August 16, 2022 • 55 mins
Today, billions of people across the world recognize McDonald's — it's one of the planet's most well-known brands. Yet, in recent years, McDonald's has also become home to an enduring mystery: What exactly happened to Ronald McDonald? In part one of this two-part series, Ben and Max welcome special guest Jonathan Strickland for an in-depth exploration of Ronald's meteoric rise and fall.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. First things first, let's give
it up for our one and only super producer Mr
Max Williams, who you may recognize from earlier appearances as
a special guest on Ridiculous History. And they call me
Ben our ride or die. Our brother in arms. Mr
(00:51):
Noel Brown is away, but we'll be returning soon. Today, Max,
we are diving into a story worry that has haunted
me and hopefully many other people for for some time now.
We're not diving into this story alone. We're going to
talk about a mystery in the world of fast food.
(01:15):
And to do this we have to be joined with
an expert, a very special returning guest Max. Uh, we
both do them, good friend of the show, dear friend
of ours, a famous, infamous member of the Ridiculous History pantheon. Folks,
Let's have a big hand for the one and only
Jonathan Stricklet a little man called Jonathan. As a little
(01:41):
man called Jonathan may sounds strange, do you everybody tells
them what to do? Expert? You say, so, that's as
audio podcast. That's very well done. So, uh, everyone, we
(02:06):
had been hanging out off air, just chatting about uh
this series, this two part episode, and Jonathan, I didn't
know until just now that you have been saving that
McDonald's cup for the entirety of our conversation. Just oh
and the fries. Yeah, I have misoponia, so I'm not
(02:28):
gonna actually eat on Mike. That makes three of us
on this recording, So thank you. Yes, yes, we should
do an episode about misoponia at some point too. So
here we go. Here's here's how our here's how we're
starting this. If you're a ridiculous historian of a certain age,
you might remember time when things were a little bit
(02:49):
different at this world famous fast food chain McDonald's. Like
the menu is still pretty much the same burgers, fries, soda,
but back in the day, kids and adults to life
associated McDonald's with an entire pantheon of food related characters,
the most famous crown jewel, Mr Ronald McDonald. And before
(03:12):
we dive in, Jonathan, just like, off off topic here,
how are you doing? It's been forever. I'm I'm quite well.
Thank you for asking. Yeah, I think since the last
time I chatted with you. I had COVID twice, so
that's great. Wow, No, whatever, it's far far apart uh,
(03:35):
February and then June. Actually probably did have a chat
at some point in between there. But yeah, I managed
to get it over Valentine's Day and over my birthday,
so I know how to mark an occasion. Very nice,
very nice. But apart from that, everything is going very well. Okay, yeah,
(03:56):
other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you find the play?
Right soon? So? Uh, now that we are, now that
we are well met, we have a mystery that we're
going to dive into here, and where better to start
(04:17):
than at the actual history the origin and genesis of McDonald's.
I don't know about you, guys, but I was surprised
by how many strange evolutions and twists and turns this took.
It was. It's weird because some of the statements you
read don't agree with each other, and we can say,
(04:39):
hopefully without throwing too many molotovs, we can safely say
that McDonald's marketing and pr has a very clear, very
specific narrative of their own. Would you agree with that?
I certainly would agree with that. I also think This
is one of those topics where careful note taking was
(05:00):
not part of the process. Right, So whenever we're talking
about something along these lines, you end up with timelines
and recollections that may not measure up. But you're also
talking about different perspectives. We're talking about the the dawn
of the franchise restaurant era, and that's also something that
we should keep in mind throughout the course of these discussions,
(05:22):
because when we talk about McDonald's, you have to remember
in the early days, we were talking about like a
local restaurant. We're not talking about national chain early on,
and so a lot of the things that we would
associate with McDonald's much later that was just not present
in the early days. Yeah, well said, it was a
(05:42):
very very different landscape. McDonald's is named after these two guys,
these brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonald there in San Bernardino, California,
and their dad, Patrick had open a food stand back
in ninety thirties seven called the air Dromee. Uh. The
(06:03):
brothers originally had a car hop. For anybody's unfamiliar with
that idea, it's I guess the best modern comparison is
basically sonic. Right, Sonics does still exist? Right, Yeah, I
think so. Yeah, I think so too. So. So here's
(06:23):
the deal. They these brothers, the brothers McDonald, have this
restaurant idea, and if you look at the original signs,
it advertises barbecue, honestly, and they've been working on this
in the forties and I'm gonna jump in here. McDonald
still advertises barbecue. They have the greatest barbecue dish of
all time, called the McRib we're having the mac ribb debate. No,
(06:49):
I'm just thinking the John Oliver line. It's then the
second episode of Last Week Tonight where he compares to
Mick rib to the death penalty. Okay, I'll buy You're
just gonna leave it there. Okay, you can look up
the video. If you're listening right now, you can look
up that video. It's very easy to find. And we're
gonna find some even more disturbing things as we go,
(07:12):
just the advertising alone. We've got to play some clips
in the future. But here we go. So it's October.
The brothers McDonald have an epiphany. They look at each
other and they say, hey, that's weird. Most of our
profits are only coming from one thing. On the menu, hamburgers,
(07:32):
let's close, we're closing shop. We've got to rethink everything,
and they do, and they really simplify their menu, which
you know, folks like uh Anthony Bourdain will tell you
is the is a good indicator of a good restaurant, right,
a small, short menu. Uh. Eventually they decide, okay, we're
only gonna sell a few things hamburgers, cheeseburgers, potato chips, coffee, soda,
(07:55):
and for some reason, apple pie. Uh I'm not an
apple pie and uh aficionado. So I guess there's a
reason for that. Maybe it was just easy to make
and package, or maybe it's all America. Like apple pie,
it's quite essential, it's very quite essential. They're bad, all right,
(08:18):
But you guys are making me sound on American, which
I mean, are we making you stud on American or
you're you're the one of your questioning the importance of
apple pie, which is like the most on American thing ever.
You can say. Our national pastime is soccer. Now, okay,
I'll play a reindeer games because max apples are originally
from Kazakhstan. Boom. So anyhow, that aside, Uh, the brothers
(08:44):
McDonald say Okay, we need a new building to reflect
our new strategy. It needs to be more efficient, and
it needs to have this kind of eye catching appearance.
Can't just be a squat brick and mortar. And this
is what eats them eventually to what we recognize as
the Golden Arches. But Jonathan, you had noted that the
(09:07):
arches themselves kind of had an evolution, right, Wasn't there
just like one arch at the beginning or something. Well,
it's it's that the actual architecture of the building was
held up by a pair of arches that did not
connect to one another. There was no connection, So you
had a pair of arches, but they didn't form the
letter M. That would actually come much later because Roy croc,
(09:29):
who's a very important person in the history of McDonald's. Uh.
The legend goes that he sold a ton of milkshake
machines to the McDonald brothers and wanted to find out
what the heck they were doing with so many milkshake machines,
and that's what got him interested in the whole McDonald's thing. Well,
he when he started to rethink the logo, he put
(09:51):
these two arches into an overlap with one another to
form the golden arches and make kind of an M shape,
and then later on he would pull them apart a
little a bit more so that they would just make
an M as opposed to this kind of overlapped their
inner the inner legs of the arches were overlapped in
the original logo, so it kind of looked like an
M and kind of looked like a mess. But then
(10:13):
by I think N eight, he had it where it
was the actual M. But yeah, it all dates back
to this second location for for McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah, and
this is something that you know, it is public knowledge,
but I think for a lot of people listening to date,
we've always just sort of thought of McDonald's as this
(10:35):
static thing, right that came into being whole and entire.
It's very much not the case. As as a matter
of fact, I was surprised to learn that McDonald's had
a different mascot before Ronald McDonald. He's a guy named
Speedy sp e E d E E. Yeah, he also
(10:56):
had uh so he's like a chef. He's got a
hamburger head, like a vertical hamburger for a head. You
can still apparently see him around some older McDonald's. But
he was never quite a Ronald. So I actually got
a story about this. Um I did not Uh what
(11:16):
does that look, Jonathan? Oh No, that look was me
being excited to hear your story, because all I was
gonna say is that he has kind of a squinty popeye.
I it looks like he got poked in the in
one of his eyes whenever you see the pictures of him.
But I am, I am eager to hear your story.
So this is a this is from a very young
Maxis memory. So like, this is back when I lived
(11:37):
in Detroit. My family moved here when I was six,
so this is very young. But there was I don't
remember what part of Detroit was, but there was McDonald's
that had this mascot. Still, because I saw this one,
I'm like, oh, yeah, I know that one immediately. I
remember this one. Remember my mom explaining it to me
what the mascot was, and she didn't really know, but
she's like, yeah, I let's sack. I don't know a
different mascot. Oh man, this this is this is creepy
(12:00):
to me. Yeah, Speedy is definitely a product of his
time not being uh you know, we don't mean that
in a disrespectful way. We're just saying that things change,
and that's something that factors into Ronald as well. Uh, Speedy,
look is never in any commercials. You're not going to
hear about them often unless people are specifically talking about
(12:22):
the early history of McDonald's. So r I P. Speedy,
you whizz by us, just like you always promised you
would man your word, Hamburger head of your word. So
Speedy met his demise when a new mascot came into
town in seven, McDonald's officially chose a clown named Ronald
(12:46):
as their new representative. But again, like everything with early McDonald's,
this was part of an ongoing evolution. And Jonathan, I
really like the way you tell the story. Sure. Yeah,
so this was something that I was already familiar with all.
(13:08):
I think a lot of people have heard the story. Uh.
And I started off by saying, you know, Encyclopedia Britannica
says that the first emergence of Ronald McDonald was in
nineteen sixty three. And if you can't trust the Encyclopedia Britannica,
then what kind of crazy world do we live in? Huh? So,
here's here's how things played out. And this also comes
(13:29):
back to that that element that we're talking about a
local restaurant not looking at it as a national chain. Yet.
There was this franchise children's entertainment called Bozo the Clown
which started way back in the nineteen forties, and uh,
in nineteen fifty six, a guy named Larry Harmon said,
(13:50):
this is a good idea. I would like to have
Bozo the Clowns in different markets around the United States.
Let's franchise this children's character. So they did, and you
had lots of little stations around the United States. They
had their very own Bozo the Clown show. It was
all modeled after the original character, but that was played
(14:10):
by different actors, had slightly different setups in the various regions.
