Latest / Ridiculous History / What Happened to Ronald McDonald? Part Two: Supersizing A Mystery

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What Happened to Ronald McDonald? Part Two: Supersizing A Mystery · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give a hand to
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Speaker 1: the one and only, the Man, the myth, the legend,
0:35
Speaker 1: our super producer, Mr Max Williams. They called me Ben
0:42
Speaker 1: my heart thought in it today. I'm sorry. Sorry, Well, hey, hey,
0:47
Speaker 1: you've made it to the wou you know. Okay, So
0:54
Speaker 1: this is funny because I have no idea what this
0:56
Speaker 1: is gonna sound like after after Max gives it his
0:59
Speaker 1: magic much but I trust you and we, as we
1:03
Speaker 1: said earlier, this is the second part of a two
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Speaker 1: part series on a mystery in the world of fast food?
1:12
Speaker 1: What happened to Ronald McDonald? Uh? As we said earlier, Uh,
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Speaker 1: my dear friend Mr Noel Brown is out at the moment,
1:21
Speaker 1: but we'll be returning soon. In the meantime, we were
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Speaker 1: lucky enough to get one of the busiest men in
1:27
Speaker 1: the history of podcasting to come on and flash up
1:31
Speaker 1: our show. Fellow Ridiculous Historians joined me and welcoming back,
1:36
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. This little man called Jonathan certainly pushed around
1:43
Speaker 1: and how Jonathan must be found? Man and a little
1:55
Speaker 1: episode Jonathan maca just fast as they can and a
2:11
Speaker 1: little like thank you, Ben. Technically on some days I'm
2:19
Speaker 1: two of the busiest men. It's it's gonna be weird
2:25
Speaker 1: over there. Gained a lot of weight in the pandemic. Ben, Okay,
2:29
Speaker 1: it's been like Okay, I thought you were going for
2:31
Speaker 1: like a multiplicity thing, you know, in multiple mean I
2:36
Speaker 1: could be a man of two minds because I am
2:38
Speaker 1: someone who likes to eat healthy, and yet I am
2:40
Speaker 1: sitting here with a lot of McDonald's food in front
2:43
Speaker 1: of me, just for a joke that was only for you.
2:46
Speaker 1: Because no one who's listening can actually see it. We
2:49
Speaker 1: described it though. I thought it was well done, because
2:51
Speaker 1: I thought that was a good bit. What do you think. Yeah,
2:54
Speaker 1: we also got to go on about how we all
2:55
Speaker 1: have mesophonius and no one eat around us, which is amazing.
2:58
Speaker 1: I mean, the more week to stay that out loud,
3:00
Speaker 1: I think, the better it is for the world. Yes, yeah,
3:03
Speaker 1: maybe there's an episode in the future for that. We'll
3:06
Speaker 1: have to have you back on Jonathan for the history
3:09
Speaker 1: of noises people hate, which is hopefully not our voices. Yeah,
3:13
Speaker 1: I didn't want to turn this into a muck Bang podcast.
3:16
Speaker 1: So oh oh yeah, wow, how's that? That's such a
3:20
Speaker 1: fascinating genre. Anyway, look it up if you if you
3:23
Speaker 1: want to know what we're talking about, we will leave
3:25
Speaker 1: that discovery to you because we have another mystery. We
3:28
Speaker 1: have another discovery on our hands. Knowing everything that we
3:32
Speaker 1: know now after part one of what happened to Ronald McDonald,
3:36
Speaker 1: we have to ask ourselves, where is he? Now? How
3:41
Speaker 1: did a world famous figure, as you know, well known,
3:46
Speaker 1: some would say is Jesus Christ or Santa Claus suddenly
3:50
Speaker 1: go the way of the Dodo? I think, and you
3:52
Speaker 1: put this in our notes earlier, Jonathan, I think it's
3:55
Speaker 1: a really good point. Seriously, Ronald McDonald probably not as
4:00
Speaker 1: recognizable as Mickey Mouse, right, that's what I think. Like
4:05
Speaker 1: the the reference you you are citing is from a book, right,
4:10
Speaker 1: So there was a book by Eric Schlausser which was
4:15
Speaker 1: called Fast Food Nation, and in that Schlosser makes the
4:18
Speaker 1: assertion that, uh, Ronald McDonald was the second most famous
4:24
Speaker 1: fictional character behind Santa Claus. I submit that Mickey Mouse
4:29
Speaker 1: is definitely in contention. I would be shocked if Mickey
4:33
Speaker 1: Mouse was lower, especially well now, obviously it would be
4:38
Speaker 1: clear that Mickey Mouse would win out because Ronald, as
4:41
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about, the Star, has been
4:44
Speaker 1: on the decline for quite some time. And and honestly,
4:48
Speaker 1: part of the reason we're having this episode, and you know,
4:51
Speaker 1: the reason why we built it up so much in
4:52
Speaker 1: the first episode is you had a character who was
4:57
Speaker 1: synonymous with the franchise across the world, not just the
5:01
Speaker 1: United States. You know, we started off in the US,
5:03
Speaker 1: but by this point it's a global phenomenon. Someone that
5:07
Speaker 1: you know they're branding was incredibly recognizable and yet seemingly
5:13
Speaker 1: in very short order, was largely erased. And you think,
5:20
Speaker 1: how do you get to that point where you've you've
5:22
Speaker 1: poured this capital, this amount of resources and assets as
5:25
Speaker 1: a corporation into your marketing and then you say, you
5:29
Speaker 1: know what, we're gonna switch gears, We're gonna throw this away.
5:32
Speaker 1: So why would that happen? Was did something happen to
5:36
Speaker 1: the resource itself, Ronald McDonald that poison the well and
5:41
Speaker 1: perhaps necessitated a move away. Yeah, yeah, that's a very
5:47
Speaker 1: just so that's a very good way to put it.
5:48
Speaker 1: Because we're not blowing smoke here. Ronald McDonald began to
5:53
Speaker 1: become a symbol for capitalism overall. In other parts of
5:58
Speaker 1: the world, he started to represent some idea of the
6:02
Speaker 1: United States. Protesters began dressing as the clown Capital c
6:07
Speaker 1: when they were, you know, doing different demonstrations, and a
6:11
Speaker 1: troubling discourse began if this was a murder and they
6:16
Speaker 1: were likely multiple conspirators, or to be more realistic, there
6:21
Speaker 1: are multiple factors. Uh. There is a fantastic Vice article
6:25
Speaker 1: written by a journalist named Amelia Tate. This is an
6:29
Speaker 1: interesting thing about this article. She is, this journalist is
6:32
Speaker 1: looking into the story and trying to figure out what
6:35
Speaker 1: happened to uh, the most famous clown in the world
6:39
Speaker 1: of fast food, and oddly enough she gets kind of
6:44
Speaker 1: stone walled in a really strange way. First, she goes
6:49
Speaker 1: to the official McDonald's website and they say they're a
6:54
Speaker 1: little ahead of the curve in the United Kingdom. They say,
6:56
Speaker 1: with afraid that Ronald McDonald's no longer appears in McDonald's
7:01
Speaker 1: UK advertising. Yeah, he still travels up and down the
7:04
Speaker 1: country to visit restaurants and make sure everyone is enjoying
7:08
Speaker 1: their meals. Um, it was a little bit arch on
7:13
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, but but but she right, Yeah, no,
7:19
Speaker 1: that's a good point. So she is able to speak
7:24
Speaker 1: with the press office for McDonald's UK and they said
7:29
Speaker 1: they refused to elaborate or to really explain in depth
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Speaker 1: what happened to Ronald, but they say they do confirm
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Speaker 1: he hasn't appeared in any UK advertising since, including appearances
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Speaker 1: in restaurants. She asked for more information and the press
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Speaker 1: officer says, I'm afraid we don't have anything further to add.
