Image: Cartoon Network
Over the weekend, McDonald’s made an offer to Rick and Morty fans: come to our restaurants, and claim the Szechuan Sauce your favourite amoral cartoon scientist adores. It didn’t go as planned.
The Rick and Morty fans (what’s their fandom name? If they don’t have one, I have a proposal: Morticians.) came out in droves. And while some got their sauce — our very own Charles Pulliam-Moore called it “ok” — plus a cute poster to commemorate the occasion, reports are that many McDonald’s locations did not have the sauce packets in quantities anywhere near sufficient to meet demand.
Many took to Twitter to document the pandemonium that their local burgery had become, descended upon by a mob of condiment-lacking customers from the saddest of timelines: ours.
@McDonalds you suck. Only 10 posters & 20 packets of #szechuansauce to a store; there are already 30 in line.. 4 hours early. #rickandmorty
— Brandon Kronz (@BrandonKronz) October 7, 2017
Cops are at Wellington McDonalds where tons of angry people lined up for hrs for Rick and Morty Szechuan sauce only to learn they had none pic.twitter.com/3T272osid4
— Lulu Ramadan (@luluramadan) October 7, 2017
Common theme, I tried two in Delaware that @McDonalds website said had it, and they say they never got it. Seems like a bait and switch.
— Kyle Grantham (@kylegrantham) October 7, 2017
While I have to imagine most people were chagrined but largely genial, some fans did not take this well. At all.
Angry crowd chants “We want sauce” as police force them back. 1000+ people camped out to get #szechuansauce but McDonalds had 70 sauces… pic.twitter.com/wEaqC64Hln
— Ian ??? Sikes (@ianjsikes) October 7, 2017
I’ve had some difficult experiences at McDonald’s, but I don’t think my fast food order has ever required a police intervention. McDonald’s also took to Twitter to confirm the very limited quantities of the sauce and apologise for what seemed to be, for a lot of McDonald’s locations across the country, an absolute ordeal.
The best fans in the multiverse showed us what they got today. We hear you & we’re sorry not everyone could get some super-limited Szechuan.
— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) October 7, 2017
The replies to this are something else. I really identify with this guy, who just wished Wendy’s had stepped in to provide relief during this crisis:
It’s sauce. Why is it super limited? You’re a global chain & making enough sauce for 1 day is too hard? @Wendys would have crushed this
— Deric Ortiz (@helloiamderic) October 7, 2017
Even Kurt Eichenwald, Newsweek senior writer and noted hentai viewer, weighed in.
Wow…who’s getting fired for this bonehead move? Jerry? I didn’t care either way, but I knew R&M fans are hard core & thousands would show.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 7, 2017
We’ve reached out to McDonald’s for more information on what exactly went wrong, but as of press time they haven’t responded.
So, listen, it’s clearly ridiculous that in this year of our eldritch lord 2017 anyone would start shouting or protesting or whatever about a limited-time condiment run. But I’m inclined to lay a lot of blame for this on McDonald’s corporate. This company practically invented limited-run fast food fanaticism with the McRib, and one would hope they could manage demand a bit more effectively than this.
I don’t really get the excitement over the Szechuan sauce, but it was clearly important to some people, and I try not to judge people for liking things I don’t understand (wild overreactions excluded). And when McDonald’s incites demand for something like this and then fails to meet that demand, the people who ultimately end up suffering are the fast food employees who have to deal with this mess.
Comments
33 responses to “McDonald’s Rick And Morty Promotion Did Not Go Well”
Enjoy the show, avoid the fans.
If you really want the sauce, there are already a bunch of videos on Youtube of how to make it.
“Enjoy the show, avoid the fans.”
Truer words have never been spoken
I don’t get why some fans are so extreme and obnoxious but I love the show, I’ve met people though who just hate the show now because of bad interactions with fans
This is why I can’t watch it in the same room as my partner.
Not gonna lie. I’ve kinda avoided the show because of the obnoxious fans. I’m sure it’s a great show, but… eeeeeh.
I’ll probably give it a chance someday.
points to McDonalds for trolling the absolute worst adherents of one of the most annoying fandoms.
Maybe its the cynic in me, but I don’t buy that they didn’t know how many would show up for the sauce. It’s not like Maccas is a small business with only a few branches who had an unexpected turnout, they are a global company that spends millions in marketing and research. As the article says, they practically invented the limited run fast food. They would have researched this extensively and known exactly how much sauce they would need at each restaurant to accommodate everyone and deliberately fell short to create demand. Next time and there will be a next time, it will still be limited, but they’ll be able to charge more for it and will sell more too. No one is going to lose their job over this. More likely they will get a massive pat on the back.
Man, if they brought back the El Maco shaker fries then I’d care a lot more.
Macca’s shaker fries-Pinch of cayenne/mex-chilli powder,smoked paprika,onion powder,garlic salt.Shaken,not stirred.
If I had a request, it’d be this.
