Taco Bell: Everything You Didn't Know

Our Mexican Pizzas of minutiae make a run for the border this week, covering the history of the perennial late night fast food option, Taco Bell. From its origins in unabashed caucasian theft, the hilarious corporate pettiness that has kept the chain running for decades, the life and legacy of America's favorite ad campaign-affiliated Chihuahua, just where the hell Baja Blast came from (spoiler: not Baja, that's for damn sure), Alex and Jordan serve us a Deluxe Cravings Box of facts. Listen Más, my friends!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show
that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating
facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music,
and more. We are your two fast food junkies of
fast and fun.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Factis okay, We'll take it. I'm Alex Heigel and I'm
Jordan run Talk.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, I didn't. You're so much better at these than
I am. To be honest, it's the part of the
episode I phone in the most.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
You're gordidos of great facts. I'll take it. I couldn't
know that's found your.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Mexican pizzas of Minuche. Oh that was right, well, that
was right there, well Jordan. Today we are breaking some
new ground here on TMI. We've given individual food stuffs
the TMI treatment before with Oreos and the Choco Taco,
and we've taken a look at the Resto Entertainment Empire
of one Charles Entertainment Cheese. But today we are casting

(01:03):
our bloodshot and malnourished eyes in the direction of the
drive through Lane this week and taking a good hard
look at arguably the most American franchise fast food franchise.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
And I'll get to that. Nu.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, I understand Taco Bell. That's right, folks, we are
finally living Moss Bong.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
More than a year after premiering that joke on our
Large Plane episode. We are finally living Moss God bless
so happy I didn't have the soundboard app pulled up
on my phone.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
I do believe Taco Bell is the most American franchise,
and people would say it's McDonald's, But those people are
wrong because McDonald's, despite being the most nakedly atavistic and
poisonous of the fast food empire, is not founded on
white person theft the same way that Taco Bell is.

(01:56):
Nor I would argue, does it have the history of
batch innovation? Yeah, that Taco Bell does. And the other
thing that I love about Taco Bell is that it's
it's it's in theory. And I say this with love.
It's the loser, uh fast food franchise right because it's
Oh yeah, it's perennially somewhere in third or fourth place.

(02:18):
Its biggest partnership is with Pepsi Forever the Bridesmaid.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Oh I thought you. I thought you were referring to
the people who go there. Oh, it is very much.
I was very much so.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, but but it's you know, it's always the bridesmaid,
never the bride. It's in bed with PEPSI similarly, and
it's the province of late night stoners and vegetarians.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
I mean, I have a soft spot for it because
growing up in central mass Uh, it was kind of
the most exotic restaurant in town, right, And I'm sure
that's not a unique Yeah, you are not alone, sir.
I wasn't. Really.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
We had a pretty good burrito place shout out to
Nito Burrito in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania. Yeah, they had this amazing,
like massive bison head on the wall that was like
they're like.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Like arguably as big a draw as the food.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
I mean, this is like this thing must have been
like from eighteen fifty or whatever, like right before massacred
all of them. I can't it was like the size
of a VW bug. So I can't argue that Taco
Bell was my first taste of Mexican food, but it
was my most taste of Mexican food, at least until
I moved to New York. But I don't know, is

(03:37):
there anything else to say about Taco Bell.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
I mean, I can't emphasize enough how I mean, I
remember when this opened in my little town in Massachusetts.
They were building it for I mean, I was probably
like six at the time, but it felt like years.
And it was this crazy because this was back in
the early nineties when they looked like an old mission
h and so it was this exotic looking building with
tiles and the and the roof and all that. And

(04:03):
I'll never forget. And we my dad and I and
again this is a small town. The day that it opened,
we made a point to drive there. And this was
like a twenty five minute drive from my house too,
but that and we went. We got there, and I
will remember, never forget as long as I live. And
got out of the car and there's no one in
the parking lot. My dad got out, peaked in the window.

(04:25):
It wasn't open yet. And that's when I learned about disappointment,
which is honestly a great theme for Taco Bell.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Wow well from the still in operation San Bernardino, Mexican place,
the Taco Bell stole its signature recipe from to the
hilariously petty genesis of the chain's beloved Baja Blast Mountain
Dew variant to TB's Curious Pride of Place in a
Sylvester still own B movie from the nineteen nineties. Here's

(04:55):
everything you didn't know about Taco Bell. The story of
every Stoner's Late Night Salvation begins with a man named
Glenn William Bell Junior.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
I can't believe his name was Belle. I always assumed
it was just named after a mission Bell or something
that's incredible. That's the best thing at chain based on
stole and named him after himself. Yes, ah, that's why
I say it's the most American thing possible. It really is.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Bell was born on September twenty third, nineteen twenty three,
to Glenn and Ruth Bell. They moved the family from
a farm in southern Oregon in nineteen twenty seven and
then back to California in the mountains above San Bernardino
in nineteen thirty four. Like a lot of people, Glenn
and his five siblings were pressed into the group effort
to keep the family stable during the depression. Six years

(05:43):
after this initial move, Glenn moved for the summer to
Washington State to help his great aunt Mary run her bakery,
which was a formative experience for the seventeen year old,
and one at the end of which they'd earned a
remarkable three thousand dollars in what is this nineteen forty
month selling pies and puffed.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Wheat so pie and rice crispies.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Basically yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And this was a step
up from just a year before, when, according to his biography,
which is called something like Taco King or something Titan
Taco Titan, Yes, uh.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Your rap name?

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I believe, he wrote that he'd gone on the bum
and ridden the rails in search of work, which are
phrases that take on a very different meaning in twenty
twenty three.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
But also equally lucrative.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
I've ridden some rails in search of work in the
New York City media, No, I never had a cocaine problem.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Shockingly, his family's not. I'm the one who would sound
like they would.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Maybe, Yeah, I could see you on like Benny's, like
old school, like sixties, like radio DJ Maritha, like eating
the Vics.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Like the thing behind the inhalo that you would eat. Yeah,
I don't even know what you're talking about. Now, Oh
you know that's how That's how the Beatles used to
get high before like everything when they were like teens
and when the old vix inhalers there was Ben's a
dream like in the back and you would like take
it out of the back of the inhaler and eat
n't whatever you do with that. Yeah, wow, there's some

(07:16):
take home news. That's some news you can use, folks.
And addition, is getting sued by Taco Bell for this episode,
Canna had vixed the list. Yeah that's wow. God, they
used to just put coke and everything right, Yeah, I
mean including coke. Just why is Pepsi's second?

Speaker 2 (07:35):
His family was so poor that he would bitterly recount
his embarrassment when a girl at school pointed out that
his shirt was made from sewn together cement sacks.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Now body would sell those shirts for like seven hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, or like uh or easy That sounds like the
new like Easy line, except it has a big schwastik
on it.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Bell's early experience with both food and poverty left a
big mark on him. His sister remembered to Southern California's
Kset in twenty sixteen that he made some mean French fries,
and his brother Merrill told the station Glenn used to
say when people were about broke with very little money,
they would spend their last dime on a hamburger.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
I'm sorry, I'm sure he made very good French fries.
How hard like, how different can you make your French fries?

