All right, it's time to try the big trend:
the Grimace Shake. Happy birthday, Grimace. What's this hubbub all about? Yup. Tastes
like a very sickeningly sweet berry shake. It’s solid, it’s fine. I don't know
if I drink the whole thing of this. All right. Well, happy
birthday, I guess. All right. Hello Internet! Welcome to Food Theory, where
we know a lot about purple colored murderers. Some might say a bit too much. In case you've
accidentally been locked inside your basement for the last couple of weeks. Let me catch
you up in two words: Grimace Shake. You see, back in 1963 in an effort to appeal to
kids, McDonald's launched their fictional character Universe called McDonaldLand,
a fantasy world that was a lot like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, with all the
candy swapped out for fast food items. You had milkshake volcanoes, trees that grew
apple pies, Filet-o-Fish lakes, you know, just the absolute healthiest of magical food
based lands. And just like with any good fictional world, McDonaldLand was filled with
a cast of colorful personalities. You had, of course, Ronald McDonald, but he also had
supporting characters like Mayor McCheese, Officer Big Mac, the Fry Kids, Birdie the
Early Bird, and of course the Hamburglar. And all of these guys made sense because they
related directly back to the food. The fry kids are fries, dah, the Hamburglar steals food
because it's so good. Birdie The early bird was there to shill for all the breakfast items.
Every character had a clear and proper place, but among them all there was one weirdo of
the bunch, Grimace, The purple… blob thing. Growing up, I thought this guy was
supposed to represent the chicken nuggets because of his shape. Turns out not
even McDonald's knows what he's supposed to be. According to an official McDonald's archivist
on Twitter, his lore establishes that he's the, quote, embodiment of a milkshake or a taste
bud. It's practically the equivalent of me saying that Food Theory is the embodiment
of a theorist's love for food or a fish. One of those is an abstract concept. The
other is just stupid. Anyway, this year, as part of the celebration of
the character's 52nd birthday, McDonald's released a purple berry flavored
shake, and the Internet lost its mind, creating one of the darkest fast food trends
to be seen in recent history. Basically, the trend involves people wishing grimace
a happy birthday, tasting the shake and then the video smash cuts to them, puking it
back up, convulsing dead, covered in purple. It’s a little sweet. That’s pretty good. The whole situation has actually been such
a massive movement that McDonald's had to officially respond with Grimace trying not
to look at all the horrors taking place in his name. Now at first glance, this might
just seem like a harmless murdery trend, but you all know me. A beloved purple fast food
mascot is going around killing people. Do I get to make a thumbnail that looks like this?
Awesome! Sign me up. And yes, before you say anything, obviously I get it. It's a meme.
No one is really dying here. Everyone is having their fun. And so let me have my fun. Today,
we're going to be getting to the bottom of this McDonald's mystery. With people dropping
dead left and right, we have to know. How is Grimace doing it? Or is there someone else from
McDonaldLand looking to frame him for the crime? Spoiler alert: Grimace is actually innocent here,
and you won't believe what's really going inside of that cup. So drink deep, my friends.
This mystery is triple thick. To begin, why would Grimace, a happy go
lucky friend of Ronald McDonald, want to wipe out anyone wishing him a happy
birthday? Well, Grimace wasn't always the good taste bud creature that we all know him as.
As we've talked about in a previous Food Theory, Grimace was originally a villain of
McDonaldLand, referred to as the Evil Grimace. His whole shtick was to steal a
bunch of delicious shakes from customers. And as you can tell from watching these original
commercials, he looked different. We're talking multiple arms, dirty hands, eyes with pupils
that were just swinging wildly from side to side. Sure, he was still a giant purple blob,
but it was a far cry from the cute and cuddly personification of milkshakes that
we know today. That's that the original evil grimace character didn't last for long. Getting
swapped out with the modern version in 1972, only a year after his first debut. According to
McDonald's, he was nightmare fuel for children. And kids running away from your restaurant
doesn't really do a lot to help your sales. So what's the point of me talking about all that?
Well, it shows that Grimace here no longer has evil intentions. While yeah, he started his
evil style in milkshakes and hoarding sodas, his rebrand changed his attitude. He evolved into
a happy friend that just enjoys sipping on yummy drinks and eating fast food with his buds.
Which tells me that maybe, just maybe, Grimace isn't the one committing these
murders. But then who else or what else could be doing the deed? Well, to figure
that one out, we have to dig deeper into McDonaldLand lore. And there is plenty of it
right here, in the 2001 direct to video series: The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald.
Yep, McDonald's made their very own cartoon, six 40 minute episodes that look like every
animated Nickelodeon series got thrown together in a blender. It's a mix of Rocket Power,
Rugrats, Wild Thornberrys and Aaah Real Monsters. Which makes a lot of sense because
they were all produced by the same company. This show literally has everything, including, and
I swear I'm not making this up, a time traveling ball pit. Sorry FNAF, apparently McDonald's did
it first. Anyway, while most of these episodes are just generic adventure stories of Ronald and
the gang getting trapped in amusement parks or haunted by ghosts, there's one episode that really
reframes the backstory of a member of the crew: Grimace. In episode two, The Legend of Grimace
Island. Our little taste bud here receives himself a distress letter which prompts him and the gang
to go in search of the fabled Grimace Island. Basically, there's a whole race of Grimace
monsters out there all living on this one island. As the story goes, when their tribe's
treasure was stolen by a horde of greedy humans, the shy and peaceful Grimaces… Grimi?
