YO QUIERO CHIHUAHUA! TALKING DOG SPICES FAST-FOOD ADS.

Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

Ay caramba, Taco Bell.

Thursday night, the Irvine-based fast-food chain unveiled the latest in a series of mega-successful television commercials featuring Dinky, a Chihuahua with commercials and a seemingly endless appetite for Mexican-style fast food.

Given the cult status he's achieved in the past seven months, it seemed fitting that in Thursday's installment Dinky shares the small screen with another cult giant, ``Godzilla.''

Indeed, so successful has the $60 million ad campaign grown that Dinky's trademark ``Yo quiero Taco Bell'' has entered the American vernacular, joining such past TV-created gimmicks as ``I can't believe I ate the whole thing!'' and ``Where's the beef?''

Within weeks of the first airing, T-shirts appeared with knock-off slogans, such as ``Yo quiero beer.'' Fast-food competitor Jack-in-the-Box created a spoof ad, in which a Jack antenna ball mocks a Dinky look-alike for not recognizing good food.

But Dinky isn't just a mutt with a great line. The cocky pup is stirring ethnic tensions and fueling a popularity boom that some fear will lead to an eventual backlash and the abandonment of Chihuahuas everywhere.

All this from a television ad? Ay caramba, indeed.

Scotty Wetenkamp, co-director of Chihuahua Rescue, said there's been a ``dramatic increase'' in interest in the Mexican breed at his Reseda-based shelter, which places unwanted dogs in local homes.

Business has been slow lately, Wetenkamp said, largely because of Dinky-fueled demand. When Chihuahuas do show up at local shelters, they're quickly snatched up by would-be owners, he said.

But as with plenty of past canine-phenoms - most notably Disney's ``101 Dalmatians'' - an ugly side will emerge down the road, Wetenkamp predicted.

``They're not good with children. They bite. They're fragile. Kids seeing the commercials may say, Hey, Mommy, that's cute. But after a while, Mommy gets tired of doing all the work. A year from now the market will be flooded with unwanted Chihuahuas,'' he said.

``It's a shame.''

The advertising campaign also has upset some within the Latino community who find the spots insulting. They say the ads fuel stereotypes about Spanish-speaking people.

``Today there are so many successful Chicanos in law, medicine, education. Couldn't they find anything better?'' said David Serena, an instructor in the Chicano Studies department at California State University, Northridge.

Serena compared the ads to commercials aired by Frito-Lay in the 1960s and '70s featuring a Latino cartoon character called Frito Bandito. After those ads aired, non-Latinos began using the name to refer to Latinos, Serena said. ``What are they going to call us now?''

Taco Bell officials defend the ads as harmless fun. They say that most Latinos don't take offense when, for example, Dinky leads a revolution in a small, seemingly Latin American country.

``Any resemblance to actual revolutions led by small talking dogs is purely coincidental,'' Taco Bell Vice President Peter Stark said in a written statement. ``We have received hundreds of consumer calls telling us they love the Taco Bell Chihuahua.''

He's not the only one basking in Dinky's glory. An unofficial Taco Bell Web site that pre-dates Dinky by two years has, since September, been averaging 80,000 hits a week, compared to about 2,100 a year ago, said Brian Mathis, the site's 22-year-old creator.

Started by Mathis as a way to memorialize late nights spent consuming tacos, burrito supremes and the like, the site pays homage to all things Taco Bell.

To Mathis, the Dinky sensation is not offensive exactly, but perhaps a little distracting.

``Personally, I like it,'' Mathis said, ``but I have never had anybody - ever - ask me about any other promotion before.''

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5 Photos

Photo: (1 --color) Yo Quiero Taco Bell!

Photo courtesy of Taco Bell

(2 -- color) Lassie was a favorite with families

(3 -- color) Spuds MacKenzie pitched Bud Light

(4 -- color) Dalmatians made a comeback in 1996

(5 -- color) Eddie stars on NBC's `Fraiser'