How did Colonel Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken take over Christmas in Japan? PLUS: Household Name Uncut covers some Christmas decorating gone horribly wrong and the curse of the colonel.
Produced by Sally Herships and Sarah Wyman with Dan Bobkoff, Anna Mazarakis and Amy Pedulla.
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Transcript
Note: This transcript may contain errors.
DAN BOBKOFF: Sally Herships. What do you eat on Christmas?
SALLY HERSHIPS: Whatever is open. I'm a Jew and so typically the Jews have a Christmas tradition, which is to get Chinese food. Maybe check out a movie. Yeah, it's not... it's not a big holiday for us, but there are a lot of Christmas culinary traditions. The Christmas goose...
DB: Or ham or turkey I guess, right?
SH: Yeah or latkes if you're just feeling the holiday spirit... But in Japan, Dan, I don't know if you know about this, there's a very special Christmas culinary tradition.
DB: No.
SH: Let me play you a commercial which I think is relevant.
AD: Kentucky Christmas!...
DB: Wait so what is going on here?
SH: So what you are listening to and what we are watching is…
DB: There's a lot of dancing.
SH: There's a lot of dancing. Children in green and red elf costumes.
DB: Wait, wait wait, they're dancing with...
SH: They're dancing with buckets of fried chicken. That's right. Because in Japan, on Christmas you get Kentucky Fried Chicken.
DB: God, they're all eating KFC in unison.
SH: Well, in Japan, Kentucky Fried Chicken is Christmas.
[Montage of people saying the word "Kentucky"]
SH: We sent a producer to the streets of Tokyo to check it out in person.
SPEAKER 1: Well, if we talk about Christmas, then we have an image of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
SPEAKER 2: If it is Christmas, we decorate a tree, all get together, eat chicken and something like that, and get presents.
SPEAKER 3: I think I've been eating KFC as long as I can remember. But when I eat it for Christmas, I really feel it is Christmas time.
SPEAKER 4: Whenever there is something to celebrate I would buy it. It is not oily but it is delicious, something like that.
SPEAKER 5: That is what makes Christmas.
DB: How did this happen?
SH: Dan, I have a Christmas story for you. It involves a small boy's dreams, nuns, Colonel Sanders and one big fat lie.
TAKASHI OKAWARA: It was lie!
SH: [gasp] No.
TO: I still regret that.
SH: [gasp]
DB: From Business Insider and Stitcher, this is Household Name. Brands you know, stories you don't. I'm Dan Bobkoff.
Today: a merry KFC Christmas in Japan.
Sally Herships is here to tell us how fried chicken became just as Christmasy as mistletoe, stockings and plum puddings.
Stay with us.
ACT I
DB: All right, Sally. You're a longtime radio reporter and you were recently in Japan. So what is the deal with KFC and Japanese Christmas?
SH: So, the deal is that Christianity is not a major religion in Japan. Actually, only a small percentage of the population is Christian… Less than 2 percent.
DB: And so most people are what, Shinto and Buddhist?
SH: Shinto and Buddhist. Which are not the same thing, but some people practice both. But, really… most Japanese, according to the Japanese General Social Survey, consider themselves secular... Kind of like people of the world.
DB: And so I assume Christmas was not a big deal there for most of history.
SH: Christmas is not like a super popular holiday in Japan the way it is in the west. It's kind of like how we celebrate St. Patrick's Day or Cinco de Mayo here...
DB: It's just people hanging out with their friends?
SH: Yeah, that's totally right. You're hanging out with your friends, you're enjoying yourselves, some gift-giving is happening…
And we're going to get back to KFC, but first... to understand why KFC on Christmas is such a big deal in Japan, we have to talk about how the Japanese celebrate holidays.
There are two times of year when it's traditional in Japan to give gifts to people who have shown you kindness. That happens in the summer—like in mid-July and then in the winter towards the end of December—so they're kind of similar to the holidays here… except they're totally different because they're different holidays, but they're also different in a very, very particular way:
RUSSELL BELK: You must participate. And it's spelled out even to the type of gift and the price range that you must give people in different social stratuses.
SH: That, FYI, was Russell Belk. He is professor at York University, and, conveniently, he studies gift giving and he has even studied Christmas in Japan.
DB: Wait, so who is requiring this? Who is spelling out the type of gift and how much you must spend?
