This Week In Off-Putting Fast Food Sandwiches UPDATE!

This week in Off-Putting Fast Food Sandwiches, we travel to the Orient, where McDonald's China just launched a burger with an unappetizing and unappealing gray bun.

Called the Modern China Burger, the buns resemble two carved and sculpted slabs of granite. Mm-Mm-ouch! If you've ever driven past a quarry and thought, "Say, I wonder what it would taste like if I crammed a piece of ground beef between two rocks and tried to eat it," then this is the burger for you.

This comes on the heels of the KFC Rose Cheese Chicken Leg Roasted Burger, which features an equally unpalatable pale pink bun, which is also from China. Apparently sales at KFC China are in a slump, so they're convinced bizarrely-colored buns are the answer.

Earlier this year Burger King Japan got in on the act with their Aka Burger, which featured an eye-searing bun colored with tomato powder. Lord knows what they put in the cheese to color it red like that. Maybe it's best if we never know.

And last year they came out with their sinister-looking Kuro Burger, which reportedly got its dark and Stygian coloring from squid ink. Yum!

American Burger King's also got in on the act last month with its black-bunned Halloween Whopper. Don't worry, there's no squid ink here! The bun reportedly got its obsidian tint from A-1 Sauce.

Unfortunately the Halloween Whopper had the unexpected side effect of turning the consumer's poo an alarming shade of green. Let's see the boys down in Marketing try and spin that one! It's the meal that keeps on giving!

After witnessing this Bizarre Burger Arms Race, all I have to say is, "Can I just get a goddamned plain, normal-looking tan-colored bun?"

This Week In Off-Putting Fast Food Sandwiches

This week Burger King Japan upped the ante in the highly completive world of Ill-Advised And Off-Putting Fast Food Concoctions, with their new Aka Burger.

The Aka Burger ("aka" meaning "red" in Japanese) uses tomato powder to produce its eye-searing color. Lord knows what's in the cheese to make it look like that. It also comes slathered with a so-called "Angry Sauce," made of red pepper, miso paste and Chinese chili bean sauce.

If you think this "angry" burger looks alarming now, wait till you look in your toilet bowl the day after eating one! Eh? Amirite?

(At this point Bob squirms in his chair and gnashes his teeth, wrestling with an internal struggle as he ponders whether he should post an image of a bloody toilet bowl here, to hammer home his point. In the end he succumbs to decorum and good taste, and chooses not to do so, instead letting the audience use their imaginations to picture the scene)

If for some unfathomable reason you're interested (and are planning a trip to Japan), the Aka Burger is available in either Samurai Beef or Samurai Chicken, and goes on sale July 3. You know, I could see an American marketing agency coming up with a name as stupid as "Samurai Beef," but it seems odd that the Japanese would call it that themselves. Maybe they've just thrown in the towel and accepted the fact that everyone in the world believes all Japanese know karate and are either ninjas or samurai. 

The Aka Burger isn't the first ill-advised sandwich cooked up by Burger King Japan. Last year they released their equally off-putting Kuro Burger, complete with a sinister looking black bun and topped with a floor mat-like slice of inexplicably black cheese.

Maybe next year they'll really lose their minds and try a normal looking burger fit for human consumption.

This Is Why Your MuuMuu Doesn't Fit: Carl's Jr. Most American Thickburger

Last week fast food giant Carl's Jr. revealed their latest pants-bursting sandwich, the Most American Thickburger. Mmm-mmmm! Just look at that appetizing concoction. Yum! Oh wait, did I say "yum?" Sorry, I meant, "excuse me while I vomit into my wastebasket."

The horrifying new burger features the standard burger accouterments— a beef patty, cheese, lettuce, tomato and pickles. But it doesn't stop there! This is America, after all. The burger also includes a layer of thick, glistening hot dogs and inexplicably, a substratum of potato chips. Because lord knows, why waste time eating three different foods separately when you can combine them into one appalling mound and stuff it down your craw all at once?

Why stop with hot dogs and chips? Why not insert french fries into the bun, and mash the whole thing into a large cup of soda?

The Most American Thickburger clocks in at a stupefying 1,080 calories. Add a large coke and fries and you're up to around 2,400 hundred calories, which is close to the amount the average adult should consume in a day. 

It might not be so bad if this is all a person ate for the entire day, but we all know that's not going to happen.

According to Andy Puzder, chief executive officer of the Carl's Jr. parent company, the Most American Thickburger is designed to appeal to "young, hungry guys." Notice that he didn't mention people with dignity, self esteem and taste.

