Fast Food Nation: What The All-American Meal is Doing to the World (40 page)

For the story of Ray Kroc, I relied mainly on his memoir,
Grinding It Out
; Max Boas and Steven Chain,
Big Mac
, and John Love,
Behind the Arches
. My visit to the Ray A. Kroc museum provided many useful insights into the man. Steven Watts’s
The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), is by far the best biography of Disney, drawing extensively upon material from the Disney archive and interviews with Disney’s associates. Although I disagree with some of Watts’s conclusions, his research is extraordinary. Richard Schickel’s
The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art, and Commerce of Walt Disney
(New York: Avon Books, 1968) remains provocative and highly relevant more than three decades after its publication. Leonard Mosley’s
Disney’s World
(New York: Stein and Day, 1985) and Marc Eliot’s
Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince
(London: Andre Deutsch, 1993) offer a counterpoint to the hagiographies sponsored by the Walt Disney Company. My view of American attitudes toward technology was greatly influenced by two books: Leo Marx’s
The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) and David E. Nye’s
American Technological Sublime
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994).

In the growing literature on marketing to children, three books are worth mentioning for what they (often inadvertently) reveal: Dan S. Acuff with Robert H. Reiher,
What Kids Buy and Why: The Psychology of Marketing to Kids
(New York: Free Press, 1997); Gene Del Vecchio,
Creating Ever-Cool: A Marketer’s Guide to a Kid’s Heart
(Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing, 1998); and James U. McNeal,
Kids As Customers: A Handbook of Marketing to Children
(New York: Lexington Books, 1992). Some of the articles in children’s marketing journals, such as
Selling to Kids
and
Entertainment Marketing Letter
, are remarkable documents for future historians. Two fine reports introduced me to the whole subject of marketing in America’s schools: Consumers Union Education Services, “Captive Kids: A Report on Commercial Pressures on Kids at School,” Consumers Union, 1998; and Alex Molnar, “Sponsored Schools and Commercialized
Classrooms: Schoolhouse Commercializing Trends in the 1990s,” Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, August 1998. The Center for Science in the Public Interest has been battling for food safety and proper nutrition for more than thirty years. Michael Jacobson’s report “Liquid Candy: How Soft Drinks Are Harming Americans’ Health,” October 1998, is another fine example of the center’s work. The corporate memos from the McDonald’s advertising campaign were given to me by someone who thought I’d find them “enlightening,” and indeed they are.

Page

32
“One of the highlights of my sixty-first birthday”:
Exhibit, Ray A. Kroc Museum.

33
“to order, control, and keep clean”:
Schickel,
Disney Version
, p. 24.

even more famous than Mickey Mouse:
According to John Love, Ronald McDonald is the most widely recognized commercial character in the United States. Love,
Behind the Arches
, p. 222.

34
“That was where I learned”:
Kroc,
Grinding It Out
, p. 17.

“If you believe in it”:
Voice recording, Ray A. Kroc Museum.

35
“When I saw it”:
Kroc,
Grinding It Out
, p. 71.

“through the eyes of a salesman”:
Ibid., pp. 9–10, 72.

$100,000 a year in profits:
Love,
Behind the Arches
, p. 19.

“This little fellow comes in”:
Voice recording, Ray A. Kroc Museum.

“Dear Walt”:
Quoted in Leslie Doolittle, “McDonald’s Plan Cooked Up Decades Ago,”
Orlando Sentinel
, January 8, 1998.

According to one account:
See Boas and Chain,
Big Mac
, p. 25.

36
“He was regarded as a strange duck”:
Kroc,
Grinding It Out
, p. 19.

describes Walt Disney’s efforts:
See Watts,
Magic Kingdom
, pp. 164–74.

“fun factory”:
Ibid., p. 167.

“Hundreds of young people were being trained”:
Quoted ibid., p. 170.

37
“Don’t forget this”:
Quoted ibid., p. 223.

“Look, it is ridiculous to call this an industry”:
Quoted in Boas and Chain,
Big Mac
, pp. 15–16.

gave $250,000 to President Nixon’s reelection campaign:
For varying interpretations of Kroc’s donation, see Kroc,
Grinding It Out
, p. 191–2; Love,
Behind the Arches
, pp. 357–9; Boas and Chain,
Big Mac
, pp. 198–206; and Luxenberg,
Roadside Empires
, pp. 246–48.

“sons of bitches”:
Kroc,
Grinding It Out
, p. 191.

38
more than 90 percent of his studio’s output:
See Watts,
Magic Kingdom
, p. 235.

39
an early and enthusiastic member of the Nazi Party:
For von Braun’s political affiliations, the conditions at Dora-Nordhausen, and the American recruitment of Nazi scientists, I have relied on Tom Bower,
The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1987); Linda Hunt,
Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991); Michael J. Neufeld,
The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era
(New York: Free Press, 1995); and Dennis Piszkiewicz,
Wernher von Braun: The Man Who Sold the Moon
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998).

