KFC’s Newest Colonel Will Excite '80s Action Movie Fans

Photo: KFC

Colonel Sanders opened the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in 1933. He was the face of the brand (his image still remains as the symbol of KFC) until his death in 1980. In recent years, KFC has attempted to ‘reinvent’ the Colonel with a rotating list of well-known celebrities trying their hand at filling his iconic white suit while adorned in the comically oversized white goatee made famous by the man himself. We’ve seen Rob Lowe, Jim Gaffigan, Reba McEntire, Rob Riggle, and even George Hamilton portray the Colonel. But we haven’t seen one quite like the one Kentucky Fried Chicken just revealed as its newest Colonel: RoboCop.

That’s right, the famed Detroit robot police officer originally portrayed by Peter Weller in the 1987 film RoboCop is the new Colonel. But, instead of calling him RoboCop, he’s taken on the moniker Colonel RoboCop. The reason why the brand decided to take the Colonel in this nostalgic direction? Well, according to cheeky press releases, “Colonel RoboCop isn’t just tasked with being the latest face of KFC’s famous fried chicken; he was also commissioned to successfully transport an encrypted copy of the secret recipe to one of the most secure vaults in the world – the Bahnhof maximum security nuclear bunker located in Stockholm, Sweden.”

So, in essence, Colonel RoboCop is here to not only be the new face of KFC (including the Colonel’s fluffy, white hair, and a subtle white goatee) but to also be the guardian of the mythical 11 herbs and spices.

“For decades, fried chicken fans have tried and failed to recreate the distinctive, sought-after taste of the Colonel’s secret recipe,” said Andrea Zahumensky, KFC U.S. chief marketing officer, in a press release. “So more than 30 years after his debut, we commissioned RoboCop with a new directive – to act as protector and preserve a copy of our secret recipe by transporting it to a nuclear-proof location. Now, if you happen to survive the apocalypse, you can still enjoy Kentucky Fried Chicken. Makes perfect sense, right?”

The KFC secret recipe is one of the most heavily guarded secrets in the food world. The original recipe is actually housed at the KFC headquarters in a fortified vault surrounded by cameras and motion sensors. Nobody is going to get it and Colonel RoboCop will make sure of that.

Check out some of our favorite former Colonels below.