Not Another D&D Podcast - Rot Topic - The Bizarre History of McDonaldland

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Welcome to Rot Topic, the show where we delve deep into the dumpsters of our mind and share our fascinating findings with the world! This week, Head Rotsearcher Emily Axford takes us on a tou...r of the french-fried fantasy realm known as "McDonaldland." WARNING: Spoilers for "The Founder" (2016) ABOUND.Images and videos referenced in the episode are linked below!First-Ever Appearance of Ronald McDonaldOriginal McDonaldland CommercialEvil Grimace CommercialGrimace Bounce & BendGrimace's Beautiful LipsMac Tonight CommercialCREDITSSound Mixing and Editing by Trevor LyonGet tickets to our Radio City and Sydney Opera House shows HERE!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:01 This is a headgum podcast. Welcome to ROT topic. Whoa. Ew. We're trying out something new. Be on the lookout for Gangs of Neogal later on, our new campaign coming out on March 26th. Next week we'll be doing dungeon court. But we thought in the meantime we try something fun.
Starting point is 00:00:26 We've got a lot of dumb stuff that we talk about, particularly over at the mixed bag and short rest over on the Patreon. There's a lot of like nostalgia. fever dream. Yeah. If you know anything about us, we like to work way too hard on something very dumb. Yeah. So we've decided to do a little bit of a deep dive into McDonald's land since we've talked about that.
Starting point is 00:00:46 The hamburger has leaked into the main... Yes, that's right. This is really related to me. Yeah. Because we've talked about VHS's at McDonald's. Yes, we've talked about... The Nugget Friends. Yes, the Nugget Friends.
Starting point is 00:00:59 A lot of childhood memories of McDonald's and the characters of it, and then it finally Nyack disguising himself as the hamburger. I think it was kind of like the slow launch of the fact that we talk about a watershed moment. Yeah. I would say a McDonald's Sunday shed moment. Yeah. McDonald's land has become a huge part of the NAD pod nightmare verse.
Starting point is 00:01:21 Certainly has. Yeah. And so we're going to try this out. Maybe every once in a while do some rot topic where we come up with something dumb that we've been talking about and do a little bit of a deep dive into it. Something that's specifically rotting our brain. Like the brain worms, this is how we expunge them is by talking about it in depth like this. Right.
Starting point is 00:01:39 Like the hamburger has pretty interesting origins. Yeah. Emily went into that. He's a misunderstood hero. Well, actually, he's not. He's not. He was worse. And then gets a baby face turn.
Starting point is 00:01:53 Like, he would not believe. And then they try to make him hot in the 2015s. We'll talk about that. I think they succeeded. Because Emily, you're going to be our head rot searcher for this episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I felt I felt the. Hall of research.
Starting point is 00:02:06 Yeah. Of research that I could never get a PhD on. I watched a lot of stuff over M's shoulder. Oh, yeah. I just, I know some of this stuff. I remember the freaking McDonald's land playgrounds. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:19 You already had your McDonald's master's. Uh-huh. And I really delved into it in the past day to the point where when I was putting on my socks this morning, I was like, whoa, these socks are like grimace purple. And then I was like, dear God, I'm going to burn these papers when I'm done with them. Okay, so I thought we would kick it off just with a little history of McDonald's creation itself, because I thought it was a little interesting. Spoilers for the founder. Spoilers for the founder.
Starting point is 00:02:49 Huge spoilers. Watch out. Michael Keaton, get off our fucking ass. Yeah, get off our ass, dude. Spoilers to the founder, go ahead. I fucking did this already. Okay. In 1940 brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald, aka Dick and Mac,
Starting point is 00:03:03 open a car hop drive-in barbecue stand in San Bernardino, California. However, in 1948, they find out that the hamburgers are selling so well that they make a limited menu and they simplify the menu, expedite the process so that they're just selling hamburgers, cheeseburgers, coffee, potato chips, soft drinks, ice cream, and apple pie. Fuck yeah. Yeah, man. God, take me back. In 1952, they moved their burger joint into a new building, which features for the
Starting point is 00:03:33 first time two 25 foot yellow sheet metal arches trimmed in gold known as the golden arches. You got to get those custom made. Spoilers for the founder. If you see them, they are like, they don't spell an M. They're like on both sides. They almost look like little handle. Right, like the gateway to heaven. Whoa. That's probably what was based on it. The pearly gates. Yeah. I think so. Spoilers for the founder, I guess. Spoilers for the founder, yeah. Well, they also create a roadside sign featuring their very first mascot. Speedy. A chef with a human body And a huge hamburger head
Starting point is 00:04:07 Yeah, I will say speedy Yeah Speedy looks a lot like Mr. Met Is he really? Is he kind of the proto Merrimack cheese In some ways? In some ways He's like, so Merrimic Cheese
Starting point is 00:04:19 Is also a rip off of something else Is a ripoff? We'll learn. There's lawsuits galore. Age something puff and stuff? Oh yeah, Sid Marty Croft, HR puff and stuff. Yeah, HR puff and stuff.
Starting point is 00:04:30 There you go. Each something puff and stuff The fuck am I talking about? But he, speedy is like a bun turns like vertically. And Mayor McShe's is like just a straight up burger. Yeah. Bun turned vertically? Yeah, it's just like everything's going to fall out.
Starting point is 00:04:47 Oh, oh, I thought it was like, and to the side. Oh, to the side. He's like a thin head. That looks like genital. No, yeah. His mouth like talks like vertically. Oh, yeah. I guess you know what I'm thinking of.
Starting point is 00:05:00 George. That's what I'm thinking of. Georgia O'Beefe, go on Georgia O'Beefe, that's good. Oh, that would have been good. Wow, that's good. We can do our own faster thing. That should have been McDonald's mascot.
Starting point is 00:05:11 Where is Georgia O'Beefe in McDonald's land? Show me that suggestive vaginal burger. Spoilers for the founder they wish. Spoilers for the founder. Right, yeah. There's the scene where Keaton is just rejecting that. And that's, and then like 20 years later they flash forward and he's like, fucking shit a gombed with Georgia O'Beefe.
Starting point is 00:05:26 Well, the reason that I highlight Speedy is because not only is the first mascot, but also he's a nod. to their kind of cynical business model, in my opinion. Oh, yeah. Because they implement a number of techniques to encourage eaters to eat more quickly, including but not limited to reducing heating in the dining area, placing seats far enough apart to reduce socialization. Great. And using cone-shaped cups so customers have to hold their drinks while eating.
Starting point is 00:05:55 Fucking brilliant. Okay, so is this- Get it, man, get around. Are these the original McDonald's brothers doing this? Yeah. Okay. So they're kind of jerks too. Yeah. Because there's a lot of...
Starting point is 00:06:04 Efficiency King. Yeah, okay. Because there's a narrative of... I think everyone in this story is probably just bad. Right, right. The narrative is like, oh, these humble burger guys
Starting point is 00:06:12 got taken advantage of it. Eat our shit! Get the fuck out! No, you can't be war! You get burgers and you fucking walk! It's like something from like a rolled doll book. It's just like, ah, we'll make the cup's cone
Starting point is 00:06:24 so they can't put him down. It's fucking Matilda's dad shit. I do. Honestly, I love a cone cup. There's something so great about. Do you just love holding something and not having two hands to eat? No, dude, that's terrible. A cone cup?
Starting point is 00:06:36 It's been so nostalgic for me. Yeah, for water. Yeah, right. On the tennis court when I was like 10 years old. Whoa. Pulling it out of the iglo sleeve. Oh, yeah. That's so funny because I associate a cone cup with like the doctor's office.
Starting point is 00:06:48 Oh, wow. That's a negative association. I think that's really interesting. Yeah, it is an office building accessory. Yeah. I was thinking about getting one for my office. Oh. They brought that office couture to McDonald's.
Starting point is 00:07:00 I would be so mad if someone handed me a cone cup at a restaurant. I know. Yeah, a restaurant with burgers and fries. But even, yeah, even at McDonald's, if you just had to hold your drink. Wait, wait, because they had milk shakes there too, right? Like, or maybe not at this point. At this point, they didn't have milk chicks. So the ice cream and that apple pie.