SH: Japanese culture.
DB: So it's not like the government is saying 'this year, you must spend $50 on a melon!'
SH: No, but actually I think according to the Japan Times, the going appropriate price to spend on a gift is closer to $100 US. That's for gifts you would give to a business acquaintance.
DB: Oh! I'll be expecting one soon, then.
SH: Hah! Good luck. Don't hold your breath.
DB: Lucky for you, we're in the US.!
SH: So that's the first thing: the Japanese are a little more stiff in the way they celebrate their holidays compared with the way we celebrate some holidays here in the U.S.
DB: Yeah, so they were missing their version of St. Patrick's Day, right? Like that low-stakes holiday where you basically appropriate someone else's culture in the name of having a good time?
SH: Yeah, exactly. And remember, holidays can be a big money-maker for stores. Which is part of the reason why, after World War II in Japan, when the economy was booming and the Japanese were starting to take an interest in Western culture, some businesses were on the hunt for ways to use that excitement to lure customers into their stores.
DB: Ah, the joys of commercializing holidays!
SH: Yeah, but Christmas is not an obvious choice in Tokyo. December is a really tough time of year to introduce a new holiday.
DB: Why?
SH: It is Emperor Akihito's birthday on December 23rd, Dan. That is a national holiday. And then there's the New Year, which is also a really big holiday. So there's not a lot of room to wedge in extra holidays.
DB: Right, so it's not like you'd be like 'I have a great idea. Late December needs something...'
SH: Yeah! No. We're already, we're already busy celebrating the reigning Emperor's birthday and preparing for the new year.
DB: Why then is KFC running a Christmas ad in Japan with dancing people eating lots of chicken?
SH: Alright, to understand this, to answer this question about KFC, which in Japan, by the way, Dan, is often referred to as "Kentucky," we have to travel back to Osaka. It's 1970 and it is the World's Fair.
ARCHIVAL: From now until September the site will be thronged with visitors from all over the world. 15 million people are expected...
SH: And there's a guy there. Takashi Okawara. He's our protagonist. He is 27 years old then. He's a sales manager for Dai Nippon Printing, and he is in charge of a lot of the projects for the Expo.
TO: Lots of American concept has been introduced to Japan. Like Kentucky Fried Chicken, Mr. Donut and etc. And I was supplying packages to those concept – as a printing company sales manager. So I get to know Kentucky Fried Chicken in that way.
DB: Wait, so was KFC new to Japan at this point?
SH: No, KFC doesn't exist in Japan at this point. There's no McDonald's. No Dunkin Donuts. None of these fast food brands exist at the time.
DB: What a travesty.
SH: I know, shocking. So normally in a podcast like this, we would refer to a source by their first name. But Japan has this incredibly formal culture where respect is really important, as is seniority, and Mr. Okawara is a really successful businessman, and it just feels... it feels… wrong to refer to him by his first name, so I'm just going to call him Mr. Okawara. Plus, he is the one who told me this story.
So, it's 1970, Mr. Okawara is at the World's Fair, and he's meeting a lot of people...and seeing a lot of sights. Including a Kentucky Fried Chicken test store.
DB: This was a novelty, right?
SH: Yeah! This is the first time on Japanese soil that you could get KFC's fried chicken and french fries and a roll, and the store was a super big hit! They were serving thousands of meals every day. And so Mr. Okawara, he meets this recruiter for KFC. And the recruiter wants him to come and work for KFC. But, Mr. Okawara has also been asked by his own company, Nippon Printing, to move to Germany, to Dusseldorf. And ever since he was a little boy, he has had big plans. He has dreamed of growing up to become a millionaire. So, at first he thinks maybe he can do that in Germany if he takes this job with Nippon Printing, but then he finds out what the salary of his manager is.
TO: And the amount is not big enough for me in those days. Because it has been my dream to buy a Jaguar and buy some ships and this and that as a young boy.
DB: So, alright, he's seeing them sell all this chicken at the World's Fair… clearly, the path to the Jaguar and the ships is through fried chicken.
SH: Yeah, I can see why you would think this, but I don't know if you know… but the Japanese, they are not known to be big risk-takers. They are super risk-averse. So the first time I was in Japan, one of the stories I was reporting on was about how no one knew the word "startup." I mean not literally every single person, but many people that I spoke to over the course of my reporting were not familiar with that phrase. The idea of risking it all and starting a business was was just really unpopular and rubbed Japanese the wrong way. So this decision, for young Mr. Okawara… this is not as clear cut as you might think.
