McDonald’s Fails To Deliver The Sauce
Poughkeepsie, N.Y. — Fans of Adult Swim’s popular animated series Rick and Morty flocked to select McDonald’s locations around the country on Saturday, Oct. 7, in the hopes of receiving a Szeuchan dipping sauce packet from a new promotional campaign linked with the show. What they found was corporate insufficiency.
With seats filled and standing room shrinking, the fast food eatery temporarily became an exclusive hangout for the Rick and Morty fan base. People came in wearing shirts featuring their favorite characters, some dressed as the show’s titular anti-hero Rick Sanchez. Stickers were hidden among the McDonald’s interior. Conversations were thick with catchphrases, particularly the “Pickle Rick” meme.
The McDonald’s located at 733 Main Street in Poughkeepsie, NY was one of the participating franchises in this nationwide sauce promotion. The website stated sauce packets and posters, designed to emulate aliens that could be from Rick and Morty, were to be given out at 2:00 P.M.
“We raffled away the sauce and posters at eleven this morning,” said the franchise manager at 2:00 P.M., over the roar of disappointed fans and frustrated customers.
With every person that entered, there were at least three groups in earshot already explaining what had happened. The McDonald’s on Main Street had already given away most of the promotional sauce packets and poster at 11 A.M., three hours before the website specified when the giveaway would start.
“In order to get the sauce, you also have to buy one of the buttermilk crispy chicken tender meals from the register, then they give you a ticket for the raffle,” said Lucas Becce, who arrived with his friends at 1 P.M.
The third season of Rick and Morty unofficially premiered on April 1, part of Adult Swim’s tradition to prank their viewers on April Fools’ Day. In the episode, Rick made several open-ended references to McDonald’s Szeuchan sauce, used in 1998 to promote the release of Mulan, demanding its return to the menu.
While avid fans refused to believe Rick and Morty returned on April Fools’ after an 18 month long wait between seasons, the meme of Rick’s coveted Szeuchan sauce grew within online communities, like Reddit, overnight. The Szeuchan meme grew almost in congruence with Rick and Morty’s popularity, as the show propelled from a cult favorite into the mainstream.
A throw-away, yet obscure, reference to make by the Rick and Morty co-creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon, fans took the cartoon request literally. It took McDonald’s six months to capitalize on the opportunity.
“Where’s the sauce?!” several customers yelled at the manager. “Shut up!” a woman with her family yelled back, wanting to hear what the manager had to say.
“There are 17 sauce packets and eight posters left, we will be holding another raffle outside shortly,” the manager said, followed by the clamor of upset consumers.
Patrons followed the manager outside as he picked raffle tickets from a bag, giving present customers the chance to choose between either a sauce packet or a poster that were left.
According to the McDonald’s employees there that day, they received a very limited supply of sauce and posters to giveaway. This was not an isolated incident either, as reports from Rick and Morty fans posted about their dissatisfaction online, especially the show’s own subreddit page which boasts more than 600,000 followers.
Participating McDonald’s had been issued an insufficient supply of sauce packets and promotional posters, most reports stating they were only given 20 packets each.
“If you choose the poster over the sauce, you’re an idiot,” said one angry fan who walked away from the raffle, yelling catchphrases from the show. “We all came here for the sauce.”
Disgruntled people who came out to the Main Street McDonald’s for the Szeuchan sauce left their food wrappers and garbage on tables in protest after learning there was an unlikely chance of them winning the sauce. Other fan reactions were not as tame.
Roiland lightly condemned fans’ disrespectful outburst to McDonalds’ employees in a Tweet, while Harmon criticized the chain’s use of his creative material.
“It’s kinda funny how everyone came out for nothing,” said Greg DiCostanzo. “McDonald’s just played everyone and got the fans all riled up.”
On Oct. 8, while fans try to sell Szeuchan sauce packets for thousands of dollars on eBay, McDonald’s issued a statement addressing a lack of resources for the promotion. They promised fans and customers alike the sauce will return this winter for a limited time, not just one day.
With Rick and Morty’s Season 3 finale occurring on Oct. 1, the chances of fans tasting the Szeuchan sauce in their lifetime before Season 4 premieres is a possible reality.
