Plumbing the Death Star - Hamburglar. Villain or Anti-Hero? with Michael Hing

Episode Date: September 19, 2021

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Sands Pants Radio, Australia's hottest podcast network. Hey everyone and welcome to this week's episode of Plumbing the Death Star. I'm Joel. I'm also Joel. I'm Jackson. And we are joined by very special guest Michael Hing. Hello friends! It's good to be back on this podcast.

I think the last time I did this was probably about five years ago maybe? It was a while. At a rooster teeth convention? Correct. Yeah, correct. And you ended up talking about jerking off animals at the zoo. I did, yes. Mostly, yes.

If you had to jerk off an animal at the zoo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were not invited back, and I don't know why. Five years to get me back on this podcast. Anyway, guys, I've had some thoughts about jerking off lemurs, and I'm here. And today we are going to ask the important questions like, and look, this is very important. This is a big one.

Hamburglar, villain or anti-hero? so the hamburger falls into this interesting category for me jackson you shut your fucking mouth for a second because i'm gonna tell the audience something and you are a slimy fucking weasel man yes so okay people This is a fucking glimpse behind the curtain, and I hate to do this in front of our special guest, Michael Hing, but this I will consider a professional payback for when, in front of 200 people at a Rooster Teeth convention, Michael Hing, we're talking about Donkey Kong money or some shit, and Michael Hing's like,

no, don't you reckon you could make animals at the zoo come? And we were like, well, all right. right anyway with enough time and protected gear maybe i guess i could in hindsight bruce the teeth probably deserved that kind of thing at their conventions because it turns out some of them were cunts anyway when we are planning plumbing the death, we don't really plan it. It's just if we ever, whilst we're not recording, think of a question that could be funny or fun, we put it in, like, a Google document. Jackson is a piece of shit. And much like that Flowrider episode you all fucking loved, occasionally puts in stupid questions like,

Is the Hamburglar a villain or an anti-hero? Me and Zamet look at that, we're like, fuck you, Jackson, and then we continue. What we get a guest on, we show them this. And today... Yeah, and I guess to kind of reiterate this, there's one question that's now, for some reason, Jack keeps putting it forward every single time now.

We've got to do slow rider questions, yeah. We're still not quite sure what to do with it. It's what are the implications of the 80s calling and wanting their shirt back? That's a great topic. I just don't know what to do with it. What do you even mean, Jackson? The 80s have called it, they want your shirt back,

and what the hell does that mean? Should we give it to them? Anyway, today's basically like fucking Jackson's birthday, because Michael Hing has picked a question. Jackson's basically put in our document as like a fucking landmine and today we're stepping on it. So, let's fucking... Yeah, look, obviously becoming associated with Jackson is my...

You know, is it as big a faux pas as asking which gorillas you'd like to jerk off at the zoo? Probably not. But it's in the ballpark, I would say. It's out there, yeah. Yeah, I think the jerking off gorillas at the at the zoo thing again in the privacy of a studio we wouldn't even bat an eyelid at it in front of 200 people that are already barely listening to us really got me i thought it definitely got people to stop and watch us i thought the show went well. I think so, it did. Oh no, it did. It did go well.

It was, because we were in like a massive convention hall. We were in like an airport hangar. Yeah. And the stage had seats in front of it, but it was also a convention. Some people were just wandering around and then, yeah. It would be great from someone's point of view where they were like wandering around, being like, just not paying attention to what's going on. Going through some Naruto magazines and over the loudspeaker they hear, I reckon I can jerk off at least one lion.

Yeah, just a man dressed as a sexy Optimus Prime looking up at the stage being like, what are they talking about? Well, I never. Gracious. So Hamburglar. Let's talk burglar, all right, baby baby so we all know who the hamburglar is yeah the the corporate stooge the the mascot the the criminal of uh ronald mcdonald's uh uh cronies i guess he falls into this interesting category for me the hamburglar that nelson months and barney

from arthur and joel ducha also fall into where Go on. When he's obviously, like, a bully. He's a criminal. He's a bad guy. But for some reason, he's always hanging out with the protagonists of the story. Binky Barnes is always hanging out with Arthur from the show Arthur. Nelson Muntz hangs out with Bart all the time, even though he's bullying him all the time. And the Hamburglar, similarly, even though he's bullying him all the time. And the Hamburglar, similarly,

even though he's stealing hamburgers, is always hanging out with Ronald McDonald, Bertie, and Grimace. So wait, so you think he's a bully? That's interesting. Why do you think he's a bully? Well, I mean, I assume that Ronald McDonald does not want the Hamburglar stolen.

And the Hamburglar steals the Hamburglar. But I think just visually, when you look at Hamburglar v. Ronald McDonald in that situation, like Ronald McDonald is a grown adult. He is. And the Hamburglar is probably a child, right? Do we think he's a child? He's a kid.

I thought he was just a squat man. Oh, okay. I mean, maybe he's a kid. I thought he was just a squat man. Oh, okay. I mean, maybe he's a kid. That's an interesting thing to explore. Ben, can you really blame him for stealing hamburgers? He doesn't know right or wrong. Yeah, he's just hungry. He's just a little boy.

I always imagined the hand... I mean, glossing over the whole, you clearly think you're your own protagonist, Jackson, based on what you said about me. It's a duo protagonist thing it's nice no one would watch your show oh um i think the hamburger was meant to be like a teenager right because i remember in like the early 90s there was a lot of like hamburger skateboarding okay situation oh yes i do remember the hit i do remember skateboarding i also um vaguely remember

his voice being like- Doesn't he just say, Robble, Robble? Robble, Robble, Robble, Robble. Isn't that what he said? Isn't that grimace? I think you're thinking of the Gobbledog, aren't you? Robble, Robble, Robble, Robble. No, I swear that's the Hamburglar.