The big one obviously was Chicago, but over in the
Baltimore Washington, d c. Area, there was a television station
that had Bozo the Clown and uh. They had hired
a guy named Willard Scott. That name might be familiar
to a lot of you out there to be Bozo
(14:31):
the Clown on this show. And a sponsor for this
show was the local McDonald's, so as McDonald's in the
Baltimore area, but after, you know, a couple of years,
the television station canceled the Bozo the Clown show. Reportedly,
what happens next is Willard's sitting there and someone from
(14:52):
McDonald's comes up to him and says, Hey, we really
like how you were marketing McDonald's in this clown character.
Can you come up with something and be a mascot
for us moving forward so we can continue to use
you in promotional material And he sits down and he
starts thinking about this, and he comes up with another
clown character, original, obviously not not at all inspired by
(15:17):
the fact that he was Bozo the Clown. No, why
why would you think that? Yeah? I don't know. I mean,
he's just like, it's just as a pure coincidence, that's
another clown character. But he names it Ronald McDonald, the
Hamburger Happy Clown, introducing world it was Bill and Hamburger
eating as Wow. Ronald McDonald, Now where is that clown?
(15:41):
I am good? Hey, you didn't watching TV blood personally
we got delicious McDonald Hamburger. Ronald McDonald the Hamburger Happy Clown. Yeah.
So there's there's a side note here that I always
unaware of. There is apparently a clown code that all,
like all clowns in the trade agree to where they
(16:04):
will not rip off each other's stick or their look,
you know, too closely. So one quick procedural note. Uh,
we have an additional non consensual guest on the show today.
It is my neighbor's dog downstairs. Uh. The most diplomatic
(16:25):
way I can put this is that if you have
a dog, make sure your dog is okay. Uh. And UH,
we're just gonna we're gonna roll through this, uh and
hopefully everything works out down there. So there are other
versions of this origin story, but I think we can
agree today. Jonathan Willard Scott's account is considered the most accurate,
(16:51):
even though it's not officially mentioned in you know, like
on the McDonald's website or something. Various executives have thanked
Scott for his creation, and he talks about it in
his book The Joy of Living, and he makes that
Bozo connection, uh, he says in part he says there
(17:13):
was something about the combination of Hamburgers and Bozo that
was irresistible to kids. That's why when Bozo went off
the air a few years later, the local McDonald's people
ask me to come up with a new character to
take Bozo's place. So I sat down created Ronald McDonald
and we, for better or worse, my friends have video
(17:34):
confirmation that this was true. This is where we get
to some creepy parts. I think it's time we talked
about those first McDonald's commercials, which is where the world
learns about Ronald. Yeah, Ronald does not look the way
Ronald would look later on in his storied career as
(17:55):
mascot for McDonald's. Willard Scott's Ronald McDonald is a Frankenstein's
monster of a clown that has suffered a terrible uh
phasing uh mistake. Like you know when you think about
the mutants who can phase through walls and then sometimes
they come to complete solid state in the middle of
(18:16):
a wall, and how terrible that is. He did that
with a plate or a table of a fast food
So he's got like a like a soda cup nose.
He's got like a a tray for a hat that
has hamburgers and French fries on it. He's got a
magic belt that produces hamburgers. Um, it is not it's
(18:38):
not a clown appearance that I would associate with being
welcoming and friendly and uh makes me want to go
and have fast food. It makes me want to run
the other way. But that's again, maybe it's just because
it's a product of its time, and I'm a product
of my time. It's before my time. I'm not that old.
And I will say that the very first commercial that
(19:00):
he appears in is my favorite because at the end
of the commercial there's some music and he's dancing in
the background in the parking lot of this McDonald's, and
he's dancing and dancing, and then the commercial comes to
an end. You can tell the director is said cut,
but the camera continues to capture footage for about a
second and a half later, so you just see Lord
(19:22):
Scott is Ronald McDonald, arms slacked by his side, dead
eye like it is. It is a walking dead vision
of his version of Ronald McDonald. It's very much like, hey, dude,
(19:51):
we get that, we got that. Okay, cool, Oh we're
still shooting. Were cut that in post right? Okay? We
are cool? And they didn't. Johnny, I have two things
I want to say. That one is it's very much
like he was like bawling out a budget. That's what
is set up, is like it's just like uh cup, yeah,
here we go and tray here bam, I got my outfit. Yeah.
(20:13):
And second, um, this is kind of a teaser for
a future episode we would have. Buten have you ever
seen the original Michelin men? Oh yes, yes I have
not for a treat. Look in the chat here on
riverside you can see him. Okay, I'm gonna take a look.
And this is my actual real time reaction once uh oh,
dear lord, Yeah, the pensnez the yeah, yeah, it looks
(20:41):
like the say puff marshmallow man got grilled. That's actually
that is the best description I think Max and I
have heard about about that unfortunate costume. Yeah, when we
talked about different times. You know, just think back on
all the the early turn of the century photos you've
(21:01):
seen of creepy easter bunnies, odds, Santa Claus is, things
like that. This early Ronald McDonald very much does look
like a Frankenstein. His his face is an agglomeration of
what appears to be food and crime. He's got sort
of these uh French fried dreadlock looking hairs. His nose
(21:24):
is replaced by a cup that would probably be for soda.
And it appears that after he's murdered several people, he
has smeared their blood across his mouth. Right. Uh, it's
got a very um like Heath Ledger joker smile kind
of thing. Go on, but even smeared more intenseness. And listen,
(21:50):
we we haven't we haven't reached Sunday yet. We aren't.
We aren't at joker smiles yet. We'll get there, but
I do I do want to say that. Um. You know, again,
this was a local commercial, right, this was not a
national spot that aired across the United States. This is
still an era where you're talking about broadcast television. Cable
(22:12):
hasn't really become a thing yet. Uh, so you don't
have markets that bleed over. Like if your antenna could
pick up something from the next town over, you might see,
you know, one of the channels from there. But this
was not intended to be a national campaign. It was
literally this one McDonald's restaurant that was using this character
(22:35):
to advertise to locals. Yeah, it's kind of like a
a Ford dealership, Like an auto dealership might have their
own ad campaigns, but they don't overall represent for the company.
You know, they're like Dave Davidson's, you know, uh, number
one for dealer in northern Southwest Ohio. I mean to
jump in here. I mean this is one I think
(22:56):
all three of us will know is Donna and the Wolfman.
We all know what that is, right, Yeah. No, I
grew up right down the street. I grew up right
down the street from uh, from that, from that furniture dealership.
So yeah, that's cool. Yeah, but there's a bunch of
people listening right now who are like, what the hell
is Donald and the Wolfman. It's like, no, no no, no,
we know what that is because that was a person
(23:17):
I played for so long in Atlanta or like a
general Atlanta area wif man here. You've got to see
the poster avoiding the gallery fronted, Hey wof Man West Donna.
Now I'm in New York City, but I'll be back soon,
Nicky gown of Don. I'm dearing like por La ni
king dollars, the climbers eighty eight dollar headboard, win Fuller
(23:38):
Queen one dollar board, door Chef thirty nine dollars. That's
gallery funds at twenty five eleven Road Belt Highway in
College part in sixte hundred brown Big Rogan games and hey,
after the wolf Man, you know what, as a matter
of fact, ridiculous historians go over on Facebook or your
social media of choice and let us know your favorite
(23:59):
weird cookie commercials from your neck in the global woods. So,
despite all of the very detailed descriptions we've given you
of old Ronald here, he was a hit people. People
loved this concept right and over the years, uh, he
became a worldwide phenomenon. I don't think it's hyperbolic to
(24:23):
say that he was sort of an integral piece of
American pop culture. Eventually people from other countries started thinking
of Ronald McDonald not just as a symbol of a
fast food place, but as a symbol of some concept
of the United States. Yeah. And you know, this was
one of those things where by seeing how popular this
(24:44):
character and this concept was, to promote this one McDonald's,
it became this this idea to use it as a
a national uh symbol for the chain. And obviously that's
a huge, huge um And with that jump, we would
see a very rapid evolution of the character. It would
(25:06):
not be long before the Nightmarish Scott version of Ronald
McDonald was left behind. And not only that, but we
would see that McDonald's as an organization would codify the
character and how the character is to be portrayed, and
how the character is to be referenced to anyone outside
(25:28):
the organization. Oh yeah, you've hit on something that's just
fascinating to me. So so behind the scenes, McDonald's always
had this kind of ethos of absolute conformity, uniformity, right
even down to little things like the number of sesame
seeds on a bun reportedly, so it shouldn't surprise us
(25:48):
that they template tized the appearances of Ronald McDonald, who
was becoming kind of a secular Santa Clause. Uh, you
and Max and I found that they're one is actually
not one, but a couple of official rule books for
all actors playing Ronald. And I found a wonderful Reader's
Digest article on this, and I thought maybe we could
(26:11):
round robin some of the uh, some of the commandments
for would be Ronald's. I changed the language a little
because I think it's funny for them to be referred
to as a Ronald. That part was me, but the
rest is true. Excellent. Uh. Shall shall I begin? Please?
Do Commandment number one, never hug the kids. At most,
(26:38):
Ronald may only pat the children upon the back. Commandment
number two. A Rinald must also sign numerous waivers saying
that they'll never reveal what they've learned working for the company.
Number three. All Ronalds can and should promote the idea
of fun to their customers. They should not directly promote
(26:58):
the food itself. Commandment the fourth. If kids ask, a
Ronald cannot reveal to them the dark trade secret that
burgers come from cows. Commandment number five. Whenning character, a
Ronald cannot eat McDonald's food due to makeup concerns. Okay,
(27:19):
it makes sense, so we've just got a couple war here.
So here's commandment six. A Ronald has to be fit, or,
as readers digest put it quote, at least have a
body that appears to be fit man. I I long
to have a body that appears to me to be
fit man. What body is shaming? Here's the last commandment.
(27:44):
Ronald must follow us script when answering questions asked by customers.
If they don't have an answer that fits, a Ronald
is instructed to say, and this is true, ask someone
wearing normal shoes, which I think is actually something that
we can take from the ronalds. I feel like that's
(28:06):
a great way to pass the buck in just any situation.
Do you think I could get away with telling or
boss that email chain? Absolutely? And I remember being on
a previous episode where there was a lot of talk
about the dangers of wearing long pointy shoes. So normal
shoes is a very important thing. Yes, absolutely agreed. Uh.
