How a classic novel inspired the design of Space Invaders

Hello its blogging time once again and this time  I'm going to talk about another interesting side note in video game history. 

BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP!

There are many landmark titles in video game history Pong, Pacman, Wolfenstein 3D, and one of those titles is Space Invaders. Released in 1978, Space Invaders brought many innovative elements into the video game industry, introduced many game design legends to the field, and had popularized the idea of space shooters and zapping evil descending aliens in video games.

But did you know that they weren't originally supposed to be aliens? In fact it was one memory of a classic movie, based on a classic book that influenced the design and inclusion of aliens in the game. This is the story of How a classic novel inspired the design Space Invaders.

The story begins long before the invention of video games, all the way back in 1895 in the town of Woking Surrey, England, the then home of classic British science fiction novelist, H.G. Wells. 

H.G. Wells during his studies in London (Circa 1890)

Born in Bromley, Kent, in 1866, Wells grew up in a finically struggling family and as a result took his first job as a draper at the young age of 14. In 1884, He won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London (later the Royal College of Science in South Kensington, which became part of Imperial College London), where he studied biology under Thomas Henry Huxley. after earning a degree in Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from the University of London External Programme in 1890, he spent the next 3 years as a teacher. 

By 1895, Wells had married Catherine Robbins, one of his former students, and moved with her to Woking in Surrey. There, he would spend his mornings walking or cycling in the countryside, and his afternoons writing. During one of those morning walks with his brother, an idea emerged when pondering on what it might be like if alien beings were suddenly to descend on the scene. Wells took this concept and refined it into a story of an alien invasion told from an unnamed protagonist. The story was titled The War of the Worlds, and was first serialised in Pearson's Magazine in 1897, and pubblished as full hardcover novel by William Heinemann a year later in 1898. 

The first hardcover edition of The War of the Worlds (1898)

The story was an immediate success and did even better when published in hardcover. inspiring many similar alien invasion stories years afterward, providing many themes open to interpretation such as evolution, religion, and science, and even inspiring scientist Robert H. Goddard to develop both the liquid-fuelled rocket and multistage rocket, which resulted in the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

The story was eventually adapted into other forms. In 1938, it was adapted into a radio drama directed by Orson Welles, it was done in the style of a live news broadcast and was aired at night so people that tuned in late, thought it was real and caused a mass hysteria panic. 

Orson Welles rehearsing for “The Mercury Theater on the Air,” the radio show behind the “War of the Worlds” broadcast (1938)

Around the same time, atempts to bring the book to the silver screen were well under way. Paramount Pictures had purchased the film rights for the book from Welles in 1925, and assigned producer-director Cecil B. DeMille to film it. Roy Pomerey prepared an outline for DeMille, but the project was eventually shelved. In the late 30's,  Paramount assigned Sergei Eisenstein to direct an adaptation of the novel under his contract with the studio, but that failed as well.

It wasnt until 1951 that the film finally began moving into production when Paramount assigned the project to Hungarian American producer George Pal. 

George Pal in 1979

Pal was already working with Paramount on When Worlds Collide, which had already wrapped up production and was getting ready for its release that November, he agreed to the project, becoming its producer, and the directors chair was assigned to Byron Haskin. The film was released in theaters on April 3, 1953 in London, and in North America on August 26, 1953. 

The Original poster for War of the Worlds (1953)

The film makes many changes from the book. It changes the setting from 1898 England, to present day 1953 California, The Martians use hovering spacecrafts rather than the Tripod War machines, and instead of the protagonist searching for his wife after the invasion destroyed society, the protagonist meets and falls in love with a woman. Most of these changes, including the romantic subplot were requested by Paramount Pictures production head Don Hartman, which Pal agreed to do.

Despite the changes, the basic plot remains the same. The film centers around atomic scientist Clayton Forrester (played by Gene Barry), who witnesses  a meteorite crash along with USC library science instructor Sylvia Van Buren (played by Ann Robinson) and her uncle, Pastor Matthew Collins (played by Lewis Martin). It turns out the meteorite was actually an alien war machine emerges and begins killing at random, including Pastor Collins. The Marines are called in and attempt to intervene, but nothing seems to work. With the world at stake, It's up to Forrester and Van Buren to find the aliens weakness before its too late.

