Jack (mascot)
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Jack is the clown mascot of American restaurant chain Jack In The Box. In one commercial, his driver's license shows his full name to be "Jack I. Box," presumably short for "Jack In The Box."
The restaurant chain had been hit with a scandal over meat infected with E. coli O157:H7 in 1993, which directly led to its current media image.
Prior to 1980, the chain used a huge clown head as its symbol, which sat atop the remote activated talking drive-thru menus.
In 1980, the chain decided to "mature" and prove they weren't a kids' restaurant by running a series of television commercials announcing "We're blowing up clowns!" and showed the explosion of the notorious clown heads, however over many complaints by parents over the violence in the commercials, they have discontinued Jack.
When the meat scandal hit in 1993, it was time for action once again. After adopting completely revised food handling procedures, but still watching their stock value drop, they came up with a new plan: bring back Jack.
In 1995, the chain revived and revitalized their old moniker. A series of new commercials featured a new, more-serious Jack with a smaller head and wearing a business suit returned (according to him, "thanks to the miracle of plastic surgery"). In the very first commercial, he blew up the board of directors as retribution for his supposed destruction in 1980.
This image of destruction angered many, as it occurred at nearly the same time as several domestic bombings hitting the news in those days (see Oklahoma City bombing). But the ad agency and the corporation stuck by the new campaign, because the intent was to prove to a wary public that the company was no longer the same restaurant chain of the 1993 scandal, and because the commercials had a definite humorous element to them that undermined the alleged "retribution" that Jack was supposedly demonstrating in these commercials and overall, the public responded positively.
Today "Jack" car antenna ornaments are ubiquitous.[citation needed]
It has been rumored that Marc Germain, aka Mr. KABC, is the voice of Jack.[citation needed]
