{"id":33425,"date":"2025-08-05T20:38:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T20:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=33425"},"modified":"2025-08-05T20:38:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T20:38:14","slug":"mcdonalds-finally-confirms-what-grimace-actually-is-and-fans-are-completely-stunned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=33425","title":{"rendered":"McDonald’s finally confirms what Grimace actually is and fans are completely stunned"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Fans have been completely stunned after McDonald’s put a decades-old mystery to bed by revealing the true identity of its famous character.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald founded the fast-food chain in 1940 in San Bernardino,\u00a0California<\/a>, initially as a ‘carhop’ drive-in.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the next decade, the brothers, taken under the wing of\u00a0businessman<\/a>, Ray Kroc, saw their burger joint snowball across the\u00a0US<\/a>, expanding to a franchise with their signature Golden Arches which are now seen in almost every corner of the world more than eight decades later.<\/p>\n

In the 1960s, the franchise then introduced some family-friendly mascots, starting with the creation of the ‘Hamburger-Happy Clown’ Ronald McDonald that debuted in TV commercials, which saw at the peak of his popularity around 300 full-time cosplaying clowns employed at\u00a0McDonald’s<\/a>\u00a0restaurants.<\/p>\n

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\"Grimace\"Grimace<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Grimace (left) with his buddies, Hambuglar and Ronald McDonald at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2023 (James Devaney\/Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

Not long after his appearance came the introduction of some pals – the Hamburglar, Birdie the Early Bird, the Fry Kids, the McNugget Buddies, the Happy Meal Gang and a seemingly unexplainable purple blob, called Grimace.<\/p>\n

The purple mass was initially called ‘Evil Grimace’ in 1971 among the McDonaldland crew as he used his four arms to steal and carry milkshakes.<\/p>\n

While his PR image shifted to a less-evil-looking companion of Ronald McDonald over the\u00a0years<\/a>, what has been lesser known is what Grimace actually is.<\/p>\n

The fast-food chain has lifted the lid on the ancient pop-culture puzzle, revealing that he is in fact a huge, anthropomorphic taste bud, of all things.<\/p>\n

Though it appears McDonald’s wasn’t so sure on its own ‘Grimace lore’, tweeting back in 2012 that he is ‘the embodiment of a milkshake, though others still insist he’s a taste bud’, while other bosses referred to him as a ‘blob of a sweetheart’.<\/p>\n

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\"McDonald's\"McDonald's<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

McDonald’s admitted the OG Grimace was a bit terrifying for kids (Twitter\/McDonalds)<\/cite><\/div>\n

However, the truth came out when a McDonald’s manager in Windsor,\u00a0Canada<\/a>, casually dropped the bombshell in an\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0with CBC News after celebrating being named Outstanding Manage of the Year.<\/p>\n

Brian Bates said at the time: “He is an enormous taste bud, but a taste bud nonetheless,” adding that Grimace’s role is to show that McDonald’s food tastes good.<\/p>\n

Hilariously, Grimace’s shift to a friendly and more cuddly-looking creature started when bosses realized he was too frightening for kids to like.<\/p>\n

“The original Grimace was scaly, mean\u2011looking, had four arms, and had no charm whatsoever,” McDonald’s former vice\u2011president of advertising Roy T. Bergold Jr. wrote in QSR magazine.<\/p>\n

“He scared kids. We changed him to a soft, plush, two-armed blob of a sweetheart who only wanted McDonald\u2019s milkshakes and to hang out with Ronald.”<\/p>\n

Still, the revelation has absolutely blown the minds of McDonald’s fans who have waited years to find out Grimace’s origins.<\/p>\n

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\"Grimace\"Grimace<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Grimace celebrating his birthday in June (Jeff Schear\/Getty Images for McDonald’s)<\/cite><\/div>\n

When he ‘took over’ McDonald’s socials in 2023 to announce his birthday celebrations, with limited edition purple shakes and merch, one fan wrote back: “Why is Grimace a taste bud and not a purple chicken nugget?”<\/p>\n

Another bewildered fan said: “BTW why didn’t you tell me in the 80s Grimace is a TASTEBUD?!”<\/p>\n

McDonald’s also commented on Grimace’s apparent change of behavior, as a third asked: “And you’re suuuure he’s not still evil?” To which the restaurant wrote back: “He is a super chill guy now.”<\/p>\n

UNILAD has contacted McDonald’s for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Fans have been completely stunned after McDonald’s put a decades-old mystery to bed by revealing the true identity of its famous character. Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald founded … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33427,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33425\/revisions\/33427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}