The Founder

"The Founder" is now on Netflix. Reminds me I still need to post the movie vs. reality.

I just finished The Founder a few days ago. Really like it. The kind of simple story-telling movie they don't make enough of. Michael Keaton did a great job. So did the McDonald brothers.

At the beginning I found myself rooting for Kroc as he was struggling to sell blenders. I always tend to root for underdogs. However, as he became more and more successful he turned into a real scumbag. There is probably a correlation there -- the other way. Nice guys in business tend to not get too far.

Also worth watching all the extra features, which went into the process of the making of the set and attention to all the little details of the movie. I didn't even know there is a museum at the sight of the original San Bernadino McDonalds. I'll have to check it out one of my next visits to southern California.

Quote: Wizard

I just finished The Founder a few days ago. Really like it. The kind of simple story-telling movie they don't make enough of. Michael Keaton did a great job. So did the McDonald brothers.

At the beginning I found myself rooting for Kroc as he was struggling to sell blenders. I always tend to root for underdogs. However, as he became more and more successful he turned into a real scumbag. There is probably a correlation there -- the other way. Nice guys in business tend to not get too far.

I agree on the simple/not enough of. Movie business is getting killed lately. Correlation?

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Also worth watching all the extra features, which went into the process of the making of the set and attention to all the little details of the movie. I didn't even know there is a museum at the sight of the original San Bernadino McDonalds. I'll have to check it out one of my next visits to southern California.

IMHO, the movie made Kroc look worse that it should have. The brothers really did not cooperate with him, considering the gold mine he was delivering to them. The book paints a different picture. He was more of a guy who was loyal to his people, but if you cross him in the least, fugheddabaddit.

For example, the fallout between him and Harry Sonneborn, the guy who made the profit-making land rental formula, is of legend. Harry's name was stricken from the record until very recently. Sonneborn for his part never walked into a McDonald's after they split, and cost himself maybe a billion dollars selling his stock too soon. OTOH, Sonneborn was a guy who quit his job without leaving, just gliding along after he lost interest.

Founders are like this. Henry Ford and Steve Jobs to name two. Kroc knew enough to let someone else run the business day to day, probably knew he could be a SOB.

EDIT: As to the CA museum, IIRC it is one of several "unsanctioned" ones. The real one is at Store #1, which is a rebuild of Kroc's first store. Not that this is a deal killer, just a FYI.

I'll admit to not knowing too much about the McDonald's story so can't find fault in any of the history. In the extras it makes it pretty clear that it the version told by the McDonald's heirs. It is my understanding that the "handshake" portion of the buyout is the McDonald's family version but Kroc's version denies it.

What I find kind of strange is that when I was a kid going to McDonald's was like going to heaven for an hour. It was where most kids between 6 and 12 would have wanted to go for a birthday party. Today, I can't think of a single person who likes McDonalds, and that includes my three kids and their circle of friends. Yet, they are still all over the place.

Quote: Wizard

and that includes my three kids and their circle of friends. Yet, they are still all over the place.

Think 'minorities'. The minority races in this
country keep the fast food joints open,
that's a fact. Especially McD's and Burger
King. Especially low income blacks, some
of them eat nowhere else.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fast-food-minority-communities_us_59035fb5e4b02655f83c9999

Just watched it. I was a little disappointed in the
tone of the movie, it had the typical Hwood
slant of the little guy getting crushed by a
big corporation. To Croc's credit, he tried to
do things correctly, but the McDoofus Bros
dragged their feet the whole way. They
were inventors, and like most inventors,
they sucked as businessmen.

Croc could have easily stole their idea
and made it his own, but he didn't. They
gave a lame ass reason why he didn't
at the end, but the real reason was, he
wasn't that kind of guy. He needed the
Bros for absolutely nothing, he could have
stolen it all right out from under them.. What they
left out of the movie, conveniently, was
unknown to Croc, the Doofus Bros had
sold the franchise rights for all of Chicago
and Cook Co to an ice cream company.
This so infuriated Croc, that he had to
buy it back for 5 times what they paid,
that he said screw the Doofus Bros
and he did what he wanted.

