Occasionally, I like to dive into a pop culture rabbit hole for these columns to find something to write about that is different from the usual reviews and ramblings about comic book plots. The TikTok trend that began last month involving the Grimace Shake, something introduced this year to celebrate the 51st anniversary of the character’s inception, has brought the purple mascot back into the public eye.

Grimace is one of the few mascots from the McDonaldland advertising that is still used in rotation along with The Hamburglar and Ronald McDonald. So I’ve decided we’ll join in on the celebration with a dive into the character’s history, why the shake has become a meme, and what exactly is Grimace.

The original Grimace was introduced in 1971 and was known as “The Evil Grimace”, a far cry from the more friendly version most are familiar with but no less dopey. This Evil Grimace had four arms and was depicted as stealing shakes and Cokes, only to be tricked by Ronald McDonald.

McDonaldland was subject to a lawsuit by the Sid & Marty Krofft Television Production Inc., producers of Land of the Lost, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and most relevant to this story: H.R. Pufnstuf. The Kroffts brought the suit against McDonald’s as they felt several of the MCDonaldland characters were infringing on the show’s copyright (particularly Mayor McCheese, whose enormous head and role as mayor of a fictional setting were similar to H.R. Pufnstuf).

The jury found in favor of the Kroffts, and the court chose to calculate statutory damages based on a formula that treated each commercial or promotional item as a single infringement, resulting in a total of $1,044,000 awarded to the Kroffts.

MCDonald’s would reassess their McDonaldland characters after this, ditching some and making alterations to others, including Grimace, who was deemed similar to the character of Seymour Spider.

In 1972, the new Grimace was depicted with only one set of arms and was shifted from an antagonistic role, to more of a sidekick role to Ronald McDonald.

Now with that history, you’d think Grimace might be some kind of spider (albeit a six-limbed version, so not a spider), not anything like the rest of the McDonaldland characters who seem food-based, but interesting and perhaps compounding the mystery since the absence of arms takes away what he was.

Well you’d be wrong.

It turns out Grimace is a taste bud. A “taste bud”. Yeah, I don’t see it either. Although, I suppose he looks like one if you zoomed in really, really closely. Still, it is such an out of left field thing to make a mascot out of.

Apparently, this was confirmed in 2010 by a McDonald’s spokesperson, while in 2014, McDonald’s Twitter account described Grimace as the embodiment of milkshakes or a taste bud. In 2021, a Canadian McDonald’s franchise owner, Brian Bates had described the character as a anthropomorphic taste bud.

Last month, McDonald’s decided to celebrate Grimace’s 51st birthday (an odd milestone, but I’ll allow it) with the Grimace Birthday Shake. Now doing the math, that is obviously celebrating the new, more familiar Grimace’s inception.

A recent trend has developed on TikTok around this milkshake with a horror bent. In these videos, someone will drink the shake and then the video hard cuts to that person either being discovered in an unusual position or merely deceased.

I won’t lie…I find them hilarious. I love some dark, absurdist humor and this trend is very much in that vein.

And that is the story of Grimace, something you didn’t ask for, and probably didn’t need to know. This information is all over the internet if you know where to look, and I wanted to specifically mention the Grimace Official Fan Club as a primary source for chronicling all this information. Honestly, I love seeing when certain, very niche topics and pop culture elements have dedicated fandoms. I think it’s neat.

Sort of timely for this article, but the McDonald’s Twitter (which was taken over by Grimace about a month ago), had a post where the big purple tastebud bid farewell on Thursday, July 6. At least perhaps, until next time.

So long Grimace, and thanks for what is no doubt the most random article I’ve wrote for this column (well, except maybe for the one about the Colonel Sanders curse in Japan).