Does he say Robble, Robble? He loves to say Robble, Robble. Well, I want to put forward that I think that the Hamburglar is kind of experiencing something akin to like a Benjamin Buttoning. A Benjamin Buttoning. A Benjamin Butt-Butt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he starts off originally as a very old man with very grey hair,

like long, scraggly grey hair, rather large, I think he's like kind of troll-like features. But then he becomes to be a bit more of a teenager, where he's kind of got like that Dennis the Menace kind of like red hair and like that cheeky grin. And he's, yeah, a squat little fellow. But then recently, he's then gone up again and is now a very sexy, like, late 20-year-old. Really?

So he's re-aged. Yeah. That's something that doesn't happen in Benjamin Button. That's right, yeah. It's Benjamin. It's more like, yeah, buttoning Benjamin. Maybe in Benjamin Button 2, he re-ages. Yeah.

Oh, my God, he's back from the dead. It's like a yo-yo effect. Like a jellyfish. You kind of like, you know, old, young. I think it's important for us to consider the Hamburglar in his physical context. Right. So not only is he a mascot for the McDonald's Corporation, he also lives in McDonaldland.

Right. Yes. And obviously we can go through all the McDonaldland characters in the McDonaldland universe. But I will say that many of them, example manic cheese are have actual hamburgers as their heads right so you can so i and i think that's kind of the i and i think like either the hamburger hamburger has some sort of weird you know fetishy kind of thing involved you know or yeah or or potentially we're talking like a full on serial killer here like in our world

in regular land it would be like the head burglar exactly, like for example if I went over to I'm picking a name at random here, Jackson's house and Jackson you had a collection of shrunken human heads in your

you know, in your drawers drawers i would think you're a serial killer i you know and i feel like i wouldn't necessarily think of you as an anti-hero or a villain so much as a complete psycho that's and again just picking a name at random yeah yeah yeah i don't know if this is a controversial statement but uh i like labelling a serial killer also a villain is just something I would do. Okay. That's fair, but again, you're right, it is kind of like going into say, Mayor McCheese has a very big

hamburger head, and so granted, yes, going and stealing hamburgers is kind of like stealing mini heads. However, in McDonaldland, they eat hamburgers. Yeah. Mayor McCheese knows the deal. So what is it? they eat hamburgers. Yeah. Mayonnaise knows the deal. So what is it? Are the hamburgers kind of like, say, the infant style or like an egg of what will eventually grow into be a hamburger, like a Mayonnaise.

A larval Mayonnaise. Yeah. Okay. And so basically, because there are so many hamburgers, this may be a thing wherea mccheese kind of characters will probably kind of like overpopulate so maybe the hamburger is doing a good thing so he's basically like stealing these eggs kind of like how a wolf at yellowstone yeah yeah kind of like how we you know to cull the chicken populations we go in and take their eggs is that why we take the eggs of the chickens isn Isn't it? Lest they take over the planet? I thought that was why.

Well, here's an interesting thing that you've made me think of this, Hank. Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar are the only human beings in McDonaldland. And that's assuming that Ronald McDonald is a human being, which I'm not convinced of. He's an eight foot tall clown monster so i don't know but ronald but the hamburglar is very clearly just a human being so maybe it's like out of necessity it's the only food he can get is mcburgers in mcdonald land and they're like you're the hamburglar and he's like i'm just trying to fucking survive okay and if i'm gonna dress up like a sexy little bandit to do it, so be it.

Sexy little bandit. That's an interesting turn of phrase you've used there. Yeah, well, I think being a bandit is already sexy. I think, obviously, we can just get that out of the way. Okay? And if you're a bandit for jewels and purses or you're a bandit for hamburgers, I don't think there's much difference.

Has it ever discovered what he does with their hamburgers after he steals them? Because we assume he eats them. But I don't think I've ever seen the Hamburglar eat a burger. I've seen him go to McDonald's. I've seen him steal burgers. I don't know that I've ever seen him put one in his mouth. Yeah.

He puts them in like a sack, yeah? Yeah, yeah. I've seen him fill his sack, certainly, with hamburgers. But I wonder if he is, I mean, here is how he could be an antihero. If he was, for example, going to an orphanage and then offloading the burgers to the children there or something. I feel like that's- Sort of like a Robin Hood for greasy meat.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Because, again, it doesn't look like he's eating all those hamburgers. Like, he isn't exactly, like, say, a quite rotund man. No, he's a trim figure.

He doesn't. Yeah. He needs to for all the sneaking around. Well, actually. He's got quite an inflated head. He does. He's got his cheeks. He's a cherub.

Yeah. Well, initially he was called the Lone Jogger Right His original Moniker was the Lone Jogger That sounds like the name of Either a serial killer or the person Killed by a serial killer Yes yes Look we all have

Interesting beginnings Wait was he called the Lone Jogger when he was an old man Yeah Yes, yes, yes Look, we all have interesting beginnings Wait, was he called the Lone Jogger When he was an old man? Yeah, and he can't look If you look at images of the Lone Jogger He kind of looks maybe like a pervert However Because the Lone Jogger is an old man

That isn't serial killer or being murdered territory That's like, oh no, the Lone Jogger showed me his dick and balls Yeah, because he's wearing a cape And he's often like, splaying it out as if he were to be a flasher. However, a lone jogger, meaning he does a lot of jogging, which means he needs to consume a lot of calories because he's burning a lot of calories. So maybe he's just like pounding those hamburgers left, right and center just to maintain his beautiful physique. I think we've all probably done this but i am on the uh mcdonald's fandom wiki yeah there's a lot of information here about the hamburglar none of it really points towards the anti-hero but maybe something that we jackson alluded to earlier

that i think is very important to note is that he is a close friend of r McDonald, Grimace and Birdie, even though he has always attempted, in brackets, and failed, to hoard all the hamburgers in McDonaldland for himself. He has always been looked upon as a valued member of the McDonaldland community. What? You know how maybe it's a conspiracy in McDonaldland, and so basically, well, when things are corrupt, I would look, I look at Mayor McCheese and I don't necessarily think of him as, say, like someone who isn't a corrupt politician.