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Speaker 1: And that's where she starts, you know, has the starts
7:53
Speaker 1: doing some forensics, some detective work, and comes up with
7:56
Speaker 1: one of my favorite phrases. She said, as it seems
8:00
Speaker 1: that sometime in something made Ronald Amelia's words here personna
8:06
Speaker 1: non hemburger brilliant. I mean it's clear we have a
8:10
Speaker 1: real plastic knives out situation here. Perfect. Yes, uh, she did,
8:20
Speaker 1: though she did find herself stone walled. She asked a
8:23
Speaker 1: veteran of the advertising game for scoop. This person used
8:28
Speaker 1: to work for McDonald's UK for some time, and this
8:32
Speaker 1: person only replied, I don't fancy being sued by a clown,
8:37
Speaker 1: which I didn't know was being concern I mean it
8:41
Speaker 1: happens all the time here in the United States. But
8:43
Speaker 1: the thing I was going to mention is that in
8:45
Speaker 1: our first episode we kind of alluded to the fact
8:47
Speaker 1: that there was an extremely strict series of rules that
8:52
Speaker 1: were laid down for actors who were playing the part
8:56
Speaker 1: of Ronald McDonald. We only touched on some of those.
8:59
Speaker 1: There were actually it a few more, including the part
9:01
Speaker 1: where there's only one Ronald McDonald. It doesn't matter how
9:05
Speaker 1: many actors are playing Ronald McDonald throughout the various territories.
9:08
Speaker 1: There's only one Ronald McDonald, right. So you start hearing
9:13
Speaker 1: this and you're thinking, all right, this is an extension
9:15
Speaker 1: of that same kind of veil of secrecy that the
9:17
Speaker 1: company took extremely serious when Ronald McDonald was like front
9:23
Speaker 1: and foremost in in the restaurant business. And now we're
9:28
Speaker 1: seeing that same level of of attention and uh, careful
9:33
Speaker 1: approach now that Ronald has mysteriously vanished. And obviously there
9:39
Speaker 1: are a lot of hypotheses you could come up with,
9:42
Speaker 1: and in fact, chances are the reason for Ronald's disappearances
9:46
Speaker 1: due to a combination of factors that we're gonna talk about.
9:49
Speaker 1: But you know, it's frustrating when you can't get a
9:53
Speaker 1: solid answer, not even from people who have left the
9:56
Speaker 1: company for fear that the documents they had sign those
10:01
Speaker 1: NBA's will still hold a legal threat over them. Yeah. Yeah,
10:08
Speaker 1: and this, I mean, this is a serious concern. Tate
10:11
Speaker 1: runs into multiple instances of this. She speaks with a
10:15
Speaker 1: guy named A J. Who was a former Ronald and
10:19
Speaker 1: actually had a big hand in writing that official rule
10:22
Speaker 1: book we mentioned in part one, and Jay says that
10:25
Speaker 1: they're not allowed to talk about this. Uh. The author
10:29
Speaker 1: of an earlier version of the rule book, the one
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Speaker 1: that said if you're Ronald, you can't tell children where
10:36
Speaker 1: hamburgers come from. They also declined to speak uh. And
10:42
Speaker 1: then she goes to the people who make those Ronald
10:45
Speaker 1: McDonald's statues and I think a lot of us in
10:48
Speaker 1: the crowd today remember those. It's it's Ronald frozen and
10:51
Speaker 1: tableau on a bench, usually with like an arm out
10:55
Speaker 1: so that you can sit next to the statue and
10:58
Speaker 1: it looks like he has his arm around you when
11:00
Speaker 1: you're just you know, hanging on a public bench with
11:03
Speaker 1: a clown. Before before we move on, though, I am
11:07
Speaker 1: not gonna let this accidental pun go without being pointed out.
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Speaker 1: You said A J had a big hand in writing
11:13
Speaker 1: the rule book. What uh, I don't think I get
11:18
Speaker 1: my own pun there? Oh you got a big hand
11:21
Speaker 1: like Ronald McDonald, did you have? I thought he was
11:24
Speaker 1: more of a like big foot guy. Am I missed
11:27
Speaker 1: remembering the story had big hands? You figure this out, hey,
11:33
Speaker 1: it's future Max here to correct something that passed. Max said,
11:37
Speaker 1: Robald McDonald hand size very normal, completely normal. There is
11:42
Speaker 1: nothing larger about his hands. I mean there bright and
11:46
Speaker 1: yellow and weird. But so that's Ronald McDonald. He's bright
11:49
Speaker 1: and yellow and red and weird. So yeah, I don't
11:53
Speaker 1: know what past Max was thinking. But yeah, back to
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Speaker 1: the story, Ben, there is a good news kind of take.
12:06
Speaker 1: Does find an answer when she talks to a guy
12:10
Speaker 1: named well, Guy More, which makes me think of uh,
12:15
Speaker 1: nominative determinism. Guy More, Yeah, is the He's the co
12:20
Speaker 1: founder of something called Creative Coalition. He's an admin. Between
12:24
Speaker 1: two thousand four and two thousand fourteen, he worked for
12:28
Speaker 1: that advertising agency Leo Burnett the I'm loving It folks,
12:33
Speaker 1: and he also won several prizes for a McDonald's ad
12:39
Speaker 1: he did called just passing By, and it's frankly poetic.
12:45
Speaker 1: I think maybe we can play just a little clip
12:48
Speaker 1: here now the laborers and cables and council motion table
12:54
Speaker 1: is with just passing by, and the guffey types and
12:58
Speaker 1: scuffy types, and like the three frothy types with just
13:01
Speaker 1: passing by, those on their own whilst on the phone
13:04
Speaker 1: don key McNuggets and having a mom with just passing by,
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Speaker 1: the driving through with hungry crew who just pulled off
13:10
Speaker 1: the A three two, We just passing by. Okay, So
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Speaker 1: what we're what we're seeing here and what we're hearing
13:16
Speaker 1: here is a is this almost like spoken word monologue
13:23
Speaker 1: about all the different people who eat at McDonald's, quick
13:26
Speaker 1: glimpse into their lives. Gone is the clown. And as
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Speaker 1: Guy points out, when he started working with McDonald's, it
13:34
Speaker 1: wasn't maybe the best year because two thousand and four
13:38
Speaker 1: was also the year a certain documentary came out. I think, um,
13:44
Speaker 1: I think you you probably remember this one, to Jonathan
13:47
Speaker 1: Morgan Spurlock. I I have. I have distinct memories of
13:52
Speaker 1: this this era. Uh, most of them don't involve McDonald's,
13:57
Speaker 1: because by then I had moved on to other I'd
14:01
Speaker 1: put away childish things, and I moved moved on to
14:06
Speaker 1: to local regional chains. But no I mean, I remember
14:11
Speaker 1: very much the Supersize Me documentary, and the documentary is
14:16
Speaker 1: an interesting way of putting it. I remember the Supersize
14:19
Speaker 1: Me film, and I remember that that did kind of
14:22
Speaker 1: it generated a wave of concern about the nature of
14:28
Speaker 1: the obesity issue in the United States and the connection
14:33
Speaker 1: to things like fast food restaurants. I would say that
14:37
Speaker 1: was the starting point for that conversation. I would not
14:40
Speaker 1: take supersize me as like the thesis statement that you
14:44
Speaker 1: should follow. There is some some showmanship and supersize me,
14:50
Speaker 1: but it definitely it definitely got the conversation moving more
14:53
Speaker 1: toward we need to do better for ourselves and for
14:57
Speaker 1: our children. We need to make certain that we are
14:59
Speaker 1: provide healthier options for meals because as it's going, uh,
15:05
Speaker 1: things are taking a very unhealthy turn. And the real
15:10
Speaker 1: concern was that in the long run, we might see
15:13
Speaker 1: things like life expectancy start to go down for people
15:17
Speaker 1: in the United States because of the various health issues
15:20
Speaker 1: you can get through through morbid obesity. And so that
15:25
Speaker 1: was kind of where that conversation got going. And obviously
15:29
Speaker 1: that's a very complicated conversation. It's one that it goes
15:32
Speaker 1: well beyond just fast food or exercise. It goes into
15:37
Speaker 1: all sorts of different things. You cannot simplify this down
15:40
Speaker 1: to like a bite size uh bullet point, but it
15:45
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing that got a lot more
15:48
Speaker 1: attention and scrutiny directed towards the fast food industry in
15:52
Speaker 1: general and McDonald's in particular. Yeah. Yeah, the big revelation
15:57
Speaker 1: of supersize me, which does have showman ship in it.
