Is McDonald's Grimace Really A Giant Taste Bud?

The Internet rumor mill has been recycling the story that the Grimace, the XL-sized purple being from the McDonald's Corporation MCD is supposed to be a giant taste bud. The truth, in this case, is more entertaining than fiction.

What Happened: The Grimace unexpectedly wound up in the digital spotlight following a recent CBC interview with Brian Bates, a McDonald's franchise owner in Windsor, Ontario, who was named the Windsor has been named Outstanding Manager of the Year for the company’s Canadian operations.

During the interview, Bates highlighted Grimace’s presence among the McDonald's happy meal characters and identified him as “an enormous taste bud” who was supposed to show that the restaurant’s food tastes good.

Bates appeared to be echoing a longstanding rumor that the Grimace is an anthropomorphic taste bud. This can be traced back to a comment made by a McDonald’s spokesperson in a 2010 interview on the now-defunct TechMommy site.

What Really Happened: In reality, the Grimace was among a series of characters that were introduced in 1971 as part of a new marketing push that created “McDonaldland” adventures. Joining the jolly clown Ronald McDonald in this marketing campaign were two good characters – Mayor McCheese and Officer Big Mac — and two nasty characters — the Hamburglar and the Evil Grimace, the latter possessing four arms and a penchant for stealing milkshakes.

Although consumers enjoyed the bumbling Hamburglar’s vain attempts at fast-food larceny, the Evil Grimace didn’t resonate and the character was reconfigured into a two-armed, happy-go-lucky but slightly dimwitted sidekick to Ronald McDonald.

The nicer version of the Grimace proved so popular that McDonald's gave him an extended family: Irish-accented green Uncle O'Grimacey would turn up around St. Patrick’s Day for the seasonal Shamrock Shake and Grimace’s aunts Millie and Tillie were part of a 1999 commercial. Also in 1999, an episode of the direct-to-video animated series “The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald” included a trip to Grimace Island and an encounter with a community of Grimaces.

Photo: Grimace and Hamburglar, courtesy of Sarah Nichols / Flickr Creative Commons.