Author: Lydia Bugg

Categories
FUCKING DAY

Fucking Day: Pope Shopping Spree🌭

Have you ever wondered who the pope’s haberdasher is? The answer is it doesn’t matter. Pope hats are no longer special in the era of the internet. You can buy them off several different websites that anyone can use, and no one will even verify whether or not you’re the Pope. You know what that means, congratulations, we’re all popes now. Popemobiles and diplomatic immunity for everyone. You know what that means: Popemobile drag races begin at sunset.

You can’t unleash knowledge like this on a degenerate like me. I was raised in the Catholic church. I know what a chasuble is. It’s the cunty little outfit that priests get to wear, and now I know that if I want to lounge around the house in one instead of a bathrobe, I fully can, and no one has the power to stop me. Be honest, do you think I could pull this off?

You might be thinking two thousand dollars for the sacred muumuu, wow that seems like a lot! You would be correct. This outfit is a top-of-the-line frock from one of the most expensive online purveyors of liturgical lewks, ecclesiasticalsewing.com. There are many ways the different websites try to distinguish themselves in the eyes of their customer. Ecclesiastical Sewing’s brand identity is the Chanel of chasubles. They deal only in the most high-end vestments and paraments, and none of the other random Catholicism trinkets the other sites sell. They do have a few extra items for sale, but only really classy high-end stuff, like this tasteful Catholic oven mitt.

Everything on Ecclesiastical Sewing is handmade in the United States, and the company is family-owned and operated, which is probably why they have a section called “Posters Man Cave”, which sounds like the name of a ’60s Batman villain. “We’ve foiled you again, Posters Mancave!”

The thing is, catholic priests don’t need a man cave. Their whole house is cave. No one but God can tell them what to do, and if He won’t speak up to stop any genocides, I feel like He’s probably not having too much say on interior decorating either.

Speaking of, you might wonder what was in the Posters Man Cave section of ecclesiasticalsewing.com, and I will tell you: it was all AI-generated posters of military planes and tanks. Due to the fact that priests don’t need man cave posters, I think I was the first person to click the link and when I did it triggered some sort of alarm at ecclesiasticalsewing.com. They realized how weird it was and when I went back the next day to take a screenshot, they had taken them all down.

PSG Vestments doesn’t sell any computer-hallucinated posters of tanks, well, I guess no one does now, but PSG Vestments does much more affordable chasubles. I mean, these are peasant chasubles compared to what Ecclesiastical Sewing has going on. What Lord-loving man is going to pay sixty-nine dollars (the sex number, you’ll recall!!) for this tacky golden dove pissing on the eucharist?

Get it together, psgvestments.com. Their most expensive chasuble is only $211, and it’s also bird-themed? I don’t remember there being so many birds in the church. The themes of the Bible were things like shut up and give us money, and look at this dope outfit I bought with all of the money you gave me.

Of course, it’s not fair to say that priests only spend donations on these sweet threads. There are some really good cups in the Catholic church as well. None of that “Jesus was a simple carpenter” bullshit here. Daddy Pope wants a 24K gold-plated chalice with a sterling silver case. Sure, it costs 10K, but so does dignity.

That’s how you fancy pope, but of course, you can also pope on the cheap with an olive wood chalice from Catholic Supply of Saint Louis for a mere seventy-five dollars! This is the chalice they dropped on the floor and let it roll around for a while before they shipped it to you, but it’s probably fine. The entire congregation of your church can still all put their mouth on it if they love the taste of poor.

Ok, ok, I know what you’re thinking: show us the hats, Lydia. We were promised Pope Hats in the intro, and there hasn’t been a single hat in this article. How will I show off my slick Catholic style without the largest hat available! To which I say, calm down, children. Why have a Pope Hat when you can have a Pope Crown.

This stylish Pope Crown, aka a mitre, weighs almost nine pounds, which the Catholics will probably love because wearing it will feel torturous. It’ll be an honor to have your head crushed under this much luxury! If you’re starting to feel like there’s an absolutely stunning number of websites that sell Catholic priest accessories, I should tell you that this is from blessedcelebration.com, which sells a little bit of everything, and advertising to Catholic priests is sort of a side gig. They’re a big supplier of Jordan almonds for weddings, and ethnically insensitive Halloween costumes from ethnicities you didn’t even know had ethnically insensitive costume potential.