(28:29):
Now we see that McDonald's at this time under the
leadership of Kroc. Fully Uh, they know they're onto something.
In the nineteen seventies or so, they asked a like
seventies seventy one, They ask a marketing ad agency named
need Him, Harper and Steers to turn up the gas.
As a result, the firm comes up with the idea
(28:52):
of something called McDonald land Ronald. They decided would no
longer be a solo act. Now, this this thing runs
from about nineteen seventy one to two thousand and three,
and I wanted to ask you, guys, do you recall
ever seen one of these commercials? Oh, my gosh, Ben,
come on. I so I grew up in the nineteen seventies,
(29:16):
I lived less than a half mile from a McDonald's
which we could walk to from my house in Gainesville, Georgia.
I have distinct memories of various McDonald Land characters and
commercials and oh my, Drew Geese. You may have forgotten
things being so scory, all right, and people quick to forget,
(29:38):
but those visions haunt my nightmares to this day. I
think that is that is a wonderful clockwork Orange reference there.
So yeah, McDonald Land is a trip. It's a it's
a built out, pretty well imagined universe. That's kind of
a place of wind z and wonder picture the candy
(30:03):
uh like the the candy warehouse in Gene Wilder's Willy
Wonka adaptation. That's kind of what it looks like. And
there are tons of anthropomorphic things inanimate objects are animate,
and speaking of plants and food are also a capable
of communication. Apple Pie trees again they there. It's very
(30:26):
much a pro apple Pie company, milkshake, volcanoes, hamburger patches.
They even have a theme park all centered around items
on the McDonald's menu. And this was for some reason
an important question for me. Yes, there are McDonald's restaurants
in McDonald's Land. They're not worried about the inception of that. Yeah. No,
(30:51):
if you if you look carefully, you'll see that the
little spinny ride in the playground is still turning at
the very end. So we don't know if we're still
with in McDonald land, if we have actually escaped to reality.
That that question is left up to the individual customer.
Mm hmmm, yeah, your imagination mileage may vary. Now. They
(31:12):
even had a theme song and Max, No, no, you
do you think we can get away with playing this clip?
Catch just sound real? Take? Okay, so that's a piece
(31:34):
of the theme song. You can hear the whole thing
in its entirety on YouTube pretty easily. You might be
listening to this and thinking, hey, this sounds like an
actual TV show. Well, you're right, and that will become
a problem later. Don't worry, we'll get to it. Uh.
But we it might sound like we're spending a lot
(31:56):
of time talking about how weird these early days were.
But to be clear, uh, McDonald's as an organization in
the real non McDonald land world was doing some good things.
They were doing some acts of charity. Yes, that's right.
So in nineteen seventy four, the company McDonald's established the
(32:16):
Ronald McDonald House. The original one in Philadelphia Fred Hill,
who was a football player for the Philadelphia Eagles. I
believe it was his daughter who had leukemia. And so
the concept was to build a house where families could
stay if their children were hospitalized in the nearby hospital,
So they wouldn't have to travel hours in and out
(32:37):
of town in order to visit their kids. They could
stay temporarily in this place, and they wouldn't have to
spend exorbitant amounts of money like at a hotel. And
you know, we wanted to bring this up because we
are going to be kind of, you know, poking a
lot of fun at Ronald McDonald. I mean, the whole
purpose of the character is to get kids to want
(32:58):
to go eat fast food. So there are a lot
of downsides that we can really talk about there. But
we also want to acknowledge that this was an organization,
or this is an organization that also has done some
some legitimate good work, uh, for various communities. Yeah, yeah,
and that's an important point. You know, it also might have,
(33:21):
as will come to see, done some important work for
Ronald McDonald when things got dicey, right, So, Yeah. So
we mentioned there's a pantheon. There's now there's a woutang
of McDonald's. Right, they've got we've got a crew. Uh,
you mentioned one who's actually first on my list, Jonathan.
Can you tell us about Sunday. Yeah. So Sunday a
(33:51):
k A. Pup face killer, Uh, was a anthropomorphic dog originally. Um.
And here's the creepy thing about this dog character. First
of all, it has almost like like a tear type
shape under one eye. Kind of made me think of
like a David Bowie glam look. It has more like
(34:12):
a human mouth under its snout, which is truly disturbing
uh in its original incarnation. And it has the most
chipper upbeat personality you've ever heard, which is me lying
because it sounds like someone who is on the verge
of needing to talk to a counselor Uh, it is
(34:32):
a person. It's this monotone, depressing voice. You're sitting there
wondering who hated dogs so much that they needed to
create this character to exorcize their inner demon. I love dogs,
I love all animals. I hope that dog downstairs is okay.
(34:54):
You're right though, Uh, Sunday has what we would call
big e or vibes. You know, he's a little bit
of a downer. He doesn't like ticks. He beefs it
with the Hamburglar. Is particularly one thing called Visitors from
Outer Space, where he insults the Hamburglar by calling him
Hammy and bun head. Uh. And then that that's kind
(35:16):
of just sounds a little racist there, Yeah really, uh yeah,
we don't. Yeah, we don't far be it for us
to disparage Sunday without knowing what Sunday's lived experiences are.
But it's kind of a it's you know, it's not
the happiest dog. That's just true. That's part of the character. Uh.
(35:38):
And this gives us a segue. So when I really
want to talk about just as a quick laundry list, here,
we'll go through several of these panthonic characters. We might
spend more time on some than others. I loved the Hamburglar,
you know what I mean. He's like fighting the system
with my understanding, you know. Uh. He he's like that
(36:02):
classic trope of so many mascots, you know, from the
tricks Rabbit to the uh like the Nooid. I think
he clearly informs the Noid later he's got that beef
going on. Yeah, well he wants to have that beef
going on. I want to say that, I want to
I want to say that. Uh that he was probably
(36:23):
inspired by the character Whimpy as well from the Popeye series.
Right I can. I will gladly pay you Tuesday for
a Hamburger today. Uh, Hamburglar is always trying to have
that big heist of all those juicy hamburgers, and it's
just foiled. Usually he's hoisted by his own petard. It's
normally his fault for for getting caught. But yeah, the
(36:46):
Hamburglar was one of my favorite characters too of the
McDonald's panthion when I was growing up. I uh, and
I was more familiar with his second incarnation because, as
we all learned, uh, Hamburgler had a phoenix like existence
and that it existed in in one form first just
like Ronald did, and then transformed somewhat afterward. Yeah. Yeah,
(37:11):
ham the Hamburgler had a glow up midway through his career.
He he started off as a he's like a kind
of a Benjamin Button thing going on here. He started
off as a villain, and it was more than one
villain in the McDonald land. Uh. And he was very
clearly an older character, had long, stringy gray hair. Uh,
(37:33):
he was bald at the top of his head. Uh.
And he was a creepy old guy who desperately wanted
to heist Hamburgers. But then it's strange because originally he
wasn't called the Hamburger at all, Hamburglar at all. He
was called the lone Jogger, which is uber creepy. Yeah,
(37:55):
that was. That was. It was supposed to be a
take off the Lone rain Juror because like the Lone Ranger,
he wore a mask, he had a wide brimmed hat,
so he was like the Lone Ranger, but he was
the lone Jogger because he doesn't have a horse, he
doesn't wander the range. That was the idea behind it.
In retrospect, we can look back on that and just
(38:17):
say like, yeah, that uh yeah, maybe we've all watched
too much Law and Order or something. But loan loan
Jogger does conjure different images. And also, i'll point out,
and see this discussed often, I'll point out that if
you are an anti McDonald's person, you're anti Ronald's message,
(38:39):
then uh, you could, with some validity say that this
puts exercising in a bad light anyway. Whatever, whatever their motivation,
the lone Jogger became the Hamburgler character. And then the
Hamburglar had his reverse aging moment. Uh, and I think
it was around nine eight five, mid nineteen eighties. He evolves.
(39:03):
He's no longer an old, angry uh Hamburger hoarder. He's
he's like a rebellious, muteness mischievous redhead, kind of Dennis
the Menace. And he gets a cape and the cape
is cool. Capes are cool. Uh. There's also Birdie, the
(39:24):
early bird I like. I was astonished by how many
of these were new to me. Uh. There were the
fried kids. I guess we should we gotta talk. Yeah,
I mean, I I remember Bertie because I remember when
McDonald's introduced its breakfast menu, because again, I lived like
half a mile away from McDonald's and that was happening
right around that time, and the character was introduced in
(39:46):
an effort to promote that. And you know, I like
the idea of being able to walk half a mile
and grab a whole bunch of really substandard pancakes. I
actually really did love those pancakes is the one thing
that McDonald's actually like to eat and um. And so
I remember that character very well, and she was extremely
klutzy and uh chipper, you know, had a had a
(40:08):
positive personality, but was kind of seen as being a
clumsy character who was always getting in her own way.
Because I have a question, I want to post you
all and just just kind of see what y'all think
about this. But you know, and a lot of let's
call it what it is marketing to children. What they'll
commonly do is they'll portray, you know, the heroes as children,
(40:30):
and they'll portray you know, the villains as adults. And
I mean I wonder if like that was like a
whole marketing like things that we're thinking about because with
like the hamburglar him being like an old evil guy,
but then it's like, oh, this guy is not evil,
he's friends with all of them. He instantly becomes a
child like a child. Because you know, McDonald's will say
(40:50):
they'll be like, no, we never ever intentionally marketing the children.
Oh that's all these companies will. But we all know,
I mean, marketing words directly children has been I think
we've done in this country country for a very long time,
and we've done that episode about ovaltine, which is directly
marketing the children. And you know, now it's it's basically illegal.
(41:11):
We can still get around it sometimes. But I'm wondering
if that was a concerted effort they might take. I
think that's a good point. Yeah, I know, I would.
I would bet on that as being part of the strategy.
That it was literally, how can we uh convince more
kids to be excited about this product so that they
bug their parents to go and we can sell things
(41:34):
to their parents. And I think that's exactly what was
going on. You also have to look at when these
commercials were airing, and a lot of them were airing
during the after school programming that would be on as
soon as kids would get home. You know, I'm a
gen X or I'm a latch key kid. I'd come home,
turn on the TV and there would be commercials for
McDonald's right next to commercials for things like g I
(41:54):
Joe and he Man. So this was this was a
concerted and strategic effort, and it was definitely you know,
it had purpose behind it. It It wasn't just creating colorful characters. Yeah, Yeah,
I really think you're onto something there, Max. We we
know that this was successful. If you look at a
lot of McDonald land commercials from the time, Ronald is
(42:17):
joined with kids sidekicks, right, and they're sort of you know,
they're they're keeping this creepy old man from stealing the burgers.
