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I'm seeing this from a different direction, not as a specific target but a shorthand for any national chain.
Chickin Lickin' is acting as a Predatory Business from the kids' perspective as they want to elbow out the mom-and-pop Sugar Bowl. Predatory Business includes this line:
- Often employed as a Strawman Political to reprimand corporate businesses, but may sometimes be an accurate depiction of the dirty tricks that certain big companies use.
Because Chickin Lickin' is established as a Predatory Business, it opens them up to being part of Acceptable Professional Targets (business executives who care only about the bottom line and not about the quality of their product or the pain they cause to small business owners).
You could also make a case for Running Gag. The quip by the chef is at least a little funny, isn't it? It calls to mind the unceasing mockery of anteaters in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.
Edited by KD
Is there a trope for a thing, rather than a character or person, in-universe that is constantly a target of ridicule? Sort of like a Take That!, except it's usually internal to the work, rather than to a specific, external target. Or like a Butt-Monkey, but for things, places, or establishments rather than people.
For example, in Arthur, the in-universe fast food restaurant (and also not-so-subtle parody of KFC), Chickin Lickin, is almost never portrayed in a positive or even neutral light. In its debut episode, the focus is on some of the main characters staging a protest against it buying out the local mom-and-pop Sugar Bowl.
Later episodes have it as the target of yet another (small) demonstration due to its less scrupulous practices (like underpaying employees), the subject of an (unfounded) Internet rumor that its shakes are made with chicken fat, and the butt of a joke where Buster, Arthur, and Muffy attend a culinary day camp: when the chef quizzes the class on what the "most important food" known to man is, Muffy responds with "Chickin Lickin' Chix Stix with Cheddarola". The chef responds with, "if you mention the name of this 'Chickin Lickin’' in my class again, you will be asked to leave".