Growing up in the 70s and early 80s, I was morbidly fascinated by Grimace, the McDonaldland character. I'm old enough to remember when Grimace was a) an evil character who stole milkshakes, and b) possessed of two sets of arms. (To this day, I still mentally draw him—her? it?—with four arms.)
But it was never clear what species, what variety of thing, Grimace was. McDonald's was coy, and never explained! Given that it as the peak of the cold war, my friends and I figured Grimace was sort of deeply irradiated mutant.
This weekend, though, a manager from a Canadian McDonald's unveiled the mystery. As the Huffington Post writes …
Brian Bates, who has worked for the chain for 10 years, casually dropped it into an interview with CBC News over the weekend.
"He is an enormous taste bud, but a taste bud nonetheless," Bates told the network in an "unofficial" explanation, adding that the character was meant to show that the food tastes good.
Given what taste buds look like, this kind of … makes sense!
On Twitter, @MilesKlee made a deeply unsettling observation …
(Photo of Grimace via Danielle Scott's Flickr account; Taste bud photo via the University of Mexico)