Mayor McCheese does not look like he's got a handle on things. So I'm wondering if there may be, maybe if they're setting, like, say, okay, what if we, almost like a false flag situation, where we hire, say, the Hamburglar as some kind of, like, bad actor, as it were, to kind of, like, terrorize the community at large, to kind of keep them, you know, fearful and complacent, so that whatever policies that Mayor McCheese can kind of put through to help him and, say, Ronald McDonald and his cronies be wealthy and rich.

So everyone is kind of fearful of the Hamburglar where they're not realising that Ronald McDonald is... He's sort of a scapegoat for the McDonaldland societal ills. They can be like, you get better... What type of policies do you think that a mayor could put through in a town that is being hassled by one guy that's stealing burgers? Yeah. Sorry, guys. I thought I was on Plumbing the Death Star.

I didn't realize I was on Noam Chomsky's podcast about McDonaldland. consent here um can i interject and suggest that i think the people you got you got to think about who else lives in uh mcdonald land right now obviously there's the fry kids uh there's there's grimace formerly known as evil grimace there's birdie etc and then i think the regular people around there are more burger people for example officer, Officer Big Mac, et cetera. I think the burger person is the sort of standard person in McDonald's land. And so the policy of maintaining fear, this boogeyman, as it were, this burger man, the Hamburglar, is because they know that they're in league with McDonald's, the corporation, that's selling their heads to humans in our world. Do you see?

Yeah, exactly. And again, if you look at the other people in McDonald's, like cronies, you've got Birdie, a bird, and what does Bird love to eat? Chippies. And you've got the Fry Guys there. I mean, they would be constantly in fear, but because Birdie's in a higher position, no one questions it.

There's a lot of things that are sus here, is all I'm saying. So you think that all of these are... So Birdie, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Ronald McDonald himself, maybe, are Mayor McCheese's enforcers. Yeah, or I would say perhaps maybe that Ronald McDonald is kind of like the head of the mafia. Oh, sure. The pal behind the mafia. Oh, sure. In this kind of situation. The pal behind the throne. Exactly.

Because if you look at Grimace, otherwise known as Evil Grimace, or formerly known, and then the Hamburg... Both of them are villains. Both of them were apparently very... And then they reformed. But yeah, Grimace is reformed, but the Hamburglar isn't. It just seems a bit sus, you know? It is interesting to note that Mayor McCheese was actually brought down by a lawsuit in 1977. Good. What?

What's this? Yeah. What happened to him? Did they storm the Capitol? Was it a stop the steal situation? So he was sued into oblivion. By what? Who?

His constituents? Who? His constituent? Who took down Mayor McCheese? Actually, well, look, I hate to get this narrative even more convoluted, but it was actually H.R. Poffin's stuff. What? The plot thickens. Excuse me? So this is an out of McDonaldland. This is an outside of McDonaldland lawsuit that occurred.

Yes, that prevented McDonald's from ever using Mayor McCheese again. So what? What? So I still don't know. Because HR Puppet stuff is the mayor of the living island. Is it a battle of big puppet mayors? What happened The similarities between the McDonaldland

Mayor And the HR Puff and stuff characters Was noted to be Not a coincidence and therefore A cease and desist and a $100,000 fine Was paid What are the similarities Mayor McCheese has a burger for a head

HR Puff and Stuff, there's no burger. I feel like these are... No, he's like a big dragon. What the hell? I would say that one similarity is they both look fucked. I mean, I guess. Oh, HR Puff and Stuff, they copyrighted all absolutely cooked imagery.

Things for kids that will actually make your kids be like, what the fuck? And talk about like 20 years later after they've been like Why did I Why did people let me watch that? So who's the mayor now? Well probably Ronald Ronald?

I think they've gone full libertarian And converted to direct democracy You know they've all got apps on their phones Allowing them to In McDonald's they only use gold and crypto That's it and converted to direct democracy. You know, they've all got apps on their phones allowing them to... In MacDonald, they only use gold and crypto. That's it. Now a quick word from our sponsors.

Also, have you noticed that your shirts and or bags are often lacking in pins from your good friends at Sands Pants Radio? Well, that's easily remedied by heading to our merch store on sandspantsRadio.com and grabbing one of our pins. We have the Sands Pants Radio logo, an Always Bet on Piss D20, and Jackson's face that is a replica

of his legally binding signature. Sold separately or as a set of three. Check them out at our merch store over at SandsPantsRadio.com. Can I posit this is an alternate theory, okay? That McDonald's land is either heaven Or hell But only for Ronald McDonald And the Hamburglar who are human beings

Who died in our world And this is their precious afterlife Because the Hamburglar Stealing hamburgers Maybe he's doing it to survive Maybe there's no other food here in McDonald's land. Or maybe it's not a heaven or hell situation. Maybe it's more like a Narnia situation.

Like he was a real boy who fell into this world. And now the only way to get food is to presumably kill all of the little hamburger people to eat them. And maybe the reason he looks like that is that that's what a diet of only hamburgers does to a person. It enlarges the head. Yeah, it's made him puffy and pink because he's eaten so many hamburgers. You know what's kind of funny is that the Hamburglar, obviously, we think of him as being a cartoon character. But there's like an actor who played him and stuff, and also a guy called Frank Delfino who played him.

