America, you never knew him.

Or, if you did, you're quite old now.

So KFC, aka Kentucky Fried Chicken, has decided to bring back Colonel Sanders.

This is supposed to be a homage to the 75th anniversary of the secret, wonderful fried chicken recipe. But watch the new ads and it's a curious old homage, yes it is.

Sanders is played by SNL veteran Darrell Hammond and I can't help thinking that Hammond is playing a slight jape on his new employers.

It could be me (it often is), but this new Colonel Sanders sounds an awful lot like George W. Bush. A slightly twisted, marginally demented, please-keep-your-kids-indoors George W. Bush.

He has that southern accent that isn't quite.

In one ad, the way he utters the phrase "boy, howdy, how things changed" sounds so much like our last president's homely style of homily.

But this Sanders has a certain leery look about him that some might find faintly shiver-making.

Each new KFC ad ends with the colonel uttering: "I'm back, Amurrica." Please tell me that for you it isn't redolent of some of Bush 43's finer, more confident moments.

Some might find this monumentally uplifting. Others, should their ears hear the same as mine, might find it takes them back to a time they'd rather forget. And I don't mean 1940.

Hammond was famous on SNL for impersonating Bill Clinton, so I wonder whether some tiny element of his actorial innards is offering a touch of fair and balanced mischief here.

I checked out some old ads featuring the Colonel, just to rebalance myself. And, yes, he was an avuncular figure, who didn't seem to have a wicked giggle in him.