By DAVID MACHIAVELLI
Curly Fries
Everyone in America
has at least one childhood memory attached to the cancerous restaurant known as
McDonald’s.
Whether it was
getting a toy in a Happy Meal or getting a bad case of E. Coli from an
undercooked hamburger, the delicate, fairy-tale goodness of McDonald’s
may be in danger of slipping away forever.
The company has
announced a completely revamped advertising campaign which has done away with
all of its old characters, including Ronald McDonald, Grimace, the Ham-Burglar
and the Fry Twins. In their place, four new characters have been introduced.
Two of them are the
Ham-Murderer, a round-faced maniac in an orange D.O.C. jumpsuit who works in a
slaughterhouse as a cattle killer, and Gruesome Coronary, who looks like the
old Grimace, but is much fatter, clad in stained underwear and holds a 40-ounce
beer can in one hand and a bag of McDonald’s fries in the other.
There are also the
controversial Fairy Twins, who promote themselves as an “alternative
lifestyle couple;” they look like leather-clad packages of french fries.
Ronald McDonald has
undergone the greatest change as he is reduced to Ronald’s Revenge, a
character that is never seen, only talked about. As the story goes, Ronald was
trampled to death by a group of bad little boys and girls who did not want to
wait in line for their Happy Meals. Now Ronald seeks his vengeance on pushy
customers in the form of a seriously painful, intestine-attacking bacteria.
“I don’t
know if this is such a good idea,” said sophomore Hilary Franchesca.
“I grew up sweating Ronald McDonald, and now that he’s being
replaced, I’ll have to find a new crush.”
Representatives of
the multibillion dollar fast food chain said that the company is going for a
more gritty, realistic image.
It will also no
longer include toys with Happy Meals. In their place, condoms and graphic
pamphlets on the dangers of illegal drugs and unprotected sex will be
distributed.
“I think
it’s wonderful that ‘Mickey D’s’ is going to give out
condoms in the Happy Meals,” English professor Dr. Frank Lichtenstein
said. “It’s always really embarrasing when I have to go out for
those, but at least now, all I have to do is pick up a Happy Meal.”
McDonald’s
effort to be “more in touch with the real world” is
thought-provoking, but is it really the duty of a place that sells hamburgers
and milkshakes to perform a public service with its products? It is very
unclear what McDonald’s hopes to accomplish with its new gritty image,
but it will not be a rise in popularity among parents.
All the controversy
over the changes at “Mickey D’s” have caused an escalation in
sales, but it is only because people are intrigued by the new, dark restaurant.
Perhaps McDonald’s is doing all of this to take the focus off their
hamburgers, which are now as thin as three sheets of computer paper.
“The last time
I ordered a Big Mac, it wasn’t exactly all that big,” Franchesca
fumed. “I can’t believe they’ve got the nerve to up prices
while they continually make the burgers smaller.”
If that is the case,
then the new take on an old restaurant gets massive applause, because it is
working. No one is paying attention to the size of the hamburgers. Instead,
they are understandably more concerned with the danger of Ronald’s
Revenge.