So Mr. Okawara is faced with this big fork in the road, a puzzle: should he move to Dusseldorf? Or, should he become a chicken man? So he starts doing some research and reading about Colonel Sanders.
DB: The real Colonel Sanders?
SH: The real Colonel Sanders! The founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
ARCHIVAL: A man. A man from a small town...
SH: When I went to the KFC website, in the name of reporting! I fell down a deep rabbit hole. There are some amazing vintage videos on the website, including this one:
ARCHIVAL: He had a passion, a dream, a recipe for fried chicken. This man is Harland Sanders.
DB: Sally, what is this??
SH: So glad you asked, Dan. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure. But it's part of Colonel Sanders' official biographical information on the KFC "our story" webpage.
DB: You know, I have to admit that I totally forgot that Colonel Sanders was a real person.
SH: Really?
DB: Yeah, I thought he was just like this marketing invention made up to sell chicken.
SH: He is actually a real guy, his full name is Harland David Sanders, and according to his official bio on Kentucky Fried Chicken's website, he had many, many jobs - mule-tender, locomotive fireman, insurance salesman, political candidate, rail conductor - and all of this before he started Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was in his sixties. After which, of course, he became a millionaire!
DB: But was he a real colonel?
SH: He was a real colonel. In the 1930s, the governor of Kentucky at the time made him an honorary colonel.
DB: Wait, so is that a real colonel? Or is that just an honorary colonel?
SH: I mean, an honorary colonel is a real colonel.
DB: Is that like… can you put an honorary degree on your wall? I guess you could?
SH: Why not?
TO: At that time I read the story about Colonel Sanders, that he hop around the job, about 18 jobs and at the age of 60 he started Kentucky Fried Chicken. Since then, he made everybody happy. He make maid and driver and all the supporters make it millionaire. And I like that story.
ARCHIVAL: I just say the moral of my life, don't quit at 65. Maybe your boat hasn't come in yet… mine hadn't!
TO: So what kind of a wonderful story Kentucky is. That's what I thought.
DB: So did Mr. Okawara take the job with the paper company?
SH: No, he didn't. He decided to take the job with KFC and to become a chicken man.
DB: That has to be a pretty big deal, I mean, that sounds really unusual for Japan.
SH: Yeah, I think it is. I think the fact that someone like Colonel Sanders, a real American entrepreneur who was able to become this tremendous success story, the fact that that appealed to him is pretty unusual.
DB: And don't most Japanese workers stay with the same company for almost their entire career?
SH: At the time, yeah. At the time...
DB: Salary men is the...
SH: Yeah, at the time, that was, that was your life's plan. To get a job and to stick with the company. Yeah, so you're right. It's a big commitment. It's like marriage.
DB: I didn't know Colonel Sanders was so inspiring.
SH: Well, Dan. There's more. It's not just that Mr. Okawara decides to take this job with KFC. Even within that decision, he pushes that to the max because Kentucky Fried Chicken offered him a management job, and he turned it down. He decided he wants to work his way up from the bottom and to take a job as a store manager of the first real Kentucky Fried Chicken, outside of the one at the World's Fair, the first KFC to open in the country of Japan.
TO: By doing that I can learn and study about how to make wonderful fried chicken by myself from the scratch.
DB: All right. So, this is Japan in 1970. We're talking what, 25 years after World War II? And the economy's starting to boom and so it sounds like it is a good time to open a chicken restaurant.
SH: You would think. But that, that is not the experience that Mr. Okawara has.
DB: What happened?
SH: So, they open the first store, and they have these grand expectations. There are fireworks. There are giant advertising balloons. And... the store is a giant flop.
TO: I've been cooking chicken and waiting waiting waiting. But I couldn't sell it. Because first of all, all the sign was written in English and the roof was painted red and white stripes. Actually, no one knows what the hell they're selling. They come in to... 'Is this a barber?' Or 'is this selling chocolate?' That sort of things.
DB: Yeah, and he has, I mean, he must have a lot riding on this. He had that great job lined up in Dusseldorf, and here he is like cooking chicken that nobody wants in Nagoya.
