As better bloggers than myself have written, "what the hell is Grimace?" See, for example, the guy at popcultureaddict.com.
I, as others before, have pondered that question and was doing so yesterday while sipping a cool Pepsi from an old McDonaldland glass -- with Grimace on it. You know Grimace, right? Big purple....thing. Perhaps it was the heat of the day baking my brains, or the lead in the old drinking glass taking affect, or brain cancer....or simply the by-product of an idle mind. Grimace graces a couple glasses and I have a bobblehead of him in my kitchen. Me am dumb, I know.
OK, I looked it up.
When I was a kid and watched TV McDonald's had their great ad campaigns for kids featuring McDonaldland, and Grimace was Ronald's purple pal, a kind of pear-shaped purple thing-a-ma-jiggie who liked to waddle around with a shake and would talk like Lenny from "Of Mice an Men", like "duuuuuh, McDonald's is good." He was purple, loveable, and harmless.
[As an aside, I realize why Mickey D's lost Grimace over time, as more and more of us are starting to LOOK like Grimace it's less of a happy cartoon and more of a true-life story. That, and of course the McDonaldland commercials were whacked. Why would Mayor McCheese eat a burger? ]
But, like everything comfortable in life (and Grimace does indeed look comfortable) there was a dark past I knew nothing about. {I got all this from popcultureaddict and Wikipedia, not exactly Black's Law Dictionary} Grimace was conceived as a character who would push the wonderful line of McDonald's shakes. In doing so, he was a villain who would steal all the shakes and sodas at McDonalds and thus ruin all of the kids' fun. Go ahead, hit YouTube and type in a search for Evil Grimace. It's bad video, as it's old. He had 6 arms and talked like a simpleton, but he was an evil kleptomaniac who destroyed children's enjoyment of fast food by stealing their sodas - which he'd take back to his cave.
Some time later, 4 arms were removed and the "evil" moniker was lost in favor of just plain old happy and dumb Grimace. Was it- as some suggest- a lobotomy and multiple limb amputation? Perhaps. Or - my favorite theory - some weird Taliban/McDonald's behavioral torture ("I'll take one of your 6 arms off if you don't quit stealing shakes you fat purple f&ck!" Grimace holds out, like Jack Bauer, but finally is "rehabilitated."). Or...as is most likely, he's the result of some lawsuit between McDonald's and the Kroft brothers, and McDonald's lost.
Whatever the case, Grimace was never evil again. He became GOOD.
I like to think that in this case, the system worked, and that people, even purple blobs, can be rehabilitated. Sure, he had 6 arms and liked shakes....who doesn't like shakes? Maybe he re-assimilated the other 4 arms when he realized that he didn't need so many arms to steal them with. One morning, Grimace woke up and looked in the mirror and saw a former milkshake thief and said, out loud, "I'll never steal again." He took it a day at a time, and effectuated true change. It's easy to scoff. We tend to like to lock our problems away and produce large labels in large letters to BRAND people with. Yet, we talk out of both sides of our mouths. A six-month sentence, a 6 year sentence, or six life sentences - when you come out on the other side you're considered a CRIMINAL. Yeah, there are some people who won't hire you or talk with you. It's uncomfortable I guess.
I've seen it, I was a lawyer and did some criminal practice. People are treated like they've got a disease, like lepers.
The truth is that most ex-cons made (like all of us) some pretty bad decisions that landed them in prison. Some of us might not have made the same bad decisions, and some of us are just lucky to have never been put in the position to have to make those bad decisions in the first place. It's not just brains, or breeding. Sometimes it's only a matter of stupid-ass luck.
But, after the sentences are served and the halfway houses completed, the guys and gals who look themselves in the mirror and reconcile who they want to be with who they are -they seem to do OK. Our country spends alot of time and money putting people in jail, with the hopes that time in prison will "fix" the person's problem. And, as has been widely reported - our system fails miserably, with recidivism rates that are larger than anyone would like to see or believe to be true.
As usual, in the end, I'm a softy. I want to believe people can be redeemed and rehabilitated. I do indeed believe in second and third and fourth chances for anyone and everyone. Call me pretentious or naiive or just plain dumb.
Duuuuuhhh.....I like milkshakes too!
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