Rick and Morty fans were disappointed to find out that waiting in line for hours to try a coveted Szechuan Sauce was for nothing after the limited supply ran out.
For those not familiar with the Adult Swim TV show, Rick and Morty, the cartoon follows a mad scientist character, Rick Sanchez, and his grandson, Morty Smith. The duo go on adventures through different dimensions and universes, creating a high action show. The crude, and often times dark, humor has created a cult following made up of super fans that follow the show religiously.
The season three premiere which aired April 1 ended with a rant from Sanchez that made the internet go crazy. Sanchez goes into extensive detail about how the one thing that he wants in life is McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce, and how he will search the universe to find it.
The Szechuan sauce he speaks of was released, for a limited time, in 1998 to promote the Disney movie, Mulan, and had not been distributed at McDonald’s since.
After the episode aired, fans took to the internet, creating memes and signing a petition with roughly 40,000 signatures for McDonalds to bring the dipping sauce back.
McDonald’s took note of the demand. They did so by giving away four jugs of the sauce, one to the shows creators and three to lucky fans. They also ran single day promotion on Oct. 7 where there would be “a very limited” supply available to customers, according to their website.
The only participating McDonald’s in the Orlando area was located on Alafaya Trail across the street from UCF.
The promotion wasn’t scheduled to start until 2 p.m., but this didn’t stop fans from creating a line early.
“I’ve been here since 7:30, this morning,” said Phillip Lupardus, who was standing at the front of the line.
Lupardus considers himself a big fan of the show and was getting the sauce to keep as a collector’s item. “I’m probably not going to open this one, but it’s nice to have,” said Lupardus.
McDonald’s kept the details of the promotion vague, and although they called the sauce “very limited” on their website, it was hard to imagine just how few were available. The participating McDonald’s location in Orlando was given only 20 single-serving packets of the sauce for the hundreds of fans who circled around the McDonalds property.
“This sucks,” said UCF sophomore, Luke Hazzolton. “I stayed up all night checking the line. Everyone came around 10 and now there’s more than 20 people ahead of me.”
The limited supply caused a sense of distress and disappointment to those who had been in line for hours, but were not close enough to the front. One woman went far enough to bribe people near the front with $100 for their spot.
Despite the goodwill of some who shared their sauce, hundreds of fans left McDonald’s empty handed and disappointed. There was a level of frustration in the air, with everyone wondering why McDonald’s squandered a potentially great promotional opportunity by offering only 20 servings of the sauce that everyone came for.