SH: Yeah. This is it.
TO: But I quit already Dai Nippon printing and I gave up the chance to become an officer in Dusseldorf. I have nowhere to go. So I have no other choice to struggle in the store with part timers.
SH: And you know what, it gets really really bad. No one is buying this chicken.
DB: No one.
SH: No one.
DB: Alright, well coming up somehow we go from no one buying KFC… to a Christmas tradition. Back in a moment.
ACT II
DB: We're back.
SH: No one is buying Mr. Okawara's chicken. It is a tough, tough time.
TO: Then, we've been doing everything we've been sleeping in the back of the store because we cannot afford to rent apartment.
SH: Sleeping! You were sleeping in the back of the store?
TO: Sure. We put a pair of flour bag, you know bag and put into the back of the store and sleep on the flour bag.
SH: Wow!
SH: But he keeps going. He's got hope. I mean, I like to think that it's because of he has this entrepreneurial spirit to him and he's inspired by Colonel Sanders.
DB: Did he think about going back to the paper company?
SH: You know, no. He'd already given up his job. He has no choice. He has to stick with it.
TO: But in spite of that situation I'm kind of convinced that this business will be okay because the more I eat, the more I'm convinced that this is such a good taste and I love it. And as you know I have so much to eat because there's so many leftovers and I have no money to go buy any other stuff.
SH: Meanwhile, Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds are opening their first stores in Japan. And Mr. Okawara says they are both doing okay.
DB: So clearly there's nothing wrong with American fast food going into Japan. It's just nobody wants Kentucky Fried Chicken at this point.
SH: No one. No one wants Mr. Okawara's chicken.
DB: So why don't they just give up?
SH: Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan was founded as a joint venture with Mitsubishi Corp, which is this gigantic company that makes everything at the time from cars to electronics. So this giant company can sustain it. But, it is a really rough time to be Mr. Okawara. So he is searching his brain. He's trying to come up with ways to sell his fried chicken. And finally he has this idea. He's going to push the Kentucky part of the brand.
TO: When I went to Colonel Sanders' first store in Corbin, Kentucky I saw so many beautiful pastures of the ranch farming land, white fence and green pasture and the Ohio River. And I think if we positioned Kentucky Fried Chicken as such kind of image that the beautiful, healthy food from countryside it might be so good.
DB: So did that work?
SH: No.
DB: Mr. Okawara! He can't get any luck.
SH: No, although to be fair, it does set the stage for success later. But nothing really happens until around Christmastime.
TO: Then one day I got the phone call from the sister of the kindergarten. She's holding a Christmas party for the kids. And they need, they want someone to put on the Santa Claus clothes and dancing in front of the children.
SH: This is your sister?
TO: No no no, sister of the… that kindergarten was operated by the church.
SH: Ah, a sister, a nun, ok!
TO: Yeah, yeah, nun!
DB: Wait. I mean, how many nuns are even in Japan?
SH: I would imagine very few. But Takeshi Okawara was born in 1943 in Yokohama. So, remember - there are like, almost no Christian people in Japan—they make up less than 2% of the population—but Okawara was educated by German priests. He went to a Jesuit school for six years. So he knows nuns, and this nun, the one who called him, she teaches kindergarten, and she is holding a Christmas party for her students and they need someone to dress up as a Santa Claus and entertain the kids.
DB: So Mr. Okawara knows Christmas.
SH: Mr. Okawara knows Christmas.
TO: So I got the idea. I have no other choice because there she's going to buy our chicken. So ok, I'll put myself into the Santa Claus costume and I start dancing holding the barrel of chicken and 'Kentucky, Christmas Kentucky Christmas happy happy.' Like that, I make up the song and dancing around and kids like it.
DB: And so this is it. This is his big success.
SH: No, still not yet. No. But another kindergarten hears about his wonderful chicken party and they want one too. And so he gets the idea to start promoting fried chicken as a substitute for the classic Western turkey, at least the one Japanese know from American TVs and movies, and that idea slowly starts to take hold. So he starts putting Santa costumes on the Colonel Sanders statues in front of the stores.
DB: Yeah, and do people even know who Colonel Sanders is now? Because they're not even buying this chicken.
SH: No, but they do see the Santa Claus costumes, and at last that brings customers in.
