Meaty Cheesy Boys

The Meaty Cheesy Boys were a boy band featured in Jack in the Box advertising from 1999 to 2001, best known for their hit song "Ultimate Cheeseburger." The group appeared in three commercials and released a limited-edition CD, Plugged, that was sold exclusively at Jack in the Box restaurants.

According to the band's official website, the group originally met each other at a Jack in the Box restaurant in Chula Vista, CA. In or before 1997, they formed the band Playaz Can Harmonize, which was later renamed the Meaty Cheesy Boys after they realized they shared a love of meat and cheese. The band initially consisted of six members, but the sixth member, JJ, was fired after being caught microwaving a veggie burger on the tour bus.

In 1999, the Meaty Cheesy Boys were discovered by an ad executive at Jack in the Box, who wanted to use the group to promote the chain's Ultimate Cheeseburger. Although company CEO Jack Box was highly displeased with the executive's initial pitch, believing the band would not appeal to the target audience of men, he nevertheless approved the campaign. A Jack in the Box press release announcing the campaign described the band as "a group of heavily moussed, hip-gyrating, lip-synching teenage boy-toys ... guaranteed to whip 13-year-old girls into a hormone-fueled frenzy."

THE MEATY CHEESY BOYS! "Ultimate Cheeseburger" at the 1999 Billboard Awards.

The success of the Jack in the Box campaign led the band to perform a shortened version of their hit single "Ultimate Cheeseburger" live at the 1999 Billboard Music Awards on December 8, 1999.

The band's first album, Meat, Cheese & Love, was a huge success. Its chart-topping single "Ultimate Cheeseburger" would hit the multi-platinum mark in sales. This actually disappointed the band, which protested outside the Recording Industy Program to insist it be proclaimed "Multi-Meat" instead, as they viewed meat and cheese as more valuable substances than platinum.

With their newfound fame and money, the band launched the Beginners Boy Band Training School, where the band would teach aspiring boy bands voice lessions, dance lessons, and Ultimate Cheeseburgers. Hundreds of thousands of teenage boys, their mothers, and their managers attended the ground opening. Asked if they were creating their own competition, JT claimed they really needed some opening acts for their next tour.

The band signed a $2.3 million licensing contract with the company Corynthian Plastics to produce a line of Meaty Cheesy Boys action figures. However, the contract was put on hold when the band members recieved prototypes of the figures, "which appeared to be Gumby dolls holding microphones made of play-dough."

In 2000, the band announced plans to go back into the studio to record a second album, which a spokesperson confirmed would coincide with Jack in the Box's announcement of the $1.99 Ultimate Cheeseburger. The spokesman also noted that the new album would "take the boys into metaphorical waters, because they didn't start making it until Jack ordered it...so to speak." Footage of the band recording a new single, "$1.99 For A Limited Time," was filmed for the music documentary series Behind the Jingle. Although an initial track listing for the in-progress album was posted on the website, it is unclear if the album was ever released. Two of the songs meant for the second album, "Let's Go Get Some Fries" and "You Are The One," appeared alongside "Ultimate Cheeseburger" on the three-track CD Plugged, which was sold exclusively at Jack in the Box restaurants.

In 2001, a press release from the Carnivores football team confirmed that the Meaty Cheesy Boys were to perform during the first halftime show of a Carnivores home game, which would be the band's first public appearance in six months. This news delighted star player Steve Salisbury, who claimed to have twelve posters of the band in his room.

Members

• EJ - "The Shy One"
• TK - "The Exotic One"
• JT - "The Tough One"
• The Other EJ - "The All-American"
• TJ - "The Cute One"

Associates

• Bun Daddy - The director of the band's music video for "Ultimate Cheeseburger" (originally titled "Meaty Cheesy Love.")
• Franky Bananas - The band's manager.
• JJ - The former sixth member of the band who was fired in 1997 after he was caught microwaving a veggie burger on the tour bus.
• Marty M. - The band's manager as of 2001, who owns the publishing group Meaty Boys, Inc.
• Nana - The band's world-renowned choreographer, who also happens to be TJ's mother. She once taught the president how to do the Cabbage Patch.

Appearances

• Meaty Cheesy Boys (1999)
• Behind the Jingle (2000)
• Plugged (2001)

Discography

Meat, Cheese & Love (1999)

1. Meat, Cheese & Love
2. Ultimate Cheeseburger
3. No Burger, No Love
4. Your Love's Melting Me, Baby
5. With Or Without Buns
6. Cheeseless Nights
7. That's It
8. Drivin' Thru
9. The Love Song
10. It Just Isn't a Party Without Meat & Cheese
11. Ultimate Cheeseburger (Extended)

Plugged (limited edition CD, 2001)

• Ultimate Cheeseburger
• Let's Go Get Some Fries
• You Are The One

Untitled second album

1. $1.99 For A Limited Time
2. Let's Go Get Some Fries
3. My Meat and Cheese Princess
4. The Meating - Part I
5. The Meating - Part II
6. You Are The One
7. Sesame Seed Love
8. J.I.T.B. (What It Really Means To Me)
9. Take It Cheesy
10. Put On Your Dancin' Meat
11. We've Got The Meat (Live)

Unreleased tracks

• Set Your Phasers To Meat And Cheese

Gallery

Behind the scenes

The Meaty Cheesy Boys were a parody of boy bands such as the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and 98 Degrees, which were immensely popular at the time. In a September 1999 press release announcing the campaign, Jack in the Box advertising executive Greg Joumas said "while the ad is obviously intended to parody the current wave of young, sensitive-yet-hunky boy groups, it's clearly an effective pitch for a popular product, a chance for us to build our brand with our target 18-to-34-year-old male customer." As the press release noted, the initial commercial echoes a 1997 campaign, in which the same ad executive tries to sell Jack on the Spicy Crispy Chicks, a parody of the Spice Girls. A 2000 article noted that the Meaty Cheesy Boys were part of a growing trend of parodic fictional boy bands, which also included MTV's 2gether.

The members of the band were played by Wade Robson, Chad Reisser, Robert Schultz, John Corella, and an as-yet unidentified fifth actor. They were dancers lip-synching to the actual vocals, which were performed by studio musicians.

The first commercial featuring the band was highly successful and led to a live performance at the Billboard Music Awards in December 1999. The following year, several of the actors also made guest appearances on the UPN sitcom Grown Ups as aspiring boy band members. A tie-in website created by Apollo Interactive became, in their words, "a viral sensation." Three full-length songs were composed by the music house Wojahn Bros. Music and released online as well as on the Jack in the Box-exclusive CD Plugged. In 2005, producer Roger Wojahn reflected that it "was a parody that ended up becoming part of the fabric of culture."

According to Robson, who had worked with NSYNC and Britney Spears as a choreographer, Spears was unsure how to take the Meaty Cheesy Boys' parody, opining "this is not that funny." Newspaper columnist Charles Memminger was also critical of the campaign, calling the Ultimate Cheeseburger "about the fattiest, most cholesterol-laden concoction known to man" and noting fat consumption is "responsible for more health problems that tobacco ever was."

External links

• Official website (archived verison)