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Blastfrog

Sweet McDreams!

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Ah, marketers. So out of touch not only with the public, but even any sensibility. I thought the first rule of CG characters was "avoid the uncanny valley." This, TMNT and various other things, why do these big companies with well paid people seem to ignore this crucial rule as of late?

Well, in any case, here it is:


I suppose you could say this belongs in the insanity pit, but this isn't just some random image, I intend to start a discussion on the uncanny valley and advertisers' seeming inability to grasp it.

EDIT: Error correction

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looks ok to me. i thought it was called uncanny valley. it's just bullshit made up by some guy that doesn't necessarily apply to other people anyway.

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I'm sure they can shit in the food and cars will be wrapped around the building. I thought that Taco Bell's breakfast menu would put a dent in McDonalds. Nope. My gf's Taco Bell is literally right across the street from McDonalds, it has breakfast and McDonalds still has people wrapped around the building.

Burger King is across the road too. No one is ever there. You'd think to save time people would avoid McDonald's flood of employees.

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Fun Fact: In addition to arriving at a McDonalds precut, presoaked in oil and ready to be nuked, their fries are covered in sugar.

Now the thread title is even more apropos.

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Necromancer-AMV said:

Fun Fact: In addition to arriving at a McDonalds precut, presoaked in oil and ready to be nuked, their fries are covered in sugar.

Now the thread title is even more apropos.


I thought it was animal fat (like dog food) until those vegetarians threw a fit.

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I find that to be fucking ugly as hell, it doesn't make me want to buy McDonalds. I thought Ronald was okay, I'm not weird about clowns but I know some people are.

On a related note, I fucking hate 50's ads with "cute" kids that look dumb/creepy/mental:

Weird Ad logos/mascot type things have always been around, though I don't know what makes people think it will sell their product..

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McDonald's use to cook everything in beef tallow. The weight people got upset and, after a long line of hissy fits thrown their way, they've switched to various other means of cooking their fries and patties. Probably explains why their burgers are so lousy; go into a Fat Burger and they give you a real cheeseburger with fresh meat cooked in beef tallow.

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BlueFeena said:

McDonald's use to cook everything in beef tallow. The weight people got upset and, after a long line of hissy fits thrown their way, they've switched to various other means of cooking their fries and patties. Probably explains why their burgers are so lousy; go into a Fat Burger and they give you a real cheeseburger with fresh meat cooked in beef tallow.

Ironically our bodies process animal fats much easier than they do plant fats. In fact, hydrogenated oils seem to aid in artery hardening and that was the oil they originally switched to after they removed tallow.

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Can't be any worse than the Quiznos roadkill rat mascot things. I never ate at Roadkillnos because of the dead rat ads. Bleh.

Anyways last time I went into McDonalds to get a burger at around 11:45am or whatever all I got was the 'we no cook the burgers till 12' speech. So I went to DQ and got a grill burger with none of the 'come back later crapola'..

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I thought Quiznos made a pretty decent sub. I haven't had one since I moved from the city years ago. They don't do well in smaller, rural cities. We've had a couple open and close.

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It's revenge for all these years of being eaten, man! The happy meals are finally out to give humans a taste of their own medicine! Run for the hills! Be sure to bring along someone you don't like so you can use them as a meat shield should you be caught off guard!

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Doom Dude said:

Can't be any worse than the Quiznos roadkill rat mascot things. I never ate at Roadkillnos because of the dead rat ads. Bleh.

Anyways last time I went into McDonalds to get a burger at around 11:45am or whatever all I got was the 'we no cook the burgers till 12' speech. So I went to DQ and got a grill burger with none of the 'come back later crapola'..

Shame - you could've gotten a Mc10:35 (or whatever you wanna call it depending on when breakfast ends). Basically, you go right at the switch, get a McDouble and an Egg McMuffin, and put the ham & egg between the burger patties. Pretty good, in my opinion, though the best concoction I've ever had was the McGangBang, combining a McDouble with a McChicken - that thing is friggin' amazing. Also, fattening beyond all get-out and heart-destroying, I'm sure.

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Technician said:

I thought Quiznos made a pretty decent sub. I haven't had one since I moved from the city years ago. They don't do well in smaller, rural cities. We've had a couple open and close.


They're closing everywhere in Chicago. I have a feeling that 'sandwiches taste better toasted' went about as far as it could until Subway just added a toaster. Well that bubble burst.

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Technician said:

Ironically our bodies process animal fats much easier than they do plant fats. In fact, hydrogenated oils seem to aid in artery hardening and that was the oil they originally switched to after they removed tallow.

Heh, finding out stuff like this never surprises me. Health food fads are just that - fads.

I have ammo next time a vegetarian friend posts something on facebook about meat being "wrong" or whatever.

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Hold on a moment, lemme put my tinfoil hat on.

There we go.

It just occurred to me that McDonalds may have intentionally introduced such a freaky bastard to garner attention and debate. As the saying goes, "no publicity is bad publicity." They even sent out some new images in reaction to the public's (predicted) reaction. Such images include more of the soulless fuckers standing around with captions like "TOUGH CROWD." and "'Terrifying.' 'Nightmarish.' 'Cute?' 'Someone thinks we're CUTE!'" I doubt that these renders were just made on the spot, this was all precalculated, all of it.

I'm on to you, McIlluminati! After doing some half-baked research, it appears that "Happy" was apparently for the French market in 2009, originally. And as we all know from Deus Ex, the McIlluminati does have a strong presence in Paris. Now tell me, where's Grimace? You bastards have never treated him well. First you cut off four of his arms, leaving him with only two, then you give him a frontal lobotomy to make him subservient, and now he's gone? What the fuck did you do to him, Ronald?