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Well, that's my point. I mean, it's just like and
that's like poverty food. Like potatoes literally grow in the dirt,
disgusting garbage.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
You cut them and fry them. Yeah, there's nothing oil.
You can't put your own unique spin on al of it.
That's what's so hilarious.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
It's just I mean, I put his hard scrabble upbringing
makes me slightly charitably inclined towards him, But it is
really just the story of lowest common denominator.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Uh well, we'll get to that.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Bell wound up graduating from San Bernardino High School in
nineteen forty one, and he joined the Marines and served
in the Pacific Theater of WWII in nineteen five, earning
an honorable discharge in nineteen forty six. Apologies to our
veteran listeners. According to military dot Com, Bell worked in

(09:11):
food while at war. He dealt not with just requisitioning
and stalking foods, but cooking serving it to high ranking
Army and Navy officers in the Solomon Islands, which was
basically his ground up education in how to run a
food startup.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
I love imagining that, Like, high ranking Army and Navy
officers got first draft Taco Bell steam that hands. That's incredible. Wit.
What article was on military dot com Taco Bells?

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Like because he was a marine? Because that's the thing
is like do they.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Have like an article like recalling Taco Bell's early days? Wow,
gessny very much.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Did you've been in digital media too long to be
surprised by that?

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Right? That's true.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
So Bell came back to San Bernardino and, noting the
success of some other local boys selling burgers out of
a little stand called McDonald's, open his own burger joint,
Bell's Burgers in March of nineteen forty eight, just four
miles south of theirs on the border of San Bernardino
and Colton. The New York Times and their obituary notes
that this venture came after two other attempts at carving

(10:13):
out a living, hauling adobe bricks at five cents each
in a surplus army truck that he'd bought and leasing
a mini golf course Adobe.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
That's some Uh, that's the foreshadowing there.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Well, think about how the two roads diverged in a
wood could have been so different. We could have had
Bell's mini golf emporium instead.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Wow. So the first McDonald's and the first Taco bell
Yesh restaurant, the San Bernardino Medinos. Yeah, ground zero of
fast food and a heart disease and the I mean
the Inland empire.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Baby Bell and the McDonald's were arriving at their fast
food ventures just at the dawning of the American fast
food era, which grew out of the emerging Southern California
car culture, particularly in San Bernardino, which was the last
major city stop on America's famed roots sixty six.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
I didn't know that. I thought it ended at a
Santa Monica peer. You had that big sign.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
I guess that's major shit. Well now I don't know.
Hold please, no, I'm not going to look that up.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Who gives you? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
San Bernardino vat and Belle was nothing if not industrious.
He sold his sister's fridge for seed money, presumably with
her consent, and least it twice, all the food on
the floor. Glenn and built this stand himself. As he
wrote in his biography, I must have looked like I
knew what I was doing, because people who saw me

(11:35):
work offered construction jobs, and I made a few extra
dollars on the side stupid sidebar.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
In high school, our friend's mom was a real letor
I think she still is. Actually I think she listens
to this show shout outs. Katie and her mom, Deb
had a website called debsoldmihouse dot com, and it became
this running joke of like her just selling people's houses.
How tapsil my house again?

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Oh, it's like that Dan Smith will teach you guitar
flyers in New York. The guy went around, uh, just
putting like Dan Smith, will.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
You wait that I've never seen?

Speaker 2 (12:15):
I didn't see those gorilla guerrilla stickers. Uh yeah. Bell's
Hamburgers opened in March of nineteen forty eight, and he
quickly opened another burger stand at Oak and Mount Vernon
in San Bernardino. But the fast food burger market was
rapidly hitting a point of oversaturation, and already looking for
ways to distinguish himself, he saw how more and more
white people in the La sprawl were eating Mexican food,

(12:38):
and pitched the idea to his wife. She scoffed, saying
that it would never go mainstream because it was too spicy,
to which he retorted that he just toned down the heat,
to which she responded, well, then Mexicans won't want it.
Ah the forties, it's quite like Goalilocks and the Three Bears.

(12:58):
Bell's third stand opened in nineteen fifty across the street
from a Mexican place and down the street from a
tortilla factory, so very centrally located, and he started frequenting
his competitor and tried to figure out their secrets. This
competitor was the Mitla Cafe. Think that's how you say that,
a classic California Mexican restaurant founded by Vicente and Lucia

(13:20):
Montano in nineteen thirty seven, and it's still operational.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
That's so cool. It's the oldest Mexican restaurant in the
Inland Empire. And Bell was absolutely transfixed by the lines
that formed there for their signature ten cent taco dorados,
which was a thinly fried tortilla shell lined with simple
meats treaded cheese and dice tomatoes. That bears what you've
described as an alarming resemblance to the classic taco bell

(13:46):
taco who the thought. Hmm, But Mittler deserves more recognition
than just being the place that yet another white guy
ripped off at the time. Historian Mark Osaguada, a San
Bernardino native, I've told the Bay Areas kalw that the
city was strictly divided along racial lines, which I had
no idea about. The city restricted Mexicans to living on

(14:09):
the west side. There was school segregation, there was segregation
in public theaters, in the workplace. At the Santa Fe Railroad,
there were Mexican restrooms and white restrooms. I had no
idea about any of this. Mexicans were only allowed to
pool at the local Paris Park one day out of
the week, the day before it was to be drained
and cleaned. Oh my god. Super racist.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, dude, this is the hidden the history of southern
California is so hateful.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Wow. And during this time, the Mittler Cafe became a
meeting point for local business leaders, and buoyed by these connections,
it evolved into a hub for the brand new Mexican
American Defense Committee, who actually sued the city for access
to the Paris Park pool. Osagueda said that in nineteen
forty four, the decision went in favor of the Mexican
American Defense Committee and it desegregated public pools, parks, and

(15:00):
recreation facilities for Mexican Americans and the city of San Bernardino,
a decision that served as precedent for the case that
would desegregate schools in California, and in turn served as
precedent for the landmark US Supreme Court decision Brown Versus
Board of Education in nineteen fifty four. That's in chat
that out.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
The precedent for Taco Bell arguably has a connection to
Brown v.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Board of Education. Also, it's amazing that a white person
ripped off the place where prown v.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
Board of Education arguably had as it See, yeah, yeah,
America is really it's a hell of an American.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
America's built on racism, unfortunately, in a pattern that has
repeated itself over and over again in minority communities across
the country. A new highway that only had exits on
the east side, towards downtown and away from the immigrant
communities on the west side was constructed in San Bernardino
and began to isolate the neighborhood. It is astounding how
that happens in city planning across the entire country. You

(16:03):
see it in New Orleans, with you see it in
Austin obviously the big you know Robert Moses and the
was it cross Bronx Expressway oh Man Anyway, Eventually western
exits were added, but the damage had been done. But
Glen Bell was not responsible for this. He was just
a different white guy looking to steal something that he

