They Fired the King

I’ve been home with the flu for over a week. It’s been a rough one and, despite my annual flu shot, the strain I find myself struggling to get over must be one of those vaccine-resistant ones that people across the country have been fighting this year.

Home sick again today, splayed out on my couch, surrounded by tissues and cough drop wrappers, still hacking up a storm and trying to quell a headache that feels like my left eye’s popping out of my head every time I cough, my right eye was tuned into the brand new very first episode of Saturday Night Live (SNL) UK that just dropped on Peacock. It was, of course, delightful, but in the midst of it a commercial for Burger King came on. And it was a real commercial too, not an SNL parody.

The Burger King president narrated the commercial. He talked about how poor things had gotten with the brand and some very poor marketing choices that they had made in the past. The commercial even showed a clip of them kicking out that terribly creepy caricature of a king that they had for a few years whose commercials were often quite toxic—to the point that I personally boycotted Burger King for quite a while because I couldn’t support a brand that was encouraging that sort of behavior or mindset. The president then said in the commercial, “We fired the king.”

My heart skipped a beat! I clapped out loud. I cheered, then immediately regretted cheering because it made my left eye hurt. But, seriously, what redemption! What a way to claim a misstep, acknowledge it, call it out, and then rectify it! I Go Burger King! And, believe me, the not-so-subtle political message behind “We fired the king” wasn’t lost on me either. Again, go Burger King!

I’m so happy now to officially feel free to get back on the Burger King train. I won’t say they’re fully redeemed, but they’re making amends. And I support that. Now, if they would just take a play from Dunkin’ and KFC’s books and rebrand to a simpler name—perhaps just go by “BK,” dropping the whole incredibly dated “King” thing altogether—they’d really be coming into this century.