The films production quality is pretty top notch for the time. the martian war machines, while not the tripod deathray walkers from the book, do have a fantastic visual design insted of the cliched flying saucers. The film's also in color as opposed to most films in the 1950s which were in black and white. In fact the films poster proudly proclaims it was made in the classic Technicolor system. The sound effects are also great, they even sound a bit like video games lasers, long before games like that would even exist.

The film has some great suspense moments too, You rarely see the aliens, you only see a few glimpses and never see their whole body. 

Much like the book, the film was a commercial success as it grossed $2,000,000 at the box office as well as critical success both at the time of release and today. In fact today, it's considered to be one of the best science fiction films of the 1950s.

But this isn't the films only legacy. On September 1st, 1953 the film made it's way to Japan where it would be seen by a young boy named Tomohiro Nishikado. 

Tomohiro Nishikado (2011)

Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1944, Nishikado grew up with a love for science and technology. When he was in junior high, he built radios and amplifiers in his spare time. After graduating from with an engineering degree from Tokyo Denki University in 1967, he look around various electronics companies for a job. He originally wanted to work at Sony, but failed the final round of the company's testing process. So he joined an audio engineering company called Takt, But after completing training, he wasn't put in the development department, so he quit and looked for a new job, eventually landing a job offer from a communications company. But before beginning, he met an old colleague at a train station who told him about the work he was doing at Taito, and were desperately searching for new engineers. Interested, Nishikado decided to turn down the job offer for the communications company, and joined Pacific Industries Ltd, a subsidiary of Taito, in 1968.

He began working on arcade electro-mechanical games, his first game was Sky Fighter, a aircraft shooting game in 1971. It used mirrors to project images of model planes in front of a moving sky-blue background from a film canister on a rotating drum. The game was a hit, being followed by a scaled-down version, Sky Fighter II, since it was too large for most locations. Sky Fighter II was also a hit, selling 3,000 units. 

Sky Fighter (1971)

In 1972, he began working on video games after Taito imported Atari's Pong and sold their own version in Japan known as ElePong. He spent months analyzing the game's circuit board to understand how it operated so he could make a similar game and in 1973, it payed off. He created his own pong like game called Soccer, Soccer was a ball-and-paddle game like Pong, but with a green background to simulate a soccer field, and had two buttons on the cabinet to adjust the size of the players paddles on screen. Nishikado considers Soccer to be Japan's first original domestically produced video game and it proved to be a big hit. There was also a 4 player version called Davis Cup. 

Soccer and Davis Cup (1973)

Nishikado would work on other games such as Speed Race (A racing game inspired by Kasco's Mini Drive EM racing game), Tv Basketball (A Pong like Basketball game with early human sprites), and Interceptor (a first-person combat flight simulator with early pseudo 3D). 

Left to right: Speed Race (1974) Tv Basketball (1974) Interceptor (1976)

But it was seeing a new game from Atari in 1976 that gave Nishikado the inspiration for his biggest breakthrough, and that game was Breakout. 

Breakout (1976)

he liked the progression mechanics where the game wouldn't advance until the entire row of blocks were cleared as well as how the games difficulty and speed increased as the game progresses. Inspired, he wanted to make a game with similar mechanics but with better visuals. He eventually settled on a shooting game, where the player would need to shoot targets one at a time similar to a carnival shooting gallery.

One big problem that came to Nishikado was what the enemies would be. He tried tanks, combat planes, and battleships, but was unsatisfied with the enemy movements and technical limitations made it difficult to simulate flying. He considered using humans, but felt that it would be too immoral and violent.

But inspiration came soon enough. Inspiration struck one day he looked at a magazine feature about Star Wars. Suddenly, a lightbulb went off, What if he gave the game a space theme and let the enemies be aliens?

With that idea, Nishikado thought of the designs for the aliens. Inspired by the 1953 War of the Worlds film from his childhood, and other illustrations of the aliens in the book, he made the aliens resemble undersea life such as crabs and squids. 

The original design sketches of the Space Invaders aliens

It took him 9 to 10 months to finish programing the game. He wanted to make the game run on a microprocessor instead of TTL logic. The influence for this was when he played Midways Gun Fight, a Microprocessor based version of his game Western Gun. While he though his version was better, he was impressed by Gun Fights better graphics and smoother animation. So, he adopted the hardware, translated the needed information, and built his own tools to develop the game.