Starting point is 00:07:16 Okay. Was the founder right? It's Roycroft great. Was that his name, Roycroft? Roycroft, yeah. So in 1953, they start franchising. And what their franchising is not just like their food recipe. It's this operation.
Starting point is 00:07:31 It's this like efficiency model. Right. It's these cone cups that no one can put down. How uncomfortable can people be while eating and still enjoy themselves? The hamburger is not the only villain in this story. The other villains are everyone. The seat is also like cone. Because like now I feel like people can like build algorithms or like they have like models they
Starting point is 00:07:53 can use to test this stuff. But back then they're just like, we're just going to make all of our clients uncomfortable. I just noticed that everyone leaves quicker when they have a cone. Because I'm-cubs for everyone. I believe the original, like, implementation of, like, the red and yellow is to, like, get everyone the fuck out of there. It is, like, an uncomfortable color palette. That could be because of this. Everything was designed to do that.
Starting point is 00:08:14 Which is, like, much more subtle. And I think maybe a better way to handle it than to just be, like, just give them gups that you can't put down. But that color palette is terrible for employees, right? Like, that's the... Certainly irritating. Yeah. Yeah. So they start franchising it, but I don't think that they even intended.
Starting point is 00:08:30 for it to be like, yes, you also have to take the name. It was just the first guy to franchise it, just to the surprise of everyone, used the name McDonald's. And then everyone followed suit, except for one guy in North Hollywood, who insisted on calling his place, Peaks.
Starting point is 00:08:44 That's awesome. Peaks because of the artists. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's peak. It's weird that they were surprised that the franchisees would want to name it
Starting point is 00:08:54 after the popular thing. Right, yeah. Yeah. But I think this is just, this is when, like, franchising isn't even, even as much of the thing. What year is this, by the way? 1953.
Starting point is 00:09:03 1953. So like music at this point in time is mostly just people copying other people's music. So it makes sense that for like a business you'd be like, well, I'm just going to do the successful thing. Yeah. Sell it again. And honestly. No heat you say?
Starting point is 00:09:15 That's pretty smart. It's going to be a pitfall that gets McDonald's sued multiple times. It's just copying other people. So then 1954, Ray Kroc enters the scene. He's kind of, I mean. Oh, it's Ray Kroc. Not right. Right.
Starting point is 00:09:29 You're thinking of Marty Croft, sit in Marty Croft. Ray Crock. Ray Croc. The topic guys are crofts and we got Croft. Sure. At some point I said Ray Croft and everyone was like, yes, that's correct. Check their earlier podcast, I think.
Starting point is 00:09:43 We did that to make you look stupid, man. Or maybe we're trying to be supportive. All right, sure. We don't like to tell Murph now. Yeah. We saw you watching. I feel like I made a mistake and then said, is it Croft or Kraft and you guys said Croft?
Starting point is 00:09:56 And now we're to say crap. Well, Play it back. I didn't know. Play it back. Maybe I'm wrong. Emily texted us and said, hey, Murph gets really sensitive
Starting point is 00:10:03 about all this McDonald's stuff because it's so important to him. So please be. It is kind of important in him. Not like currently in his life, however. Right. Well,
Starting point is 00:10:15 not the like Ray Kroc part of it is cool. But freaking the hamburger? Yeah. Or just the McNuggets when they dress up? Well, maybe argue that Ray Kroc is the original hamburger. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:10:29 I actually don't know if anyone else argued that. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and no one said that. Maybe it's been said before, but maybe not. I like that. Let's say. So Ray Crock is just a milkshake machine salesman. And he sees that one place is using, yeah, Sprolet for the founder.
Starting point is 00:10:47 See that one place is using eight of his milkshake machines. And he's like, what the fuck's going on? Goes there only to discover a formula for efficient dining he believed could thrive anywhere in the United States. Not just California. Spoilers for the founder. I got to say, watching them work those little ketchup squirters looks kind of fun.
Starting point is 00:11:08 Sure. You have these like, it's in the founder. They have these like, they have these like funnel things where they just like press a button and squirt ketchup on like 12 burgers at the same time. Wow. That's satisfying.
Starting point is 00:11:20 That is fun. So that's satisfying. That's the fun part about it. The not fun part about it is the cones. Yeah. And the land. accumulation. That'll come later.
Starting point is 00:11:31 That'll come later. In fact, I don't think we'll talk about that. But basically, he goes to the brothers and he says, I think we can do this elsewhere. They're like,
Starting point is 00:11:39 it would only work in California. You're crazy. But here's the rights to, here's the right to open. People only want to be freaking cold inside and drink out of cone cups in that cold and sand burger diesel is the thing.
Starting point is 00:11:49 Burgers are illegal in the southeast because of religion. So with his, with the permission of the founders. Sure. Dick and Mac. Dick and Mac. He opens, he starts opening McDonald's.
Starting point is 00:12:01 And by 1960, they're grossing 56 million annually, thanks to the suburbanization and the rise of the U.S. automobile. And by 1961, he bought out the founding McDonald's brothers for $2.7 million. Wow. If you were making, how much annually were they making? $256 million. 56 million. You would take a buyout.
Starting point is 00:12:26 out for two? I think they got 0.5% of every place opened. Oh, okay. So they probably weren't They didn't get much. Yeah. And I think you, we have to watch the founder. Yeah. I really dig into this. Yeah, I don't, yeah. I think the Dick and Mac were in it just for the love of the game, the game being expediency. Yeah, just for the love of keeping people cold and I'm going to get their drinks down. Yeah, they like having their little hell boxes where people suffer just a little bit. They were all about mom and pop torturing people. to like mass doing it.
Starting point is 00:12:58 They wanted to torture people and see the pain on their faces. They put it in there and they opened Dick's last stand for their mean to you. Oh yeah, Dick. It's right in the name. Wow. Which was originally called Dick's Mac stand.
Starting point is 00:13:08 Whoa. Spoilers for the founder. So the reason that he bought them out too was because they were like disagreeing with how they wanted to move forward. They wanted the restaurants colder. Georgia O'Beefe reared her head again. Yeah, actually Dick and Mac were like
Starting point is 00:13:25 Georgia O'Beefe. And but obviously Ray Croc had other ideas. What was his other idea? In 1963, Ronald McDonald appears for the first time in a televised commercial. Croc was right. I'm sorry. He's the fucking hero. Like, he brings Ronald, though.
Starting point is 00:13:48 Yeah. Well, what does McDonald's without Ronald? Wait till you see the first iteration of Ronald. He looks so bad. He's covered in trash. We're going to watch it in a second, but in his first appearance, his design looks much less familiar. His yellow and red stripes are vertical rather than horizontal.
Starting point is 00:14:07 He's got a takeout tray on his head, a to-go cup on his nose, and from what I can tell, actual garbage for hair. He looks like he woke up out of the trash. He looks like he jumped out of the trash and then he accosts a child. And he escaped from French fry jail. Yeah. So I've pulled it up. Why don't we watch it?
Starting point is 00:14:26 Okay, let's load the clip. Introducing the world's newest, silliest, and hamburger-eatingest clown, Ronald McDonald's. Now, where is that clown? Oh, Ronald, Ronald, Ronald. Hey, Ronald. Oh, my God, it's so dark. Especially where you've got delicious McDonald's hamburger. Ronald, you can't be on TV and watch it at the same time.
Starting point is 00:14:54 Now, come on and meet the boys and girls. Oh, we've already met. I know we're going to be friends, too, because I like to do everything boys and girls like to do. Especially when it comes to eating those delicious McDonald's hamburgers. A magic tray here keeps me well surprised. McDonald's hamburgers, french fries, and milkshake. Watch for me on TV.
Starting point is 00:15:12 We'll have lots of fun. He's Ronald McDonald's. The hamburger happy clown. A McDonald's dry restaurant. Favorite place in town. Okay. That was so fucking tough. I'm going to have nightmares.