16:00
Speaker 1: I agree with that is surprise, surprise. Eating fast food
16:04
Speaker 1: all the all day, all the time, isn't super great
16:08
Speaker 1: for you? Not the same as you know, a more
16:12
Speaker 1: varied diet guy. More is working during this time when
16:17
Speaker 1: the when the pushback and concern about McDonald's really really
16:21
Speaker 1: kicks into high gear and gets into the public uh.
16:24
Speaker 1: He says that internally McDonald's had a serious issue with
16:28
Speaker 1: childhood obesity and lots of rumors about what goes into
16:32
Speaker 1: the burger. This is also the time where we see
16:34
Speaker 1: the rise of speculation about like what's in McNuggets? Right,
16:39
Speaker 1: what is the what are the true ingredients of a
16:41
Speaker 1: hamburger or a big Mac. This leads McDonald's and their
16:45
Speaker 1: roster of ad agency Boffin's, to say, look, when people
16:50
Speaker 1: have these real concerns, regardless of how how much weight
16:55
Speaker 1: they put in something like supersize me, We need to
16:58
Speaker 1: realize it may not be the best look to have
17:01
Speaker 1: what More describes as a joker at the table. So
17:04
Speaker 1: McDonald's begins to pivot and their ad campaigns are increasingly
17:08
Speaker 1: targeting adults more so than children. This is a big
17:11
Speaker 1: change for this company. About eleven, there's another backlash that occurs,
17:17
Speaker 1: and nonprofit out of Boston starts calling for Ronald McDonald's retirement.
17:22
Speaker 1: They say he exploits children, he promotes obesity. Critics are
17:26
Speaker 1: saying that he's undermining the authority of parents right by saying, hey, kids,
17:30
Speaker 1: make your parents go do this, which is how a
17:33
Speaker 1: lot of advertising for children works. To your excellent point earlier, Max,
17:36
Speaker 1: and he says, this guy's really he's kind of a
17:40
Speaker 1: pie piper figure. You know, he's enticing kids with sugar
17:44
Speaker 1: and cool toys into bad decisions that may potentially have
17:47
Speaker 1: life impact in consequences. So that's how in just a
17:51
Speaker 1: few years, the world's most famous clown, this kind of
17:55
Speaker 1: Santa secular Santa Claus of America, is being compared directly
18:00
Speaker 1: to cigarette mascots like Joe Campbell. I will say that
18:10
Speaker 1: being Enticed by Sugar and super Cool Toys could be
18:14
Speaker 1: my autobiography title. Also, I think a good strong contender
18:19
Speaker 1: for my autobiography title is a phrase you uttered earlier,
18:22
Speaker 1: Mr Bolan, gone is the clown? Both of those would
18:26
Speaker 1: work really well. Uh yeah, yeah. So here here's here's
18:30
Speaker 1: another take that I have. It's it's interesting because it's
18:33
Speaker 1: not something that we really address in the notes. And
18:36
Speaker 1: part of it is that McDonald's had not only was
18:40
Speaker 1: it starting to look at Ronald McDonald as a potential
18:42
Speaker 1: liability for the company right like it's it's a bad look.
18:45
Speaker 1: As the kids say, or they used to. I don't
18:49
Speaker 1: know what kids say anymore. I don't understand them. So
18:52
Speaker 1: the the other thing, though, is that the generation that
18:57
Speaker 1: grew up with Ronald McDonald as the this icon that
19:01
Speaker 1: enticed them into McDonald's, they are grown now, they're adults,
19:05
Speaker 1: they have kids of their own, they have already established
19:08
Speaker 1: a habit of going to McDonald's. You don't have to
19:11
Speaker 1: go after the kids to get the people into the restaurants.
19:14
Speaker 1: Now the kids have grown up to be the adults
19:17
Speaker 1: and they're going into the restaurants already, So it's almost
19:20
Speaker 1: like you're like, hey, we got them, we hooked them.
19:23
Speaker 1: Now we just have to perpetuate the cycle and watch
19:27
Speaker 1: the money roll in. So that's another kind of cynical
19:29
Speaker 1: way of looking at this. At that one, Ronald McDonald
19:32
Speaker 1: was representing a potential risk that it was uh standing
19:36
Speaker 1: in as a symbol for some negative things, and that's
19:38
Speaker 1: never what you want for your marketing campaign. And too
19:43
Speaker 1: really it had done its job already. Yeah, that's a
19:47
Speaker 1: very good point. And that's when I hadn't considered, you know,
19:50
Speaker 1: because um Max is our our marketing expert here, so
19:55
Speaker 1: I would I would defer to I would defer to
19:57
Speaker 1: your expertise here. But next that I I would say,
20:00
Speaker 1: that doesn't even sound cynical. That sounds very on the money.
20:03
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that that's the marketing one on one right there.
20:05
Speaker 1: That's that's perfect. I mean, it's like, you know, marketing
20:09
Speaker 1: is all measured in impressions. You've already made the impressions
20:12
Speaker 1: with Jonathan's point, with the adults, with the people who
20:16
Speaker 1: are your audience. You want who have disposal income, who
20:21
Speaker 1: are going to spur on the next generation. So instead
20:24
Speaker 1: of just con and let's be honest. I mean, like,
20:27
Speaker 1: I'm a child of the nineties. I clowns by the
20:30
Speaker 1: time around, we're really kind of an outdated image. I
20:34
Speaker 1: mean I don't even think it was like even like
20:36
Speaker 1: the like creepiness had fully set in yet of clowns.
20:40
Speaker 1: But it was also just like not it wasn't something
20:44
Speaker 1: that was pertinent in my like thinking or if I
20:47
Speaker 1: want to complicated my zeitgeist. It was like and so
20:52
Speaker 1: it's just like, you know, moving moving on from this thing.
20:55
Speaker 1: As Jonathan said, who's just like it's not making any
20:58
Speaker 1: money and soon it's gonna start costing you money. So
21:01
Speaker 1: uh so it just makes a lot of sense, you know,
21:04
Speaker 1: for them to you know, just think instead of like
21:08
Speaker 1: trying to get impressions with this thing that's clearly not
21:11
Speaker 1: gonna make it so much money, let's, you know, instead
21:14
Speaker 1: be like, this is the McDonald's that you got your
21:17
Speaker 1: happy meal out when you're a kid. Now you can
21:19
Speaker 1: get your whatever they advertise to adults. I don't know
21:23
Speaker 1: why your kid gets your happy happy meal. Spin it
21:26
Speaker 1: that way. Nostalgia for you, maybe not nostalgia, but like
21:33
Speaker 1: you know, like remember ince an enjoyment for you and
21:36
Speaker 1: then building that memory and like of like like going
21:40
Speaker 1: McDonald's as a kid with your kids and stuff. There. Yeah,
21:46
Speaker 1: that's I think you guys nailed it. Um. Ronald was
21:51
Speaker 1: not ready to give up the ghost just yet. He
21:54
Speaker 1: wasn't after that big big Mac in the sky at
21:58
Speaker 1: one last hurrah, you know, rage, rage against the dying
22:01
Speaker 1: of the fries, etcetera. So he ditches the jumpsuit and
22:06
Speaker 1: he cleans up a little. He's got a blazer now,
22:08
Speaker 1: a red blazer. He's got a sharp bow tie, and
22:12
Speaker 1: he begins tweeting directly from McDonald's official Twitter account. Uh
22:19
Speaker 1: is for people who are very experienced with Twitter, like
22:22
Speaker 1: like you, Jonathan. Uh You've We've seen this happen before
22:26
Speaker 1: with mixed results, where an official Twitter account goes into
22:31
Speaker 1: a little bit internet trolleing, or they try a campaign.
22:34
Speaker 1: Sometimes they work really well, like the Windy's mixtape. Sometimes
22:38
Speaker 1: they fall flat. Unfortunately, the latter is what happened with
22:43
Speaker 1: our poor boy Ronnie. People were literally hashtag not loving it,
22:48
Speaker 1: and we're not kidding that was a trending hashtag. Yeah
22:53
Speaker 1: to all the brands out there, before you decide to
22:57
Speaker 1: have a snarky, fun Twitter marketing push, really think it
23:03
Speaker 1: over because one, if it's not really kind of zany
23:08
Speaker 1: and fun, the audience picks up on it immediately. If
23:12
Speaker 1: it's not sincere, then they know and you might get
23:15
Speaker 1: a lot of traction, but it's not gonna be positive. Uh.