39
von Braun was giving orders to Disney animators:
For a brief account of Disney and
von Braun
, see the chapter “Disneyland” in Piszkiewicz, von Braun, pp. 83–91.

another key Tomorrowland adviser:
I stumbled upon Heinz Haber’s unusual career path while doing research on another project. Haber was a protégé of Dr. Hubertus Strughold, the director of the Luftwaffe Institute for Aviation Medicine. Strughold later became chief scientist at the U.S. Air Force’s Aerospace Medical Division, had a U.S. Air Force library named after him, and was hailed as “the father of U.S. space medicine.” I pieced together Heinz Haber’s wartime behavior from the following: Otto Gauer and Heinz Haber, “Man Under Gravity-Free Conditions,” in
German Aviation Medicine, World War II
, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Air Force, 1950), pp. 641–43; Henry G. Armstrong, Heinz Haber, and Hubertus Strughold, “Aero Medical Problems of Space Travel” (panel meeting, School of Aviation Medicine),
Journal of Aviation Medicine
, December 1949; “Clinical Factors: USAF Aerospace Medicine,” in Mae Mills Link,
Space Medicine in Project Mercury
(NASA SP-4003, 1965); “Beginnings of Space Medicine,” “Zero G,” and “Multiple G,” in Loyds Swenson, Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander,
This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury
(NASA SP-4201, 1966); “History of Research in Subgravity and Zero-G at the Air Force Missile Development Center 1948–1958,” in
History of Research in Space Biology and Biodynamics at the US Air Force Missile Development Center, Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, 1946–1958
(Historical Division, Air Force Missile Development Center, Holloman Air Force Base).

the Luftwaffe Institute for Aviation Medicine:
Accounts of the concentration camp experiments administered by the Luftwaffe can be found in Bower,
Paperclip Conspiracy
, pp. 214–32, and Hunt,
Secret Agenda
, pp. 78–93.

When the Eisenhower administration asked Walt Disney:
See Mark Langer, “Disney’s Atomic Fleet,”
Animation World Magazine
, April 1998.

a popular children’s book:
Heinz Haber,
The Walt Disney Story of Our Friend the Atom
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956).

40
Disney had signed seventy licensing deals:
See Watts,
Magic Kingdom
, pp. 161–62.

41
“A child who loves our TV commercials”:
Kroc,
Grinding It Out
, p. 114.

An ad agency designed the outfit:
For the story of Willard Scott and Ronald Mc-Donald, see Love,
Behind the Arches
, pp. 218–22, 244–45.

“If they were drowning to death”:
Quoted in Penny Moser, “The McDonald’s Mystique,”
Fortune
, July 4, 1988.

42
park, tentatively called Western World:
For Kroc’s amusement park schemes, see Love,
Behind the Arches
, pp. 411–13.

43
“the decade of the child consumer”:
McNeal,
Kids as Customers
, p. 6.

as early as the age of two:
Cited in “Brand Aware,”
Children’s Business
, June 2000.

children often recognize a brand logo:
See “Brand Consciousness,”
IFF on Kids: Kid Focus
, no. 3.

a 1991 study
…
found:
Paul Fischer et al., “Brand Logo Recognition by Children Aged 3 to 6 Years: Mickey Mouse and Old Joe the Camel,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
, December 11, 1991.

43
Another study found:
See Judann Dagnoli, “JAMA Lights New Fire Under Camel’s Ads,”
Advertising Age
, December 16,1991.

the CME KidCom Ad Traction Study II:
Cited in “Market Research Ages 6–17: Talking Chihuahua Strikes Chord with Kids,”
Selling to Kids
, February 3, 1999.

“It’s not just getting kids to whine”:
Quoted in “Market Research: The Old Nagging Game Can Pay off for Marketers,”
Selling to Kids
, April 15, 1998.

Vance Packard described children as “surrogate salesmen”:
See Boas and Chain,
Big Mac
, p. 127; Vance Packard,
The Hidden Persuaders
(New York: D. McKay, 1957), pp. 158–61.

44
“children’s requesting styles and appeals”:
McNeal,
Kids as Customers
, pp. 72–75.
“Kid Kustomers”:
Ibid., p. 4.

“The key is getting children to see a firm”:
Ibid., p. 98.

learn about their tastes:
For a sense of the techniques now being used by marketers, see Tom McGee, “Getting Inside Kids’ Heads,”
American Demographics
, January 1997.

45
roughly 80 percent of children’s dreams:
Cited in Acuff, What
Kids Buy and Why
, pp. 45–46.

“
Marketing messages sent through a club
”: McNeal
, Kids As Customers
, p. 175.

increased the sales of children’s meals:
Cited in Karen Benezra, “Keeping Burger King on a Roll,”
Brandweek
, January 15, 1996.

a federal investigation of Web sites aimed at children:
Cited in “Children’s Online Privacy Proposed Rule Issued by FTC,” press release, Federal Trade Commission, April 20, 1999.

“the ultimate authority in everything”:
Quoted in “Is Your Kid Caught Up in the Web?”
Consumer Reports
, May 1997.