Clowns can has cheezburgerz

Jusby is fascinated by gumbo because of the unusual combining of several meats (chicken and bacon, sausage and shrimp, etc.).

Jusby recalls a disappointing assumption he made about a new burger at Jack in the Box AKA Jacques dans la boîte AKA Yak inna Vox.

Driving past the banner for the Outlaw Burger, he mistakenly thought it was a chicken fillet ON TOP of a burger – plus some other junk, of course. That would have been something different.

Sadly, it turned out to be something known in other realms as the Rodeo cheeseburger (BK $.99). They throw on an onion ring (or a few) with some BBQ sauce. This time, they affiliated with KC Masterpiece. Plus some bacon. The onion ring provided the optical illusion of another breaded patty of something. Plus they offer a Spicy Chicken version. You can see Jusby’s confusion (and wishful thinking).

It’s a bigger version of their $.99 Western Cheeseburger, but it has 720 calories and 360 of them are from Fat!

But compare it to the Bacon Cheese Ciabbiata at 1120 calories (684 from Fat)!

And compare it to the idea of a new fangled club sandwich with chicken AND beef! That’s NEVER been done. It would break taboos we don’t even know about. You never see a chicken omelette. It’s just not done. Always pork comes between fowl and cow. Well, you might get a fried egg on a burger. What about combinations with fish? They never offer bacon on a fish burger! They never offer jumbo prawns on a burger!

Jusby convinced his family to go to JITB that evening primarily to investigate their new decor. They had been closed for a week during their remodel. Something that drastic and dramatic merits a visit in person.

In they went. They’ve added flat screen TVs to enhance your experience… of Jack. They’ve added collaged snap shots… of Jack.

Orion was fascinated by “the movie”, which is actually a loop of JITB commercials, sort of. Not ready for prime time commercials, maybe. Each one underscores Jack as an inscrutable billionaire tyrant. Each one uses a different visual genre.

Jusby takes a closer look at the panels of collaged snap shots. In one a confused advertising director has mistakenly led Jack’s crew to somewhere resembling the Olympic National Forest during the rainy season to shoot a promo for the Northwest Burger.

Then he’s shown with a black eye in the desert. Northwest has been crossed out by Jack and replaced with Southwest.

In another Jack has a stalker sending him Polaroids. Jack is seen in his red convertible leaving his gated mansion. He’s written on the Polaroid “Go Away!”

Hmmm… What Feng Shui message would that send if you had “Go Away” scrawled on a decorative panel in your home? with a picture of a car leaving? To Jusby it sends the message that “You’re welcome to use our drive-thru, but our seating is window dressing. It is more profitable for us if you would take your goodies and GO!”

Doesn’t that make sense? No muss, no fuss.

This article says they want to encourage “customers to linger”…

The decor is part of Jack in the Box’s effort to position itself as an alternative to sit down, casual dining chains like Applebee’s and Ruby Tuesday as penny-pinching customers consider trading down in the face of higher gas prices and rising interest rates. – Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News

Jusby’s family watched one final snippet on the flat screen, and then they’d had it forever. In it, Jack calls up a manager of a store. We only see the two of them in still frame slides. We hear their conversation. He is witty and confident. She is happy but slightly awkward and cautious to be chatting with the big boss.

At the end, he asks, “Do you fear me?” She says, “Yes.” He says, “Good.”

Trish says, “I will never eat there again.” Orion says, “I wanna watch the movie!”

“Nope. We’re done. Let’s go.”

Outside, Jack’s red silhouette is alternately shouting through a megaphone or standing with hands locked on hips, looking a little like Peter Pan, frankly.

Another option:

Here’s a Big Tom, it gots GOOP>

[While writing this Jusby had a Garden Burger with Bandon medium cheddar on a sprouted wheat English muffin with Fred Meyer hamburger dill pickle chips and Roadhouse Southern Sunset BBQ sauce, cooked in his very own red enamel Oster convection toaster oven!]