(16:23):
hadn't come up with himself. While most tacos and Mexican
cooking or soft shell cafe Meatles's tacos dorados were stuffed
toothpicked together and then fried, creating their crispy, golden exterior.
And that was where Bell saw his opportunity. Instead of
frying the shells to order, if he could batch fry
a bunch of them in advance, he'd be able to
sell exponentially more still and make it slightly worse, yeah, exactly,

(16:47):
remove that really bespoke quality to it, and just make
it as anonymous as a car production line. So he
got in contact with the local guy who made chicken
Coops who built him a custom fryer basket out of
chicken wire for the shells, and then all these pre
fried shells were lined up in a taco rail at
the stands counter to make them easy to fill. According

(17:09):
to him, the only difference between his filling and the
Cafe meatless was that he left out the liquid smoke flavoring,
and according to another source I read, which I believe
more because it speaks to his laziness, he basically used
a slightly modified version of the topping that he was
already using on his chili dogs.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Great stuff. Liquid smoke. Oh you never heard of liquid smoke? No?
Oh yeah, it's a big thing in like in barbecue
and such. Wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's not actually liquid smoke. It's just like it's like
umami flavoring. Oh that's a cool name for a band though.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Liquid smoke. Yeah yeah. So is this where hardshell tacos
come from? I really I never realized that those are corn?
I guess no, there's I mean, there is.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
They have a precedent in like actual Mexican food, But
this is they I mean, this is arguably where they
come from.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
On the on the mass scale. I believe there was.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
I was getting a little in the weeds with it,
and then I stopped caring. So no, I believe, is
the short answer to your question. They are made. You know,
they do have fried tacos in traditional Mexican cooking. But
funnily enough, Bell didn't even invent the mass taco construction

(18:23):
mechanism either. He was preempted by Juvencio Maldonado, a Juahacan
immigrant living in Manhattan, who created and patented a machine
for the construction of multiple hard shell tacos in nineteen fifty.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Bell didn't even do that either. Tremendous Here's the real
important question for you. You a hartshell guy or a
soft shell guy.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
I'm a soft shell guy because the hard shells are
just too crumbly, man, you know, and they cut the
roof of my mouth, you know, And so I like
just getting a soft show and folding it over on
itself and making it as small as possible and then
just eating it as few bites as possible and then
housing like six of those.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
I'm a heartshell guy because I like hurting myself.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
And say, you, big Captain crunch fan, you really just
like those gaping wounds on the roof of your mouth, and.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Then you have some hot pizza afterwards. Yeah, it's like
self branding. That That's one of the more upsetting and
not even funny images that I've I've put through in
this series, just a real you know, we're doing the
Lord's work here. I hurt myself on the roof of
my man.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
As you meditate on that, We'll be right back with
more too much information after these messages.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Bell's Tacos arrived in December nineteen fifty one, and in
a moment Vivid recounted in his biography the aforementioned Taco
Titan and that, I mean, I guess what else are
you gonna call the founder of Taco Bell's biography, I mean,
that's kind of right there, theft Michael. He describes a

(20:18):
man in a loud, pinstriped suit approaching and said, give
me one of those tacos. Although the taco dripped juice
under the guy's suit, which was half the reason that
Bell wanted hard shells, so that they'd be hardier and
neater for on the go eating, which is one of
the reasons why I'm a hard shell guy. Bell figured
that this guy in the suit would want a refund,

(20:39):
but instead, even though he just stained his shirt, he
ordered seconds a Tacos quickly became a hit, though telling
me the Mexicans who did frequent his stand avoided them,
preferring the stick with burgers and hot dogs. By nineteen
fifty four, Bell was doing well enough that he decided
to go as you write, full Mexican and plant open

(21:00):
an all Mexican restaurant about a mile from the original McDonald's.
That's again, I can't get over. This is the ground
zero for fast food in this country. The art student
he hired to redress the old diner suggested the name
La Tapatilla, a name that sort of is a regional
reference to the women of Guadalajara and the sort of
stereotypically large, dark eyes and flowing hair. Bell's business partner

(21:22):
vetoed the idea as too ethnic and pushed for Taco tia,
a nonsense bastardization of the phrase that means taco on
or on taco your mileage may vary. For the grand opening,
Bell ordered dozens of palm leaf sombreros with the name
on the brim and distributed them around town. He also

(21:43):
hired a mariachi band and spotlight. It's like a movie premiere.
I'm guessing he was whole hog for the openings.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Actually, in this era, people talk about like they every
time the new Taco Bell opened, it was like a
town wide event.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
I mean, I can speak to this. I don't remember
your didn't have a mariachi band, you know, it may have.
I feel like there were like lots of balloons and
stuff like. I feel like it was a big deal
in like nineteen ninety two. So it's just nineteen cents
of Taco Bell created an instant success, and the restaurant
grossed eighty thousand dollars in its first month. That is

(22:18):
almost we're gonna do the math on this. Are we
I failed at this? Yeah? That was ninety five thousand tacos.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, that checks out. I could easily eat one thousand
tacos in a month.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Really, what is that a day? I said that without
actually thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
That's like thirty tacos a day, maybe tenth or maybe
five hundred, maybe five hundred a month.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
So all right, so if there were one hundred and
eighty U yeah, that would be okay? All right? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Uh two years and three taco teas later, Bell sold
his interest after his business partner bulked at further expansion.
Coward and he opened another fast food restaurant in Pasadena
in nineteen fifty seven, and a year later took on
three partners in a chain called El Taco. He also
helped his friend John Gallardi open the first Wiener Schnitzel,

(23:12):
which I did not know about, but is just a
German focused fast food place. Regional, regional, not national, might
be might be national.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
No, it is it, it is it? Oh my god.
The logo was designed by Saul Bass, who did all
those movie posters.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, it's just hot dogs. Yeah, it's mostly they're only
old a friend, it's mostly California and Texas anyway. One
of Bell's first employees and partners was ed Hackbarth, who
would go on to found the popular del Taco chain.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
El Taco.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
The chain was opened with some former NFL players and
Bing Crosby's son Phil.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
So was that the one he beat? Almost certainly? No, Yeah,
there was one that he didn't. Oh that's nice. Maybe
he was like, okay, you you're a taco ta and
you can get over it. I see great things for
you wow dark. But by nineteen sixty two Bell had
enough capital in Cloud to do things fully himself and

(24:12):
found this opportunity on Firestone Boulevard in Downey, California, hometown
of the Carpenters. You mentioned the Carpenters on the last
episode with Barbie Girl. Bell built a courtyard of open
air shops that he called Plaza Guadalajara, one of which
was a small South of the Borders style food stand
designed by architect Robert McKay. That bore the name and

(24:36):
you say it in reverent tones, Taco Bell Boom. It
wasn't that, reverend. I've been teased about my name since
I was a kid, Glenn said, Ding Dong Bell, that
sort of thing he's writing in his biography. This gave
the name a positive ring, no pun intended. Oh he's good.