So there's definitely some psychology at play. There are also,
you know, functionaries and authorities in this world. Mayor mccheese
is is one of the most notable examples. He's a
(42:38):
guy um kind of like maybe in the distant past,
related to speedy because he also has a hamburger head,
but he's is horizontal, so like the bun and the
cheese and the burgers kind of his mouth and uh,
he is for some reason wearing a Diplomats sash. He's
very like he is the he's the oligarch of McDonald's, right,
(43:03):
he is, he's the one percenter and uh he has spectacles,
et cetera. And he's kind of like lovable and bumbling
and you know, we getting himself into high jinks. Uh.
He is based on another character called h. R. Puffing Stuff.
Have you guys heard of HR puffing Stuff? Yes, the
(43:23):
creation of of Sid and Marty Croft, who were uh
who were They were pioneers, you know, of a sorts
of of children's entertainment mostly looked back on as being uh,
purveyors of psychedelic material. Like if you watch old Puffin
(43:46):
Stuff's uh footage, you're thinking, this looks like everyone involved,
from the actors to the crew, to the editors, to
two people who are probably just getting a contact hie
crossing the street, they were all on something and it's
bleeding through the screen. Uh. That was something that was
something that you could really take home with Sid and
(44:08):
Marty Croft. And I mentioned this in our notes way
at the bottom over in the little tangent side. But
just since we're talking about it, I want to mention
really quickly. Here in Atlanta, we for a short while
had the Sid and Marty Croft World, an amusement park.
It was in what is now the CNN Center, but
(44:29):
back then we just called it the Omni. And if
you had ever been in there, this would be many
years ago now. But if as a kid you had
ever visited the Omni, you would have noticed there was
this enormous freestanding escalator. I mean, it was longer than
you think an escalator should be allowed to be and
that was the escalator that would take you up to
(44:50):
the Sid and Marty Croft world. It isn't there anymore.
The CNN Center still there and you can see part
of where the escalator was. But yeah, that was something
that as a kid, I always wondered about. That closed
six months after it opened in nineteen seventy six. I
was born the year before, so if I ever did go,
I certainly don't remember it. Wow, it just it just
(45:11):
informed your lifelong terror of escalators. That's true. Yeah, you
know what, it's terrible. I have fallen down an up
escalator for about three days straight and it was offen. Hey, escalator,
escalators suck, Jonathan. I'm with you on this, man, Escalators
for the work. Are you serious? They're the stairs of
the future. Elevators suck too. Just give me some stairs, man,
(45:33):
that's all stairs. I'm a fan. Uh yeah, this is okay.
So the Croft thing is going to be important later.
But wait, as Billy Mays was wanting to say, there's more,
McDonald's land is home to tons of characters. Captain Crook,
Officer Big Mac, the Professor, the McNugget Buddies, the Happy
Meal Gang, Uncle O, Grimacy, for some reason, Cosmic, a
(45:56):
cavalcade of others. But Jonathan, there's one guy we haven't
really mentioned yet. It's a character named Grimace. It's a
man of mystery. And then we have a question for
you that I will I will defer to Max four.
All right, Jonathan, do you ever listen to the MPR
game show? Wait? Wait, don't tell me. I do. And
(46:18):
I just want to say that those who know me
and my alter ego, I feel really uncomfortable that the
tables they have been turned upon me. All right, well,
don't worry, don't it's not really question. Actually I guess
it is question. Yeah, so this is from way we
don't tell me. A number of months ago I asked
Ben and Null this and I got a very genuine
(46:39):
reaction out of the two of them, including having him
to be Ben for a word. He said, But I'm
gonna ask you this. Do you know what Grimaces? Uh?
Do I know what Grimaces? I don't. I the I
always thought he was just some sort of indeterminate anthropomorphic thing.
I do know that he used to be a bad guy,
(47:00):
and he had four arms and stole milkshakes. So he's
distantly related to Goro from Mortal Kombat, but apart from that,
I don't know. So this is according to the people
that wait, wit, don't tell me. They had this as
a poll question on the show. I have seen many
people debate this, but I'm just telling you this is
the answer they gave. He is a taste bud. That's
(47:24):
absolutely horrifying. I will not sleep tonight. And it's your fault. Max.
I feel like I've achieved by maximum goal for the
day now. Mm hmm. So I was surprised into profanity
when I when I learned this, and it's it's a
great question to ask, and Jonathan, my my response from
(47:47):
my assumption, we're very much in line with with yours.
We canna take a flame one way flav from McDonald
land back to Texas. One more thing, one more thing.
He doesn't know what Grimace is. He's a blob, right
purple blob? Is he catching? Is he a condiment? He's
a one giant taste bud? Oh? Gross? So fuck up.
(48:14):
I'm not okay. I'm not I'm not okay with this, Like,
why is it not a tongue? I talked about that
last time. If you're gonna make it that big? Why
is it one giant taste bud? Why why is it
not just a blob of rancid ice cream goo at
the bottom of one of the perpetually broken ice cream machines. Oh,
(48:38):
and there is a conspiracy theory about that, which goes
to a different show. But I've I've got to send you,
I've got to send you some articles. So, yes, there's
there's this whole thing happening. Kids know all about it.
Uh you know. Of course, the appeal is pretty apparent
for kind of thrifty caregivers because you can buy a
(48:59):
happy meal and you're feeding the kid and you're also
getting them a toy, so you can potentially like skip
the trip to the toy store. And I don't know
how often that worked, but it's important. You can tell already,
ridiculous historians, this world has been fleshed out. This is
beyond the level of world building that most other fast
(49:21):
food companies are going to engage in. And McDonald Land
is a lot like a TV show. Turns out, we're
not the only ones who thought so. Remember who Jonathan
you just mentioned a few minutes ago, sit in Marty
Croft in v. Three. They sued McDonald's and they said, look,
this whole McDonald land concept is plagiarized from our work.
(49:45):
The jury, which I have in notes as the justy.
The jury found in favor of the Crofts. McDonald's was
first ordered to pay fifty grand, then they were ordered
to pay one million dollars, and they were also told
that they have to pull some characters from their campaigns
or reimagine them into more legally distinct designs. Yet still
(50:09):
they soldiered on. From two thousand three, Ronald had his
own video series, not calling it a TV show because
it was straight to video. It was called The Wacky
Adventures of Ronald McDonald. Yeah, that's where Sunday the Dog
first showed up. Oh okay, so it's kind of a darker, edgier.
(50:30):
I mean, have you seen pictures of Sunday the Dog.
I think it's accurate. I mean, Ben, this brought the beef.
I'm loving that we're going through a beef phase. Uh,
we're going with this beef phase and not telling anywhere.
We're not going to explain it. Sorry, Jonathan. It's just
like Looper. So behind the fast food counter, though, trouble
(50:55):
is a bruin, and we're not talking about that hot
coffee lawsuit. Internally, McDonald's is conflicted about whether they should
keep showcasing these characters or moving a new direction. A
new ad agency is in the mix, Leo Burnett, and
they say, look, McDonald Land, all its inhabitants, that time
has passed. Goodbye to the old man and the mischievous
(51:17):
young Hamburgler. They should be relegated to the sidelines in
favor of our new slogan, our new campaign. I'm loving it.
And they won the argument. McDonald land characters didn't go away,
but they were no longer front and center. This could
rightfully be called the purge of McDonald Land. Ronald, one
(51:37):
of the lone survivors, probably felt something in the wind.
Increasingly it was time to reassess the clown. And this
is where we're gonna end part one, I think, because
now we're getting to the turn right. We set up
the mystery, now we're gonna investigate it. Uh, Jonathan, I
(51:58):
know that when we originally ask you to do this,
we did not say it was going to be a
two parter, but thank you very very much for coming
on the show. It became abundantly clear, abundantly clear as
I looked at the notes that there was no way
this could be a single episode, And just like another
(52:18):
story about a beloved clown and dairy Maine, We're gonna
divide it up into two chapters, and y'all, this will
be it. I'm gonna love how like we're seeing this
whole thing. John's gonna be back for part two, and
then we're just not gonna address the fact that Matt
Frederick's going to be on part two with us instead.
(52:43):
So yes, Jonathan will be returning for Part two, coming
later this week in the meantime as always, thanks of
course to Mr Max Williams, thanks to Casey Pegram, Chris
rossiotis E's Jeff Coat, thanks to the Man the myth Legend,
Mr Noel Brown, who will be returning soon. Jonathan. One
(53:03):
of the reasons that we're so appreciative of you coming
coming on the show for this two parter is that
you are one of the busiest of all our colleagues,
which is saying a lot when you were not hanging
out classing up ridiculous history. If you're one of the
world's leading experts in technology, podcast with the long running show,
(53:27):
tech Stuff. Could you tell us a little bit about
that and where to find you, as well as more
of your work. Absolutely. So tech Stuff is my my love,
it's my pride and joy. It's a show that we
originally launched back in two thousand and eight. Uh, the
current incarnation of tech Stuff. It's a single host show.
We published five times a week, and we kind of
(53:48):
cover everything about technology. Uh. Some episodes are more technical
and that I will go into a bit more detail
about how stuff works. Hey, and then some of the
episode dhades are more about the impact of technology and
how it is changing the way we live or things
(54:08):
that we should be concerned about, whether it's surveillance or
it's the the fact that data is the new currency.
It's not crypto, folks, it's your information. That's that's the
currency of the world today, and that's why everybody wants
as much of it as they possibly can get. So
that's kind of what the show is all about. I
(54:29):
also do some other fun stuff you will be able
to hear very soon, the return of the large nor
Drown Collider. It's been a hiatus for a bit, but
that's my goofy pop culture podcast with my friend Ariel,
where we cover some of the geek news of the week,
but we also mesh up unrelated geek properties and find
out what happens when, say, the Transformers has a run
(54:52):
in with my little pony um and it's brilliant and uh,
Michael Bay you can call me anytime you want and
we can't wait for you to get in touch with us, folks.
