If you weren't around for it in the late '90s, you may not be aware of the "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" campaign and its chihuahua mascot, played by a dog named Gidget. Those ads were everywhere back then, but in hindsight, the ads also had a lot of issues that white audiences largely ignored at the time.

On its surface, "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" might seem like a perfectly fine slogan, as it just means "I want Taco Bell." The issue here was the commercials themselves, which featured a talking dog named Gizmo, who would walk right past a female Chihuahua to get the chain's food. (There was some variation, but this was the persistent theme.)

Equating an entire group of people with a dog breed is not great, as civil rights activist Mario Obledo made clear at the time, and a later ad where Gizmo wore Che Guevara's beret understandably angered the Cuban-American community. Per The Buffalo News, the ad existed only because "Che Guevara and tacos both come from south of the American border," and Taco Bell saying they "wanted a heroic leader to make it a massive taco revolution” made it worse.

The ad wound up costing Taco Bell money due to a successful $42 million lawsuit alleging Taco Bell had stolen the chihuahua-themed campaign idea. The company also lost around 6% yearly revenue from 1997-1999 until it discontinued the campaign in 2000, showing that the offensive nature of the campaign didn’t pay off.