Happy Trees vs Happy Meals

The key to happiness: cheap food or amateur painting?

RYAN: Fact: Happy Meals are illogically awesome. For the bargain price of whatever they currently cost, you literally have unlimited options on what you can order. Cheeseburger, hamburger, chicken nuggets, cheeseburger. Anything. Throw in a side of fries (Don’t you dare get the Apple Dipper!) and a drink, and you can see why they’re called “Happy” meals. Oh, and also a toy. A FUCKING TOY!!! What’s that you say? What could possibly be better than that? Oh, I don’t know, how about a sweet cardboard box for said Happy Meal covered with games, puzzles, and pictures of all your favorite McDonald’s characters? Hungry yet? I know I am. And that’s the best part: Ronald is such a freakin’ smart clown he doesn’t bother putting an age limit on who can order off the kids’ menu (take a hint, Steak & Shake!). I ordered Happy Meals ’til I was 18. I only stopped after one cashier asked if I wanted the boy or the girl toy. I took the girl toy, but only out of spite.

SHAWN: Fiction: Trees have no feelings. As living creatures, God’s favorite creations (besides Fraggles) grow and live like you and I. And it took one brilliant man to identify how they feel about this state of being, and that was Bob Ross. Trees are happy, and walking by a happy tree, seeing its beauty and breathing in its fresh oxygen (thanks again, God)—well, there’s just no better feeling—unless, of course, you’re painting it in four seconds flat. Not even the feeling children get having their arteries clogged by a $2 meal that single-handedly injects 700 calories (sans apple dippers, as you suggest) straight into them can compete. And I believe there’s approximately 20 combinations of Happy Meals, not the unlimited options as you suggest. And, sure, some days you can choose to go home with your favorite Bratz toy, but in most cases you don’t even get an option with your toys: whatever big movie dishes out the most cash is what you get, so you may be spending the night with your new Misery Pez dispenser. You can hear the ankles shatter with every bite!

Another satisfied customer.

RYAN: Question: Why should I believe these trees are so happy? They don’t look very happy to me. They look like they’re all just standing there, bored out of their minds listening to that hippie Bob Ross drone on and on about the joy of whatever it was he did for a living. Happy Meals, though, there’s no doubting how happy they are. The smile on the box (and the smile in my stomach) tells me so. So what if McDonald’s likes to incorporate whatever hit film or fad is sweeping the nation into its Happy Meals? It’s called corporate synergy, and I don’t remember you complaining during the Teenie Beanie Baby promotion (I’m still looking for a McNuggets the Bear). Whatever the toy may be, it’s just part of the overall experience of the Happy Meal. Twenty options. Unlimited options. Let’s not get bogged down in numbers that prove me wrong. The point is, there’s a Happy Meal for everyone, no matter their tastes. And no, Shawn, vegetarians don’t count, so don’t even go there.

SHAWN: Answer: Because the trees don’t get winded walking from the kitchen to the dining room. Which isn’t the case with Fatty McDonald and his Happy Meals of disgust. And that Beanie Baby promotion (yeah, there’s a reason McNuggets wasn’t a chicken) doesn’t show corporate synergy, but sell-out-yness. McDonald’s knows its gross-ass food can’t stand on its own, but, hey, maybe if we slap a smile on the box and toss in a decoder ring, mildly retarded children and Ryan will still find them endlessly entertaining. It takes an intelligent, cool-as-a-cucumber hippie like Bob Ross to appreciate the subtle joy of trees. Sure, him and Ronald share the same hair-cut, but it works on a delightful hippie. Ronald just looks like that creepy guy who lives next door to you and keeps offering up candy if you “rub his feet”. And, fun fact, on one episode of The Joy of Painting, someone asked Ross why everything was so happy and he said, “If you want bad stuff, watch the news.” He couldn’t due to copyright law, but he totally meant to add “or eat a Happy Meal”.

RYAN: Theory: You grew up in a traveling circus since apparently you lived next door to a clown. A sexual predator clown, at that (Show me on McNuggets the Bear where he touched you!). And I’m guessing since you grew up as a carnie, your mom couldn’t afford the deliciousness that is a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Maybe you were stuck with the ill-fated Burger King Kids Club; I don’t know. But I do know that you’ve watched Super Size Me way too many times if you truly believe McDonald’s is “gross-ass food” that induces death. Surely we can’t be talking about the same place. McChickens? Double cheeseburgers? Not the McRib. Don’t you dare say that about the McRib! Maybe you should stop letting a bunch of small time never-will-bes like Bob Ross and Morgan Spurlock tell you what to think. And instead of looking for happiness in the bottom of the bottle, head to the nearest set of Golden Arches and give McDonald’s a chance. You’ll find a world of wonder and joy unlike anything you ever experienced growing up in that traveling circus of yours.

Those trees look more content than happy.

SHAWN: Truth: Take your fast food and shove it up your gelatinous ass. Wasn’t your whole argument founded on the idea that you get a lot in a Happy Meal for a “bargain price” (scroll up, it was) and now all of a sudden it’s too ritzy for a carnie? If Happy Meals aren’t for carnies, who are they for? Whether or not Happy Meals are having an identity crisis, I’m pretty sure the Burger King Kids Club meals were more expensive. Just because McDonald’s spends two billion dollars a year to make itself look good, doesn’t mean you need to fall for it and forget that the McRib is neither a rib nor Irish. Have you considered that perhaps the huge multinational conglomerate is the one telling you how to think? You know, rather than placing the blame on a guy whose TV ratings were a two. And not a Nielsen two: just me and whichever wife Mr. Ross was currently married to. Sure, you may think no one can beat McDonald’s, with its money and influence, but Bob Ross and his happy trees spread joy and calmness across the globe. Feel free to waste your life away, hopping off walls in the PlayPlace, even though parents keep giving you that face, stuffing fat and sugars into your body. The rest of us are gonna get baked and personify this here cupcake.

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