"And, hey, if I'm saying something that's not true... DO something about it."
Fast food chain Jack in the Box has aired a series of commercials since 1994, most of them featuring their company mascot Jack — a man in a business suit whose head is a large plastic-looking clown head. He's supposed to be the original mascot who was eliminated in 1980 by being blown up; he explains in the first commercial that he's back via the miracle of plastic surgery. He then took back the company by blowing up the old board of directors. This ad campaign was created in part to symbolize a revitalized Jack in the Box, following an Audience-Alienating Era where the chain went "upscale" in the 1980s, then a massive E. coli outbreak in 1993
. It worked swimmingly, and the campaign's never stopped.You ATE his Tropes?
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: "Patty, call the doctor! It's been more than four hours! Hi, Jack."
- Authority Sounds Deep: Jack Box is often depicted as the company's CEO in commercials, especially those from the '90s and early 2000s. Jack has a calm, tenor voice provided by Rick Sittig. Jack is sometimes a bit hard on his employees, but only because he wants the best for the company and its customers.
- Bait-and-Switch: Jack and his wife walk along the beach, the latter noticeably sporting a baby bump. They decide to make an announcement...for their new Chicken Supreme sandwich.
- Benevolent Boss: Jack (assuming you don't do anything to set him off).
- Berserk Button:
- Jack has a few of them, but the biggest one is to suggest racketing up the price of his value menu.
- In the final commercial for the "Hang in there Jack" campaign, Jack learning that Phil wants to rename the company as "Phil in the Box" after wanting to take over the company is enough for Jack to wake up from his coma and start strangling Phil over it.Jack: PHIL IN THE BOX?! I DON'T THINK SO! SOMEBODY FIND MY PANTS I GOT WORK TO DO!
- As Brad found out, Jack doesn't take too kindly to his food getting insulted.
- Big Eater: One stoner at the drive-thru misread a sign for "2 tacos for 99 cents" as "99 tacos for 2 cents" and tried ordering that. When Jack corrected him and asked if he really was planning to eat 99 tacos, the stoner affirmed he did.
- Boring, but Practical: A Running Gag in the campaign involves an employee or agent pitching an extensive or extravagant promotion, only for Jack to counter with the simpler route of detailing the ingredients and the affordable price.
- This is later lampshaded, when a video editor outright calls Jack's approach boring and tries to add dynamic background footage. Jack protests, until the editor uses footage of Jack in his sailboat.
- Breakfast for Dinner: Some commercials highlight the fact that the chain serves breakfast all-day. One ad even has Jack Box refer to breakfast as "The Most Important Meal" over Lunch and Dinner, each of which are represented by three men wearing food outfits.
- Bring It: In one commercial, Jack talks about how Burger King's motto "Have it your way" isn't true because you can't order every menu item at any time of day, while at Jack in the Box, you can. He then stands in front of a Burger King restaurant and challenges the viewer to "do something about it" if they think he's lying, but not before ripping off the sleeves of his suit to reveal big, muscular arms. He even does a "come at me" gesture.Jack: And, hey, if I'm saying something that's not true... (rips off his sleeves) do something about it.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Several ads feature the firing or humiliation of an employee as the punchline.
- Jack isn't exempt from this trope, either. For example, his crew's attempt at a surf and turf burger leads Jack to get attacked by lobsters. One of which squeezes lemon juice right into his eye.
- Cardboard Box of Unemployment: The chef who ate Jack's face holds one after getting fired sitting at a bus stop.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: "Jack RAPS With Young People". Not even he has an answer on how to discover one's sexual identity, and ends up talking about his Jumbo Jack in an attempt to avoid talking about it. Somehow, this works.
- Chick Magnet: Jack is shown to be quite popular with women and often finding ways to make his products appealing to them.
- Comically Missing the Point: Ads promoting a new restaurant in Charlotte, NC follow Jack's tour of the city. He completely misses why people are bewildered by his presence.Jack: But, no matter where I go, people give me the same look. I guess they're just not used to milkshakes made with real ice cream.
- Competing Product Potshot:
- Jack has a knack for calling out other competitors like McDonald's and Burger King, and at one point ran an ad campaign that chewed out the two offending companies for using microwaves and storage facilities for their meats. He did open up a hotline for their managers to call in order to help change their ways, but considering he spent 155 days without a single call from either of them, it's safe to assume they never did.
- They also made light of the Angus beef craze when they introduced their sirloin burgers. In one commercial, one of the advertising people asks Jack to point out the "Angus" cut, making a circle motion with his pen, clearly referencing a body part that "Angus" rhymes with, and implying that "Angus" beef had something to do with something...not conventionally edible.note Jack: I'd rather not.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Jack urges people to buy his Taquitos, on the condition that he'll pre-empt all sports events with a creepily cheery cat enthusiast's program if they don't.
- Crazy-Prepared: In the event someone tries to prank the order box by asking for Jack, there's a button that directly transfers the call straight to him. The poor sap is left flustered when Jack actually responds.
- Cultural Translation: Sometimes done in the Spanish-language commercials. For example, the original commercial for the Mini Sirloin Burgers is a parody of old school cowboy country music, telling a tale of "way out west". The Spanish version is a parody of Mexican banda music, setting the story "way out in the North" of Mexico.
- Deadpan Snarker: Jack. If he can get the last word in, he will.
- The Dentist Episode: The commercial for the free tacos promotion in 2010 has Jack at the dentist's for a tooth extraction, delirious from the anesthetic.Jack (deliriously looking at the comically large extracted tooth): That's a big tooth!