                                   

Left: Wester Gun Right: Gun Fight (1975)

When the game was finished, he called his game, Space Monsters. But when he showed the game to management, they requested he change monsters to invaders. Nishikado agreed and the game was named Space Invaders. Space Invaders was released in April, 1978 in Japan, and November, 1978 in North America. The game was a critical commercial success. By the end of 1979, an estimated 750,000 Space Invaders machines were sold worldwide and became the arcade game industry's all-time best-seller. 

Space Invaders (1978)

The game made history as the first game to save the player's score, the first to introduce rounds, the first game where players were given multiple lives, the first where players had to repel hordes of enemies, take cover from enemy fire, and use destructible barriers, and the first game to use a continuous background soundtrack, with four simple diatonic descending bass notes repeating in a loop that changed pace during stages, like a heartbeat sound that increases pace as enemies approached. The game was also many game designers introduction to video games such as Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri, and Wolfenstein 3D and Doom creators John Romero and John Carmack. 

Today, the game is celebrated as one of the greatest games of all time and the aliens are video game icons, and it all traced back to a classic author and work that got adapted into a movie that inspired a game that sparked a video gaming revolution.

Lookin at food: Starry Soda

Well it's blogging time again, and today i'm introducing a new blog series called Lookin at Food, where I take a look at a food that I’ve tried and discuss my thoughts on it. I previously did an entry with this title where I looked at Fruit Brute, a cereal from the 1970s that I got to try for the first time and discussed it’s history and what I thought about it, Today I’m looking at a soda that was created as a replacement for another soda both to complete with another soda and appeal to the modern generation, and that soda is Starry.

Introduced on January 1, 2023, Starry is a lemon lime soda sold by Pepsico both to replace Sierra Mist and to appeal to a Generation Z. 

While the soda has a mixed reception of both positive and negative reactions, my reaction to it is befuddlement and confusion. Every time I look at a glass of Starry, I end up raising my eyebrow.

Visual aid!

Now I know what your thinking, What is it about this soda that leaves you feeling so befuddled Ryan? Well my dear reader, I will go over a 2 main issues I have with this soda.

Problem #1: Pepsi has had many Lemon Lime sodas prior to Starry

Yes, even before Sierra mist, the soda that Starry was meant to replace, Pepsi had sold not 1, not 2, but 3 different Lemon lime sodas prior to Sierra mist and making a total of 4 before Starry! Thats right, its not just Sierra Mist that sold before Starry, no there a whole timeline of Lemon Lime sodas from Pepsi that stretch back to the last 64 years! 

The first soda was Teem it was introduced on April 10, 1959 in St. Joseph, Missouri and followed to the rest of the country a few days later on April 13.

An early ad for Teem (1959)

Originally, the soda was going to be called Duet, but there was already a margarine under the same name, so they changed it to Teem. Why they called it that is unknown, but my theory is that it refers to the "Team up" of lemon and lime flavors, and why it's spelled T-e-e-m, rather than T-e-a-m, is meant to refer to the e's in lemon and lime. 

Either way, the soda was a decent success, being sold from 1959 to 1984. Some sources say that it was available in some certain soda fountains into the 1990s, but this is unconfirmed. It is apparently however still sold in other countries such as Brazil, Uruguay, Honduras, Nepal, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and South Africa.

The second soda was Slice, it was introduced in 1984 as a replacement for Teem, a direct competitor to Sprite and 7-Up, and is probably the soda most people think about when they think of when they think about the soda that predated Sierra Mist. The main distinguishing characteristic it had at the time compared to other lemon lime sodas on the market was the fact that it contained 10% fruit juice, even going so far as to use this as a slogan stating "We got the juice". 

The first ad for Slice (1984)

The soda was also a success, and even inspiring other companies to created they're own juice-infused drinks based on already existing juice brands, such as Coca-Cola's Minute Maid orange soda and Cadbury Schweppes's Sunkist. They also introduced other flavors, such as a diet version in 1985, a Mandarin Orange flavor, an Apple flavor, and a Cherry flavor in 1986, and various other flavors such as Fruit punch, Grape, Passionfruit, Peach, Pineapple, Pink Lemonade, Strawberry and even a Dr Pepper-like Dr Slice throughout the 1990s.

While the lemon lime Slice was discontinued in 2000, the various other flavors of Slice continued to be sold as late as 2011 in some stores. The soda did also make 2 comebacks both as a failed lower-sugar, lower-calorie juice beverage in 2018, and as a proper soda in 2022.