23:18
Speaker 1: And to just like think over that snarky joke a lot.
23:22
Speaker 1: E A recently got into trouble because they posted a
23:25
Speaker 1: tweet that read She's a ten except you find out
23:28
Speaker 1: she only plays single player games. That did not go
23:32
Speaker 1: over well. So yeah, this, the Ronald McDonald experience is
23:37
Speaker 1: a is an example of this kind of trend of
23:40
Speaker 1: brands trying to embrace new communication on Twitter is not
23:45
Speaker 1: new but newish communication channels and finding that their approach
23:51
Speaker 1: to messaging is just a complete misfire for that particular audience. Right, So,
23:57
Speaker 1: at this moment, if we could wax poetic in the
24:00
Speaker 1: spirit of Guy more and is just passing by add
24:04
Speaker 1: and performance, we can picture Ronald McDonald like the scene
24:09
Speaker 1: in Um part way through so many rom coms. He's
24:13
Speaker 1: standing in the rain outside of America's dining room window
24:16
Speaker 1: and he's humming to himself the song he's humming, the
24:20
Speaker 1: oldie hit Everyone Loves a clown. Everybody loves a clown,
24:24
Speaker 1: so why don't you. Yeah, he's got cute cards, you know,
24:29
Speaker 1: maybe he's got a boom box. But the makeover doesn't
24:34
Speaker 1: work out spoilers. So first he has he has grim
24:37
Speaker 1: is holding a boombox. Yeah, I'm you're mixing too many
24:42
Speaker 1: movie metaphors to say anything, guys, just say anything, well done. Points. Also,
24:51
Speaker 1: we're just gonna keep piling on. Hamburglar is like a
24:54
Speaker 1: Syrano character and he's in the bushes. He's gonna keep
24:57
Speaker 1: adding the beef to this, yes, beef it and so
25:00
Speaker 1: he's like he's trying to uh, he's trying to tell
25:04
Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald what to say, but because he's the hamburglary's
25:07
Speaker 1: speaking in gibberish. So it's just like rubble rob rubble
25:10
Speaker 1: rubble and s and seen uh so and then sun
25:15
Speaker 1: then Sundays there, and Sunday just looks at the camera goes,
25:18
Speaker 1: are you happy? Jonathan? I have I have to say.
25:22
Speaker 1: I have to say that this is making me feel
25:26
Speaker 1: like we are all in improv level three class guys,
25:33
Speaker 1: be specific. What kind of bush is the Hamburgler hiding behind?
25:38
Speaker 1: Uh uh? And we're going through so much cool, weird
25:42
Speaker 1: stuff in this series today, folks. Uh, you may be
25:45
Speaker 1: hearing some thunder in the background, and I think it's
25:49
Speaker 1: appropriate to the way our story has turned apart two,
25:52
Speaker 1: so we're gonna keep it in. Uh, there's something else.
25:56
Speaker 1: McDonald's tries another mascot. It is an anthropomorphic happy Meal
26:02
Speaker 1: named in a burst of creativity. Happy Happy is not successful.
26:09
Speaker 1: I hesitate to put a picture in the chat, but
26:13
Speaker 1: you can. You can find it and you'll kind of
26:15
Speaker 1: see why. But that was not the final Uh. I
26:19
Speaker 1: was not the final fry in the coffin because something
26:23
Speaker 1: else happened in Yeah, this was completely out of McDonald's control.
26:29
Speaker 1: This was one of those cultural moments where a trend
26:35
Speaker 1: starts and begins to build and has rippling repercussions for
26:41
Speaker 1: unrelated entities. So McDonald's in a way is a victim,
26:47
Speaker 1: as were we all. So what Mr Boland is referring
26:51
Speaker 1: to is that very special time in six where, for
26:56
Speaker 1: reasons that never really became apparent, people were dressing up
27:01
Speaker 1: as scary clowns and scaring people in a scary way. Right,
27:07
Speaker 1: And that's true. It's a look collectively, everybody listening to
27:12
Speaker 1: this show now we've all been through a lot in
27:14
Speaker 1: the past few years. Sixteen seems a shockingly long time ago,
27:21
Speaker 1: but it is true. For unspecified reasons. Uh, people across
27:27
Speaker 1: the United States, in the Midwest, the South, all along
27:30
Speaker 1: the East Coast began seeing, you know, clowns just out
27:33
Speaker 1: in the wild, sometimes standing creepily like the old school
27:37
Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald when he thought the camera was done rolling, uh,
27:41
Speaker 1: sometimes trying to engage with people. People thought it might
27:45
Speaker 1: be a weird gorilla marketing campaign for a movie, you know,
27:48
Speaker 1: Blair Witch Style or something, But there was no way
27:51
Speaker 1: of knowing who would be motivated to dress as a clown.
27:54
Speaker 1: There was no way of knowing whether there was a
27:57
Speaker 1: concerted effort or whether it was just organic le a
28:00
Speaker 1: trend that other people were independently picking up on. And
28:04
Speaker 1: there's not a way to address the issue in this country.
28:07
Speaker 1: You can't really make the act buying a costume illegal,
28:11
Speaker 1: and things start to escalate across that summer. It's August.
28:17
Speaker 1: I think when law enforcement in South Carolina gets reports
28:21
Speaker 1: that suspicious individuals dressed like clowns are literally trying to
28:25
Speaker 1: lure children into the woods, and then there are more
28:29
Speaker 1: stories about this. It continues, we even did a stuff
28:32
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know episode on it. Eventually
28:35
Speaker 1: McDonald's who I agree with you, Jonathan, They are a
28:38
Speaker 1: victim here. This is beyond their control. Eventually they have
28:41
Speaker 1: to make a statement, which is something you know, you
28:45
Speaker 1: probably never think about when you join a pr for
28:48
Speaker 1: firm or you work for McDonald's. You never think one day,
28:53
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to talk on record about all these
28:56
Speaker 1: clowns and make sure that our clown is separated from
28:59
Speaker 1: that conference agent. But it really comes up, and the
29:02
Speaker 1: it rarely comes up in the interview process, right right,
29:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to improv Level three or McDonald's corporate. Here's the question.
29:14
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't think people plan that way. But
29:17
Speaker 1: the company did come out with a statement. I think
29:20
Speaker 1: it was the right thing to do. They said they're
29:22
Speaker 1: being thoughtful in respect to Ronald McDonald's participation in community
29:26
Speaker 1: events as a result of the quote current climate around
29:29
Speaker 1: clown sightings in communities, meaning in playing English, the sun
29:35
Speaker 1: was setting on McDonald land and then like you brilliantly
29:41
Speaker 1: foreshadowed in part one of this episode. A year later,
29:47
Speaker 1: Stephen King's newest adaptation of it hits the big screen.
29:52
Speaker 1: The main villain of it is, and this is not spoiling,
29:56
Speaker 1: it is an evil clown named Pennywise, originally played in
30:01
Speaker 1: a made for TV adaptation by Tim Curry and then
30:05
Speaker 1: in this big screen adaptation also two parts. Uh is
30:09
Speaker 1: played by one of those Scars Guard kids, right, Yes,
30:13
Speaker 1: one of them. It's one of the it's the same
30:17
Speaker 1: one from Himlock Growth, Yeah, yes, yes, he and we
30:22
Speaker 1: we talked about this. We're not going to get into
30:24
Speaker 1: like favorites or anything, because everyone has their own favorite.
