April 1, 2010 • 42 mins
McDonald's is arguably the most famous fast food restaurant on the planet. Join Josh and Chuck as they discuss the humble beginnings, menu items, practices and controversies of the fast food giant in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, Chuck, let's listen
to some Devo. So, Chuck, got a good feeling? You
(00:36):
like that? I love Devo, Dude, that's my favorite Devo song.
Acron Boys. Yeah, they're from Ohio, late seventies, early eighties
quintessential new wave band Devo. We just listened to gut Feeling.
It originally appeared on their album Q Are we not
men a say it? Chuck? We are Devo? Yeah, but
(00:56):
with an exclamation and not the right yeah. It doesn't
say no, it doesn't um and uh. I got my
copy from the soundtrack of Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic
with Steve z Sue, Right, Inn't that? Is it Life
Aquatic or Aquatic Life? The Life Aquatic? People are probably
like I thought this was some McDonald's. Yes, you would
think so. And here's the reason. Why do you remember that?
(01:19):
I just said, like thirty seconds ago. Divo is the
quintessential late seventies early eighties new wave band. I do
remember that. Well. Apparently the designers of Happy Meal toys
that McDonald's agree. They've released a series of Happy Meals
toys that are little characters based on different genres of music.
And there's one called new Wave Nigel. He's got these
(01:41):
thin sunglasses and spiky hair, and he happens to have
a very recognizable hat looks like a flower pot that's
upside down exactly. Uh. And to Mark Mother's Ball and
the other guys in Devo, it looked a lot like
what they call their energy Dome hats, which they trademarked.
So now they're suing MacDonald's for unlicensed use of this
(02:03):
of this hat McDonald's exactly. Yeah, that's a pretty accurate. Actually, Chuck,
McDonald's at any given point in time has a handful
of lawsuits against them. I think that's any big company, though,
it is. But that's that's that's a good point. McDonald's
has become this emblematic symbolic face. The golden arches are
(02:26):
like the logo of more than just McDonald's, logo of
of corporate America, of America, obesity, uh, mick jobs, globalization, globalization, glocalization. Yeah,
we'll talk about that, of course. Yeah, there's there's there's
just for being a fast food restaurant. They've come to
take on these huge representations of these enormous concepts, and
(02:50):
I gotta admit some they've handled well, some they haven't.
But they're still standing. You know, well they love it.
You take the good with the bad as much as
they hate being the symbol of the face of a
b CD. They're like, yeah, but we sell a lot
of big macs exactly. We know that you like him,
fat boy. Yeah, that's that's kind of the idea that
I have them to chuck. Yes, we've got Devo out
(03:11):
of the way. We can check that off the list.
All right, you want to talk about Mickey D's, should
we go? Let's start with history, because it's a pretty
interesting history. It is a lot of people out there
probably think, oh, yeah, I know about McDonald's history because
I've stood there in line and read the plaque that
says Ray Kroc invented McDonald's and he started it all
up the embossed plaque. Not true. No, Actually, I often
(03:35):
wondered as a child why the founder of McDonald's last
name wasn't McDonald's, it was Croc. But it is because
mc croc is would you buy a burger from a
place called m Cross. It's like buying a piece of
furniture from unpainted huff Huns. Right, very nice. Uh. How
many times do we reference Cohen Brothers films all the time? Uh?
(03:58):
Flashback to the Great Depression. Yeah, let's go have another
piece of pie. That kind of time period, that song
would have gone, well, it would have h the nineteen thirties.
Dick and mac McDonald. You might not recognize that name.
They were running a movie theater in California and not
doing too well. First question, Okay, who names their kid
(04:18):
mac McDonald a little suspect? Pride? Wacky parents? Um, And
they were not doing too great, and so they noticed
across the street. It's literally one of these stories. We're like, boy,
that hot dog business is gangbusters. We should open up
a hot dog stand. So they borrowed five thousand dollars,
which seems like a lot of money at the time
to open a hot dog's name, no doubt. Well, I
(04:40):
think I get the impression that they opened like one
of those very early diners because they call it the
air Dome hot dog Stand, right, yeah, air drone air drone, Yeah, yeah, sure,
I get the same thing. And by nineteen forty, they
moved that from Arcadia, which was the original location, to
San Bernardino and they changed the name to McDonald Barbecue. Right,
(05:01):
so they went from a hot dog stand to a
barbecue joint. Well it wasn't barbecue, that just meant on
the grill, I think because they served burgers and burgers,
fries and milkshakes. Yeah, that that change was a m
It was a big deal because they dropped a lot
of their stuff. Right, Well, they shut down, they closed
the business for a little while to retool, which was
you just kind of didn't do this at the time
(05:22):
they were, Yeah, because they were already pretty successful. This
wasn't like a slou che business. But the the McDonald's
brothers UM or the brothers McDonald um felt like they
could do it better. I guess one of them had
some some sort of inspiration from the assembly line, right, Yeah,
I think from the auto industry, and so they created
the Speedy System Speedy System sp E E, d E
(05:46):
and dude. That's where it really changed the world as
we know it. And that's not overstating it. That was
the birth of modern fast food. It is. They also
did away with the car hops like people on roller skates.
He used to come up and um, take your order
at your car. You had to come in. Um. But yeah,
more than anything else, they changed the fast food industry
with that speedy system. Basically, they took the principles of
(06:08):
the assembly line and applied it to food. So if
you were, you know, in charge of cooking the burgers,
you didn't put the burger on, the buns on the
burger like. There were different people involved in the burger
making process. I can attest to this because my first
job was at McDonald's. Well I worked there too, for
an hour. We'll talk about that later because that's some
We have some famous cohorts that worked at McDonald's that
(06:30):
I looked up nice and we were not famous, but
we worked there. I didn't know your story. I can't
wait to hear that. Uh. So they were really successful.
Over the next six years, they sold twenty one franchises,
open nine outlets themselves, and they were doing so well
that they said, we need these multi mixers that can
mix five milkshakes at once because we need to increase
(06:52):
the speed. And their multi mixer salesman was a man
named Ray Croc. Here is where the little bit of
fate comes in, right, these guys were running. I think
there there eight shakes that he can make at a time,
multi mixer five shakes. Now, they ordered eight of them
and they had them running all day long. And Ray
(07:12):
crocs like, it's the most multi mixers anyone's ever ordered
it once. So he actually went out to Burdue to
find out what was going on. Yeah, remember the Hell's
Angels podcast? Did San Bernardina? Sorry, yeah, that's okay, but um,
we wouldn't go see it himself, and it's like, what
is going on here? He was on board immediately. Apparently
(07:34):
Jacques Pepine put it um, the famous French chef Jack
pipin Uh, he wrote an article about Ray Kroc and
as he put it um, he pitched the idea of
the brothers to really start expanding their operation. And they said, well,
where would we get somebody to do this for us?
And Ray Kroc said, what about me? And he became
(07:54):
their franchising agent. Right, yeah, apparently he his his original
um motivation was to sell multi mixers, and he figured
if he could open up more franchises, they're selling tons
of milkshakes. They're lousy with milkshakes. So I can sell
more multi mixers. So that was kind of how it
started out. Yeah, and he opened his first McDonald's franchise
uh in de Plaine, Illinois, right, And that's actually the
(08:18):
now a museum that McDonald's location. There are two. There's
a Big Mac Museum, which we'll talk about where the
Big Matt came from later, and then there's the McDonald's museum. Anyway,
So he opens up that one and in the next
five years, dude, he franchises two hundred more restaurants. What's
amazing though, is that he didn't he wasn't filthy rich
(08:41):
in that next five years. He actually had a lot
of trouble getting these things off the ground. Right. So
we've got one thing under our belt when we're describing
the success of McDonald's, right, and that is the speedy
system using the principles of the assembly line for fast food.
The other thing that made McDonald's as successful as it is,
(09:04):
um was the real estate principles that the company took on, right. Yeah,
Harry he hired a gout named Harry Soniborn and he
only worked there for like a decade, but that completely
rewrote their business model, uh to the point where they
were making more money off of real estate than selling hamburgers, right,
Because originally Ray Kroc would be like, hey, uh, we've
(09:25):
got this kind of newish franchise. And McDonald's was in
the first fast food restaurant. Howard Johnson's was around already,
White Castle was around already, They had they had competition right, um,
and these bigger guys who had been around for a
while could just build as many as they wanted to
in a region because they had tons of capital. Well,
McDonald's franchise was still pretty young, so when they went
(09:47):
to franchisees, these were very hopeful people who are maybe
uh were were for the underdog, that kind of thing,
sort of green. They weren't like super investors, right, and
so they didn't have a lot of money. So these
guys would have to basically opened one franchise at a
time because the building expense in the land expense for
so much. What Santa Born came up with it was
like just lease the land and then sub lease it
(10:10):
to the to the franchise e and then not only
that mark up the leasing fees, but initially it was
twenty percent over what they were paying the lease. The place.
Then they up at the forty and then finally when
McDonald started rolling, it was either forty or five percent
of sales, whichever was greater. So yeah, right, the the
(10:30):
franchise realty corporation, uh made as much money as as
the McDonald's corporation for a while. If it's really it doesn't.
