The Mayor gets the better of Buffy
April 30th, 2004
Not Mayor Richard Wilkins III, but Mayor McCheese. Let Revolution SF take up the story, related by Sarah Michelle Gellar, about her days as a child actress:
[…]
Gellar told World Entertainment News Network that she was in a Burger King commercial when she was 5. It apparently so offended Mickey D’s that everyone involved in the commercial - including the future Slayer/Daphne - was banned from ever entering McDonald’s.
[…]
What on earth did she do in the ad? Do McDonalds have a hit list of former child actors they train staff to look out for? I Think We Should Be Told…
April 30th, 2004 at 7:40 pm
I don’t feel like Googling on it at present, but I seem to recall seeing Gellar talk about this in some lengthy interview — possibly the one hour E! one she did a few years ago — and I vaguely recall that it was a rare “direct comparison” ad in which they directly dissed McDonalds. It may have been that it was the precedent making one in which it was the First Time one Big Corp. mentioned another one’s product by name (in America, that is) and said it wasn’t as good, resulting in a law suit.
But I may be All Wrong. (I don’t think so, thinking about it for a few seconds more.)
April 30th, 2004 at 10:40 pm
I did google for the story, but all I got were a dozen or so repetitions of the story I related, which is presumably included in the electronic press kit for Scooby-Doo 2 judging by the way it’s repeated almost word for word at every site and seems to have popped up over the last fortnight.
I can see that a groundbreaking direct-comparison ad might have ticked McDonalds off, but I’m not sure banning the kids would be justified. (If I were SMG I might just go into a McDonalds to see whether anyone would feel like buying themselves some bad PR by enforcing the ban.)
May 2nd, 2004 at 4:17 am
Try this, he offered helpfully.
I wish I could get a job doing websearch.
Back in the day, on rec.arts.sf.fandom, they used to refer to “farbering” something, rather than “googling,” he noted immodestly. Of course, that started before Google.