Okay, so he's done. He's not sleeping on flour sacks in the back of the store anymore. People are buying chicken, and after a few years, KFC for Christmas starts to get popular in Japan and NHK, which is a national broadcaster, comes in to interview Mr. Okawara. And they want to know if KFC is an American Christmas tradition. And Dan, wait for it...he says yes! He lies.
TO: 'You are selling Kentucky Fried Chicken so well in Christmas. And this is the common custom in overseas?' And I would know that the people are not eating chicken they are eating turkey. But I said yes. It was lie.
SH: [gasp] No.
TO: I still regret that. But people people like it because something good in the US or European countries, people like it.
DB: Wait, he just lies to NHK?
SH: He blatantly lies.
DB: And that works? That lie makes KFC a real Christmas tradition?
SH: Well, remember how I said that it was Mr. Okawara who told me this story?
DB: Yeah.
SH: Yeah. So YUM Brands, the company which now owns KFC, has a different version. According to the company, it was a foreigner who was in Japan and suggested in a store that KFC start selling chicken on Christmas instead of the traditional turkey.
DB: So which is true, Mr. Okawara or the foreign customer?
SH: You know, let's just remember this happened a very long time ago, many, many decades ago… so I think what is true here, Dan, is that this has become a Christmas legend. A kind of a Christmas story, lost in the mists of Christmas past. And, KFC's promotion helped to bring people in the door… on Christmas, they sell, that is their big sales day. They sell ten times that day what they normally do the rest of the year, so I think a big percentage of their sales are made that day.
And the other thing that happens is Colonel Sanders makes it to Japan. KFC puts a statue of the Colonel in front of every single location, so it's very different than here in the states, and he becomes a pretty big star.
Yuko Nakajima, who's now the chief marketing officer for KFC in Japan, told me that "Uncle Colonel," which is how he's often referred to there, is probably one of the top three most famous Americans in Japan.
SH: What is, so what is "uncle Colonel Sanders" represent?
YUKO NAKAJIMA: He's very well known, maybe more than your president.
SH: And our producer on the streets of Tokyo found… that's true.
SPEAKER 6: Colonel Sanders is more famous than generations of prime ministers.
SPEAKER 7: Even though you would not know all American presidents, his name is as famous and well known as John F. Kennedy.
SPEAKER 8: Is Colonel Sanders the uncle? I know him. Everyone should know him.
SPEAKER 9: In front of the store, there was always Colonel Sanders standing in a white suit.
SH: And it's not that hard to understand how you could mix up an old guy in a white suit with another old guy in a red suit.
SPEAKER 10: At Christmas, Colonel Sanders becomes Santa. He is wearing those red clothes.
SPEAKER 11: Colonel Sanders wears white clothes and Santa Claus wears red clothes. They are the same old guys.
SPEAKER 12: I think they are different people. Or could it be that Colonel Sanders was the inspiration for Santa Claus? Santa Claus became Colonel Sanders or Colonel Sanders became Santa Claus… was it something like that?
DB: So what about Mr. Okawara? What happens to him?
SH: He goes on and he makes the company incredibly successful. He goes on to run KFC Japan, he builds a farm, just like the farm houses and farms you see in Kentucky. He tells me that he helped to create herb-fed chicken, which is really successful and leads to herb-fed cow...
DB: So basically he's just feeding herbs to these creatures?
SH: Yes. Herb-fed tuna, which is also…
DB: I guess that's an innovation…
SH: Yeah! And kind of like his hero Colonel Sanders, Mr. Okawara becomes this corporate legend. Yuko Nakajima, who's now Chief Marketing Officer for KFC in Japan, told me that he's incredibly well-respected.
SH: What about Mr. Okawara? Does he have a reputation now? Like a good reputation because he helped to make this happen?
YN: In meetings I would say like in meetings now. Still people would talk about like "in his days" or what he did. And that's how that's how he's very respected. So he's like God.
DB: So… did Mr. Okawara ever get to meet Colonel Sanders?
SH: He did, twice! And he has a letter from Colonel Sanders, which he very touchingly describes as his family treasure. The Colonel wrote that he is a unique manager, Mr. Okawara, who inspires people. And Colonel Sanders definitely inspired Mr. Okawara - Mr. Okawara is super loyal to him. Later, when the company gets bought by a conglomerate and it wants to… get ready for it… change the recipe… Mr. Okawara is not very happy. Because traditionally, the way he was taught, the process for making KFC's famous fried chicken involves two steps. How many, Dan?