30:28
Speaker 1: But I will say I have a soft spot in
30:30
Speaker 1: my heart for Tim Curry, largely because I was a
30:33
Speaker 1: kid when that, yeah, teenager, when that mini series came out,
30:38
Speaker 1: and I had already read the book by the time
30:41
Speaker 1: the mini series had come out, and so I feel like, well,
30:44
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that's in that book that
30:46
Speaker 1: I don't think it's appropriate for children, a lot of
30:49
Speaker 1: the because it follows kids. It speaks to a kid's
30:54
Speaker 1: sense of adventure, like it's a horror novel, but it
30:57
Speaker 1: is also an adventure book. Um, And so like, I
31:00
Speaker 1: have a soft spot for the Tim Curry version. That
31:03
Speaker 1: being said, I definitely would not want my corporate mascot
31:07
Speaker 1: to be associated or compared in any way to this
31:11
Speaker 1: monstrous clown that gets even more monstrous and the more
31:15
Speaker 1: recent adaptations. Yeah, it's like think about, um, think about
31:22
Speaker 1: like the afflack Duck, or what the Geico the get
31:28
Speaker 1: it's a gecko right, Um, Well, if you're going with Geico,
31:31
Speaker 1: you've got about eight different mascot choices you could go with.
31:34
Speaker 1: There could be caven, it could be a pile of cash.
31:38
Speaker 1: Yeah that's true. But in any one of those cases,
31:42
Speaker 1: you could be caught flat out if the wrong thing
31:45
Speaker 1: happens in the real world. So it looks like because
31:50
Speaker 1: they made the decision to pull Ronald back even further
31:53
Speaker 1: due to literally sightings of grazed clowns, it looks like
31:58
Speaker 1: they dodged the bullet because as they got out just
32:00
Speaker 1: a year before, it's once again ruined clowns for a generation.
32:06
Speaker 1: So whither our hapless Ronald? What's up with old Ronnie
32:10
Speaker 1: these days? He's not tweeting anymore. Checked just to confirm
32:14
Speaker 1: you're not going to see him in a commercial anytime soon.
32:18
Speaker 1: McDonald land has probably been paved over. We're going to
32:22
Speaker 1: skip that terrible joke I made. Look Let's be honest,
32:25
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the United States have some
32:28
Speaker 1: degree of what's called cool roophobia, fear of clowns. And
32:32
Speaker 1: I would argue, uh, for many of us listening today,
32:35
Speaker 1: it's because we grew up in a post John Wayne
32:38
Speaker 1: Gaycy America. Right sure, And there's a clear yeah, I
32:43
Speaker 1: am I over am I like assigning too much power
32:47
Speaker 1: to that. I don't think so. I think that that was,
32:51
Speaker 1: you know, this this real world monster who took an
32:56
Speaker 1: image that previously had been associated with childhood on an
33:00
Speaker 1: innocence and then used it to such horrific extent it
33:07
Speaker 1: ended up fueling tons of horror fiction for the following decades.
33:13
Speaker 1: Right that, there's that become tropes that were based off
33:16
Speaker 1: this real world incident that to this day, like the
33:19
Speaker 1: evil Clown is something that just is like a standard
33:23
Speaker 1: stock monster. And I would argue that that gay Cy
33:27
Speaker 1: was kind of the launching point for that to really
33:30
Speaker 1: become a thing. To some extent, We've seen that sort
33:33
Speaker 1: of association with childish things in the past, whether it's
33:37
Speaker 1: like a ventriloquist dummy or a doll or something like that.
33:39
Speaker 1: There always is something slightly creepy with any element where
33:43
Speaker 1: a child's imagination creates some of the anima for that thing.
33:48
Speaker 1: And I think clowns fall into that category to even
33:50
Speaker 1: though they're portrayed obviously by hopefully animated people. But yeah,
33:55
Speaker 1: I think that gay cy that was like a real
33:57
Speaker 1: turning point and and kind of became an inspiration if
34:03
Speaker 1: you will. It's terrible to use that word for someone
34:05
Speaker 1: like that, but an inspiration for a lot of horror
34:08
Speaker 1: novelists and filmmakers moving forward. Yeah, I agree with we've
34:12
Speaker 1: put it, and I will say whenever we talked about
34:15
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, it is important to note hashtag
34:19
Speaker 1: not all clowns. Uh, easily confused with the hashtag no
34:24
Speaker 1: tall clowns. But but there are plenty there. I'm not
34:28
Speaker 1: above it, but there are plenty of people who are,
34:32
Speaker 1: you know, working as clowns. There are prestigious clown academies
34:36
Speaker 1: right in different parts of the world. There is an
34:38
Speaker 1: ancient tradition and there is an art to it. There
34:41
Speaker 1: is a craft. So we're not saying that all clowns
34:45
Speaker 1: are bad. We're just saying it's inescapable. Uh, it's inescapable,
34:49
Speaker 1: at least in the minds of many US residents to
34:52
Speaker 1: not see a clown and think there's some sort of
34:56
Speaker 1: implied sinister aspect. We can blame it on Penny Eyes,
35:00
Speaker 1: we can blame it on Gaycy, we can blame it
35:02
Speaker 1: on you know, honestly, anything other than the cinematic masterpiece
35:06
Speaker 1: Killer Clowns from Outer Space. You guys remember an amazing
35:12
Speaker 1: theme song by the Dickies. So yeah, that's like, that's like,
35:16
Speaker 1: that's like Gold Cinema. I'm sure it's in the Criterion collection. Yes,
35:21
Speaker 1: it should be. Max. Have you seen Killer Clowns from
35:24
Speaker 1: Outer Space? I am pretty certain I have. It's been
35:27
Speaker 1: a long time if I have though of that theme
35:32
Speaker 1: song to Hear to Hear the uh the entrance of
35:36
Speaker 1: the Gladiators, which is the famous tune that we always
35:39
Speaker 1: associate with clowns, but being played speed metal style and
35:42
Speaker 1: a guitar man one of my favorite movie soundtracks of
35:47
Speaker 1: all time. Yeah, true classic of of goofy schlock horror one.
35:53
Speaker 1: How dare you to just kidding? Yeah, it's definitely it.
36:00
Speaker 1: The leap is some schlock. It puts the shock and
36:03
Speaker 1: schlock um and you're gonna have the most fun watching
36:06
Speaker 1: that film if you do not worry about the motivations. Uh,
36:09
Speaker 1: and don't bother addressing plot holes or indeed plot so
36:16
Speaker 1: we can't deny that what happens here is that Ronald
36:19
Speaker 1: McDonald was, in this case found guilty by association. His
36:24
Speaker 1: whimsy was also kind of outdated. More and more people
36:27
Speaker 1: saw him less like a fun goofball and more like
36:29
Speaker 1: that pie Piper character you know, who is getting kids,
36:34
Speaker 1: getting into minds of children and leading them towards quite
36:38
Speaker 1: possibly serious health problems. McDonald's leadership is aware of all
36:42
Speaker 1: these factors. That's why today if you go into the
36:45
Speaker 1: modern McDonald's, if you stroll into one of well most
36:50
Speaker 1: of the thirty six thousand, eight hundred eighty nine or
36:53
Speaker 1: so locations across a hundred nineteen countries, sorry Russia, you
36:58
Speaker 1: will have to look pretty closely to find a trace
37:00
Speaker 1: of what I think we could call a fast food Osamandius.
37:04
Speaker 1: I would love to travel around McDonald's of the world
37:09
Speaker 1: and just take that, take that line from Ozamandius, look
37:13
Speaker 1: upon my works mighty in despair and just like put
37:16
Speaker 1: it in a little placard by by the statue. I
37:20
Speaker 1: don't know. I have to admit ben a peek behind
37:23
Speaker 1: the curtain really quickly. We do have these notes that
37:26
Speaker 1: we share with one another, and we contribute. We all
37:28
Speaker 1: contributed to it. Ben did the vast majority of the contribution.
