You may not know that Ronald McDonald's big purple pal Grimace was once named "Evil Grimace,"
as he roamed around McDonaldland hoarding milkshakes and other beverages before taking
on a more friendly demeanor. Here's the dark truth behind this creepy character.
If you grew up in the '70s, '80s, or early '90s, you most certainly remember the animated
characters that meant going to McDonald's was about so much more than just chowing down
on burgers and fries. Ronald McDonald was easily the most recognizable in this crew,
but he also had a trippy entourage alongside him. His compatriots included a politician
and a cop with hamburgers for heads, a striped-suit-wearing convict, and a four-armed purple blob named
the Evil Grimace.
Collectively, they were known as the inhabitants of McDonaldland, a made-up universe populated
by fast food mascots and kids hungry for milkshakes. This fantasy world was the cornerstone of
McDonald's advertising for decades. It was the brainchild of the ad agency Needham, Harper
& Steers. In addition to filling Happy Meals and TV airtime, they were also featured in
McDonald's PlayPlaces, where kids could crawl in and out of the characters to burn off some
of that french fry energy. The campaign wasn't without its hitches, though, as it eventually
ran into some legal trouble and other controversies.
Even a marketing juggernaut that can convince kids that prefab hamburgers are better than
fresh ones can still be prone to mistakes. And one of those mistakes was the four-armed
Evil Grimace. As former McDonald's creative officer Roy Bergold wrote in QSR Magazine
in 2012,
"The original Grimace was scaly, mean-looking, had four arms, and had no charm whatsoever.
He scared kids. We changed him to a soft, plush, two-armed blob of a sweetheart who
only wanted McDonald’s milkshakes and to hang out with Ronald."
Evil Grimace was obsessed with stealing milkshakes from children. If you're an adult, you might
find that darkly funny, but when you were a little kid, you might've actually believed
that your frozen treat would be stolen by a four-armed purple blob. The historical record
has not been kind to Evil Grimace. Business Insider dubbed him a "total failure," while
the ThinkTank YouTube channel made an astute point in a 2016 video by noting,
"They realized that [...] in a story, you have heroes and villains, but in ads, you
don't necessarily want people to be scared of being killed by a monster when they go
to your place."
First impressions really are a big deal. And the first impression we get in one particular
commercial of four-armed Evil Grimace is a scene of him standing in a dark cave, surrounded
by McDonald's cups, asking the camera:
"Duh, where's the Coke?"
If this were a person that you were meeting for the first time, you would probably immediately
delete his number from your phone and avoid him in social situations at all costs. But
in McDonaldland, this first impression is a reason to invent a fake beauty contest to
lure this Coke-hoarding monster out of his cave and then take all the Coke back while
he's gone. Actually, now that we think about it, this scheme might work in real life as
well.
The entire point to this story is that in addition to stealing milkshakes, Evil Grimace
was also a Coke fiend, which created gloomy days in McDonaldland. They were so gloomy,
in fact, that the first scene of this ad features a couple of kids sitting in a field of hamburgers
with Ronald McDonald, whining about how they have no Cokes and no shakes. And by the tone
of their voices, it sounds like they've lost their entire will to live.
"No Coke."
"No shakes."
Evil Grimace wasn't the most intelligent citizen of McDonaldland. Case in point: in most of
the commercials he appeared in, he was duped by a giant clown with simple disguises. In
one one of them, Ronald McDonald throws on a hat that says "mailman" and puts a bag of
letters on his shoulder, thereby posing as a mail carrier to deliver Grimace a fake letter
inviting him to participate in a beauty contest. You might protest that that's a federal crime,
but in McDonaldland, it's just a crafty method to get your triple thick shakes and ice cold
Coca-Cola back to McDonald's.
Not one to learn from his mistakes, Evil Grimace is again bamboozled in another ad when Ronald
spots him absconding with four arms full of Coke and milkshakes. The clown throws on a
beret and a pair of oversized sunglasses, grabs a fake movie camera, and follows Grimace
to Filet-o-Fish Lake. He then convinces Grimace to pose for some shots, getting him to slowly
back up before falling into the water. You might think that Ronald should now be tried
for attempting to kill Evil Grimace, but in McDonaldland, it's perfectly justifiable to
behave this way if you're rescuing milkshakes and fountain soda.
Although most of us probably remember Grimace as purple, he was also known for becoming
green on March 17. This was at least the case for the lone St. Patrick's Day that four-armed
Evil Grimace was with us, when he starred in a shamrock-themed commercial. In the ad,
a couple of concerned children notice that Grimace is turning green and ask him why his
hands and feet are severely discolored. Grimace, who looks a little like a scientific demonstration
on the progressive effects of frostbite, then tells the kids that he often turns green this
time of year, thanks to McDonald's Shamrock Shakes.
The little girl asks Grimace if she can have one, as she's never had a green shake before,
to which Grimace replies that she sure can. For a brief moment, it appears that the four-armed
villain will actually show some compassion for the kids who seemed so concerned for his
health. But he then reveals his true colors when instead of handing her a triple thick
Shamrock Shake, he instead shakes her hand and yells:
"Sure! Shake! Huh huh ha ha ha ha!"
