Grimace

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For the facial expression, see the Wiktionary article.

Grimace

Grimace is a fictional character who is part of the marketing campaign of McDonald's. He is a friend of Ronald McDonald and a large, jolly fellow who looks like a large purple Gumdrop with small arms and legs. He is known for his smiling face and simple demeanor. His most common expression is the word "duh". Grimace's name is pronounced /ˈgɹɪməs/.

In the first cycle of McDonaldland commercials beginning in 1971, Grimace was the "Evil Grimace", with two pairs of arms with which to steal milkshakes. After that first campaign, the character was revised to be one of the "good guys", and his number of arms was reduced to two.

Today, Grimace is generally portrayed in McDonalds' commercials and merchandise as a sort of well-meaning doofus, whose clumsy antics provide a comic foil to the more serious and mature Ronald McDonald.

Grimace is a fantasy character, and not intended to be anything specific. However, ever since the character's introduction there has been much speculation (though much of it tongue-in-cheek) about his appearance. Because the majority of McDonald's characters more or less directly represent a food product sold at the restaurants (e.g., Mayor McCheese, Fry Guys, McNugget Buddies, etc.) many have naturally tried to guess as to what, if any, food product Grimace is supposed to represent. It is often suggested that he represents the contents of a milkshake. It has more recently been suspected that Grimace may actually be a taste bud, seeing as everything relates directly to food and that the association with a taste bud being Ronald's best friend would be an idealogical relationship.

A common speculation is that he is supposed to be a giant McNugget, but his appearance pre-dates the release of that food. There are many more fanciful attempted explanations, such as grimace representing bowel cancer. In reality, Grimace's "official" role, according to McDonald's, continues to be to represent the chain's milkshakes. However, he does this out of love for the taste, and not because he is in any way a shake-based creature himself.

According to the McDonald's website:

Grimace is a big, loving, fuzzy purple fellow who is Ronald McDonald's best friend. He's sure Ronald is the world's ultimate authority on everything. While Grimace loves all McDonald's foods, he's absolutely crazy about milkshakes. Grimace is very enthusiastic and eager to try new things. His joyous spirit helps everyone overlook the fact he's a little slow and clumsy sometimes.

Grimace also has a relative, Uncle O'Grimacey, a green-colored Irish-version of himself. O'Grimacey was a holiday-themed character used by McDonald's in the 1980s in celebrating St. Patrick's Day, in particular marketing its Shamrock Shake.

According to a line of dialogue from Clerks: The Animated Series, "Nothing can kill The Grimace." Grimace was also referenced on an episode of Family Guy, where Peter referred to him as "Ronald McDonald's autistic friend." For unknown reasons this has been changed in rebroadcasts to "Ronald McDonald's retarded friend." This exchange is during a scene in which Lois puts on a Grimace costume for role play night.

In Brazil, Grimace is known by the name of Shaky. In the UK Grimace is no longer used in advertising or promotions.

Grimace and Ronald are a Moons in the online game of Kingdom of Loathing.