Apropos of nothing, I just stumbled, quite by chance, on a YouTube video of ancient vintage that I found unbelievable. Of the multitude of comments, many expressed the same sentiment.
In a segment from the old What’s My Line show, the featured guest was Colonel Harland Sanders. He appeared in his famous white suit with black bow tie. No, he was not the mystery guest, with the panel blindfolded.
And nobody on the panel knew who he was or what his line was.
One of the comments suggests that this segment took place in November 1963. Sanders himself mentions that he has 900 outlets, from London to Honolulu. And yet, nobody on the panel recognized him or his name.
Dopers, how far back can you remember knowing who Colonel Harland Sanders was, and what he looked like?
ETA: The panel had a surprisingly hard time figuring out what his line was, and in fact, it doesn’t look to me like they actually ever did.
I was young. Pre-teen, probably. I asked my dad some question about KFC, probably something like Who invented Kentucky Fried Chicken?, and he told me that “The Colonel” was Colonel Sanders, a real-life guy.
Just recently (meaning sometime within the last few years) I overheard a guy at a KFC place making some comment about the Colonel Sanders image, asking why KFC used such an image. It sounded like he didn’t know that Sanders was a real person. I asked him, and sure enough, he had no idea that Colonel Sanders was a real person, and that’s what he looked like.
I’m not sure what double entendres you are hearing there. I guess that just means I don’t have a dirty enough mind. (That was Arlene Francis.)
One of the enduring appeals of What’s My Line was how informal it all was, and how plain-and-simple the set was, as opposed to the formality and glitz of other game shows. John Daly was very loose with the rules, often seeming to make things up on the spot. Why did he flip over two (or was it four?) cards right at the start? Why did he announce that as “5 down and 5 to go” when it wasn’t actually close to that? And did he just give the whole game away for nothing when Dorothy Kilgallen asked if the product was turkey?
Note that Sanders was introduced as the head of “Southern Fried Chicken Company”, not as “Kentucky Fried Chicken”. The business must have been new-ish and not that well-known in 1963.
I can’t remember when I first heard of, or ate, Kentucky Fried Chicken. But I also can’t specifically remember a time when I didn’t know of KFC.
I think I was aware of Kentucky Fried Chicken (and the colonel) in the mid-to-late '60s. I remember the white meat was always dry and chewy. Once you got past the breading, it was disappointing.
I noticed that, too. Then at the end, he was identified as the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (6:22). I don’t see anything on the Wiki page about a Southern Fried Chicken Company.
The earliest KFC commercials on YouTube featuring the colonel are from 1969. Nobody remembers seeing a young Colonel Sanders so I suspect he was well into his dotage before he became an advertising icon. I’m old enough to remember when the defining symbol of KFC was a cardboard bucket, not the old plantation owner.
Sanders had already sold KFC by 1963, but still retained restaurants (mostly in Canada) that used the recipe. His association with KFC was strictly as a mascot/spokesman by the 1960s. His appearance on the show must have been a personal decision separate from his duties at KFC.
I read some article about the history of KFC a long time ago. Sanders had been a ne’er-do-well for much of his life, moving from one money-making scheme to another, never being very successful, for a long time. His hobby was gourmet cooking. At some point, he stumbled upon that combination of herbs and spices that was to become his famous secret recipe, and he decided it was something he could sell. He was a middle-aged coot when that happened.
So he opened up a single one-off fried chicken stand. It was successful enough that he soon expanded to several more shops, and it just grew from there.
He wasn’t a real colonel at all. In Kentucky, you can get to be an honorary “colonel” in the Kentucky Militia by decree of the governor, if you’ve made some notable contribution to anything Kentuckian. He was awarded this because of his fried chicken cuisine.
It was also mentioned that, once he expanded into a massive nationwide franchise, he made his millions by collecting a royalty from stores for the use of his name and image. He got 1/2 cent for each chicken sold, and on this he became a millionaire.
Are you sure this happened that long ago? This seems to imply that KFC must have been an established chain for quite some time before that, and yet the panel didn’t know of him in 1963?
I know that what you wrote is basically correct, except the time doesn’t look like it could be right.
The chain may have been well known, but why would the founder be well known before KFC started using him in advertising? Would you be shocked if a panel didn’t know what Roy Croc looks like?
It’s just that, I personally have no recollection of ever knowing of a time when Colonel Sanders and his picture weren’t associated with KFC. But I can’t really remember how long ago that was.
(How many people know what Roy Croc looks like, even to this day?)
That’s my point. Sanders was analogous to Croc until KFC used his image in national advertising some time after his appearance on What’s my Line. I think it’s just that he’s always been so damn old that we all think he must have been part of the popular culture for most of the 20th Century.
Wikipedia has a page on the history of KFC. The page begins with:
The article says that the franchise was widespread by the time he sold the business in 1964, but doesn’t mention when he began using his name and image as a mascot for the chain. It does mention that he began presenting himself as “The Colonel” and wearing that white suit and string tie after he became an honorary “colonel”, which I think was in honor of his chicken business. That implies that by the time he appeared on What’s My Line, he must have already been known by that image. This seems confusing.
Okay, there’s that. Note that also shows the trademark date as 1954.
So the WML panel didn’t recognize the name either. (Was the WML segment actually done in 1963? I got that from one of the comments, which mentioned that the segment appeared just after the JFK assassination.)
(That was Arlene Francis.)
