Contact:

Kathleen Finn, Manager, Corporate Communications kathleen.finn@jackinthebox.com 858/ 571-2229

SAN DIEGO- Jack in the Box® restaurants today unleashes the Meaty Cheesy Boys, a group of heavily moussed, hip-gyrating, lip-synching teenage boy-toys to promote the company's most manly of sandwiches - the Ultimate Cheeseburger.

Guaranteed to whip 13-year-old girls into a hormone-fueled frenzy, the dancing, dairy-loving carnivores will make their first appearance in television and radio ads that begin airing today. The television spot, which will air in most Jack in the Box markets, is really an ad within an ad featuring the five Meaty Cheesy Boys dancing and singing - all for the love of Jack's Ultimate Cheeseburger.

"The Meaty Cheesy Boys have a message for today's youth, and it has to do with eating more Ultimate Cheeseburgers," says Greg Joumas, division vice president of advertising for Jack in the Box restaurants. "While the ad is obviously intended to parody the current wave of young, sensitive-yet-hunky boy groups, it's clearly an effective pitch for a popular product, a chance for us to build our brand with our target 18-to-34-year-old male customer."

Neither send-ups of musical groups nor use of the ad-within-an-ad concept is new for Jack in the Box. The same technique was used for "Spicy Crispy Chicks," an ode to all-girl groups, which aired in 1997.

Headquartered in San Diego, Jack in the Box restaurants, operated and franchised by Jack in the Box Inc., has more than 1,500 restaurants, 37,000 employees and systemwide sales of $1.8 billion.