KFC Wants You To Be Horny For Colonel Sanders

2020 has been a hell of a year for mascots.  Mr. Peanut was killed, then resurrected as a rapidly-aging child.  Toucan Sam became CalArts-ified.  Ronald McDonald and the Burger King made out.  It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the mascot world has one more punch to pull before the year is over.  

In a move that I truly hope no one saw coming, KFC has partnered with Lifetime to produce A Recipe For Seduction.  Picture it: a young woman is about to be coerced into an arranged marriage when suddenly a hot new personal chef comes along to spice things up.  And by “things” I mean chicken, because it’s Harland Sanders, played by Mario Lopez.  The 15 minute long feature was released on December 13th, and can be viewed on Lifetime’s website free of charge and without having to make an account. (Could you imagine if they expected you to pay to see this thing?)  The whole thing is rife with Lifetime Original Movie tropes (mother who always knows best, gay best friend, drama involving cell phones, getting knocked out by a light hit over the head), and in its hypercondensed state becomes a parody of itself.   Which is a good thing, because again, this is the Colonel Sanders Lifetime Original Movie.  They knew what they were making and treated it as seriously as it deserved.  I don’t know if I can wholeheartedly recommend watching it, but I also can’t say I regret watching it for this article.  

The most troubling thing about this is the revelation that KFC wants people to be horny for the Colonel.  And there’s a whole Kentucky Fried Chickenatic Universe of media saying so.

The Romance Novella

In 2017, the romance novella “Tender Wings of Desire” was published. The official excerpt describes the protagonist as being suddenly “swept into the arms of Harland, a handsome sailor with a mysterious past,” as she struggles to find her way in life.  It also credits Harland Sanders himself as the author, although author Catherine Kovach has since revealed herself as being the true auteur in the Q&A section of its GoodReads page.  Her replies to various people saying “Hey, what the fuck?” can best be summed up as “Yes, I wrote this.  Yes, I stand by it.  Yes, it is absolutely ridiculous and should not be taken seriously.”  Someone else in the Q&A section revealed that this was released as a Mother’s Day promotion, because… this is what mothers want?

The majority of reviews are 1 or 2-star, which at first made me think these people just didn’t “get it,” but after actually reading their critiques I saw that their problem was that the writing is apparently very bland and nowhere near as tongue-in-cheek as we were all hoping it would be.  There is at least one 4-star review that contains, “I laughed, I cried, I smiled as they set sail for their chicken empire in America,” (Apparently it’s set in Victorian England? Because that’s where all the great romance novels are set?) so at least one person enjoyed it.

The Dating Sim

Then, in 2019, they hit us again with the dating sim “I Love You, Colonel Sanders!” which despite being free on STEAM I just couldn’t bring myself to play.  But pretty much every Youtuber did a playthrough of it at the time, so I figure watching one of those is probably close enough.  You play as a student who is late to your first day of culinary school, where you meet Colonel Sanders, a robot student, an unnamed student that eats something so bad that they die and are represented by a bedsheet-ghost for the rest of the game, and a dog professor.  Just like real culinary school.  Game play includes answering questions like “what flavor dog treat does the professor want” and “if Train A leaves at 7:15 and Train B leaves at 8:47 should you wash your hands before cooking,” and the wrong answer is an immediate game over.  The art style ranges from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure to Ouran High School Host Club and every anime style in between.  While some critics panned it as being an obvious marketing stunt (like, no shit?) or even as a disservice to the dating sim genre, the STEAM reviews are “Very Positive,” so at least more people appreciated this attempt at a sexy Colonel.

But that just raises the question: Why has KFC decided this was going to be their branding?  Sure, KFC has been losing market share as Popeys and Chick-fil-A (ugh) have recently been expanding nationwide, and was all but left behind when the latter two were having their chicken sandwich war.  They had to do something to make people pay attention to them.  But was trying to get people hornt over their mascot the right way to go about it?  Are they trying to distance the Colonel’s image from the real life Harland Sanders, who was a serial womanizer and cheated on his first wife, and instead portray him in a much more “desirable” light?  Who is their target audience for this?  The romance novel and the Lifetime feature probably have a considerable amount of overlap, but the dating sim is definitely for a younger, weeb-ier demographic.  Does this have anything to do with troglodytes on 4chan and Reddit getting horny over the Wendy’s mascot? (Who is 8, you fucking creeps.)

We may never have all the answers for all of these questions.  I just hope I don’t get as burnt out on the KFCU as I did the MCU.