KFC Ditches Celebrity Colonel Sanders Gimmick, Brings Back The Original Colonel

Over the last couple years we’ve gotten used to seeing KFC’s famous Colonel Sanders portrayed by celebrities such as Norm MacDonald, Dolph Ziggler, and probably the best of the bunch, Darrell Hammond. These guys all put on the white suit, a powdery white wig, and did their best Southern old folk impression.

Now it looks like KFC is turning away from the celebrities, however, as they revealed the latest Colonel Sanders will be played by, well, Colonel Sanders.

“We’ve had some amazing celebrity Colonels over the past two years, and each of them has put their own twist on our original Colonel Harland Sanders,” George Felix, KFC U.S. director of advertising said. “But no one can play the Colonel like the Colonel can play the Colonel.”

KFC hasn’t run an ad with the original Sanders since the 1970s, so this is a super throwback for the new generation.

It makes sense that they go back to the O.G. Colonel, seeing as the 60th anniversary of the Original Recipe fried chicken is coming up, so of course, they’re probably going to hype up the original aspect as much as they can.

One of their new commercials for the Original Recipe shows footage from a classic 1970s ad featuring the true Colonel Sanders himself. Then, they superimposed Norm MacDonald, as he sneakily hid behind a tree, watching Sanders eat chicken with a bunch of kids.

Yeah, it screams creepy, but it somehow works.

A second commercial seems more telling of what’s to come, as there is no Norm MacDonald or any other of the celebrity hacks they’ve used over the years. It’s just Colonel Harland Sanders and a couple of goth kids eating fried chicken.

So it looks like KFC’s plans for the immediate future are to take old Colonel Sanders commercials and edit them in some 2017 flare, to join two different eras.

Sure, some of the celebrity Colonels did a great job (Again, like Hammond) but nothing beats the original.