Chick-fil-A’s Streaming Service Was Foretold in a ‘BoJack Horseman’ Joke
You might have thought it was bad when tech giants that have no connection to narrative media joined the streaming game (ahem, Snapple Sneevee Snus), but that was before fast food entered the chat. Chick-fil-A has announced a new app, Chick-fil-A Play, that will be launched this month intended to be the “ultimate digital ‘playground,’” featuring original series, podcasts, games and interactive e-books.
They must have gotten the idea from BoJack Horseman.
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In the BoJackVerse, Chicken-4-Dayz is a version of Chick-fil-A in the thinnest of veils. Aside from the name format, it has an evil CEO, and the characters can’t stop eating there despite being all too familiar with its ethical practices. It’s introduced in an episode that explores why some animals in the BoJackVerse are people and some are animals with the storyline of an escaped farm chicken in easily one of the show’s top 10 gags.
In a later episode, down-on-her-luck “indie darling” director Kelsey Jannings has lowered herself to directing Chicken-4-Dayz commercials, except they’re not commercials. They’re “immersive product placement journeys,” according to the soulless marketing executives Jannings answers to. “Our target demo responds poorly when they feel they’re being advertised to,” a fox in a tie explains, “but they love stories that engage them on their level,” such as the poignant family drama surrounding a bucket of chicken seen moments earlier.
Which brings us back to Chick-fil-A. Do you remember those commerc— ahem, immersive product placement journeys they started airing around the holidays about a little girl named Sam who’s a frequent visitor to a place called the Time Shop, always coming back with something to bring her family and/or community together?
They’re part of the “Evergreen Hills” saga that will be a cornerstone of Chick-fil-A Play, and not to get all conspiratorial, but the first one aired two months after that BoJack Horseman episode was released. We’re not saying for sure that someone at Chick-fil-A saw it and completely failed to get the joke, but that first story advertises a now-defunct section of the website where customers were encouraged to print “Time Cards” to give to loved ones promising togetherness, e.g., “three hours of our favorite board game,” or if they actually hate their family, “six hours of magic tricks.” But Chick-fil-A Play is explicitly designed to replace togetherness — “to enjoy while eating a meal.”
“We’ve been paying attention to some research and conversations we’ve had with families that are our customers, and insights bubbled up that content and games are both adjacent to mealtime,” a scary man said.
Chick-fil-A is framing that as enjoying content together, but anyone who’s been in a restaurant in the last 20 years knows no one is huddling around one screen while they eat. It’s impractical, for one thing — you have to scooch all your plates together, and the fries inevitably get all mixed up, and it’s a whole thing. But for several reasons, everyone is staring at their own phone. Even when everyone is doing the same thing, no one has fond memories of watching TV with their family. There’s a reason there was no “two hours of corporate-produced short films” Time Card. Chicken-4-Dayz insisted their commercial wasn’t a commercial, and Chick-fil-A insists their isolation machine is actually a togetherness one.
On the bright side, this does mean they watched all six seasons of BoJack Horseman, doing their part to keep the ratings high enough to keep it out of the cesspool of prematurely canceled Netflix shows. It might be the only good thing they’ve ever done.