Starting point is 00:15:33 One thing I didn't notice at the time, it looks like he's wearing a duct tape Cumberbond. Yeah. I think it's like, clearly they had that like magic tray attached, and he's like, oh, I can't dance while wearing that. So he's just got like the duct tape they're using to attach the magic tray.
Starting point is 00:15:50 He's also just like a clown that likes McDonald's in this. He doesn't. And TV. He's not really. And TV. He loves watching TV. It's so meta. He's close to the hamburger.
Starting point is 00:15:58 He just liked, he's the original hamburger. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he is, he's freaking duping those burgers. He's downloading them illegally pirating them. Right. Because he has a magic tray that he can make burgers appear on. He's got a burger glitch. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:13 The cut is so obvious. It's really jarring. Yeah. It's also really jarring to see a grown man just, like, really say, I like what kids like. Yeah. Yeah. It's like everything that boys and girls like. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:25 It's like an adult man voice. Every part of it is so creepy. He's like, we've met already. I just hang out outside of McDonald's. We've met already watching that as a child being like, I think I would have remembered you. Yeah, it's a freaking tray that makes burgers appear. Why does he need to go to McDonald's? Oh, one would add charge.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Yeah, it has to be close to it. Yeah, he needs to, like, absorb the aura. Oh, got you. There is something crypted about him. Oh, yeah, yeah. Is that what they're called cryptids? Yeah. There is something crypted about him.
Starting point is 00:16:55 because the commercial starts being like, where is that guy? I know he's lurking around here somewhere. And the pants to him in the dark. Yeah. I think that's the most unsettling part. It's like pants from McDonald's to like a dark control room. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:11 Just in the outline of the tray on his head. And then it's revealed it's a child's bedroom. There's like toys everywhere. I did not clock that. I was so distracted by all the trash. Does this predate clowns being scary? Well, no. This is actually.
Starting point is 00:17:25 inspired by the bozo the clown Oh right? But I don't think people thought Bozo was scary though. I don't think they did. No, yeah. So I think it does predate people thinking clowns are scary. Yeah, yeah. I think this is when clowns were popular. Because this is like howdy duty and shit. Like all of this stuff is terrifying as fuck and when we go back and we watch this stuff
Starting point is 00:17:42 and we're like, this is so fucking scary but that's just what people watched. People saw this fucking clown covered in trash dancing outside of a McDonald's making burgers appear in children's rooms. And they were like, this is hilarious. You know what it was? Like, they didn't have the 70s serial killers to scare that.
Starting point is 00:17:59 Oh, there you go. I think it's like that. And then like Stephen King, who is like raised by all of this. Oh, that's true. It crystallizes it with it, I think, is how it comes about. The phrase, my magic tray keeps me well supplied is going to be stuck in my head for the rest of my life. I mean, the show is called Rot Topic and like the topics are rotting inside my brain as we speak. I just see you like with your family arms around them thinking like,
Starting point is 00:18:25 My magic tray keeps me well-s supplied. My little women. That keeps on giving. So then in 1970, they're hopped up on the success of this launch of this clown. Got to be. Right. All right. We're outside of the founder now.
Starting point is 00:18:40 Now we're getting into the freaking meat. Let's go. We're saving this for the founder, too. We're getting into the Giorgio beef. In 1970, McDonald's reaches out to an advertising agency to expand the McDonald's land universe. And by 1971, television viewers were getting their first taste of McDonald's land. Yes. Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:03 A magical land of thick shake volcanoes, French fry patches that grow like wildflowers, talking apple pie trees, and a really groovy late 60s theme song. Let's check this one out. Yeah, come on. Let's roll the clip. We need a phrase that we say for when we go to the clip. Caldwell. Turn around and click the videos
Starting point is 00:19:26 I love it That's really catchy Get yourself ready for a trip through McDonald's land Take a love a friend And grab a hold of Ronald's hand Follow Ronald McDonald's And don't be surprised If you meet Big Maconald
Starting point is 00:19:55 Cheese as you're heading for a McDonald's in McDonald's land. Those kids are 60s. And that cloud is dead. I think they're older than that. Okay, so thoughts. Huge glow up. My God, they had it. They figured it out.
Starting point is 00:20:19 They had it. They nailed it in one. They peaks right there. Yeah. This is why North Hollywood kept peaks. Yeah, dude. That was perfect. That is quintessential 20 years before I was born, but that feels like quintessential.
Starting point is 00:20:32 This is why advertising is good and it's never been bad. Well, it was, it is interesting at this time to go from the, I guess it's been almost 20 years at this point, right? Because the other one's in the like early 50s and this one's in 1970? The first one was 1963 and this one is 1971. Okay, so less than 10 years. I thought the other one was early 50s because it was so fucking bad. Oh, they built like a whole like set to film. Yeah, so they literally went from like, let's film a commercial in like my buddy's garage.
Starting point is 00:21:03 Yeah. To being like, we actually need to make the Muppet show. Yeah. And hire not great version of the Beach Boys to do a song. I think with this like agency must have done. The first one was like their idea of what kids would want, sure. Which was a creepy clown in their bedroom. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:19 This is like, there was research into kids would want a tree made of French fries and a mountain made of a milkshake. So like it actually feels like a fantasy land. And Emily, you brought up that this was inspired, inspired in quotation marks by Sid and Marty Croft's H.R. Puff and Stuff, which was a TV show. Croft or Croft? It's more sinister than inspired. At this time, this ad agency wanted to style McDonald's land like a show that already existed called H.R. Puff and Stuff, mayor of Living Island, which was about a huge-headed
Starting point is 00:21:49 bumbling mayor that lived on an island where everything was alive and there were talking trees. Okay. I feel like I was early to say that this was peak then. If you see HR puppet stuff, this looks exactly like it except they made the guy a burger. And it is more sinister. The ad agency
Starting point is 00:22:08 reached out to Sid and Marty Croft said, will you help us develop these characters? And then told them, too bad guys, the campaign is off. Even though a year later it just came out as a bunch of televised commercials. So Sid and Marty
Starting point is 00:22:24 Croft sued and got, I think, $1 million in damages in 1977, which equates to like $5.3 million now. Everyone's taking a bad deal. Their business plan is like, yeah, we'll rip everybody off and pay them a little bit. Ray crock. Ray crook, more like, right? Ooh, nice. Hey, thank you.
Starting point is 00:22:46 So McDonald's Land also introduces us to a cast of characters that populates its fantastical world. Obviously, Ronald McDonald's. Who had a huge glow up. Oh, yeah. He doesn't look as, he doesn't look scary anymore. And his pants are a lot more fun. His pants are cool. He's dancing. He's got like the color scheme. He doesn't have a magic tray or a box on his head. He's not in your room. Yeah. He seems to like out of bedroom. He seems at least like work at McDonald's. He doesn't seem like desperate to be around kids, but not around them. Yeah. He lives at
Starting point is 00:23:17 McDonald's land. So he's like showing you around. Right. Yeah. He's your tour guy. That's who he's got those like big explorer pants on. Yeah, yeah. But then it also introduces us to Mayor McChese, a hamburger-headed elected official with a top hat and a diplomat sash who seems honestly pretty bad at his job. Officer Big Mac, a Big Mac-headed police officer in a constable's uniform and a custodian helmet, and the professor, a spectacled white-whiskered scientist who invented many things on McDonald's land, including the psychedelic electronic hamburger machine, which I guess creates pumpkins.
Starting point is 00:23:55 Huh. And extraneous-ass character. We don't need them. And this one, I'm quoting from Wikipedia, an invisible car that helped Ronald McDonald get to McDonald's to meet with the kids. Huh. Why does it need to be invisible?
Starting point is 00:24:12 Yeah, the professor just doesn't need to be there. I don't, they go in that complete opposite direction, right? because in the first commercial with Ronald McDonald, he's got the burgers just appearing on the tray. And then they're like, okay, that doesn't make any sense. We need a professor to make a way for Ronald McDonald to get a McDonald's. And it's really like, what if Ronald's like could just walk to McDonald's? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:33 They also like have him in there. Like one of the commercials was him trying to invent the best hamburger only to learn that the best hamburger had already been invented. Why not just have him be like, I've done it. I've created the best hamburger. and then that's how you debut a new hamburger. Oh, that's interesting. Instead, he was, like, put in there to always look like a fool.
