruising over the 241 toll road Monday listening to the Angels-Yankees game on 710, when a Del Taco commercial drifts over the airwaves. There's some blah-blah-blah, and then the ad does exactly what the Lake Forest-based fauxMex chain's marketing department hopes it'll do: It gets my attention with the words “chicken-checkers.”

As in they check their chicken to make sure it's of high quality (or something like that — I was driving, couldn't take notes). Then the voice-overs keep repeating that phrase in assorted variants, each with increasing tones of nudge-nudge-wink-wink — “We check our chicken all the time! We're big on chicken-checking! Other chains only wish they were chicken-checkers like us!” (I'm paraphrasing here — again, no notes, but that's essentially what was broadcast).

Surely you know the phrase “chicken-CHOKing” — which is what Del Taco wants you to THINK you hear — is synonymous with pounding the pud, beating the meat, wang-danging the doodle, polishing the rocket, spanking the monkey, beating the bishop, firming the worm, making the bald guy puke, milking the lizard, squeezing the Charmin . . . oh, just go to www.worldwidewank.com.

I'm not yet sure whether this is the most juvenille radio ad I've ever heard or the most brilliant, but considering the historic ties that fast-food corporations have with titilating humor — the current Angus = Anus Jack-In-the-Box commercials; those In-N-Out Burger bumper stickers back in the '80s that people cropped to read “IN-N-OUT URGE”; and just about every Carl's Jr. spot produced in the past 10 years (a Six Dollar Burger gets you hot car-wash sex with Paris Hilton!) — I applaud Del Taco for continuing a lowbrow tradition. I wonder what axed Del spokesdude Dan would think?

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