“Hitler Fried Chicken,” A Thai Fried Chicken Joint, Sued By KFC And A Reclusive 124 Year-Old Brazilian
Michael Matthew Bloomer, June 10, 2013
“Ask about our Spicy Luftwaffe Wings!”
“Ich bin ein drumstick!” The owners thought it a novel idea. A new business needs to move clear of the crowd these days, and name recognition is among the keys to success in the huge fried chicken joint market. How you place yourself among competitors often yields quickly positive results. With many potential customers already captured by others, proposed ventures must drill down into demographic data to discover an as yet undiscovered potential customer base. Entrepreneurs must do their homework with deadly seriousness of purpose.
Thus a new Thailand-based eatery came to be named “Hitler Fried Chicken.” And why not? It’s a purely business decision. Few have better realized the market promise of the long ignored desire of heretofore dormant Hitler admirers for a tasty fried drumstick offered in a Hitler-friendly environment. Visitors to Hitler Fried Chicken experience obedient Wehrmacht-uniformed staff members serving everything from swastika-shaped chicken nuggets to “Blitzkrieg Burritos,” with the plaintive melodies of Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung setting the mood. One happy Hitler and fried chicken enthusiast observed, “It’s ‘Heil Chicken!‘ all around, from customers to submissive staff members, “Just like the old days, “und gebratenes Huhn mit frites Deutsch ist erhaben!”1
And in Thailand of late, the nearly universally maligned Nazi leader rides high. AsiaOne News reports:
The [Hitler] craze has seen more and more teenagers strutting around in T-shirts bearing cartoonish images of the Nazi dictator.
In a particularly popular design, Hitler is transformed into a cartoon Ronald McDonald, the fast-food chain’s clown mascot, sporting a bouffant cherry-red hairdo and a stern look.
On another T-shirt the Führer is shown in a lovely panda costume with a Nazi armband.
In September 2011 in the northern city of Chiang Mai, a group of high school students showed up for sport day in homemade Nazi uniforms, complete with swastika armbands and toy guns.
Leading them was a teenage girl dressed in a faux SS uniform with a fake Hitler mustache.
Locals cheered the students merrily from sidewalks as foreign tourists reportedly looked on aghast. In 2009, a waxworks museum in the seaside resort town of Pattaya advertised itself with a giant billboard featuring the Führer with the legend in Thai: ‘Hitler is not dead!’
In 2007, hundreds of students at a Bangkok school staged a similar Nazi-themed costume parade. Following international outcries, teachers at both schools apologised, saying they had no idea the students had planned to dress up as Nazis. [See complete AsiaOne News article here]
On another front, the storied Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) franchise now threatens legal action against Hitler Fried Chicken. Their spokesperson said, “We find it extremely distasteful and are considering legal action since it illegally infringes our brand trademark. . .”
In addition, this reporter spoke with a KFC marketing staff member who occupies an office in KFC’s Louisville, Kentucky corporate HQ building only thirty-four floors beneath the company CEO;s office. This anonymous six-foot eight inch tall red-headed albino marketing sub-executive disclosed to They Will Say ANYTHING! that Thailand’s Hitler Fried Chicken had “crapped all over” KFC’s own plans to
“substantially address Thailand’s admiration of Der Führer Adolph Hitler with our own Hitler-themed restaurants. After all, we were quite aware of Thailand’s fond regard for Der Führer. We were considering permitting our customers to kill
their own chickens with their bare hands or an authentic German flugelhorn. Now, because of these sneaky and selfish Thais, all our planning is kaput!2 Also, because of Hitler Fried’s actions, we’ve put a hold on another KFC gaststätte3 venture, Papa Stalin’s House of Ground Meat . . . So of course we’re going to sue Hitler Fried’s hosen off! At present, all we have available to us is legal action. Invading Thailand is out of the question, presently. Thus, für jetzt, wie stärken wir unsere beleidigend Fähigkeiten und Fertigkeiten!4
Finally, today in Sao Paulo, a 124 year-old German-Brazilian citizen filed suit against Hitler Fried Chicken for infringement of his rights to control his image and name. The reclusive longtime Brazilian rainforest resident demanded “vollständige und totale Anonymität“5 In June 2013, this litigious cento-vicenarian filed suit against J.C. Penney, according to court documents, “for its sale of a tea kettle obviously designed to mimic the anonymous plaintiff’s visage without compensation to anonymous plaintiff.” [See related story.]
TWSA! will follow and report these ongoing lawsuits.
