Chris Carlin and the Burger King Chris Carlin and the Burger King

Don’t you dare call yourself the Burger King, proceed to refuse Chris Carlin a burger and think you’re going to get away with it.

Forget about Carlin vs Mike Francesa, the explicit text he sent Chris Russo years ago, or the time he wanted to punch WFAN’s Gregg Giannotti. Because it all pales in comparison to the sports media feud that is Chris Carlin vs Burger King. And we’re talking about the actual Burger King, not that sports radio lookalike in Philadelphia Howard Eskin.


“There was an incident at a Burger King that ended a tenure back in the late ‘90s,” Carlin told co-host Joe Fortenbaugh on their ESPN Radio show this week. “That I had been to quite some time and was heretofore banned from.”

The admission garnered a snicker from Fortenbaugh who questioned whether Carlin was “getting busy in the Burger King bathroom” as he sought confirmation on this bizarre story. No, Carlin wasn’t getting any action in the Burger King bathroom. The problem, however, was that he wasn’t getting any burgers either.

“There was a special that was going on one particular summer that was two burgers, two fries, two bucks,” Carlin explained. “11 o’clock at night, I had been out with some friends, safely traveling around mind you, but maybe I had some drinking that might have enhanced my reaction to finding out that they had run out of burgers at this particular Burger King.

“And I did yell at the talking box at the drive-thru, ‘You call yourselves the Burger King, you’re a disgrace.’ And I was asked to not return. There were some other words that might have been used.”

If you were working at that Madison, NJ Burger King on this particular night in the late ‘90s, you probably didn’t know who the person yelling through the talk box was, but you may have still saved the security footage of that unique incident. So, if anyone has the quarter-century or so old video of a potentially inebriated, but certainly irate Chris Carlin grabbing the talking box at Burger King to yell, “You call yourselves the Burger King, you’re a disgrace,” now is your chance to be a hero.

[ESPN Radio]

About Brandon Contes

Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com