About

Grimace is one of several mascots for McDonald's fast-food restaurants, depicted as a rotund, purple creature. Grimace first appeared in a series of McDonald's "McDonaldland" television commercials in 1971, depicted as a villain with six hands that steals McDonald's milkshakes. Over the following decades, Grimace was repurposed into a more friendly, dumb character. Grimace became the subject of memes throughout the 2000s, including rumors that he is a giant tastebud. On June 12th, 2023, McDonald's celebrated Grimace's birthday by giving him his own meal, including a purple "Grimace shake" that subsequently went viral and sparked memes online.

Origin

The earliest known appearance of Grimace is in a series of "McDonaldland" commercials televised between 1971 and 1973. In the commercials, Grimace is shown stealing kids' milkshakes for himself (shown below). In later years, Grimace would become a more friendly character, depicted as simple or dumb. He was also redesigned to have two arms rather than six.

Spread

Grimace Eating a Child

One of the earliest memes featuring Grimace to spread online is a photoshop of Grimace seemingly eating a child. The image was shared online as early as December 2007 and possibly first shared on the AnthemRO forum on December 2nd that year,^[6] although the earliest available upload was posted to Weebly^[7] on August 27th, 2009 (shown below).

"What Is Grimace?" Debate

On October 30th, 2014, the official @McDonaldsCorp Twitter^[8] account posted, "Have a burning McD's nostalgia question? Join our Archivists on Twitter today from 12-1 CT to chat about McD’s history! #AskAnArchivist." That day, Twitter user @margo_padilla asked, "What is Grimace?" The account responded, " #Grimace lore says he is the embodiment of a milkshake or a taste bud. What do you think?" leaving the official answer open to debate (shown below).

Grimace's Birthday Meal / Grimace Shake

On June 5th, 2023, the @McDonalds Twitter^[1][2][3] page posted a series of tweets written as if by Grimace, explaining that Grimace had a surprise coming on June 6th (shown below). One tweet encourages viewers to text "707-932-4826" to learn more.

The next day, the account posted a tweet^[4] announcing Grimace's birthday on June 12th, coinciding with the release of the Grimace meal and Grimace shake, a purple, berry-flavored milkshake, garnering over 23,000 likes in six days (shown below).

The tweets inspired numerous memes about Grimace's surprise and his birthday. For example, on June 6th, Twitter^[5] user @ben_rosen tweeted, "a june 12 birthday suggests grimace may have been conceived on September 11," garnering over 23,000 likes in six days (shown below, left). On June 8th, Twitter user @davidmackau posted a photo of what appears to be a Grimace dick pic, writing, "texted grimace and he just sent me this??" garnering over 89,000 likes in four days (shown below, right).

On June 12th, 2023 (the day of the meal's release), YouTuber^[9] TheReportOfTheWeek posted a review of the Grimace meal, giving it an 8/10 overall and garnering over 100,000 views in a day (shown below, left). On the same day, Badlands Booker posted a video to YouTube^[11] chugging the shake, garnering over 30,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On that date, McDonald's also released an official video game based on Grimace titled Grimace's Birthday, produced by Krool Toys. The game is meant to resemble Gameboy Color games and is playable on grimacesbirthday.com^[10] (playthrough shown below).

Related Memes

McNuggies

McNuggies is a poorly drawn illustration of McDonald's character Grimace posing in a seductive manner and asking the question "What's wrong, Ronald-kun? Could it be you're craving my McNuggies?" presumably in reference to his prominently featured posterior. The drawing was originally posted in 2012.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References