I'm just looking at Frank Delfino's Wikipedia page. Yeah. So he was a professional violinist and also began one of his first acting gigs. So obviously he went on to great things such as he was in the movie Planet of the Apes. He was in the Brady Bunch. He was in a bunch of stuff, including with Donald Landis, the Hamburglar. He began his professional acting career appearing as the character Johnny, selling cigarettes for Philip Morris.

Another corporate stage. Oh, my gosh. Cigarettes for Philip Morris. Another corporate stage. Oh, my gosh. Literally, they were like, hey, who can we get that'll be really good at influencing the buying behavior of children? Let's get the cigarette salesman. Let's get him on board. Makes sense. Another thing I've learned about the hamburglar yeah is that so the stripes on it so we we look at the hamburglar with his striped shirt right we think he's just busted out of prison he's a convict of sorts yeah yeah not so what

when he steals hamburgers in an old retro McDonald's cartoon, he's wearing all black. He's the man in black. He's Johnny Cash is the man in black. And Ronald McDonald... That's who Johnny Cash was thinking about. He was thinking about the Hamburglar. And Ronald McDonald grabs a strip of his clothes and, like, spins him and tears off strips of his black clothing

to reveal white clothing underneath, which is pretty symbolic of an anti-hero. He's all darkness on the outside, but he's got a pure good inside. The Hamburglar. That's just how douche are gonna happen.

I think you're definitely onto something and it even comes back to his old moniker, the Lone Jogger, which is, again, trying to do the whole, I guess, connection there to the Lone Ranger. So, again, and he's also, nowadays, he's wearing that little mask, whatever you call it, thing where it just goes over your eyes. Kind of a Zorro mask, I would say.

Yeah. And so, again, I think if the hand-bearer isn't an anti-hero, he definitely wants to be one. Yes. He's dressing up like one. He's got a cape. Who has capes? Do villains have capes?

Maybe. Well, some do. I guess for me, when we talk about anti-heroes, though, in 2021 or in the 21st century, an anti-hero is really only an anti-hero when they've got their own um premium cable drama series set around them think you know um obviously sopranos breaking bad you know to set the wire that kind of thing can you imagine a sort of hamburglar style uh sorry an hbo style hamburglar biopic maybe three seasons 25 episodes you know an hour each kind of situation, delving into his life. I absolutely can.

A hundred percent. Yeah, definitely, definitely. It would be called either Ham, just Ham, or just Burglar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Either one. They wouldn't do the whole thing. Oh, no, maybe they would. All right, well, I mean, I don't want to stray too far

from the remit of the podcast, but who would you cast as the titular Hamburglar in this role? So you've got to remember, he's got to be charming, obviously, right? He's a villain on the run. He's got to have, I think, kind of a bit of an unhinged edge, obviously. Potentially he's either got to be able to

robble-robble, and he's also got to be able to play both a young man and also a very aged man. Yeah, he's got got to be able to play both a young man and also a very aged man. Yeah, he's got to pull out Benjamin Button. Yeah, he's got to have versatility. He's got to be able to pull that off, pull that off.

I can see Zammett is diving deep from, like, I don't know, just your expression. It's like a picture you've got Minority Reporter, all these different actors to pick the perfect Hamburg hamburglar i yeah i don't know it's tough to pick a perfect hamburglar because one no human being has as puffy a head as the and it's just really hard to find somebody to be able to match i mean you could to keep true i think i think you could do get danny devito to do it if it was a comedy if it was like a if you were making the Hamburglar

children's movie kind of thing I think Danny DeVito would be a great option for that yeah perfect but I think what you're looking for is sort of gravitas really yes I think there's a lot of drama to the character

there's untapped drama there well you know yeah my my suggestion i think is uh so uh one half of this comedy duo has already appeared in uh prestige uh hbo drama uh so why not take the other half of Mr. Show, David Cross. Oh, okay. David Cross is in a kind of more dramatic role doing the Hamburglar. I think he could be called doing the Hamburglar. He's got an inherent sadness and patheticness within him. Yes. He does have quite a tragic.

He does have kind of a tragic heart um uh heart to him doesn't he yeah you took david cross or the hamburger oh david cross both of them really both of them have a sadness at their core uh i i think i think that's not that's that's fair to say um let's talk about the Hamburglar as a... And I don't know if maybe this makes him an anti-hero. But do we think that the Hamburglar is designed maybe by the McDonald's Corporation to suggest scarcity of burgers?

For us, the consumer of McDonald's, do you know what I mean? Are we meant to be like, I need more burgers because the hamburglar is intent on stealing them so i better eat my hamburgers quickly before this little guy robble robbles up to the table and steals a hamburger absolutely the implication of the hamburglar is they're trying really hard to get people to buy a second burger after inhaling their first burger in that short window where you feel like you can eat anything.

You know, like, when you start a meal and if you eat really quickly, you're like, oh, I ate a regular meal that would usually fill me up, but I'm still hungry. Smell me one McDonald's cheeseburger. You're like, I reckon I can go another cheeseburger. But you couldn't. You couldn't. But you think you could.

Just to fill Michael Hingin, who doesn't know this story, and maybe to any of our listeners in who doesn't know this story, and maybe to any of our listeners that also don't know this story, when Plumbing the Death Star last did a UK tour, after a live show, Jackson had had probably one or two drinks and started proudly declaring that he could eat 10 cheeseburgers quite easily. So we then went to a McDonald's and everyone started... There was no actual wages Put your money where your mouth is, buy 10 cheeseburgers

And how many did you get through Jackson? I got through I think 7? 6 and a half Which sounds Pathetic I know But it was very very very difficult to do.

I feel like just observing this podcast from afar, it does strike me that, Jackson, your life is a series of self-imposed mishaps that in any other context, like if you weren't a content creator, like a podcaster and everything else, if you didn't have this job, I don't know what you could possibly do. Honestly, I try to imagine you in a professional workplace.