Starting point is 00:24:54 Because Ray Kroc said, like, nobody tops me. Like, I'm the one that's in charge here. The professor is a bumbling fool. The professor is my bitch. I'm looking at a picture of the professor from his debut, and it looks like he has, like, a plastic beard put on top of his face. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:25:08 It's an elderly look. Some of the human characters could have just looked like humans. Right. Because Ronald McDonald is just a guy with paint on. Yeah. But I feel like Ronald should be the only human. Is Ronald's face supposed to be covered in red ketchup? Is that what's going on? No. He ate a bunch of ketchup. And now his face is a little messy. It doesn't look like that at all. It kind of looks like that. Oh, I never thought of it like. Wait, what do you mean? What do you mean?
Starting point is 00:25:30 What do you look like a clown? Why are we sitting here saying that the red and yellow is like a manipulative tactic? It's probably just ketchup and mustard. No, it's definitely manipulative tactic. Could be both. Could be both. But I guess it's true when you see those golden arches like, you know, you are supposed to. to think of fries. That's like what you're supposed to visualize in your mind and make you hungry. Yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't have to be red. Yeah. Well, McDonald's also introduced a crew of antagonists. Here we go. Good. A couple of bad boys. Heavy hitters. We've got the hamburger. Yes, dude. When the hamburger is introduced, it is also a very different hamburger. This hamburger speaks only in gibberish,
Starting point is 00:26:12 has a long nose and gray hair, wears a hat, a mask, and a trench coat that he opens to reveal a shirt that says the words, in quotation, I'm saying this in quotation. Loan jogger. What?
Starting point is 00:26:27 He's like a streaker. Or like, what is it called when you just like a flasher? Flasher, yes. I could not find context for why it says lone jogger. Is this because of the jogging craze that was hitting around the 70s?
Starting point is 00:26:40 But what is the comment? I think it's maybe like, oh, I'm just a lone jogger. Don't mind me. I'm just here walking on a little exercise. I think it's probably a thing of like flashers of being like this lone jogger would come up to people at restaurants and deal his burgers and fries. I mean, he is like built. He has like stringy gray hair. He really looks like if you've ever seen pictures of, you know, people dressing up for Halloween in like the 60s and 70s and they just look.
Starting point is 00:27:10 fucking terrifying. Like all the masks are just off and just like real rubbery. Yeah. This guy looks like he's wearing one of those masks because he probably is. Yeah. Because that's the, that's the time period. But he looks bad. He's not fun. He flashes people. His name is the lone jogger. The lone jogger. I like that they had time to workshop all this. Oh, you know what? We didn't consider this. He kind of looks like the lone ranger, right? Because he's got that little mask and hat. Oh, okay. But why jogger? Because he's jogging up to people. The jogging craze and show you his freaking nuts. Oh, while you're distracted.
Starting point is 00:27:45 Which is the bigger offense. Yeah. While you're distracted looking at his French fried dick, he swipes your burger. It makes perfect sense. That makes a lot of sense. They also introduce evil grimace. We have talked about this before, but grimace was introduced as a fluffy, hairy, purple creature who had four arms lived in a cave and stole shakes and cola from children. Where's the Coke?
Starting point is 00:28:05 Where are the shakes? There's a lot of also overlap with like the novelty song. from the period, like the, like one-eyed, one, what's it, one-eyed, one-horn, something purple people-y. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that makes way more sense because in 2012, they, like, put out a statement saying that Grimmis was either the embodiment of a milkshake or a taste bud, but they didn't commit to either. I mean, taste bud seems better than the embodiment of a milkshake because he's purple.
Starting point is 00:28:32 Yeah. Taste buds feels kind of right, but also bad. I mean, they're both bad. Your tongue shouldn't be that color. Yeah, your tongue also. shouldn't be purple unless you're fucking freezing. He's also like a giant taste, but he lives in a freaking cave. He's just like
Starting point is 00:28:45 essentially tasted dirt all the time as he sleeps on the freaking ground. But maybe he likes the way dirt tastes. Wow, okay. Shout out. And then the third antagonist that gets introduced is Captain Crook, a pirate captain. Another thief. Now this looks a lot like Captain Hook
Starting point is 00:29:01 and only ever wants to steal filo fish sandwiches. Oh. You need two separate guys. Right. Okay. He ain't interested in fish. Okay? No. You need a fish face.
Starting point is 00:29:13 He thinks the fish is nesting. Yeah. McDonald's. He specifically says it in all of the commercials. Ew, filet of fish. Gross. Gross. That's what my grandma eats.
Starting point is 00:29:22 What am I Catholic? I'm not a pescatarian. I feel like McDonald's land has a very diverse ecosystem. Sure. I mean, in the same way that, like, you know, a cow couldn't eat like pork. They're not a carnivore. Sure. You know, like, Grimmis couldn't eat a filly of fish.
Starting point is 00:29:38 He can only eat milkshakes. Sure, yeah. It makes perfect. Okay, okay. I will say that Captain Crook, he's obviously not nearly as interesting as the hamburger. He was extremely interesting. But I will say that we were watching the old commercials just to prep for this, not for fun. But he, by the nature of him being in the water, he gets thwarted in much more fun ways.
Starting point is 00:30:02 Oh, yeah. Ronald will throw like our freaking cast a fishing one. line and then pull a cork out of his ship and make him sink. Yeah. Vers the hamburger who just like kind of gets caught, but they can't show violence. So they just like kind of like stand in front of them and they're like, you're caught. And with Grimmis, it's just psychological violence because Grimmis is always outsmarted by getting told he's getting invited to a beauty pageant or that Ronald McDonald is a big time director who's going to make him a star. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:34 They're abusing Grimis. Well, I do that I like this version of Ronald, though, because he's kind of like a trickster god. Sure. He's got like a buzz funny vibe to him. No, he's like having a lot of fun. He's a gaslighting king. He's posing as a cast of director. All he cares about is the smiles of children.
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Starting point is 00:32:30 Say true, Warriors. Bye-bye. Well, McDonald's land was a huge success. And it spawned comic books, calendars, souvenir glasses, bed sheets, puzzles, and play sets. Oh, yeah. And, of course, McDonald's playplaces. Oh, yeah, here we go. Do you guys remember?
Starting point is 00:32:49 These were recreational activity rooms and playgrounds that featured McDonald's twists like the Captain Crook's spiral slide, the hamburger swing, the Mayor McChese roundabout, and the grimace bounce and bend, which was basically a cage. Oh, yeah. This is maybe the thumbnail. Yeah, this is like a bouncy cage that you essentially got in and there's a spring underneath it and you just freak out back and forth. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:18 And there's a giant like hole in the middle. It looks like a little mini jail cell. Yeah. With the bars bent, like your cartoon character escaping. Yeah. So you can get in and then you hang on to the bars and you just bounce back and forth, almost like a rocking horse. I had my fifth birthday at this place.
Starting point is 00:33:32 Yeah, in like a huge cage. Yeah. Did you use the grimest bouncing bend? Yeah, of course. I have a home video of me and all my friends freaking out at McDonald's. What? Yeah, when I was five. What was the hottest ride?
Starting point is 00:33:45 Oh, man. Was everyone like trying to get the Captain Crook like spiral slide or was it the grimest bounce? I think it was the grimace bounce. It was the boundaries. Was it like, let's see how many people we can get into the group. Just to be clear, this wasn't like a bouncy thing. Like we had a different play place in the 80s and 90s.
