Burger King Got Creative With Sourdough For Its April Fools' Prank
For April Fools Day 2021, Peeps (not satisfied with the laughs it got after announcing a Peeps-Pepsi hybrid) announced it was coming out with a cauliflower variety (via People). Lipton pretended to release a self-jiggling tea bag, as per The Guardian. And Burger King? It tried to reignite the nation's fleeting love affair with sourdough in celebration of National Sourdough Day. (April 1 is really National Sourdough Day in the United States, we pinky promise.) You'll have to forgive BK. The fast-food chain has never quite beat the brilliance of its 1998 April Fool's joke. Twenty-three years ago, in a stroke of pure genius, Burger King claimed that its "left-handed whopper" featured condiments rotated 180 degrees for their 1.4 million left-handed customers (via Time).
This year, Burger King tweeted to the Twitterverse that "YOOOOO WE'RE PUTTING EVERYTHING ON SOURDOUGHHHH TOMORROW LETSSS GOOOOO." Menu items that the burger joint claimed to be selling on April 1 included: a Sour Hershey Pie Dough, Cheesy Tots Sourdough, Minishakes on Sourdough, a Chicken Fries Sourdough Sandwich, Chocolate Chip Cookies on Sourdough, French Fries on Sourdough, a Chicken Nugget Sourdough Sandwich, an Onion Rings Sourdough Sandwich, and Sour Mozzarella Sticks Dough.
Even Burger King couldn't commit to its sourdough-dominated menu
This must be said. When one of Burger King's Twitter followers dared to wonder out loud (via Tweet) how the chain's new sourdough-dominated menu items were going to taste, not even BK could muster up enough enthusiasm to follow through with the prank. "Probably good," it halfheartedly responded. And so, it seems that even The King thinks that it was "probably" a good idea that the whole thing was a hoax. Or, mostly a hoax. BK later tweeted, "maybe putting a Hershey Pie on sourdough was going too far." Customers in the US could nonetheless order any normal sandwich on sourdough to celebrate National Sourdough Bread Day.
Burger King's Twitter following wasn't convinced that the chain should have offered even that much. Order food on Burger King's sourdough bread, one of the chain's Twitter followers warned, and you may well be in for "a sad, and weak-looking imitation" of what it advertises (via Tweet). Or, to hand the mic to Jack in the Box, who trolled Burger King's April Fool's ploy, sometimes it's better to "Do Less" (via Twitter).