Would you like fries with that? Or would you like to die? Your call.
As I've told y'all too many times, I loves me some scary movies. I also loves me some non-subject-verb agreement, apparently.
Whatever, I was watching John Carpenter's 1980 creeper "The Fog" for the umpteenth time this week, and the little kid that plays Adrienne Barbeau's son asks, "Mom, can I have a stomach pounder and a Coke?"
What the Helena Bonham Carter is a stomach pounder? At first, I thought it was their play on the McDonald's Quarter Pounder, which came along in the early 1970s. Yes, I am a burger historian.
I can't find anything online about it, other than people's guesses that it was something violent involving playground bullies. I'd totally buy that because the kid's annoying. I mean, really, who delights in finding a piece of wood with the word "DANE" on it unless your first name is either Dane or Great, or if you were a Taylor Dayne fan that can't spell.
Anyway, methinks it was an opportunity missed by Mickey D's to place one of their most iconic products in what was undoubtedly a successful film ($21,378,000 in box-office receipts in 1980 = $1.5 trillion in today's dollars, by my estimates).
Then again, I can't imagine a successful marketing campaign for McDonald's/"The Fog." What in the world would the Happy Meal toy be for that?
Perhaps the commercial would feature the undead leper, Capt. Blake, emerging from the fog, eyes glowing red, and his hand extended -- not to kill you, though, but to offer you a Stomach Pounder with cheese. And a Coke, of course. Nothing goes better with fast food from the undead like good ol' fashioned Coca-Cola. Not so old-fashioned to have still had the cocaine in it, but ... Nevermind.
So do you know what it is? Is it greasy and edible? Or is it something you get for being the fat, effeminate kid in fifth grade?
Peace, love and a Coke ... XOXO
