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Taco Bell’s Attack On McDonald’s Is Literally Terrifying

I feel like everyone, except maybe McDonald’s, knows that Ronald McDonald is totally creepy, and the stuff of children’s nightmares. A new attack ad by Taco Bell entitled "Routine Republic" (below) takes the scariness to a whole new level, with clown-faced soldiers and a “McDespot” dictator. If McDonald’s has 99 problems, Taco Bell is now officially one.  

The
premise of the "short film" (long ad?) is that the clown autocrat rules over a
drab, gray, very damp-looking world, wherein everyone is forced to eat the same circular breakfast sandwich daily. Two young people decide to "defect" by
escaping to a Taco Bell Kingdom, where everything is more colorful, and people
wear beanies, lean on vespas, and eat hexagonal breakfast sandwiches (how rebellious!).

As usual, I have some questions:

Isn't this a (pretty severe) case of the pot calling the kettle black? I mean, Taco Bell is still
a fast food chain (albeit a smaller one than the behemoth McDonald’s). The ad might have really resonated if a collective of small, organic, fair-wage,
sustainably minded food and beverage companies launched it, but in this case it
just comes across as hypocritical.

Also,
there are some logical gaps in the commercial's concept:

1. Surely
the people who eat hexagon-shaped sandwiches all day would love a circular sandwich?

2. If
the only risk of "defecting" was running through glitter bombs, then wouldn’t
everyone be defecting all day? That sounds fun!

3. Why
can’t the clown soldiers get through the large hole into the other world?

4. I always thought Taco Bell was Mexican food, so why does Taco Bell land seem to be
set in Europe (Spain)? Confused.

In any event, thanks, Taco Bell — I was just
starting to get over my clown issues, but now I'll be waking up in cold sweats after nightmares of clown soldiers chasing me down my favorite childhood slide.

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