Starting point is 00:34:01 It wanted to be like a real old McDonald's that didn't update their stuff. Yeah. If anything, this looks like a grimace-themed, like, Iron Maiden. Yes. So this thing looks like if you took it off at spring, probably weighed, like, 600 pounds. Okay. I have to see a picture. It was an enormous cage on top of a spring, and it almost was like a rocking horse
Starting point is 00:34:20 where it went back and forth, and there's no way that, like, kids didn't get really hurt. Yes. Oh, they did have that? Yes. That's awesome. It almost looks like a decomposing whale. Yeah. It's a whaleful.
Starting point is 00:34:31 Yeah. Oh, my God. Yes, dude. It suggests that maybe you've been devoured by Graham's. but also like grimace is like parting his rib cage to let you in. Yeah. And we should note that it does have four arms. So this is original evil grimace.
Starting point is 00:34:45 I don't know when they made this switch, but like when I was a little kid, all of McDonald's playscapes were outside. Yeah. Remember we'd go to McDonald's and we'd be playing outside. And then at a certain point, our McDonald's got a renovation and everything was inside. And then it's all like the tubes and everything.
Starting point is 00:34:59 I think what happened is too many kids saw Grimmis and then just ran right into the street because they were so scary. It was also the, He's got to steal my sheep. I feel like the one that you would probably see the most often. I feel like these kind of hung around at old McDonald's is Officer Big Mac's jail, the burger jail.
Starting point is 00:35:15 And it was like you climbed up into it and you were like in like a burger jail. Yeah. And then brave kids would, I don't know how everyone didn't die, but people would like crawl out and like climb on top of the burger. Yeah. And I think just like get yelled at by the 16 year old that works there. It's lawless. It's even.
Starting point is 00:35:30 Yeah. I think I was reading about like the happy meals as well. And it does seem like a lot of the franchise. is like fought back against this stuff because it did mean more responsibilities for them. Oh. Yeah. What do I do when someone falls under the freaking grimace? Do you get a first aid kit for like when you obviously get impaled on the grimace?
Starting point is 00:35:47 That's so funny to get like a phone call and it's like, hey, so tomorrow morning a truck's going to come by with a ton of playground equipment. So make space for it. We're going to put the slide right near the drive through. You know how you're a restaurant people drive to it? Well, you can't do that anymore because make sure it hasn't like rained recently or anything because that'll get pretty slick and the kids will fall on the drive-thru line. And this shit does get rusty.
Starting point is 00:36:11 Yeah. It goes like roundabout things and this grimmest thing are like super dangerous because anything that's on a spring like that, I feel like people would fall under. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Getting trapped on it. I got trapped under a personal trampoline once and that was really painful. That sucks. I just got jumped on.
Starting point is 00:36:28 You're just getting jumped on? So scary. Jumped on. Trapolines are one of those toys that are awesome, but nobody should have one. You can only have a friend with the trampolade. You can't be the trampolian family. I feel like this wasn't from the old McDonald's land things, but just like old school playplaces and stuff.
Starting point is 00:36:44 I have a memory of being an affair or something and being young enough that I fell into a ball pit and I just couldn't get out because I think I was like three. Yeah. And like some brave five-year-old having to dig me out. Because there was like no parents were allowed. Who are you now? If you're listening, come collect you reward. They were just like my parents directing a first grader to dig me a preschooler out of
Starting point is 00:37:04 ball pit. Well, McDonald's continued, but as we talked about after the lawsuit, they began slowly phasing out some of the more egregious copyright infringement. Yeah, the burger guys looked a hell
Starting point is 00:37:20 a lot like HR puff and stuff. Which unfortunately meant a lot of the more whimsical things got phased out. By 1985, Mayor McChese, Officer Big Mac, Captain Crook, and the professor were all phased out. Holy shit, I was born in 1985.
Starting point is 00:37:36 Welcome back, Mayor McCheese. Yeah, dude. Reborn? Reborn? Reborn. Welcome back. And they did kill him. Yeah, they killed him.
Starting point is 00:37:45 Brian Murphy, Mayor McCheese reborn in parentheses. They had my mom eat the last birthday. And then I was born. Yeah. You actually died in that ball pit. And then she also gave birth in a grimace. I died in a ball pit in 1984. Well, if people do water.
Starting point is 00:38:04 births. I think some people do ball pit births. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And during this time, both Grimmis and the hamburger underwent significant makeovers. Grimus lost two of his arms, obviously, became friends with Ronald, which actually, which actually there is the origin story of their friendship. They met because when Grimmis was a baby, he was in a runaway stroller and Ronald intercepted him. Wow. And then he took Grimus from his parents because you guys let go with that stroller. That's actually true because Grimmis does have parents sometimes. There's like a shadow, like they do like a whole thing where they're like showing Grimmis
Starting point is 00:38:44 celebrating his birthday like at McDonald's. And it's all like this like 80s grainy footage that looks really sad. And they show like the shoulder of his parent. Oh my God. What happens to them that they let that stroller run away? I don't know. Is this to imply that like Grimmis is still small? like grimace is an adolescent or something like that like he's not full grown yeah maybe he's not a
Starting point is 00:39:07 grown up yeah maybe can you imagine a full size grimace so in the 80s not only did uh did you have this face turn yeah but he also at one point got braces in a mullet and at one point in 1984 they gave him pink human lips that no thanks made him look like he had like fillers so they made him hot was that so grimace is canonically beautiful The sexiest taste buddy you've ever seen Do you think you were like setting something up there Where they're like well we're gonna need grimace to kiss Like he's gonna we're gonna introduce grimace's girlfriend soon not yet
Starting point is 00:39:43 Yeah Yeah yeah you're like grimace in 1985 he's gonna fuck Right What do we do to prep people for this? As soon as he has lips then we can give him a dick Right yeah once they see lips Once they see how they respond to lips Yeah and then we'll give him a dick
Starting point is 00:39:57 Everyone's brain goes right to fallaccio Yeah 1886 Grimmis is 69ing the Burger King King. Yeah. Grimus having lips suggests that he can suck dick. And then the hamburger,
Starting point is 00:40:13 the hamburger got a rounder face. They gave him a little butt and nose. And they gave him, rather than two teeth, they gave him a single tooth. Apparently there's something less threatening about that. He lost the lone jogger. Thank God.
Starting point is 00:40:27 That's fair. Yeah, that's good. And they renamed him Hamilton B. Grasgler. Great. It makes a lot of sense. Charles Entertainment cheese style. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:35 Well, it's just, it's tough because it's just like, is it biology or is it nature or nurture that made the hamburger, the hamburger? Right. Because like when you're named that, what else are you going to do? Yeah. That's a really good point. That's a really good. Well, his last name's Urgler, so I guess he could ergle.
Starting point is 00:40:49 He could ergle. It's true. Ergling is kind of rude, though. Yeah. I think ergling is specifically for food. Like, you can ogle anything, but you can only ogle food. Well, irgling is when you're looking at this is lips. Ergling sounds like a sucking day.
Starting point is 00:41:02 Like, oh, look at this guy's left. I'd like to urgle him. Oh, sorry, I was urgling all last night. There was something in my throat. Yeah, they were getting people ready by showing a lot of pictures of grimace, like just seductively licking the fries. So even though we lost Mayor McChese, Officer Big Mac, Captain Crook and the professor.
Starting point is 00:41:25 Captain Crook, we didn't. We didn't. We didn't. We didn't. Do you guys think that Captain Crook was inspired by Ray Crock? Crook, Crook. There it is. He's calling himself a crook.
Starting point is 00:41:34 It's sort of like a confession. Absolutely. That's what it was for. Wow. This is how he found peace. I thought that the hamburger was his OC, but maybe it was Captain Crook. He's fried like a piece of cod. Maybe he's putting himself everywhere.
Starting point is 00:41:48 You know? You think he's putting a little piece of himself in each of these characters? And then Gabe Grimmis his lips. Yes. Because Croc is like, I have these dick-sucking lips. I want them portrayed. I need to share these with the world. So, but we did get new characters.
Starting point is 00:42:05 In 1977, we got Uncle O Grimacy, Grimacy's uncle, who appears to promote the shamrock shape. Yes. In 1979, we get a yellow bird and a pink jumpsuit, flight cap, and scarf that is the first female character. Welcome. Thank you. It's about time. It's about time. Progress.
