One of the most memorable commercial mascots of all time, Taco Bell's Gidget the Chihuahua, has died at age 15. Her wide-eyed gaze and male-voiced catchphrase, “Yo quiero Taco Bell,” made her a fixture of the fast food chain’s late ’90s TV advertising. But for Taco Bell, those adorable ads were also a huge headache. A lawsuit from the concept’s creators led to a drawn-out legal battle that just reached its apparent conclusion in January of this year, when a federal appeals court ruled that Taco Bell should pay the originators $42 million. Then there’s the fact that Taco Bell sales actually slipped in the “Chihuahua Era,” leading many to say the campaign was ineffective. All that said, it’s still sad to see Gidget go.

—Posted by David Griner