In the mid-1970’s disposable razors hit the market and were all the rage which led to a very bizarre tie-in with USA’s largest fast food chain restaurant. In 1978 (and then again in 1986) McDonald’s launched a nationwide “Free Razor with Breakfast Entree” promotional campaign. Apparently back then it never occurred to anybody that eating and shaving are two things that should never be combined.
 

 
With the launch of their very first breakfast menu in 1985, Wendy’s jumped on the razor bladewagon as well. They offered the exact same “Free Razors with Your Breakfast” promotion, although they exercised a bit more caution: while McDonald’s gave the razors to any kid who was accompanied by an adult, Wendy’s required all customers to be over eighteen. Naturally, lawsuits followed, many customers attempted to sue the fast food chains, and over the years dozens of customers alleged to have found razors inside of their Egg McMuffins.
 

A tiny version of Ronald McDonald dancing on top of a cross. Part of a ‘hellscape’ by Jake and Dinos Chapman.

Jake and Dinos Chapman have been creating miniature “hellscapes” for nearly twenty years, with their first one being unveiled to the public in 1999. The diabolical work was unambiguously entitled “Hell” and took two years to make. In a not-so-strange twist of satanic fate, the warehouse that “Hell” was residing in caught fire and the pair’s debut hellscape was destroyed within in a matter of minutes. According to the Chapmans they received a phone call from a journalist about the demise of “Hell” asking them if it was true that “Hell” was “on fire”? Now that’s some cosmic irony.

Taking the loss in stride the brothers continued their work and followed up “Hell” with “Fucking Hell” which included over 30,000 figures, and the “Sum of All Evil” which focused on bringing together McDonald’s and Nazi symbolism, tormenting the fictional inhabitants of McDonaldland (you know, the place where French fries grow in gardens, hamburgers grow on trees and friendly fishies frolic around in Filet-O-Fish Lake) with visions of cannibalism, mutilation and death. The multi-faceted hellscape took more than six months to complete with the help of fifteen additional workers. While their hellscapes are about as grim as anything I’ve ever seen (and these eyes have seen a lot of grim), the Chapmans insist that their subversive work is meant to be more humorous than shocking. Here’s more from Jake Chapman on that:

It’s as pessimistic as we can make it, really. But it’s pessimistic in a joyful sense.

Jake’s sentiment made me pause for a moment during which time I recalled my reaction to the final scene in Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds wherein the cast gets to rewrite history by obliterating Hitler and his Nazi ilk in a theater. Which was both incredibly gratifying and at times humorous thanks to Tarantino’s uncanny ability to make you laugh while people’s brains are being spattered all over the floor. So, is there joy in seeing a tiny plastic version of Ronald McDonald preparing his signature hamburgers made from the cannibalized remains of dead Nazis? Yes, yes there is some joy there. That said, absolutely everything you are about to see in this post is NSFW. And I’m lovin’ it.
 

A shot of the original “Hell” hellscape by Jake and Dinos Chapman that was ironically destroyed in a fire.
 

A shot of “Fucking Hell” featuring Hitler serenely painting on a hilltop.
 

Another grim angle on “Fucking Hell.”
 
More McHell after the jump…

 
Many of you reading this site who also lived through the 1970s as an adult probably have share your of wild stories involving cocaine. That subset of readers is probably aware of the quirky way that McDonalds inadvertently created a piece of cocaine paraphernalia and even became almost synonymous with cocaine in certain contexts. The rest of you, maybe not so much.

In the late 1970s, McDonalds introduced a combination coffee spoon/stirrer that had the company’s name on the handle and a tiny egg-shaped bowl or scoop on one end, while the other end was proudly crowned with the company’s double arches logo. Basically this spoon was, quite by accident, absolutely perfect for use as a coke spoon. The scoop could hold precisely 100 milligrams of cocaine, some have claimed, which made it an ideal measuring device in addition to providing an easy way for coke addicts to snort the stuff. And America’s largest corporations had just deposited countless millions of them all across the country. It was inevitable that cheeky cocaine users would adopt it.

Inadvertently, McDonalds had created the People’s Coke Spoon. 
 

 
Remarkably, the adoption of the McDonalds stirrers as a helpful cocaine device was not limited to the product’s user base. Far from it. According to Barbara Mikkelson at snopes.com (which has confirmed the story), “The practice of using these implements in such fashion became so widespread that at least in some cities, a dose of cocaine was dubbed a ‘McSpoon’ because it came packaged in the tiny coffee stirrers from McDonald’s restaurants. ... In 1992 an undercover detective in Columbus, Ohio, said McSpoons were commonly sold ten to a bundle in that town and twelve to a bundle in Detroit” (emphasis added).