37:33
Speaker 1: And when I read this, this comparison to Ozamandius, I
37:39
Speaker 1: was so delighted to know you. Oh man, uh likewise,
37:46
Speaker 1: likewise I used that reference way too often. By the way,
37:50
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be a problem. So thank thank you
37:53
Speaker 1: for enabling my myopia, uh thematic as it is. And um,
38:00
Speaker 1: there's the thing though, I think we can all agree
38:03
Speaker 1: nostalgia is a heck of a drug, Max Jonathan. That's
38:06
Speaker 1: something we've been talking about in part one. It's something
38:08
Speaker 1: we're talking about in part two, and it still remains
38:11
Speaker 1: the case today. People pretty much everywhere we will remember
38:17
Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald, or not everywhere, but in many parts of
38:20
Speaker 1: the world, you can stroll into a place and you
38:23
Speaker 1: can say, hey, do you remember Ronald McDonald, And even
38:27
Speaker 1: if they don't know the name, you can strow them
38:29
Speaker 1: the picture and they'll go, oh, yeah, yeah, the uh
38:31
Speaker 1: yeah McDonald's. They might even just call him McDonald's. In
38:34
Speaker 1: some places, people still like have a hot market for
38:38
Speaker 1: happy Meal toys. I used to love those Uh, I
38:42
Speaker 1: didn't know that some of them would be worth money later.
38:46
Speaker 1: You can, right, it's not what we're some of your
38:50
Speaker 1: favorite Happy Meal toys guys. You know what's interesting because
38:59
Speaker 1: like I remember back when the toys were completely independent
39:04
Speaker 1: of any other type of branding, and then there was
39:07
Speaker 1: a shift where you started to see partnerships between McDonald's
39:11
Speaker 1: and other um popular brands that were out there, and
39:16
Speaker 1: you would get tie ins, especially Disney. There was like
39:19
Speaker 1: a string of Disney tie ins with Happy Meals for
39:21
Speaker 1: a while. But I almost said it, Oh my gosh,
39:25
Speaker 1: I almost said in my day, the toys, the toys
39:32
Speaker 1: weren't like that, and uh, you know, I I just
39:36
Speaker 1: remember getting these little toys that I thought were fun
39:39
Speaker 1: and diverting from maybe like a day or two, and
39:43
Speaker 1: then they find their way at the bottom of the
39:45
Speaker 1: toy box and never emerge again. And then you know,
39:49
Speaker 1: flash four thirty years and you're like, I could have
39:51
Speaker 1: paid my college debt with that one toy if I
39:54
Speaker 1: had just not played with it and kept it in
39:57
Speaker 1: good condition. Yeah, I mean, I was kind to think
40:00
Speaker 1: about it. Like then you post a question, I'm like,
40:02
Speaker 1: I can't think of a single toy and then Jonathan,
40:03
Speaker 1: you said that part about it being tied in, and
40:06
Speaker 1: I'm like, so yeah, I mean, like a lot of
40:08
Speaker 1: times I remember, I remember like whatever movie or TV
40:11
Speaker 1: show or whatever I like, if they had a McDonald's toy, Oh,
40:14
Speaker 1: we had to go get it. We had go get it.
40:16
Speaker 1: I remember being definitely way too old for happy Meals
40:20
Speaker 1: and getting happy meals still because you need to get
40:22
Speaker 1: the toy. I think eventually they worked out some sort
40:24
Speaker 1: of system where you could buy the toy if you
40:26
Speaker 1: wanted to what You didn't have to get happy meals,
40:28
Speaker 1: but there will be like stories of people buying it
40:31
Speaker 1: happy It was like full grown adults buying happy meals,
40:33
Speaker 1: so you get the toy and stuff. I particularly remember
40:39
Speaker 1: um Sub I don't know if they were tied to anything,
40:43
Speaker 1: but there was a series of these little figures that
40:47
Speaker 1: were that would transform from uh, from you know, like
40:51
Speaker 1: a coup of soda or a basket of fries into robots,
40:58
Speaker 1: the robot characters, and I thought, I thought they were
41:01
Speaker 1: so cool and you know, be living a life of
41:05
Speaker 1: leisure now if I had just held onto them, you know,
41:10
Speaker 1: But I can't I can't remember if those were tied
41:13
Speaker 1: in with transformers or maybe go bots thing that a
41:16
Speaker 1: lot of people don't remember. But just to remind you,
41:19
Speaker 1: gobots came first, Transformers came after gobots. There's just that
41:24
Speaker 1: the Transformers were let me check my notes here one
41:27
Speaker 1: billion times better. So uh, let's I also just want
41:35
Speaker 1: to see if we can get a sense of scale
41:37
Speaker 1: hero and I don't want to give us too many regrets. Um,
41:40
Speaker 1: but you can find any number of list This is
41:44
Speaker 1: just a cursory duct duct go search and find any
41:47
Speaker 1: number of lists of highly prized McDonald's happy Meal toys. Uh.
41:54
Speaker 1: Number one apparently is ties teeny Panie Booze, so like
42:01
Speaker 1: Beanie babies. Uh. You could sell them for four and
42:05
Speaker 1: fifty dollars, so not quite not quite a mortgage yet,
42:09
Speaker 1: but we still should have saved them. I got one
42:12
Speaker 1: right here. I have one from Kids Kids Meals, Kids
42:17
Speaker 1: Meal fandom page, and it has like a list of
42:21
Speaker 1: all the ones and the first half meal toys they
42:23
Speaker 1: have listed is from nineteen nine for a Star Trek,
42:26
Speaker 1: the motion picture that's random and weird. It was great
42:31
Speaker 1: because those toys were just as boring as the movie was. Really,
42:37
Speaker 1: you guys agree on that Star Trek the Motionless Picture.
42:41
Speaker 1: I was watching in four kmaster one day. It was
42:44
Speaker 1: so bad. I mean, there's so bad. There's a segment
42:48
Speaker 1: that has to be at least five or six minutes
42:52
Speaker 1: long where they're just doing a slow orbit of the
42:56
Speaker 1: Enterprise as the movie theme is playing. That movie theme
43:00
Speaker 1: is the one that they would repurpose for Star Trek
43:03
Speaker 1: the next generation many years later. And and I mean,
43:07
Speaker 1: it's it's a pretty ship. And you understand that at
43:10
Speaker 1: the time that this was a real achievement in special effects,
43:13
Speaker 1: but it destroys any sense of pacing that you have
43:18
Speaker 1: when you're you're taking like literally five to six minutes
43:21
Speaker 1: out of your movie just to do heroes shots of
43:24
Speaker 1: your your spaceship. It's so bad. And uh, it's even
43:28
Speaker 1: worse when you see afterwards the difference in budgets between
43:31
Speaker 1: that and the Wrath of Con Like. The Motionless Pictures
43:34
Speaker 1: budget was so much bigger than Wrath, like twice the
43:36
Speaker 1: biggest the Wrath of cons budget. Wow, you guys are
43:39
Speaker 1: schooling me here. Also, as you can tell, Jonathan Max
43:44
Speaker 1: is in addition to be our resident curing expert, our
43:48
Speaker 1: resident expert on Star Trek, so we might have to
43:51
Speaker 1: have you back when we we finally do our Star
43:54
Speaker 1: Trek episode. Right now, what we can say is that
43:58
Speaker 1: people still you'll find very ardent fans of Ronald McDonald. Uh.
44:04
Speaker 1: He didn't entirely leave social media. He has an official Instagram. Uh.
44:09
Speaker 1: And maybe most importantly, Ronald McDonald House Charities that that
44:13
Speaker 1: organization is still around. They're still doing good work and
44:16
Speaker 1: who knows. Really it's a a pop culture is a
44:20
Speaker 1: study of cyclical things, right, so a lot of things
44:23
Speaker 1: that shine one day we'll find their way into a
44:25
Speaker 1: spotlight again. And with the sheer enormity of the shadow
44:29
Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald cast, we can't ever quite say he's gone
44:34
Speaker 1: for sure. So what we have witnessed could perhaps be
44:37
Speaker 1: described as the first age of the clown. So we
44:42
Speaker 1: have so much crazy stuff that we got to. We
44:45
Speaker 1: found a lot of really interesting tangents in trivia. We
44:48
Speaker 1: sprinkled some throughout the show. I wanted to ask, Jonathan,
44:51
Speaker 1: are there something that we didn't get to that really
44:53
Speaker 1: stood out to you? The only one I would really
44:56
Speaker 1: mention is the fact that you talked about how you
45:00
Speaker 1: had these Ronald McDonald's statues. Some places had statues where
45:04
Speaker 1: it was like a seven foot tall clown standing there,
45:07
Speaker 1: and others. It was the bench one where there's a
45:10
Speaker 1: sitting clown with its arm extended, where you could have
45:12
Speaker 1: sit down and maybe have your picture taken with Ronald
45:16
Speaker 1: giving the old yawn and reach move on you on
45:20
Speaker 1: the bench next to you. Um. But what was really
45:23
Speaker 1: interesting is obviously those became targets for vandalism throughout the years,
45:28
Speaker 1: like teenagers and college students would often target these and
45:33
Speaker 1: it became kind of almost like a contest to see
45:35
Speaker 1: if you could steal one from your local McDonald's. And
45:39
Speaker 1: I've got a few examples. In nineteen eighty one, Ronald
45:42
Speaker 1: McDonald was found sleeping with the fishes. Uh so, this
45:45
Speaker 1: full size statue of Ronald was pulled out of the
45:47
Speaker 1: theta U pond at Oklahoma State University. Nineteen eight six,
45:51
Speaker 1: it happened again, but this time it wasn't Oklahoma. It
45:54
Speaker 1: was in Florida at Lake Sumter Community College. And then
45:58
Speaker 1: you started you you'll see other reports of this too.
