LardLand; the company that fattened America
*serious music, introduction scene*
• Doug: I’m Doug Burgess, and I’m the owner of the multi-national food corporation, LardLand. I decided to do this interview today, to really set the story straight, because I think it’s important for the public to look at the origins and history of LardLand, amidst the growing controversy today.
*News reporter; ‘The Department for Justice has launched a case today against America’s favourite fast food chain, LardLand,” Another news reporter; “LardLand faces a long legal battle ahead of them following the Department of Justice’s accusations that the company failed to provide truthful information to consumers about what ingredients where in their foods.”
• Doug: Let’s go right back to the beginning. I founded LardLand in 1976, in Seattle. I bought a disused diner on the outskirts of town, it was in a pretty bad state, so I got it for a ridiculously cheap amount. My dad and auntie helped me to do some repairs on it, and I hired 7 full-time employees. But it was the food which really sold the place. We were making burgers, just like any other diner in America, but I’d add monosodium glutamate (MSG) to all the patties, we we’re the only diner that was doing that, and it honestly made all the difference. The consumers loved the burgers. They loved the juicy taste of them, the tender meat that felt so warm in their bellies. We added 12 new burger options after the first 4 months, which everyone just loved again. Then, because the diner would always be too crowded for anyone to get a seat, we had to add a drive through. I had to hire 20, new, full-time employees and that still wasn’t enough to satisfy the demand for our burgers. LardLand was the new craze of Seattle, customers flocked to our Diner to get their hands on our signature burgers. We had built a community, after the first 6 months I opened a room to the side of the diner counter, inside it was brightly decorated, with a red, neon arrow sing saying “LardyLads and Lasses.’ There was a set of scales, a measuring tape and a recording book. The idea was that our customers would weigh themselves whenever they had put on a few lbs, and record it in the ‘LardyLads and Lasses’ book, it was a way of glorifying obesity, praising each others fat. I would personally award the ‘LardiestLad or Lass’ at the end of every month.
• Producer; do you remember who the very first LardiestLad or Lass was?
• Doug; yes, his name was Corey. He was actually the LardiestLad for 14 months.
*switches to another interview*
• Producer; what is your name and what do you do for a living?
• Corey; My name is Corey Michelson, I’m 57, and I’m retired.
• Producer; do you remember the first time you went into LardLand?
• Corey; I do. I was about 10, the store had just opened and I lived in the next door row of houses. It was the summer holidays. I went in with my fitness and we all order their signature burgers, we had no idea how unbelievably unhealthy they were, we were just kids. I remember taking my first bite, it was like, wow, what is this? It tasted so juicy and filling, and their was something addictive to it, once you had one bit you just wanted another one, and then another one after that. I kept going in their every day for the rest of the summer, some days I’d be in there 4/5 hours, it was like a second home for me. As you can imagine I gained a lot of weight. I was 10 so I wasn’t exactly weighing myself daily and being like, Omg I’ve gotten so fat, like some of the kids nowadays, but I was aware that over the summer my belly had gotten round and flabby, I had moobs, I had thigh chafing, that was fucking uncomfortable! And I had two, very fat butt cheeks. At the end of August, Mr Burgess, the owner of the store, asked me to come into the LardyLad and Lass room at the edge of the store, there he helped my take off my tshirt, and he asked me to step on to the scales as he slid a measuring tape around my belly. I couldn’t see the measurement from the scales as my belly was too big it blocked my view, but I do remember a gasp coming from on of the onlookers. My Burgess recorded my weight in the LardLad and Lass book, as well as my waist size, before announcing I was this month’s LardiestLad. Then I remember the whole store erupted in cheers, I was oblivious to what had actually happened, but when Mr Burgess told me that I had won 10 free Burgers, I put the dots together and realised the bigger I was the better it was. This was a clear example of how easily children are indoctrinated. Over the next year, I would be in LardLand at least twice a day, eating their food and piling up more and more fat into my dangerously obese body. At age 17, I won the LardiestLad award again for I think it must’ve been about the 50th time. I gulped when the manager said “690lbs” was the reading from the scales. A year later, whilst waddling back from a meal at LardLand, I had a cardiac arrest. Luckily, the hospital managed to stabilise myself, and they put me back on a road to recovery. I’ve never stepped foot in LardLand again.
*switches back to Doug’s interview*
• Producer: When did you open your second store?
• Doug: On the 2nd March, 1977. We found a lot at the mall, a well-known grocery company had just gone bankrupt, so we decided to open a second store on that lot in the food court. It was a huge success. By then, the LardLand community had spread throughout Seattle, everyone was talking about our burgers, everyone wanted to be part of the ‘Lardies’ family. We literally eat up all the other food outlet’s business. That was when we knew we had to take this business on the National scale. We began an extensive media campaign on tv, newspapers, magazines, radio. We created our first advert, and it’s the very same advert that everyone denotes with LardLand today; the advert was centred around a dinner table, Mr Lard - a quite obviously overweight man, unable to stand up from his seat - was sat at the head of the table, with his two equally fat children, Mstr and Miss Lard, seated along the side of the table. Mrs Lard, a rotund women in her thirties, complains about the streets of having to cook dinner for a growing family, so instead she pulls out of the oven 4x LardLand burgers, which Mrs Lard then brings to the dinner table. As she sits down, the table shifts from being at home, to being at a LardLand diner. That’s it. The iconic advert. It sounds a bit cliché to a lot of our consumers nowadays, but back in the 70s, Americans loved it. They loved the idea of being able to eat traditional American food, at anytime of day, without having to pay hefty sums of money or having to wait for hours. It was the epitome of fast food. All our adverts were centred around a new type of individual; the fat, happy individual, we moved out of a health conscious era in America, and entered a fast-food craving one. In the 80s, we opened 1,000 stores across the whole of America. We had at least 1 store in every city by 1991. And just last year, we became the largest multi-national food company in the world, not just in America. We’ve picked up over 10 million ‘Lardies’ and collectively helped them to gain over 4000000000lbs of fat. We’ve glorified obesity, not because we’ve wanted to maximise our own profits, because we want an America that appreciates fat, because fat is a natural human asset, it’s so attractive!
• Producer; the Department of Justice claims your company has lied about the ingredients it uses in its products, how do you respond to those claims?
• Doug; we’ve never lied about what’s in our foods, but the truth is consumers have to eat all our products at their own risks. We don’t even know ourselves what’s put into the products, we just know it tastes damn good, and Americans love that, we want you to enjoy our foods, we want you to appreciate how full and we’ll they make you feel, we want you to love your ever-expanding body, that’s always been the ethos of LardLand, we’re one big Lardy family enjoying fatty foods, and yes we might not know what’s actually in the foods, but it just doesn’t matter as long as it tastes good and makes us feel good in turn.