Can you imagine having a job at a bank or whatever and being like, hey, boss, I can eat 10 cheeseburgers, and your boss being like, okay, fine, go do the forms. Don't tell me about it. I don't care. The only job I can really kind of imagine Jack doing is one which he had, which was working at a cafe, but only if he turned that cafe into a sitcom, which he did do.

There are so many kind of stories about there that I think there was, like, what, five people working in there, three of them believed that the place was haunted, one of them was Jackson. Yeah. A radio fellow for once. Anyway, what I'm saying is I think Joel and Joel, I think you're doing wonderful work keeping him off the streets.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, sorry. I just went on, like like a bit of a mind palace In terms of like, again You got me thinking about a Hamburgular kind of series And I just kind of went to

What that would be, what that would look like And I did just kind of take a lot of inspiration from Goodfellas Because I think that's the kind of That's the kind of I guess Themes that you really want to explore with the Hamburgular All my life I wanted to rubble, rubble. And I know you're thinking of

particular actors, and again, you're like David Cross, all those kind of things. Great ideas. But I really think you kind of got to pull from, I've got three choices. Christopher Maloney, I think would be really good as a Hamburglar. Or Vincent D'Onofrio, because again, he's got

a lovely range. Vincent D'Onofrio!, again, he's got a lovely range. Vincent D'Onofrio. The man who played Kingpin, right? Exactly. He played Kingpin. He could nail a handbook. Or another Vinnie D, Vin Diesel. Oh, interesting.

The moment you said Goodfellas, I immediately went to Joe Pesci. Oh, Joe Pesci would be a good one. Oh, my God. How are so many people perfect for the handbook? Or you do something kind of like the imagination of Dr. Panassium or whatever that movie was called, where you have several different actors playing the same thing. Oh, sure. And I think Joe Pesci would do great

as the lone jogger. Yes. Okay, okay. Like that Bob Dylan biopic where everyone played different. Okay, but then if you're doing that, then, I mean, you can get any psycho to play the hamburger at that point, you know?

Any absolute freak will do. I do like this... This Joe Pesci idea has also made me reconsider that in my head canon now, and that's where we're at with... The hamburger is, in fact, Italian. Maybe he sounds like Mario.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Have we heard his voice? He just says, rubble, rubble. Rubble, rubble. Rubble, rubble. He's not intelligible. Rubble? Rubble, rubble.

There we are. Yes. Rubble, rubble. Rubble, rubble. Maybe rubble, rubble is like a gabagool. Rubble, rubble Rubble's like a Gabagool Rubble Rubble Maybe it's the Sopranos Maybe

Woke up this morning Got myself a hash brown Because again you've got that little That little crime family that clearly Ronald is the one in charge And then again you've got the police Officer that's in their back pocket you've got the mayor In their back pocket you know Gr mayor in their back pocket you know grimace is clearly the enforcer and then you've got the

fall guy on rubble rubble this is my dark take on what i think you say i think for a past transgression ronald mcdonald cut out his tongue and he's saying ronald ronald it's a it's sort of a Hodor situation. He's so fucked up by getting his tongue cut out that all he can say is Ronald Ronald, but it sounds to us like Robble Robble. That's what I believe happened. Yeah, because if you take

into consideration... You're suffering the consequences. Snip snip. Yeah, because if you look into say Ronald McDonald, yes, he's an outward appearance. He's very, you know i'm a lovable man look at me i'm donating money to charity i'm you know helping all these kind of like you know wayward kids uh again it could be a front because he is a monster uh and perhaps he is kind of like yeah you're right being that kind of like happily to cut off a man's tongue

because you wronged him. You know, you can purchase a McDonald's Hamburglar pop vinyl Funko Pop for $20. A bargain! And yeah, I guess I don't know a lot about Funko Pops. I thought they would have cost much less than $20. I thought they would have cost um but less much less than twenty dollars i would thought it would have been like five dollars each twenty dollars and it makes me wonder if this is a premium one or is that is twenty dollars just a standard amount for a for a pop for a funko pop i have no idea i believe the twenty dollars is the regular retail price but i could be wrong

joel you've routed yourself as the biggest loser of the group because you know the fucks the fucker fucks. Please stay out of it. It was a trap but you won't try to do it. I'll just quickly reverse this trap. It's simply because I am the only member of this podcast group that still exists

within a regular society. You've all got stupid jobs where I work at a place that requires me to interact directly with the public the scum and the filth that buy funko pops yes okay okay so i think uh if by and large i i can't i don't think we can say that hamburglar is a villain we just can't because he's he's good friends with ronald mcdonald uh and he's kind of part of that gang feels like it's part of a system that might be villains yeah and and i think if the hamburger is either he's again the corporate stooge he's

playing his role he's being that lightning rod that everyone is kind of having to like focus on so that they don't see the real problems going on like they don't necessarily have to focus on the scandal that brought down maya mccheese when they got someone stealing hamburgers yeah if you look at like things now apparently um like mcdonald land is never really seen uh in in kind of advertisements anymore it's kind of just been abandoned um a lot of the things now is just kind of like in passing. You don't really necessarily see it. It's now mostly just focusing on Ronald McDonald alone, helping out his charity or going to a restaurant owned by himself. So, again, I think he's a lightning rod at least, or he's part of the system and he's trying to bring it down from the inside.

Like who perhaps gave HR Puff and stuff the idea to take down man cheese? Was it the Hamburglar? I don't know the answer, but I'm just positing it. The Hamburglar as well is an interesting idea as a corporate mascot because there aren't many corporate mascots out there whose role it is, who have a role that is to steal the product they're advertising. Like obviously the Gobbledock, we briefly mentioned the Gobbledock before, who have a role that is to steal the product they're advertising. Yeah. Like, obviously, the Gobble Doc,

we briefly mentioned the Gobble Doc before. But most, I guess what I'm saying is, because the theft of the product, it suggests an intense desire for the product. It proves the product to be desirable. Yeah. But it also, it kind of, I had not thought about stealing a hamburger.

