Who in the hell needs a drone—or a boring ass OG human—to deliver pizza when you could just use a couple dozen, highly trained, Yuletide-redolent reindeer? That was evidently the thought Domino’s Japan had when they developed a plan to deliver pizza to the city of Hokkaido this Christmas via reindeer.
Don’t get too excited, though; Japan’s pizza lovers will no longer be treated to the delight of witnessing a fully grown reindeer walk about with a Cali chicken bacon ranch pizza and some stuffed cheesy bread strapped to its back. Just yesterday, the chain announced that they were scrapping the plan because “it is difficult to control the reindeer.”
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Somewhere out there, a Santa impersonator is knowingly letting out a single tear.
Balancing the delivery box upon the spine of the reindeer proved problematic, as did the reindeer’s innate sense that they—despite mankind’s persistent insistence to the contrary—are not meant to deliver shit. The reindeer wandered off. They refused to stop at houses—and no one even asked them to haul an obese man down a chimney.
Domino’s announced that the reindeer didn’t meet their “standards for reliability and safety” and so—although they found the decision to be “agonising”—they canned the project.
But never fear. Domino’s also announced they had come up with an alternate plan: They have dressed up their delivery scooters to look like a pathetic, mechanical excuse for a reindeer—and thus have saved the day in at least some sense.
Image via Domino’s Japan
Are you in a public-relations-induced coma by now? So are we, friends. So are we.
There had certainly been speculation online that animal-welfare organizations would object to the questionable use of a wild animal to do the dirty deeds of a multinational corporation, and, in fact, PETA Asia claimed victory once the motorized replacement was announced.
But Tim McIntyre—Executive Vice President, Communication, Investor Relations & Legislative Affairs for Domino’s Pizza—isn’t convinced that PETA Asia had anything at all to do with the cancellation of the plan. In an email, McIntyre told MUNCHIES the following: “Domino’s Japan is an independently-owned and operated company. We here in the US were not involved in the idea development, the test, nor the cancellation. We can tell you, though, that the reasons they gave seemed plausible, if not a bit humorous (the animals were hard to train, they didn’t hold pizzas in the proper position, they didn’t learn to stop at customers’ doorsteps). To us, this all seemed more like a cute publicity stunt to introduce their reindeer-decorated scooters. If an activist group can take credit for anything, they might take credit for falling for the joke.”
Looks like a bunch of Japanese reindeer are once again about to hit the job market. Let’s hope there’s a Shakey’s Pizza in Hokkaido that just so happens to be looking to attract some pizza-loving Laplanders.
