Dismembering Grimace

A while back I had several heated discussions with some folks over whether Grimace from McDonald's originally had 2 or 4 arms. Most claimed I was crazy for thinking he had four arms. I insisted I was correct of course having recalled eating way to many McDonald's cookies and that the cookie version of Grimace had four arms and I used to eat them off first.

First off, there is a lot of people who want to know what the hell is Grimace actually. Someone finally called McDonald's and asked and was told Grimace is actually supposed to represent the shakes at the golden arches. Back before 1975 or so "Evil" Grimace was actually a four-armed creature that found it fun to go around ganking everyone's great tasting milk shakes. I spose one theory could be that the Hamburgler had the corner on organized crime in McDonald land and Grimace honing in on he turf just wouldn't do and he was stripped of his arms in some barbaric "eye for an eye" type justice. Or more likely, McDonald's was actually involved in a lawsuit by Kroft, the creators of H.R.Puff n' Stuff who claimed he was rip off of one of their characters. Some creepy spider thing who I don't really remember. I just remember the flute... creepy. Anyway, it's not certain if Grimace lost his extra 2 arms because of the lawsuit or if McDonald's simply decided to adopt a nicer version of the big purple blob.


But to prove he originally had 4 arms, here is a picture from an Official McDonald's poster from the 1970s. If you look closely you can also see mayor McCheese who is now a lost character. I guess you can only be elected mayor so many times before you get sent away in a happy meal.


The Poem on the poster(for easier reading)

"The Evil Grimace Ronald knows
is round and purple and has big toes
He carries shakes in every hand
as he scurries through McDonaldland"


(Part of this was originally e-mailed out a while back to a few friends, i thought I would post it here for fun)