I was drunk one night and stumbled across Happy Gilmore on Encore the other night. It had been some time since I had seen the classic Adam Sandler movie. It was made in 1996, shortly after Sandler had left Saturday Night Live right before it took a turn for the worse. There's a moment in the movie when Gilmore needed to make some extra money so he becomes a sponsor for Subway and films a commercial for the fast food (yes it is a fast food restaurant, get over it) giant. Then I got to thinking, which is usually a bad thing after half a case of High Life, this commercial Happy Gilmore was filming didn't revolve around how Subway was a healthier choice than other fast food chains. It was just about the sandwich. It just seemed wrong.
Do any of you remember an exact year when Subway shifted their advertising campaign to focus on how their product was "healthier" than McDonald's or Burger King. It was the mid 1990's, a glorious time. A president was about to be impeached, but most of the country didn't give a shit. Homer Simpson was acting a buffoon in the most successful animated TV series in 50 years. And the only Subway commercials on the air were about how they had fresh baked bread and how great the Cold Cut Combo is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbCkiXJsqEA
Flash forward to the mid-2000's and we have Jared Fogle telling us how healthy and great Subway is, and how he walked to a Subway everyday and lost weight blah blah blah. My question is, how was Subway able to pull off such a dramatic change in image. They went from "Come to Subway, it's freshly madet" to "We're better than everyone else because it's not greasy hamburgers". I'm not sure any other fast food chain, let alone major company has been able to make such a dramatic change without anyone making a big deal out of it.
I remember a few years ago KFC tried to advertise themselves as healthy food because it was "chicken". Never mind the fact that it was deep fried, and it isn't even genetically chicken anymore. Those ads were quickly pulled after the FDA told them to not be so fucking retarded. Recently, even Taco Bell has tried to catch in on the healthy trend. The "Drive Through Diet" is being advertised as a healthy alternative to other fast food meals.
How can these companies sit there and tell us this shit with a straight face? Eating at Taco Bell helps you lose weight? I don't care what they do to those tacos, there is no way that eating strictly Taco Bell diet will help you lose weight. All of these chains have conveniently left out all the strict exercise regiments that are required to drastically lose weight.
May be eating a 6" turkey sandwich from Subway is better than eating the Triple Baconator. Then again may be eating at a restaurant that just says they have shitty burgers is better than eating a place that tells people that if you eat there you'll lose weight and be skinny and have a six pack.