Grimultitude? Grimaces. We'll just… We'll just stick with Grimaces. The Grimaces
danced so hard that they separated the island from the ocean floor and then floated away to
ensure that no one would ever find them again. Yep. This is in fact, a show that really existed.
The whole series is actually up here full on YouTube I'll link it down in the description.
It is a weird ride, man. Anyway, it turns out that the distress letter that Grimace got was
a trap set by evil pirates looking to plunder Grimace Island for its lost treasure. Eventually
Grimace and the gang get rid of the pirates and the local tribe decides to reward Grimace with
the exact treasure item that he had just defended. A golden chalice. Grimace
says he's excited to show everyone his treasure. And then the episode ends. And that cup, that thing right there, I suspect
that is the true Grimace shake killer. Using clues from the episode we can roughly approximate the
location of Grimace Island. Ronald and the crew began their journey by leaving port in Florida. We
know this thanks to the lighthouse that they pass right here, which after a cross-sectional analysis
of over 100 different lighthouses across America, most closely matches the Ponce de Leon Inlet
Lighthouse in the southern tip of Florida. From there, we're told by Birdy that they
have to travel south. So we know that their final destination is going to be somewhere
around the Caribbean islands. Along the way, they encounter a humpback whale and a giant
squid. While underwater, we see the pirate submarine pass through multiple coral reefs.
Taking all of these factors into account, we know that Grimace Island must be near the coast
of either Cuba, Haiti or the Dominican Republic. This is further supported by the flashback we
get to the humans invading Grimace Island. In this scene we watch as a ring of men outfitted
with ear stretchers and heavy face paint steal from the innocent Grimace tribe. Their style
appears to be heavily referencing the cultural norms of Aztec and Mayan culture, where men
were traditionally known to have stretched earlobes and where they used heavy face paint,
especially around the eyes for special occasions. Even the animal print clothing they're wearing
is a match for Mayan or Aztec culture, most likely jaguar skin based on those small spots.
And while these cultures certainly weren't the predominant ones of these particular Caribbean
islands, we're still talking about the same general region of the globe where there was some
cross-pollination and overall general references to the indigenous arts of this part of the world.
But why does the location of Grimace Island matter when it comes to the real life deaths happening on
account of some specialty purple milkshake? Well get this. Throughout the 2010s there was a massive
outbreak of cholera throughout Haiti. You see, cholera occurs when you drink tainted water or
some other tainted fluid. And the outbreak in Haiti quickly spread across the country due to
inadequate water and sanitation infrastructure. And the results for the country were devastating.
By the time it was finally under control, 800,000 cases of cholera had been reported with more
than 9,000 deaths. And guess what the symptoms of cholera are: Crippling stomach cramps, severe
diarrhea, massive bouts of nausea, just like we see with the Grimace Shake videos. And that's
not all. In 2018, the news saw a similar wave of tourist deaths coming from the Dominican
Republic that no one could quite explain. The symptoms, same exact thing: cramps,
sweating, internal bleeding and vomiting. And with so many cases in nearby countries,
Cuba was also affected in the mid 2010s with a wave of cholera cases of their very own. So
we have ourselves the sickness that gets spread through drinks and attacks your body in the
same exact way that the Grimace shake does. And cholera, just like a Grimace shake, acts
fast, attacking within 12 hours. Now think back to the Grimace Island story: Human
visitors come in to steal their treasure, and when one culture invades an isolated
population, they bring with them sicknesses that those bodies have never experienced, creating
massive problems for the indigenous population. I suspect that those humans brought with them
cholera, or at least something adjacent to it, an infection that spreads through ingestion and then
attacks the gut, which means that when Grimace brings back his prized cup, it's contaminated.
And in his eagerness to show everyone his prize… He's inadvertently spreading the disease to
innocents. I mean, I think we can all agree the Grimaces are not the sharpest knives in the
drawer. Maybe Grimace is even using that cup as a place to mix his specialty shakes, which is why
we're seeing people being affected so quickly. In the end, the wave of purple themed decimation
sweeping the nation is all an accident from an overeager taste bud wanting to share something
that he's proud of with the rest of the world. Unless…
[FlashbackPat]: Referred to as the Evil Grimace.
Unless, of course… [FBP]:Grimace was originally
a villain of McDonaldLand Unless Grimace has just been playing the long
game this entire time and none of this is actually an accident. Maybe Grimace never truly moved
away from being a villain in the first place. Probably a good thing that McDonald's has
already discontinued the shake. Wasn't really that good in the first place. But hey!
That's just a theory. A FOOD THEORY! Bottom…