As we are building toward part two of this series, again,
we want to hear your wacky regional commercials. We've got
(55:14):
a pretty good horse in the race with Donna and
the Wolfman the Shane Company. Uh at radio ads always
you know, they're a thing, They're kind of weird, and
for that we're going to call it a day. Tune
in next week. In the immortal words of our pal Knowll,
(55:35):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. First things first, let's give
it up for our one and only super producer Mr
Max Williams, who you may recognize from earlier appearances as
a special guest on Ridiculous History. And they call me
Ben our ride or die. Our brother in arms. Mr
(00:51):
Noel Brown is away, but we'll be returning soon. Today, Max,
we are diving into a story worry that has haunted
me and hopefully many other people for for some time now.
We're not diving into this story alone. We're going to
talk about a mystery in the world of fast food.
(01:15):
And to do this we have to be joined with
an expert, a very special returning guest Max. Uh, we
both do them, good friend of the show, dear friend
of ours, a famous, infamous member of the Ridiculous History pantheon. Folks,
Let's have a big hand for the one and only
Jonathan Stricklet a little man called Jonathan. As a little
(01:41):
man called Jonathan may sounds strange, do you everybody tells
them what to do? Expert? You say, so, that's as
audio podcast. That's very well done. So, uh, everyone, we
(02:06):
had been hanging out off air, just chatting about uh
this series, this two part episode, and Jonathan, I didn't
know until just now that you have been saving that
McDonald's cup for the entirety of our conversation. Just oh
and the fries. Yeah, I have misoponia, so I'm not
(02:28):
gonna actually eat on Mike. That makes three of us
on this recording, So thank you. Yes, yes, we should
do an episode about misoponia at some point too. So
here we go. Here's here's how our here's how we're
starting this. If you're a ridiculous historian of a certain age,
you might remember time when things were a little bit
(02:49):
different at this world famous fast food chain McDonald's. Like
the menu is still pretty much the same burgers, fries, soda,
but back in the day, kids and adults to life
associated McDonald's with an entire pantheon of food related characters,
the most famous crown jewel, Mr Ronald McDonald. And before
(03:12):
we dive in, Jonathan, just like, off off topic here,
how are you doing? It's been forever. I'm I'm quite well.
Thank you for asking. Yeah, I think since the last
time I chatted with you. I had COVID twice, so
that's great. Wow, No, whatever, it's far far apart uh,
(03:35):
February and then June. Actually probably did have a chat
at some point in between there. But yeah, I managed
to get it over Valentine's Day and over my birthday,
so I know how to mark an occasion. Very nice,
very nice. But apart from that, everything is going very well. Okay, yeah,
(03:56):
other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you find the play?
Right soon? So? Uh, now that we are, now that
we are well met, we have a mystery that we're
going to dive into here, and where better to start
(04:17):
than at the actual history the origin and genesis of McDonald's.
I don't know about you, guys, but I was surprised
by how many strange evolutions and twists and turns this took.
It was. It's weird because some of the statements you
read don't agree with each other, and we can say,
(04:39):
hopefully without throwing too many molotovs, we can safely say
that McDonald's marketing and pr has a very clear, very
specific narrative of their own. Would you agree with that?
I certainly would agree with that. I also think This
is one of those topics where careful note taking was
(05:00):
not part of the process. Right, So whenever we're talking
about something along these lines, you end up with timelines
and recollections that may not measure up. But you're also
talking about different perspectives. We're talking about the the dawn
of the franchise restaurant era, and that's also something that
we should keep in mind throughout the course of these discussions,
(05:22):
because when we talk about McDonald's, you have to remember
in the early days, we were talking about like a
local restaurant. We're not talking about national chain early on,
and so a lot of the things that we would
associate with McDonald's much later that was just not present
in the early days. Yeah, well said, it was a
(05:42):
very very different landscape. McDonald's is named after these two guys,
these brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonald there in San Bernardino, California,
and their dad, Patrick had open a food stand back
in ninety thirties seven called the air Dromee. Uh. The
(06:03):
brothers originally had a car hop. For anybody's unfamiliar with
that idea, it's I guess the best modern comparison is
basically sonic. Right, Sonics does still exist? Right, Yeah, I
think so. Yeah, I think so too. So. So here's
(06:23):
the deal. They these brothers, the brothers McDonald, have this
restaurant idea, and if you look at the original signs,
it advertises barbecue, honestly, and they've been working on this
in the forties and I'm gonna jump in here. McDonald
still advertises barbecue. They have the greatest barbecue dish of
all time, called the McRib we're having the mac ribb debate. No,
(06:49):
I'm just thinking the John Oliver line. It's then the
second episode of Last Week Tonight where he compares to
Mick rib to the death penalty. Okay, I'll buy You're
just gonna leave it there. Okay, you can look up
the video. If you're listening right now, you can look
up that video. It's very easy to find. And we're
gonna find some even more disturbing things as we go,
(07:12):
just the advertising alone. We've got to play some clips
in the future. But here we go. So it's October.
The brothers McDonald have an epiphany. They look at each
other and they say, hey, that's weird. Most of our
profits are only coming from one thing. On the menu, hamburgers,
(07:32):
let's close, we're closing shop. We've got to rethink everything,
and they do, and they really simplify their menu, which
you know, folks like uh Anthony Bourdain will tell you
is the is a good indicator of a good restaurant, right,
a small, short menu. Uh. Eventually they decide, okay, we're
only gonna sell a few things hamburgers, cheeseburgers, potato chips, coffee, soda,
(07:55):
and for some reason, apple pie. Uh I'm not an
apple pie and uh aficionado. So I guess there's a
reason for that. Maybe it was just easy to make
and package, or maybe it's all America. Like apple pie,
it's quite essential, it's very quite essential. They're bad, all right,
(08:18):
But you guys are making me sound on American, which
I mean, are we making you stud on American or
you're you're the one of your questioning the importance of
apple pie, which is like the most on American thing ever.
You can say. Our national pastime is soccer. Now, okay,
I'll play a reindeer games because max apples are originally
from Kazakhstan. Boom. So anyhow, that aside, Uh, the brothers
(08:44):
McDonald say Okay, we need a new building to reflect
our new strategy. It needs to be more efficient, and
it needs to have this kind of eye catching appearance.
Can't just be a squat brick and mortar. And this
is what eats them eventually to what we recognize as
the Golden Arches. But Jonathan, you had noted that the
(09:07):
arches themselves kind of had an evolution, right, Wasn't there
just like one arch at the beginning or something. Well,
it's it's that the actual architecture of the building was
held up by a pair of arches that did not
connect to one another. There was no connection, So you
had a pair of arches, but they didn't form the
letter M. That would actually come much later because Roy croc,
(09:29):
who's a very important person in the history of McDonald's. Uh.
The legend goes that he sold a ton of milkshake
machines to the McDonald brothers and wanted to find out
what the heck they were doing with so many milkshake machines,
and that's what got him interested in the whole McDonald's thing. Well,
he when he started to rethink the logo, he put
(09:51):
these two arches into an overlap with one another to
form the golden arches and make kind of an M shape,
and then later on he would pull them apart a
little a bit more so that they would just make
an M as opposed to this kind of overlapped their
inner the inner legs of the arches were overlapped in
the original logo, so it kind of looked like an
M and kind of looked like a mess. But then
(10:13):
by I think N eight, he had it where it
was the actual M. But yeah, it all dates back
to this second location for for McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah, and
this is something that you know, it is public knowledge,
but I think for a lot of people listening to date,
we've always just sort of thought of McDonald's as this
(10:35):
static thing, right that came into being whole and entire.
It's very much not the case. As as a matter
of fact, I was surprised to learn that McDonald's had
a different mascot before Ronald McDonald. He's a guy named
Speedy sp e E d E E. Yeah, he also
(10:56):
had uh so he's like a chef. He's got a
hamburger head, like a vertical hamburger for a head. You
can still apparently see him around some older McDonald's. But
he was never quite a Ronald. So I actually got
a story about this. Um I did not Uh what
(11:16):
does that look, Jonathan? Oh No, that look was me
being excited to hear your story, because all I was
gonna say is that he has kind of a squinty popeye.
I it looks like he got poked in the in
one of his eyes whenever you see the pictures of him.
But I am, I am eager to hear your story.
So this is a this is from a very young
Maxis memory. So like, this is back when I lived
(11:37):
in Detroit. My family moved here when I was six,
so this is very young. But there was I don't
remember what part of Detroit was, but there was McDonald's
that had this mascot. Still, because I saw this one,
I'm like, oh, yeah, I know that one immediately. I
remember this one. Remember my mom explaining it to me
what the mascot was, and she didn't really know, but
she's like, yeah, I let's sack. I don't know a
different mascot. Oh man, this this is this is creepy
(12:00):
to me. Yeah, Speedy is definitely a product of his
time not being uh you know, we don't mean that
in a disrespectful way. We're just saying that things change,
and that's something that factors into Ronald as well. Uh, Speedy,
look is never in any commercials. You're not going to
hear about them often unless people are specifically talking about
(12:22):
the early history of McDonald's. So r I P. Speedy,
you whizz by us, just like you always promised you
would man your word, Hamburger head of your word. So
Speedy met his demise when a new mascot came into
town in seven, McDonald's officially chose a clown named Ronald
(12:46):
as their new representative. But again, like everything with early McDonald's,
this was part of an ongoing evolution. And Jonathan, I
really like the way you tell the story. Sure. Yeah,
so this was something that I was already familiar with all.
(13:08):
I think a lot of people have heard the story. Uh.
And I started off by saying, you know, Encyclopedia Britannica
says that the first emergence of Ronald McDonald was in
nineteen sixty three. And if you can't trust the Encyclopedia Britannica,
then what kind of crazy world do we live in? Huh? So,
here's here's how things played out. And this also comes
(13:29):
back to that that element that we're talking about a
local restaurant not looking at it as a national chain. Yet.
There was this franchise children's entertainment called Bozo the Clown
which started way back in the nineteen forties, and uh,
in nineteen fifty six, a guy named Larry Harmon said,
(13:50):
this is a good idea. I would like to have
Bozo the Clowns in different markets around the United States.
Let's franchise this children's character. So they did, and you
had lots of little stations around the United States. They
had their very own Bozo the Clown show. It was
all modeled after the original character, but that was played
(14:10):
by different actors, had slightly different setups in the various regions.
