Mmmmmm. 12 inches of MEAT.

There's no way to do this without falling back on some crude double entendres.....but naturally, most 18-24 year-old dudes would like nothing better than to hoover a solid foot of meat. Right? Open wide. Swallow it all.

Ahem.

That's what the marketing minds at Carl's Jr suspect, anyway. Why enjoy something as pedestrian as a ROUND burger when you can send something more torpedo-shaped down the hatch -- and pay only $4 for the experience? Oh, and YES, the fact that I got exited about this story means I'm apparently as much of a sucker for junk food gossip as I am for the celebrity variety. One word: Chickenwich.

To add to my irrational excitement: a woman with the Orange County Register (who's job I would desperately love to steal) writes exclusively on the fast food industry and test drove the footlong for a recent review - here's a snapshot:

"Chain reps confirm that the home of the “Six Dollar Burger” is testing a foot-long cheeseburger in some restaurants. The funny-looking meat sandwich has been spotted at this Orange County restaurant: 1943 E. 17th Street in Santa Ana. (Note: This is the same restaurant that tested the Grilled Cheese Bacon Burger before it rolled out in stores across the country.)

The regular “Footlong Cheeseburger” sells for $4; the deluxe version (with lettuce and tomato) cost $4.50.

When I got my hands on the 12-inch burger, the first thing I noticed is that part of the wrapper stuck out of the to-go bag. Now, that’s a long burger.

But, that’s where the impressiveness stopped. Upon further inspection, I discovered the footlong came with three tiny round patties carefully placed between a Hoagie-style bun. I was kind of hoping for one long, lean burger pattie. The toppings (onions, mayo, pickles, lettuce, tomato and cheese) made the whole thing ordinary."

Apparently this is BIG enough news (clearly big enough. that's some, uh, Monster Meat......) that USA today ran a story about the burger as well. They fell prey to the same bad analogies by starting the article off with this tagline: "The fast-food world has proof positive that size matters: a foot-long cheeseburger." Snicker. But I was delighted to discover a quote from the editor of a website called BurgerBusiness.com. Seriously. Junk food porn. Anyway - this gentleman, Scott Hume, theorized that ""We live in a society that's fascinated with all things big...It's inherently American to push for something bigger and better than anyone else has."

Ah yes - like bigger, better percentages of Americans living with heart disease, diabetes and sky-high cholesterol. Bigger and better waistlines. Atta girl, America! And even better: it's obesity on the cheap!

Naw, I actually I'm not going to condemn in this case - I do love me some fast food. What interested me about this story was the fact that Carl's Jr's core customer base is primarily young men (or so their marketing department believes) and they figured those young men like foot-long things. Like Subway. Or Sonic's footlong quarter pound hot dog topped with chili and cheese.

Hmmm.

It's been my experience that 20-something men are pretty much happy as long as they're within drunk-stumbling distance of a Taco Bell. That's pretty much all the cheap fast food a good micro-brew loving single guy needs. Why bother with something so unnecessarily long it's a pain to eat or fit into a fast food takeout bag when you can have seventeen tacos for $3.27 or whatever? Why deal with the carbs of a hoagie roll when you can stack those three beef patties and three slices of cheese on top of each other, add bacon, and have the Baconator Triple, instead? I mean, come on, Carl's Jr - at least add BACON to this concoction. Oh - then you'd have to charge $11? Ah. Got it.

Speaking strictly of calories, they could do worse. It clocks in at 850, less than most of the other monster-burgers fast food chains have rolled out recently. Actually, it's marketed as a direct attempt to take back the stomachs of sandwich-loving bargain shoppers from Subway's market - if they like a footlong turkey on wheat, wouldn't they love a footlong BEEF WITH CHEESE that much more?

Maybe.

I have this whole "I don't like bread" thing that has nothing to do with carbs and everything to do with the filling and flavorless nature of dough in general that seems -- to me -- to get in the way of the good stuff in the middle. Ditto pizza crust. If I could order a pizza with extra cheese and no crust, I would. Yes, bring me a box of cheese topped with sausage and pepperoni and I'm solid. SO - the hoagie roll idea here seems to introduce too much extra...."filler" into the equation. Stack all three of those on top of each other, add a NORMAL bun (or, Chickenwich style, skip the bun!) and you've got something more enticing for $4. A $4 triple cheeseburger - I'd say "Sure!" to that.

In the meantime, we can wait and see if the 18-24 year-old crowd says "I'd eat that," to all 12 inches of that meat.