Said Puzder, "People love these big, juicy, indulgent burgers. We know who we are and we know how to appeal to our customers."

When criticized for contributing to America's obesity epidemic, Puzder defended the burger by saying, "My job isn’t to dictate to people what to eat. My job is to figure out what people want and sell it to them." 

Wow. That sounds remarkably like what cigarette company executives say when they try to justify selling cancer causing products to the public.

Amazingly the Most American Thickburger comes in 1/2 and 1/3 pound sizes, and will set you back around $6. New, larger pants and diabetes medicine not included.

This Week In Ill-Advised Fast Food Promotions

Business analysts were stunned this week when desperate fast food giant McDonald's announced their new "Bankrupt Us Within A Month!" promotion.

The program, which runs from February 2 through Valentine's Day, allows customers to "pay" for their meals with "random acts of lovin" rather than cash. Examples of these acts include fist bumping a cashier, hugging a fellow patron, or calling a loved one to tell them you care.

The promotion comes at a crucial time for McDonald's, which has suffered substantial profit and stock losses for the past several quarters as consumers abandon the once popular burger behemoth for healthier fare. McDonald's 2014 revenue was reportedly $6.57 billion, down from $7.09 billion in 2013.

The new promotion, which gives out free meals to anyone, "even if they're just walking in to use the bathroom," is designed to hasten the corporation's financial downfall and bring them roaring into insolvency by the fourth quarter of 2015.

Not Lovin' It

Things are looking grim these days for McDonald's. According to recent sales reports, customers are deserting the fast food giant like rats from a sinking fast food franchise, as they spend their dollars at trendier eateries like Chipotle, or cheaper ones such as Burger King.

In an effort to shore up falling sales, McDonald's corporate leaders have decided the best thing to do is dump their current "I'm lovin' it" slogan, in favor of a new one. Because god knows people don't care about healthy food at a fair price, what they really want are snappier catch phrases!

The new slogan in question? Lovin' Is Greater Than Hatin.' And no, I'm not making that up, it's the honest to god actual new slogan.

(cue chirping crickets)

Well, that's definitely a slogan alright. It's not a good one by any stretch of the imagination, but you can't deny it's a slogan.

What's odd about it is that they've apparently chosen not to spell it out in traditional human language, but to write it instead as sort of an equation. Does the general public even know what the ">" symbol is? Will they be able to correctly decipher the slogan, or will they see it as "Lovin' Points To Hatin'?"

This slogan isn't going to affect sales one whit either way, but the deluded executive at McDonald's corporate offices seem to think it will. To help out the poor overpaid saps, I've come up with 8 New McDonald's Slogans Better Than Lovin' > Hatin.'

This one gets directly to the point and addresses the whole negative perception the general public seems to have toward the fast food behemoth.

Just callin' a spade a spade here.

This one may be a little too clingy, like that one desperate friend everyone has who always tags along on all your outings, whether he was invited or not.

A slogan for the Coulrophobe customer base.

This one's got a definite Fatal Attraction vibe.

Technically this one is true. McDonald's no longer cooks their fries in beef tallow, which, for those not in the know, is a hard fatty substance made from rendered animal fat, also used in making candles and soap. 

Again, spade.

This one's a bit near to my heart; it's what dear old dad used to say when mother would ask if the pot roast came out OK.

You're welcome, McDonald's. Feel free to use any or all of these slogans as you see fit. You can send remuneration to me care of my blog.

I'm Not Lovin' It

After a dismal five percent drop in first quarter earnings, this week fast food behemoth McDonald's decided to take drastic steps to boost their sagging bottom line.

So how do they plan to increase sales? By lowering the prices of their menu items? Improving customer service? Using actual edible substances in their food?

Nope, none of that. They plan to shore up their anemic sales by giving spokes-clown Ronald McDonald a makeover.

Ronald, seen here posing in front of the backdrop of every comedy club in the country, has dumped his traditional yellow jumper for a smart new embroidered red blazer. 

The new ensemble was designed by Tony Award-winning theatrical designer Ann Hould-Ward, whoever that is. It's the first wardrobe update for Ronald since 2005.

I must say I'm all for Ronald's snappy new look. Because Lord knows the reason I haven't eaten at a McDonald's in ten years is because of the clothes their goddamned clown is wearing. Their food is sure to be healthier and more palatable now that he's wearing a jacket.