McDonald's Can't Take A Joke .:. grubbykid.com

McDonald's Can't Take A Joke

Improv Everywhere mission: "McDonald's Bathroom Attendant"

UPDATE - Jack Ass Day strikes again (see update).

We have linked to Improv Everywhere before (especially their great Look Up More improv at Union Square), so it saddens me that McDonald's is suing Improv Everywhere for Defamation of Character. This doesn't appear to be an April Fool's Joke, but who knows. It seems a pretty elaborate amont of effort for an April Fool's joke. UPDATE: Here is a news item which raises the April Fools's slant, and it seems this is legit. As an aside, this is exactly why I have April Fool's Day: the whole day I have to double check everything that is said online and I only have so much time in the day (and I'm lazy).

Here is an email I received about the situation:

Improv Everywhere is currently being sued for defamation of character by the McDonald's Corporation. At this time, our lawyers have advised us to remove all content related to "McDonald's Bathroom Attendant" from our site to prevent the possibility of further litigation.

I remembered reading on their website about the "McDonald's Bathroom Attendant" mission, and I couldn't understand how what transpired was could entail "defamation of character" to McDonald's. I don't know if this helps their cause, but Yahoo has a cached copy of the mission, and Improv Everywhere in fact improved the condition of the McDonald's bathroom. I don't know of any laws about impersonating a McDonald's employee, and I'm not a lawyer, but anyone can sue for anything. Hopefully a judge can throw this out with prejudice (so that it can't be refiled) and Improv Everywhere can get back to great public improvisation.

If you want to help with the legal costs, here is additional information:

We are organizing a live concert benefit to take place on Friday, May 20. This event will help us raise funds to pay the hefty legal fees we are incurring. If you have any connections with any musical acts or comedy acts that would be willing to perform (without pay) at this event, please let us know via the contact page on our site.

UPDATE 01 APR 2005
OK, so I was right to be skeptical. According to the MeFi geek squad, it was an April Fools Joke:

McDonald's has dropped their lawsuit against Improv Everywhere on the grounds that today is the first of April.

Sincere thanks to those who so kindly offered to help us out by performing, donating time, or contacting McDonald's. We don't deserve friends like you.

We're sorry. We can't help being April Foolers."

What a lame April Fools joke - for people who do such great Improvs to do such a crappy "joke" is just infuriating.

Just proving my point that 1 April is Jackass Day on the internet.

Comments

Jw says:

I have always disliked April Fools Day. It's best just to avoid info for the whole day of lying.

Posted by: Jw at April 1, 2005 7:48 PM #

Tom Peters says:

I thought it was a pretty funny hoax. Last year on April Fool's they claimed they were being sued by the Estate of Anton Chekov (due to the AWESOME Chekov prank they did-- you have to check it out on their site if you haven't seen it yet). So it's a tradition.

Posted by: Tom Peters at April 3, 2005 1:58 AM #

plemeljr says:

I agree that the Anton Chekov Book Signing was awesome - mostly because Chekov has been dead for quite some time. But April Fools Assery has at least to be funny, or elaborate, or at least so crazy that it is instantly recognizable as an April Assery Joke. This was neither - and frankly I expect better jokes from Improv Everywhere.

Posted by: plemeljr at April 3, 2005 12:42 PM #

maria says:

Don't be bitter just because you were fooled. That's lame, not the joke, funny or not. :-)

Posted by: maria at April 29, 2005 10:03 PM #

plemeljr says:

It isn't about being bitter - it is about having to endure Jackass Day and the fact that this "joke" wasn't all that funny or inventive. Improv Everywhere has quite the stable of inventive and funny people. They dropped the ball on this one - that's lame. Criticizing crappy jokes isn't lame, it is constructive criticism through and through.