DB: Two steps.
SH: Two Steps.
TO: First step is first, egg and milk and water shuffled and make a bubble, and then dip the chicken into that and then put into the breading which is seasoned spices and salt and then breading you see and then cook. This is two steps.
SH: But the corporation, the conglomerate, it wants to simplify the recipe and make it ONE step.
DB: This is like the most business thing ever! It's like 'you know what's inefficient? Two steps! We need one step!'
SH: Yeah! So they simplify it. But Mr. Okawara won't do that. He feels like he has to…
DB: He's a purist!
SH: He's a purist. And he wants to be loyal to what Colonel Sanders taught him personally.
TO: I don't know which is right but for us. I was first manager to be trained by Colonel Sanders. I don't want to change the way of cooking which Colonel Sanders came up because of the economics, just because of the time saving and this is another thing I have to stick with the original Colonel Sanders way of cooking.
SH: So in Japan, while Mr. Okawara's in charge, KFC, or Kentucky, sticks with the original recipe the Colonel taught him.
DB: So, okay, it's Christmas Day. You're in Japan. What do people actually do?
SH: So you're going to pick up your party barrel from KFC, which is basically like a giant bento box. So when we think of a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket, it's kind of like that but it has separate compartments that are separated by styrofoam. So the cold things go on the bottom. There might be coleslaw insulated with layers of Styrofoam to keep it cold. Then you're going to have your warm things like the chicken. There's going to be a dessert, and you're going to pick up this giant barrel and take it home and eat it with your family and loved ones and be happy and joyful and sparkly and all the wonderful magical things that eating fried chicken on Christmas is supposed to make you feel in Japan.
DB: So Sally, you told us at the top that your Christmas is, like many Jews, eating Chinese food. Are you thinking about adding KFC to your Christmas Day repertoire?
SH: Yeah, to be honest, I think it has a new meaning for me. Traditionally, fast food, like KFC, is something I would just get on a road trip, but now… I don't know… Christmas Day, I might just check it out.
DB: Well, Sally, thank you for that. But don't go anywhere, because if there's any story that we've reported in the last few months that deserves an uncut, it's this one. So coming up, Household Name Uncut.
ACT III
DB: Alright, we're back with Household Name Uncut. You probably know the drill by now. This is the part of the show where we bring back things we learned through the reporting process that didn't make it into our main story, but we just thought were so interesting that we have to tell you now. So Sally Herships is still here. Hello.
SH: Hi!
DB: And Sarah Wyman, our producer is with us as well.
SARAH WYMAN: I'm so excited!
DB: Me too! Alright, so first up: Sally Herships.
SH: I feel like we should have chicken. So what I am going to tell you that didn't make it into the show…
DB: Until now.
SH: Until now... is about… surprise! Christmas! And more specifically, how department stores have handled Christmas in Japan. Christmas has been around in Japan, in case you didn't know, since missionaries started showing up in the country in the mid-1500s.
DB: It wasn't just the Colonel.
SH: No, it wasn't just the Colonel... Although this predates him by a few years. Then fast forward to the last century, Christmas makes a comeback thanks to KFC.
So around all the same time that this stuff is happening with KFC in the 1970s, department stores were figuring out that Christmas could be a really big marketing tool. So, they take on the tradition of decorating for Christmas, and in some cases, they hit it right on Rudolph's red nose, and in some cases… they were off a little bit.
One of my favorite things from the interview that we did with Russell Belk, that professor in Canada who conveniently studies Japanese Christmas, one of my favorite stories that he tells is about this Italian Christmas tradition translated by Japanese department stores and gone a little wrong.
RB: And so, for example, I've seen in a Japanese department store a Christmas tree decorated with red women's underwear. And apparently they had heard or read that in Italy it's good luck around that time of year to have red underwear that you're wearing. But they got it a little bit wrong and put it on the Christmas tree that I saw in one of the major department stores in Osaka.
DB: So it was good luck for the tree!
SH: I guess... depending? Then one of my other favorite moments Russell Bell talks about, which I guess it makes a lot of sense when you think about it... Imagine we have Jesus, Santa, and Colonel Sanders. All men. All with beards. And that leads to the potential for some kind of big confusion...