Yeah, yeah. This has now introduced the idea to me. You know, in some strange way, they're like, they're so desirable that the hamburger wants to steal them. And then, yeah, maybe you're like, well, maybe I should steal them. Maybe I should rob a McDonald's. Should we, after this podcast, stop with the recording and go rob a McDonald's? Go rob a McDonald's. Rob a rubble.

As a thought experiment, how would one go about stealing a hamburger? Or like in the hamburgers case, stealing a sack full of hamburgers. It seems to be hard. Go to a McDonald's car park. Put your car in drive. Put a brick on the accelerator. Get out of the car.

The car slams into all the other cars in the car park. Everyone's distracted. They're like, my fucking car. Oh, shit. You go into the McDonald's as everyone goes out to check on their cars. They're half-eaten hamburgers on the table. That's your time to shine. You stick, you eat them, the chippies, the sips from their drinks.

The willingness with which you debase yourself in a fantasy which you are entirely in control of. You could have, in this scenario, again, you're only limited by your imagination. You could have hired a helicopter in your mind. You could have flown in. You could have done a sort of a cat burglar heist. You could have Ocean's Eleven this whole thing.

But no, your suggestion is to cause property damage to people who don't even work at McDonald's, just to patrons, and then to sneak in and eat their half-eaten food. Jackson, come on. What is going on? I've wrecked my own car. I have no getaway car now.

I'm running away on foot. Now you've got to slowly walk. You're going to be filled with burgers, and you've got to run away from McDonald's. You're going to be hobbling away, filled with fried meat. You're going to feel unwell. I'm queasy also jackson if you also uh depending on the mcdonald's you've robbed here the staff car park might

be different so the people are still just standing behind the counter watching you. Just about half-eaten meat. Don't tell anyone. And I've got to be so quick as well. It's not going to be good. And we know your limit is six and a half cheeseburgers. I don't know how much you're going to eat. No, those are six and a half fresh cheeseburgers. We don't know what his limit of pre-eaten cheeseburgers is. Exactly.

Pre-moistened by other people's mouths. Maybe I'll be quick on it. That has to be one of the worst sentences that's ever been uttered. I could eat more burgers if they've been wet with other people's mouths. It's kind of like when professional hot dog eaters dip their hot dog

in water. It's a similar kind of situation. It's like kicking the hot dog and dipping it in someone else's mouth And then pulling it out What's that guy's name? Kobayashi or whatever? He's just sitting there with Jackson Thank you Thank you

You make me so quick Spit it into my mouth That's how I'd rob a McDonald's And the whole time I'd rob a McDonald's. And the whole time I'd be saying, the Hamburglar told me to do this. The Hamburglar told me to do this. In between bites, as you're slowing down at the end, you're like, the Hamburglar told me to do this.

Oh, God. I think Jackson's onto something, though. I won't say he's onto a lot, but he's onto something because the security of the McDonald's is that you don't get the burger unless you've paid for the burger. The system they've got in place. I mean, say what you will about them as a corporation. They're very efficient in terms of getting your money.

I think you'd have to. The only other way I could think about doing it is getting an inside job situation. You know what I mean? And then having someone behind the counter and then sneaking one out that way. Or posing as a worker because i imagine it's quite a it's quite a uh free-flying workforce you know people don't save the dollars for very

for very long you work on you know managers don't work weekends or whatever you turn up you go i'm the new fry cook or whatever can you show me how to make a burger they teach you how to make a burger you eat the burger then you leave you know and teach you how to make a burger. You eat the burger, then you leave. So this is for one burger? Yeah. I just think if they were teaching me to make hamburgers and I was putting them into a sack,

I think it might be suspicious. You know they slide them down to the front counter, but you're just sliding them into a sack instead. And then you just grab that robble ro, but you're just sliding them into a sack instead. And then you just grab that robble-robble and you're out of there. But it's also so funny to do a heist for one burger and people are like,

I don't think that guy worked here. What did he do? Oh, he came here for one hamburger. That was it. Yeah, Nigeria and the world are convicting me. I've got a pretty good idea. Yeah. So, okay.

So Michael Hing, onto a winner, I think, except that's only for one burger. Yeah. But it is worth noting that McDonald's make their food relatively fresh to order. So, if you hit up a McDonald's with a gun, you probably get three burgers. Sure. Yeah. That's true. That's true.

I, for some reason, imagined you at the drive-thru douche-er. Yes. Well, no, no, no. That's actually good I, for some reason, imagined you at the drive-thru douche-er. Yes. Well, no, no, no. That's actually good. Okay. So, my plan. Book a ride-share of some kind. Oh, yeah.

Ah. Go through the McDonald's drive-thru with the Uber driver or Didi driver or whatever. Order a ridiculous amount of food. I'm talking, like, 30 to 40 burgers. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You need to find a mix where they're like, oh, okay, it could be for like a party or something.

Yeah. Where it's like stupidly big, but not to the point where they're like, we're not making that. That's a joke order. So maybe 20, maybe 20 burgers. 20 burgers. All right. Fair enough. And this is an important part.

You pay pass with your card. Preferably if you sit in the back back you hand it to the Uber driver who pay passes it okay so just so you know what you're describing right now is just ordering food that's what you're describing it's just a way you're just getting lunch

pay pass is important because then there is the transaction period it doesn't come out of your bank account straight away while that's happening you wait maybe 10 to 15 minutes, and then you call up your bank and report your card as stolen. And then you say, I noticed a weird transaction on my card for $200 at McDonald's. That's an insane amount of food. Oh, okay. The banks reverse that charge. And then when they check the security camera, it's not your amount of food. He reversed that charge.