The big one obviously was Chicago, but over in the
Baltimore Washington, d c. Area, there was a television station
that had Bozo the Clown and uh. They had hired
a guy named Willard Scott. That name might be familiar
to a lot of you out there to be Bozo
(14:31):
the Clown on this show. And a sponsor for this
show was the local McDonald's, so as McDonald's in the
Baltimore area, but after, you know, a couple of years,
the television station canceled the Bozo the Clown show. Reportedly,
what happens next is Willard's sitting there and someone from
(14:52):
McDonald's comes up to him and says, Hey, we really
like how you were marketing McDonald's in this clown character.
Can you come up with something and be a mascot
for us moving forward so we can continue to use
you in promotional material And he sits down and he
starts thinking about this, and he comes up with another
clown character, original, obviously not not at all inspired by
(15:17):
the fact that he was Bozo the Clown. No, why
why would you think that? Yeah? I don't know. I mean,
he's just like, it's just as a pure coincidence, that's
another clown character. But he names it Ronald McDonald, the
Hamburger Happy Clown, introducing world it was Bill and Hamburger
eating as Wow. Ronald McDonald, Now where is that clown?
(15:41):
I am good? Hey, you didn't watching TV blood personally
we got delicious McDonald Hamburger. Ronald McDonald the Hamburger Happy Clown. Yeah.
So there's there's a side note here that I always
unaware of. There is apparently a clown code that all,
like all clowns in the trade agree to where they
(16:04):
will not rip off each other's stick or their look,
you know, too closely. So one quick procedural note. Uh,
we have an additional non consensual guest on the show today.
It is my neighbor's dog downstairs. Uh. The most diplomatic
(16:25):
way I can put this is that if you have
a dog, make sure your dog is okay. Uh. And UH,
we're just gonna we're gonna roll through this, uh and
hopefully everything works out down there. So there are other
versions of this origin story, but I think we can
agree today. Jonathan Willard Scott's account is considered the most accurate,
(16:51):
even though it's not officially mentioned in you know, like
on the McDonald's website or something. Various executives have thanked
Scott for his creation, and he talks about it in
his book The Joy of Living, and he makes that
Bozo connection, uh, he says in part he says there
(17:13):
was something about the combination of Hamburgers and Bozo that
was irresistible to kids. That's why when Bozo went off
the air a few years later, the local McDonald's people
ask me to come up with a new character to
take Bozo's place. So I sat down created Ronald McDonald
and we, for better or worse, my friends have video
(17:34):
confirmation that this was true. This is where we get
to some creepy parts. I think it's time we talked
about those first McDonald's commercials, which is where the world
learns about Ronald. Yeah, Ronald does not look the way
Ronald would look later on in his storied career as
(17:55):
mascot for McDonald's. Willard Scott's Ronald McDonald is a Frankenstein's
monster of a clown that has suffered a terrible uh
phasing uh mistake. Like you know when you think about
the mutants who can phase through walls and then sometimes
they come to complete solid state in the middle of
(18:16):
a wall, and how terrible that is. He did that
with a plate or a table of a fast food
So he's got like a like a soda cup nose.
He's got like a a tray for a hat that
has hamburgers and French fries on it. He's got a
magic belt that produces hamburgers. Um, it is not it's
(18:38):
not a clown appearance that I would associate with being
welcoming and friendly and uh makes me want to go
and have fast food. It makes me want to run
the other way. But that's again, maybe it's just because
it's a product of its time, and I'm a product
of my time. It's before my time. I'm not that old.
And I will say that the very first commercial that
(19:00):
he appears in is my favorite because at the end
of the commercial there's some music and he's dancing in
the background in the parking lot of this McDonald's, and
he's dancing and dancing, and then the commercial comes to
an end. You can tell the director is said cut,
but the camera continues to capture footage for about a
second and a half later, so you just see Lord
(19:22):
Scott is Ronald McDonald, arms slacked by his side, dead
eye like it is. It is a walking dead vision
of his version of Ronald McDonald. It's very much like, hey, dude,
(19:51):
we get that, we got that. Okay, cool, Oh we're
still shooting. Were cut that in post right? Okay? We
are cool? And they didn't. Johnny, I have two things
I want to say. That one is it's very much
like he was like bawling out a budget. That's what
is set up, is like it's just like uh cup, yeah,
here we go and tray here bam, I got my outfit. Yeah.
(20:13):
And second, um, this is kind of a teaser for
a future episode we would have. Buten have you ever
seen the original Michelin men? Oh yes, yes I have
not for a treat. Look in the chat here on
riverside you can see him. Okay, I'm gonna take a look.
And this is my actual real time reaction once uh oh,
dear lord, Yeah, the pensnez the yeah, yeah, it looks
(20:41):
like the say puff marshmallow man got grilled. That's actually
that is the best description I think Max and I
have heard about about that unfortunate costume. Yeah, when we
talked about different times. You know, just think back on
all the the early turn of the century photos you've
(21:01):
seen of creepy easter bunnies, odds, Santa Claus is, things
like that. This early Ronald McDonald very much does look
like a Frankenstein. His his face is an agglomeration of
what appears to be food and crime. He's got sort
of these uh French fried dreadlock looking hairs. His nose
(21:24):
is replaced by a cup that would probably be for soda.
And it appears that after he's murdered several people, he
has smeared their blood across his mouth. Right. Uh, it's
got a very um like Heath Ledger joker smile kind
of thing. Go on, but even smeared more intenseness. And listen,
(21:50):
we we haven't we haven't reached Sunday yet. We aren't.
We aren't at joker smiles yet. We'll get there, but
I do I do want to say that. Um. You know, again,
this was a local commercial, right, this was not a
national spot that aired across the United States. This is
still an era where you're talking about broadcast television. Cable
(22:12):
hasn't really become a thing yet. Uh, so you don't
have markets that bleed over. Like if your antenna could
pick up something from the next town over, you might see,
you know, one of the channels from there. But this
was not intended to be a national campaign. It was
literally this one McDonald's restaurant that was using this character
(22:35):
to advertise to locals. Yeah, it's kind of like a
a Ford dealership, Like an auto dealership might have their
own ad campaigns, but they don't overall represent for the company.
You know, they're like Dave Davidson's, you know, uh, number
one for dealer in northern Southwest Ohio. I mean to
jump in here. I mean this is one I think
(22:56):
all three of us will know is Donna and the Wolfman.
We all know what that is, right, Yeah. No, I
grew up right down the street. I grew up right
down the street from uh, from that, from that furniture dealership.
So yeah, that's cool. Yeah, but there's a bunch of
people listening right now who are like, what the hell
is Donald and the Wolfman. It's like, no, no no, no,
we know what that is because that was a person
(23:17):
I played for so long in Atlanta or like a
general Atlanta area wif man here. You've got to see
the poster avoiding the gallery fronted, Hey wof Man West Donna.
Now I'm in New York City, but I'll be back soon,
Nicky gown of Don. I'm dearing like por La ni
king dollars, the climbers eighty eight dollar headboard, win Fuller
(23:38):
Queen one dollar board, door Chef thirty nine dollars. That's
gallery funds at twenty five eleven Road Belt Highway in
College part in sixte hundred brown Big Rogan games and hey,
after the wolf Man, you know what, as a matter
of fact, ridiculous historians go over on Facebook or your
social media of choice and let us know your favorite
(23:59):
weird cookie commercials from your neck in the global woods. So,
despite all of the very detailed descriptions we've given you
of old Ronald here, he was a hit people. People
loved this concept right and over the years, uh, he
became a worldwide phenomenon. I don't think it's hyperbolic to
(24:23):
say that he was sort of an integral piece of
American pop culture. Eventually people from other countries started thinking
of Ronald McDonald not just as a symbol of a
fast food place, but as a symbol of some concept
of the United States. Yeah. And you know, this was
one of those things where by seeing how popular this
(24:44):
character and this concept was, to promote this one McDonald's,
it became this this idea to use it as a
a national uh symbol for the chain. And obviously that's
a huge, huge um And with that jump, we would
see a very rapid evolution of the character. It would
(25:06):
not be long before the Nightmarish Scott version of Ronald
McDonald was left behind. And not only that, but we
would see that McDonald's as an organization would codify the
character and how the character is to be portrayed, and
how the character is to be referenced to anyone outside
(25:28):
the organization. Oh yeah, you've hit on something that's just
fascinating to me. So so behind the scenes, McDonald's always
had this kind of ethos of absolute conformity, uniformity, right
even down to little things like the number of sesame
seeds on a bun reportedly, so it shouldn't surprise us
(25:48):
that they template tized the appearances of Ronald McDonald, who
was becoming kind of a secular Santa Clause. Uh, you
and Max and I found that they're one is actually
not one, but a couple of official rule books for
all actors playing Ronald. And I found a wonderful Reader's
Digest article on this, and I thought maybe we could
(26:11):
round robin some of the uh, some of the commandments
for would be Ronald's. I changed the language a little
because I think it's funny for them to be referred
to as a Ronald. That part was me, but the
rest is true. Excellent. Uh. Shall shall I begin? Please?
Do Commandment number one, never hug the kids. At most,
(26:38):
Ronald may only pat the children upon the back. Commandment
number two. A Rinald must also sign numerous waivers saying
that they'll never reveal what they've learned working for the company.
Number three. All Ronalds can and should promote the idea
of fun to their customers. They should not directly promote
(26:58):
the food itself. Commandment the fourth. If kids ask, a
Ronald cannot reveal to them the dark trade secret that
burgers come from cows. Commandment number five. Whenning character, a
Ronald cannot eat McDonald's food due to makeup concerns. Okay,
(27:19):
it makes sense, so we've just got a couple war here.
So here's commandment six. A Ronald has to be fit, or,
as readers digest put it quote, at least have a
body that appears to be fit man. I I long
to have a body that appears to me to be
fit man. What body is shaming? Here's the last commandment.
(27:44):
Ronald must follow us script when answering questions asked by customers.
If they don't have an answer that fits, a Ronald
is instructed to say, and this is true, ask someone
wearing normal shoes, which I think is actually something that
we can take from the ronalds. I feel like that's
(28:06):
a great way to pass the buck in just any situation.
Do you think I could get away with telling or
boss that email chain? Absolutely? And I remember being on
a previous episode where there was a lot of talk
about the dangers of wearing long pointy shoes. So normal
shoes is a very important thing. Yes, absolutely agreed. Uh.
(28:29):
Now we see that McDonald's at this time under the
leadership of Kroc. Fully Uh, they know they're onto something.
