Gidget the Taco Bell dog was, in many ways, the Michael Jackson of the Mexican fast food-endorsing chihuahua world.
The similarities are remarkable. Both were megastars. Both brought joy to an otherwise miserable world. Both combined freakishly large facial features with scrawny little underdeveloped bodies in a way that was a little bit freakish to look at. Both were gender nonspecific. And both are dead.
Gidget the Taco Bell dog died on Tuesday following a massive stroke. We haven’t been this upset since the Hamburgler turned up dead in a Bangkok cupboard with a string wrapped around his willy.
It’s hard to overstate the impact that Gidget the Taco Bell dog had on the world. Don’t believe us? Fine – name another female, probably inbred, Mexican dog with a longstanding contract to advertise a fast food franchise in a way that possibly perpetuates a set of negative cultural stereotypes who speaks in a man’s voice.
That’s right, you can’t. Gidget was the Neil Armstrong of allegedly racist dog-based taco adverts. She was the Martin Luther King of them. And, coming so soon after Michael Jackson’s death, the world has obviously been shaken to its core. The New York Times reports:
Gidget the Chihuahua, star of 1990s Taco Bell commercials has died. She was 15. Gidget suffered a stroke late Tuesday night at her trainer?s home in Santa Clarita, Calif., and had to be euthanized, said Karin McElhatton, owner of Studio Animal Services, which owned the dog.
The timing of Gidget’s death couldn’t be worse. She filmed her last Taco Bell commercial nine years ago and had been keeping a conspicuously low profile ever since. However, although it’s thought that she owned the rights to other, more famous dog-based television commercials such as the Andrex puppy campaign and that Volkswagen ad where the dog sings I’m A Man by Steve Winwood, financial troubles meant that Gidget was about to embark upon a highly-anticipated comeback. A DVD of her final Taco Bell advert rehearsals is expected to go on sale soon.
Gidget’s associates and family will now have to put their grief behind them to sort out the administrative tangle that she left behind. For instance, although she made a will some years prior to her death, little of it makes any sense. The will makes no mention of Gidget’s father, for instance, and it also names Diana Ross as the guardian of her children. It’s truly bizarre.
But all of this can wait, because the most important thing now is that Gidget the Taco Bell dog gets the send-off she so clearly deserves. A memorial concert will be held for her next week where, standing in front of her offensively gaudy coffin, the likes of Usher, Mariah Carey and Lionel Richie will perform some of Gidget’s most beloved hits, such as Yo Quiero Taco Bell, Here Lizard Lizard Lizard and the immortal Yo Quiero Taco Bell (Two Tacos For 99c Edition).
Shaheen Jafargholi won’t be there, though. That’d just be weird.
RichGilly says
See my video on this poor dogs passing
Taco Bell Dog Dies
Thank you.