Kentucky Fried Chicken is gearing up for a battle, after a Bangkok restaurant named Hitler ripped off the company’s logo using an image of the Nazi leader. But the rumors circulating the Web indicate that the restaurant might not even be in existence anymore.
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KFC told The Huffington Post on Friday that it might seek “legal action” against the Thailand restaurant that spoofed the famous Colonel Sanders logo, replacing him with an image of Adolf Hitler.
“We find it extremely distasteful and are considering legal action since it is an infringement of our brand trademark and has nothing to do with us,” a spokesman for KFC parent Yum! told HuffPost in an email.
A picture of the Hitler restaurant was tweeted back in May by author Andrew Spooner, who wrote the Thailand Handbook. Spooner told Red Alert Politics in an email that he found the image on Facebook.
A Hitler Fried Chicken shop in Thailand. I kid you not. Complete with pic of Hitler in bow tie http://t.co/9OS1FgfUCx
— Andrew Spooner (@andrewspoooner) May 28, 2013
The restaurant apparently chose the logo for marketing purposes.
“I went in for a bite last week and got some fried chicken, which was pretty good, and asked the guy behind the counter why it was called Hitler,” Bangkok resident Alan Robertson told The Daily Mail at the time. “He just shrugged his shoulders and said the owners had thought it was good image.”
But in his email to Red Alert, Spooner asserted that Robertson’s quote appears to be fabricated.
“As far as I’m aware the restaurant is not in Bangkok but a town called Ubon Ratchatani, several hundred miles away,” he wrote. “That is what it stated on the original Facebook update I took the photo from.”
Spooner also added that the restaurant apparently changed its name to “H….r,” but kept the same logo. The author said he was contacted by the KFC laywers, but that he couldn’t shed any more light on the situation. The Bangkok Post backed up Spooner’s story, reporting that the restaurant has since changed its name to H-ler and is using a different logo to avoid Nazi associations.
As The Mail reported, the deceased dictator’s image is very popular in Thailand, popping up dressed like McDonald’s mascot Ronald McDonald and one of the Teletubbies.
The KFC logo kerfuffle comes less than two months after JC Penney posted a billboard featuring a teapot that unintentionally resembled the German dictator. The department store took the sign down after it caused a stir.
Red Alert Politics has reached out to KFC for additional comment, but the company has not responded at this time.
UPDATE: An earlier version of this story misattributed a quote to Andrew Spooner. Additional information has also been added.