(24:57):
The architect, Robert McKay took that aspect in with it.
He designed a California Spanish style mission motif for the restaurant, arched,
tiled and topped with the rooftop Bell, along with an
outdoor seating area built around the fire pit. That's cool.
Bell eventually hired McKay to be the president of Taco Bell,
and he closed his architecture firm and went, as you say,

(25:19):
full taco. I here's a question, go on, does running
an architect firm qualify you to be president of a
fast food company.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
I mean it's all just giving yourself raises and delegating
all the actual work to like people below you. Right,
that's what Amery Ceo does.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Taco Bell at its outset only sold five items. That's incredible, tacos, tostados, burritos,
chili burgers, and a side of pinto beans. But even
with this fairly limited menu, it did well enough that
the first franchise was open in nineteen sixty five, with
this one hundredth in Anaheim joining the family in nineteen
sixty seven. That's in two years they opened up one

(26:01):
hundred well ninety eight stores.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
People love tacos, man, especially cheap white person ones.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
It's bonkers. Ten years later, in nineteen seventy seven, there
were seven hundred and fifty nine Taco Bells and thirty
eight states, and a year later, when Pepsi Co. Bought
the chain for one hundred and twenty five million, there
were eight hundred and thirty eight. Now, I had no
idea until you told me this recently that Pepsi owns
Taco bell I wanted to tell us a little bit

(26:30):
about how the sugar water people bought the crappy white
people Taco Place. Well.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
To contextualize the Pepsi purchase, we've got to do a
brief digression on the cola wars. This is going to
get a little in the weeds here, folks, but just
bear with us. It's the team, it's the Tea tom
My brand.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
It's interesting. I like this.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
In eighteen eighty six, a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia named
John S. Pemberton created coke as bottled medicine.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
It's like a euphemism for booze.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
I mean, it did have cocaine in it. In North Carolina,
pharmacist Caleb Bradham, a slave owner's name if I've ever
heard one, introduced Brad's Drink in eighteen ninety three. It's
so the most perfect name is yes, exactly, It's the
perfect Coke Pepsi relationship. Coca Cola an iconic, vaguely mysterious

(27:19):
sounding semi medicinal thing that becomes synonymous with America and
its competitor, Brad's Drink.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, that's the George Carlin's routine. Uh it wait.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Became Pepsi, from a Greek word meaning digestion in eighteen
ninety eight. Coke had a head start. By the time
Pepsi debuted, they were selling over a million gallons a year,
and in a more preternatural marketing sense, Coke was also
courting celebrity and athlete sponsors and already using Santa in
its ad campaign.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Thinking of gallons of coke is just so gross. I
just don't like measuring coke and gallons. Buddy.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
You had never worked in food service. You never got
the big bags of the syrup. I know I was
an ice cream I was an ice cream man.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
I'm an oil. I'm an ice cream man. Ladies and gentlemen.
If I tell you I'm an ice cream man, you
will believe me.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
AhR Daniel playing for your voice is so good.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
If I'd say I'm a taco man, you will believe me.
Pepsi almost went bankrupt as a matter of fact, as
a result of sugar rationing in World War Two, and Coke,
in an act of astounding pettiness, twice rejected their offer
to acquire the company as some dude put it in
his viral rant from earlier this year. Pepsi's unofficial slogan

(28:39):
for most of the twentieth century was is Pepsi Okay?
Because its biggest selling point on the market was that
it was cheaper for restaurants to stock than coke, so
people asking for a coke were often confronted by that
question by servers, and as you pointed out a sketch
also memorialized in the uh semi racist Greek restaurant bit.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
From early no coke pepsi yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
So by the nineteen sixties, realizing that it was a
disgusting sugar drink fit only for the smaller birds, Pepsi
knew that it couldn't beat coke on taste alone, and
decided to pivot to market dominance, merging with Frido Lay
in nineteen sixty five in one of the biggest food
and beverage mergers of the century. But the FTC slapped
rules on this merger, mandating in nineteen sixty eight that

(29:27):
the newly created Pepsi Co. Could not create advertising tie
ins between Pepsi and any of its salty snack arsenal
and crucially, and here's the rub, barring them from quote
acquiring any snack or soft drink maker for a period
of ten years. So naturally they turned their eyes to
fast food, where again Coke was ahead. In nineteen fifty five,

(29:52):
Ray Kroc, who is not the McDonald's founder but the
guy who created who turned it into the juggernaut it
is today, had approached coc about joining with him in
his expansion of McDonald's, and Coke agreed. The two have
a symbiotic relationship. As McDonald's expanded globally, it often operated
out of Coca Cola's local offices as a base of operations.

(30:14):
Coke is also prohibited from selling its products to other
restaurants for less than what McDonald's pays, and crucially, coke
product syrup is delivered to McDonald's in these enormous stainless
steel tanks that make it a nightmare for the workers,
as opposed to plasticine bags that the other soda syrups
are delivered in. You don't get soda in its finished

(30:36):
form in restaurants for anyone who's never worked in restaurants.
You get the concentrated syrup, and then you have a
Seltzer line that combines them and most fast food, most
most soda syrups are delivered in these gross, gelatinous bags.
Coke comes in these enormous stainless steel containers. That is
the reason when people describe McDonald's coke and sprite in

(30:59):
terms like crispy and ultrapotent. That's supposedly why so ten
years after muscling its way into the snack market and
being prohibited from expanding further in that market by the FEDS,
PEPSI turned got a foothold in fast food. They acquired
Pizza Hut in nineteen seventy seven and Taco Bell in
nineteen seventy eight. Now next, they supposedly had their sites

(31:21):
set on Wendy's, pursuing Wendy's for the better part of
a decade, but they eventually settled on KFC to complete
their unholy trifecta in nineteen eighty five, when Nabisco offered
them a firesale price hilariously, in a move that seems
primarily motivated out of spite, when the KFC sale was announced,
Wendy's responded by announcing.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
That they were switching over to Coca Cola.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
I just I love all this stuff because of how
Apex petty all of it seems to be. This unholy
trio were then spun off into Yum with an exclamation
mark Brands by PepsiCo in ninety seven. This was because
after a decade or so, supposedly this whole expansion thing

(32:05):
really failed to net them any actual market gains or
help them make any inroads against Coca Cola, so they
decided to spin its off into its own thing.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
Now.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
The YOUM Brands move attained new level of at least
twenty twenty three internet based notoriety earlier this year when
a TikToker named Alexander Pearlman had a viral rant about
Young Brands and PepsiCo, essentially positing that the entire KFC,
Taco Bell, Pizza Hut combination restaurant things that you see

(32:36):
in some of the finer strip malls across this great
country is a ploy to save costs on real estate
and operational costs, which makes sense, but that the company
then parlayed all of their savings into anti worker legislation,
lobbying Congress to battle minimum wage raises, hourly breaks of

(33:00):
that nature. And this is broadly true according to OpenSecrets
dot org, which tracks lobbying costs. Young Brands has been
putting most of its lobbying money, which for just last
year was over one and a half million, towards labor issues. Initially,
when Open Secrets started tracking them in the late nineties,
they started out evenly lobbying on taxes and the broader

(33:23):
category of labor, antitrust, and workplace. But since then they
have shifted the majority of their money towards those issues.
How's all that strike you? See?