Starting point is 00:42:25 Welcome, Bertie. Welcome, Bertie. Welcome, Birdie. The early bird is introduced to promote. the new breakfast menu. Oh. Which I also wanted to highlight that another promotional thing they did for the breakfast menu was including a free disposable razor with the purchase of a breakfast breakfast
Starting point is 00:42:43 entree. I remember that. That is. Oh, this is, because they were going to shave grimace. That's why they introduced the lips. What? Me. Well, no, because this was in 1978.
Starting point is 00:42:55 Okay. In 1978, they. So it's like wake up with McDonald's. You shave. Yeah. It was like, you got your breakfast. marketed to men. Oh, wait, okay.
Starting point is 00:43:02 I'm piecing it together now because, like, you get the razor. You're going to go in the McDonald's bathroom to shave. But then, like, you've got grimace with the lips. And, like, they're advertising the breakfast, but also that they have really clean bathrooms and they're clean enough to get your dick sucked in.
Starting point is 00:43:15 Oh. Can you put the glory holes in the bathroom in 1979? Can you imagine working at McDonald's in the 70s and they're just like people shaving in the bathroom and kids brutally injuring themselves on the playground? It's flawless. I also just feel. Like all of the advertising for like the free promotional razor, it's like a real put together, man.
Starting point is 00:43:36 Yeah. And I'm like, no. I don't think that's who's getting pancakes from McDonald's and using the razor. If you're shaving it McDonald's, you do not have all of your shit together. When did disposable razors come out, though? I think you feel like that's a very 70s thing. Yeah. It's just like wastefully making a ton of shit.
Starting point is 00:43:55 It's so funny how different this is than like Mac and Dix vision. is like in and out, you're gone. And then the new McDonald's is like, you can play here, you can shave here. How do we make it so people live here? By 2026, it is a hotel. McDonald's apartments, yeah. Don't leave, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner right here.
Starting point is 00:44:14 You don't have to leave your room. You sleep inside Grimmis now. And the funny thing is they actually brought back the razor promotion in 1986. Wow. As late as 1986, but then people started finding razors and other things that. I was going to say it's,
Starting point is 00:44:30 Seems like such a liability to just be like, hey, let's take this kid with his first job and have them make a burger and throw a razor in there with it. Yeah. You got to like make sure it doesn't get mixed up. Are you doing parents or you're doing kids? Okay. So when you start out here, first of all, apple pies go in this box, razor's going that box. Don't mix them up. Mike came with a cigarette and a whiskey too.
Starting point is 00:44:53 And then in 1979, we get the Happy Meal Gang, which is a talking hamburger, a talking fries, talking drinks. in a non-speaking happy meal box. I'm going to say the little happy meals, guys, sorry to say it, they're cute. Yeah. You're freaking cute. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:09 Yeah. That's right. Yeah. So, to say it, the McNugget buddies. They're cute. I think that I actually, they're going to roast you for that take.
Starting point is 00:45:19 When did Big Nuggets make it onto the menu? Did that come up? I think it's an 80s thing. It's an 80s thing. Yeah. I think that there was actually a point where like maybe the, so like I did a little research into the happy meal. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:29 because I was like very curious about like when the like the integrations with like films and like TV started. Oh yeah. The first one was in, I believe, 1979 with Star Trek. Is that right? Yeah, it was Star Trek because basically all the other fast food chains, McDonald's saw a dip in sales. Yeah. Because all the other fast food chains were partnering with Star Wars.
Starting point is 00:45:49 Oh shit. And basically like everyone stopped wanting to go to McDonald's because they're like, but if I go to Burger King, I get a Star Wars toy. Yeah. So then. It's so funny that McDonald's is just like. like, don't you want this clown that lives at our store? Or do you get a burger king and get a lightsaber.
Starting point is 00:46:05 One or the other. Look, there's three criminals that live here all the time. And then McDonald's was like, we got to get into this. The Star Trek original motion picture is coming out. And that was their first partnership. They must have been so close. It's just been like Star Trek, Star Wars. Same thing.
Starting point is 00:46:20 Same audience. Guarantee. We love stealing adjacent things. Yeah. I looked it up. The first set of toys they ever made for the Happy Mealboxes was actually, I think it was a racers. Really?
Starting point is 00:46:30 Oh, no. Razors and erasers. Yeah. I mean, they almost fumbled the bag so many times. Those bands, you really don't want to confuse those. Another fun detail. It was launched nationally in 1979 at $1.10 per Happy Meal. Wow.
Starting point is 00:46:45 Which is approximately $39 now. Yeah. Steal. But yeah, the Happy Meals, they used to have like full color, like wraparound art on the boxes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it was based on like cereal boxes. Yes.
Starting point is 00:47:01 Like how you look at the back and there would be like a maze or something like that. They would have puzzles and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Shout out to Sims to back who designed the first Happy Meal box. Wow. Shout out, dude. Yeah. Cool.
Starting point is 00:47:10 I'm sure you got paid $25. You sued and got $1,000. So do well. In the end. And Ray Kroc actually, in the end, he bought Tatooine. So they won the Star Wars War. And then in the mid-80s, we get Cosmic the East. alien, an orange alien that travels around in a space pod. It emerges from like a turtle.
Starting point is 00:47:33 And instead of stealing like Captain Croke or the hamburger grimace, early grimace, he trades, a.k.a. steals. Oh, so he's like a new little scampy thief. But he's like, I'm here on a trade mission. I wonder what it is. Like, you would think that as a business model, you wouldn't want to make kids afraid to come to your restaurant. But maybe it's like creating that. that scarcity mindset where you are like, if the hamburger might get all the stuff. My shit. The hamburger should have won sometimes the commercial because they should have been like,
Starting point is 00:48:07 get in now before the hamburger gets all of the burgers. The hamburger is broken in. He's in the hamburger ball. We cannot sustain this level of thievery. Get here before he eats it all. You want a burger. Come now. Ronald buckled over of like blood falling out of his chest.
Starting point is 00:48:26 He's been stabbed. Yeah. Question, this alien, did the alien leave cool stuff, like precious alien minerals? From what I watched, he was like kind of trading what looked like maybe a balloon animal hat. Okay, that's not worth it. So, yeah. I, a balloon for a burger, no fucking thank you. Yeah, he wasn't like handing over laser guns.
Starting point is 00:48:45 Give me your precious alien minerals. Or even laser razors. Yeah, I'll take a laser razor. The 80s was obsessed with like friendly aliens. I think it must have been like all like post-E-T. People were just like, we got to get friendly aliens. Right. I bet we could like trace everything back like what McDonald's is introducing to any other
Starting point is 00:49:03 popular party that came out one year before. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's literally the original, um, the original Ronald McDonald is the guy who played Bozo the clown. Yeah. Yeah. Is like the most famous clown. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:15 I feel like McDonald's is probably not nearly as creative as anybody who could have put him out. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The final entry, I guess like vague entry into McDonald's land like character is yet another. ripped off thing. In 1986, they introduced Mac Tonight. A sunglasses wearing piano playing lounge singer with a huge crescent moon head that only exists because some ad executive got obsessed
Starting point is 00:49:41 with doing a parody of the song Mac the Knife, which is like from the 50s. And it's a murder ballad about a guy going on a killing spree. And some guy got- He's love fucking criminals. Some guy got obsessed with doing a parody of that to promote McDonald's. dinner sales. That guy should be investigated. When you see a picture of Mac tonight, this guy false. I mean, this guy is weak. You thought grimace fuck.
Starting point is 00:50:22 Yeah, you thought grimace fucked? No. No, they made a guy who fucks. Yeah. And then McDonald's was once again successfully sued. Just always. By the, by the like, descendant of the person who's dad. Who wrote the Mac the Knife?
