How This Iconic '90s Jingle Made Baby Back Ribs A Cultural Staple

Sometimes there's an advertisement so good that it transcends the realm of commercial and becomes a true cultural touchstone. Think of the classic 1980s Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" ad campaign, which inspired many a T-shirt and spin off joke. Point being: advertising makes an impact. And for those of us who lived through the Snackwell's cookie fad and Hootie and the Blowfish-laden 1990s, there is a jingle so catchy, so delightful, that it has yet to leave our collective memory and cultural zeitgeist. We're talking, of course, about the Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" jingle. You know the one. It's the little ditty sung by a Scottish spy in "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," the jingle that has been lingering in the back of your head for 30 or so years now. But do you know the story of how this tune made the saucy, meaty plate of ribs a true culinary classic?

It starts with a second chance: In 1996, advertising agency GSD&M needed another go with Chili's, with whom it had recently made a blunder on a previous unsuccessful campaign. Creative director Guy Bommarito was given the task, at the specific request of Chili's, to make a jingle to advertise the chain restaurant's classic offering. Bommarito took it upon himself to create it, as he was not all too fond of the advertising medium and didn't want to assign it to someone else on the team. In fact, in an interview with Great Big Story (via YouTube), he noted that jingles are the "...lowest common denominator form of advertising, and everyone avoided them because they were typically annoying and unpleasant."

Even so, Bommarito's jingle was a success, and by the end of the 1990s, the song had been spoofed, remixed and redone in various ad campaigns. And even 30 years later, the jingle, and the dish, remain cultural icons.

Of course, there have been many a successful ad campaign that hasn't had the same, seemingly endless cultural cache. So what has made this jingle, and those ribs, so enduring? In the late 1990s and early 2000s, at least, its popularity was at least partially due to its ubiquity in TV advertisements for Chili's. Ad campaigns featuring the incredibly popular snippet aired regularly on and off from 1996 through 2006, so most Americans had some base level of familiarity with the campaign. Chili's further embedded this song within the zeitgeist through strategic collaborations with musical artists.

In 2002, the chain sponsored a leg of *NSYNC's tour and made a commercial with the crooning men singing the already iconic jingle, further tying the song, and the ribs, into the world of pop culture. In 1999, the song was the butt of a joke in an Austin Powers movie. By the mid-2000s, baby back ribs and their accompanying song had become culturally ubiquitous, and Chili's officially announced that the jingle would be retired. And so it was. Until it wasn't. And therein lies another part of its enduring impact: the power of absence.

In the 20-some years since the iconic "baby back ribs" jingle was retired in 2006, it has remained a cultural touchstone and a contagious earworm. This probably has something to do with the fact that this jingle has taken the Cher route to retirement, meaning that comeback tours are sporadic but inevitable. And so it is that every few years, Chili's baby back ribs jingle comes back onto the scene. The jingle's frequent absences and brief reprisals create a renewed interest in the dish (similar to the McRib, which also only comes back once in a blue moon).

Plus, Chili's has a pattern of teaming up with popular artists with each new campaign in order to put a fresh new spin on each campaign. This helps keep that song, and those classic ribs, from going stale. Not only did the chain succeed at its previously mentioned crossover with *NSYNC, but it also collaborated with Boyz II Men in 2023. The restaurant also teamed up with Lizzo for a campaign in 2026, advertising a new-and-improved take on the dish. So it seems this little song will live on, well past the threadbare vintage T-shirts that read "Where's the Beef?", but perhaps not beyond the barbecue smoker-shaped casket that Wolf Johnson (also known as Willie McCoy), the original voice behind the baritone "with barbecue sauce" line was buried inside of.