I have a confession: I have never eaten at a McDonald’s. Once, many years ago, I ducked into a Mickey D’s in Berkeley to use the restroom, and then ducked right out again. And once when I was babysitting a cranky child I briefly pacified him with a Happy Meal. But I myself have never eaten a Big Mac or a McRib or an Egg McMuffin or even the McDonald’s “salad.” I am, obviously, a Bad American.
I’m not totally ignorant. I’ve watched The Founder, the demi-factual 2016 film about Ray Kroc and the McDonald brothers, so I’m familiar with the origin story. And I’ve written about “You Deserve a Break Today,” the hugely influential McDonald’s ad campaign that ran from 1971 to 1990.
Like just about everyone, I knew about Ronald McDonald, the clown mascot who first appeared in Washington, DC, in 1963. (He was originally portrayed by Willard Scott, former Bozo the Clown, future Today Show weatherman.) But somehow I’d never, even once, heard of the big purple blob called Grimace, a denizen of McDonaldland who’s celebrating his 52nd birthday this month.
Grimace evolution via McDonald’s Wiki
And I might have remained blissfully unaware of Grimace were it not for a June 12 post about Grimace’s birthday on The Impulsive Buy, a blog about fast food and supermarket snacks. To celebrate the occasion, McDonald’s is offering a combo meal consisting of a Big Mac or Chicken McNuggets, fries, and a Grimace’s Birthday Shake. The shake, writes TIB correspondent Marvo, “has a delightful blueberry flavor that reminds me of the fruit at the bottom of a blueberry yogurt but a little more intense.”
But enough about food. What’s the Grimace story, and why the name?
The name was original Evil Grimace. The Daily Meal reported in January 2023 that Grimace was one of many original denizens of McDonaldland: Mayor McCheese (a cheeseburger), the Fry Kids (fries), Mac Tonight (the moon), and Birdie the Early Bird, the first identifiably female character, invented to promote breakfast items. McDonald’s retired most of the mascots in 2003, but the Hamburglar (a thief) and Grimace (originally also a thief—keep reading) kept their jobs.
“The original Grimace was scaly, mean-looking, had four arms, and had no charm whatsoever,” wrote Roy T. Bergold Jr., a former McDonald’s chief creative officer, in an article for QSR (quick-service restaurant) in 2012. As Evil Grimace, he worked alongside the Hamburglar; his specialty was stealing milkshakes. Jelisa Castrodale provided more detail in a 2021 story for Food & Wine:
Evil Grimace lived in a cave and had stolen all of the cups from McDonaldland, which meant that no one could have any milkshakes or Coca-Cola. Ronald tricked Evil Grimace into believing that he'd been selected for a beauty pageant and Grimace left his cup collection behind for Ronald to collect and take back to McDonald's to fill with sodas and shakes. (I have a lot of questions about this entire scenario, and a lot of them have to do with sanitation.)
“He scared kids,” Bergold admitted in his QSR story. “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.”
Some McDiehards, as Castrodale calls them, may recall “an entire … species of Grimaces”:
In the late 1970s, they introduced a green version called Uncle O'Grimacey who had his own fixation with the seasonal Shamrock Shake, and in 1999, another ad featured his aunts, Millie and Tillie. In a 1999 episode of the direct-to-video animated series The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald, Ronald and his onscreen pals traveled to Grimace Island where an entire group of Grimaces lived. (Although this show has probably been forgotten by all but McDiehards, the voice cast included Christine Cavanaugh, who also voiced Chuckie from Rugrats and the title pig in Babe; Pamela Adlon, who voiced Bobby Hill in King of the Hill; and the late Verne "Mini-Me" Troyer, who played the role of Sundae.)
As for other Grimace kin, here’s what the McDonald’s Wiki has to say: “It has neither been confirmed nor denied that Gritty, the NHL mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers, is the same species as Grimace.” (It couldn’t be mere coincidence that the names begin with the same letter pair, could it? Gritty, by the way, was one of my names of the year for 2018. I’m not completely clueless about mascots.)
Exactly what sort of soft, plush, two-armed critter is Grimace? There are at least two official stories. One is that he (it?) is a gigantic taste bud. That’s the story Brian Bates, the manager of a McDonald’s franchise in Windsor, Ontario, told CBC News in 2021. “He is an enormous taste bud, but a taste bud nonetheless,” Bates said. The CBC added: “The purpose of Grimace is to show the food tastes good.”
Maybe, maybe not. Here’s what the McDonald’s corporate Twitter account said in 2012.
@janinegutierrez Grimace is the embodiment of a milkshake, though others still insist he's a taste bud. :)
— McDonald's Corporation (@McDonaldsCorp) May 7, 2012
Taste bud? Milkshake? It seems that McDonald’s also serves waffle.
And speaking of unknown provenance, not even the august OED has pinpointed the roots of grimace. The word cropped up in French in the 14th century and then crossed the Channel sometime in the 17th. Its first appearance in print, as far as we know, was in Hobbes’s Leviathan. Hobbes used it in the same sense with which we use it today: “A distortion of the countenance whether spontaneous or involuntary, expressive of some feeling (esp. annoyance, embarrassment, ill-humour or pain) or tending to excite laughter; a wry face.” If the word is related to grim, with connections to Old English grima (“mask”), as the Online Etymology Dictionary maintains, the OED isn’t saying.
Watch: “The Dark, True Story Behind McDonald’s Evil Grimace”
Comments