…a gratuitous llama rerun from May 05, 2005 06:33…

Viva! el Cinco De Mayo!!!

Oh, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with the LLama Butchers? Such a long and convoluted answer awaits those who crave this wisdom. Some of the gaps have already been filled by mi compadres: Cranky Neocon provides archeological proof that LLamas have a Mexican connection, and the Goddess Of Snark discusses the baser motives of the LLama boys. Ah yes, the third installment of the trilogy lies in this posting, wherein the Jose Cuervo connection will come to fruition.

As we all know, Steve and Robert LLama are enamored of most things historical, from the most fascinating of scandalous details concerning Hitler’s so-called mistress to the lame-ass adventures of one Benjamin Franklin. One day long ago, the teenage LLamas were studying the history of Cinco de Mayo, which they thought was a really kick-ass holiday. Why? Well, on May 5, 1862, in Puebla, Mexico, 4,000 Mexican soldiers obliterated the French and traitor Mexican army of 8,000. The LLama boys always did think Napoleon Bonaparte was an uptight girly man. They were inspired by the victory of Cinco de Mayo, and they decided that one day, victory would also be theirs. As such, they would either become rock stars, or in a worst-case scenario, professionals who also wrote an online blog.

Stop laughing – this was their dream. One Saturday night, over some Jose Cuervo, Steve and Robert decided to name themselves the “Chihuahua Butchers.”

Then their plan was thwarted by happenstance in 1997. Taco Bell used the sassy Chihuahua as an incidental character in a single commercial. Consumer response to the attitudinal canine was overwhelming, so the company reacted to what the market was telling it by building a series of ads around the intriguing character that had won over so many with its “Yo quiero Taco Bell” tagline. This campaign was introduced to the whole of the American market in early 1998.

The Taco Bell dog, which also came to ascend to that heady level of a pop culture icon for what people saw of themselves and others in it. Steve and Robbo were disappointed that Taco Bell was capitalizing on the chihuahua’s popularity before they had the opportunity to do so themselves. The irony of the little dog’s rise to glory was a result of deliberate modelling of the dog’s onscreen personality on Taco Bell’s core customer group – fast-food-chomping, attitude-riddled teen males – sounds a lot like Steve and Robert eh?

At any rate, the inevitability of market-branding of chihuahuas caused the boys to rethink their future monikers. The “Viva Gorditas” debaucle closed the deal in their minds, since the politically-correct crowd denounced the adorable beret-wearing chihuahua for allegedly mimicking Che Guevara. A new mascot had to be chosen in the spirit of Cinco de Mayo, and thus, The LLama Butchers were born.

UPDATE: Oooh, how dare they think the Smallholder spurning was all a ruse – as mentioned before, the Minister of Propaganda has convinced me “to believe.” He’s so dreamy.