And then when they checked the security camera, it's not your car. Your car isn't there, so it clearly wasn't you. That's true. And sure, maybe an innocent man goes to jail. Yeah, you have gotten your DD driver, your Uber driver in massive amounts of trouble because people will be like, well, this person must

have stolen your car. I don't think you would get the DD driver in trouble. I think the police would turn up to their house and be like, hey, we want to talk to you about $200 at the McDonald's. And they were like, oh, okay. Yeah, I guess that's my car. We were there then. And then he'd be like, hey, let me check the app. Oh, I guess the person who booked it was now dusha

i have his contact details and his photo here on the app and now you're living the end of good fellas you're coming into your house you're stressing because you know that the police are chase coming for you now you're like did i get away with it did i get away with it they knock on your door you're going to jail buddy You're going to jail, buddy. You're going to jail. I think that what I would do is make sure that I got the lift from not my house to not my house. So my home address isn't listed. It's still part of your app, dude. It's still your profile, man.

I think you're going to upload an ID or something to sign up for the app. I think the only way this ends, Joel, is with you sweating in your house, empty McDonald's bags everywhere, you loading a gun as the police begin to knock on the door, and it's Dusha's last stand. That's where we're at right now. That's how this ends.

You're flushing hamburgers down the toilet, looking at the doors the cops are banging on. Shitting yourself. I still think that with a slight change, I can get away with this. You think you can defraud McDonald's? Yeah. Rather than saying my card's been stolen, and this requires slightly more effort,

I say that my phone's been stolen. Okay, okay. Now I'm on board. So what we need now is a series of, like, sort of film or television prosthetics to put it on your face. We're talking wigs, a giant nose. I mean, maybe we make your head widened

as though you were the Hamburg. Oh, yeah. Well, that is an idea. And then you can, like, you know, be picked up by the local news. Yeah. And you can be like, I can't have been me. I'm not that grotesque looking man.

My head's the basketball. My head is a regular man's size. I am regular man Joel Dusha, not fucking freak hamburger. Okay. So then what you need to do is you need to be able to steal more hamburgers than it would cost. I mean, I imagine, because we want this to be a net gain for you,

you need to be able to steal more. The value of the hamburgers has to outweigh the value of all the prosthetics you'd be putting on. So we're talking like probably $500 worth of hamburgers now. Yeah. Plus I'm going to need a burner phone because I'm saying that my phone's lost all right so i guess jackson do you think you could eat 700 worth of mcdonald's

depends on what he bought i guess and if i'm allowed to throw up in between the new mackers burger that's like gold leaf uh they got a mackers patty covered it in gold leaf lettuce gold leaf uh pickles well you better covered it in gold leaf, lettuce, gold leaf, pickles. Well, you better believe they're gold leaf. Is gold poisoning real? Wouldn't it be wonderful if McDonald's had one $700 item on the menu that was like that French bird they dip in brandy and set on fire, an autolite or whatever?

The one you've got to eat with the cloth covering your face. You cover your face to hideolite or whatever the one you gotta eat with like you the cloth covering your face you cover your face to hide your shame or whatever when you eat it mcdonald's shame cloth it's like all right i'll have two happy meals and i guess an autolite that'd be great jackson you should probably wear that coat of shame when you're eating other people's food off their table. So getting back to the Hamburglar, is he an anti-hero or a villain? Has anyone ever heard about the story of Frederick

the Great of Prussia? He sort of, was he the, did he unify Germany or whatever? Was that that guy? He might have, but look, at that point, I don't know. I'm more talking about the potato famine, or at least the famine. I've read about 1770- uh where a lot of peasants were being like we're gonna like there's a famine coming out and then and frederick was like famine dropping yeah well we need to make

sure that people eat potatoes at this point in time potatoes were shit they called them the devil's apples no one wanted them there's a quote which is, they have no smell nor taste. Not even the dogs will eat them. And you want us to eat them? Fuck you. I might have been paraphrasing the last bit. Sure, sure. So Frederick was like, okay, I understand this, but I'm not going to be deterred by this.

So what he's going to do is he's going to plant all these potato fields and be like, right, now what we're going to do is we're going to have guards. So we're going to, like, put people there so they're guarding them to kind of make the impression that these crops are valuable. So if they steal them, they think it's worth something, and then they'll eat them, and then the famine will be, you know, staked off. And so he kind of, like, put, like, a lot of guards on and was like, hey,

by the way, guards, if you catch someone, someone, act like, oh, where did they go? Basically act the buffoon so that, of course, these crops would get stolen. And so they did. And it was a very smart thing. It's a marketing ploy. A great marketing ploy so that the people didn't die from starvation and they just supped on the devil's apple. Wow. I will posit to you that the Hamburglar is in a similar situation.

Hamburgers, are they really that good? Are they really that tasty? I don't know. But the fact that a man is stealing not just one hamburger but many hamburger may mean, at least to my subconscious brain, that hamburger is good, therefore I should steal or at least buy to eat. Wow. That is great.

And also to build on that as like this being a very genius move by Mayor McCheese, there's actually another hamburglar called Captain Crook who used to only steal fillet of fish or fillet of fish, if you will. of fish or fillet of fish if you will uh so clearly they were like not only do we need one person to steal burgers but a second person to be stealing a very specific type of burger so that you know both seem desirable okay so it's this new theory i think it's starting to look more and more like hamburglar uh villain or anti-hero it It's more Hamburglar villain or buffoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know about buffoon. I just think corporate stooge. Yeah, I think he's a corporate stooge.

I think he... And obviously, you know, and I don't know why this wasn't evident to us from the start, he is in the pocket of the McDonald's corporation. So he could never be acting against the company's interest. Yeah, who signs the paychecks? That's Ronald McDonald's signature on your paychecks, motherfucker. That's where you get your money.