Understandably, McDonalds wasn’t thrilled to see their fine name being used as shorthand for one of the most widespread Schedule II controlled substances as defined by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Eventually the McDonalds spoon became a flat coffee stirrer. According to snopes.com, a spokesman for McDonald’s Corp. named Doug Timberlake stated at the time that the fast-food chain had chosen to redesign its spoons because “It has been brought to our attention that people are using them illegally and illicitly for purposes for which they are not intended.”
 

Three of the McSpoons alongside three of the redesigned flat version
 
According to a pretty entertaining reddit thread about the “McSpoon,” it was common for coke users to “break away the long middle section and melt the little spoon end to the McDonald’s logo.” When another user asks why on earth anyone would go to so much trouble, the response given is, “You did it so it would fit in a cigarette box.” If you click here you can see what I believe is a Photoshopped image representing what that would look like, I don’t think it’s a photograph of such a stirrer.

Understandably, the “McSpoon” has become the nostalgia artifact for some people. Right now you can buy a lot of 50 McSpoons for $60 on eBay.

In 2005 the artists Tobias Wong and “Ju$t Another Rich Kid” (founded by Ken Courtney) teamed up to create Coke Spoon 02, from “the Indulgent series,” which is described below. Coke Spoon 02 is a version of the McSpoon made of gold-plated bronze, while Coke Spoon 01 is a ballpoint pen cap made of the same expensive material. You can see pics of these items at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art website. Wong unfortunately died in 2010, but he endeared himself to me by calling his own body of work “postinteresting,” which is hilarious.
 

 
Predictably, McDonalds sent out a cease and desist letter with alacrity.

As Fox News reported at the time:

“The piece was part of the pair’s 2005 ‘Indulgences’ collection, inspired by the luxury goods market and designed to be the ultimate gift for the wealthy bachelor who had it all, said Courtney of Ju$t Another Rich Kid. ‘Indulgences’ featured gold-plated Playboy swizzle sticks, 24-karat gold pills meant to be swallowed, golden dumbbells and another golden coke spoon cast from the cap of a BIC pen.” Wong was quoted as saying, “It’s kind of the pop culture of today with a bling twist.” Philip Wood, the creative director of CITIZEN:Citizen, which had been showing the piece, said, “I think it’s a shame because I don’t think there’s any intent in damning anybody’s reputation. ... It really is a comment on how these objects change shape when they get into culture.”

Lux
 
“Don’t forget Ronald McDonald is John Wayne Gacy.”

Click on the application for a bigger image and more.
 

Ivy
 
Via Plazm.

 
This is some scary shit. If I was confronted with an evil-looking clown like this creepy-looking, hamburger-obsessed motherfucker wanting to sell me some processed meat products when I was a child, I think it would have changed the course of my life and not for the better.

The original Ronald McDonald was really the John Wayne Gacy of corporate mascots, wasn’t he?

In retrospect, viewing this commercial, the entire history and worldwide growth trajectory of the McDonalds multi-national corporation appears to be a massive global conspiracy to cause severe obesity in the population, and making billions of dollars in the process. What if???

P.S. If it’s not obvious, Ronald is played here by future Today Show weatherman Willard Scott. I can never look at him the same way ever again… THIS is where evil dwells!

P.P.S. Something else occurred to me and that is that playing Ronald McDonald might be a great second act for hapless former CNN reporter Rick Sanchez…
 

 
Via Slate/Exile on Moan Street

 
Bogota duo Bomba Estereo started out in 2005 comprised of multi-instrumentalist/producer Simón Mejía and singer Liliana Saumet. As the infectious “nu-cumbia” sound started making waves around that time, groups like B.E. have become its young, largely educated face. They’ve become a full band that’s currently on worldwide tour.

As shown by clip #2, the tropical bass scenes currently burgeoning throughout West African and Latin America (along with their European diasporas) are not going unnoticed by global marketing agencies.
 

Frightening!  Stephen Von Worley says, “As I hurtled down the highway, a pair of golden arches crept over the horizon, and the proverbial lightbulb smacked me in the forehead.  To gauge the creep of cookie-cutter commercialism, there?