Still it was a stroke of genius, yeah, basically, And
so that enabled Croc uh in nineteen sixty one to
buy out the McDonald's I'm sorry, the McDonald brothers for
what was it, two point seven million in like nineteen
(10:52):
sixty three, yeah, two point seven in nineteen sixty one. Uh,
they gave up the rights to the McDonald's name. Uh,
Dick and mac. Do you want to what happened to them?
They reopened the original San Bernardino joint as the Big
M and h Ray Kroc was like, yeah, I don't
like you reopening that original store, So I'm gonna open
McDonald's down the street and run you out of business.
(11:14):
And that's what happened, and that that strategy still followed
today if you pay any attention to Home Depot and Lows.
Oh sure, thank you for that. And uh, apparently Kroc
and you know this is in his autobiography, so we're
not slinging stones here. He actually fostered this bitterness between
(11:34):
himself and Dick McDonald, who was their surviving brother, and
Kroc considered the planes location the original first McDonald's. He
never wavered from that, and himself the founder well obviously
if you've ever seen the emboss plaque, he never hear
any mention McDonald brothers. So people have challenged that from
time to time, enough so that the McDonald's Corporation's official
(11:54):
site now says, yes, Dick and mc McDonald founded a
ref draw and Ray Kroc, you know, originally came on board,
but he's the founder of the McDonald's Corporation. So that's
how they kind of justify that. Got you. I do
want to point out to that, um, unbeknownst to the
(12:15):
franchise e, the capital that they got from raising the
money for you know, with the leases, they used that
to fund the opening of other franchises. So that's how
they started kind of rolling and uh, sort of like
a puny scheme a little bit, but this one was
slightly more legal. It was on the open. I had
a pretty good payoff apparently uh. Kroc took McDonald's public
(12:38):
in sixty five, and if you had bought two thousand
dollars worth of stock that year and it's initial public offering,
it would be worth three point five million today. Yeah,
that's not a bad return in an investment. So he
bought the company in sixty one, by sixty three, he
had opened up his five by sixty five if they
(13:00):
went public, and then twenty years after they went public,
they were included in the dal Jones industrial average. That
is what's called a super rapid ascent into wealth. The
dalve Jones only has thirty companies, and McDonald's is one
of them. What's more, and one of the things that
explains that success, but that kind of also supports it,
is that UM they started catering towards kids and cultivating
(13:24):
customer loyalty at a very early age thanks to a
guy named Willard Scott, who you may know was the
weather man for the Today Show for many years, the
Demented Smucker's Jelly spokesperson or Boza the clown yeah, or
Ronald McDonald. He was the first one. He was first
in a long long line of Ronald McDonald's um and
(13:46):
he was the first character, and then pretty soon they
started adding more and more McDonald's characters. But let's stick
with Ronald for a second. Did you know that they
they introduced Ronald McDonald in right or I think it
was sixty three, Okay, sixty three. By nineteen nineteen sixty nine,
more kids could identify Ronald McDonald than they could the
(14:10):
American President. That's American kids of them could identify Ronald
McDonald six years after he was introduced. Yeah. Yeah, And
my research, I don't know that's true or not, but
it says that Willard Scott was originally let go because
he was too fat and they didn't want a big
fat clown has their spokesman for their food. He is
(14:30):
a leaner than usual clown except for those huge hawk
thighs that he's always had. The saddle bag gup like
they're writing pants. Yeah, okay, so they come up with
Ronald McDonald, but they're trying to figure out how to
expand the characters. Right, well, Chuck, you and I grew
up in the eighties. We've written a fry guy or
two before out in the playground, right, Um, Hamburglar, the Hamburglar, Grimace. Um,
(14:55):
You've got Mary mccheese, who was one of my personal favorites. Um,
the big mac cop. Oh yeah, god, I wish you
had his name. I do too. Well, there's some listener
mail force. Um, and all of these people originally were
going to be licensed characters from Sid marty Croft, the
(15:17):
guys who used to eat a ton of acid and
create children's shows HR Puff and Stuff. Right. Um, So
originally McDonald's corporation approached Sid marty Croft and said, hey,
we want to license your Puff and Stuff characters. Sider
marty Croft said, okay, we can, We'll totally do that.
They waited for McDonald's call back, waited for him to
call back. McDonald's finally called back and said now we're
not gonna do it and blatantly ripped him off. So
(15:40):
Sid marty Croft like, oh yeah, Sigma and the Sea Monster,
they kind of all had that same thing. I saw
commercial from nineteen seventy once, the first one that Grimace
appears in, and it actually features a young Jodie Foster.
It is straight out of the H and R Puff
and HR Puff and Stuff shows. Like instead of flowers,
there's little cheese burgers everywhere. I mean, it's just completely
(16:02):
like a Sid marty Craft ripop, so much so that
when the Kraft Brothers sued, uh, they were awarded fifty grand.
But that was it. But did you know this Grimace,
who's just bumbling, puppy, purple weird sidekick of Ronald best
friend Um was originally Evil Grimace, which is probably why
they called him Grimmace. He had three pairs of arms
(16:25):
and they were meant to steal as many shakes as possible. Yeah,
and then they figured that's just creepy and don't like it,
so we're gonna put it back to two one pair
of arms and he's gonna be nice. Yeah, Evil Grimace.
You know that Sid marty Croft had the place in Atlanta.
You didn't grow up here, but when I was a kid,
Sid marty Croft Land was at the top of the
(16:47):
top floor of the Omni, the old Armni you know
what became Philips Arena. What. Yeah, there was his escalator
I remember. I mean now it's probably not as long
as I remember, but it seemed like it was like
the longest escalator in the world. Time that went to
the top to Sid in marty Croftland. Did they create
the banana splits too? I don't think so. Were they
(17:07):
from Atlanta? I don't know the connection there. I know
it was a pretty big failure. Yeah, it closed down
in short order, but I went. I'll bet it was
real popular among the hip teenagers, I bet, especially especially
in the nineteen right up there Alley. All right, Josh,
let's say you wanted to open a McDonald's restaurant back
in the day, your Ray Croc and how would you
(17:28):
go about spotting a good location? What are you looking for? Well,
first I put on my tin gallon hat. I would
board a helicopter, which he did. I would start flying
around areas that were up and coming, and I would
try to find uh an intersection with the church, a school,
(17:48):
maybe some other stores, and I would PLoP it right there. Yep,
That's exactly what he did. And specifically, I think physical
space wise, developers look for more than thirty two thousand
square feet, which is a little over ninety seven a
height of twenty two ft, which I don't understand. I
(18:08):
guess that the height and clearance is what they're looking for. Yeah,
elevation they're looking for for the so the McDonald's exactly,
and they still to this day look to place them
near intersections with traffic lights or airports, schools, a ton
of people. Yeah, and originally they they thought behind it
(18:30):
was they wanted to put it where the heart of
the community was. Well, no, they wanted to put it
where as many people as possible. We're going to pass
by three times a day. And they still use that
classic speedy type system, and I'm sure they don't call
it that, but still the assembly line automated stuff is
taken over many aspects. Obviously, if you've been in McDonald's
in the last decade, you've seen the automatic fry cooker
(18:52):
and the automatic drink filler and uh, you know, you
go to the drive through window and there's a little
screen telling you what you're ordering. Dude, let's talk about
drive through window, because there are certain McDonald's in the
United States where when you pull up to the drive
through many you place your order, you are speaking to
someone in a call center in another state. Yeah. Do
(19:13):
you know that there's another state or another country, another state? Okay,
I think there are ones where they I think there
are some that are in other countries. Yes, But the
based on the New York Times article I read they
were in these were McDonald's in Missouri, and they were
talking to people in Colorado and they would take a
snapshot right of you the computer in the call center. Yeah,
(19:33):
so when you get to the window to pick up
your food, they see a photo and they say, well,
this is that that Chuck guy. He's all tubby in
his front seat and he's salivating for a big Max.
So here's your big Mac. And then they say that
the picture is destroyed. But that is what they say,
because I wondered about that destroyed. Uh. Yeah, So this
(19:54):
McDonald's is with I think because of as much money
as the company has, it's long been on the cutting edge,
like new technology, anything anything that can be used to
um cut down costs. McDonald's is into Yeah. Absolutely, And
they're also into believe this or not, cleanliness. Yeah, Ray Croc,
they said, was like obsessed with being clean. I got
(20:15):
the impression here was a tatto c d. Maybe. Well.
My my theory is, and I worked in the restaurant business.
You can never have a restaurant that's too clean, So
I appreciate his dedication to cleanliness. Apparently, like to say,
if you've got time to lean, you've got time to
clean and anytime somebody said that to me after they
turned around and be like, yeah, given the old high
(20:35):
hard one. Sure you know there's a lot of leaning
in the McDonald's around my neighborhood. Actually, yeah, I think
there are most of them. But uh, even that apparently
is a step up. As far as McDonald's and other
countries go, McDonald's is widely credited for changing the standards
in the industry, the restaurant industry for bathroom cleanliness in
(20:56):
Hong Kong, yeah you know that. Yeah, and uh Thailand,
social um social interaction, because apparently in Hong Kong there
was never such a thing as like organized lines to
stand in line and get something. So they were literally
forced to stand in line for the first time to
to complete their order. So some say that it brought
some social graces and organization to these kind of chaotic scenes.