Speaker 1 (33:32):
This is what I love about whenever we tackle and
they're usually I mean, they're always your episodes sort of
broader things like I remember the bikini episode had like
you giving a really interesting history lesson on the rise
of the suburbs and pool culture and how that made
bikinish more of a thing. You always take it to
a very interesting, very academic place that I never would expect.

(33:54):
I always go to the little anecdotes, the little human anecdotes,
but you always give these great sociological histories, and I
really I always feel like I'm just listening to you
give a really great lecture. And I mean that in
a nice thing.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
And that's the TMI promise, deflating all of those nice
things you said. The only reason I know anything about
this is because of Dos Racists semi immortal hit combination
Pizza Hut and Taco.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
Bell song which Jordan will punch in now.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Ham Pizza Hut Chaco Bell at the combination Pizza Hutt
and Taco Bell comment.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
The Pizza Hut what Amazaco Paul's for Dos Racist.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
So that's the history of PEPSI owning Taco Bell, KFC
and Pizza Hut and combining them all into one brick
and mortar place, and also UH lobbying Congress for the
better part of two decades to over the little guy Bong. Also,

(35:00):
around this time, we can thank Taco Bell for the
first ever recall of genetically modified food?

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Did you know that by that? I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
This was in September of two thousand, when up to
fifty million dollars worth of Taco Bell branded shells were
recalled from supermarkets because they contained a variety of genetically
modified corn called starlink that was not approved for human consumption.
It's not as bad as you seemed. They basically just
didn't know if it was going to cause allergic reactions.
I just find it hilarious. That we can trace the

(35:28):
first ever recall of GMO's to Taco Bell, and that
it was for a product called Starlink.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
We are eating, you can't eat something called starlink.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
That it does sound like like the communications device that
they'd use in like a like we got to upload
the plans for the base into starlink.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Nope, isn't that the communication system Elon Musk communication system
that the Titans sub used? Jesus Christ, that's I think
it was. You would know. Yeah, that's the Yeah, it's spacing.
It's a SpaceX property. Wow, that's hilarious. Do you think
it was more successful or I guess? I guess we

(36:08):
can't blame the sub disaster on start Link any lot
Musk try as we might. We'll get there. Give me
long enough and we'll get there.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
So with all of that dry corporate intrigue and white
people theft out of the way, let's get into the
real eighty eight percent meat of the episode, the food.
Rather than going through the entirety of the Taco Bell menu,
which is a different podcast and one that I'm sure exists,
We're gonna go with two of their most beloved offerings,
starting with possibly the most bizarre one, the Mexican Pizza.

(36:38):
Mexican Pizza came on to Taco Bell's proverbial scene in
nineteen eighty five, dubbed Pizzaz Pizza. Some sources say that
it did hit some test markets under the name Mexican Pizza,
but in nineteen eighty six they were sued by another
pizza brand called Pizzaz Pizza.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
I just love saying that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
An iconic commercial for Mexican Pizza hit the airwaves in
nineteen eighty eight that the item was like pizza, but
it's different.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
That was in the app. Yeah, we're making pizza, Mexican Pizza.
It's like pizza, but it's different.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Knowing all of this iconic stuff that Taco Bell is
like the Taco Bell Dog, all these great ad campaigns,
and back in nineteen eighty six they were swinging for
the fences with It's like pizza, but It's different.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
That commercial was notable.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
For showing the inclusion of black olives and green onions,
which Thrillist in their History of the food Stuff confirmed
were removed in the early nineties and mid two thousands
early double lotts, respectively. In two thousand and six, it
was reported that green onions were being removed from all
of the items on the Taco Bell menu in response
to an.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
E Coli outbreak. Great stuff now go on. Taco Bell
has long been a bastion for vegetarians in the fast
food world because its options can be made vegetarians simply
by subbing in black beans animal protein. In particular, the
Mexican pizza has been identified as a favorite of the
South Asian community, which is why when Taco Bell streamlined

(38:08):
its menu in September twenty twenty and remove the Mexican pizza,
a change dot org petition to bring it back, which
was spearheaded by a man named Chris Jagadar, obtained over
one hundred and seventy one thousand signatures. Jagudar told Thrillist,
I think that the Mexican pizza and Taco Bell in
particular has such a strong bond and tie with the

(38:29):
South Asian community. It was really the only accessible fast
food that a lot of Indian Americans had access to. Again,
it was really this amazing opportunity for people like us
who are vegetarian to really kind of substitute really anything
on the menu and still have this really fun tasty experience.
That's a very generous description of going to a Taco Bell. Meanwhile,

(38:51):
in twenty twenty one, Doja Cat, friend of the pod
Doja Cat, tweeted that she wanted quote Mexican pizza backiously enough,
she would later preempt Taco Bell's announcement that the pizza
was returning in April twenty twenty two, when on April seventeenth,
during her Coachella performance, she announced in the middle of
a song, I brought back the Mexican pizza. By the way,

(39:16):
I'm trying to think of a you couldn't. You couldn't
mad libs. You couldn't mad libs this whole thing together. No,
Taco Bell made their own announcement with Doja as part
of the campaign the day after, and they also signed
Jaguar's Change dot org petition, which was very nice of them. Yeah,
they threw him a little bow man. Yeah yeah, Oh
that's offensive because it's vegetarian.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
They didn't. They threw him some black beans. There is
that worse? Can we get the lawyers in line?

Speaker 1 (39:45):
I feel like they other guy. You know, Chipotle has
like the celebrity card that comes in like an engraved
wooden box that they send out to Brad Paisley or
whoever the hell and and it entitles you to I
think Jeff Tweety of Wilco was interviewed about it how
on Conan or something where he or Seth Myers or
something where it entitles you to free Chipotlet forever. I

(40:07):
think that that's what That's what Doja got done. Oh
Doja and the change Jagedar, Yeah, both earned like free
Taco Bell forever. The initial return of the Mexican Pizza
was so rapturously received that Taco Bell actually had to
pull the item again after its initial return because it
was experiencing supply shortages. Apparently, one customer bought one hundred

(40:30):
and eighty pizzas in one order. The Mexican pizza then
made its permanent return to the Taco Bell menu in
September twenty twenty two, helped along by a Mexican pizza
musical on TikTok performed by Dolly Parton, which, if I
didn't know you better, I would assume you made that up.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
So pivoting to the beverage segment of the menu, we
didn't even get into it. I didn't, I didn't make
time for that the cinnamon chiloupas who cares stay on topic,
Alex stand topic. The chain's iconic Mountain dew. Baja Blast
variant meanwhile, came about in the nineteen nineties, again out
of failure. Taco Bell saw their soda sales falling precipitously,

(41:16):
which is one of the areas where every single restaurant
typically sees an enormous margin. The company's former chief marketing officer,
Greg Creed told comicbook dot Com for their astounding oral
history of Baja Blast, we tried to get to the
bottom of why that was, and the answer was because
a lot of young people, teenagers, young adults. Their response was, well,