Starting point is 00:50:40 Cool. That's good. But speaking of the fact that Mac Tonight fucks, the actor who played Mac Tonight in the commercials was Doug Jones and would go on to play the iconic love interest amphibian man in the shape of water. Yeah. So that guy does fuck. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:50:57 Oh, absolutely fucks. He's also Abe Sapien. I think he played the creepy eye guy in Pan's Labyrinth. Yeah, yeah. He's done so much stuff. Hell yeah. From Mac Tonight to Stardom. Wow.
Starting point is 00:51:07 Wow, that's very cool. That's incredible. Shoot for the moon, you'll become a star. Man, do you think he's still got the moon face somewhere? God, I hope so. You got to find out where he leaves. See if he has a storage unit. Knowing Guillermo del Toro, he's definitely got it in his house next to a giant
Starting point is 00:51:21 Frankenstein head. They did used to have them in McDonald's, like singing animatronics almost like. Yeah. Like Disneyland style. An earnest pitch that I think we can't do, but I think we should do, is create Nad Pod land where we buy like stuff like this old Grimmis. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:38 We just, and then all of our 30-year-old fans get so heard. Yeah. People just come and you can wander through like a weird little garden that we've created. I have to say,
Starting point is 00:51:48 thinking about grimace, bounce, and bends through the lens of like an adult, it is kind of like, there are days when I would love to go thrash and... Oh, sure.
Starting point is 00:51:57 It's lymphatic drainage. That's all the rage. Forget about your Tai Chi. Yeah, I feel like they're doing stuff now. I mean, obviously there's like escape rooms and stuff, but there's like elevated escape rooms or you're like jumping through lasers and shit like that.
Starting point is 00:52:10 Let's bring back dangerous playgrounds for adults. Yeah. With your friends could hurt you and you have to be rescued by a first grader. We don't need adult camp. We need dangerous adult playground. Who do you guys think would get hurt first? At one of these things? Oh me, definitely.
Starting point is 00:52:23 I'd be doing a goof. Yeah. I think you might get hurt first because I think I would be shy. I'd go pretty light. Yeah, Calvo would like set the tone by getting so hurt. I would probably trip on the way to the playground. Wow. Wow.
Starting point is 00:52:36 I've seen this happen before. And then get a face full of gravel. Emily gets hurt in the parking lot. Caldwell climbs Captain Crook's slide and falls on the top. Yeah. I feel like Caldwell does the most painful thing, but I get hurt the most if that makes sense. Oh, that makes sense. Okay, so Caldwell, like, goes up on top of Captain Crook's slide, says, I'm going to surf down it and is standing up and falls and falls from the top, lands on his head and gets like pretty hurt.
Starting point is 00:53:02 Yeah. Like a scary way, but not that bad. But I've only had one concussion in my life, so it's fine. Yeah. And then Jake, like, is starting to climb up Officer Big Mac's jail and tweaks his back. Yeah. A brutal way where we have to take him to the hospital. I pitched something.
Starting point is 00:53:19 I was climbing so lightly. So, like, I think, yeah, we meow wolf this where we're, like, people have to sign a million waivers. And they can just, like, wander the hell around this, like, kind of phantasmagorical McDonald's land play space that we've created here. I do think like I know that people can buy like McDonald's franchises. I don't know how much free reign you have. We don't want the food. We don't want the food. We don't want the food.
Starting point is 00:53:44 We don't want McDonald's. We don't want their old shit. We want their old place-based stuff. Okay, great. That must be for sale on some like weird auction website. I did see just the head of a grimace bounce and bend on a auction website. Yeah. Wow.
Starting point is 00:53:58 That's rad. I'm getting on the fucking worldwide web as soon as we're done recording. On them on the McDonald's land. Wiki, there's a picture of a officer Big Mac Burger Jail that's just, I think it's still in San Bernardino in like the original area, but it's in like kind of the woods next to some cabins. Oh, that's so literal. Yeah. Yeah, let's go climb in the Big Mac Jail.
Starting point is 00:54:22 If we buy that parcel of land, we could definitely charge people a hefty sum just to come and like hang out next to. True McDonald's style. Whoa. I'll make the burgers. Fuck, why not? So that's basically like that Mac tonight is kind of like the last like bit. There's like a couple one shot characters that like appear in like an ad here or there.
Starting point is 00:54:42 Yeah. But that's kind of like the last big character. In 2003, the I'm Lovin it campaign debuts. Wow. This is kind of the great streamlining. Including the weird, complicated era of McDonald's. Yeah. That filled me with a sadness.
Starting point is 00:54:58 Yeah. But when you said that. It's they fucking. They got focused grouped out of existence because they're, because people finally sat down and they're just like, how much do people like this clown that lives at McDonald's? Yeah. People are like, they're okay with my cats. The adage is driving sales. Yeah. What if everyone just went around saying that they loved McDonald's, would that drive sales more? I would, I would also argue that because they had all these lawsuits for stealing the world of the crofts, that they had to start removing whimsical elements, which means no more talking trees. And then they literally start making. making ads that are in like more realistic settings.
Starting point is 00:55:35 It's more like Ronald and his friends in the real world. I don't want that. No. No. I don't want to see a puppet in the real world. I want to see a puppet in a world full puppets. Right. I need to know that they can't cross the veil.
Starting point is 00:55:47 Yeah. We had the, in our mall, we had the apple pie trees. Wow. We had apple pie trees, those big weird trees with weird faces. Yeah, yeah. And if you could get a seat under the freaking apple pie tree. Oh, that's nice. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:02 That's shit. I actually have a real bad memory at that McDonald's. What? I had bought Diablo 2 and I put it under the table. And then I walked away for getting Diablo 2. And when I came back, it was gone. No. So, fucking grimace.
Starting point is 00:56:16 Someone else has such a good. The hamburger. The hamburger. The hamburger. The lone jogger. This is the work of the lone jogger. The hamburger was replaced. Yes.
Starting point is 00:56:27 But joggers are in the mall. They're all up in the mall. Oh, my God, dude. I got got got by the lone jogger. He thought that the hamburger changed, but he didn't. He went into hiding. He went into hiding,
Starting point is 00:56:38 waiting for me to bring an expensive video game in like 2000. The hamburger never changed. The world changed around. He became the gambler. He steals video games. Whoa. The camp burglar.
Starting point is 00:56:49 The cambergler. Still think about that was absolutely fucking brutal. It's like another like six months before I could buy it again. Oh, like 13. Absolutely fucking brutal.
Starting point is 00:57:01 So that's pretty much the last we've seen in McDonald's land. In recent years, characters have been rebooted, including a very 2010's attempt to make the hamburger hot, in which ads of a scruffy-faced square-jawed blonde man were supplemented by a cheeky Twitter account and a tongue-in-cheek LinkedIn profile. I feel like that would hit even harder now. Like, the internet is ready to fuck the hamburgler. See? It feels so 2010s.
Starting point is 00:57:29 Really? I feel like... A looks maxing hamburger. Oh, you're right. That's what it is. He would be more looks max now. Right. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:57:38 I'm stealing hearts. Ravle, rabble. Although I guess like, I guess like mid-2010s, like somebody tweeting out in all lowercase letters with no punctuation hamburger just saying kind of want to fuck the hamburger. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:57:50 Yeah. Would like do numbers. I could see that. I could definitely see that. And then in 2023, they started selling $75, Donald Birdie Hamburger and Grimmis
Starting point is 00:58:01 Crocs. That's it? Not Ray, Crocs. It all comes back to Croc. Wow. Wow. But there's no return in sight to the land of thick shake volcanoes, hamburger patches and fillet of fish ponds.
Starting point is 00:58:17 And that's why NADPOD land is going to lift the torch. Yeah. High and proud. So go to the woods near your house. Come find us in the woods. We will compost your nostalgia. Sweet. Great work, Em. Thanks for putting together all that. Yeah, no work.
Starting point is 00:58:33 Over on the Patreon, we're going to be doing a view crew of the many adventures of Ronald McDonald animated by the same crew that did the Rugrats. Right. And as told by Ginger, we're talking about claskey supo folks. Oh, yeah. It's kind of the dying gasp of McDonald's land right before the 2003, I'm loving it shift. Yeah. It gives me a new appreciation for it, actually.