(21:21):
And you know what, I believe that because when I
looked in l a, I would always get muscled in
on by a little Asian women and they used to
bother me. Then I was like, you know what, I
bet you in their country, you're fighting to get in
position to get your you know, whatever's in the market.
So it's exactly what they want you to think. I
opened was that I was duped into being kind. I
(21:41):
was like, I understand, cut in front of me. That's fine, exactly.
Here you go, lady, welcome to the US. Right. What
a sucker, Chuck? What's your favorite menu? Ita at McDonald's
answer me, I'm gonna go with the the hangover Helper
double quarter pounder with cheese, mayonnaise only at French fries
on top, and smush it all together mayonnaise only, no
(22:03):
catchup or mustard. I don't do that stuff. Pickles onions.
You gotta have the sesame seed bun though, So you
have a bun of burger cheese, burger bun with mayonnaise
and French fries. Yeah, okay, I don't think that appears
on the menu. Really. Oh that's the Chuck special. I'm
a straight up double cheese burger guy. Yeah, those are good.
(22:24):
But we can talk a little bit about the history
of a few of their menu items because I find
it kind of interesting too. That's why I asked you.
The filet of fish was born in the nineteen sixties
because at the time we had really great Catholics in
America who had abstained from eating meat on Friday, and
Ray Kroc was like, uh, we got lagging sails on
Friday because all these Catholics, can I we invent something
(22:45):
here to to make up for the sales, right, And
they were losing sales to places like Big Boy. I
love Big Boy. Um. Sure. And the reason why they
were losing it these sales was because these places had
a she alternative. So Ray Kroc comes up with the
brilliant idea and it is the hula burger, right, which
(23:07):
was a slice of pineapple instead of meat on a button. Yeah.
Not a very good idea, No, it wasn't. But luckily
by this time McDonald's corporation was smart enough to know
that they needed to test menu items first. Um. And
they tested it. But at the same time they tested
another item called the filet of fish, Yes, which was
(23:27):
I thought, I think thought up by a franchise z
correct Lou Growing and he thought of it and put
it on his menu, which McDonald said, that's cool. Let's
see how it goes. And it went over like gangbusters,
and uh, they said, you know what, We're gonna add
this to our national menu. Yeah. So a franchise e
beat out the CEO and chairman of McDonald's Corporation. That's
something that well, that means you' smart enough to listen
(23:47):
to him as well. Yeah, well, I think that's kind
of a recurring theme. It seems like Ray Croc surrounded
himself with people who were smart and sharp, but also
he listened to him and when they were, you know,
milling about the office, he'd make them push a broom
or something when they were walking down the hall. If
you're too busy to lean, you're too busy to clean. Now,
if you got time to lean, you get time to clean.
(24:09):
And the Big Mac two had similar origins. It was
a franchisees idea out of the Pittsburgh area, right yeah,
which is key I think to its success. Uh yeah, yeah,
the fact that it was in Pittsburgh and it wasn't
in like, you know, Los Angeles. Very health conscious Los
Angeles seventies though was LA has always been that way.
Jim Delegatti, who was invented the Big Mac, which we
(24:32):
all know is to all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles,
onion on a seed bun with the third bun there
in the middle, which is key to just keep it
all together. Evidently, so people in Pittsburgh said this is awesome,
and Ray Croc said, Okay, we're gonna add this to
our menu. Right. It actually became their signature sandwich. Yeah,
(24:53):
isn't that crazy? Yeah? And I find it odd that
earlier we mentioned that the McDonald brothers opened up their
other restaurant once their name was taken. It was called
The Big Might. Apparently there's no connection there, but it
seems all hanky to me. The Big Mac in the
Big Um. Huh. Well I hadn't made that connection, really, Yeah,
what do you think? No, I'll tell you what I think.
I think Big Mac is a reference to truck drivers
(25:13):
and big guys who would eat a sandwich like that,
which is actually kind of daring because you're almost automatically
cutting out your female customers, you know, the big or
petite Mac. Maybe it would have been a better name
for it, whichever you like. Uh, and Chuck, you mentioned
the McDonald's brothers in their original um restaurant. Well they
(25:36):
kept selling hot dogs for a while, right, Yeah? Yeah,
why didn't McDonald's sell hot dogs? Do you want to know?
Because Ray Kroc felt that the mystery meats and I
just made air quotes put into hot dogs. Uh didn't
fit or live up to McDonald's standards. So no more
hot dogs. Nope, and you've never even though you have
pure I'll be Frank's now. Of course, I'm sure you
(25:56):
did back then. I still won't find one out of spy.
That's my idea. Uh Josh. Flash forward to ninety three
when my favorite McDonald's menu item all times. Oh yeah,
we are talking clearly about the circular broken yolk egg
with cheese Canadian bacon on an English muffin, which in
(26:17):
Canada they just call it bacon, right, a k a.
The egg McMuffin. And another franchise e heard Peterson operated
six McDonald's. He um. He actually came up with the
first national ad slogan where quality starts fresh every day.
Convinced Ray Crock to try it out. He loved it,
And then they got into the breakfast business, right, and
(26:38):
they debuted it with another McDonald land character named Bertie
the Early Bird. I remember that. Yeah, let's remember Bertie.
She was the She was clearly a female. She had
like a orange flight suit and a scarf and flying.
Remember that. And we got one more to talk about
you can't talk about McDonald's without the chicken McNugget. And
actually remember this one clearly because I was right at
(27:01):
the age, yeah, twelve years old, jerke Uh. This was
actually thought of by a CEO, which was which was
rare because usually the franchisees uh owners were coming up
with these. Fred Turner was the chairman, and he put
out a request and said, you know what, he commissioned it.
I love the quote. He commissioned a chicken finger food
(27:21):
without bones. About the size of your thumb. Pretty specific.
So they came back here. It is sort of even
looks like a thumb a little bit. And now now
that I see it, it's gonna be tough to eat them. Yeah.
I used to eat those. Oh, I used to eat
them like crazy. Not anymore, nothing but barbecue sauce. I
would do a mix of the barbecue in the sweeten summer. Yeah,
it's a good mix, it is. So we need to
(27:44):
talk about a little bit of criticism, right, oh yeah,
and the good that they do. We'll follow with the
good that they do. Well. You know, Devo is not
the only people who have filed lawsuit against McDonald's. Neither
are sid and Marty Croft, right, and it goes both ways.
McDonald's has been known to follow a lawsuit or two right, specifically,
probably most famously against green Peace. Yeah, the McLibel case. Yeah,
(28:09):
did you read the McLibel pamphlet? Uh No, not the
actual pamphlet, but I kind of know what it's all about.
It's a little broad, in my opinion to have drummed
up that much ire and anger. But in the mid
eighties to London, green Peace members um basically started printing
pamphlets and I guess what it was was at the time,
nobody was talking about this stuff, and maybe they were
(28:30):
the first, like about cutting down rainforest for grazing land
for cattle, that McDonald's was using, um any humane practices
of killing the cattle, um, exploiting workers, that kind of stuff.
I guess now they think about it. It's so ingrained
into our culture now, awareness like that that maybe in
the mid eighties it just totally wasn't. Yeah, and it
(28:53):
got McDonald's attention to because they sued these people and
they won. They won because they these guys who put
out the pamphlet couldn't back up everything that they stayed
in the pamphlet with facts. Do you know why? Because
they were they were poor, and they worked for Green Peace,
and they defended themselves. So these two acted as their
own lawyers, and McDonald's lawyers buried them. They wouldn't give them, um,
(29:18):
you know, documents that they asked for. They buried him
in procedural stuff, um and and one. But at the
same time, these two people and Green Piece as a
whole are just doing as much pr as they can
about the case. McDonald's just took a huge hit. That
was probably the first real turning point as far as
McDonald's image goes. Yeah, where it wasn't just like McDonald's
(29:41):
is the greatest thing ever, right, And people started to
really kind of pay attention to like, wait a minute,
where donald said Ronald McDonald said he loved my child.
What do you mean he really just wants profits, you know? Yeah. Yeah,
And they were famously sued in the nineties with, um,
the hot coffee that's spilled on the old lady's lap. Yeah,
And I always thought that was just, like, uh, um,
(30:02):
an example of how we need tort reform. I didn't
realize why the woman was awarded the money she got.
Third degree burns in her crotch and was in the
hospital for eight days. Right. But the reason that the
jury awarded her such a huge amount it was in
the tens of millions, I think, right. Uh, it just said, well,
I don't know how much it was specifically, but compensatory
(30:23):
and puneted damage. It was a lot of money, and
it was for spilling coffee on her her crotch. But
the reason that the jury awarded her such so much money, um,
was because McDonald's was well aware of the problem and
uh for had for many years received hundreds of complaints
but just didn't do anything about it that their coffee
was too hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Josh and
(30:43):
the nineties again McDonald's took a bold move and came
out and said, you know what, We're no longer going
to cook our French fries and bee fat even though
it's so good, I know, do you remember the change? Yeah,
and we're gonna cook it in vegetable oil. So that
was their big announcement. And then this sort of implied
in a way that they were vegetarian fries because it's
(31:05):
just potatoes cooked and vegetable oil. Not true, because they
contain beef flavoring and uh sued so Hindus obviously had
vegetarians had a big problem with us. But McDonald's very
fairly said, hey man, we never said that these were
vegetarian fries, but we'll pay up anyway. They ponied up
like ten million bucks in an apology. And that's what
(31:28):
you do when you got deep pockets. Oh yeah, you
pay up a little bit, apologize, it goes away, and
the next person the line steps up to suit you. Right,
But then in the meantime, five million people step up
in line to order a double cheeseburger. Yeah, absolutely, and
that pays for everything. A couple of more big, high
profile things. That was the book Fast Food Nation that
(31:48):
charged McDonald's with globalization and uh anti union tactics. Yeah,
stuff like that. Yeah, and that that was also mentioned
in the McLibel pamphlet. They were um that they only
use or only employee workers who are basically down on
their luck, have nothing to have, have no alternatives. They
(32:10):
they overwork them, they exploited them, so there's high turnover,
so there's no chance of unions or unionizing among McDonald's employees.
