Las Vegas ‘Chickendales’ spice up KFC Mother’s Day campaign

In a 16-year career in Las Vegas, Ryan Kelsey has dressed as a frog and donned a top hat with white gloves. He’s slipped into a sarong while dancing amid flaming tiki torches. He’s sported a leather codpiece and G-string with a matching leather shoulder strap.

Most recently, he’s worn the famous Chippendales bow-tie, with no shirt and tear-away slacks.

But he’s never dressed as a bucket of chicken. Until now.

Kelsey is member of “Chippendales” at the Rio and an alum of such stage shows as “Jubilee,” “Vegas The Show” and “Pin Up!” He’s also the latest Colonel characters in a new KFC Mother’s Day campaign spotlighting the “Chickendales” dance troupe.

It’s Kelsey, the Colonel-slash-dance captain, leading a minutelong video as the company offers free Cinnabon Dessert Biscuits for moms through Mother’s Day. Offer is good while supplies last.

Supplies of biscuits, we mean. Not dancers.

Also, you can click to the chickendales.com site and customize a Mother’s Day greeting for your own mother (and Mom, I did this earlier. Enjoy).

Kelsey and the troupe met at 6 a.m. March 21 for a daylong shoot. At the end of the session, Kelsey was filmed grooving inside a giant bucket of what seems KFC’s Original Recipe product.

“We started filming at 8 a.m., and not only was I doing the Colonel stuff but directing the guys from a dance-captain perspective,” Kelsey said. “Of course, every time the camera is on, I’m flexing my abs. So when I got to throw that costume on at 6 p.m. and not work about flexing or any choreo, it was a godsend.”

The filming wrapped at 6:20 p.m., important to Kelsey who had tickets to the Vegas Golden Knights-Winnipeg Jets game at 7 p.m.

“I still made it to T-Mobile that night, dressed as myself, to catch the Knights game. We won 5-0,” Kelsey said. “That was my birthday gift, as this whole thing was filmed the day before my actual birthday. Midnight hit and I turned 34.”

Not bad. As we say, the man’s a pro.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His PodKats! podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.