Starting point is 00:58:54 Yeah. Not that much. It wasn't, it's real. bad despite looking good like the animation is really good but the live action stuff up top it's tough it's nauseating real fast real fast cuts i'll be talking about that over on the patreon patreon dot com slash nadpod that's any dd p o'd don't sing yet we don't do it don't do it don't we're loving it uh we've got no we're not um we've got some shows coming up on april 10th we're going to be at radio city music hall so be on the lookout for that uh new york city uh natpod dot com slash live get you
Starting point is 00:59:28 tickets now. Anyone else have anything they'd like to plug? Yeah, I'll plug. My friend Mike is starting a D&D Twitch streaming show with some of his friends called Goblin Guys. It's going to be three different tables running. It's like him and a bunch of his friends. It seems like it's going to be fun. Go check it out. Sweet. Right on. In the meantime, you can follow us on social media that we may or not use at C. First Me at Caldice Caldwell, at a extras Emily, and I check Gertz is Jake. And you can talk about the show online using hashtag Nadpot. That's NEDD-D-POD.
Starting point is 00:59:54 We are, we are. The Youth of the Nation. We are. We are. We are the Youth of the Nation. There's the end of the show volcanoes. You'll even find a French fry thatch. Now just turn around and see if you won't find a hamburger patch. As you're heading... It's the end of the show and you know what that means? We simply must shout out our Council of Elders, starting with Brad D.
Starting point is 01:00:26 Jeffrey S. Lord of the Fjord. Later, McSgater, Matt M. Cutter W. Olivia A. Daniel G. Danielle the dastardly dame. Carpe Liam. Victor T. Balnor's boy. Heides a friend. Justin I.
Starting point is 01:00:45 Danny Danster. T.J. M. Haley the Grey Faye. Dr. O'hee. Now you have to say it. Jordan L. Cyborg version of Josh the Cobald Stevie Wags Hellish rebuquer the NBDMPHD
Starting point is 01:01:03 Jack L Nicholas C star of every film ever made in Bohumia Alka Smelzer Plus Great value chema Tyler F Echupacro is a rabbit folk detective
Starting point is 01:01:17 Timmy R Jake's jerk jelly Hashtag CCCC CACPboard CASS Stephen C. wants to remind you ACAB. Nick W. Nico, the underpaid English teacher. God bless you, though.
Starting point is 01:01:34 William W. Big Bad Bairdo the Mad. Zachary A. Perciville, Frederick Stein, von Musa, Klausowski, Dorolo, the third. Jay Dragonborn. Guardian of the vibe. Honoring the Cock. Impressive. Dongle.
Starting point is 01:01:51 Ben A. Dave H. Not that Nick. Danny. Hockey Pierce, Big Bad John, D. PC is awesome, brand new wife. Shone, the shade tree mechanic of Selbeldar, Summer Rose Grand Terre, Mark the Dark Lord's Taint, Mesa of House In Zunza, Ariel the occasional mermaid, Selena and Valaci Raptor, B, Perky, always, Pat L, Lauren H, serve 16, Annie the Faywild, there are,
Starting point is 01:02:25 Perogi Frenzy Bioquirt 7 Bean Rat was innocent Jack H, King of the Mole People under Iron Deep, trust and blue and fighting his way through a bracket style tournament
Starting point is 01:02:41 Vealin Paj the bitch and bunny Bard, druidic Peyton Carlin C Omri M. Noah the gentleman fister hashtag Anna the Cock James G
Starting point is 01:02:54 Everything Bego, the Eladron who just wants to hang out with his pet badger, Stripey, Reverend Chatterbounds, Han, Eric B, Marcos, Ph.D., eventually, learns the balance, druid, Frida M., Maggie, Holly the Green Laughing Haina, Papa Bumbino and Chinos, Bud Heavy, Russell H, Cody C, Lorelae, the succuby, and Kira, the succulent. snack. Ellen S. Your friendly neighborhood, Yon and Uncle Andrew and Sid. Lobbying for another Atlanta live show, Mr. Adams. James F. Wayfarer now has to do something with the trolls. Get rid of them. Turn to page 42. Keep them turn to page 69. Soft, loose, uncertain hand. Oreo. City name. Barpo, Good Barbarian. Charlie Brown's best friend. Renee, the monster captain. Olivia, the enchanting bard and Jared,
Starting point is 01:03:59 the sub-opra cleric who are preparing an epic playlist for the final battle. Blue Ash. Fico. J. K. Guard. The sugar-bum fairies are out caroling. Happy Hoglides.
Starting point is 01:04:14 Kentrip Dumbledore, the Bear Wensie wearing barbarian. Lexi H. M.J. the B.F.G. Roger L. No drag. the pass a fist barbarian Goose Toes Jean Luca Leon Comori legendary hero of a bohumia from a future
Starting point is 01:04:32 campaign Shenanigans O'Connor Josh S. Linz W. Sky the Wise The Spudfucker himself Johnny Dude Kay The mischief of Nat Potts familiaras Pavu Escanar
Starting point is 01:04:47 The Goliath Paladin Providing Service with a smile Jake well Murpally Tim M. Dragon Knight 86. Richard Strungle, the main event. TR. MLG. Cheeto shall be Kenna's first favorite sprite girl saying goodbye to Borovia by checking in to the great wolf strudge with obsidian. Jet S. Snellis the Eldritch snail. Smoke a blunty finster. Maybe that was a direction. Smoke a blunty finster, right. Oh, Joe. Stormy 52
Starting point is 01:05:24 Mima Sky Days Megan N Anthony B Balnor's best friend Steve Stephanie of House Inzunza Benjamin A
Starting point is 01:05:34 sacrificial otaku bringing otaku culture to a fantasy realm near you Mickle A S tier Crickwater and Joyer Josh H. Pilot
Starting point is 01:05:44 of the Nightmare verse flight The two grew blew through Ethan the mailman Maple the shy bookworm Nick A.J. Ashosaurus. Seth the stroker, bearer of all hog-related burdens. Billy Batson. Tori the tungsten dragoose, warily watching the warehouse of wily wildwater wardens.
Starting point is 01:06:08 Michael Lyle S. the second. Carl B. Plummer of the Realm. Ace Dreg's High Lord of Critsback. Vind diagram. D.M. Charby. Catamilius the consumed Cam the frogletace man Dean Jake W. Hi Mom Tuesday Cross only here for the surf and mirth
Starting point is 01:06:31 We love you right Jesus Smores Tyler M. God dog Zibada Bakery God into Zibitabackery is really blessed and actually we're going to keep it fun with Liminac
Starting point is 01:06:44 Kaylee Katerina C Lance Carly C Olaf dies and frozen two. What are you doing to us? KC.J. Paupaw's litigation associate. Greg W., there's so many of us now, but hey, you're doing great and we love you. Right back at you, Greg W. Baruch, Thunderhelm, a fifth generation, Minotaur, working as an abandoned labyrinth tour guide. Chippa Cabri. Capi B of the schooner Lewis R. French. Richard Jen's left glove tailor. Boney is dead.
Starting point is 01:07:17 The Waterworth, your four-legged Greg Companion, Nick, the raging Ranger, Echo Ashmore, Aidan, D&D, Courts lowliest intern, Aege 15, Canari, watch me kick-flip my neck, Chef Julie B, Mama Mayhem, Chef Julie B, I actually was thinking of you recently because I've been getting into different types of apples, so curious to hear your thoughts. Mama Mayhem, Gen rules kinda, Tomasi, Little Dark Lotus Creations, Kendra A. Miller, James, the polymorphed boot, Joshua H, Jacob M., Lou H, Ajide, Ben V, Prince Slagathor the Third, Shinka Kinsune, or Skylar the only male Katsune in Bohumia, Laini Stoop, Toxic Ghost. Daniel M. Chris A. is super stoked to see you at Radio City. Thank you. We are similarly stoked. Angie H. And of course, Melissa A. Thank you all so much for supporting us. We love you. Goodbye, sweeties. That was a hit gum podcast.

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