The third and probably shortest lived of these was Storm, introduced in 1998. The reason it was short lived was because it never made its way out of the test market phase. It was also different compared to other lemon lime sodas on the market as it was only lightly carbonated, contained caffeine, and it had a very faint lemon lime flavor with some bitterness to it, kind of like Schweppes's bitter lemon I suppose. 

The first ad for Storm (1998)

The soda was only sold in Denver, Indianapolis, Omaha, San Francisco, Sacramento, Grass Valley Las Vegas, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia areas and was discontinued in 2000.

Sierra Mist came on to the scene on May 7, 1999 and outlive both Slice and Storm before Starry would come along in 2023, which leads us to the present day.

Are you starting to see a problem yet? Pepsico has marketed 5 different lemon lime sodas over a period of 64 years, and most of them don't seem to last past 25 years or so. In fact,depending on which state you lived in, in 1999 you could have got Sierra Mist, Storm, or Slice at the same time, Which I can't imagine that making retailers very happy as they had to stock 3 different sodas with the same flavor from the same manufacturer! So what would be the point of making a new lemon lime soda when you've had 4 different ones in the past?

Timeline of Limen before Starry

Problem #2: It's marketing specifically toward Gen Z

Now, I understand that you need to market product to appeal to a current generation of people, you can't just market a product that looks outdated and expect it to sell well. however, I cant help but feel that marketing to Gen Z and Gen Z only would contribute to the longevity of said product. There's only one other soda I know of that did something similar to this, and that was a soda called O.K. which was launched by Pepsi's rival Coca-Cola in a few test markets in 1993 and was targeting Gen X consumers, and that soda never made it out of the test market phase. Now Obviously I know that targeting Gen X probably wasn't the reason for O.K.'s failure in the test market, but i'm sure that even if it had been launched nationwide, I can't help but feel marketing to one specific generation would have let it survive past the new millennium. 

A can of O.K. soda (1993)

The idea is that marketing to Gen Z will give them about a 5% to 10% market share increase. But considering the numbers, in my eyes doesn't seem like that much. In 2022, Sierra mist placed 3rd place within the Lemon lime soda market, with Sprite leading the pack at 73%, 7up at 14% and Sierra Mist accounting for only 7% of market share. 

The market share of lemon lime sodas in 2022 

Even if they were to capture that amount, that would only put them at around 12% to 17% of market share which doesn't seem like that much, that's only slightly higher than 7up, and would still leave Sprite with 68% to 63% of the market.

There's also something to be said about sticking with Gen Z aesthetics, if you were to stick with these kind of aesthetics and designs for products and not appealing to other markets that come along in the coming years, they'll pretty much be stuck back in the 2020's.

Now, these issues aside, What does the soda actually taste like? Well, it tastes pretty good, Its what you expect from a lemon lime soda, sweet and citrusy. It's certainly the closest to Sprite that Pepsico's gotten to a lemon lime soda to taste like.

Overall, despite my gripes, Starry isn't bad. It's got a decent taste and i'm sure Sprite fans wouldn't mind having a swig if they get the chance. But I can't help but wonder why Pepsico didn't just simply reformulate Sierra Mist and change the marketing. I feel it would be cheaper (Or about the same price) than just launching a whole new soda from the ground up. All can say is it's just another mystery about the behind the scenes of modern businesses. Thanks for reading and i'll see you next time!

20 years of Rooster Teeth

It's April fools day, a day dedicated to pulling practical jokes on family and friends. But 20 years ago, for three friends, it was about founding a company to produce a web series that would not only go on to be award winning, but popularize the use of Machinima.  This company is called Rooster Teeth and they're now a billion video view powerhouse. To celebrate this occasion and as an old school fan, In this blog entry, I'm going to tell the story of how it all started.

The Story of Roster Teeth begins in 1997, While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, and Joel Heyman collaborated on a 1997 independent film called The Schedule. Although the film helped Hullum and Heyman to find work in Los Angeles, it had limited success. After the film proved to be unsuccessful, Burns went to work for a a local company named Telenetwork, and met Geoff Ramsey (then named Geoff Fink), Gustavo Sorola, Dan Godwin, and Jason Saldaña. met  According to Burns, he met Gustavi "Gus" Sorola one day palying Dead Or Alive 2 on a Sega Dreamcast in the breakroom. He beat him the first round and replied "Im good at video games". Infuriated, Sorola beat him the next round, turned to him with a cold stare, and said "I'm also good at video games!" The five friends formed their own website called drunkgamers.com making game reviews while drunk. 

drunkgamers.com (2001)

Meanwhile, Microsoft was taking a bold move to enter the video game console market, with the Xbox on November 15, 2001. 

