SNL Perfectly Nails Dealership Commercials, Raising Cane’s Drive Thrus, and Texas

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Has any piece of fiction so perfectly portrayed what it’s like to live in modern Texas than this SNL sketch about the fictional King Brothers Toyota in Brenham, Texas and the scourge that a new Raising Cane’s chicken joint has inflicted on their sales? I am a Texan and love the place in spite of the occasional drawbacks to living there, and this brings back a lot of memories.

Check this out:

First of all, these types of ads are not unique to Texas, though there is a certain specifically Texan-feeling charm about the fast-paced yelling that ensues, the necessity of including a big-looking dude, and the shoutout to a specific exit. While not quite as scream-y, this takes me back to the Lawrence Marshall Chevrolet ads I grew up with:

If you’re curious, that’s not Lawrence Marshall but former Oilers defensive tackle Ray Childress. And this one, which opens with the exit:

I assume this ad was at least partially inspired by Andrew Dismukes, who starts as one of the King Brothers. The actor/writer grew up outside of Houston and went to the University of Texas and therefore probably took the same US 290 route to college that I did from Montgomery County. That drive takes you through Brenham which, like most small Texas towns, has been cut in half by an ever-expanding highway (though it’s been better since they got the overpass). Texas is excellent at building highways, though I’d argue that they’d be better off if they knocked it off and focused on higher density.

Also, shout out for this line:

“My daughter Hailey is a Classics Professor at Brenham Community College and she has described our plight as ‘A funhouse mirror held up against the American Dream.’ I said ‘I don’t know about that baby girl, all I know is I’m getting effed-in-the-A by councilman Hugo Gallegos!”

So perfect.

[Unrelated Editor’s Note: Can we give a shoutout to all the Kia jingles?

https://youtu.be/kgyydDEcNHo?t=25

-DT]

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52 thoughts on “SNL Perfectly Nails Dealership Commercials, Raising Cane’s Drive Thrus, and Texas”

  1. Reminds me of Gary Barbera’s on the Boulevard. Also I love that guy still advertises with about 5 different Prowlers parked throughout the city and suburbs.

  3. Where I lived in the 1990s, one of the local dealers was Jack Schmidt Chevrolet, with each commercial setting up a dialogue with a joke, the punchline usually being “You don’t know Jack Schmidt!”

  4. The line from last week’s SNL that I’ve been repeating was Mikey Day as Merrick Garland on classified documents; “we are in touch with President Biden and former Vice-President Pence’s lawyers, who are cooperating fully, and former President Trump’s lawyers who have left a horse’s head in my bed.”

    Sums up the differences (and the former prez’s movie-gangster thing) better than hours of dry punditry.

  7. Oh, I can’t wait to show the SnL bit to my daughter. She just despises Raising Cane’s chicken. It’s the grandparents’ (my parents) fault. They made a huge deal out of taking the family there during a get-together a while back. They obviously love the place, go quite often, and you could be forgiven for thinking that these were PFM chicken fingers from a higher plane of existence if listening to their genuine enthusiasm for the place. I’m happy for their enjoyment. However, I personally found the much ballyhooed first multi-generational trip to Raising Cane’s kinda underwhelming – it was after all, chicken, with optional dipping sauces. My daughter, who would normally shrug about such things, just couldn’t wrap her head around all of the buildup. She thought the food was bland, even for fast food and the iced tea tasted like it was filtered through dirty sweat socks (I suspect the real cardinal sin). Now, anytime someone mentions the place, she sighs with level of disgust that makes one think she just stepped on a fresh cat turd.

  8. I’ll always remember, “Exit Kipling, exit Ward, but exit the giant Medved Autoplex!”

    Also, no matter what happens in my life, dementia or whatever, until the day I die I will always know exactly how to get to The Tree Farm.

  9. This guy is still in business. If ever there was a car dealer who looked like mafioso, it’s this guy. SUre, you can trust him.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njevm4S77dE
    I can’t find any examples, but he’s got a son and daughter that do similar spots. Both of them look like they are being held at gunpoint and will get shot if they don’t smile or read the cue cards right.

  14. Raising Cane’s is such a great story… turning a business plan written in college that received a C- grade and after working multiple jobs finally getting a SBA loan to open the first store. Now…going international. Gotta love the motivation to build your business and focus on making consistently great products, even if it’s “just chicken tenders”.

    With that said, skip the Cane’s Sauce and get their house made Honey Mustard instead. Both are great, but that honey mustard fucks.

  16. Man started reading this and when you mentioned SNL I was like I haven’t watched that show in decades. Then watch it and remembered that it isn’t ever funny anymore. Then started reading about complaining about good roads and pushing government demographics. And I was like did I accidently click on the old site?

    1. SNL is a show that is best enjoyed with rose-tinted glasses. For all of the “best segments eva” it has always been 80% meh filler. Che and Jost kill it at Weekend Update and the trio of nerdy “New Writers” skits are typically comedic gold so there are some bright spots currently.

  18. Its funny how some ads stick with you even when you grow up. I still know the number for the crazy lawyer that advertised growing up even though he’s probably dead by now. His catch line was “I may be an SOB but Im your SOB” Jim “The Hammer” Shapiro 546-7777.

    I also still remember that shopping list from Sesame Street. A loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick of butter.

    2. Everyone of a certain age from Chicago knows that Celozzi-Ettelson Chevrolet in Elmhurst at York and Roosevelt Road is “Where Ya Always Save More Money.”

  20. Matt, I didn’t realize you were from down here. That “ad” hits the nail right on the head in both attitude and accuracy. Drive thrus that backup onto the surrounding streets are not at all unusual around here. Chick-Fil-A seems to be one of the worst offenders. And advertising like that is one reason why I don’t watch commercial TV anymore.

  22. This was hilarious but it went a different direction that I figured. I thought it would be something like, “Check out our massive inventory of NINE new Toyotas! More than any other dealer in the state!”
    When a fast food place has a long drive through line I go inside to order. When I walk out all the in line slugs look at me like I did something wrong. Satisfying.

  23. Hey, Brenham is only an hour from me and sounds like they got some pretty good deals up there…wait, there is no Hwy 8 in Brenham.

    Anyways, the craziest dealership commercials in TX right now have to belong to River Oaks Chrysler Jeep Dodge. Here’s an example they uploaded to YouTube but it’s far from the crazy shit they actually air on TV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsMNkm_BzNA

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