Browsing the archives…did a search as to who grimace is supposed to be…all but Ronald McD have a significance in relation to a food served by McDonalds.
The explanation was that there IS no significance basically…hes just a chum of Ronalds.
I dont buy it.
I think he’s a milkshake…a big blob of Milk and Ice Cream.
He was always seen with one…and even on the designs inside McD’s he was with the icecream/milkshakes in the kiddy pictures on the walls.
I cant believe theres a place I can post this stuff.
A link to the archive would be nice so we can all follow which column you refer to:
From my position, this is how I see Grimace.
What IS Grimace? Is it a he? A she? Is it a beanbag? The knob of your privates? What?
Grimace is the most esoteric character in history. His name means contortion of the face expressive of pain, contempt, or disgust, yet he’s always cheerful. You don’t wanna be sitting next to this guy at a funeral. He’s always smiling and giggling. Talk about embarrassing.
And what sort of food is he supposed to represent? The milkshake I suppose. Notice how Grimace represents one of the most cholesterol soaked things on the menu, and he also happens to be the fattest character in the cast. Yet, he’s always smiling and no one seems to care that poor Grimace is grossly obese. Not just normally overweight. A big fat dude!
That’s unhealthy. So while Ronald dresses your kids like weirdos, Grimace will make sure they’re nice and fat.
Ohhh Pardon my newbie-ness.
Here is the column link on the explanation of Grimace.
And indeed I enjoyed your breaking down the specifics critically…haha…agreed
Hasn’t anyone tracked down the Grimace’s origin spot? I rather fancy the answer, or an answer, is to be found there. Alas, I cannot call it to mind, myself.
Well, speaking as someone who has made more than a few Halloween costumes in her time, my “take” on “what is Grimace” is that he’s a Lowest-Common-Denominator Make-It-In-A-Weekend costume. If you look at his outline, he’s just basically a big Stuffed-Bag Costume, with a hood. You use the same basic idea to make Ladybugs, Bumblebees, etc. Two legholes, two armholes, neckhole, zipper up the back, matching hood with eyeholes, matching pullover and tights or sweat pants under it to make the arms and legs the correct color, stuff it with quilt batting or old pantyhose or a few throw pillows, and you’re done.
So I don’t see a whole lot of thought on the part of McD’s Development and Research Department. I see people in a hurry to come up with another Bad Guy character, so just off the top of their heads they come up with a big purple Stuffed-Bag costume and stick a not-too-scary name on it that is easy for kids to pronounce, “Grimmiss”.
And he’s purple because when you’re making costumes, that’s generally considered a non-gender-specific color out here in the Heartland. Of the other non-gender-specific colors, green is not suitable for a big green shapeless body puppet, because you get an unfortunate resemblance to a six-foot-tall pile of grass clippings, or snot, depending on the shade. Brown is also out, for somewhat the same reason (she said drily). Yellow and orange would be too bright for graphics arts design, like for TV commercials, it would overwhelm the other puppets’ color combinations. Black is too depressing and scary unless you’re specifically making a Halloween costume, which McDs wasn’t. Purple is a safe, and fun, color.
Going through the history of McDonalds characters, there originally were Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese (cheeseburger), Officer Big Mac (the Big Mac cop), and then the Hamburgler (who was, curiously, not a hamburger) and Grimace (the big purple what?).
Later came the French Fry Guys, unidentifiable colored blobs with legs that steal french fries. And later still came Birdie the Early Bird, who was not representing McNuggets (as some have theorized), but rather was just a fun-loving character who showed up in the mornings and wanted breakfast. She was created to emphasize the breakfast lineup - thus being “the early bird”. And then came the directly anthropomorphized food - the talking nuggets, and the Happy Meal guys.
So besides Ronald himself, only one of the original characters was “human”. Since the first two were anthropomorphized food characters representing the two burgers (Big Mac, hamburger), that gives pretty good indication the third might be anthropomorphized food. But what food is a big pile of purple? Well, ignoring the legs and arms, if you dump a shake out while it is still somewhat frozen, it could perhaps take on the shape of a lump. But why purple? It stands out better than white, and is prettier? Reasons mentioned by DDG?
Also note that his favorite food is listed as milkshakes. This from the McDonald’s site.
Apparently someone has created McDonaldland character stories in a TV show. Included on that page is a picture of two Grimace-like characters. Grimace and a buddy? His parents? Sadly no more information is given.
Another funky thing about Grimace is that originally he was called “The Grimace”. This usage still prevails in the cooltoons cite above. Then at some point they changed it to just “Grimace”. The first usage implied that he was the “type specimen” of some larger group of creatures called Grimaces; the latter indicates that his name is Grimace but doesn’t tell us anything about what he is. (Not that saying he’s “a grimace” would really explain much.)
Since Grimace is now hanging out with Donald Trump and Cedric the Entertainer, these questions aren’t going to go away.
At one time there were at least two more McDonaldland characters, Captain Crook and the Professor. I’m not sure if they’re still around. (Did they die?) Captain Crook was another outlaw, a pirate who I believe promoted Filet’o’Fish sandwiches. The Professor was another ridiculous authority figure (like the cop and the mayor) who mocked academia but I don’t know if he was associated with any food item.
Then there’s the whole HR Pufnstuf angle, which Cecil wrote about once but I’m too lazy to look up the cite. Does anyone know if Grimace had an antecedent within Pufnstuf?
What the hell, if the LOTR buffs can analyze elves and dwarfs all day, we can go a few more rounds about McDonaldland.
Maybe (s)he’s named for the face some people make when eating a specific pience of crap off McD’s menu? but which pice of crap could it be? There so many…
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that Grimace was based on Witchy-poo’s spider underling (Orson?) (Grimace used to have more limbs, btw).
Unless my memory is faulty (which is possible), he was originally called the Evil Grimace. McDonaldland used to have good guys and bad guys, and the Evil Grimace was one of the bad guys, along with the Hamburglar and some pirate-type character whose name I don’t recall. Now there are no bad guys in McDonaldland, so the Grimace dropped the Evil.
According to the FAQ of alt.mcdonalds, the four-armed Evil Grimace stole milkshakes. So Grimace represents milkshakes. I think.
“Nothing can kill the Grimace.”-short-lived Clerks animated series.
The Professor doesn’t seem to represent anything. What about CosMc? I think Mac Tonight was for a food item or items. What about Ronald himself? Is he just the ringleader of this twisted circus?
See http://www.mentalsewage.com/loser/14.html for a picture of the early four-armed Evil Grimace in milkshake-stealing mode. Couldn’t find a picture of Seymour the Spider for comparison.
