McDonald's game piece scams, Superman, and "Osmosis"

**Anthonynotes** · 08-22-2001, 11:29 PM

This week's "Family Guy" featured (among the usual sludge of ethnic/gay/sex/sexist jokes) the FG mother beating up the three Phantom Zone Kryptonian crooks from the "Superman" movies (and sending them flying off into the Phantom Zone-record album cover from the movie). Makes me wish someone could stick the whole cast of this show into the Phantom Zone.... or in a pinch, that ripoff version from "X-Men:Evolution" ("Middleverse"...whatever...)...

Also: "Osmosis Jones" has fallen off the charts from last weekend's box office top 10 films...

On a fanfic-related note: An Indiana woman was arrested with others accused of running a million-dollar fraud scheme involving manipulating/altering those McDonald's Monopoly game pieces:
http://www.indystar.com/print/frontp...es/game22.html

In this month's SUPERMAN ADVENTURES comic, we see Jimmy, feeling like he's being overshadowed by being known as "Superman's pal", joins up with a "Fight Club"-esque outfit. Superman however, eventually shows him the error of his ways (though how he did it at the end struck me as not being too clearly conveyed). My one nitpick was: in various scenes in the story, we see Jimmy's signal watch activated with the sound effect written as "DEET DEET DEET"... I always thought its sound effect as written (in the various comics over the decades) was "zee zee zee" or somesuch, but guess hypersonic signal watches must've gone digital or something (even if it's a non-digital watch) :-)

And finally, a possible note of interest to Sharklady: the comic above had a PPG's pop tart ad in it: it consisted of the girls hovering in mid-air (Buttercup with her fist forward and frowning, Bubbles laughing, and Blossom looking merely pleased) in front of a large hole in a wall...through which we see several other walls with holes in them in a sequential effect, with the last wall having Mojo Jojo plastered against it, looking dazed (with swirly effects around his head in the form of the Pop Tart sprinkles). We see his turban slightly disheveled and part of his brain showing. The ad at the bottom of the page shows several bites taken out of a (real) PPG-Pop-Tart, and the title: "Mojo Jojo didn't see this coming, either"...

-B.
Wonders with the notion of "Digimon: Digital Monsters" just what was wrong with the plain old-fashioned analog monsters I grew up with....must be the price we pay for modern technological progress ;-)

**BourgeoisBuffoon** · 08-22-2001, 11:39 PM

Heard about McDonalds....man....just when you thought it was safe to play a fast-food sponsered event! But really, it is awful. Cannot belive that would happen with Mickeydee's...at least the prizes I DID want, free food, were not rigged!

As for OJ, well, it was bound too happen...the question had been when. Oh well...

**Anthonynotes** · 08-23-2001, 01:52 AM

>>>Heard about McDonalds....man....just when you thought it was safe to play a fast-food sponsered event! But really, it is awful. Cannot belive that would happen with Mickeydee's...at least the prizes I DID want, free food, were not rigged!

<<<

Boy, *there*'s fanfic fodder right there :-)

DOT: I can't believe it---someone actually *rigged* a contest at our favorite restaurant! And after we peeled off 10,000 of tghose game pieces, too! (Points to a giant pile of game pieces behind her)

AXEL: Favorite restaurant, my (bleep)---those (bleep)er cheaters got what they deserved?

BRAIN: (Staring at the article of the cheaters in disgust) *Indigestion*?! I'm glad we're not eating at this restaurant anymore.... (the Sibs make with wide-eyed sad looks) And none of your antics will change my mind. Wretched eatery...

:-)

-B.

**The Mad Hatter** · 08-23-2001, 09:19 AM

That McDonald's tale was incredible... it took my editors a while to figure out that it was real. The thing that really gets me was the admission that the latest round of Monopoly was set up by the FBI.

You're still watching Family Guy, Brainatra? And I thought Belch was a TV masochist...