Is it just me or has this entitlement culture just reaching critical mass? Though I have just came from Destiny 2 reddit so maybe just feeling a little ill and overwhelmed by this sort of unrealistic stupidity.
McDonalds advertised sauce, people took time out of their day to buy food with the sauce that McDonalds promised to supply. Because it was a limited one day only promotion some fans would likely have taken time out of their day, possibly off work, specifically in order to participate.
The only “entitlement culture” I can see here is McDonalds entitlement to waste other people’s time as a shitty marketing stunt in order to drum up business for their company without actually providing the product they themselves promised to deliver.
In consumer law this is typically called “bait advertising” and illegal in most western jurisdictions.
The only people expecting to get something for free here are McDonalds management.
Exhibit A ladies and gentlemen
He’s right in this case though, in a lot of ways this is McDonald’s fuck up and they should be held accountable for manufacturing the situation.
Idiots who riot over sauce should also be held accountable too though… Because seriously what the hell is wrong with people.
Basically nobody involved in this situation is without blame.
when police have to be called because you couldnt get an invented sauce liked by an imaginary character on the tv, you really have to ask yourself what type of person your really want to be in life.
other actions or things GROWN UP would have done/known…
1) people behind the counter have no power in how their whole world wide corporation is run. so save your anger
2) they are probably barely out of school, if not still in school
3) if you are unhappy call the ombudsman (or whatever their consumer affairs is called) AFTER you have calmed down.
4) Walk away have a laugh how it was a cluster- after all it is just an invented sauce liked by an imaginary character on the tv.
Sure, people need to take a deep breath and not do stupid things no matter how badly they get done over by corporate marketing departments. I doubt anyone is excusing bad customer behaviour, I’m only arguing that the queuing customers had every right to feel pissed off by being done over by a McDonald’s marketing FUBAR entirely of McDonalds own making.
The fact that when humans get pissed off some are inclined to do stupid things is entirely predictable. the fact that the stupidest of those are likely to end up on the news and in articles like this one is also predictable. We don’t need to go to McDonalds to see it, that’s what the internet is for.
Regardless, it’s not an invented sauce in the meaning you appear to be using. It’s an actual, consumable sauce that happens to be associated with a TV program tie-in. It’s an actual product that was made available and marketed directly to people who might be interested in such a product and who were told to turn up on one particular day in order to get that product, some of whom waited in line for four hours or more in order to not get it. It’s a product that can almost certainly be bought on eBay right now for a bid of $500 or over. A product that apparently was either unavailable or in such limited quantities that no sane person would expect it not to have run out within minutes.
People get angry, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for insanely stupid ones, we are all guilty of this. (All of us)
You can’t be the door man for everything you deem wrong and realistically, much of what you deem wrong isn’t for other people.
Crazy….
I have never been that angry I have had to yell at children who work behind the counter at McDonalds because upper management didnt think things through.
Verbal child abuse and a sweat shop? All that from a couple of tweets and a chant of, we want sauce?
What are you championing again?
Geez, it was a joke. I doubt the sauce actually tastes that good.
Exactly. I also doubt that many of them even remember the sauce. I Love the show and that ep, but I don’t remember the sauce and I’m happy to admire the joke from a distance. I don’t need the sauce.
Abhorrent behaviour over a fucking sauce is ludicrous. I blame Trump.
The correct refrain in situations like this is “Thanks Obama…”
(I think my first comment was eaten by the editing bug)
How can people tell the difference…
Undercard candidate comes from behind, campaign run on change and shaking up the status quo.
Fans have a new Jesus, haters are afraid the country is going down the toilet.
Which election am I talking about?
Oh I mean, this time is different!!!
The difference is overwhelmingly prejudice vs progress.
It is a very fancy illusion, no doubt.
Problem is the true face of American politics didn’t start with Trump and certainly didn’t stop while Obama was in.
People today think politics is Twitter and option pieces from special interests, most don’t even know what happens in their governmemt and congress.
It’s just a different puppet with the same hand up its arse and a different message with the same path.
I agree with you to some extent. But Trump has been restructuring to suit his own prejudices and interests which has been well documented, as opposed to some conspiracies that may/may not be the case. We’ll agree to disagree.
I haven’t seen the nerds this restless since Annie Hall won the Oscar.
Replace McDonald’s with Nintendo and Szechuan sauce with NES Mini and I feel like I’ve seen a lot of gamers with the same reaction as these Rock and Morty fans
Woah woah, calm down Satan.
This is something nobody actually wanted being made more appealing by R&M.
My god, there would’ve been riots
/thinks people would get the sauce to profit on ebay
/checks to see current prices
/sees a single packet of sauce current with 24 bids at $100 USD
Urgh, bunch of morons.
Remember somebody purchased a fart in a jar that was rumoured (lol) to belong to Brittany Spears…
A sauce packet is tame after that.
Get KFC to bring back hot shot shakers for their popcorn chicken and we’ll talk.