DB: Or the greatest crossover event in history.
RB: Supposedly, one of the department stores in Tokyo trying to get Easter right put up a cross with Santa Claus on it. And so they had some of the right concept, but we would find that obviously bizarre. This only lasted a few days before they were told and took it down.
SH: Bottom line, many Japanese people really get familiar with Christmas through marketing. They have appropriated the holiday, says Russell Belk, but they have also totally made it their own.
DB: All right. Well, next up, Sarah Wyman, esteemed producer. What do you have for us? I actually have no idea what you're about to say me.
SH: I'm excited.
SW: Okay, I have a baseball story for you. And hang with me, because it's actually about KFC. So baseball has been in Japan since the 1920s, they have a professional league, just like we do in the US.
SH: I have... I have a question Sarah as a non sports ball fan. Do we play them? Like the American teams?
DB: Did you just say sportsball?
SH: Yeah, sportsball!
SW: I think every once in a while there are like exposition games, which are done just to kind of make baseball a bigger deal worldwide, to like up the profile of the sport. But no, they're not playing in like our leagues or World Series.
SH: So the Japanese teams are staying in Japan.
SW: For the most part. For the most part.
SH: I'm with you, I'm with you.
SW: Great. So our story is about a team called the Hanshin Tigers. And for the first sixty years that they were in this league—they'd been there almost since it started in the 1920s—they just hadn't done very well. They'd gotten close to winning the championship a couple of times, but they'd never actually done it… until 1985, when finally they have this blockbuster season. That's the year they make it to Japan's championship series—the world series of Japan. They beat their archrival to get there, and it was all very exciting, and it's thanks largely to this player who actually came from the US, named Randy Bass.
DB: Randy Bass. I feel like Randy Bass is like one of those names you come up with if you're like… trying to come up with an American name!
SW: He's their first baseman. And let me tell you, he was kind of knocking it out of the park in Japan's League.
SH: Like home runs!
SW: Like home runs! He hit...
DB: I get it…
SW: ..fifty-four of them in this season, in 1985. Which just to like put that in your frame of reference as non-sports people...
SH: Thank you.
SW: ...that was one short of the record that year.
SH: That sounds like... that sounds like a lot of home runs. Like 54... I mean that...
SW: Yeah, it's a lot of home runs! And he becomes this kind of national hero for Japan.
[ARCHIVAL]
SW: Like everyone knows who Randy Bass is, and in this World Series game, it's game six... for your reference, there are seven games, the team that wins the whole thing has to win four games… And Randy Bass is the one who catches the ball to make the final out of the game.
[SOUND OF GAME]
And the crowd goes wild. There are people sobbing they are so excited.
[SOUND OF EMOTIONAL FAN]
There's all this pent-up excitement. They're just... they're just thrilled at the culmination of all these years of losing finally resulting in a victory.
[APPLAUSE]
So the players do all the things baseball players do when they win games like this. They douse each other in beers. They have all these raucous celebrations. And the fans go participate in their own tradition.
They head to the Ebisubashi Bridge in Osaka. And that's where they assemble in a crowd and they start chanting the names of every player on the team's roster.
[CHANTING]
And as they chant the names, they're picking out people in the crowd who look kind of like those players. And then those people—the hand-picked dopplegangers— they're getting up on the bridge and jumping off of it into the river... Look, here's a video of it I found online:
SH: It's like a Beatles Concert.
[SOUND OF PERSON JUMPING]
Oh my God, they're jumping in the water with their clothes on.
SW: So everything is going great, they're working their way down the roster, until they get to this hero, this player who's been absolutely essential in winning this season. Randy Bass, the six-foot-one, 200-pound, blond and bearded American guy. And no one in the crowd looks even remotely like Randy Bass.
DB: Are the heads just like looking around trying to find anyone who will...?
SW: Anyone. They're desperate. And someone sees, in front of a KFC store nearby…
DB: Oh, I see where this is going...
SW: … a statue of Colonel Harland Sanders, who does not look totally unlike Randy Bass. And so, thrilled by this discovery, the crowd picks the statue up, carries it to the bridge, and lobs it ceremoniously into the water. Everybody's cheering. It's a great time.
Okay, here's where the story takes a turn, because after the crowd throws the Colonel into the water in celebration, the Tigers enter a long, long losing streak. A losing streak that lasts 18 years.
