This node was inspired by a
discussion I had the other day at a
McDonalds south of
Chicago with a close friend of mine.
Does anybody really know what Grimace, the large purple McDonaldland character, is supposed to be? Several theories have arisen, but none are very satisfying. Among them are "he's a space alien," "he's a horribly deformed genetic mutant," and "who cares?"
Somebody has to know. Somewhere, there are ad executives who once sat at a board meeting coming up with characters for the new Ronald McDonald ad campaign, and one of them had to have suggested "How about a big dopey purple blob-thing?" Even more interesting, though, is that all of the others had to have said "Sure, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Can't go wrong with a big dopey purple blob thing!"
While it's impossible to refute the theories mentioned before, my friend and I have recently come up with a few more interesting ideas:
- Fry guys are actually larval forms of future Grimace-creatures. Their fry-structures eventually fall off, their legs thicken, and they sprout arms, as well as assuming the familiar Grimace-shape. This idea stems from the observation that Grimace and the Fry Guys sometimes have identical eyebrows.
- Grimace, like many other McDonaldland inhabitants, represents some form of McDonalds food. Possibilities include:
- Soda - he is shaped like a drop of liquid, and children don't relate as well to cola-colored characters as they do to purple ones.
- Special Sauce - it is possible that Grimace has special organs which cause him to secrete special sauce, which is used on the Big Mac and in the floor cleaner.
- Milk Shake - this is a stupid suggestion which makes no sense at all, but this is Grimace we're talking about here.
Grimace is an "eating machine" which can consume copious amounts of McDonalds food at an alarming rate and thinks only of eating McDonalds food at all times. This theory is unsubstantiated, but boy, he sure looks like he could eat a lot, doesn't he?
I am of the
opinion that Grimace
needs to be identified in the interest of science. And so the
search continues...