At least Blessed Celebration doesn’t sell reliquaries. Those really give websites the vibe of a dude with a trenchcoat full of watches in a back alley. The problem isn’t the reliquaries themselves; it’s that if you need a reliquary, it means you’ve acquired a relic, and where did you get that, my friend? In the Catholic church, relics are usually parts of a saint’s body; a little bit of skin, maybe some hair, a tooth if you’re lucky! This has created a pretty big black market saint bone issue around the church.

The Catholic church tries to be picky about its relics, but you can buy saint teeth on Etsy these days. The internet is unstoppable and full of scam artists.

The description warns that the relics deserve respect, but they are advertising them next to a ten-dollar t-shirt depicting a dancing skeleton that says, “Don’t Worry I’m A Chiropractor.” Once you get your hands on a bone that might or might not belong to Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, you have to put it in its own little saint bone house, and you’d better get a nice one because the catholic church believes in hauntings. If you don’t give that saint bone a nice house, expect to get your ass haunted by the patron saint of earache sufferers. That’s really what Polycarp is the saint of. Polycarp is a real saint and not a Pokémon.

The $53,605.94 does not include shipping.

So, how do you advertise to Catholic priests respectfully, without the help of the Etsy algorithm? If there are so many websites out there catering to this niche audience of roughly four hundred thousand single men with a LOT of disposable income, how does one distinguish itself from all of the others? Well, only one that I’ve found offers hot hipster priest models.

This man just biked over from Brooklyn to pop on that chasuble and smolder. There are only two male models on Chasubles.com, and it’s mostly all one guy with two looks: smolder and shame. Chasubles.com knew what they had when they found him.

You can’t fake that kind of shame. A Catholic priest will know instantly. That is real, genuine regret and sadness. You know what he’s really sad about? The fact that they won’t let him model the hats.

You’re going to get a perfectly distraught model priest and not let him model the Pope Hats? How am I supposed to know if I want to order a 6 ⅞ Pope Hat or an 8 ¼ inch Pope Hat? What am I saying? I don’t want to be the Pope with the smallest hat at the party. It has to be 8 ¼, right? What’s the point in buying a Pope Hat if you don’t go big? Honestly, 8 ¼ isn’t going to cut it. I must scour the internet for the tallest Pope Hat. Starting with PSG vestments. You know they’re going to have the tallest, cheapest hat. This one stands at a respectable 12 inches and costs ninety dollars.

Try to tell me that hat wasn’t made for me, I dare you. The issue is, of course, Etsy also has Pope Hats. There are way more Pope Hats than saint bones on Etsy, and of course, those hats are hefty. We’re talking an impressive 23.5 inches of hat. That’s taller than the average newborn baby.

This one is pretty affordable too, at a mere two hundred dollars for all that hat. It was a healthy competition, but I think I’ve found my personal Pope Hat. I guess it’s time to get out there and enjoy all of this diplomatic immunity. Meet me in the parking lot in fifteen minutes. I bet I can get the Popemobile up to 120 without the hat flying off.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Ken Paisley, who dares you to mock his four foot pope hat. He is working on a bigger one, but 私はそうは思わない το καπέλο بہت لمبا ہو سکدا اے

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NERDING DAY

Nerding Day: The Fly

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FUCKING DAY

Fucking Day: Cold Sweat 🌭

Today, members of the hotdog society, I bring you a romance novel starring a young woman named Jules and The Kool-Aid Man, who also happens to be her step-brother. There’s no way to wade into that one, so I’m just putting it all out there immediately, in the same way the Kool-Aid man puts his fine glass cheeks out there on the cover of Cold Sweat by Vera Valentine.

I want to start off by saying this isn’t a Chuck Tingle situation. Vera Valentine is a serious monster romance novelist with over thirty titles under her belt. These titles include Sacrificed To The Freedom Dragons, Carnal Cryptids 2: Southeast, and Planet Oster Fertility Fusion, which is an alien Easter Bunny gang bang. Her real breakthrough came with the viral TikTok success of Unhinged, a romance between a woman and her front door.

Vera seems a little war weary after the success of Unhinged presented her to a much larger audience. Cold Sweat has a pretty long and detailed author’s note at the beginning explaining to people that if they opened this book with a caked up Kool-Aid Man on the cover, they should indeed expect to read some explicit Kool-Aid Man fucking.

Like, you were warned! I agree, Vera. I don’t know what else anyone could possibly expect, but I’m glad she warned the prudes away instantly. There’s only us freaks and perverts left now, and what’s that? She’s got a warning for us, too!

Humble words to live by. Let’s get into the book, shall we? Normally, I would read the whole thing and then maybe find some connecting themes to put in the article, but this week, I think we’ll experience it together live. I’ll just record my most genuine first thought reactions that aren’t screams. That might be difficult to do, though, because I can’t even make it to the first page without finding something to comment on. There’s an additional trigger warning that warns of “off-page drunken sex with a pallet of drink mix.” How could this book get better?

We open with Jules describing how her mother met her stepfather, Dan. Dan is a beverage distributor and, I believe, just a regular guy, not a beverage himself. Jules’ only complaint about Dan is that he fucks her Mom too loudly, but mostly her opinion is ew, but good for her, I guess. She doesn’t like her stepbrother, Red, very much, though. Let’s get a quick description of him.

Right, so, that’s the Kool-Aid man. Her stepbrother is the Kool-Aid man, as we were adequately warned. Please, no one get upset or attempt to put punch in your Georgie O’Keefe (yet). Red works in demolition, so he’s often covered in construction dust, and his favorite hobby is watching erotic Japanese cartoons in the living room because it has a better sound system than his laptop. Now, I’m sure, like me, you are wondering how a human man sired a Kool-Aid man? Is it a witch’s curse situation or…no, no, no. This book is about fucking and the answer to every question is fucking, in this case, “off-page drunken sex with a pallet of drink mix.”

Her stepfather fucked an entire pallet of cherry Chill-Assist punch. I know I’ve been calling him the Kool-Aid man, but technically this book isn’t endorsed by Kool-Aid because, I guess, they hate opportunity? So, technically, Red is the Chill-Assist punch man. You probably have more questions about this origin story, I know I do, but at the moment, they are blowing right past it. I, for one, know, but if my stepbrother were a punch monster, I would absolutely have to know the graphic details of his origins. Does that count as an orgy with multiple packets of drink mix, or do they form a hive mind? Did he get a splinter from the pallet? Did the pallet gestate, and if so, for how many months? We’ll never know.

Chapter 1 ends with Red revealing that his father has installed a new sauna as an anniversary gift for Jules’ Mother. Jules is cold, and Red recommends she try it out. She’s surprised when he comes outside to join her in the tiny wooden sauna because he has to continuously replenish the ice in his body with ice from their refrigerator. He reassures her that he put too much in and needs to “water himself down.”

Red and Jules start to commiserate. She tells him that she plans to tell her mother she’s leaving college. He tells her that she can ask anything she wants about his Kool-Aid Man body, so, of course, she’s immediately about to say, “What’s that dick like?” It’s the obvious question! The one we’ve all been waiting for, drumroll please…then Vera Valentine cock blocks her with a falling tree that traps them in the sauna. What’s a Kool-Aid Man and his stepsister to do for at least an hour while their parents are getting tacos, the most vagina shaped food? I think you know what they’re going to do. That punch is going right up her Georgia O’Keefe.

He’s a man that also happens to be a glass pitcher of liquid. So, say it with me again, audience. WHAT’S! THAT! DICK LIKE!

They start fucking, and we are only halfway through the book. It’s a 54-page novella, but still the majority of this book is going to be active Kool-Aid Man fucking, and it’s going to go a little something like this:

That’s right, Vera has really put some thought into how this monster penis works, and that’s why she’s the gold standard of monster romance authors. Someone give this woman an extremely phallic award that is secretly a sentient billionaire who is also, somehow, her stepbrother.

I sort of figured once the fucking began, she might lay off the Kool-Aid Man references a little, but that does not happen at all. The author does not want you to forget that Jules is fucking the Kool-Aid Man, or that she’s fucking her stepbrother. Jules often stops fucking her Kool-Aid Man stepbrother to think, “I can’t believe I’m fucking my stepbrother.” Which is by far the least unbelievable part of this sex!

Going into this, I knew that making her his good little cup would come into play because I hate to tell you, there is merch for that. With the signed editions of the physical copy of this book, you can get an exclusive “Make Me Your Good Little Cup” sticker. It’s made by a real artist, too. Vera Valentine is super anti-AI, which I love for a lot of reasons. Imagine having an author explain this commission to you, artists. “Um, yeah, so the Kool-Aid Man wants to make her pussy a cup is the basic idea. You get it.”

AI isn’t coming for Vera Valentine’s job. A machine could never write this. It’s such a specifically human perversion. We can’t even look at the logo for fruit punch without being like, “He’s tall, I wonder what his dick looks like?”

I know the other big question everyone wants to know about this book is whether he says, “Oh yeah!” when he comes. Legally, is it possible for him to scream the Kool-Aid Man’s famous punchline as he cums? Well, after running it past several attorneys, I’m thrilled to announce that the verdict came back in favor of free speech.

He said the thing! Aw. So, after she gets done fucking her stepbrother, she has this sudden post-nut clarity that her Mother is totally going to notice that her thighs are stained red with Kool-Aid Man cum. Wait, let me back up a little, about the Kool-Aid Man cum. First of all, he’s sugar-free, which is important to note. He tells Jules his weird punch cum won’t give her a yeast infection because it’s sugar-free.

There’s long been a debate over whether the Kool-Aid Man is the liquid or the glass. Vera asserts that he’s mostly the glass, but the liquid is a sort of all-purpose cloaca-like body fluid that is blood, piss, and cum. Or, the Kool-Aid Man is completely filled to the brim with cum. Your choice. I’ve chosen cloaca, and it’s honestly not better.

Oh, so you’re the one person on Earth with not gross cum just because it’s Cherry Chill-Assist flavored? Ok, Red. This guy is arrogant. I don’t want to harp on the Kool-Aid Man cum, I feel like I’ve been talking about it for a really long time, but I can’t stop. He cums so much that it fills up the sauna, and their clothes are floating around. I don’t see how he could ever have sex anywhere but an environment with a large drain. He could never get a memory foam mattress; it would be a soggy red sponge. The logistics of fucking the Kool-Aid Man are mind-boggling. I feel like we could have made this simpler than he cums a Costco size bucket of cloaca punch every time he cums, but then it wouldn’t be as realistic, and you have to respect the artist’s dedication to the truth.

Anyway, their vigorous lovemaking shook the tree away from the sauna door, and they can escape now! Yes, I said love making, she didn’t just suck him down like a thirsty little cup. They’re in love now!

Red invites Jules to apply for a secretary position at the demolition company he works for and to get an apartment with him so she doesn’t have to listen to her Mom get railed by his pallet fucking Dad anymore. I’ll let the ending speak for itself.

No Jules! Don’t let him ruin your bed. If her Mom comes home and the sauna, Jules’ bed, and her mouth are all stained bright red, she’s definitely going to solve that puzzle pretty quickly. It would be extremely difficult to hide the fact that you’re boning down with the Kool-Aid Man all over the house.

I have to say. I really respect the commitment to the bit. I appreciate a product that tells, some would say warns, me repeatedly up top what it is and then delivers exactly that multiple times. Plus, we get a happy ending for the Kool-Aid Man, and does he really deserve that? Oh yeah.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: RedWyneTyme, who has done this enough times to already have tie-dye sheets and simple red sheets, just in case.

Categories
NERDING DAY

Nerding Day: Star Wars Affirmation Cards

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FUCKING DAY

Fucking Day: Girl Hunt!🌭

It’s time to go on a Girl Hunt! It’s 1957, and girl hunting is normal; in fact, it’s all the rage! I’m pretty sure the girls love it. Nothing seems to indicate to me that they don’t, except when they say stop, and don’t, and other jokes that I ignore. Don’t worry, this article won’t be a bummer. It’s about quaint old-timey porn. The kind of porn so adorable that it made me yearn for a time much worse for women.

The premise of Glamour Photography’s The Great Cross-Country Girl Hunt was that three photographers set out on a journey to photograph girls. Back in 1957, girls didn’t have much to do other than hang out by the side of the road, gazing in a mirror and seductively rubbing their legs, or leaning forward and contemplating how much they’d like to be photographed by a big, strong man, or humping a tree.

As a representative of the wacky girls, I just want to say, they’ll never catch us. We’re far too fast, and we’ve trained for this. The three photographers are Tasker, Turtz, and Willard. Tasker is a husky commercial photographer, Turtz is a small town portrait photographer, and Willard is a fashion photographer. They are the Larry, Moe, and Curly of photographing scantily clad women. Wow, even my references are going to be retro this week. We follow Tasker, Turtz, and Willard on their cross country journey to hunt women as they talk about them in the exact same way a serial killer would.

Ostensibly, the point of Glamour Photography Magazine is to teach men “the technical and philosophical aspects of photographing pretty girls.” That seems like more of a folksy little story to explain why there are so many girl butts, shoulders, and thighs in the magazine.

The articles don’t discuss lighting, posing, or what cameras they’re using specifically. They mostly talk about how they managed to dupe all of these beautiful women into posing for them, and the answer is mostly that they asked. It was 1957, no one had TikTok to browse, so they were like, “Sure, I’ll flash my butt for $25, which is also enough money for a two-bedroom home.”

The women in these stories are…pretty improbable. Supposedly, the above squeaky clean farm girl was wandering down a country road with a pie in each hand. The photographers convince her to let them photograph her pies. Then they end up getting shots of her in just a towel and that stupid Wendy’s logo haircut that only a woman auditioning for the role of wandering pie sex girl would ever wear.

In 1957 photographers were allowed to pester women anywhere. They don’t have to wait for a girl to wander out of her mental institution/bakery. They go to a beauty school and find a bunch of girls hanging outside after class, convincing them they want to take photographs of a makeup tutorial. They meet a waitress in a cafe who sees them discussing past pictures they’ve taken. They stand outside of a cupcake factory! It’s a very dessert-based sex economy.

Basically, Girl Hunt is a fantasy story about three wily little guys tricking very stupid women into showing them a glimpse of their upper thigh. They also get free cute pictures with their dog though, so who is actually winning here? It’s designed to present the women as rubes, but I know who the rube is. Not the girl who owns this cute dalmatian, that’s for sure.

This woman didn’t mysteriously decide to strip down in the middle of the park for three camera-wielding perverts. As punishment for not exposing more than a jaunty glimpse of bare wrists, the photographers called her “the girl with the pixie puss.” She’s forever immortalized in this magazine for arty perverts as pixie puss and not the girl with the sweet dalmation. Some men at a park complimented her dog and took her picture and now she’s pixie puss. Let that be a lesson to you ladies about leaving those wrists exposed around photographers.

Another poor decision many of the women who appeared in these photos made was crawling into a U-Haul to change clothes. This rickety U-Haul is the site of many sexual escapades throughout the magazine. It’s the only backdrop they used consistently. According to the magazine, women were absolutely tripping over each other to get into this rickety horse trailer and get nude. U-Haul really owned the pervert rental market in this era, whereas today we all think of the classic white Budget rental van as a pervert’s preferred mode of transport.

Many pages after introducing the U-Haul they have another photoshoot with a woman who crawls on the roof like a sexy little raccoon. Yes, it’s mostly an excuse for her to show her underwear, but it’s also adorable. Look at the composition on the sex raccoon. I’m really learning a lot about how to photograph beautiful women, one of the most difficult tasks in photography!

They even conclude the magazine with a much glamorized drawing of women in the U-Haul. I guess it’s better than humping a tree by the side of the road. It makes taking your clothes off in a roadside U-Haul because hotel rooms were too expensive for the photographer seem almost glamorous. Almost!

While the U-haul is central to the story, it’s certainly not the only location where women posed glamorously. Here’s a collection of some of my favorite non-U-Haul photos. One lady went bozo pants and boobs out in her living room.

There was a woman who cheekily hid her nudity with a rusty mule. It looks like knowing the location of this mule will be important for detectives later.

At the beginning of the magazine, when it’s still explaining the concept of girls, we are hunting them; they included a map layout with close-ups of women’s faces on it. Some of the women are in ecstasy as you would expect, but one lady is pissed, and I love her. How did you sneak into the porn magazine, Gladys? She looks like she’s saying, “No, I will not show you my feet.” Something the photographers are so used to hearing. They’re truly representing all women in the magazine, even the women who specifically asked not to be represented in this magazine.

Of course, Glamour Photography isn’t just about the many photos of women crawling around in a U-haul. People really bought it for the articles! The headlines are mostly understandable, but there’s a lot of old-timey sex language in this that is truly mystifying. I’m pretty sure this paragraph is an old code that activated a Cold War Russian spy family. What do we think, “a steel-wool sex quality” could possibly mean? Was steel-wool different back then? Did people fuck it? Is everybody fucking steel-wool but me?

Part of this paragraph, where Harvey Turtz wonders how to get a woman out of a phone booth so he can ask to see panties, reads like Spanish to me. I can understand what’s happening from the context, but also what does a garter belt have to do with anything?

He ends up taking a photo of the woman’s extended leg and running away, which was apparently not a crime? Either that or President Eisenhower pre-pardoned every Glamour Photography employee because he has a real thing for half-dressed women in rickety rental vehicles.

Everything wasn’t as easy as snapping a photo of a gal’s gams and then dashing. There are some complaints in this magazine about how times are changing. Picking up female hitch-hikers isn’t as easy or sexy as it used to be! Most female hitch-hikers are doing it for fun now, not desperation. What a bummer! Damn you, thriving economic times.

Do you feel a little more glamorous? Do you understand how to undertake the arduous task of photographing beautiful women? Remember, just ask them; if they say no, do it anyway, and if they say yes, find something old and rusty for them to crawl around as nudely as possible. That’s how you do photography!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Victor Malevankin, who just wanted to see more photos of that cute dog.

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LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: The Extended McDonaldland Universe🌭

McDonald’s is sort of like a parasite found in America that we’ve allowed to infect other countries due to our hubris. It’s everywhere, and that means McDonaldland is everywhere. I’ve spoken about McDonald’s perverse advertising creation before. A world built on a stolen IP that resulted in a million-dollar lawsuit has somehow lasted far longer than the original idea it was ripped off of. McDonaldland makes no sense, and yet, someone has to take it to foreign countries and explain it so that they can make their own interpretations, and those interpretations are…not always great.

That is from a series of McDonald’s commercials created in Pakistan that clearly lost some things in translation. First of all, the McDonald’s gang travels by UFO, which feels spiritually correct but is not established McDonald’s canon. Also, they have made long-armed Grimace, and now that you’ve seen him, I’m sad to report he has also seen you. You should run.

I have to say the comment sections disagree with the translation of this commercial. The song playing in the commercial is at least partially sung in English. They didn’t translate any of the names, so Grimace is still Grimace. But instead of “heartless butt on Grimace,” I’m told the actual translation is “Grimace does the twist.” The plot of the commercial is that the McDonaldland gang has dropped from the sky to have a dance competition, which results in a four-way tie, so…buy McDonald’s, I guess?”

Imagine this was your first exposure to the characters in McDonaldland. You don’t open with Grimace! Grimace is a hard intro. Grimace looks like a sex toy trying to adapt to life on land. He looks like a gummy bear’s idea of Satan. Most countries don’t throw Grimace at you right away. They start you off with Ronald and some tiny, non-threatening hamburger people. This is pretty rough all around, though. It’s not just the bad CGI that makes the characters look like newborn babies attempting to hold up a wobbly head instead of dancing. Their version of Ronald McDonald is a sad man with hands larger than his head, eating a chicken sandwich that is also larger than his head. Internationally, the worst Ronald.

They don’t always change the look of the McDonald’s cast. In fact, they reskin a lot of American McDonald’s commercials with local languages, or even sometimes just local accents. Australian Ronald McDonald is twenty percent more handsome for some reason.

This Rugged Ronnie McDonnie seems to be outdoors more than the American clown. He also appears to have the power to construct a McDonald’s anywhere, including on the moon, which is a pretty cool superpower. Still, there’s something in my body that sort of revolts when he starts talking. He says, “Crikey, I’m Ronahld McDonahld.” My brain says nu uh that’s a STRANGER! It could just be my built-in clown danger instincts finally starting to kick in.

