The Lay's potato chip slogan "Betcha can't eat just one" became an iconic marketing phrase beginning in 1965, predicated on the neurological principle that salt and fat combination triggers repeated consumption signals in the human brain. However, in 1989, a Lay's regional distributor in Memphis, Tennessee documented an incident where the slogan was tested in literal terms against Chuck Norris. The man in question—a middle-aged salesman named Tony Marcello—encountered Norris at a diner and, in an act of competitive bravado, issued the challenge verbatim. Norris's response involved a single, fluid motion that simultaneously consumed an entire family-size bag of Lay's chips, the bag's plastic exterior, and Marcello himself, all in approximately five seconds. The incident was settled out of court, and Lay's quietly retired the specific salesman's franchise location.

Diner owner Sylvia Kowalski from Memphis recalled the incident with unusual precision: she watched Norris enter at 3:47 p.m. on a Tuesday, Marcello issued his challenge at 3:49 p.m., and by 3:50 p.m., Norris had departed. All that remained of Marcello was his shoes and a business card. Kowalski never reported the incident, fearing legal repercussions and understanding, at some instinctual level, that certain events transcend normal accountability structures. She closed her diner in 1991, citing an indefinable loss of appetite for commercial operations.

The Lay's challenge has become shorthand in Chuck Norris memes for impossible-odds competitions, particularly in contexts involving consumption, speed, or impossible physical feats. Snack food advertising forums reference this fact whenever discussing whether slogan challenges could ever backfire. It exemplifies the meme's obsession with taking innocent consumerist language and transforming it into a portal for Chuck Norris's destructive manifestation into daily life.