Despite the "Evil" moniker, the original four-armed version of Grimace wasn't so much evil as
he was just kind of dumb and hungry. In a way, he was like a dog who rips the Christmas
roast off the counter while it's defrosting. He's not trying to ruin Christmas, he's just
looking for some lunch. This is clear in the "Movie Director" commercial, in which Grimace
repeatedly says how thirsty he is, and this is ostensibly why he's running off with four
armloads of beverages. Evil Grimace is a fairly big guy, after all, so he probably needs more
hydration than the average seven-year-old.
Similarly, when he's spotted turning green from Shamrock Shakes, the poor dumb oaf doesn't
even realize that his body is changing color until the kids tell him. And perhaps he actually
did think that the little girl was asking to shake his hand instead of asking for a
Shamrock Shake, as his brain was both frozen and addled with sugar. In that sense, he wasn't
evil, he was just too dumb to know any better. Though this personality trait was never publicly
cited as a reason for his name change, we can't help but think McDonald's ultimately
figured out that they got the "evil" part wrong.
Once upon a time, a playground at McDonald's was as much a part of the Golden Arches experience
as a burger and a Happy Meal toy. The McDonaldland PlayPlace debuted in 1972 at the Illinois
State Fair and expanded to McDonald's locations nationwide with everything from Officer Big
Mac climbing structures to Captain Crook spiral slides. The pieces were designed by Don Ament,
who was previously a set designer at Disney before working for McDonald's. By the early
90s, the playgrounds branched off into an independent concept called Leaps and Bounds,
an indoor play center where parents paid $4.95 to let their kids immerse themselves in McDonaldland.
There's no evidence of Evil Grimace at Leaps and Bounds, but he was part of the original
lineup that debuted at the Illinois State Fair. The playscapes included the Evil Grimace
Bounce and Bend, a ten-foot structure on which children could hold onto the bars while the
cage shook back and forth. According to a post on the Dinosaurs and Dracula blog, the
Bounce and Bend attraction was still at some McDonald's restaurants into the 1980s.
The McDonaldland characters were naturally enough turned into toys, and most of the original
ones featured posable limbs and changeable cloth outfits. Many also included accessories,
like Officer Big Mac's badge and Mayor McCheese's sash. They also had levers in their backs
that allowed kids to move their heads in four directions. Alas, this wasn't the case with
the Evil Grimace toy, as his design lent itself more readily to cuddling. Its innards were
similar to the material found inside a bean bag, and it was covered in purple fur to make
him especially cuddly. Grimace wasn't winning any action figure fights, but he was perfect
for sleeping next to in bed.
If you want one of these cuddly Evil Grimace dolls now, that's probably going to set you
back a pretty penny. A recent asking price on eBay for a rare, Comic Con Exclusive stuffed
four-armed Evil Grimace that's still in the box was $129.99. But hey, free shipping was
available! Who's to say if it was actually worth that much, but either way, it would
definitely be a nice conversation piece to have sitting on your living room sofa, and
it's way cooler than an enamel pin, which you can find on eBay or Etsy for about $15.
Though there are no public records of parents avoiding the Golden Arches because of the
imminent threat of a four-armed monster, in 1972 McDonald's decided to figuratively amputate
two of Evil Grimace's arms. Also removed was the "Evil" part of his name, as he henceforth
became known as simply "Grimace." He retained the dopey persona, as he still began each
sentence with a "duh" and maintained his unhealthy obsession with milkshakes.
As Grimace went from foil to cartoon clown hanger-on and gave up stealing from kids,
he turned into Ronald's best friend and got all the Coke and shakes he could by hanging
out with a guy who had them in abundance. His story is actually a decent life lesson,
as Grimace's new lifestyle was certainly better than pursuing a life of crime. Also, we'd
argue that a two-armed purple blob is much more aesthetically pleasing than a four-armed
monster.
"Grimace, we're late!"
"But the dinner's great!"
"Great! Great! Great!"
Beginning in 1971, the McDonaldland characters were the subject of a major lawsuit, as the
creators of the children's TV show H.R. Pufnstuf alleged that McDonald's stole many of their
characters for their campaign. According to the lawsuit, McDonald's approached the show's
creators Sid and Marty Krofft about collaborating on a campaign and also recruited former H.R.
Pufnstuf employees to help design McDonaldland. Among the disputed characters was Evil Grimace,
who was a little too close to a Pufnstuf character named Seymour Spider for the Kroffts' liking.
McDonald's ultimately lost the lawsuit after six years of litigation, and the company was
ordered to pay over $1 million in damages.
McDonald's was also ordered to cease production of some of the McDonaldland characters, although
Grimace survived that initial purge and lived on in what was left of McDonaldland until
2003, when the entire campaign was scrapped. That was the year that McDonald's began its
"I'm lovin' it!" campaign and switched the target of its marketing more towards adults
than children. This marked a significant shift in society's collective attitude toward advertising
to children, as groups like Corporate Accountability International began pressuring McDonald's
to phase out its trademark clown, questioning the ethics of selling unhealthy food to kids.
Despite that, you'll still see Grimace pop up occasionally, like he did in the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day parade or in a 2009 McDonald's tie-in ad for the animated movie Monsters
vs. Aliens. Though the evil incarnation may be gone forever, the two-armed good Grimace
just might last forever.
"Will Ronald find Grimace? Or is this-"
"The end of the road?"
"Duh, hi, Ronald."
"Grimace! What are you doing?"
"Duh, hanging around 'til dinnertime."
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