M&M's recently announced plans to remove the color from it's colorful hard shelled candy, selling only black and white candies for the first few months of 2004. The marketing gimmick will culminate in a contest in which bags of colored M&M's will be reintroduced one at a time for lucky customers to find a la "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

Inspired by the marketing move, Denny's restaurant chain announced today that it will also be removing color from it's ambiance and revert to

Re-branding for the "good ol' days"

serving only white customers. The move will be part of a contest entitled "Spot the Color".

Denny's had serious discrimination claims levied against it in the early 1990'a and the company has been working hard since then to change its image. But word from the top indicates that the struggle to diversify has cost much more than an occasional multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement. So in an effort to win back white customers Denny's will once again refuse to serve black patrons.

"Our shareholders deserve it," says Denny's CEO, Phillip Simonds. "One third of our restaurant franchises are now minority owned, we're serving anyone who walks through the door and not surprisingly, our sales are way down. This doesn't even take into account the very costly internal measures we've taken to try to stop discrimination. That three video tape diversity library cost us almost $4,000...and that's in 1995 dollars mind you!"

"It's an idea we've been toying with for a while now," says Denny's marketing director, Keith Drake, "but haven't really found the right vehicle for removing blacks, well, except for a police car. HA HA! Just kidding. But seriously, we couldn't find a way to do it without a public relations problem so we are going to borrow M&M's contest idea and slowly reintroduce color into our customer base."

When asked how slowly they would be allowing blacks to dine in Denny's again, Drake wouldn't give any time table.

"Well, I can't tell you that, that would make the contest too easy," he replied. "In all honesty, the timetable will probably depend on how well behaved they are. I would think we'd probably hire some first and see how that goes. If that doesn't scare off the white clientele, then we'll think about sending some into the dining room."