Thursday, August 19, 2010

"IT'S FINGER LICKIN' GOOD" - 70 YRS OF KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN

All this week Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants have been celebrating the 70th anniversary of Colonel Sanders’ famous original recipe. Harland Sanders, (he didn’t become a Colonel until 1935 or '36), first served his chicken with eleven herbs and spices in 1930 at his gas station in Corbin, Kentucky. It wasn’t until the 1950's when the Colonel started to sell his chicken to be served in restaurants across the nation. Eventually, in 1952 the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain was born and the first restaurant was in Salt Lake City.

Yesterday, the first lady and I decided to celebrate with a bucket of chicken. As a fan of any retro style packaging, I got a thrill that our chicken was served in this 70th anniversary replica bucket.

Here’s a photo of an original bucket from the 1960's. Boy, the size and price of the bucket, sure have changed.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Bucket

If you’re in the Christmas spirit click here and here for a vintage holiday bucket. For people in the Halloween spirit click here and here for a vintage Jack O’ Lantern bucket.

The first bucket appeared in 1957. Did you know that Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas came up with the chicken bucket? Yep! He also suggested it spin outside on the sign! The famous chicken bucket has become an important piece of popular culture. I have almost 5000 images in my flickr archive and my most popular photo is of a KFC chicken bucket. The photo below is closing in on 30,000 hits! Crazy man, crazy!

1980's Kentucky Fried Chicken Bucket

You know chicks dig the bucket, dontcha? Also, The Price Is (always) Right for a chicken bucket!

My pal Allen of Roadside Pictures has a nice archive of Kentucky Fried Chicken items here.

Also, check these photos out from Through Joanne’s eye here and here. So lucky that she met the Colonel!

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4 comments:

  1. Mr. Karswell9:20 PM

    One time when I was a kid we were at Lambert airport in STL picking my mom up from one of her trips and we saw someone wheeling the Colonel through the terminal in a wheelschair. He was REALLY old looking and in bad shape at that point, but he was nice as can be and I shook his hand too! He was the first actual "famous" person I ever met in my life.

    Great post Todd! And now I need some KFC too!!!

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  2. Todd Franklin11:58 PM

    Wow, Steve, thanks for sharing your Colonel Sanders memory. So neat that you met him! My first celeb meeting was Richard Kiel, better known as the James Bond villian Jaws when I was 14.

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  3. C. Dianne Zweig7:36 PM

    Pardon my interruption, but I am looking for folks that have either "Retro Sewing Blogs" or "Nostalgia Blogs" for an article I am working on . Please send your suggestions to me at dianne@cdiannezweig.com THANKS


    Dianne
    kitsch n Stuff

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  4. narvolicious4:15 AM

    Man, what a bucket in that '71 commercial! I would've totally wanted that in my backyard...but look how freakin' high it is! Dood!

    To this day KFC is still my top choice for fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob.

    A friend of mine told me that KFC is huge in China right now.

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