- Department of Redundancy Department: His Bacon Bacon Cheeseburger. Apparently Jack settled on the name when his wife teased him over the phone with what she was wearing.
- Disproportionate Retribution: "The Visitor" has Jack showing up to a man's house late at night, demanding he gives his burgers another shot and apologize for calling his food "Junk In The Box". When he refuses, Jack chases after him, pins him to the ground and force feeds him "his best burger ever".
- Feud Episode: One commercial had Jack breaking up a fight between curly fries and seasonal fries, all while they exchanged insults like "Pencil neck!" and "Pig tail!"
- Funny Flashback Haircut: In the Hot Mess ad, Jack is in an 80's rock band and sports a long frizzy wig with a bandana instead of his usual cone.
- Gone Horribly Right: At one point, Jack sends an intern to Philadelphia to learn how to make authentic cheesesteaks for his menu. It works a little too well when the intern ends up Going Native with Totally Radical slang and acting sleazy to one of the female employees.
- He's Back!: The famous "Jack's Back" commercial from 1994, where Jack, who had previously been blown up and discontinued, gets his revenge by blowing up the Boardroom.
- How Dad Met Mom: A spot for the Hot Mess burger had Jack in an 80's rock band, with one female fan getting really into his music. The spot ends by cutting to the modern Jack watching the scene on tape, pausing right before the fan takes off her shirt, and telling his son, "And that's how I met your mom."
- Innocent Innuendo: His Teriyaki Bowls commercial has him asking people to "Try My Bowls". His marketing manager tries to talk him out of airing the commercial, but Jack didn't see what was so wrong with it. This also extends to "People Love My Bowls", "Check Out My Bowls", and even pans to a billboard saying "Enjoy My Bowls". There's even a cut-out of Jack saying "It Takes Bowls To Serve Teriyaki!" in the background.
- Living Snowman: Jack's head resembles a snowman's down to the carrot nose.
- Magic Plastic Surgery: Jack's explanation in the first ad for how he recovered from being blown up back in 1980.
- Malaproper: In one advert, Jack's son presents to his elementary school at an assembly that he wants to be a "vegetarian" instead of a restauranteur like his father. This leaves Jack and everyone at the assembly disappointed until he reveals that the family took their dog to the "vegetarian" once.
- Malicious Misnaming: Brad calls Jack's restaurant "Junk in the Box". Jack responds to this by showing up to Brad's house and aggressively confronting him.
- Paper-Thin Disguise:
- A rando wears Jack's iconic cone hat and brags that he's duped the staff into thinking he's their boss. And then proves it with Jack's paycheck.
- Jack slaps on a fake mustache and glasses, infiltrates a brewhouse, and promotes his brewhouse-style burger. All of the patrons fail to recognize him until he removes them.
- Prison Episode: One commercial has Jack visiting a relative of his who is sitting in prison. Jack mentions his Quad Bonus Jack combo for only $3.99 where you can get a Quad Jack plus fries and a drink, and his relative laments not being able to enjoy that since all he gets to eat in prison is meatloaf.
- Raging Stiffie: Implied in one spot where Jack's visiting home, and his father bursts in distressed and tells Jack's mom, "Patti, call the doctor, (looks down at crotch) it's been more than four hours." Jack decides to leave after this.
- Revenge by Proxy: During the "Change Their Ways" advertisement campaign, Jack came to this deduction while trying to call Burger King's owners and finding out that the chain was owned by British-based company Grand Metropolitan at the time. According to him, the United Kingdom was still salty over losing America back in the 1700's and decided to get even with them by using microwaved Whoppers to insult them on their own ground.
- Self-Deprecation: The debut "Jack's Back" ad has Jack blowing up his own company's boardroom. It's ostensibly revenge for firing him in the past, but it's also almost certainly referencing the 1993 E. coli outbreak that nearly torpedoed the company. The sequence even plays the minimalist string music the company used in their '80s/early '90s ads to drive the point home.
- Serious Business: He treats his meals very seriously. Suggesting something that is out of the norm would be enough to get a rise out of him.
- Stylistic Suck: Occasionally employed. The "Say No to Fake Shakes" ad is filmed as a piss-poor sendup of anti-crime PSAs (complete with stilted line deliveries from the extras and a boom mike sticking into the shot). And a spot from the late 2000s recession featured Jack using his own personal camera to save money...and tripping down the stairs as a result.
- Take That!: One ad had a doctor (who was constantly doing a Glasses Pull...without ever putting the glasses back on) who claimed that Jack in the Box's new bacon cheddar potato wedges and stuffed jalapenos could remove wrinkles, prevent hair loss, etc. Jack asks the ad exec responsible where he found this guy. "A tobacco company."
- The Stoner: There were two commercials advertising their tacos featuring someone at the drive-thru window getting confused by the menu and being helped by imagining a bobblehead of Jack talking to him. In both, he definitely has the munchies.Stoner: How many should I get?
Jack: (thumbs up) Thirty.
Stoner: That's what I was thinking! - The Talk: Played with in one spot. Jack's son asks Jack what the difference is between boys and girls. Jack gets an awkward expression and simplifies it to girls enjoying pretty things and boys enjoying meat. Jack's son gets distracted by a caterpillar and stops listening anyway.
- The Theme Park Version: In one commercial, Jack is having an argument with the director over his refusal to wear a ridiculously large cowboy hat to complete the getup, saying it's "too cliche".
- Wingding Eyes:
- Jack had X-eyes after being knocked out by an oncoming bus for the first two commercials of the "Hang In There Jack" campaign.
- Jack has spiral eyes from being anesthetized in the dentist commercial.