**Anthonynotes** · 08-23-2001, 10:55 AM

>>>That McDonald's tale was incredible... it took my editors a while to figure out that it was real. The thing that really gets me was the admission that the latest round of Monopoly was set up by the FBI.
<<<

Indeed....my main reaction was to seeing John Ashcroft on the tube proud over having busted up a McDonald's "Monopoly" prize ring :-)

>>
You're still watching Family Guy, Brainatra? And I thought Belch was a TV masochist... <<<

Well, I was going to stop....or at least start reminding myself to rent videos on Wednesday nights (forgot last night that it's discount rental night at a video store nearby, to my annoyance...). That, or I'm really bored (or more depressed than I thought)...

-B.

**Calhoun07** · 08-23-2001, 06:38 PM

I didn't think the McDonalds news was all that surprising. I thought all of those chance games were fixed. Anybody here know anybody who actually won anything worth while in one of those???

**BourgeoisBuffoon** · 08-23-2001, 06:47 PM

I guess we shoulda expected McDonald's too be rigged...
....as for the question, well, if you count lotsa food tickets, no...I never even knew anyone who won the purple color group prize!

(BTW, for me, since I never won anything of BIG value, I thought I might as well go for the food prizes, since I had a chance of winning that...that's why I talk about them so much)

**Calhoun07** · 08-23-2001, 06:58 PM

The coolest thing I won was an empty can of RC in a 12 pack of cans. Why is an empty can of pop cool? Because you could screw the cap off and put whatever you want in there! Kinda like that Campbells Soup can in the Sopranos in their pantry closet. It's rather neat to have around. I looked on the box, and it said only 1 in 1000 would win one. But I have never known anybody to win in one of these fast food contests, or in any chance game for that matter. Who ever actually wins anything from Publishers' Clearing House???

**Joe Tully** · 08-23-2001, 07:06 PM

Yeah, they always make lots of copies of 2 out of 3 in each "Monopoly" and then make only a few of the third one. Unless you're talking about the Baltimore or Boardwalk ones of course.

If I ever play, I kind of hope for an instant prize, but expect something like a free hamburger or soda. A while ago, they did something nice and made it so that it was easy to get Baltimore and Baltic and gave you something like $5 giift certificates or a couple of glasses or something like that. Nothing really worth much money, but at least you felt like you won something. And I'm sure winning something small like that helps encourage customers to play some more.

**Anthonynotes** · 08-23-2001, 11:30 PM

>>>The coolest thing I won was an empty can of RC in a 12 pack of cans. Why is an empty can of pop cool? Because you could screw the cap off and put whatever you want in there! Kinda like that Campbells Soup can in the Sopranos in their pantry closet. It's rather neat to have around. I looked on the box, and it said only 1 in 1000 would win one. But I have never known anybody to win in one of these fast food contests, or in any chance game for that matter.
Who ever actually wins anything from Publishers' Clearing House??? <<<

Probably no one, if all those multiple-state lawsuits PCHouse is facing means anything ;-)

-B.
Who drinks Diet Rite cola...

**DR. BELCH** · 08-24-2001, 11:44 AM

Well...I've gotten a gift certificate from PCH for $300 to put towards luggage, sports equipment, or a trip to some exoctic location. Of course, said prize costs at least three times that, so the brunt of it's coming out of my pocket...oh, yes, I got a subscription to TV Guide that they also tried to make me pay out-of-pocket for (some darn prize, when you have to shoulder the cost!). I wrote a letter and told them flat-out not to send me any more of them or else I would flatulate into the envelope before I sealed my bill marked CANCEL into it and sent it back to them. That same line worked on the Stephen King Book Club as well back in '97....

I always figured sooner or later someone would scheme up a way to cheat in that Monopoly giveaway. They must have to alter each piece subtly to make sure no one reuses last year's (a copyright date or a watermark or something). Now, if I read this article correctly, Phenis (what a monicker) had someone on the inside to get her the goods. Nice work if you can get it.

**Joe Tully** · 08-24-2001, 04:59 PM

Well, they number them differently each year, for one thing. But they probably do have some hidden features too, to keep anyone from altering last year's pieces.