And then Morgan Spurlock, of course with the film Supersized Me.
The documentary famously went on a thirty day diet of
nothing but McDonald's and no exercise and almost died. And
did you watch it now? I've never seen it. It
(32:30):
was entertaining and he he does like McDonald's was in
the firing uh scope, But he was making a statement
about the fact that, you know, when we were kids,
a large drink was like eighteen ounces, and now you
can get like a seventy two ounce soda. Do we
really need that? Right? And actually that had some uh,
some big effects I guess in McDonald's, like they took
(32:53):
their supersize option off of their menu, like right after
the film was screened at Sundance. Yeah, they went pro
active on this one big time, which was pretty smart.
And actually I guess it's not that much action, but
still it was a big deal. A little indie filmmaker
got them to change their menu so instead of supersize
is now called large. Um chuck was Fast Food Nation
(33:17):
turned into food Ink? The movie is that? Is the
movie Food Ink based on Fast Food Nation. No, there
is a movie Fast Food Nation as well that Richard
link Lender did. No, you're thinking of waking life. Okay,
we should also probably say that there's some some good
that this company has done, aside from making great greasy hamburgers,
(33:39):
which I do love. I don't even Donald's much, but
boy is it good. Obviously, first and foremost, you've got
the Ronald McDonald House. Right, great, great organization. What do
they do Well? If you have a kid who is
in the hospital a lot um, especially out of state, uh,
seeing a specialist, and you're family needs to be there
(34:01):
to support the kid, but you don't really have enough
for a six month hostels stay. There are houses around
the country called Ronald McDonald Houses that your family can
go stay out for free or next to nothing, that
are close to these hospitals, children's hospitals, so you can
be near your kid and have to fly back and
forth or you know, lose your job that kind of thing. Right. Uh.
(34:22):
They also, like we said, have been charged with globalization,
and they will counter that. No, no, no. When we
go to these countries, we have cultural specific menu items,
and that's very true. There's we have I think an
article about wacky McDonald's menu items from around the world,
and uh, we actually try and incorporate the local culture
into our menu instead of just forcing this American thing
(34:43):
down their throat. That's what they say, right, And if
you uh, there's a picture actually of a pair of
um McDonald's workers in India. Um, and there's the Maharajah
Mac and the vegetable burger with cheese, both of which
I imagine are cooked without beef since in he is
kind of big on the cow worship, right. I don't
(35:04):
think that they that McDonald's wild go over very well
if you walked into one and in Mumbai and hey,
here's one of your gods right here on the menu. Yeah,
they've taken beef off the men either. Right. So this
is a perfect example of the good that McDonald's does. Yes,
there's good. It's called glocalization. You're taking a multinational but
um you know, very culturally specific company and adjusting it
(35:28):
as needed locally. Colocalization is great. But the thing is
is when it's so disingenuous when people put that point out,
because of course McDonald's isn't going to serve hamburgers in
India because they want to exactly. So, yeah, they're going
to adjust their menu to reflect local values because without that,
no one's gonna buy it, Josh, I know we're kind
(35:51):
of short on time. There's some more stuff we gotta
stick in here, though. Uh, we need to talk about
the mcnoggan. Did you ever see that they fried a
chicken head? What? Yeah, I'll show you a picture. This
lady purportedly gotten her box of McDonald's chicken wings or
fried chicken wing head and it. You know, it's exactly
what it looks like, but it is. Snopes has said
that it has not been verified and or disproven. Yeah,
(36:15):
you gotta see it. It's really funny and uh so
because she has refused to turn it over for inspection
and so it's just kind of still floating out there.
It was like ten years ago, so I'm sure it's
gone away by now. Um. Did you ever hear the
rumor about the cow's eyeballs? Yeah, in the shekes not
true as far as we know. Uh. The My favorite
(36:35):
McDonald's staying is um in Los Angeles. WO worked in
the film business and we shoot most McDonald's commercials are
shot at this one fake store in l A whole
thing is on wheels, not literally the building, but everything
in there's on wheels. It's got lights all rigged. It's
all faults. And every day when you shoot there, they
have four o'clock fries. A fourlock, the production stops and
they bring out like fifty large fries for everyone to
(36:59):
just chow dout on. So it is a functioning McDonald's. Yeah,
but it's not. It's not a functioning restaurant. But you
gotta be able to fake the cooking and all that stuff.
That's awesome. And you worked there, we need to tell
that real quick. I worked there for an hour. I
worked there for a few weeks. I worked there for
one hour. I went in the training and in the basement,
(37:19):
and they gave me my like, took my uniform size,
showed me the little video, told me to clock in
and out, and I was like, all right, you start
in the morning at like four am. And the next
morning I was in Athens and the alarm went off
and I went, I can't do this. Yeah, good for you.
Never went back, never catch my check. So I gotta
check out there with my name on it. Oh, really,
you should get that for like four or fifty or something.
(37:40):
And Josh, we can not. We would be remiss if
we didn't talk about some of our famous cohorts who
have worked at McDonald's. Okay, and they are as follows
A Chuck, Shania Twain, Sharon Stone. Yeah, ja the rat
leno Really, I mean Cocoa's Corner, I mean Camp Cocoa.
(38:02):
Pink and Pink had a quote, she says, quote, I
would open the restaurant because I'd be tripping on acid,
and I would say, could I have a bathroom duty?
And I would sit in the bathroom and watch the tiles.
So that's what Pink was doing. Carl lewis Olympian, Carl
lewis cool. Macy Gray. If you had a funny voice
taking your order at some point, it might have been
Macy Gray. Where did she work? Does it say? Uh?
(38:25):
I do not see where that was. No. Rachel McAdams,
super smoking, cute actress, and d l hugely worked at
McDonald's and they and we did, and they a lot
of them still say that it was like a great
job and it taught them order and cleanliness and all
that good stuff. I I didn't get any of that
(38:46):
from McDonald's. I worked there for an hour, so I
can't really say I got a paycheck that was um,
what was your station? Sixty I would do just about
anything bathroom front. I don't remember. I never cooked anything,
can never cook patties, but I make fries, put cheese on,
stuff like that. It was all over the place. They
were superstar of the line. No, no, it was just
(39:07):
like the guy was. I don't think he'd never met
Ray Croc, the guy who managed that place. And there
was a little too involved for like a late twenties
guy with you know, the seventeen year old staff. He
going like, you know, nothing, not to cast any dispersions
or or suggest he was up to anything. I mean
like he was just two on our level. You want
(39:28):
to be your buddy. Yeah, you know. They say that
one out of every eight people in the American workforce
worked at McDonald's at one point. All butt and I
think of their executives started out and their stores. Yeah,
and there's a million stats. We won't get into how
many fries they sell, in the fact that the wraps
around the earth a gazillion times every day or something
ridiculous like that. There's so many stats. We got a
(39:49):
lot of good McDonald's content on the website. I'm gonna
finish this with two words, shamrock shake, boom. I'm gonna
finish it with one word mc ribb. Nice Chuck. How
we almost forgot that great Simpsons episode on in the
crib too. If you want to know more about the Simpsons, McDonald's,
the McRib the Shamrock, Shake deal Hugely, or Devo, you
(40:14):
can type any of those things into the handy search
bar how stuff works dot Com. I defy you to uh,
since I said that, I think it's time for listener mail.
Do we have time for listener mail? No, we don't.
Let's do this. Let's put out the call. Okay. We
are coming to New York City folks in June, first
week in June for Internet Week or is the second week?
I think it's June. Yes, And we are looking to
(40:37):
have a stuff you should know happy hour with the
fans whoever wants to come, and we need some help
on finding a place that will host this happy hour
for free. Well yeah, we're just we just need a
place that we can show up and be and let
everybody know we're gonna be at. We don't need to
rent it or anything. Well, preferably would be someone who
would shut down except for us, and they will be guaranteed,
probably a lot of people in there buying food and drinking.
(41:00):
Year awesome, but so New York City fans. If you
have any connections, please let us know. And we are
actually looking for t shirt designs. Yeah, we're having a
t shirt design contest. We're gonna select what the best
three four. Maybe we haven't worked that out yet. All right,
we haven't worked that part out everybody, but we are
calling for t shirt designs. Look for activity on that
(41:20):
on the Facebook fan page Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
and stuff you should Know podcast fit fan page on Facebook. Uh,
and probably some tweets on it. We're gonna have a
Twitter feed coming up soon. I think it's gonna be
like s Y s K maybe or something like that.