(41:36):
I've got a free drink at home because mom and
dad have been out to Walmart or Costco or Kroger,
which is an astoundingly price and budget conscious decision for
the American teenager in the nineteen nineties. So God, this
is maybe my favorite anecdote for the entire episode. Taco
Bell's response was to reach out to Pepsi in two

(41:57):
thousand and two, who you remember, had just spun Taco
Bell out of its friendly sugary bosom in nineteen ninety
seven and say to them, will you please help us
create a Taco Bell exclusive drink. I remember being in
that meeting. Creed said. They were like, yeah, no, I
don't really think so we don't really do that, and
you guys will probably only support it for like six

(42:19):
months and then it'll go away, and it's a lot
of work. So hilariously, Taco Bell, and presumably an actual
light bulb moment accompanied by the sound of the bell,
decided that turnabout was fair play. And since they thought
to themselves, well, we're no longer part of Pepsi, what
if we switched to Coke, they played hardball with their

(42:41):
parent company. They threatened to drop Pepsi and go with
Coke at all of their locations. Dave Berwick, who is
Pepsi Co's chief marketer from two thousand and two to
two thousand and five, told comicbook dot Com, I can't
remember the moment when we decided to partner with them.
Taco Bell were very persistent. I remember that just a

(43:04):
really nice way of saying they were playing super hard
ball with us, and we thought, you know what, we
can justify this because Taco Bell and Mountain Dew go
so well together, and Taco Bell is willing to do
so much behind this that I don't think any other
customer is going to be willing to do what they're
going to do. Taco Bell had, hilariously their site set
on Mountain Dew from the very beginning. The hateful beverages

(43:27):
code red variant had just become a huge hit across
the nation, and because all of these people should be
first against the wall and under the guillotine, they decided
to name and color their variant after the crystal blue
waters of Mexico's Baja Peninsula, where Pepsi and Taco Bell
execs took a retreat i e. A golf and beach
and alcohol vacation to Cabo San Lucas. That was an

(43:49):
all expenses paid thing, presumably, and this was the only
actual work any of these people did was just name
the thing there. God, I hate business people. The drink, however,
almost wasn't actually blue flavored. It was supposed to be
a straight up lime version, but Mountain Dew was independently
in the process of creating its own new variant, Live Wire,
which leaned towards the citrus taste portfolio. Whatever exactly you

(44:11):
could call the end result of Baja Blast. The results
were unmistakable. It has actually increased in sales every year.
It's been available at Taco Bell since I think two
thousand and five, and the chain in Mountain Dew reached
an agreement that would let them bottle and sell the
drink outside of the Bell during the summer months. That's

(44:31):
how crazily successful it was. Name another product, I mean,
it's nuts. One viral TikTok though, did suggest that it's
just regular Mountain Dew with a splash of blue power
aid added, which is hilarious and probably true.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
I've never had it, really, Yeah, this name means nothing
to me. Oh, but you're a soda boy. Oh, Baja
Blast is so good. Yeah. I don't think I've ever
even I must have heard of it somehow, But it
was really when you were pitching this, you know what, Bud,
what's that treat yourself? I didn't even take it.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Take a little, take a little, take a little Jordan moment,
Taco Bell. I'm actually looking it up right now, bush Wick. Ooh,
we have a Taco Bell cantina near us in Berkeley.
I didn't even cover the Taco Bell cantina oh, bud,
there's one at that one on Grand You got a
cantina near you right off Gates what?

Speaker 1 (45:23):
I don't know that anyway.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
The success of Baja Blast paved the way for another
iconic Taco Bell collab, the Doritos Loco taco, which ports
the classic TB taco to a shell dusted with the
iconic Nacho cheese Dorito's dust, which earned Taco Bell one
billion dollars in its first year on the market. Those
things are good as hell, though, uh Creed told comicbook

(45:49):
dot Com, I'm convinced if we had not made Baja Blast,
there would be no Doritos Locos tacos. Because it's one
thing to let us play with mountain dew, it's another
thing to us play with Dorrito's. Hell of a quote.
You will remember that Dorita's is free to lay product
on merger pepsi, so they would add cool ranch flavored

(46:10):
tacos later.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
That sound I don't like that. That doesn't sound good.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
It isn't as good as the Nacha cheese flavored one
because ranch is a is sort of a strange bedfellow
with Yeah, yeah, oh.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
I guess it kind of has the sour cream. Yeah,
you got that ze to it. I don't know. I'm more,
but I understand that as well with I mean, that's
the thing with the movie in Mexican food. I don't
like cheese, I don't like sour cream, I don't like Yeah,
I don't really like spice that much.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
How can I get some case of Baja Blast sentience?
You must be able to you have to, Oh, I
very much can't. Yeah, oh, but six seventy eight from Walmart.
I can pay six seventy eight for a twelve pack.
What is shipping? Shipping is going to be like what
twelve dollars? We're killing the planet for this. I can
get this ship right to you. Oh oh, pickup is free.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Penny fans want to send Hegel a case of Baja Blast.
I know it'll make them because I haven't been paying
them lately.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
So I gotta make this episode earned me a twelve
pack of Baha Blast.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right
back with more too much information in just a moment, all.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Right, closing in on the end here, Yes, as we
move from the real world to the realer world, the
world of advertising and cinema.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
Yes, For fans of Taco bell and pop culture, the
nineties were a glorious time for two reasons. Nineteen ninety
three's Demolition Man, starring Sylvester Stallone and a Chihuahua named Gidget. Heigel,
you got to tell us about Demolition Man. I can't
take this from you. Oh, Demolition Man is a classic.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
I feel like it was one of those movies that
was just perennially on like TBS and USA, and I like,
I watched this a lot, like with Conair on on
cable as a kid. It is a broadly speaking, is
a dystopian action film in which Stallone plays a super
cop who framed for crime he didn't commit or something
is cryogenically frozen and thought out in a future southern

(48:26):
California in which liberalism and political correctness as viewed by
Dennis Leary, who has a prominent role as a rebel leader,
has become the rule of authoritarian law. You can't swear
in public. You're fined instantly, you know, like smoking is outlawed.
It's it's this whole vision. It's actually become kind of insanely.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Pression.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yeah, because not only is it like one long joke
of what like right wingers actually think the country currently is.
But you know, it's got all this stuff about like
like it takes place in what I call it, They
call it like Sam Barbara Barbangelis or something because an
earthquake has fused the major southern California metropoliss of Santa Barbara,

(49:14):
La and Santa Cruz or something like that. Wesley Snipes
plays the villain in a role slated for Jackie chan
Actually and boyd Is. Wesley Snipes, in the parlance of Twitter,
make a meal out of it. It is one of
my favorite roles. He is a gleefully cackling lunatic with
dyed blonde hair who spends most of the movie in