In the nineteen seventies or so, they asked a like
seventies seventy one, They ask a marketing ad agency named
need Him, Harper and Steers to turn up the gas.
As a result, the firm comes up with the idea
(28:52):
of something called McDonald land Ronald. They decided would no
longer be a solo act. Now, this this thing runs
from about nineteen seventy one to two thousand and three,
and I wanted to ask you, guys, do you recall
ever seen one of these commercials? Oh, my gosh, Ben,
come on. I so I grew up in the nineteen seventies,
(29:16):
I lived less than a half mile from a McDonald's
which we could walk to from my house in Gainesville, Georgia.
I have distinct memories of various McDonald Land characters and
commercials and oh my, Drew Geese. You may have forgotten
things being so scory, all right, and people quick to forget,
(29:38):
but those visions haunt my nightmares to this day. I
think that is that is a wonderful clockwork Orange reference there.
So yeah, McDonald Land is a trip. It's a it's
a built out, pretty well imagined universe. That's kind of
a place of wind z and wonder picture the candy
(30:03):
uh like the the candy warehouse in Gene Wilder's Willy
Wonka adaptation. That's kind of what it looks like. And
there are tons of anthropomorphic things inanimate objects are animate,
and speaking of plants and food are also a capable
of communication. Apple Pie trees again they there. It's very
(30:26):
much a pro apple Pie company, milkshake, volcanoes, hamburger patches.
They even have a theme park all centered around items
on the McDonald's menu. And this was for some reason
an important question for me. Yes, there are McDonald's restaurants
in McDonald's Land. They're not worried about the inception of that. Yeah. No,
(30:51):
if you if you look carefully, you'll see that the
little spinny ride in the playground is still turning at
the very end. So we don't know if we're still
with in McDonald land, if we have actually escaped to reality.
That that question is left up to the individual customer.
Mm hmmm, yeah, your imagination mileage may vary. Now. They
(31:12):
even had a theme song and Max, No, no, you
do you think we can get away with playing this clip?
Catch just sound real? Take? Okay, so that's a piece
(31:34):
of the theme song. You can hear the whole thing
in its entirety on YouTube pretty easily. You might be
listening to this and thinking, hey, this sounds like an
actual TV show. Well, you're right, and that will become
a problem later. Don't worry, we'll get to it. Uh.
But we it might sound like we're spending a lot
(31:56):
of time talking about how weird these early days were.
But to be clear, uh, McDonald's as an organization in
the real non McDonald land world was doing some good things.
They were doing some acts of charity. Yes, that's right.
So in nineteen seventy four, the company McDonald's established the
(32:16):
Ronald McDonald House. The original one in Philadelphia Fred Hill,
who was a football player for the Philadelphia Eagles. I
believe it was his daughter who had leukemia. And so
the concept was to build a house where families could
stay if their children were hospitalized in the nearby hospital,
So they wouldn't have to travel hours in and out
(32:37):
of town in order to visit their kids. They could
stay temporarily in this place, and they wouldn't have to
spend exorbitant amounts of money like at a hotel. And
you know, we wanted to bring this up because we
are going to be kind of, you know, poking a
lot of fun at Ronald McDonald. I mean, the whole
purpose of the character is to get kids to want
(32:58):
to go eat fast food. So there are a lot
of downsides that we can really talk about there. But
we also want to acknowledge that this was an organization,
or this is an organization that also has done some
some legitimate good work, uh, for various communities. Yeah, yeah,
and that's an important point. You know, it also might have,
(33:21):
as will come to see, done some important work for
Ronald McDonald when things got dicey, right, So, Yeah. So
we mentioned there's a pantheon. There's now there's a woutang
of McDonald's. Right, they've got we've got a crew. Uh,
you mentioned one who's actually first on my list, Jonathan.
Can you tell us about Sunday. Yeah. So Sunday a
(33:51):
k A. Pup face killer, Uh, was a anthropomorphic dog originally. Um.
And here's the creepy thing about this dog character. First
of all, it has almost like like a tear type
shape under one eye. Kind of made me think of
like a David Bowie glam look. It has more like
(34:12):
a human mouth under its snout, which is truly disturbing
uh in its original incarnation. And it has the most
chipper upbeat personality you've ever heard, which is me lying
because it sounds like someone who is on the verge
of needing to talk to a counselor Uh, it is
(34:32):
a person. It's this monotone, depressing voice. You're sitting there
wondering who hated dogs so much that they needed to
create this character to exorcize their inner demon. I love dogs,
I love all animals. I hope that dog downstairs is okay.
(34:54):
You're right though, Uh, Sunday has what we would call
big e or vibes. You know, he's a little bit
of a downer. He doesn't like ticks. He beefs it
with the Hamburglar. Is particularly one thing called Visitors from
Outer Space, where he insults the Hamburglar by calling him
Hammy and bun head. Uh. And then that that's kind
(35:16):
of just sounds a little racist there, Yeah really, uh yeah,
we don't. Yeah, we don't far be it for us
to disparage Sunday without knowing what Sunday's lived experiences are.
But it's kind of a it's you know, it's not
the happiest dog. That's just true. That's part of the character. Uh.
(35:38):
And this gives us a segue. So when I really
want to talk about just as a quick laundry list, here,
we'll go through several of these panthonic characters. We might
spend more time on some than others. I loved the Hamburglar,
you know what I mean. He's like fighting the system
with my understanding, you know. Uh. He he's like that
(36:02):
classic trope of so many mascots, you know, from the
tricks Rabbit to the uh like the Nooid. I think
he clearly informs the Noid later he's got that beef
going on. Yeah, well he wants to have that beef
going on. I want to say that, I want to
I want to say that. Uh that he was probably
(36:23):
inspired by the character Whimpy as well from the Popeye series.
Right I can. I will gladly pay you Tuesday for
a Hamburger today. Uh, Hamburglar is always trying to have
that big heist of all those juicy hamburgers, and it's
just foiled. Usually he's hoisted by his own petard. It's
normally his fault for for getting caught. But yeah, the
(36:46):
Hamburglar was one of my favorite characters too of the
McDonald's panthion when I was growing up. I uh, and
I was more familiar with his second incarnation because, as
we all learned, uh, Hamburgler had a phoenix like existence
and that it existed in in one form first just
like Ronald did, and then transformed somewhat afterward. Yeah. Yeah,
(37:11):
ham the Hamburgler had a glow up midway through his career.
He he started off as a he's like a kind
of a Benjamin Button thing going on here. He started
off as a villain, and it was more than one
villain in the McDonald land. Uh. And he was very
clearly an older character, had long, stringy gray hair. Uh,
(37:33):
he was bald at the top of his head. Uh.
And he was a creepy old guy who desperately wanted
to heist Hamburgers. But then it's strange because originally he
wasn't called the Hamburger at all, Hamburglar at all. He
was called the lone Jogger, which is uber creepy. Yeah,
(37:55):
that was. That was. It was supposed to be a
take off the Lone rain Juror because like the Lone Ranger,
he wore a mask, he had a wide brimmed hat,
so he was like the Lone Ranger, but he was
the lone Jogger because he doesn't have a horse, he
doesn't wander the range. That was the idea behind it.
In retrospect, we can look back on that and just
(38:17):
say like, yeah, that uh yeah, maybe we've all watched
too much Law and Order or something. But loan loan
Jogger does conjure different images. And also, i'll point out,
and see this discussed often, I'll point out that if
you are an anti McDonald's person, you're anti Ronald's message,
(38:39):
then uh, you could, with some validity say that this
puts exercising in a bad light anyway. Whatever, whatever their motivation,
the lone Jogger became the Hamburgler character. And then the
Hamburglar had his reverse aging moment. Uh, and I think
it was around nine eight five, mid nineteen eighties. He evolves.
(39:03):
He's no longer an old, angry uh Hamburger hoarder. He's
he's like a rebellious, muteness mischievous redhead, kind of Dennis
the Menace. And he gets a cape and the cape
is cool. Capes are cool. Uh. There's also Birdie, the
(39:24):
early bird I like. I was astonished by how many
of these were new to me. Uh. There were the
fried kids. I guess we should we gotta talk. Yeah,
I mean, I I remember Bertie because I remember when
McDonald's introduced its breakfast menu, because again, I lived like
half a mile away from McDonald's and that was happening
right around that time, and the character was introduced in
(39:46):
an effort to promote that. And you know, I like
the idea of being able to walk half a mile
and grab a whole bunch of really substandard pancakes. I
actually really did love those pancakes is the one thing
that McDonald's actually like to eat and um. And so
I remember that character very well, and she was extremely
klutzy and uh chipper, you know, had a had a
(40:08):
positive personality, but was kind of seen as being a
clumsy character who was always getting in her own way.
Because I have a question, I want to post you
all and just just kind of see what y'all think
about this. But you know, and a lot of let's
call it what it is marketing to children. What they'll
commonly do is they'll portray, you know, the heroes as children,
(40:30):
and they'll portray you know, the villains as adults. And
I mean I wonder if like that was like a
whole marketing like things that we're thinking about because with
like the hamburglar him being like an old evil guy,
but then it's like, oh, this guy is not evil,
he's friends with all of them. He instantly becomes a
child like a child. Because you know, McDonald's will say
(40:50):
they'll be like, no, we never ever intentionally marketing the children.
Oh that's all these companies will. But we all know,
I mean, marketing words directly children has been I think
we've done in this country country for a very long time,
and we've done that episode about ovaltine, which is directly
marketing the children. And you know, now it's it's basically illegal.
(41:11):
We can still get around it sometimes. But I'm wondering
if that was a concerted effort they might take. I
think that's a good point. Yeah, I know, I would.
I would bet on that as being part of the strategy.
That it was literally, how can we uh convince more
kids to be excited about this product so that they
bug their parents to go and we can sell things
(41:34):
to their parents. And I think that's exactly what was
going on. You also have to look at when these
commercials were airing, and a lot of them were airing
during the after school programming that would be on as
soon as kids would get home. You know, I'm a
gen X or I'm a latch key kid. I'd come home,
turn on the TV and there would be commercials for
McDonald's right next to commercials for things like g I
(41:54):
Joe and he Man. So this was this was a
concerted and strategic effort, and it was definitely you know,
it had purpose behind it. It It wasn't just creating colorful characters. Yeah, Yeah,
I really think you're onto something there, Max. We we
know that this was successful. If you look at a
lot of McDonald land commercials from the time, Ronald is
(42:17):
joined with kids sidekicks, right, and they're sort of you know,
they're they're keeping this creepy old man from stealing the burgers.