We're getting with the times. Yeah, finally, I guess that's
about it then, right, Chuck, If you have an email
(41:41):
that you want to send to us, we'll get back
to listen to your mail next week. Wrap it up,
smack it on the bottom, Send it to Stuff podcast
at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
(42:02):
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
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Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, Chuck, let's listen
to some Devo. So, Chuck, got a good feeling? You
(00:36):
like that? I love Devo, Dude, that's my favorite Devo song.
Acron Boys. Yeah, they're from Ohio, late seventies, early eighties
quintessential new wave band Devo. We just listened to gut Feeling.
It originally appeared on their album Q Are we not
men a say it? Chuck? We are Devo? Yeah, but
(00:56):
with an exclamation and not the right yeah. It doesn't
say no, it doesn't um and uh. I got my
copy from the soundtrack of Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic
with Steve z Sue, Right, Inn't that? Is it Life
Aquatic or Aquatic Life? The Life Aquatic? People are probably
like I thought this was some McDonald's. Yes, you would
think so. And here's the reason. Why do you remember that?
(01:19):
I just said, like thirty seconds ago. Divo is the
quintessential late seventies early eighties new wave band. I do
remember that. Well. Apparently the designers of Happy Meal toys
that McDonald's agree. They've released a series of Happy Meals
toys that are little characters based on different genres of music.
And there's one called new Wave Nigel. He's got these
(01:41):
thin sunglasses and spiky hair, and he happens to have
a very recognizable hat looks like a flower pot that's
upside down exactly. Uh. And to Mark Mother's Ball and
the other guys in Devo, it looked a lot like
what they call their energy Dome hats, which they trademarked.
So now they're suing MacDonald's for unlicensed use of this
(02:03):
of this hat McDonald's exactly. Yeah, that's a pretty accurate. Actually, Chuck,
McDonald's at any given point in time has a handful
of lawsuits against them. I think that's any big company, though,
it is. But that's that's that's a good point. McDonald's
has become this emblematic symbolic face. The golden arches are
(02:26):
like the logo of more than just McDonald's, logo of
of corporate America, of America, obesity, uh, mick jobs, globalization, globalization, glocalization. Yeah,
we'll talk about that, of course. Yeah, there's there's there's
just for being a fast food restaurant. They've come to
take on these huge representations of these enormous concepts, and
(02:50):
I gotta admit some they've handled well, some they haven't.
But they're still standing. You know, well they love it.
You take the good with the bad as much as
they hate being the symbol of the face of a
b CD. They're like, yeah, but we sell a lot
of big macs exactly. We know that you like him,
fat boy. Yeah, that's that's kind of the idea that
I have them to chuck. Yes, we've got Devo out
(03:11):
of the way. We can check that off the list.
All right, you want to talk about Mickey D's, should
we go? Let's start with history, because it's a pretty
interesting history. It is a lot of people out there
probably think, oh, yeah, I know about McDonald's history because
I've stood there in line and read the plaque that
says Ray Kroc invented McDonald's and he started it all
up the embossed plaque. Not true. No, Actually, I often
(03:35):
wondered as a child why the founder of McDonald's last
name wasn't McDonald's, it was Croc. But it is because
mc croc is would you buy a burger from a
place called m Cross. It's like buying a piece of
furniture from unpainted huff Huns. Right, very nice. Uh. How
many times do we reference Cohen Brothers films all the time? Uh?
(03:58):
Flashback to the Great Depression. Yeah, let's go have another
piece of pie. That kind of time period, that song
would have gone, well, it would have h the nineteen thirties.
Dick and mac McDonald. You might not recognize that name.
They were running a movie theater in California and not
doing too well. First question, Okay, who names their kid
(04:18):
mac McDonald a little suspect? Pride? Wacky parents? Um, And
they were not doing too great, and so they noticed
across the street. It's literally one of these stories. We're like, boy,
that hot dog business is gangbusters. We should open up
a hot dog stand. So they borrowed five thousand dollars,
which seems like a lot of money at the time
to open a hot dog's name, no doubt. Well, I
(04:40):
think I get the impression that they opened like one
of those very early diners because they call it the
air Dome hot dog Stand, right, yeah, air drone air drone, Yeah, yeah, sure,
I get the same thing. And by nineteen forty, they
moved that from Arcadia, which was the original location, to
San Bernardino and they changed the name to McDonald Barbecue. Right,
(05:01):
so they went from a hot dog stand to a
barbecue joint. Well it wasn't barbecue, that just meant on
the grill, I think because they served burgers and burgers,
fries and milkshakes. Yeah, that that change was a m
It was a big deal because they dropped a lot
of their stuff. Right, Well, they shut down, they closed
the business for a little while to retool, which was
you just kind of didn't do this at the time
(05:22):
they were, Yeah, because they were already pretty successful. This
wasn't like a slou che business. But the the McDonald's
brothers UM or the brothers McDonald um felt like they
could do it better. I guess one of them had
some some sort of inspiration from the assembly line, right, Yeah,
I think from the auto industry, and so they created
the Speedy System Speedy System sp E E, d E
(05:46):
and dude. That's where it really changed the world as
we know it. And that's not overstating it. That was
the birth of modern fast food. It is. They also
did away with the car hops like people on roller skates.
He used to come up and um, take your order
at your car. You had to come in. Um. But yeah,
more than anything else, they changed the fast food industry
with that speedy system. Basically, they took the principles of
(06:08):
the assembly line and applied it to food. So if
you were, you know, in charge of cooking the burgers,
you didn't put the burger on, the buns on the
burger like. There were different people involved in the burger
making process. I can attest to this because my first
job was at McDonald's. Well I worked there too, for
an hour. We'll talk about that later because that's some
We have some famous cohorts that worked at McDonald's that
(06:30):
I looked up nice and we were not famous, but
we worked there. I didn't know your story. I can't
wait to hear that. Uh. So they were really successful.
Over the next six years, they sold twenty one franchises,
open nine outlets themselves, and they were doing so well
that they said, we need these multi mixers that can
mix five milkshakes at once because we need to increase
(06:52):
the speed. And their multi mixer salesman was a man
named Ray Croc. Here is where the little bit of
fate comes in, right, these guys were running. I think
there there eight shakes that he can make at a time,
multi mixer five shakes. Now, they ordered eight of them
and they had them running all day long. And Ray
(07:12):
crocs like, it's the most multi mixers anyone's ever ordered
it once. So he actually went out to Burdue to
find out what was going on. Yeah, remember the Hell's
Angels podcast? Did San Bernardina? Sorry, yeah, that's okay, but um,
we wouldn't go see it himself, and it's like, what
is going on here? He was on board immediately. Apparently
(07:34):
Jacques Pepine put it um, the famous French chef Jack
pipin Uh, he wrote an article about Ray Kroc and
as he put it um, he pitched the idea of
the brothers to really start expanding their operation. And they said, well,
where would we get somebody to do this for us?
And Ray Kroc said, what about me? And he became
(07:54):
their franchising agent. Right, yeah, apparently he his his original
um motivation was to sell multi mixers, and he figured
if he could open up more franchises, they're selling tons
of milkshakes. They're lousy with milkshakes. So I can sell
more multi mixers. So that was kind of how it
started out. Yeah, and he opened his first McDonald's franchise
uh in de Plaine, Illinois, right, And that's actually the
(08:18):
now a museum that McDonald's location. There are two. There's
a Big Mac Museum, which we'll talk about where the
Big Matt came from later, and then there's the McDonald's museum. Anyway,
So he opens up that one and in the next
five years, dude, he franchises two hundred more restaurants. What's
amazing though, is that he didn't he wasn't filthy rich
(08:41):
in that next five years. He actually had a lot
of trouble getting these things off the ground. Right. So
we've got one thing under our belt when we're describing
the success of McDonald's, right, and that is the speedy
system using the principles of the assembly line for fast food.
The other thing that made McDonald's as successful as it is,
(09:04):
um was the real estate principles that the company took on, right. Yeah,
Harry he hired a gout named Harry Soniborn and he
only worked there for like a decade, but that completely
rewrote their business model, uh to the point where they
were making more money off of real estate than selling hamburgers, right,
Because originally Ray Kroc would be like, hey, uh, we've
(09:25):
got this kind of newish franchise. And McDonald's was in
the first fast food restaurant. Howard Johnson's was around already,
White Castle was around already, They had they had competition right, um,
and these bigger guys who had been around for a
while could just build as many as they wanted to
in a region because they had tons of capital. Well,
McDonald's franchise was still pretty young, so when they went
(09:47):
to franchisees, these were very hopeful people who are maybe
uh were were for the underdog, that kind of thing,
sort of green. They weren't like super investors, right, and
so they didn't have a lot of money. So these
guys would have to basically opened one franchise at a
time because the building expense in the land expense for
so much. What Santa Born came up with it was
like just lease the land and then sub lease it
(10:10):
to the to the franchise e and then not only
that mark up the leasing fees, but initially it was
twenty percent over what they were paying the lease. The place.
Then they up at the forty and then finally when
McDonald started rolling, it was either forty or five percent
of sales, whichever was greater. So yeah, right, the the
(10:30):
franchise realty corporation, uh made as much money as as
the McDonald's corporation for a while. If it's really it doesn't.
Still it was a stroke of genius, yeah, basically, And
so that enabled Croc uh in nineteen sixty one to
buy out the McDonald's I'm sorry, the McDonald brothers for
what was it, two point seven million in like nineteen
(10:52):
sixty three, yeah, two point seven in nineteen sixty one. Uh,
they gave up the rights to the McDonald's name. Uh,
Dick and mac. Do you want to what happened to them?
