I remember the urban legend of rats from my youth.

Engadget shares this nugget:

Plant-based meat substitutes may soon be an option for fast food chicken. CNBC reports that KFC will start testing Beyond Fried Chicken at an Atlanta restaurant on August 27th. Yes, you could grab a bucket of chicken without feeling quite so guilty -- or greasy, if Beyond Meat's earlier work is any indication. Whether or not availability grows will depend on feedback, but other restaurant chains (such as Del Taco) have seen upticks in demand since adding meat substitutes.

KFC had acknowledged talking to suppliers months ago to investigate meatless chicken, but didn't have any definitive plans until now.

The new Colonel Sanders is RoboCop? I'm not even going to pretend to understand what is going on at KFC HQ but this is really happening.

The campaign starts with a mockumentary video. Something about the Colonel's Secret Recipe needing better protection. Of course, that's where RoboCop comes in. He's been reprogrammed with a new prime directive to protect those precious 11 herbs and spices. It ends with RoboSanders walking the digital recipe in a briefcase to Stockholm's Bahnhof Data Center, a real underground storage bunker "built to survive Armageddon." Apparently, the Secret Recipe is actually being stored there.

"FauxBoCop," as Britt Hayes of AV Club perfectly dubbed him, also appears in two ads. The first one is called "Hungry Boy":

If you're wondering, yes, FauxBoCop is really voiced by the original RoboCop, Peter Weller, according to /Film:

I haven’t been able to confirm if it’s actually the 71-year-old actor wearing the suit in these commercials. I called his agents and confirmed that he was involved in this campaign, but when I specifically asked if Weller was wearing the suit, his agent told me “We have no comment on that.” Uh, okay then? I guess they really want to keep the mystery alive of whether their client got suited up or if he’s just lending his voice and a double is doing all of the physical stuff. Cool.

The second is called "Secret Recipe" and Carrie Brownstein, is that you?

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A magazine named after something kids shouldn't eat REALLY hates on a sandwich.

Paste:

And then you see something like KFC’s new Cheeto Sandwich, and you remember how it feels to take one look at a promotional image and feel the tiniest bit of vomit rising in the back of your throat.

Good god, KFC. What hath science wrought on this one?

My home has a fireplace and before the oppressive smoke of wildfires ruined the joy of lighting it, I used to start a fire once in a while during the colder months. Firewood isn't readily available here in the Bay Area, so I would often have to resort to the use of firelogs since they were easily obtained in the barbeque section of my local grocery store. This lead to a conversation with a friend of mine who assured me, "There's no shame in the chemical flame."

Well, KFC's latest promotional item, the 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog from Enviro-Log®, puts the shame back into the chemical flame. Yup, it's a chemically-engineered firelog that emits the scent of their fried chicken.

Imbued with the unmistakable, mouth-watering aroma of Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe, the KFC 11 Herbs & Spices Firelog finally puts to rest the age-old dilemma, “How can I make this fire a hundred bajillion times better?” This one-of-a-kind firelog from Enviro-Log, a leading manufacturer of firelogs made of 100 percent recycled materials, is the result of countless hours of research and development, all done over the last couple of months since we had this idea. Pick up a firelog today, and you’ll be wondering how you were ever able to enjoy a fire that didn’t smell like fried chicken.

This fried chicken firelog was available for $18.99 but has since sold out.

Image via The Daily Meal

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DHL has been shipping and losing packages for close to 50 years. Read the rest

I love gravy on chicken and potatoes, but in my cocktail? Not so sure, but I guess I'd try it. KFC's new marketing ploy is all about the gravy – and how it fits in behind the bar, offering us a few gravy cocktail recipes. This video shows us how to mix up a mean Gravy Mary. Yum? Read the rest

This is insane. RELEASE THE BIRDS!

KFC has given us a lot of really odd advertising, but this really something. Read the rest

Back when KFC used to be Kentucky Fried Chicken there were rumors floating around that some hungry customer bit into what they thought was a piece of chicken  only to find a juicy fried rat underneath the golden crust. The sensational story was eventually debunked by Snopes, but that didn't stop new rumors from flaring up, including one of the most recent stories spread by three different companies in China, who claimed on social media that KFC's mutant chickens had 6 wings and 8 legs.  Today KFC filed a lawsuit against these companies, demanding $242,000 and an apology. Read the rest