Is It Time to Bring Back the Super Size Fries?
A dishonest filmmaker shamed McDonald’s into ending a 90’s delicacy. Can I get a reboot with that?
In 2004, Morgan Spurlock released a film called Super Size Me, in which he, get this, stuffed his face with McDonald’s for thirty days, stopped exercising, and then expressed complete shock that it ruined his health. (It turns out that he was also struggling with alcoholism, too). Many American viewers were persuaded by Super Size Me’s argument that McDonald’s was bad for you, and many more American schoolchildren were forced to sit through it in health class. The film had come out only three years after Eric Scholsser’s brutal expose of the fast food industry, Fast Food Nation, which had many Americans re-thinking their diets. The film also tapped into the understandable anxieties that people have about obesity and consumerism, but it used junk science to do so.
Let me tell you folks a story. When I was an undergraduate in college, I was big fan of take-out Chinese. I once ate spicy Szechuan shrimp three nights in a row. On the fourth night, I had the worst digestion of my life. The lesson I did not take from this was that take-out Chinese is bad. It’s that I shouldn’t eat take-out Chinese three nights in a row. This was not the lesson that many people took from Super Size Me, who were all too eager to believe only the worst about fast food.
It’s worth adding that Spurlock’s so-called “experiment” was far from definitive. An Iowan science teacher, John Cisna, ate nothing but McDonald’s for 90 days. The result? He lost 37 pounds and lowered his cholesterol by 60 points! His secret was, get this, watching his calorie intake and exercising daily. I mean, even the disgraced Jared Fogle still exercised during his Subway diet. Don Gorske has set the world record of 30,000 Big Macs consumed, and as far as I know, is still in very good health. Regardless, the damage of Super Size Me had been done. Spurlock’s film went on to gain critical acclaim, while McDonald’s, fearing the bad PR, ended their Super Size Menu in 2004.
American culture in the 1990s is seen by many as the peak of excessive consumerism, and no product symbolized that more than the McDonald’s Super Size Menu. Big Mac, large fry and giant soda not big enough for you? Super Size it for only 39 cents more! The concept seems so ridiculous today, with all of the fast food chains now trying to promote “healthy options” and “nutritional value,” but the 1990s were a very different time.
Now, while the Super Size Menu began in 1992, it technically had its roots in the 1985 Value Pack and the 1988 Super Summer Sizes. The Super Size option also had an interesting relationship with professional sports, not only sponsoring the 1994 Winter Olympics, but also the “Dream Team II” during the 1994 FIBA World Championships. Before you dismiss this relationship as pure corporate fantasy, it turns out that many Olympians actually do eat a lot of McDonald’s.
For me, the fries were the best part of the Super Size Menu. Why? Well, for one, I didn’t like hamburgers, and a giant drink didn’t appeal to me, either. The fries were perfect, though, because they were a convenient snack that you could pop into your mouth one at a time. Sometimes, my mother would buy a Supersized fry for me and my brother, as it was big enough for us to share and satisfying enough to keep us quiet until dinner.
In fairness to Spurlock, the end of the Super Size option was not entirely his fault. McDonald’s spokesperson, Walt Riker, told CBS at the time that Super Size just wasn’t selling all that well. McDonald’s, of course, denies that the documentary had any role in their decision to end the feature, but, come on, nobody believes that. Now, by some measures, the large fry and supersize fry aren’t all that different, with one reviewer noting a change of only two extra fries. I don’t know, it just felt bigger to me as a kid.
From Captain Marvel to Space Jam, 90s nostalgia has become more profitable than ever. It could be very lucrative for McDonald’s to tap into this sentiment and bring back the Super Size fries, if only for a limited time. Look, I know it might be bad PR, but considering that Japan’s McDonald’s happily advertises the friggin’ Mega Potato, I think America could afford to indulge in this 90s delicacy for a little bit.