They reopened the original San Bernardino joint as the Big
M and h Ray Kroc was like, yeah, I don't
like you reopening that original store, So I'm gonna open
McDonald's down the street and run you out of business.
(11:14):
And that's what happened, and that that strategy still followed
today if you pay any attention to Home Depot and Lows.
Oh sure, thank you for that. And uh, apparently Kroc
and you know this is in his autobiography, so we're
not slinging stones here. He actually fostered this bitterness between
(11:34):
himself and Dick McDonald, who was their surviving brother, and
Kroc considered the planes location the original first McDonald's. He
never wavered from that, and himself the founder well obviously
if you've ever seen the emboss plaque, he never hear
any mention McDonald brothers. So people have challenged that from
time to time, enough so that the McDonald's Corporation's official
(11:54):
site now says, yes, Dick and mc McDonald founded a
ref draw and Ray Kroc, you know, originally came on board,
but he's the founder of the McDonald's Corporation. So that's
how they kind of justify that. Got you. I do
want to point out to that, um, unbeknownst to the
(12:15):
franchise e, the capital that they got from raising the
money for you know, with the leases, they used that
to fund the opening of other franchises. So that's how
they started kind of rolling and uh, sort of like
a puny scheme a little bit, but this one was
slightly more legal. It was on the open. I had
a pretty good payoff apparently uh. Kroc took McDonald's public
(12:38):
in sixty five, and if you had bought two thousand
dollars worth of stock that year and it's initial public offering,
it would be worth three point five million today. Yeah,
that's not a bad return in an investment. So he
bought the company in sixty one, by sixty three, he
had opened up his five by sixty five if they
(13:00):
went public, and then twenty years after they went public,
they were included in the dal Jones industrial average. That
is what's called a super rapid ascent into wealth. The
dalve Jones only has thirty companies, and McDonald's is one
of them. What's more, and one of the things that
explains that success, but that kind of also supports it,
is that UM they started catering towards kids and cultivating
(13:24):
customer loyalty at a very early age thanks to a
guy named Willard Scott, who you may know was the
weather man for the Today Show for many years, the
Demented Smucker's Jelly spokesperson or Boza the clown yeah, or
Ronald McDonald. He was the first one. He was first
in a long long line of Ronald McDonald's um and
(13:46):
he was the first character, and then pretty soon they
started adding more and more McDonald's characters. But let's stick
with Ronald for a second. Did you know that they
they introduced Ronald McDonald in right or I think it
was sixty three, Okay, sixty three. By nineteen nineteen sixty nine,
more kids could identify Ronald McDonald than they could the
(14:10):
American President. That's American kids of them could identify Ronald
McDonald six years after he was introduced. Yeah. Yeah, And
my research, I don't know that's true or not, but
it says that Willard Scott was originally let go because
he was too fat and they didn't want a big
fat clown has their spokesman for their food. He is
(14:30):
a leaner than usual clown except for those huge hawk
thighs that he's always had. The saddle bag gup like
they're writing pants. Yeah, okay, so they come up with
Ronald McDonald, but they're trying to figure out how to
expand the characters. Right, well, Chuck, you and I grew
up in the eighties. We've written a fry guy or
two before out in the playground, right, Um, Hamburglar, the Hamburglar, Grimace. Um,
(14:55):
You've got Mary mccheese, who was one of my personal favorites. Um,
the big mac cop. Oh yeah, god, I wish you
had his name. I do too. Well, there's some listener
mail force. Um, and all of these people originally were
going to be licensed characters from Sid marty Croft, the
(15:17):
guys who used to eat a ton of acid and
create children's shows HR Puff and Stuff. Right. Um, So
originally McDonald's corporation approached Sid marty Croft and said, hey,
we want to license your Puff and Stuff characters. Sider
marty Croft said, okay, we can, We'll totally do that.
They waited for McDonald's call back, waited for him to
call back. McDonald's finally called back and said now we're
not gonna do it and blatantly ripped him off. So
(15:40):
Sid marty Croft like, oh yeah, Sigma and the Sea Monster,
they kind of all had that same thing. I saw
commercial from nineteen seventy once, the first one that Grimace
appears in, and it actually features a young Jodie Foster.
It is straight out of the H and R Puff
and HR Puff and Stuff shows. Like instead of flowers,
there's little cheese burgers everywhere. I mean, it's just completely
(16:02):
like a Sid marty Craft ripop, so much so that
when the Kraft Brothers sued, uh, they were awarded fifty grand.
But that was it. But did you know this Grimace,
who's just bumbling, puppy, purple weird sidekick of Ronald best
friend Um was originally Evil Grimace, which is probably why
they called him Grimmace. He had three pairs of arms
(16:25):
and they were meant to steal as many shakes as possible. Yeah,
and then they figured that's just creepy and don't like it,
so we're gonna put it back to two one pair
of arms and he's gonna be nice. Yeah, Evil Grimace.
You know that Sid marty Croft had the place in Atlanta.
You didn't grow up here, but when I was a kid,
Sid marty Croft Land was at the top of the
(16:47):
top floor of the Omni, the old Armni you know
what became Philips Arena. What. Yeah, there was his escalator
I remember. I mean now it's probably not as long
as I remember, but it seemed like it was like
the longest escalator in the world. Time that went to
the top to Sid in marty Croftland. Did they create
the banana splits too? I don't think so. Were they
(17:07):
from Atlanta? I don't know the connection there. I know
it was a pretty big failure. Yeah, it closed down
in short order, but I went. I'll bet it was
real popular among the hip teenagers, I bet, especially especially
in the nineteen right up there Alley. All right, Josh,
let's say you wanted to open a McDonald's restaurant back
in the day, your Ray Croc and how would you
(17:28):
go about spotting a good location? What are you looking for? Well,
first I put on my tin gallon hat. I would
board a helicopter, which he did. I would start flying
around areas that were up and coming, and I would
try to find uh an intersection with the church, a school,
(17:48):
maybe some other stores, and I would PLoP it right there. Yep,
That's exactly what he did. And specifically, I think physical
space wise, developers look for more than thirty two thousand
square feet, which is a little over ninety seven a
height of twenty two ft, which I don't understand. I
(18:08):
guess that the height and clearance is what they're looking for. Yeah,
elevation they're looking for for the so the McDonald's exactly,
and they still to this day look to place them
near intersections with traffic lights or airports, schools, a ton
of people. Yeah, and originally they they thought behind it
(18:30):
was they wanted to put it where the heart of
the community was. Well, no, they wanted to put it
where as many people as possible. We're going to pass
by three times a day. And they still use that
classic speedy type system, and I'm sure they don't call
it that, but still the assembly line automated stuff is
taken over many aspects. Obviously, if you've been in McDonald's
in the last decade, you've seen the automatic fry cooker
(18:52):
and the automatic drink filler and uh, you know, you
go to the drive through window and there's a little
screen telling you what you're ordering. Dude, let's talk about
drive through window, because there are certain McDonald's in the
United States where when you pull up to the drive
through many you place your order, you are speaking to
someone in a call center in another state. Yeah. Do
(19:13):
you know that there's another state or another country, another state? Okay,
I think there are ones where they I think there
are some that are in other countries. Yes, But the
based on the New York Times article I read they
were in these were McDonald's in Missouri, and they were
talking to people in Colorado and they would take a
snapshot right of you the computer in the call center. Yeah,
(19:33):
so when you get to the window to pick up
your food, they see a photo and they say, well,
this is that that Chuck guy. He's all tubby in
his front seat and he's salivating for a big Max.
So here's your big Mac. And then they say that
the picture is destroyed. But that is what they say,
because I wondered about that destroyed. Uh. Yeah, So this
(19:54):
McDonald's is with I think because of as much money
as the company has, it's long been on the cutting edge,
like new technology, anything anything that can be used to
um cut down costs. McDonald's is into Yeah. Absolutely, And
they're also into believe this or not, cleanliness. Yeah, Ray Croc,
they said, was like obsessed with being clean. I got
(20:15):
the impression here was a tatto c d. Maybe. Well.
My my theory is, and I worked in the restaurant business.
You can never have a restaurant that's too clean, So
I appreciate his dedication to cleanliness. Apparently, like to say,
if you've got time to lean, you've got time to
clean and anytime somebody said that to me after they
turned around and be like, yeah, given the old high
(20:35):
hard one. Sure you know there's a lot of leaning
in the McDonald's around my neighborhood. Actually, yeah, I think
there are most of them. But uh, even that apparently
is a step up. As far as McDonald's and other
countries go, McDonald's is widely credited for changing the standards
in the industry, the restaurant industry for bathroom cleanliness in
(20:56):
Hong Kong, yeah you know that. Yeah, and uh Thailand,
social um social interaction, because apparently in Hong Kong there
was never such a thing as like organized lines to
stand in line and get something. So they were literally
forced to stand in line for the first time to
to complete their order. So some say that it brought
some social graces and organization to these kind of chaotic scenes.
(21:21):
And you know what, I believe that because when I
looked in l a, I would always get muscled in
on by a little Asian women and they used to
bother me. Then I was like, you know what, I
bet you in their country, you're fighting to get in
position to get your you know, whatever's in the market.
