When I was in high school, one of my favorite teachers showed me a picture of a Taco Bell sign that read “Now Hiring all Shits.” It might have come from the Internet, and I’m almost positive I’ve seen it somewhere online since, but I’m pretty sure what he showed me was an actual photo. I graduated in 1993, and I don’t think my high school had internet access then.
We were sitting in the Country Kitchen having lunch when the Burger King kid next door came out to change the sign. We watched him putting up the letters and tried to guess what the message would be. When he (apparently) finished and went back in, we were still stumped:
HERE’S FOR YOU
A little while later the kid came back out with another person – apparently the manager, who was shaking his finger at the sign and shouting. We could pretty much guess what HE was saying.
It came from The National Lampoon Big Book of True Facts, a veritable font of unintentional humor.
My favorite such sign was one I saw in AZ: “Half Baked Chicken.” Somehow it hit my 12-year-old’s funny bone, and I laughed for the whole rest of the vacation.
A friend took a picture of a local Captain D’s that was advertising an oh-so-appealing SHRIMP FISH AND CRAP PLATTER one day. If I can find the photo I’ll link to it.
There was a space left where presumably another word had been taken off by a prankster. I suspect the sign had said “now hiring smiling faces” followed by a plug for their pumpkin muffins (was up around thanksgiving).
Just thought it was cute, as I imagined little muffin-people roaming about behind the counter.
There was a Black Angus (not fast food, but why not?) that had a sign on one whole side of the building of the name of the restaurant in Neon lights. Seperate lights for each letter, apparantly, because as I was driving by one night I saw
wait for it… Black An us
It was fixed when I looked the next night.
I suppose this doesn’t really fit as it wasn’t a fast food sign, but there’s a mobile phone store in Cabridge near the Honda dealership. I was getting some clutch work done on my car and I saw it:
My last week of work at a local grocery store. I had the responsiblity of posting the “reader board”. I had my helper clerk post - Coke 150_ Bud-799. No one got it
Shortly after 9/11, the Pizza Hut down the street had this on their marquee outside:
God less
America
I thought surely someone would call about it–I didn’t, cuz I thought it was pretty damn funny–and maybe somebody did, but that sign was up there for at least a week.
And the old Burger King next door was demolished down to rubble and dust…but the sign on the marquee, which remained untouched, merely said:
Oh…and during the Christmas season, the Jim’s down the street–kind of a local Denny’s-style place here in S.A.–would put up a different verse of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” every week.
But you had to live in the area to know this; I always wondered what passersby thought of the ominous
YOU BETTER WATCH OUT
on the Jim’s sign as they drove by…and then of course, a week later, the different strangers to the area who were confronted with
YOU BETTER NOT CRY!
Since that Jim’s is right in front of a highly-congested intersection, I kind of wondered if maybe people assumed these were thoughtful driving tips.