The Xbox (2001)

Along with the system came a Sci-Fi, First person Shooter called Halo: combat evolved. 

The cover for Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)

Burns made a voiceover-enhanced gameplay video for drunkgamers.com. Having played Halo: Combat Evolved extensively, one day in 2002, the drunkgamers crew discussed whether the Warthog, an automobile in the game, looks like a puma. Seeing potential for a full story, Burns created a trailer for Red vs. Blue which was released September 5, 2002 on the Drunkgamers website. 

The trailer for Red Vs Blue (2002)

Unfortunately it was largely ignored, and drunkgamers soon closed. However, Four months later, Computer Gaming World contacted Ramsey for permission to include a different drunkgamers video in a CD to be distributed with the magazine. Ramsey granted permission, but he and Burns felt that they needed a website to take advantage of the exposure from Computer Gaming World. They therefore resurrected Red vs. Blue and re-released the trailer to coincide with the Computer Gaming World issue. The first episode proper was distubuted on QuickTime and Windows Media Video formats on April 1, 2003, on Slashdot, Penny Arcade, and Fark

   

The first episode of Red Vs Blue (2002)

It was an immediate success, being downloaded 20,000 times within just 1 day. 6 months later, the series  won awards for Best Picture, Best Independent Machinima Film, and Best Writing at the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences' 2003 Machinima Film Festival. 

This resulted in the creation of a production company, Inspired by one of the insults used in Red Vs Blue, "cockbite", They called the Company Rooster Teeth. Not long after season 2 they were approached by Bungie themselves and made a deal to use Bungie's titles without any licensing fees. By 2004, it was estimated that Red Vs Blue's viewership was generating between 650,000 and 1,000,000 in viewship and was generating almost US$200,000 annually. In 2008, the company diversified with the creation of Achievement Hunter, a website is largely based on the achievement mechanic in video games. That same year Their YouTube channel was established. By 2014, They had relocated to Stage 5 in Austin, and had around 90 employees. Their content was also expanding, Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures (Or RTAA), based on the Rooster Teeth Podcast, debuted in 2010, RWBY debuted in 2013, and their first feature film Lazer Team is released in 2015.

In 2017, The company began participating in Extra Life, a gaming-themed fundraiser with R proceeds going to Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas, raising a total of US$1,209,970.73. The 2018 Extra Life stream raised US$1,417,288, and The 2019 Extra Life stream raised US$1,222,371. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rooster Teeth shortened the 2020 stream to 12 hours. It raised a total of US$1,163,801 for Dell Children's Medical Center.

Today the company is now part of Warner Bros. and has diversified into  Other projects include reality shows, video game development, and even comics. What started as a simple web series, now has led to a the growth of a giant. Happy April Fools Day Everybody!

The story of the Shamrock Shake

It's St. Patrick's Day, and for today's blog celebrating, It's Fast Food history time again. In this entry, we're going back to the 1970s, to take a look at the Shamrock Shake offered by McDonald's and the forgotten mascot who helped promote them, Uncle O'Grimacey. 

The Shamrock Shake and Uncle O'Grimacey 

Before I talk about the Shamrock Shake, let's take a look at Mcdonalds itself, because there is some Irish background to the company as well. It all began in 1937 with two brothers Richard "Dick" McDonald and Maurice "Mac" McDonald. Richard was born on February 16, 1909, and Maurice was born on November 26, 1902. The brothers were born to Patrick and Margarete McDonald, two immigrants that who to the United States from Ireland as children. 

Richard "Dick" McDonald and Maurice "Mac" McDonald

After their father lost his job at the G. P. Crafts shoe factory After 42 years of loyal service, the family moved from Manchester New Hampshire to Hollywood California. After the brothers graduated from high school, the McDonald brothers began working as set movers and handymen at Columbia film studios and in 1930, they opened a movie theater called The Beacon. 

Unfortunately, The Great Depression prevented the business from succeeding. After seeing the success of a root beer stand called Willey's, the brothers had the idea to switch from movies to food by opening a hotdog stand in Monrovia called The Airdrome. 

