I would just attribute this to a manufacturing error, honestly. KFC and Colonel Sanders are so well known in Japan that they have entered urban legends, so not many would likely mistake the Colonel for anyone else. Factory error seems more plausible.

Is it possible that it was made intentionally as a statement? I've seen weirder things in shops.

I'm sincerely curious why else anyone would buy such a thing.

Haha, easily done. I didn't know the Colonel was a real person though :o

What's weirdest about this is apparently KFC is RIDICULOUSLY popular in Japan.

Incidentally, I vaguely remember hearing a story about a baseball rivalry in Japan (One of the teams might have been the Hanshin Tigers? Don't remember...) that involved fans throwing effigies of one of the team's members into a river. They threw a stolen Colonel Sanders bust to represent the sole white member.

Well, both Uncle Sam and the Colonel are both old white men with a chin beard. True, Uncle Sam is thinner and wears a star-spangled outfit, while the Colonel is more stout, sports a mustache, wears a white suit, and sports a cane. ... and stands outside nearly every single KFC in Japan... which is why I am a little mystified about drawing the line between Uncle Sam and Colonel Sanders.

The only things that make a kind of sense to me are: mislabeling (as mentioned by AR), mistaken identity (a reverse stereotype that "all old white men with chin beards look alike to me"), or a lack of knowledge of who Uncle Sam really is (and a counter-point that while people recognize Colones Sanders if they go to KFC, they don't necessarily know the name of the statue of the old, mustachioed white man near the entrance of the greasy chicken establishment).

Side note: ever since KFC became synonymous with Christmas in Japan (it was at one time the only place to get anything approaching a turkey dinner on Christmas; and Christmas is a very different celebration in Japan), the Colonel stands in as Santa every year; being "forced" to wear a Santa suit while jollily standing outside. This discontinuity of "Col. Sanders --> Santa" makes me slightly favor the last possibility that I list: that Japanese don't know the name "Colonel Sanders", and so don't associate it with the statue, Americanism, etc.

However, living now as I do in the States, it is difficult for me to conduct a straw poll of 100 Japanese to see if they know the name of who the ubiquitous plastic statue represents.

It's kind of funny that this typo is found on a doll that is in amongst a bunch of Americana kitch (Chucky doll on the right, Elvis doll behind, with a die-cast 1963 GM car model also behind). Now, would I pay (what looks like) 3150 yen (or possibly even 9150 yen -- the first digit is unclear) for something that is so obviously mislabeled? Perhaps if it is part of a limited run of mislabeled statuettes, but then again I wouldn't be the kind of person to buy one of these types of statues in the first place...

My husband and I are lifelong US residents. I just showed him this picture and he started talking about how he saw a life-size Uncle Sam in front of a KFC when he visited Japan. I had to tell him that the character was Col. Sanders and not Uncle Sam. XD

It's even worse than that:

U.S. MARKETERS FEEL HEAT AFTER CHINA PROTESTS: RIOTERS SMASH COL. SANDERS BUSTS WHILE A-B, MCDONALD'S ALSO AMONG TARGETED.
Advertising Age, May, 1999 by Madden, Normandy

[hong kong] Following the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, at least one U.S. ad icon was demolished in China. Busts of Tricon Global Restaurants' Col. Sanders character were smashed to pieces as angry mobs mistook the image for that of Uncle Sam.

"This is part of the learning curve of doing business in China," said Shanghai-based Tony Chen, Tricon's director of public affairs for greater China.

About 20 KFCs were closed throughout China in the days following the bombing. Some will take weeks to repair, but two stores in the Hunan province are "a total loss," Mr. Chen said.

ROCK THROWING

Chinese protesters blurred the line between U.S. multinationals and American foreign policy, wreaking havoc for many marketers..

I'd buy one for the pure ha ha factor.

Then there's Phil Silvers vs. the Dalai Lama.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1876&dat=19871114&id=Mz0sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Lc4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5663,5812180

Maybe with the so-called fattening of America, this is some sort of statement on our lifestyles?

I grew up in Japan, and as a teenager, in the mid-90s, I had a summer job at a KFC in Tokyo. At least since the 80s, that statue has been well-recognized by kids and adults alike.

But I agree with John Yum, I don't think people know his name. It was usually referred affectionately as "Kaaneru Ojisan," but hardly ever by his full name. "kaaneru" is how "colonel" is pronounced by Japanese speakers, and "ojisan" is a Japanese word for your uncle, other men in your life who is like an uncle, or any middle-aged man. My guess is that more people know him as "Kaaneru Ojisan" or just "Kaaneru" than as "Kaaneru Sandaasu"/Colonel Sanders.

It's probably because people didn't know that "kaaneru"/colonel is NOT a proper noun but an English word for the military rank "Taisa" in Japanese. I didn't either until I was significantly older and learned more English. I think many people think Colonel is like Carl, Carrie, or what have you.

About KFC being staple Christmas food in Japan, as a kid I understood that as the middle-class affordable option of "Western Christmas food" that well-off Japanese families in urban areas have enjoyed for years. I knew wealthier families who cooked (more like their housekeepers cooked) whole chicken every Christmas (not so much turkey, that's still probably rare). My family, on the other hand, never had chicken, not even KFC, but we always ate cake on Christmas eve.

By the way, they dug up the cursed statue in March of 2009! This article is in Japanese, but you can look at the pictures here:
http://mainichi.jp/kansai/graph/20100319/?link_id=RAH02

Another photo op for the global fast food chain!!!

The current exhibit at the American Visionary Arts Museum claims that Uncle Sam was originally based on Samuel Wilson, who was short and stocky (more along the lines of Colonel Sanders); however, his depiction was too easily confused with the equally short and stocky John Bull, so Uncle Sam was recreated as a taller and thinner figure.

What actually strikes me (as a European person) is equating Uncle Sam with freedom in this post. He looks little sinister to me, he's so angry in the poster! I've always thought Uncle Sam's kind of an ironic character in the US, it feels like in popular culture he's mentioned alongside with taxation (when criticizing it) and drafting (ditto).

What's funny to me is that we don't have KFC here, but I bet at least half of the population knows what it stands for through TV shows. We don't have Starbucks, either, and on one trip to a bigger European country we went there just for the novelty value.

You're making a mountain out of an molehill here.
This is a prime example of Engrish.

There was a story on NPR over the holidays about how the traditional Christmas dinner in Japan is ordering KFC fried chicken, to the point that people have to put in their orders far in advance. The traditional rose out of how soldiers at U.S. military bases couldn't find turkey for the holidays used KFC instead, and it spread to the main culture.

One thing I can honestly say as an Irish-American is that old white men do all look a like after a while, for instance my grandfather and great-uncle looked like twins (and were in fact once confused by my mother).

I think the confusion may be that someone in Japan is much more likely to see the Colonel rather than Uncle Sam as we imagine him, so that's why the association has been made.

Now that's interesting. As someone who grew up in the US but moved away at 6 (to Canada), I've always associated Uncle Sam with the draft and various other military industrial thingamajigs. I didn't realize he had a positive side to him! That goes to show that even America's closest neighbours have a different idea of what Uncle Sam represents.

Yeah, I agree with Eve. I think Uncle Sam might be part of the larger myth of 'freedom' for consumption by Americans, but he seems to be just as much symbol of authority and fierce nationalism.

They also have Colonel Sander ash trays that look exactly like that in Japan!

But the Japanese love Colonel Sanders, how could they mistake him for Uncle Sam? D: