It's 3 p.m., let's watch RoboCop sell fried chicken in Korea
It’s 3 p.m.! Let The A.V. Club briefly make use of the waning hours of your productivity with some pop culture ephemera pulled from the depths of YouTube.
In RoboCop (1987), RoboCop is a part-machine, part-man law enforcement officer created by megacorporation Omni Consumer Products as part of a plan to replace Detroit with the sanitized, exclusive Delta City. In this late-’80s Korean commercial for fried chicken, RoboCop merely wishes to consume (and for you to purchase) frozen chicken from real-life megacorporation Lotte.
The spot begins with RoboCop, entranced by the irresistible smell of fried chicken, teleporting through a TV and into a family’s home.
“Wow, Lotte Ham Fried Chicken!” he says in Korean.
“They are delicious!” says the narrator. Playing in the background is that beloved RoboCop music we know and love: the theme from Back To The Future Part III.
RoboCop takes a bite, his enjoyment obvious. Unfortunately this means RoboCop, who usually subsists on a diet of baby food-like nutrient paste, now has a taste for human food. “Wings! Give me more!” he demands.
The family, terrified from having their home invaded by a cyborg who once shot a dude in the dick, points towards the fridge, which RoboCop steals.
“Boneless fried chicken?” RoboCop, demonstrating a machine-like obsession for fried chicken, concludes.
RoboCop’s behavior here falls at best questionably within the constraints of Prime Directives one and two (“Serve the public trust” and “Uphold the law,” respectively). But this infraction would not prevent him from traveling to Japan to hawk ramen noodles and roach spray with similar gusto:
In the end—regardless of whether he’s selling fried chicken, instant ramen, or insecticide—one truth remains undeniable: I’d buy that for a dollar.