I was flipping through the channels the other day and came across an episode of Little House on the Prairie. I stopped just in time to see The Colonel (yes THE Colonel or more likely an actor portraying THE Colonel) having a discussion with a lady character (a motel/restaurant owner) about his idea for a restaurant that only serves fried chicken. He said it would be the wave of the future. The lady turns to her husband as the Colonel rides off and says, “That’s crazy! A restaurant that only serves one thing!”
And then the episode ended.
I was left feeling… well hungry for some of that down home country original recipe cooking.
After that moment passed I said “What the fuck! A KFC commericial/gag on Little House.”
I know it happens quite alot but it just struck me as so strange on Little House. Especially since it would imply that the Col Sanders that we all knew, got the idea from either his father or his grand father which totally blows away everything I learned from his A&E Biography.
I had the added benefit I having no idea what the context was so that made it even stranger.
I just had to share.
In this episode, another franchiser had convinced the Olson’s (the restaurant owner) to buy in and serve there menu.
A menu that consisted of only three things (or something like that) whereas before they had pretty much cooked whatever teh diner wanted. It didn’t go over well and by the end they went back to the way it was before.
The KFC gag at the end was just that, a KFC gag. Though of course it was an anachronism.
In preview, I see that I’ve been beaten to the punch. But here goes anyway: I saw the episode you were talking about … but I was only paying half attention to it. I believe the “B” plot of the episode involved Harriet trying to reduce the restaurant’s menu to just three or four dishes in order to cut costs. It was a colossal failure.
Yeah – I agree that it seemed out of character for Little House. But it was funny. And chances are, many people wouldn’t realize that there’s no way the adult Colonel himself could have been around in that time period. It was an actor, by the way. The real Colonel died in 1980, and though this particuar episode was possibly taped before then, he would have been near 90. The “colonel” in the show was clearly younger than that.
But it made me laugh!
[hijack]I love the actress who played Harriet Olesen. It’s a shame she never did much other high-profile work. Read her IMDb biography sometime – it’s interesting.[/hijack]