Hipster Hamburglar

About

Hipster Hamburglar is the nickname for an updated depiction of the McDonald’s mascot Hamburglar, who was revived as the alter ego of a hip, suburban father in a promotional campaign for the Sirloin Third Pound Burger in May 2015.

Origin

The Hamburglar^[1] villain was first introduced in 1971 in several McDonald’s television commercials as a thief wearing a black-and-white shirt and pants, red cape and a wide brimmed hat (shown below). The character was commonly featured in promotions for the fast food restaurant until 2003.

On May 6th, 2015, the McDonald’s Twitter feed posted a commercial for their new Sirloin Third Pound burger, in which a father wearing a black-and-white striped apron is shown performing various flair tricks with a spatula while grilling hamburgers in his backyard, followed by a voice whispering the Hamburglar’s catchphrase “robble robble” (shown below).

That day, the fast food company released a promotional image for an updated version of the Hamburglar character, who is depicted as a bearded adult man wearing a black trenchcoat, striped shirt and black mask (shown below).

Spread

The same day, USA Today^[2] published an article about the McDonald’s character, referring to him as a “hipster version” of the villain. Meanwhile, Twitter users began posting tweets mocking the character’s trendy appearance (shown below).^[3][4]

On May 7th, Redditor PR0F_CHA0S posted a gallery of tweets criticizing the new Hamburglar to the /r/LeWrongGeneration^[5] subreddit. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to the character, including The Daily What,^[6] E! Online,^[7] UpRoxx,^[8] Mashable^[9] and NPR.^[10]

Search Interest

External References