Chicken Fries are Back, Cue Mass Hysteria

Sometimes, a fast food restaurant is content to sling up the greasy usuals: burgers of questionable quality, over-salted fries, chicken nuggets by the metric ton, and so on. Sometimes, though, they try to innovate, and these innovations can become legendary for both their sheer improbability factor (remember the DiGiorno pizza cookie and Taco Bell's waffle taco?) and their popularity. Burger King's chicken fries are both. They were discontinued in 2012, to the outrage of many, but now all those who have been mourning their passing can celebrate: BK is reintroducing chicken fries, and social media is lighting up faster than last night's supermoon.

The product, which is exactly what it sounds like (the shape of a French fry, but with chicken instead of potato), was introduced in 2005. It quickly attracted a mass following. Comedian Daniel Tosh included a segment with a completely chicken fries-obsessed gentleman on his show Tosh.0, which made them even more popular. See Chicken Fries Dude's reaction to his beloved product's discontinuation below:

It's not only Chicken Fries Dude who was angered, though. A Facebook page called "Bring Back Burger King's Chicken Fries" appeared in 2012 and currently has over 2,300 likes. Due to these kinds of impassioned pleas, BK decided to reintroduce chicken fries, starting today.

Fans are falling to their virtual knees in gratitude, many of them tweeting about it with the hashtag #chickenfriesareback:

And those of us who are not chicken fries fans (myself, a mostly-vegetarian, included) are equal parts amused and bemused:

I cannot, therefore, comment on the quality of the chicken fries. Mostly, they confuse me — are they not just like chicken nuggets? Or at least similar enough that the difference is negligible? — but Twitter will happily tell you what most BK customers are thinking. If you count yourself among the legions of chicken fries fans, now is your moment: they'll only be sold for 12 weeks, or while supplies last. And if you're like me and think this is mostly just weird, it gets weirder. Check out these 8 Japanese fast food inventions for a giggle and a grimace.

Image: Burger King/Facebook