So it's exactly what they want you to think. I
opened was that I was duped into being kind. I
(21:41):
was like, I understand, cut in front of me. That's fine, exactly.
Here you go, lady, welcome to the US. Right. What
a sucker, Chuck? What's your favorite menu? Ita at McDonald's
answer me, I'm gonna go with the the hangover Helper
double quarter pounder with cheese, mayonnaise only at French fries
on top, and smush it all together mayonnaise only, no
(22:03):
catchup or mustard. I don't do that stuff. Pickles onions.
You gotta have the sesame seed bun though, So you
have a bun of burger cheese, burger bun with mayonnaise
and French fries. Yeah, okay, I don't think that appears
on the menu. Really. Oh that's the Chuck special. I'm
a straight up double cheese burger guy. Yeah, those are good.
(22:24):
But we can talk a little bit about the history
of a few of their menu items because I find
it kind of interesting too. That's why I asked you.
The filet of fish was born in the nineteen sixties
because at the time we had really great Catholics in
America who had abstained from eating meat on Friday, and
Ray Kroc was like, uh, we got lagging sails on
Friday because all these Catholics, can I we invent something
(22:45):
here to to make up for the sales, right, And
they were losing sales to places like Big Boy. I
love Big Boy. Um. Sure. And the reason why they
were losing it these sales was because these places had
a she alternative. So Ray Kroc comes up with the
brilliant idea and it is the hula burger, right, which
(23:07):
was a slice of pineapple instead of meat on a button. Yeah.
Not a very good idea, No, it wasn't. But luckily
by this time McDonald's corporation was smart enough to know
that they needed to test menu items first. Um. And
they tested it. But at the same time they tested
another item called the filet of fish, Yes, which was
(23:27):
I thought, I think thought up by a franchise z
correct Lou Growing and he thought of it and put
it on his menu, which McDonald said, that's cool. Let's
see how it goes. And it went over like gangbusters,
and uh, they said, you know what, We're gonna add
this to our national menu. Yeah. So a franchise e
beat out the CEO and chairman of McDonald's Corporation. That's
something that well, that means you' smart enough to listen
(23:47):
to him as well. Yeah, well, I think that's kind
of a recurring theme. It seems like Ray Croc surrounded
himself with people who were smart and sharp, but also
he listened to him and when they were, you know,
milling about the office, he'd make them push a broom
or something when they were walking down the hall. If
you're too busy to lean, you're too busy to clean. Now,
if you got time to lean, you get time to clean.
(24:09):
And the Big Mac two had similar origins. It was
a franchisees idea out of the Pittsburgh area, right yeah,
which is key I think to its success. Uh yeah, yeah,
the fact that it was in Pittsburgh and it wasn't
in like, you know, Los Angeles. Very health conscious Los
Angeles seventies though was LA has always been that way.
Jim Delegatti, who was invented the Big Mac, which we
(24:32):
all know is to all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles,
onion on a seed bun with the third bun there
in the middle, which is key to just keep it
all together. Evidently, so people in Pittsburgh said this is awesome,
and Ray Croc said, Okay, we're gonna add this to
our menu. Right. It actually became their signature sandwich. Yeah,
(24:53):
isn't that crazy? Yeah? And I find it odd that
earlier we mentioned that the McDonald brothers opened up their
other restaurant once their name was taken. It was called
The Big Might. Apparently there's no connection there, but it
seems all hanky to me. The Big Mac in the
Big Um. Huh. Well I hadn't made that connection, really, Yeah,
what do you think? No, I'll tell you what I think.
I think Big Mac is a reference to truck drivers
(25:13):
and big guys who would eat a sandwich like that,
which is actually kind of daring because you're almost automatically
cutting out your female customers, you know, the big or
petite Mac. Maybe it would have been a better name
for it, whichever you like. Uh, and Chuck, you mentioned
the McDonald's brothers in their original um restaurant. Well they
(25:36):
kept selling hot dogs for a while, right, Yeah? Yeah,
why didn't McDonald's sell hot dogs? Do you want to know?
Because Ray Kroc felt that the mystery meats and I
just made air quotes put into hot dogs. Uh didn't
fit or live up to McDonald's standards. So no more
hot dogs. Nope, and you've never even though you have
pure I'll be Frank's now. Of course, I'm sure you
(25:56):
did back then. I still won't find one out of spy.
That's my idea. Uh Josh. Flash forward to ninety three
when my favorite McDonald's menu item all times. Oh yeah,
we are talking clearly about the circular broken yolk egg
with cheese Canadian bacon on an English muffin, which in
(26:17):
Canada they just call it bacon, right, a k a.
The egg McMuffin. And another franchise e heard Peterson operated
six McDonald's. He um. He actually came up with the
first national ad slogan where quality starts fresh every day.
Convinced Ray Crock to try it out. He loved it,
And then they got into the breakfast business, right, and
(26:38):
they debuted it with another McDonald land character named Bertie
the Early Bird. I remember that. Yeah, let's remember Bertie.
She was the She was clearly a female. She had
like a orange flight suit and a scarf and flying.
Remember that. And we got one more to talk about
you can't talk about McDonald's without the chicken McNugget. And
actually remember this one clearly because I was right at
(27:01):
the age, yeah, twelve years old, jerke Uh. This was
actually thought of by a CEO, which was which was
rare because usually the franchisees uh owners were coming up
with these. Fred Turner was the chairman, and he put
out a request and said, you know what, he commissioned it.
I love the quote. He commissioned a chicken finger food
(27:21):
without bones. About the size of your thumb. Pretty specific.
So they came back here. It is sort of even
looks like a thumb a little bit. And now now
that I see it, it's gonna be tough to eat them. Yeah.
I used to eat those. Oh, I used to eat
them like crazy. Not anymore, nothing but barbecue sauce. I
would do a mix of the barbecue in the sweeten summer. Yeah,
it's a good mix, it is. So we need to
(27:44):
talk about a little bit of criticism, right, oh yeah,
and the good that they do. We'll follow with the
good that they do. Well. You know, Devo is not
the only people who have filed lawsuit against McDonald's. Neither
are sid and Marty Croft, right, and it goes both ways.
McDonald's has been known to follow a lawsuit or two right, specifically,
probably most famously against green Peace. Yeah, the McLibel case. Yeah,
(28:09):
did you read the McLibel pamphlet? Uh No, not the
actual pamphlet, but I kind of know what it's all about.
It's a little broad, in my opinion to have drummed
up that much ire and anger. But in the mid
eighties to London, green Peace members um basically started printing
pamphlets and I guess what it was was at the time,
nobody was talking about this stuff, and maybe they were
(28:30):
the first, like about cutting down rainforest for grazing land
for cattle, that McDonald's was using, um any humane practices
of killing the cattle, um, exploiting workers, that kind of stuff.
I guess now they think about it. It's so ingrained
into our culture now, awareness like that that maybe in
the mid eighties it just totally wasn't. Yeah, and it
(28:53):
got McDonald's attention to because they sued these people and
they won. They won because they these guys who put
out the pamphlet couldn't back up everything that they stayed
in the pamphlet with facts. Do you know why? Because
they were they were poor, and they worked for Green Peace,
and they defended themselves. So these two acted as their
own lawyers, and McDonald's lawyers buried them. They wouldn't give them, um,
(29:18):
you know, documents that they asked for. They buried him
in procedural stuff, um and and one. But at the
same time, these two people and Green Piece as a
whole are just doing as much pr as they can
about the case. McDonald's just took a huge hit. That
was probably the first real turning point as far as
McDonald's image goes. Yeah, where it wasn't just like McDonald's
(29:41):
is the greatest thing ever, right, And people started to
really kind of pay attention to like, wait a minute,
where donald said Ronald McDonald said he loved my child.
What do you mean he really just wants profits, you know? Yeah. Yeah,
And they were famously sued in the nineties with, um,
the hot coffee that's spilled on the old lady's lap. Yeah,
And I always thought that was just, like, uh, um,
(30:02):
an example of how we need tort reform. I didn't
realize why the woman was awarded the money she got.
Third degree burns in her crotch and was in the
hospital for eight days. Right. But the reason that the
jury awarded her such a huge amount it was in
the tens of millions, I think, right. Uh, it just said, well,
I don't know how much it was specifically, but compensatory
(30:23):
and puneted damage. It was a lot of money, and
it was for spilling coffee on her her crotch. But
the reason that the jury awarded her such so much money, um,
was because McDonald's was well aware of the problem and
uh for had for many years received hundreds of complaints
but just didn't do anything about it that their coffee
was too hot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Josh and
(30:43):
the nineties again McDonald's took a bold move and came
out and said, you know what, We're no longer going
to cook our French fries and bee fat even though
it's so good, I know, do you remember the change? Yeah,
and we're gonna cook it in vegetable oil. So that
was their big announcement. And then this sort of implied
in a way that they were vegetarian fries because it's
(31:05):
just potatoes cooked and vegetable oil. Not true, because they
contain beef flavoring and uh sued so Hindus obviously had
vegetarians had a big problem with us. But McDonald's very
fairly said, hey man, we never said that these were
vegetarian fries, but we'll pay up anyway. They ponied up
like ten million bucks in an apology. And that's what
(31:28):
you do when you got deep pockets. Oh yeah, you
pay up a little bit, apologize, it goes away, and
the next person the line steps up to suit you. Right,
But then in the meantime, five million people step up
in line to order a double cheeseburger. Yeah, absolutely, and
that pays for everything. A couple of more big, high
profile things. That was the book Fast Food Nation that
(31:48):
charged McDonald's with globalization and uh anti union tactics. Yeah,
stuff like that. Yeah, and that that was also mentioned
in the McLibel pamphlet. They were um that they only
use or only employee workers who are basically down on
their luck, have nothing to have, have no alternatives. They
(32:10):
they overwork them, they exploited them, so there's high turnover,
so there's no chance of unions or unionizing among McDonald's employees.
