I don't now what was going on at Wendy's back in 2001, but if this ad is anything to believe, I wanna know more.
The advertisement literally asks if you’ve got the munchies while showing a Kiwi cult legend looking more fried than fast food sides.
After kindly asking if you’re craving some late-night snack action, Wendy’s then lets you know they’ve got “hot and juicy” burgers, “succulent” chicken”, “crispy” nuggets, and “delicious” fries. They knew what they were doing.
Credit: u/1MillionSpaceBucks, Reddit.
Posted to the r/NewZealand subreddit by u/1MillionSpaceBucks, the ad is from around 2001 and the cooked geezer with the smile and reassuring thumbs up? He goes by Kiwi Dave.
Dave Voudsen is his real name, and he was the face of Aotearoa Wendy’s from the mid-90s through to the early 2010s, having featured in over 100 ads for them. I’d never heard of him before, but the way the Reddit commenters are talking about him, he was the shit and was a symbol for the golden age of Wendy’s.
“The Kiwi Dave era of Wendy's was so good,” said one commenter.
“Back when Wendys was definitely the best in NZ,” another remembered.
Dave managed to snag the gig simply by rocking up to Takapuna Wendy’s one day in 1993 and asking for the job.
“He came to the store early before we opened,” NZ Wendy’s founder Danny Lendich told Stuff back in 2009. “He was living in the area and had heard we were looking for a guy for our ads.”
“So I invited him in and gave him a free coffee. I told him he better ring head office. The rest is history.”
Dave, the legend, frothed the job when he had it, even getting noticed in other countries.
“I get recognised every day. I even had people come up to me once when I was at Kuala Lumpur airport.”