Doomkid said:

On a related note, I fucking hate 50's ads with "cute" kids that look dumb/creepy/mental

She looks more interested in eating her mother's hand off than the jelly she's spreading.

Clonehunter said:

Not any creepier than this is guy

I'm inclined to disagree. While he's surely weird, at least it looks like just a mask. Too on the unrealistic side to be uncanny valley.

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Don't find that thing terrifying at all. Just, you know, weird. It's a Happy Meal box with a full set of human teeth for Pete's sake.

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Sodaholic said:

Hold on a moment, lemme put my tinfoil hat on.
<What do you think I am, some image quoting dumbass?>
There we go.

It just occurred to me that McDonalds may have intentionally introduced such a freaky bastard to garner attention and debate. As the saying goes, "no publicity is bad publicity." They even sent out some new images in reaction to the public's (predicted) reaction. Such images include more of the soulless fuckers standing around with captions like "TOUGH CROWD." and "'Terrifying.' 'Nightmarish.' 'Cute?' 'Someone thinks we're CUTE!'" I doubt that these renders were just made on the spot, this was all precalculated, all of it.

I'm on to you, McIlluminati! After doing some half-baked research, it appears that "Happy" was apparently for the French market in 2009, originally. And as we all know from Deus Ex, the McIlluminati does have a strong presence in Paris. Now tell me, where's Grimace? You bastards have never treated him well. First you cut off four of his arms, leaving him with only two, then you give him a frontal lobotomy to make him subservient, and now he's gone? What the fuck did you do to him, Ronald?

You need to look at the bigger picture here, Soda. How many people do you know that actually remember Whopper Jr. or The Subservient Chicken from Burger King? That's right. exactly 3.14, which is the number of minutes it takes to be eaten by a rogue happy meal with teeth. Coincidentally, 3.14 is also the first 3 digits of Pi, which is one letter away from Pie (one of the McIlluminati's finest weapons for scorching the mouths of dissidents, leaving them unable to speak) and inevitably part of the phrase "Petite Pastries", the McIlluminati's latest plan to get everyone too fat to escape the invasion. And what's in the petite pastries, you ask? That's right, you're eating Grimace. Clearly the lobotomy has taken its toll to the point that he is beyond their usefulness as a subservient. Oh, and do any of you remember Uncle O'Grimacey? They're using his bodily fluids to give Shamrock Shakes their distinct color and taste.

If you disagree with any of this, you are clearly a McIlluminati shill sent here to get us suspicious of the wrong things.

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Sodaholic said:

I'm inclined to disagree. While he's surely weird, at least it looks like just a mask. Too on the unrealistic side to be uncanny valley.


Eh I don't know, his face seems lifted from the Burger King (Best Mascot ever imo) exept no hair and a moving mouth and glasses to cover what are honestly fairly abnormal looking eyes (Find a McDonalds that still has a Mac Tonight animatronic and try to look behind his glasses). However, with that said, creepy isn't always bad. Mac Tonight is a dapper motherfucker,

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Holy power fuck, thing looks like a rapist, looks like if it sees you'll it will unzip its front and let its French fry loose on you. I still wonder why people actually eat at McDonalds if a Burger King or a Wimpy is nearby, yes they may be a little more expensive but their burgers are actually burger size. I have heard though that the burgers from McDonalds are of a greater size in places like the states however. £5 for a meal almost in McDonalds (well £3/£4 something) I am not sure how they can justify that with those tiddly things they call burgers.

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Springy said:

looks like if it sees you'll it will unzip its front and let its French fry loose on you.

Oh Why?!

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Springy said:

I am not sure how they can justify that with those tiddly things they call burgers.

Yeah honestly, I just got a McDonalds burger earlier and it fits in the palm of my fucking hand. This commercial makes me laugh my ass off, it's so accurate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu_bE7g2wqM

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So McDonald's was secretly creating a mass army of mimics disguising as happy meal boxes to eat children?

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Springy said:

I still wonder why people actually eat at McDonalds if a Burger King or a Wimpy is nearby, yes they may be a little more expensive but their burgers are actually burger size.

I have never been unhappy with a burger bought at McD, which is more than I can say about my experiences with Burger King.

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Last time I went to Wimpy it was shit. That was, however, August 2000 in South Africa.

I like Burger King about as much as McDonalds. I finally had a Whopper for the first time this year. It was surprisingly tasty.

That said, fast food burgers are vastly inferior to most other options. They're only so popular because they're very convenient and cheap.

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Hmm, this "uncanny valley" thing seems to have some measure of truth. Something that is almost but not quite realistic, or something that seems hyper-realistic (such as that old cartoon which had human mouths superimposed on the characters' faces), both do seem to have an eerie, unsettling effect.

I'm immediately reminded of Lovecraft's story "The Whisperer in Darkness", which is my favourite of his creepy tales. The eponymous whisperer looks like a man when seen in low light and sounds like a man with a severe sore throat, but something about him is extremely disturbing, like there is something wrong with him that seems obvious, but under the circumstances it cannot quite be identified. It later turns out it's either an alien Mi-Go wearing a disguise, or an avatar of Nyarlathotep. Lovecraft was very big on showing his human characters' revulsion when they encountered Mythos aliens.

There's another similar story which I believe is by Robert Bloch where the characters encounter a person who is definitely not a man. He looks, sounds, acts and reasons like a man, but the human characters are almost driven out of their minds with fear because this man exudes some kind of presence, like casting a shadow into the room. They cannot see this and the man does not turn into a monster or attack them, but the air itself is supercharged with menace and they feel a natural horror of the stranger. It is strongly implied that this man is Nyarlathotep in human form, politely telling them to back off or he'll kill them.

A rather long-winded way of agreeing with the OP.

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