And then Morgan Spurlock, of course with the film Supersized Me.
The documentary famously went on a thirty day diet of
nothing but McDonald's and no exercise and almost died. And
did you watch it now? I've never seen it. It
(32:30):
was entertaining and he he does like McDonald's was in
the firing uh scope, But he was making a statement
about the fact that, you know, when we were kids,
a large drink was like eighteen ounces, and now you
can get like a seventy two ounce soda. Do we
really need that? Right? And actually that had some uh,
some big effects I guess in McDonald's, like they took
(32:53):
their supersize option off of their menu, like right after
the film was screened at Sundance. Yeah, they went pro
active on this one big time, which was pretty smart.
And actually I guess it's not that much action, but
still it was a big deal. A little indie filmmaker
got them to change their menu so instead of supersize
is now called large. Um chuck was Fast Food Nation
(33:17):
turned into food Ink? The movie is that? Is the
movie Food Ink based on Fast Food Nation. No, there
is a movie Fast Food Nation as well that Richard
link Lender did. No, you're thinking of waking life. Okay,
we should also probably say that there's some some good
that this company has done, aside from making great greasy hamburgers,
(33:39):
which I do love. I don't even Donald's much, but
boy is it good. Obviously, first and foremost, you've got
the Ronald McDonald House. Right, great, great organization. What do
they do Well? If you have a kid who is
in the hospital a lot um, especially out of state, uh,
seeing a specialist, and you're family needs to be there
(34:01):
to support the kid, but you don't really have enough
for a six month hostels stay. There are houses around
the country called Ronald McDonald Houses that your family can
go stay out for free or next to nothing, that
are close to these hospitals, children's hospitals, so you can
be near your kid and have to fly back and
forth or you know, lose your job that kind of thing. Right. Uh.
(34:22):
They also, like we said, have been charged with globalization,
and they will counter that. No, no, no. When we
go to these countries, we have cultural specific menu items,
and that's very true. There's we have I think an
article about wacky McDonald's menu items from around the world,
and uh, we actually try and incorporate the local culture
into our menu instead of just forcing this American thing
(34:43):
down their throat. That's what they say, right, And if
you uh, there's a picture actually of a pair of
um McDonald's workers in India. Um, and there's the Maharajah
Mac and the vegetable burger with cheese, both of which
I imagine are cooked without beef since in he is
kind of big on the cow worship, right. I don't
(35:04):
think that they that McDonald's wild go over very well
if you walked into one and in Mumbai and hey,
here's one of your gods right here on the menu. Yeah,
they've taken beef off the men either. Right. So this
is a perfect example of the good that McDonald's does. Yes,
there's good. It's called glocalization. You're taking a multinational but
um you know, very culturally specific company and adjusting it
(35:28):
as needed locally. Colocalization is great. But the thing is
is when it's so disingenuous when people put that point out,
because of course McDonald's isn't going to serve hamburgers in
India because they want to exactly. So, yeah, they're going
to adjust their menu to reflect local values because without that,
no one's gonna buy it, Josh, I know we're kind
(35:51):
of short on time. There's some more stuff we gotta
stick in here, though. Uh, we need to talk about
the mcnoggan. Did you ever see that they fried a
chicken head? What? Yeah, I'll show you a picture. This
lady purportedly gotten her box of McDonald's chicken wings or
fried chicken wing head and it. You know, it's exactly
what it looks like, but it is. Snopes has said
that it has not been verified and or disproven. Yeah,
(36:15):
you gotta see it. It's really funny and uh so
because she has refused to turn it over for inspection
and so it's just kind of still floating out there.
It was like ten years ago, so I'm sure it's
gone away by now. Um. Did you ever hear the
rumor about the cow's eyeballs? Yeah, in the shekes not
true as far as we know. Uh. The My favorite
(36:35):
McDonald's staying is um in Los Angeles. WO worked in
the film business and we shoot most McDonald's commercials are
shot at this one fake store in l A whole
thing is on wheels, not literally the building, but everything
in there's on wheels. It's got lights all rigged. It's
all faults. And every day when you shoot there, they
have four o'clock fries. A fourlock, the production stops and
they bring out like fifty large fries for everyone to
(36:59):
just chow dout on. So it is a functioning McDonald's. Yeah,
but it's not. It's not a functioning restaurant. But you
gotta be able to fake the cooking and all that stuff.
That's awesome. And you worked there, we need to tell
that real quick. I worked there for an hour. I
worked there for a few weeks. I worked there for
one hour. I went in the training and in the basement,
(37:19):
and they gave me my like, took my uniform size,
showed me the little video, told me to clock in
and out, and I was like, all right, you start
in the morning at like four am. And the next
morning I was in Athens and the alarm went off
and I went, I can't do this. Yeah, good for you.
Never went back, never catch my check. So I gotta
check out there with my name on it. Oh, really,
you should get that for like four or fifty or something.
(37:40):
And Josh, we can not. We would be remiss if
we didn't talk about some of our famous cohorts who
have worked at McDonald's. Okay, and they are as follows
A Chuck, Shania Twain, Sharon Stone. Yeah, ja the rat
leno Really, I mean Cocoa's Corner, I mean Camp Cocoa.
(38:02):
Pink and Pink had a quote, she says, quote, I
would open the restaurant because I'd be tripping on acid,
and I would say, could I have a bathroom duty?
And I would sit in the bathroom and watch the tiles.
So that's what Pink was doing. Carl lewis Olympian, Carl
lewis cool. Macy Gray. If you had a funny voice
taking your order at some point, it might have been
Macy Gray. Where did she work? Does it say? Uh?
(38:25):
I do not see where that was. No. Rachel McAdams,
super smoking, cute actress, and d l hugely worked at
McDonald's and they and we did, and they a lot
of them still say that it was like a great
job and it taught them order and cleanliness and all
that good stuff. I I didn't get any of that
(38:46):
from McDonald's. I worked there for an hour, so I
can't really say I got a paycheck that was um,
what was your station? Sixty I would do just about
anything bathroom front. I don't remember. I never cooked anything,
can never cook patties, but I make fries, put cheese on,
stuff like that. It was all over the place. They
were superstar of the line. No, no, it was just
(39:07):
like the guy was. I don't think he'd never met
Ray Croc, the guy who managed that place. And there
was a little too involved for like a late twenties
guy with you know, the seventeen year old staff. He
going like, you know, nothing, not to cast any dispersions
or or suggest he was up to anything. I mean
like he was just two on our level. You want
(39:28):
to be your buddy. Yeah, you know. They say that
one out of every eight people in the American workforce
worked at McDonald's at one point. All butt and I
think of their executives started out and their stores. Yeah,
and there's a million stats. We won't get into how
many fries they sell, in the fact that the wraps
around the earth a gazillion times every day or something
ridiculous like that. There's so many stats. We got a
(39:49):
lot of good McDonald's content on the website. I'm gonna
finish this with two words, shamrock shake, boom. I'm gonna
finish it with one word mc ribb. Nice Chuck. How
we almost forgot that great Simpsons episode on in the
crib too. If you want to know more about the Simpsons, McDonald's,
the McRib the Shamrock, Shake deal Hugely, or Devo, you
(40:14):
can type any of those things into the handy search
bar how stuff works dot Com. I defy you to uh,
since I said that, I think it's time for listener mail.
Do we have time for listener mail? No, we don't.
Let's do this. Let's put out the call. Okay. We
are coming to New York City folks in June, first
week in June for Internet Week or is the second week?
I think it's June. Yes, And we are looking to
(40:37):
have a stuff you should know happy hour with the
fans whoever wants to come, and we need some help
on finding a place that will host this happy hour
for free. Well yeah, we're just we just need a
place that we can show up and be and let
everybody know we're gonna be at. We don't need to
rent it or anything. Well, preferably would be someone who
would shut down except for us, and they will be guaranteed,
probably a lot of people in there buying food and drinking.
(41:00):
Year awesome, but so New York City fans. If you
have any connections, please let us know. And we are
actually looking for t shirt designs. Yeah, we're having a
t shirt design contest. We're gonna select what the best
three four. Maybe we haven't worked that out yet. All right,
we haven't worked that part out everybody, but we are
calling for t shirt designs. Look for activity on that
(41:20):
on the Facebook fan page Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
and stuff you should Know podcast fit fan page on Facebook. Uh,
and probably some tweets on it. We're gonna have a
Twitter feed coming up soon. I think it's gonna be
like s Y s K maybe or something like that.
We're getting with the times. Yeah, finally, I guess that's
about it then, right, Chuck, If you have an email
(41:41):
that you want to send to us, we'll get back
to listen to your mail next week. Wrap it up,
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