Exploding Clown

Exploding Clown
Agency	Wells, Rich, Greene
Running time	30 seconds
Product	Chicken Supreme Hot Ham and Cheese Supreme
Release date(s)	May 1980
Directed by	Stan Dragoti

Exploding Clown is a 1980 Jack in the Box commercial advertising the Chicken Supreme. It originally aired from May 5 to June 2, 1980.

Synopsis

An elderly woman driving a black car pulls up to a Jack on the Box and sees three employees strapping sticks of dynamite to a drive-thru menu adorned with the head of Jack, the chain's clown mascot. She asks them what they're doing to the Jack in the Box clown.

The manager states he's going "bye bye," and mockingly waves goodbye. "But he's so cute," the woman protests. Another employee says "cute" was the old Jack in the Box. The manager explains they now stand for "great new food," such as their new Chicken Supreme. Product footage of the sandwich is shown as he briefly describes it, concluding with the slogan "the food is better at the Box."

The woman takes a bite of the sandwich, and approvingly repeats the slogan in agreement: "the food is better at the Box!" Now fully onboard with the idea, her kindly disposition quickly morphs into bloodlust as she yells "Waste him!" The manager pushes down on a dynamite plunger while an employee covers his ears.

The drive-thru menu with Jack explodes in a dramatic fashion. The Jack in the Box wordmark appears superimposed over the scene. "The food is better at the Box!" is repeated once more in the form of a peppy jingle.

Jack in the Box "Jack Explodes" commercial from 1980

Alternate versions and subsequent campaign

An alternate version of Exploding Clown with the same dialogue had the employees lifting up Jack with a crane and dropping it from a great height. Another version focused more on the Chicken Supreme, and did not feature the elderly woman or the employees.

Another version aired in late summer swapped the Chicken Supreme with the Hot Ham and Cheese Supreme.

A subsequent series of commercials continued the premise of Exploding Clown. In one, a group of protestors chanting "save the clown!" change their minds once they try the Chicken Supreme. In another, Jack is launched into the sky by a rocket. A commercial from early 1981 referenced Exploding Clown with explosion sounds and related wordplay.

Gallery

"Waste him!"

Production

Howie Cohen (left) and Bob Pasqualina.

At the time, Jack in the Box's parent company Foodmaker was attempting to attract an older, more affluent customer base by repositioning the brand as a mature destination with a more sophisticated, upscale menu, pivoting away from families with young children. Exploding Clown was the brainchild of Howie Cohen of the ad agency Wells, Rich, Greene (WRG), who realized the chain's longtime clown mascot Jack could be used as a symbolic scapegoat: "Let's blame all of Jack in the Box's problems on the dopey clown. All that mediocre food—that was his fault, not Jack in the Box's. And if we got rid of the clown, it would be proof that we had changed,” he wrote in his 2019 memoir.

According to Cohen, a marketing director for Jack in the Box who initially seemed supportive of the idea instead "fired" the ad agency. Mary Wells Lawrence, WRG's president, appealed to the chairman of Ralston Purina, Foodmaker's parent company, and brokered an arrangement wherein the agency would pay for the commercial itself, and if it was successful Jack in the Box would keep their account. Jack in the Box publicly announced they had granted WRG a second chance, giving the agency 30 days "to come up with new advertising strategies."

Exploding Clown was written by Cohen and art director Bob Pasqualina, and directed by Stan Dragoti. The woman was played by Nedra Volz.

Reception

Exploding Clown was a rousing success, with Jack in the Box sales increasing by double digits. Adforum claimed it was "one of the most effective TV commercials ever produced." According to the firm Burke Marketing Research, it was the highest scoring fast-food commercial of all time. Volz would be recognized in public and have her line "Waste him!" repeated at her.

Bud Wilkinson, a writer for the Arizona Republic, praised the ad and noted it was "vaguely reminiscent of the Mr. Bill segments on NBC's Saturday Night Live."

However, the apparent destruction of Jack, a character which had been expressly marketed to children as part of the Jack in the Box Bunch just a few years earlier, caused some controversy. The Federal Trade Commission began investigating the commercials after parents complained they were too violent and "frightened their children." Houston attorney Henry Radoff claimed his 4-year-old son refused to go to Jack in the Box because "he's afraid the clown is going to blow up."

A group of young children who attended a Presbyterian church in Phoenix, Arizona wrote letters to Foodmaker, opining "it was bad to blow him up" and "the stupid people are crazy in their head to do that." The children received a letter purportedly written by Jack, who claimed he "needed a rest" and was now in "clown heaven."

The commercial was also criticized for its depiction of old people, with some senior citizens claiming the elderly woman character "paints oldsters in a dastardly light."

Foodmaker spokesperson Pat Miller explained that exploding Jack in such a highly dramatic fashion was a symbolic gesture used to "drive home the fact that we're not clowning around" and that the chain wanted to be known for "our food, not our clowns." She dismissed the charges of violence by likening it to a Road Runner cartoon and claiming "we have never in commercials made Jack a person. To us, it's doing away with an inanimate object." Nevertheless, she said the commercial would not air on Saturday and Sunday mornings, reducing the chances of it being viewed by children.

In response to the ad, students at Stanford University formed a satirical group called the Jesters Against Clown Killing (JACK) to protest the "senseless elimination of a part of American culture distinct to the 60s and 70s." Another group, the Society Against Clown Killers (SACK), was formed in Phoenix, Arizona to advocate for the "dignified retirement of the clown," claiming it was "one of our proudest and dearest American symbols."

Legacy

Although Jack in the Box did get rid of their clown heads, most were not exploded as depicted in Exploding Clown. Many were given away to hospitals, daycare centers, playgrounds and schools, but not individuals. In late 1981, Larry Himmel of the San Diego CBS affiliate KFMB did a tongue-in-cheek news report on a lot full of discarded Jack heads.

From 1984 to 1986, Jack in the Box attempted to further distance itself from its association with clowns by rebranding some of its locations to "Monterey Jack's." In a callback to Exploding Clown, commercials would feature a Jack in the Box sign exploding, and the Monterey Jack's logo would then appear once the dust settled.

Jack's revenge.

Jack would return nearly 15 years after his supposed demise as Jack Box, reimagined as a businessman instead of a clown. This new version of the character debuted in the 1994 commercial Jack's Back, which directly references Exploding Clown and features a quick clip of the explosion. Having returned to Jack in the Box as its CEO "thanks to the miracle of plastic surgery," Jack exacts revenge by blowing up the company's boardroom.