46:01
Speaker 1: Sometimes a lot of times they didn't find the statue,
46:04
Speaker 1: but there were some interesting ones. There was one where
46:06
Speaker 1: a statue was stolen in ninety one and turned up
46:09
Speaker 1: in the middle of the desert outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
46:12
Speaker 1: And my favorite was there was an a military officer
46:18
Speaker 1: or military a member of the military I shall say,
46:20
Speaker 1: I want, won't say officer who stole a Ronald McDonald
46:24
Speaker 1: statue with the goal of setting it onto a raft
46:27
Speaker 1: off the Santa Monica pere. Now. He stole it in Biloxi, Mississippi,
46:31
Speaker 1: which is not close to Santa Monica, right drove it
46:35
Speaker 1: across the country to California, but was unable to complete
46:40
Speaker 1: his plan. He was caught with the statue. The statue
46:44
Speaker 1: was returned to its location in Mississippi via an Air
46:49
Speaker 1: Force flight, so Ronald McDonald had a military escort bring
46:54
Speaker 1: him back to Mississippi from California. Think about how much
46:58
Speaker 1: you regret your actions turned that drive because you steal
47:01
Speaker 1: that statue and you're like, yeah, this is great, and
47:04
Speaker 1: then you have that entire drive to think about like
47:08
Speaker 1: it is this bit really that funny? And then you're like,
47:10
Speaker 1: you know, if I set him off the coast, like
47:12
Speaker 1: who else gonna know about this? This is gonna go
47:14
Speaker 1: down on the ocean. And then by the time you're
47:16
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, Texas on that drive, you're like,
47:20
Speaker 1: why am I this way? Why do I do things
47:22
Speaker 1: like why why am I risking a court martial over
47:27
Speaker 1: a Ronald McDonald's statue? Also, another good question to ask
47:30
Speaker 1: is why do we taxpayers foot the bill for the
47:34
Speaker 1: Air Force to take a statue of Ronald McDonald back
47:37
Speaker 1: to Mississippi. That's my only thing I vote for is
47:40
Speaker 1: to make sure that happens. I'm a single issue voter,
47:43
Speaker 1: and that's all. That's all that I I look at
47:46
Speaker 1: what I consider a candidate and I'll ask him to
47:49
Speaker 1: I'll write to the campaign and say, where are we
47:51
Speaker 1: at with McDonald's statues? Um, yeah, no, this is all
47:55
Speaker 1: a true story. Uh. And that member of the military's
47:59
Speaker 1: name was Colin Powell. You can read about it being
48:03
Speaker 1: his autobiography. Uh, that's might not be true. Don't in
48:10
Speaker 1: fact check that part of the show, folks. But we
48:13
Speaker 1: are going to call it the day. We're gonna call
48:14
Speaker 1: it the week. We have found the the official explanation
48:20
Speaker 1: for the demise of Ronald McDonald. Now, given again his
48:25
Speaker 1: his enormous influence of pop culture, it's fair to say
48:28
Speaker 1: he's kind of maybe Cathulu esque right, dead but dreaming
48:33
Speaker 1: and may rise again. But uh, for now. We hope
48:37
Speaker 1: you enjoyed the ride. Thanks to our super producer Mr
48:40
Speaker 1: Max Williams. Thanks again to Chris Frosciotis, Eve's Jeff Code,
48:45
Speaker 1: our research associates, Zach Williams, no relation, Jeff Bartlett, and
48:49
Speaker 1: of course one of my absolute favorite people, Mr Noel Brown,
48:52
Speaker 1: who will be returning soon. Uh. And with that, Jonathan,
48:58
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can hear our outra music. I want
49:00
Speaker 1: to thank you specifically. Man. Uh. This has been an
49:04
Speaker 1: absolute blast. I can't wait for you to come back
49:07
Speaker 1: again on the show. Thanks so much, Ben. And if
49:10
Speaker 1: you guys are interested in hearing, are sorry. If you
49:16
Speaker 1: guys are interested, wait, no, I got this. I got this.
49:21
Speaker 1: If you guys are interested in hearing these are sucked
49:32
Speaker 1: at it. Damn it you did? Uh the quister a K.
49:38
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I can't believe. I can't believe you're back.
49:43
Speaker 1: I'm back you you you see that I have ripped
49:45
Speaker 1: off my Terraway clothing to reveal my doublet injustors hat underneath.
49:52
Speaker 1: I uh, you got us, man, I thought we were
49:56
Speaker 1: gonna I was actually surprised. I thought we were just
50:00
Speaker 1: talking to your alter ego. Jonathan Strickland. But it seems
50:04
Speaker 1: your true colors are shining through. You have flam mixed us. Uh,
50:09
Speaker 1: well you've yet to fla mix us hopefully, but but yeah,
50:14
Speaker 1: you got us. I thought we were going to get
50:15
Speaker 1: away clean. Not this time, Mr Bolan. No, for those
50:19
Speaker 1: of you who are unaware, blissfully as to what the
50:23
Speaker 1: heck is going on right now, welcome to the most
50:27
Speaker 1: cringe worthy segment in All Love podcasting, where I the
50:32
Speaker 1: quiz to quiz your beloved host and his plucky producer
50:40
Speaker 1: on some scenarios. I present three scenarios too are true,
50:45
Speaker 1: one is false, and the contestants have to decide which
50:51
Speaker 1: what's the false one. It's definishly clever. So it's just
50:54
Speaker 1: it's just a game show. I mean, that's your devilishly
50:58
Speaker 1: clever thing. It's just those standard basic game show. Ever,
51:02
Speaker 1: is that what I'm herring McDonald's is just a fast
51:05
Speaker 1: food restaurant? Max to Shap, Sure, I I give that
51:10
Speaker 1: to you, But yeah, I don't think we were ever
51:11
Speaker 1: up to debate that that was a just a fast
51:14
Speaker 1: food restaurant. But you know what, buddy, I'll let you
51:16
Speaker 1: have this one. I'll let you have this one. I'll
51:18
Speaker 1: go ahead, right here we go. I shall I shall
51:21
Speaker 1: present three scenarios. You shall have three minutes between the
51:24
Speaker 1: two of you to debate which of the scenarios is
51:28
Speaker 1: the false one. And as always, I will allow you
51:31
Speaker 1: to ask me questions, but only if you first preface
51:34
Speaker 1: your question with a particular phrase of my choosing. And
51:37
Speaker 1: this time the phrase shall be BAA, I'm loving it.
51:43
Speaker 1: M hmm, Okay, that's it. Yes. Scenario number one. The
51:50
Speaker 1: regional fast food chain Rax Roast Beef, at one point
51:54
Speaker 1: boasted more than five hundred locations across the United States.
51:58
Speaker 1: These days, that number has dwindled down to less than
52:01
Speaker 1: half a dozen. Reasons for the restaurants decline on many,
52:05
Speaker 1: but perhaps one of the most pertinent to our discussion
52:07
Speaker 1: today was the introduction of a certain Mister Delicious. This
52:11
Speaker 1: was an animated character in commercials, a sad sack divorcee
52:16
Speaker 1: who was supposed to lure adult diners into the fast
52:18
Speaker 1: food establishment. Shortly after his introduction, the company filed for bankruptcy.
