The Wild Bunch

A logo notable principally for its inclusion of a rattlesnake.

The conventional hierarchy of suicidefood shills, as we all know by now, is thus:

1. Pig,
2. Cow, and
3. Chicken
(in this order)
The fourth figure, when present, is typically a lamb.

So for The Wild Bunch to elect to go with a snake... Well, wild is right! It's just the kind of off-the-beaten-trail nuttiness that will put the Wild Bunch on the map! Rest assured: it's not all for show. They do serve rattlesnake, wrapped in bacon, no less.

Again, what a disjunctive state of affairs! These pals, these partners—how robust and friendly they are. How like the cartoonified animals we all grew up with, they who served as imaginary friends, boon companions, and windows into the world of human interaction. They would be at home raising hijinks in a tony department store, say, or running riot at the opera.

But all of them—even the lowly snake—are reduced to Orwellian spokesanimals. It is as though our shared cultural inheritance were squandered, traded away in the service of filthy lucre.

This bunch might not have escaped unscathed from their treachery: They might well be greeting us not from the chuck wagon, under a blanket of stars, but instead from the afterlife. That ember-red circle—is it the portal to Hell?