(49:35):
suspenders karate kicking people.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
It rules anyway.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Sandra Bullock, America's sweetheart non Julia Roberts category plays Stallone's
love interest cop partner, and she takes him out for
a fancy dinner in a scene that has outlasted most
of the rest of the film to a Taco bell, which,
as she explains in a throwaway line, is the only
only restaurant left standing in the country after the franchise wars.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
Just amazing. Writing top to bottom.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
So how did Taco Bell end up with this pride
of place, Well because everyone else said no. Other chains
wouldn't do it tie in with an R rated movie.
Jonathan Lemkin, an uncredited writer on the film, told Entertainment
Weekly at the time, the demographics of our most frequent customers,
males eighteen to thirty four, matched the film's audience, added

(50:29):
Taco Bell company spokeswoman Janis Smith. Meanwhile, Eric Dulquist, president
of the Vista Group, which helped General Motors plant their
futuristic cars in the movie, added to Entertainment Weekly. What's
unusual about Demolition Man is that these arrangements were set
up when the script was first in review, just an
early trailblazer in corporate product placement. According to an adweek

(50:52):
write up from the time, General Motors and Taco Bell
burned through fifteen million combined in media spends to help
promote the film Ah America. Another of the film's writers,
Daniel Waters, confirmed all that to Vulture in twenty twenty.
I am a Taco Bell person, he said. We have
great Mexican food out here in LA. People were like, oh,

(51:14):
Taco Bell is not real Mexican food. I'm going yes,
we know, much like Demolition Man, it's its own genre.
That's a pool quote for the ages. Waters continued to
be quite honest, My original draft was Burger King, and
then Burger King scoffed and McDonald's scoffed when Taco Bell
came around. It's like, of course, Taco Bell the greatest

(51:36):
thing that's ever happened to this movie. Taco Bell would
notch another victory over its hated San Bernardino rival in
two thousand and nine when they replaced McDonald's as fast
food sponsor of the NBA, toppling Mickey D's twenty year
reign not just an aside, but only a portion of
Demolition Man's assuredly international audience may even understand that reference,

(51:59):
because for the European version of the film, Taco Bell
was dubbed and also animated over all of the branding,
all of the signage, etc. With Pizza Hut because executives
feared that the former wasn't quite as international at the time,
but Taco Bell isn't bitter. To celebrate Demolition Man's twenty
fifth anniversary, the upscale Taco Bell from the film's US

(52:20):
version was recreated with a pop up location in San
Diego during Comic Con in twenty eighteen. Guest received a
free four course meal served by wait staff dressed in
the uniforms from the film. Ah, Sometimes I really do
love this country.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
That is a really cool look in Taco Bell.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
I do have to say, Hell yeah, brother Jordan, why
don't you sidebar us into Taco Bell's genius run of
ads in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
I thought you'd never ask. Taco Bell, it must be said,
has had some pretty amazing ad campaigns and marketing spens.
I vividly remember when they helped Willie Nelson out of
his IRS tax hole in the early nineties by commissioning
a song called The Woman with the Rose Tattoo, which
introduced both the Steaks Burita Supreme I can't stay in

(53:06):
the strafe face Steak Burrita Supreme and Zesty Steak Melt.
How did he incorporate that into the lyrics? I don't
Do you want me to pull up the lyrics? Yes,
I do. I want you to recite them as Willie Nelson.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Well, let's just punch it in. Poor Willie. I mean,
he must have just been too stone to give it. Also,
you know, jump bro the the government was literally about
to sell all of his possessions.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
Sorry, you got all.

Speaker 5 (53:30):
The muss At the border went up, drove the woman
with the rose tatt She offered him a ride, and
when he got inside, she offered him something and steak
burto supreme from Tongo Bell.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
She insisted that he tried, and I lose this to
steak melt from Tongo Bell. He had never had nothing
in life.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
And when he tried the steaks on Tongo he got
both of them in there.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
God, what is it professional? Because exactly poor Willie. Yeah,
that man's been through a lot, and I have to
imagine this was related. Taco Bell also threw a twenty
thousand dollars check to farm Aid, the charity foundation that

(54:14):
Willie dreamt up during the recording of We Are All
the World. I believe again this was to help sweeten
the deal and convince him to throw away all of
his cultural cachet to write a song for Taco Bell. Okay,
So they dangled not only a do you not want
to go to tax prison over him, but they also
dangled a twenty thousand dollars check to his charity over

(54:34):
him to make him do that. Okay, They also used
Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire around the same time, which
was two years before Johnny Cash's late period. Rick Ruben
assisted renaissance, so they were really they were early adopters
to the late era Cash. A few years later, in
nineteen ninety six, Taco Bell took out a full page

(54:55):
advertisement in seven leading US newspapers announcing that the company
had purchased the Liberty Bell to quote reduce the country's debt,
and they renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. Of course,
this naturally spurned thousands of calls to talk about headquarters,
angry calls, I should say, before it was revealed at
noon on April first, that the story was a prank,

(55:21):
corporate April Fool's Day pranks, I don't know can be
grown worthy. That one's not bad though, I guess. I
mean they were better before social media. Yeah, that's true,
because you had to go bigger otherwise no one would
hear it. Yeah, yeah, this I actually vividly remember. In
two thousand and one, tak About launched the campaign time
to the re entry of the Mere Space Station, where

(55:42):
they towed a massive floating target into the Pacific Ocean
and announced that if the target was hit by falling
debris from mirror, every person in the United States would
be entitled to a free taco. It was great. It
was just like an inflatable bullseye. The company bought a
sizeable insurance policy for this gamble, but sadly for the
citizenry of this world, it did not pay off and

(56:05):
we didn't all got a free taco. Sad. They've also
run a similar promotional campaign during various world series which
pays off if any player in the series steals a base.
That seems I'm kind of surprised that one hasn't paid
out yet. That kind of has paid out.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Yeah, yeah, twice two thousand and five, and I think
twenty twenty two.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Actually, are you just pulling that off the top of
your head. I mean, you could easily be making that
up and I have no idea, but no, I just
didn't put it in the write up, but I saw
it earlier. A one campaign that didn't work out was
in two thousand and nine when they put out a
campaign asking rapper fifty cent to change his name to
seventy nine cent, eighty nine cent, or ninety nine cent

(56:48):
to promote its menu items that cost less than a
dollar fitty though I can say that, right, I mean
I can't, but people can. Okay, said that that's something
fifty sounds worse. Though that sounds even more. It does
sound somehow worse. Yeah. The rapper, though, said he wasn't
contacted until the campaign went wide, and he promptly sued

(57:10):
them for four million dollars in damages, alleging the Taco
bell had exploited his name. The suit was settled out
of court. Out of court.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Uh. One of these ad campaigns supposedly backfired. I don't
actually remember well, of course I didn't remember this. I
wasn't reading newspapers. In February of twenty eleven, Tacobo spent
over three million running full page ads that read thank
you doing us in major newspapers and on social media
after a consumer protection lawsuit filed against the company by

(57:45):
an Alabama law firm alleged that the company falsely advertised
the ratio of ingredients in its beef filling. The advertising
suit was filed in California in January of twenty eleven,
alleged that the filling didn't have enough beef to be
called that, suggesting that the meat mixture did not meet
federal requirements to be labeled beef. Taco Bell says it's