And they also left out that the Bros were thrilled
to get $1.35 mil each at the time. It was much
later, when McD's became worth hundreds of
millions and billions that they claimed they
had a handshake deal for 1%. No lawyer or
anybody even as dumb as the Doofus boys
would have fallen for that. Croc always adamantly
denied it ever happened.

Quote: Evenbob

Just watched it. I was a little disappointed in the
tone of the movie, it had the typical Hwood
slant of the little guy getting crushed by a
big corporation. To Croc's credit, he tried to
do things correctly, but the McDoofus Bros
dragged their feet the whole way. They
were inventors, and like most inventors,
they sucked as businessmen.

Actually they were pretty good businessmen when it was on their small scale. What happened was they were used to living in what was then a cow town. While they moved a few times in life, they had not traveled extensively as Kroc had done. The early parts of the movie show this a bit, Kroc waiting forever at carhop places. The brothers saw it too, why they changed the concept. But they did not appreciate how nationwide the idea could go.

Quote:

Croc could have easily stole their idea
and made it his own, but he didn't. They
gave a lame ass reason why he didn't
at the end, but the real reason was, he
wasn't that kind of guy. He needed the
Bros for absolutely nothing, he could have
stolen it all right out from under them.. What they
left out of the movie, conveniently, was
unknown to Croc, the Doofus Bros had
sold the franchise rights for all of Chicago
and Cook Co to an ice cream company.
This so infuriated Croc, that he had to
buy it back for 5 times what they paid,
that he said screw the Doofus Bros
and he did what he wanted.

I forgot all about the sale of the Chicago market! The brother's attitude towards Kroc was "tough, build somewhere else" not understanding that Kroc already had all his business and ties in Chicago. They were not the victims the movie makes them out to be.

In the book, Kroc said that he could have stolen the idea for sure. In fact, many people stole it. In the 1950s, the San Bernadino store was filled with out of state cars of people seeing the system. The brothers gave many tours like they gave Kroc. But Kroc knew that a tour was not enough to learn the whole system.

He was right. What most of the copycats missed was that the key was the small menu. Most of them thought a bigger menu was better. It would be a decade before it was. As they started, the bigger menu places failed due to too slow service.

Quote: Wizard

What I find kind of strange is that when I was a kid going to McDonald's was like going to heaven for an hour. It was where most kids between 6 and 12 would have wanted to go for a birthday party.

That is because when we were kids McDonald's built an entire advertising campaign around kids. Think back to Saturday morning cartoons. How many McDonald's ads did you see? They were all kids ads, probably an entirely different creative advertising team, if not a different agency. Kids did not get told, "You Deserve a Break Today!" Kids saw the Hamburgler and all his friends hanging with Ronald. It was McDonaldland, a parallel universe you could get your parents to take you to.

The local stores did their part with having kid's birthday parties. I don't have kids so am a touch out of the loop, but have not heard of a kid having a birthday there in years decades a quarter century!

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Today, I can't think of a single person who likes McDonalds, and that includes my three kids and their circle of friends. Yet, they are still all over the place.

Times change. There are twice as many stores now as then, it is not as special a thing. The food back then was ahead of so many places, now it is not. You stop at McDonald's because either it is there or you have to because they have the only concession on the highway, etc. I like their breakfast sausage sandwiches and will actually stop for that from time to time. Otherwise I only stop because it is inexpensive, clean, and fast.

My favorite McDonald's commercial. They don't make em like this anymore. Note the Multimixer in the background, this was years after they went to boxed shake mix.

Quote: AZDuffman

I forgot all about the sale of the Chicago market! The brother's attitude towards Kroc was "tough, build somewhere else" not understanding that Kroc already had all his business and ties in Chicago. They were not the victims the movie makes them out to be.

That's what I'm saying, it was typical Hwood
movie where the big evil corporation crushes
the sweet innocent 'little guy'. The Bros were
neither sweet or innocent. They were just as
greedy as any other businessmen. They were
thrilled to get a couple million from Croc and
it wasn't till later that they started to howl
that they got a raw deal. I've never had any
sympathy for them.

Croc did a lot of charity work, he gave many
people their first jobs as teens, he brought
the concept of family value dining back to
America. It's a purely Americana story.

Seems like there could be a slant if the movie is based mostly on Kroc's book.