Many of you may know the Chicken Tonight jingle (and possibly the dance)[footnote]Though “The Chicken” dance existed long before said product, dating back to the 1950s[/footnote] exclusively from a brief gag in a fifth season episode of The Simpsons. However, the commercial and the product were real, being launched in the United States and Canada in 1990, as prior to then, the idea of dumping a jar of sauce on some chicken and letting it simmer for a while had never occurred to anyone in the history of ever.
While Chicken Tonight simmer sauces are no longer sold in North America, as of 2021 they are still apparently available in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. As recently as 2010 they were still using the same jingle in Australia, though by 2014 they had come out with another commercial disavowing the jingle and dance as being “dated”. However, a commercial from 2018 does make brief references to both the jingle and the dance, so maybe Australia will be dancing for chicken again before long!
Full disclosure: going into this I had no intention of devoting a header to a simmer sauce, let alone doing any further research into its history – I just saw there was a gap in the sign up sheet, so I signed up, hit my YouTube playlists for possible inspiration, and it just sort of happened. Kind of a boring topic, really (and I assure you, I am NOT a shill for Big Chicken). In fact I got so bored I didn’t bother finding out if the jingle is still used (or was ever used) in those other countries – I’ll leave it to our resident Briticados, Dutchocados and Kiwicados to bring us that pertinent information. And if you happen to think this header sucks, consider signing up and making some Open Thread headers yourself – it’s fun, easy, and as you can see they don’t even have to be particularly interesting or inspired!
* For those Avocadians who do not eat chicken, the title of this header is merely a reference to the product featured in the commercials posted above, and not meant to infer that any of you actually want to eat chicken.
Have a Great Night Thread, Avocado!