Let’s Get {Spicy}: The Fast Food Wars Are Heating Up

Sometimes, even Ronald McDonald, the Burger King, and the red-haired vixen Wendy think maybe we’ve gone too far.

Every year, foodies, chefs, and corporate restaurant chains across the globe determine what flavor profiles and food trends will make our hungry tummies rumble and our salivary glands drool.

And once those foods enter the culinary zeitgeist, they are here to stay.

Red Velvet cupcakes.

SALTED caramel.

Pumpkin Spice EVERYTHING.

But remember when fast food chains everywhere decided that they were just going to burn our taste buds off by making foods spicier and spicier?

Scoville scale be damned. Corporations will convince you you need to pay money to eat a burger that requires a waiver lest you get admitted to the ER or enjoy a cheese sauce likened to drinking hot magma.

But even as Americans care less and less about what they put in their gullets (“But I don’t trust what’s in vaccines!”), even our favorite fast food chains had to draw the line somewhere.

So, I present to you:

The Spicy Fast Food Promotional Items That Never Were…

Wendy’s Ghost Pepper Frosty

Need to chill out after drunkenly shoveling Spicy Nuggets and a Quadruple Baconator down your gullet in a Wendy’s parking lot?

Then simmer down, while keeping the heat up, with a Ghost Pepper Frosty. Wendy’s traditional chocolate dairy dessert, kicked up a notch with actual chunks of the hottest, spiciest, chewiest pepper known to man.

Wendy likes her dessert like she likes her men—hot one minute, cold the next, very chunky, and hard to swallow.

McDonald’s Hot AF Play Place – The AF Stands for “As Fun”

Why should the adults all have the spicy fun?

Sit back, relax, and feel the burn as you enjoy our new Spicy McChicken sandwich while Junior takes part in our new, enhanced Play Place experience.

The Hamburglar is at it again and has escaped to Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell with all our Happy Meals. Your child must help Mayor McCheese arrest the criminal and get our burgers back!

Let them live the experience by sliding down into our new and improved Ball Pit, a unique mixture of jalapeño peppers and balls coated in our proprietary mix of cayenne and chili powders.

One of our devoted staff will spray them in the face with low-grade pepper spray upon exit, guaranteeing a true McDonaldLand adventure.

McDonald’s 2 percent milk jugs are available for purchase after the experience to reduce the swelling in all participants’ throats and eyes. While supplies last.

White Castle Jalapeño Margarita

If you’re at a White Castle “restaurant” at 2 A.M., you’ve most likely given up, and so have we.

Do you really think any local law enforcement cares what we do?

Since most of our customers have reached the point of the night where they say “fuck it,” we’re doing the same. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, amirite?

Order a Crave Case, and we’ll throw in an extra large Jalapeño Margarita in a discreet White Castle soft drink cup.

Kirkland Signature tequila. Leftover Hi-C from the drink machine. Jalapeños and limes from the shady farmer’s market behind the Taco Bell.

And because we just don’t give a shit anymore and your shame has no limits, we’ll throw in a dozen Spicy Chicken Rings, fresh off our kitchen floor and thrown onto the straw during a high-stakes game of ring toss among our chefs.

Every cup comes with a “Sauced, Spicy, and Shameless” scratch off, where you could win $3 off an Uber ride, a condom, and some Flushable baby wipes! Because, let’s be honest, after your evening, you’re most likely going to need at least two of three.

The Return of the Subservient BK Chicken Campaign – But Now It’s Even HOTTER.

Remember the time we let you tell a guy dressed as a chicken what to do?

As we continue to let you, our valued customer “Have it your Way,” we realize you expect more from our interactive experiences.

So, as part of our “Spice Up Your Life” campaign, order five Angry Whoppers, and YOU can take your anger out on our Subservient Chicken.

After enjoying five of our sociopathically spicy signature sandwiches, input the five unique codes found on your receipts, and you can set a random person, forced to dress as a chicken, on fire for the world to see.

It’s a fiery promotion you don’t want to miss!

McDonald’s Fiery as Hell Filet O’ Fish

For decades, millions of devout Catholics with high cholesterol, self-righteousness, and a propensity for virtue signaling have flocked to our restaurants on Fridays during Lent to rub it in heathens’ faces that they can still enjoy some MickeyD’s without eternal damnation in hell.

And now, we’re heeding the call. Why shouldn’t our Jesus-following friends have a hellfire experience without actually having to meet the Prince of Darkness?

This Easter season, hold onto your rosaries as we take our traditional Alaskan cod patties, dredge them in our signature panko recipe with an added chipotle kick, and slather the buns with our signature, confession-worthy, hot as H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS chipotle mayo.

For 99 cents more, order all the Crucifixin’s: frizzled poblanos, a slice of jalapeño jack, and a chipotle herb buttered roll!

May we suggest you have some Communion wine on hand, just in case the spice from our sandwich is too Satan-hot?

It’ll taste so good, you may need to confess on Saturday how much you enjoyed it.

Taco Bell’s Molten Lava Ass Blaster

Come on, folks. You’ve consumed enough Taco Bell after a bender of cheap beer and even cheaper weed to figure this one is pretty self-explanatory.

A combination of spicy marinated beef-adjacent-protein-like substance, spicy chicken (based on a very broad FDA definition of chicken), and a literal shit-ton of the hottest peppers from around the world.

Now smother it in an inordinate amount of pasteurized nacho cheese product. Then slather it with whatever hot sauce has been mutating in the back of the fridge. Left under a marginally acceptable heat lamp for a few hours next to the freon-leaking Baja Blast machine.

A tasty colon cleanse that doesn’t require a doctor’s prescription.

Tu Quieres Taco Bell (and a minor case of diphtheria), amigos!

KFC’s Hot and Oily

Come for the original recipe, leave with third degree burns.

To get you moving through the drive-thru line as quickly as possible, one of our underpaid staff will dress up in a jankity Colonel Sanders costume, come out to your car, and throw the frying basket of chicken through your driver’s side window.

Finger Lickin’ Good – after the doctor’s have been able to complete a skin graft on your hands.

Roy Rogers Will Literally Set You On Fire

Technically, it’s an abandoned Roy Rogers. And the person setting you on fire isn’t a Roy Rogers employee, but a squatter with a lighter and some hairspray.

But that’s what you get for hanging around an abandoned Roy Rogers.

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So, next time you’re sitting at one of the few remaining TGIFriday’s demanding that the teenage waitress, 1) wear more flair and 2) make your second order of cornflake crusted, double fried jalapeño poppers “spicier than Satan’s ballsack…”

Consider yourself lucky that you dodged these proposed piquant and peppery bullets. I guess even fast food conglomerates draw the line at causing severe stomach lining erosion.

And The Prompt recommends you don’t hang out by any abandoned Roy Rogers.