The Airdrome (1937)

The Airdrome was a decent success being located on Route 66, and capturing various hungry drivers on the route. In 1940, the brothers brothers moved their stand from Monrovia to San Bernandino and renamed it McDonald’s Bar-B-Que. It focused more on BBQ rather than strictly hot dogs and hamburgers and upgraded to a carhop ordering system. 

The McDonald’s Bar-B-Que stand (1940) 

In 1948, The brothers swapped carhops for a more efficient system they called Speedee Service System, which allowed for a hamburger to be made far quicker than any other restaurant at the time. In 1954, Ray Kroc, a milkshake mixer salesman from Chicago, visited the San Bernardino restaurant and seeing the potential, he bought the rights from the brothers.

On April 15, 1955, Ray Kroc opened the first Mcdonalds restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. It sold hamburgers for 15 cents that could be served in as little as 2 minutes. This was radical for the time as the average diner would take twice as long and cost twice as long. By 1958, the company sold its 100 millionth hamburger and in 1961, Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers. 

The first McDonald’s restaurant (1955) 

Ray Kroc (Right) with Fred Turner (Left) looking at blueprints of future restaurants (1975) 

In 1963, in order to create a mascot that could appeal to kids, former Bozo the Clown actor Willard Scott created and performed the character Ronald Mcdonald on television adverts. 

The first McDonald’s Commercial featuring Ronald Mcdonald (1963) 

In 1971, advertising agency Needham, Harper & Steers decided to give Ronald a world he could live in, and buddies to pal around with. They created a fantastic imaginary world they dubbed McDonaldland, and a cast of characters to populate it: the Hamburglar (A pint-sized burglar who often attempts to steal hamburgers and cheeseburgers from Ronald), Grimace (A large purple monster who attempts to steal milkshakes and Cokes), Captain Crook (Who tends to steal Filet-O-Fish sandwiches and often interprets Hamburglar's gibberish), Officer Big Mac (The main source of law and order in McDonaldland, spending most of his time chasing Hamburglar and Captain Crook.), Mayor McCheese (McDonaldland's bumbling and incompetent mayor), the Professor (A scientist who is McDonaldland's inventor and researcher who specialized in inventing different comical devices) and, of course, Ronald McDonald. 

The first Mcdonald land ad (1971) 

In 1970, Rogers Merchandising in Chicago created the Shamrock Shake to sell for St Patrick's Day. Originally, the shake was lemon/lime flavored with vanilla ice cream, lemon/lime sherbet, and vanilla syrup. By 1973, the lemon/lime sherbet was substituted for a mint flavor. The shake proved to be a massive hit, and Mcdonalds continued to sell them for a limited time every year.

Shamrock Shake ad (1973) 

They even made there way into the Mcdonaldland commercials where Grimace promoted the minty shakes by stealing every one, so much so that he even turned green.

Mcdonaldland Shamrock Shake ad with Grimace (1974) 

In 1975, Mcdonaldland received its first visit from Grimace's Irish uncle, Uncle O'Grimacey. He looked like Grimace, but was green like a shamrock, clad with a green cob hat, a shamrock ladent green vest, and a shillelagh, and of course, spoke in an Irish accent. The character was performed by Robert Towers, voiced by Lennie Weinrib, who also voiced  Scrappy-Doo on Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Bigmouth on The Smurfs, and Timer in the "Time for Timer" ABC PSA's.

The first Mcdonaldland Shamrock Shake ad with Uncle O'Grimacey (1975) 

Much like the rest of the Mcdonaldland characters, Uncle O'Grimacey made his way onto plastic puppets, white cups, and green rings.

Uncle O'Grimacey Merchandise 

Unfortunately, by the 80's, Uncle O'Grimacey was phased out. Supposedly in 1978, An actor in an Uncle O’Grimacey costume said something controversial to a customer at a McDonald’s event regarding Irish separatism. However, no evidence of this event can be found.

The rest of the Mcdonaldland characters faded into the background as well. By 2003, most of the Mcdonaldland characters had disappeared from the advertisements and merchandise. While some of the characters are seen in some advertisements today, for the most part they've been rarely scene today.

As for the Shamrock Shake, It's still an seasonal fast food icon. Along with the McRib, its one of those Legendary Mcdonalds foods you can only get once a year. It also has a dedicated cult following and has been referenced in various tv shows such as The Simpsons.

So that concludes my look at the Shamrock Shake and its forgotten mascot. Happy St. Patrick's Day, and i'll see you next time!