【Sport Archives】

The Sport ArchivesMcDonald's Rick and Morty-inspired Szechuan sauce promotion continues to be an absolute embarrassment for everyone involved.

The fast food giant released a "super-limited" amount of the special edition dipping sauce on Oct. 7, giving Rick and Morty fans an excuse to line up outside their nearest participating McDonalds location for a chance to emulate their favorite mad scientist's quest for the sweetest of the McNugget nectars.

Things didn't quite go according to plan.

Fans immediately took to Twitter to complain of long lines, early Szechuan handouts before the 2:00 p.m. start time, and restaurants that didn't even have the sauce in stock, even though they were slated to have it.

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Others, meanwhile, posted accounts of adults acting like petulant children and treating McDonald's employees poorly when they learned the limited edition sauce had sold out. Naturally, eBay speculators had a field day.

Immediately following the promotion, McDonald's sent out a conciliatory tweet in an attempt to quell all the fans complaining that they didn't have a shot at tasting the sauce.

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The gesture was not met with level-headed responses from angry Rick and Mortyfans. Folks, we have another #boycott on our hands.

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What started as a fun acknowledgment of a cult fandom has turned into just the latest reason that a group has decided to brandish its collective anger at a brand.

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McDonald's appeared to have botched the promotion by only shelling out a few packets to each participating location — and some people claim that employees took the sauce and limited edition posters for themselves — but is it really worth lawsuits?

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Fans not getting the sauce they wanted and McDonald's failing to follow through on the home run potential of the promotion are both disappointing — but that's the extent of it.

The McDonald's boycott will likely be as effective as other movements against major corporations before it, but who knows: maybe the company will learn from this debacle and do it better next time. Someday, we might all finally get some Szechuan sauce. In the meantime: calm down.