Fear The Clown: Taco Bell Paints McDonald's As A Communist 'Routine Republic'

In the latest edition of advertising campaigns that marketing departments may live to regret, Taco Bell's most recent jab at McDonald's has taken a turn for the dystopian.

In the "Routine Republic" commercial, which evokes every documentary ever made about North Korea and Soviet-era propaganda that gently promised punishment for the disobedient, a massive clown overlord watches as gray-faced breakfast eaters shuffle toward the only option: McDonald's sandwiches.

Then, as any Hunger Games viewer could have predicted, a girl makes eye contact with a boy, and suddenly a new life is possible.

They run far away from the crowd, leap off the ledge of the only world they know, and fall into... a ball pit.

Taco Bell can't really afford to go any darker in this commercial, so that's as dangerous as this clown regime gets. 

The boy conveniently pulls down the exact poster to reveal a giant hole, on the other side of which is what looks like a student campus, full of people who already know all about the sunny side of life — that is, A.M. Crunchwraps.