52:24
Speaker 1: Scenario two. The first location of Doggie Diner opened in Oakland, California,
52:32
Speaker 1: in nineteen The mascot for this hot dog and hamburger
52:36
Speaker 1: fast food joint was a ducks and wearing a bow
52:39
Speaker 1: tie and a chef's hat, which you could see outside
52:43
Speaker 1: some of their establishments, a three dimensional one. And not
52:47
Speaker 1: only that, the dog's head would rotate exorcist style, letting
52:51
Speaker 1: you know the victuals inside were devilishly good. But the
52:55
Speaker 1: spread of larger franchises ultimately spelled doom for the poor doggie,
52:59
Speaker 1: and by nine the company was out of business. Scenario three.
53:05
Speaker 1: In the late nineteen sixties, a regional restaurant chain in
53:08
Speaker 1: the Upper Midwest called doc Oh the Bay promised to
53:12
Speaker 1: bring quote unquote fresh seafood to the landlocked States. The
53:17
Speaker 1: chain's mascot was a fish doctor. By that, I mean
53:21
Speaker 1: it was a fish wearing a stethoscope and a head mirror,
53:24
Speaker 1: not a human who tended to sick fish. It was,
53:27
Speaker 1: of course named doc Perhaps it was a bad idea
53:31
Speaker 1: to associate a sea food restaurant with a doctor like that.
53:34
Speaker 1: The experiment only lasted until nineteen seventy seven, when Long
53:38
Speaker 1: John Silver's lay broadsides against the little chain and sunk it.
53:43
Speaker 1: By that, I mean Doctor the Bay went out to business.
53:45
Speaker 1: Begin Okay, I'm running to our running towards timer. We
53:51
Speaker 1: spent a lot of a lot of the show budget
53:53
Speaker 1: on this one, so we are going to have three minutes.
53:58
Speaker 1: Let me get the clock rolling. Okay, I'm I'm running,
54:02
Speaker 1: I'm running, and go Ben, what you feeling? First impression?
54:08
Speaker 1: Which one are you saying? Which ones he say is real?
54:10
Speaker 1: Which ones he say in her falls? I gotta say
54:13
Speaker 1: maybe because the most recent my memory, the fish Doctor
54:16
Speaker 1: one seems sucks. What do you think? I don't know.
54:19
Speaker 1: Being a born in the Midwest, that seems very Midwestern
54:23
Speaker 1: to do some of that. I think number one is
54:25
Speaker 1: totally real. That's what I'm coming off. As as soon
54:27
Speaker 1: as I heard, I'm like that sounds I've heard of. Okay, um,
54:31
Speaker 1: we need you know what we need to recap in
54:32
Speaker 1: number two? Uh? Popa poppop pop. I'm loving it. Wow,
54:38
Speaker 1: we did two full podcasts. You still don't have their
54:40
Speaker 1: catchphrase right? So number two was the Doggie Doggie Diner
54:46
Speaker 1: hot dog and Hamburger fast food joint that a mascot
54:50
Speaker 1: was a docksin wearing a chef's hat and a bow tie.
54:53
Speaker 1: They had essentially a bust of this character outside some
54:58
Speaker 1: of the restaurants that would wrote three hundred sixty degrees,
55:02
Speaker 1: spreading its endless gaze across all the lands, judging throughout
55:08
Speaker 1: all of time, at least until nine when the restaurant
55:11
Speaker 1: went under. Yeah, I totally think that's real. Do you
55:15
Speaker 1: think so? I don't know. I think they're all real.
55:18
Speaker 1: They all sound like something terrible that that people would
55:21
Speaker 1: would do. Okay, how about this, Max, Let's let's you
55:25
Speaker 1: and I. Um let's leave it to chance. I'm gonna
55:29
Speaker 1: say that I think I feel like I'm having a
55:35
Speaker 1: tough time to sign between number two and number three.
55:39
Speaker 1: Let me ask, but I'm loving it. Oh, well done, Max.
55:43
Speaker 1: What's your quest? So we've already both trashed on Star
55:48
Speaker 1: Trek the emotion less picture. What is your favorite Star
55:51
Speaker 1: Trek movie? Oh? That would be Star Trek to the
55:53
Speaker 1: Wrath of Colin. I think that that one is the
55:55
Speaker 1: most It's not like Star Trek the series, which was
55:58
Speaker 1: much more thoughtful and more about working things out and exploration.
56:03
Speaker 1: But as an action film, Star Trek two is phenomenal.
56:06
Speaker 1: Now if I wanted to go beyond that, maybe I
56:09
Speaker 1: don't know. Star Trek four of the Voyage Home is fun,
56:14
Speaker 1: but I mean it's very cheesy and Star Trek six
56:16
Speaker 1: has Shakespeare, so that's also one. Okay, we've got just
56:21
Speaker 1: a few seconds now, all right, don't let him distract you, Max.
56:25
Speaker 1: He's taking the time, that's what he's doing, all right.
56:29
Speaker 1: So Ben, which one are you going with? Uh? It's
56:31
Speaker 1: three or two for me? Man, which one are you
56:34
Speaker 1: feeling strong? Or? I can go either way myself? Three
56:37
Speaker 1: fish doctors? Weird? Let's go fish doctor. We're locking it
56:41
Speaker 1: in three to one. Well, so, so you really thought
56:50
Speaker 1: there was a doggie, Dina, there was? You were right?
56:55
Speaker 1: It was number three. That was the one I made up.
56:57
Speaker 1: Congratulations you have you have picked the correct one. Uh.
57:03
Speaker 1: My favorite of those is, in fact, the Rax Roast Beef,
57:05
Speaker 1: because there are videos about that establishment online that you
57:10
Speaker 1: need to watch to really understand exactly how strange that
57:15
Speaker 1: marketing campaign was. It was. It was like taking the
57:18
Speaker 1: spirit of Sunday the Dog and putting it into a
57:22
Speaker 1: divorced cartoon character. Well, uh, you know, that really was
57:31
Speaker 1: up to chance for Max and myself. And I think
57:34
Speaker 1: one thing at least that I learned with that is
57:36
Speaker 1: that um fast food campaigns can be so surreal and strange. Anyhow,
57:43
Speaker 1: that all three of those seemed believable to me, So
57:48
Speaker 1: I guess I just right like, thank goodness for fish doctor,
57:52
Speaker 1: But very well done, Jonathan. We just scraped by with
57:56
Speaker 1: that one. Thank you for most of your work on
58:01
Speaker 1: these two series or on these two episodes. So uh
58:05
Speaker 1: we we can't wait to have you back on the air,
58:07
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. We can't wait for you to tune in
58:11
Speaker 1: when Max, Noel and I are diving into more strange stories,
58:16
Speaker 1: possibly with more returning guests in the meantime, quister where
58:21
Speaker 1: can people find you under your daylight cover identity? Jonathan Strickland, Well,
58:26
Speaker 1: they can find him as the host of the tech
58:29
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast. They can find me and that flash of
58:33
Speaker 1: lightning just before the light completely goes dark, look out
58:37
Speaker 1: your window. I'm there. Oh that's amazing. It feels anticlimactic
58:43
Speaker 1: to say that Max and I are on Twitter. Yeah
58:45
Speaker 1: you can find me on Twitter. I'm at it fail
58:47
Speaker 1: underscore Max Williams, So, um yeah, I will be there,
58:52
Speaker 1: and um yeah I don't. I'm like a little too
58:56
Speaker 1: terrified as to anything else right now. So Ben, why
58:58
Speaker 1: don't you go away with stuff? Sure? Sure, we've got
59:03
Speaker 1: sure you can find me at Ben Bull and H.
59:05
Speaker 1: S W. On Twitter. You can find me on Instagram
59:07
Speaker 1: where I'm at Ben Bulling bo w L I N
59:10
Speaker 1: be sure to tune in next week thanks to all
59:12
Speaker 1: our research associates. A big special thanks to our ride
59:16
Speaker 1: or Die, Mr Noel Brown. In his words, We'll see
59:20
Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
59:30
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
59:33
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows