Episode 77: Super Size Me

This week on Culture Dumps we explore one of the most popular documentaries of all time, “Super Size Me.” Was Morgan Spurlock just blowing off steam or did his experiment truly influence the fast food market? Ryan is joined by Eric D of MethSyndicate once again to dive deeply into the genre defining film. Also, the Filet of Fish is bomb and Spurlock is kind of a creep.

Episode 66: McDonald’s “Hot Coffee” Lawsuit

The term “frivolous lawsuit” gets thrown around quite a bit, however, the number one go-to example of a frivolous lawsuit was not frivolous at all. In 1992 a 79-year-old woman spilt some of her McDonald’s coffee onto her lap causing third degree burns of six percent of her body. The media completely flubbed the story and painted the woman as a shady grifter who was attempting to scam the Golden Arches out of millions of dollars. We crack open this case file to prove that, yes, the coffee was too damn hot!

Episode 35: Mac Tonight

In the late 1980s, McDonalds introduced a mascot into their family, Mac Tonight. The campaign was aimed at attracting more people to eat McDonalds for dinner. Mac Tonight was a fashionably dressed, crescent moon faced man. His name is a pun based on the classic song “Mack the Knife.” A bizarre juxtaposition of classic swing and playful 80s set design, The Mac Tonight ad campaign was an advertising risk that paid off well.

However, the Mac Tonight story has taken a truly bizarre and menacing turn in recent years. The image of Mac became the visual basis for a series of extremely racist jokes in the last ten years. Dubbed the “Moon Man,” the image quickly transitioned from edgelord joke culture to become a coded symbol for white supremacy. Culture Dumps tries to make sense of it all.