There are plenty of countries that have introduced the whole McDonaldland gang, and the formula for it seems to be that they just show up all at the same time, much like in Pakistan. A lot of times, they explain them even less. At least the Pakistan McDonald’s marketing team decided to attach names to all of these monsters. In some countries, they just show you Grimace and expect you to take him at face value. HOW. We’re used to seeing him in America, and we still have so many questions. Like is he the ghost of a boy who choked on fruit snacks?

Imagine being the American tasked with going to other countries and explaining McDonaldland. McDonald’s has a marketing policy book called “The Golden Arches Code”. In the past, it’s included things like Ronald McDonald cannot be seen visiting a nightclub or lounge, he doesn’t smoke, and no one should ever call him Ronnie. Whoops, I’ve broken the golden arches code. Officer Big Mac will be here for me any second.

There are other constants of the McDonaldland universe that aren’t as explicitly stated, but nevertheless seem to be cross-cultural. I’m talking, of course, about the Hamburglar being kind of sexy. Check out this cleaned-up K-Pop-inspired Hamburglar from Japan.

Bonus anime Hamburglar and Grimace included in gif! When they needed someone to do a fun little dance with Grimace of the Grimace shake, McDonald’s was like, take the Hamburglar, he’s the hot one. It’s established American canon, and Japan just had to accept that, probably with no follow-up questions allowed.

McDonald’s should be damn thankful that they lasted long enough in Japan to make it to the K-Pop Hamburglar era. Their earlier attempts at advertising in the country included Officer Big Mac housing Big Macs in front of a child. I never wanted to know how Officer Big Mac’s mouth opened, and now that I’ve seen that big floppy piece of cheese masticating, it’s seared into the do not enter portion of my mind. Watching a burger man eat a burger somehow created an enduring legacy for McDonald’s? There are around 3,000 McDonald’s franchises in Japan today. People loved to watch the Big Mac man eat Big Macs.

There is one country that took the concept of McDonaldland and improved it. If McDonald’s Brazilian commercials have no fans, then I am dead. Ronald lives in this dope, magical forest and kidnaps children there. It’s fine, it’s fine. Ronald always abducts children and brings them to McDonaldland. It’s just that McDonaldland is usually a quaint little small town, and now it’s just straight up the woods. Which I know sounds bad, but it’s more of a fairytale vibe. It puts children getting kidnapped by a clown in a way more positive light. In recent years children getting kidnapped by a clown has gotten a really bad reputation. If people saw these commercials, I think they would fix that.

The reason I’m so ok with Ronnie beckoning this child to follow him into the woods is very simple. He’s in a band. What, it’s a great band? In the forest where Ronald lives with his fellow band members, he has a full upright piano that he plays. The other instruments are an interesting mix of things. Hamburglar is on the clarinet, The Professor plays trombone, Captain Crook rocks the base, poor Birdie just gets some maracas, Officer Big Mac plays drums, and Grimace has a banjo for some reason. It looks like someone Googled instruments question mark and handed out the top six from the AI summary.

These Brazilian commercials were really long, up to a minute and thirty seconds of Ronald and friends, mostly straight up jamming. There’s one where Ronald wakes up in a bed in the middle of the woods, finds that he is surrounded by the members of his band, then jumps on a big trampoline. I don’t know what it means, but it makes me want a quarter pounder with cheese. I watched a compilation of fifty-eight foreign McDonald’s ads for this commercial, and these were a real bright spot in a lot of repeats and terrifying burger cannibalism. In retrospect, that might be why I was so chill with the kidnapping earlier.

All France had to offer me was an extreme close-up of Ronald McDonald’s face surrounded by tiny cookie versions of his face, which has again triggered my sense of clown danger. Brazilian Ronald would never hurt you; he’s too busy playing piano and enjoying nature. French Ronald McDonald has plans. I don’t know what they are, but I know they’re not good.

Overall, the game of McDonald’s mascot telephone has served them pretty well cross-culturally. The Golden Arches code has been upheld. Ronald is always a little menacing, Grimace is a mysterious blob. Does he actually taste like blueberry? We’ll never know until it’s far too late. The Hamburglar is the pretty one, and everyone else was laid off in the ’90s. No matter what country you travel to, there will always be a menacing clown man there to greet you!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: James Boyd, the model used for figuring out how Officer Big Mac would officially eat.