Burger Time

One of the first great events in American history--perhaps the greatest event (sorry Declaration of Independence) came in 1921 when Walter Anderson and Edgar Ingram developed the first commercial hamburger concept known as White Castle. The success of White Castle is easy enough to understand given the great lengths people go through to get it, including hang-gliding off a cliff, catching a ride on a stoned cheetah, and letting Neil Patrick Harris put his "love juice" all over your backseat. With multi-cultural appeal and munchy-satisfying food at the ready, the success of the White Castle model ushered in the fast-food style restaurant, and with it, the commercialization of your dinner.

White Castle's early success in the Midwest was a given considering the lack of other fast-food restaurants. It wasn't until McDonald's appeared on the scene in 1940, and then Burger King in 1953, as well as a whole host of other contenders in the following years, that the burger market became more evenly distributed between the different companies. Today, White Castle remains a small portion of the fast-food market with, given its clientele, a rather appropriate 420 locations. McDonald's and Burger King, however, disavow their ubiquity and constantly look to expand their brand to new locations like the ocean floor, sub-Saharan Africa, or a different dimension. These businesses have grown so powerful that no manner of obstacle can stall their growth: e-coli tried; mad-cow tried; even Oprah tried, and failed to slow them down. Legitimate threats (even illegitimate ones) will be met with considerable influence, marketing, and litigation.

Speaking of litigation: In 1982, McDonald's actually sued Burger King over a television ad that featured a four-year-old Sarah Michelle Gellar telling people that McDonald's burgers were 20 percent smaller than those of rival Burger King's. McDonald's not only sued Burger King and the ad company, but young Gellar as well. The lawsuit was settled the following year, but no one knows the stipulations since they were ground up and used in Burger King's ill-fated "Rodeo Cheeseburger." Aside from McDonald's suing a four-year-old girl, this incident is noteworthy because it marks Buffy's last career defeat until The Grudge 2.

Unfortunately for McDonald's, not all threats to its brand name can be settled in court, and not all of the threats come from obvious sources. In fact, one of the most interesting threats came from the most surprising of sources: Mirriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (M-W). It all started back in 1991 when author Douglas Coupland repeatedly used the term "McJob" in his novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. The novel was a hit and McJob unofficially entered the lexicon. M-W made everything official when they added McJob to their database in 2003 with this definition: "a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement." Jim Cantalupo, the McDonald's CEO at that time, was upset at the lack of litigation opportunities against M-W, and instead tried to use the company's influence to block the definition from publication by firing off an open-letter to M-W. In this letter, Cantalupo details the many different skills that one can learn while employed at McDonald's such as, box stacking, using a salt shaker, and effectively arguing your way out of cleaning up vomit. Having worked a high-level McJob for several years myself, the M-W definition leaves out something that my employees would use called "McLies," which are the excuses they'd create to get out of their shift. McLies have two important characteristics that separate them from regular lies. First, they must be extraordinary, and second, they must be done over the phone. Some actual examples include: I was hit by a car; my lawn is on fire; I have carbon-monoxide poisoning; and the undisputed champion-- my boyfriend wore my workpants to church.

Of course, rather than just sue each other all the time, these burger giants have other worries as well, like the San Francisco board of supervisors, Morgan Spurlock, and, the most important, a loss of market share. This constant threat of market share loss is the reason McDonald's and Burger King have a combined advertising budget of almost three billion dollars. If you're unaware of what almost three billion dollars buys you in the advertising world, then you must not have access to television, movies, radio, the Internet, or people, and therefore you probably don't frequent either of these restaurants anyway. Whatever the case may be, both of these companies have found successful ways to market their products. Or maybe not ...

In 2001, Burger King debuted one of its more-disturbing, web-based ad campaigns for its TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich called "The Subservient Chicken." The ad starts off promisingly enough as the viewer is faced with a blank web-cam screen that says, "contacting chicken." I presumed something humorous would appear on screen, like an actual chicken that understands and follows your commands or, at the very least, the San Diego chicken. Instead of something funny, you get what looks to be a man inside a chicken suit designed by Tom Savini. Adding to the creep factor is the Kubrick-ian set design of the room and its furnishings: a red couch over here, a old TV over there, a rotting corpse that the chicken is feeding on over here ... anyway, the chicken stands in the frame patiently waiting for you to type in a command it recognizes, but, unfortunately, it feels more like the chicken is patiently watching you like just like Jason "watches" camp counselors. It turns out that the chicken is somewhat subservient because it can obey roughly 300 different commands, none of which include "stab yourself with a crucifix." Needless to say, the more I interact with the Subservient Chicken, the more I want to knock Lee Remick over a balcony with my tricycle.

While the Subservient Chicken is certainly troubling, there are other elements to Burger King's advertising campaign that are more so. In some ads, we find the King himself disrespecting his crown in troubling ways such as: committing felony breaking and entering; being a nuisance; degrading the Whopperettes; trashing an office building; voyeurism; stealing intellectual properties; jaywalking; getting buzzed on caffeine; giving wedgies; pinching nipples; more voyeurism; climbing buildings; scoring touchdowns; reverse pick-pocketing; treason; pole dancing; theft; kidnapping; and finally; pimping. Of course not all of the acts just listed are illegal, but it makes you wonder about the target demographic. Maybe "Have It Your Way" should be changed to "Why is my bail so high?"

If Burger King's advertising campaign is troubling, McDonald's is downright Satanic. Let's start with the early version of McDonaldland. In this magical world, volcanoes run cold with icy milkshakes, hamburgers grow out of the ground, apple pies grow on trees, and french fries grow on bushes. This magical land and the tasty resources it produces are governed by the bumbling Mayor McCheese (a giant sentient cheeseburger), Officer Big Mac (a two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun type of fellow), and Ronald McDonald, an Ivy-League version of one of the lost members of Slipknot. These "inhabitants" repel constant illegal intrusion by a small but organized force that consists of the Hamburglar (a long nosed troll wearing a Zorro mask and striped jail fatigues), Captain Crook (a Filet-O-Fish-thieving pirate), Gobblins (giant pom-poms that steal french fries), and something called "Evil Grimace" (the Snuffleupagus of McDonaldland if Snuffleupagus ripped off milkshakes).

In later years, McGod reordered the McDonaldland universe so that the Gobblins became the Fry Guys (still bad, but with better product relatability) and Evil Grimace became just Grimace, like Madonna or Bono (but no longer evil, like Madonna or Bono), but we were still left with all of those unanswered questions regarding Grimace's origin, gender, and its place on the phylogenetic scale. And everything else remained the same: the villains continued to invade McDonaldland for food, but were always repelled by the mightier forces of McRighteousness.

Originally, all of the McDonaldland characters only lived inside McDonaldland, destined to continually repeat their monotonous existence just like Bill Murray, but without all of the suicide attempts, and Chris Elliott. But one day, Ronald finally sacrificed enough virgins to appease McGod, and all of the McDonaldland characters were unleashed into the real world--our world, to live and interact with us and pass this narrative on to future generations of what I like to call "McRobots."

To this very day, both McDonald's and Burger King pump billions into advertising to ensure that all of the narratives mentioned above continue on so we continue to eat their food. I don't know about you, but the marketing campaign might get me into the restaurant, but it won't get me back if I see an employee mop up puke, and then use that same mop to clean the playland. The term "clean restaurant" has become an oxymoron just like "clean coal" or "Sport Edition Toyota Camry." But I don't want to knock anyone too much (I don't want to get sued), and besides, what else am I going to eat at three in the morning?

McWorkers on the McJob.