SH: What? But what happened? They have this star player Randy Bass!
SW: So they had some bad luck. Like a number of things happened, including the fact that Randy Bass had to go back to the United States to handle a family emergency, and a bunch of other things happened, and suddenly the Tigers… are not doing great. And it's not even just that they're like not killing it anymore, like they are tanking it. For that 18-year period, they finished in last place 10 times and they were in the bottom half of their league 15 times.
SH: That sounds... that sounds really bad.
SW: Yeah, you don't have to be a sports fan to know that those are not stellar results.
DB: You have to be a math fan.
SW: Fans are calling it "The Curse of the Colonel." They think that the reason this is happening is because they so disrespected Colonel Harland Sanders' memory and his legacy that he, from beyond the grave, is punishing their team.
DB: From like the depths of this river.... Is it a river?
SW: Yeah. And so in the years after this happened, fans tried to find the statute. They sent like expeditions, like people with snorkels going in the river taking a look around, seeing what they could dig up. They sent a delegation to apologize to the manager of the KFC that they stole the statue from... but none of it is enough because their team just keeps losing. They made it to a championship in 2003, but they lost that championship. And many of the Tigers fans are convinced that the tides will not turn until they find the statue and make their amends to Colonel Sanders.
SH: Are there tides in their... river. Are there tides in rivers too? Do rivers have tides?
SW: They have currents!
SH: Currents.
DB: They have Colonels! One does!
SW: This one does! Okay, and so finally, in 2009, we have an update on this story.
ARCHIVAL: After a quarter of a century in a watery grave, Osaka has solved the mystery of the missing Colonel Sanders, the Kentucky Fried Chicken mascot hauled out of the Dotonbori River in the center of the city during a cleanup….
SW: The city of Osaka was like doing some remodeling and they were working on a project near the river and they had a diver in the water who's working on construction, and he found something buried in the bottom, in the mud of the river. And at first he thought it was a barrel, and then he was worried it might be like a corpse, but they took it out of the water and they realized that what they uncovered was the torso of this statue of Colonel Sanders from 20 years ago!
So they have this big fanfare, they pull the whole statue out of the river. There's a literal unveiling with like performers, cameras flashing everywhere.
DB: Oh, the Colonel does not look like he's in good shape. He is still smiling. I'll give him that.
SH: He's missing his left hand!
SW: Exactly! He's missing his left hand! And so some fans think that that's why the Tigers still have yet to make it to another championship... but the team hasn't finished in last place in their league since the statue's been found, so make of that what you will.
SH: It sounds like the Hufflepuff play... 'second place… Or nothing!'
DB: But wait, have they found the hand? Are they still looking?
SW: I imagine they're still looking. I think some of the urgency has gone away because they've, you know, found most of the statue and that feels like enough… You know, they're on the up and up again. Now, they're at least not combating this curse. Now, they're just having all the normal problems that baseball teams have when they're bad. There's not like this doom hanging over them. But personally, I don't think finding the hand would hurt.
DB: So where's the colonel now?
SW: So the colonel has been taken... the original KFC where it was stolen from doesn't exist anymore, so they took it to a KFC that's really near the stadium where the Tigers play, and you can still visit it there today.
DB: All right. Well the Kentucky Fried Curse undone... somewhat. We've learned a lot today!
Producer Sarah Wyman and Sally Herships, thank you.
SW: Thank you!
SH: Arigato gozaimasu!
CREDITS
DB: As always, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts… it really helps new listeners find the show. And if you have comments and story ideas send them to householdname@insider.com.
This episode was produced by Sally Herships and Sarah Wyman with Amy Pedulla, Anna Mazarakis and me.
Our editor is Gianna Palmer.
Sound design and original music by John DeLore and Casey Holford.
Special thanks to the Japan Center for International Exchange, the Foreign Press Center Japan, Hideko Gillam, and Yoko Ishitani.
Translations were read by Clayton Dyer, Rich Feloni, Graham Flanagan, Shivani Gonzalez, Alli Guerra, Christian Nguyen, Meg Teckman-Fullard, Lauren Thompson, and Celia Skvaril.
The executive producers of Household Name are Chris Bannon, Jenny Radelet and me.
We're back in a few weeks!
Household Name is a production of Insider Audio.
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