Escalating Danger in Contemporary Legends

Apparently, Kentucky Fried Chicken changed their name to KFC because they don't use chickens anymore. Apparently they use these mutated chicken-type-things that have no legs and no head; they are just created to be fried and eaten. I heard this from a friend of mine who heard it from his mom. Supposedly, a woman ate one of these from KFC and she was pregnant. When she delivered the baby, it was really messed up and mutated, and it is said to be blamed on the KFC "chicken" she ate (September 2000).

"Where should we eat?" a buddy of mine asked. I wanted some chicken and maybe some mac and cheese, so I replied "KFC." My friend went on to explain what has become the reason why I will never eat at KFC again. He had a friend who was related to somebody who used to work at a KFC poultry-processing plant. He explained to me why the word "chicken" never appears on a KFC menu. It is a legal issue because Kentucky Fried Chicken does not sell chicken anymore. His friend's relative worked at a poultry plant where they raised "animal KFC." Four wings, four legs and no head, the creatures were being fed intravenously in row after row throughout the building. Economically so, a single "animal KFC" constitutes the Colonel's family size bucket, eight "pieces," which is legalese for "not actually chicken." The reason my friend's friend's relative stopped working at the plant, the headless "animal KFC" makes a gurgling sound through its neck as it grows in a vat, that sound was driving her crazy so she quit (October 2001).

Note that these legends were located back in American fast food restaurants. In the past, American restaurants might accidentally serve non-foods, such as Kentucky Fried Rat, but they would not purposely substitute a non-food such as cat. However, here American ingenuity combined with genetic engineering has created a new mutant form just to serve at KFC. In the second story, the student does not explain the exact form of the baby's mutations, but it is clear that technology has gone awry. In the third story, the details of the mutated "non-chicken" are given in great, gross-loving detail. When the student who (later) turned in the written form of this legend told it in class, he provided a rendition of the gurgling sound that elicited an especially strong "ew, gross" reaction from his classmates.

Curiously, the chicken heads, so disgustingly absent from the KFC creatures, show up where they should not in another set of legends, as in these examples:

A mother and daughter went to McDonald's once and ordered the chicken nuggets kid's meal. The girl showed her mom one of her nuggets that looked a lot like a chicken's head. Her mom freaked out because it actually was a chicken's head that had accidentally been mixed in with the other meat and deep fried like the rest of it (September 2001).

Coming home from the Georgia/Florida game we were debating on where to stop and eat that would be fast and inexpensive. Three of us wanted Taco Bell, but one guy with us pitched a fit when that was mentioned because his brother knew a guy in college who went to Taco Bell and ordered a chicken taco. After he bit into a taco he looked at it to take another bit and saw a chicken head staring back at him. Evidently the guy was very sick from eating the rather small brain of that chicken; needless to say we did not eat Taco Bell (October 2001).