(58:09):
taco filling contains eighty eight percent USDA inspected beef and
the rest is water, spices, and a mixture of oats, starch,
and other ingredients that contribute to what the chain calls
the quality.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Of its product. Oh, I don't like that.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
It says it uses no extenders to add volume to
the filling. So this suit was actually withdrawn, and then
Taco Bell, in another example of apex petty, continued to
spend ad money to place ads that publicly requested an
apology from the law firm that sued them. Now, all
these ads that say, like would it kill you to
say sorry? It is the most passive aggressive thing. I

(58:49):
just that's the corporate conversation that I would want to
be on. Yeah, guys, a below the line. Ad costs
are like, don't you want two.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Million to just with this law firm? Yes? All right,
Rubbert stampit. Uh.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
This has all been a preambleedo to the ad campaign
that gripped America for a wild full years in the
pre y two K highs. The Taco Bell dog gidget
as was her Christian name, proclaimed Yokio Taco Bell in
a voice provided by Reno nine one one actor Carlos
alas God, I can't this is going to defeed me

(59:25):
a las raki Ala Carlos from Reno nine one one.
I'm so sorry he took influence for that voice from
Peter louri Uh and ren from ren and Simpy, who
is also a chihuahua who is also doing a Peter
Lorii impression, which is incredible.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
I'm kind of shocked that that didn't resolve in some
kind of intellectual yea from Nickelodeon.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
They didn't want to bring John Ka back into the spotlight.
The campaign, which was originally just slated for one installment,
became massively popular, with its auxiliary catchphrase drop the Chaloupa,
briefly becoming a hit phrase on Sports Center. One of
its most famous crossovers came from the ill fated nineteen
ninety eight Godzilla remake, in which the dog tried to

(01:00:12):
trap Godzilla with the classic cardboard on a string set
up with the phrase here, Lizard, Lizard, Lizard, something my
mom still laughs at and in fact bought me a
T shirt for. When this campaign hit the airwaves because
I love the Godzilla you see. I know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Yeah, that's actually why I let you read the sex.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Unless you lived through it. It's really hard to convey
how insane this campaign was. Like people were stealing these
this the promotional materials that featured Gidget out of restaurants.
The merch for it flooded like dashboards and carnivals the nation,
across the nation. I'm not exaggerating, right, you remember how

(01:00:50):
big this thing I was. Insane Waxing on the campaign success,
Clay Williams, the copywriter on the account, told The New
York Times in nineteen ninety eight, we don't treat the
dog as a dog. We treat him as a nineteen
year old trapped in dog's body. He's a cool character
that happens to be a dog.

Speaker 1 (01:01:07):
Grims, it's the Dell guy in a talks body. Yes, basically, dude,
you're getting a taco.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Some Latin American adjecsy groups decried Taco Bell, accusing them
of trafficking cultural stereotypes, which was an accusation that was
hard to duck, particularly over ads that depicted the dog
as a bandido with pistols and a sombrero or cosplaying
as a revolutionary wearing a beret that was suspiciously similar
to that of Chay Guavera, who was Argentinian. But the

(01:01:42):
good times couldn't last. In July two thousand, Taco Bell
ended the ads, severed its relationship with the creator TBWA,
and replaced their own president after historic drop in revenue
in the second quarter of two thousand. For a while,
there were urban legends that Taco Bell ended the commercials
because of the dog Gidget who died, but voice actor

(01:02:03):
Tom Kenny, who is a belief of Futurama actor, among
many other things, who's a friend of the voice of Gidget.
Carlos said that it was the lobbying by the Hispanic
advocacy groups that ended the campaign.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Oh SpongeBob is the voice of SpongeBob, Tom Kenny, Oh
I should have gone with that first.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Three years later, Taco Bell lost a lawsuit filed against
them by two Michigan men who claimed they had pitched
the concept of the Chihuahua campaign to Taco Bell in
nineteen ninety six and subsequently worked with them for over
a year, developing a campaign and commercials under the working
name Psycho Chihuahua.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Another good band name that can smoke.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Yeah, they were awarded thirty million in initial composition plus
nearly twelve million in additional interest and hilariously, Taco Bell
in turn sued TWA, claiming that they, not Taco Bell,
should have been aware of this inflict.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
They also lost that suit TWA. Like the oh the
tbwa tbwa Sorry, Well, Gidget, the dog in the commercials
was much like Spuds Mackenzie and the bud Light ads
years earlier. A I can't bring myself to say this,
I will say a lady dog playing a male dog.
She was found at a kennel and wasn't show quality

(01:03:22):
due to her undershot jaw and oversized ears. Karen Mceeladon,
the owner of Studio Animal Services, who in turn owned
the dog, told the Associated Press that Gidget died in
two thousand and nine at the age of fifteen. She
made the most of her celebrity, opening the New York
Stock Exchange all the things they could have had the

(01:03:43):
Tuckle Bell Dog do, and appearing at Madison Square Garden
as what herself. Well, okay, let me rephrase that. I mean,
was it part of.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Like Chihuahuas are not a dispositionally inclined dog for all
this too, so oh, I know that's that poor creature.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
She also appeared in the two thousand and two crossover
commercial for Guy Coo as Bruiser's mom in the two
thousand and three movie Legally Blonde to Red, White and Blonde,
That's medium funny gets you outlud Glenn Bell, the creator
of Taco Bell, who died in twenty ten at the
age of eighty six. Do you take this?

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
He was proud of his legacy of theft, telling the
trade publication Nations Restaurant News in two thousand and eight
that I always smile when I hear people say that
they never had a taco until Taco Bell came to town.
Is that wrong? Is that so wrong with me? T
tar and feather him as a thief. But if you

(01:04:47):
want to visit the original icon that naked Caucasian theft built,
you can always make a pilgrimage to Irvine, California, where
the actual literal original brick and mortar Taco Bell is
enshrined at corporate headquarters. It had ceased to be an
actual Taco Bell since nineteen eighty six. But continued to
house in its original spirit various Takardias for the intervening decades.

(01:05:10):
It had stood vacant, though since December of twenty fourteen,
so just under a year later. In November of twenty fifteen,
in a nighttime ceremony witnessed by a few faithful fans
and escorted by some police cars, Taco Bell uprooted the
entire structure and drove it forty five miles east to
corporate headquarters. If you're dedicated enough, you can simply drive

(01:05:33):
around back and see if it's still there. Visible to
the naked eye. The headquarters rear parking lot is unguarded
according to Atlas Obscura, though it is technically private property.
To be careful, but it is supposedly still just parked
out there, occasionally covered with the tarp a case of
inclement weather. And hey, from there you can make it

(01:05:56):
up to the Meetla Cafe, home of the original Taco
Dorat in just under an hour. Folks, thank you for listening.
This has been too much information. I'm Alex Eigel.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
And I'm Jordan run Tug. We'll catch you next time.
Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's
executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The
show's supervising producer is Michael Alder. June.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
The show was researched, written, and hosted by Jordan run
Tag and Alex Heigel.

Speaker 4 (01:06:31):
With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
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