Times Were Simpler When Johnny Cash Was Singing About Taco Bell’s Value Menu In This 1992 Commercial

Johnny Cash and Taco Bell were a match made in heaven.

Remember when commercials actually made you lean in and pay attention? They don’t make advertisements like they used to, and maybe that’s because they peaked in the 1990s with spots like this one. Taco Bell was in their bag when they needed to promote their value menu, and they decided to call upon a country music legend to help spread the word.

Country music legend Johnny Cash, to be exact.

If any advertisers out there happen to be reading this, all you have to do to sell Mexican fast food is follow the blueprint this 90’s ad laid out. Take a country star, create a catchy jingle that gets stuck in your head, and show images and videos of delectable looking fast food menu items while also mentioning that it’s all dirt cheap.

Celebrity endorsements in the modern day seem pushy and obnoxious, don’t they? I can’t think of the last time I saw a celebrity on my TV actually convince me to buy a product. And most of the “celebrities” are actually influencers or social media stars anyways.

Gone are the days where an established brand would pull up the Brinks truck to get a country music icon to sing about a product or service and it actually work like this one. I don’t know how much Taco Bell paid Johnny Cash for this value menu spot, but I do know that whatever it was, it was 100% worth it.

It’s a clever advertisement, features star power, and includes a catchy song (amidst flashes of low prices and menu items) that’s almost certain to get stuck in the consumer’s head. I mean, the line, “You better make a run for the border son, you better make a border dash” will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

Maybe that’s the trick to getting people to pay attention to commercials nowadays? Include a song and a music legend that distracts them from the fact that they are watching an ad in the first place?

“Johnny Cash Taco Bell 1992”

Brilliant.

And can we take a moment to notice how affordable that value menu was? I know there’s some inflation that factors in ($1 dollar in 1992 has the buying power of $2.31 in the modern day), but man, it must have been nice to get fast food items for under a buck.

The commercial boasts food options ranging from 59 cents to 99 cents (plus tax) on the value menu. Good luck finding that kind of deal in 2025, and by that, I really mean that’s there’s NO ONE offering up those kinds of deals. Maybe Costco’s $1.50 hot dog and soda combo, but that’s about it.

I also have to add that the deals were that much better solely because Johnny Cash was the one informing you of the low prices. As the country music legend said himself, no other place was offering up as many choices for “so little cash” at the time.

Props to Taco Bell for utilizing Cash to let customers know they wouldn’t need much cash to chow down… now if we could only see a return to a) country music utilized in advertising and b) cheap fast food.The post Times Were Simpler When Johnny Cash Was Singing About Taco Bell’s Value Menu In This 1992 Commercial first appeared on Whiskey Riff.