So there's definitely some psychology at play. There are also,
you know, functionaries and authorities in this world. Mayor mccheese
is is one of the most notable examples. He's a
(42:38):
guy um kind of like maybe in the distant past,
related to speedy because he also has a hamburger head,
but he's is horizontal, so like the bun and the
cheese and the burgers kind of his mouth and uh,
he is for some reason wearing a Diplomats sash. He's
very like he is the he's the oligarch of McDonald's, right,
(43:03):
he is, he's the one percenter and uh he has spectacles,
et cetera. And he's kind of like lovable and bumbling
and you know, we getting himself into high jinks. Uh.
He is based on another character called h. R. Puffing Stuff.
Have you guys heard of HR puffing Stuff? Yes, the
(43:23):
creation of of Sid and Marty Croft, who were uh
who were They were pioneers, you know, of a sorts
of of children's entertainment mostly looked back on as being uh,
purveyors of psychedelic material. Like if you watch old Puffin
(43:46):
Stuff's uh footage, you're thinking, this looks like everyone involved,
from the actors to the crew, to the editors, to
two people who are probably just getting a contact hie
crossing the street, they were all on something and it's
bleeding through the screen. Uh. That was something that was
something that you could really take home with Sid and
(44:08):
Marty Croft. And I mentioned this in our notes way
at the bottom over in the little tangent side. But
just since we're talking about it, I want to mention
really quickly. Here in Atlanta, we for a short while
had the Sid and Marty Croft World, an amusement park.
It was in what is now the CNN Center, but
(44:29):
back then we just called it the Omni. And if
you had ever been in there, this would be many
years ago now. But if as a kid you had
ever visited the Omni, you would have noticed there was
this enormous freestanding escalator. I mean, it was longer than
you think an escalator should be allowed to be and
that was the escalator that would take you up to
(44:50):
the Sid and Marty Croft world. It isn't there anymore.
The CNN Center still there and you can see part
of where the escalator was. But yeah, that was something
that as a kid, I always wondered about. That closed
six months after it opened in nineteen seventy six. I
was born the year before, so if I ever did go,
I certainly don't remember it. Wow, it just it just
(45:11):
informed your lifelong terror of escalators. That's true. Yeah, you
know what, it's terrible. I have fallen down an up
escalator for about three days straight and it was offen. Hey, escalator,
escalators suck, Jonathan. I'm with you on this, man, Escalators
for the work. Are you serious? They're the stairs of
the future. Elevators suck too. Just give me some stairs, man,
(45:33):
that's all stairs. I'm a fan. Uh yeah, this is okay.
So the Croft thing is going to be important later.
But wait, as Billy Mays was wanting to say, there's more,
McDonald's land is home to tons of characters. Captain Crook,
Officer Big Mac, the Professor, the McNugget Buddies, the Happy
Meal Gang, Uncle O, Grimacy, for some reason, Cosmic, a
(45:56):
cavalcade of others. But Jonathan, there's one guy we haven't
really mentioned yet. It's a character named Grimace. It's a
man of mystery. And then we have a question for
you that I will I will defer to Max four.
All right, Jonathan, do you ever listen to the MPR
game show? Wait? Wait, don't tell me. I do. And
(46:18):
I just want to say that those who know me
and my alter ego, I feel really uncomfortable that the
tables they have been turned upon me. All right, well,
don't worry, don't it's not really question. Actually I guess
it is question. Yeah, so this is from way we
don't tell me. A number of months ago I asked
Ben and Null this and I got a very genuine
(46:39):
reaction out of the two of them, including having him
to be Ben for a word. He said, But I'm
gonna ask you this. Do you know what Grimaces? Uh?
Do I know what Grimaces? I don't. I the I
always thought he was just some sort of indeterminate anthropomorphic thing.
I do know that he used to be a bad guy,
(47:00):
and he had four arms and stole milkshakes. So he's
distantly related to Goro from Mortal Kombat, but apart from that,
I don't know. So this is according to the people
that wait, wit, don't tell me. They had this as
a poll question on the show. I have seen many
people debate this, but I'm just telling you this is
the answer they gave. He is a taste bud. That's
(47:24):
absolutely horrifying. I will not sleep tonight. And it's your fault. Max.
I feel like I've achieved by maximum goal for the
day now. Mm hmm. So I was surprised into profanity
when I when I learned this, and it's it's a
great question to ask, and Jonathan, my my response from
(47:47):
my assumption, we're very much in line with with yours.
We canna take a flame one way flav from McDonald
land back to Texas. One more thing, one more thing.
He doesn't know what Grimace is. He's a blob, right
purple blob? Is he catching? Is he a condiment? He's
a one giant taste bud? Oh? Gross? So fuck up.
(48:14):
I'm not okay. I'm not I'm not okay with this, Like,
why is it not a tongue? I talked about that
last time. If you're gonna make it that big? Why
is it one giant taste bud? Why why is it
not just a blob of rancid ice cream goo at
the bottom of one of the perpetually broken ice cream machines. Oh,
(48:38):
and there is a conspiracy theory about that, which goes
to a different show. But I've I've got to send you,
I've got to send you some articles. So, yes, there's
there's this whole thing happening. Kids know all about it.
Uh you know. Of course, the appeal is pretty apparent
for kind of thrifty caregivers because you can buy a
(48:59):
happy meal and you're feeding the kid and you're also
getting them a toy, so you can potentially like skip
the trip to the toy store. And I don't know
how often that worked, but it's important. You can tell already,
ridiculous historians, this world has been fleshed out. This is
beyond the level of world building that most other fast
(49:21):
food companies are going to engage in. And McDonald Land
is a lot like a TV show. Turns out, we're
not the only ones who thought so. Remember who Jonathan
you just mentioned a few minutes ago, sit in Marty
Croft in v. Three. They sued McDonald's and they said, look,
this whole McDonald land concept is plagiarized from our work.
(49:45):
The jury, which I have in notes as the justy.
The jury found in favor of the Crofts. McDonald's was
first ordered to pay fifty grand, then they were ordered
to pay one million dollars, and they were also told
that they have to pull some characters from their campaigns
or reimagine them into more legally distinct designs. Yet still
(50:09):
they soldiered on. From two thousand three, Ronald had his
own video series, not calling it a TV show because
it was straight to video. It was called The Wacky
Adventures of Ronald McDonald. Yeah, that's where Sunday the Dog
first showed up. Oh okay, so it's kind of a darker, edgier.
(50:30):
I mean, have you seen pictures of Sunday the Dog.
I think it's accurate. I mean, Ben, this brought the beef.
I'm loving that we're going through a beef phase. Uh,
we're going with this beef phase and not telling anywhere.
We're not going to explain it. Sorry, Jonathan. It's just
like Looper. So behind the fast food counter, though, trouble
(50:55):
is a bruin, and we're not talking about that hot
coffee lawsuit. Internally, McDonald's is conflicted about whether they should
keep showcasing these characters or moving a new direction. A
new ad agency is in the mix, Leo Burnett, and
they say, look, McDonald Land, all its inhabitants, that time
has passed. Goodbye to the old man and the mischievous
(51:17):
young Hamburgler. They should be relegated to the sidelines in
favor of our new slogan, our new campaign. I'm loving it.
And they won the argument. McDonald land characters didn't go away,
but they were no longer front and center. This could
rightfully be called the purge of McDonald Land. Ronald, one
(51:37):
of the lone survivors, probably felt something in the wind.
Increasingly it was time to reassess the clown. And this
is where we're gonna end part one, I think, because
now we're getting to the turn right. We set up
the mystery, now we're gonna investigate it. Uh, Jonathan, I
(51:58):
know that when we originally ask you to do this,
we did not say it was going to be a
two parter, but thank you very very much for coming
on the show. It became abundantly clear, abundantly clear as
I looked at the notes that there was no way
this could be a single episode, And just like another
(52:18):
story about a beloved clown and dairy Maine, We're gonna
divide it up into two chapters, and y'all, this will
be it. I'm gonna love how like we're seeing this
whole thing. John's gonna be back for part two, and
then we're just not gonna address the fact that Matt
Frederick's going to be on part two with us instead.
(52:43):
So yes, Jonathan will be returning for Part two, coming
later this week in the meantime as always, thanks of
course to Mr Max Williams, thanks to Casey Pegram, Chris
rossiotis E's Jeff Coat, thanks to the Man the myth Legend,
Mr Noel Brown, who will be returning soon. Jonathan. One
(53:03):
of the reasons that we're so appreciative of you coming
coming on the show for this two parter is that
you are one of the busiest of all our colleagues,
which is saying a lot when you were not hanging
out classing up ridiculous history. If you're one of the
world's leading experts in technology, podcast with the long running show,
(53:27):
tech Stuff. Could you tell us a little bit about
that and where to find you, as well as more
of your work. Absolutely. So tech Stuff is my my love,
it's my pride and joy. It's a show that we
originally launched back in two thousand and eight. Uh, the
current incarnation of tech Stuff. It's a single host show.
We published five times a week, and we kind of
(53:48):
cover everything about technology. Uh. Some episodes are more technical
and that I will go into a bit more detail
about how stuff works. Hey, and then some of the
episode dhades are more about the impact of technology and
how it is changing the way we live or things
(54:08):
that we should be concerned about, whether it's surveillance or
it's the the fact that data is the new currency.
It's not crypto, folks, it's your information. That's that's the
currency of the world today, and that's why everybody wants
as much of it as they possibly can get. So
that's kind of what the show is all about. I
(54:29):
also do some other fun stuff you will be able
to hear very soon, the return of the large nor
Drown Collider. It's been a hiatus for a bit, but
that's my goofy pop culture podcast with my friend Ariel,
where we cover some of the geek news of the week,
but we also mesh up unrelated geek properties and find
out what happens when, say, the Transformers has a run
(54:52):
in with my little pony um and it's brilliant and uh,
Michael Bay you can call me anytime you want and
we can't wait for you to get in touch with us, folks.
As we are building toward part two of this series, again,
we want to hear your wacky regional commercials. We've got
(55:14):
a pretty good horse in the race with Donna and
the Wolfman the Shane Company. Uh at radio ads always
you know, they're a thing, They're kind of weird, and
for that we're going to call it a day. Tune
in next week. In the immortal words of our pal Knowll,
(55:35):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.