A good portion of my childhood memories revolve around McDonald’s. I was born one year prior to the Reagan administration de-regulating children’s tv, so I was—and am—a sucker for licensed toys. I was also vastly underweight until I was about 35, so McDonald’s was a borderline health food for me. Plus it was easy, cheap and beloved mascot Mac Tonight made it okay for everyone to go to McDonald’s for dinner, a tremendous boon to those of us with tired guardians and an appetite for greasy fries and greasy toys.

I’d say from the ages of 5-10, I ate at McDonald’s about twice a week, it’s presence in my life only threatened by the emergence of the Burger King Kid’s Club and whenever Taco Bell got Batman stuff. Just by law of averages, it’s not a surprise that so many of my childhood memories revolve around McDonald’s, but we also ate at Little Caesar’s quite a bit and the only memory I can cook up of that is “sucked”.

Actually here’s a fun Little Caesar’s fact: I knew it was a rough week for my dad’s bank account when we got Little Caesar’s instead of going to the actual good pizza place. If Friday night dinner was Little Caesar’s and Saturday night was cube steak, there’s a good chance some kind of check was bouncing.

But back to McDonald’s. It was a bright Sunday, some time in spring as I recall it. I think I was 8, which would put us right around 1990 and the time of the McDonald’s Dick Tracy Crime Stopper Scratch-off game, during which I won many a fry and Coke. My father had the McDlt, which was a tasty sandwich whose styrofoam packaging was essentially The Punisher but for ocean life. I had a Happy Meal, probably McNuggets with barbecue sauce. I believe the toy was a small replica of a Hot Cakes container that turned into a pterodactyl.

This was pre-Playplace and I can’t remember if this was the McDonald’s with the weird child jail, ride-on Fry Guys, and user operated Merry-go-round. What I do remember is a young child named Billy who kept climbing on the table and dancing. His mother was exasperated by this, while his slightly older sister was content to narrate the proceedings. “Mom, Billy’s on the table again”, she’d said as Billy stood dead center on the table, bouncing up and down, as if his mother didn’t notice but had just been broken by Billy’s need to break it down.

My father and I thought this was pretty funny, especially as I was never really a “climb public tables” child. So we’d watch Billy get up to hijinx and I’d transform my Hot Cakes into a pterodactyl. Then Billy’s sister said something that stuck with me for the rest of my life.

“Mom, Mom, Billy’s got a hammer in his pants”

Indeed, the backside of Billy’s drawers were hanging low. I did not have context at the time, but knowing what I know after the birth of my brother, I’d say he definitely breached the Luvs at that point. Didn’t stop him from dancing, in fact, it probably helped. It did stop them from eating though, as Billy finally had to be scooped up and removed from the premises.

My father and I have told this story to each other many times, because it’s essentially a perfect moment. In the years since, we routinely refer to shitting oneself or almost shitting oneself to having “a hammer” in one’s pants. Do I know it happened this way? No. We were halfway across the restaurant. That little girl could have said anything. Maybe she said “hamburg” or something. Maybe dad didn’t have the McDlt or I didn’t get a pterodactyl or I wasn’t using all my force of will to win $40 million in a probably fixed Dick Tracy scratch off game. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the memory is nice enough that I don’t need to see grainy security footage of the actual event. Though it feels weird in 2023 to argue that the truth doesn’t matter, there’s degrees to everything, you know? It doesn’t have to be binary.

Here’s one thing I do know: Billy definitely had a hammer in his pants.

The Best Thing I Ever Made

The most popular thing I’ve ever made is this video of me eating a Dollar Tree steak. I made like $300 off of it back when the YouTube monetization rules were different. It’s not a particularly great video, more of an off the cuff idea, though the comments are impressively mean enough that I had to stop looking.

However, the best thing that I’ve ever made is currently sitting under 500 views.

In the heaviest days of the lockdown, something spoke to me. I had spent a good portion of my days making McDonaldland characters in the 2004 GameCube wrestling game, WWE Day of Reckoning. I got even more entertainment by making entrances for the characters, which eventually evolved into writing entrance music.

Maybe three times in my life, a song has arrived fully formed in my head, to the point where the actual recording of it felt like a cover. One was this song that I wrote after I was interviewed by This Podcast Will Kill You. The other 2 were the entrance themes for Mayor McCheese and the Hamburglar.

I eventually made two episodes of a show with these characters and some rough ideas for a third are floating around on my phone, but once work opened back up and my day reverted back to 80% spreadsheet, the voice that told me what Grimace would do next was silenced. Though occasionally, if it’s quiet, I still hear a whisper that says “The King hires the Hamburglar and names him the Whopper Haver”.

Things I’m Enjoying

I have a Paramount Plus subscription for two reasons:

1. Beavis

2. Butt-Head

The show returned this week and I’m overjoyed. It should not work as well as it does, but it’s easily my favorite show on television, even if it makes me feel bad because I love Beavis so much but the episodes that make me laugh the hardest are the ones where he gets the absolute bejeezus knocked out of him. Now if only Paramount would make good on their promise to put up all the old episodes complete with music videos, I could finally retire my bootleg King Turd collection.