Unfollow the money. You know? He's in the pocket of Big McDonald's and he always has been. He's not good or bad. Have we blown this case wide open? Is it now Ronald McDonald sitting in his house, like frantically loading a shotgun, sweating through his clown makeup. Yeah.

They're coming for me any day now. They're going to put a bullet in old McDonald. Yeah. And so once again, it's just, again, I think I was right on the money there with Hamburglar was put up as to everyone to be like, ah, yes, we should fear that person. And everyone, all the problems are basically the hamburger's fault when they really were not. And everyone is just eating delicious, the devil's burger, as it were.

Yeah, I think you're right. It's a happy, complacent population and they don't ask questions. Yeah, they don't. And good on them. And there's fluoride in the burgers. There's fluoride in the burgers. There's fluoride in the burgers. It's been put there by 5G. Look, I know all about this shit.

I've done my own research. I've done my own research. Who owns the newspapers in McDonaldland? That's what I want to know. You're asking the right questions, dude. You're asking the right questions. Who is spotting? I think whoever owns the newspapers,

I think we know who is at least paying for the advertising. Absolutely. Absolutely. And when you've got a mayor whose right-hand man is the head of the police who is also the judge, jury, and presumably executioner. I mean, just go even further back. It's called McDonaldland, right? Yeah.

Is it just old money? Yeah. Well, Ronald McDonald, his tentacles surely are deep within the system. Is it just, like, yeah, the McDonald fortune from way back when, and this was, like, you know, his founder, like they found this particular, like, you know, village that made it to a town or whatever, and it's just that kind of, like, old money that is just seeping

through the pores of McDonaldland, and, yeah, no one can do anything about it because the corruption runs deep. I think it's rotten to the core, you know? I think Ronald McDonald, not Ronald, I think the Hamburglar is just, he's one of many systemic problems with McDonald's land. Can I offer just one parting image to you guys? Because I feel like we're sort of wrapping up.

But just Officer Big Mac slowly covering his body cam as he beats Jackson with his giant police stick. Don't steal other people's hamburgers. Jackson, weak with hitting a baton, tries to make like one half-hearted attempt to just bite the Big Mac that's leaning over him. I'll eat your hand. I've eaten too much. I'm so full so full if i need so many off-eating

burgers i'd be eating you right now i'm in more intestinal pain than i am well when it comes down to it, I think we've blown this case wide open. Villain, anti-hero, no. He is neither. Corporate stooge. Corporate stooge. Follow the money. Follow the fucking money.

There it is. And on that note, I've been Joel. I've also been Joel. I've been Jackson. And I'm Michael Hing. And I was on here to plug my TV show that I forgot to mention. Oh my god, Michael Hing, you've got a here to plug my TV show that I forgot to mention. Oh, my God. Michael Hing, you've got a TV show.

Tell us all about it right now. And maybe there'll be more Plumbing the Death Star after this, so people should definitely listen just to check. Yeah. Yeah, no, if you want, you might be familiar with a show on SBS called Letters and Numbers. It's from sort of 10 years ago. It's sort of a puzzle game show.

I feel like your listeners may be into puzzles. They're sort of nerd adjacent, pop culture adjacent. Everyone loves puzzles. Yeah. You might be familiar in the UK it's called Countdown, but we can't call it Countdown in Australia because there's already another show called Countdown. Anyway, Letters and Numbers,

it's coming back. It's now in a comedy format. I'm hosting it. Loads of great guests and comedians coming back. It's now in a comedy format. I'm hosting it. Loads of great guests and comedians are on. It's going to be on Saturday nights from October onwards. And I would usually be like, hey, who's going to be home on a Saturday night able to watch television? Nobody. Well, luckily, once again, lockdown has come to a halt to the rescue of broadcast television.

And if you want to watch it, that'd be great. Anyway, it's called Celebrity Letters and Numbers, and it starts in October on 8.30 Saturday nights on SBS. That's exciting. Yeah, it's real fun. It's real fun. We've shot about 20-something episodes, two seasons of it already. Oh, shit.

Yeah, it's all done. And I was really worried it was going to be fucking terrible because everything I do is fucking awful, and's all done. And I was really worried it was going to be fucking terrible because everything I do is fucking awful and I hate everything. But I've watched some early episodes and I don't hate it. That's pretty good. That's the biggest compliment. The biggest selling point is I don't fucking hate it. Yeah, that's pretty good.

So if I was, say, like an international listener, like not in Australia, can I also watch this? Yeah. And if so, how? What you can do is just Google 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and watch a better version of our show. No. No.

Yeah, you'll be able to. We'll put it up on YouTube and stuff. It'll be out there. But, yeah, I guess 8 Out of 10 Cats is, like, the British version of the show, Added to 10 Cats Countdown. Obviously, for infinite reasons, we can't try to be them, so it's a very different show in some ways, but we're just playing the same games.

So don't watch it expecting me to be Jimmy Carr, because I'm not, and you'll only be disappointed. Do you have a similar laugh to Jimmy Carr? Have you tried to emulate that? No, I've done a fair bit of tax for it, obviously. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good news. That's important.

Yeah. Well, thank you for coming on the show, Hing, and thank you once again for not asking if we could jerk off the Hamburgl and how many times we could get him to completion, even though we were all thinking it at the start I was thinking at least three I don't know about you guys The only person I couldn't bring to Climax

As part of the McDonald's land Was probably Grimace solely because I do not know where His presumed dick or balls are Where are Grimace's erogenous zones? A question for another day Interesting that you didn't choose Birdie because that would confuse me. No, I think I could give Birdie a glorious orgasm.

I don't know what to do with the cloaca. I would be all over it, dude. I would be on that like white on rice. It would be crazy. Well, thank you for having me. I've had a great time. No problem. See you next time.

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