Where TV commercials go when they die.
Wendy’s hamburgers are served as a “Junior” (1/8 pound), Classic Single (1/4 pound), Big Bacon Classic (1/4 pound), Classic Double (1/2 pound), and as a Classic Triple (3/4 pound).
A hamburger (or simply [a] burger) is a food that consists of a cooked patty of ground meat that is fried, steamed, grilled, or broiled, and is generally served with various condiments and toppings inside a sliced bun baked specially for this purpose.
[Wendy’s] is famous for its square ground beef hamburgers, which are made to order at the time of purchase. The idea for Wendy’s “old fashioned” hamburgers was actually inspired by Dave Thomas’ trips to “Kewpee Hamburgers” in his home town of Kalamazoo, Michigan. The Kewpee sold square hamburgers and thick malt shakes, much like the famous restaurant that Thomas eventually founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1969. The Kewpee restaurant still thrives in Lima, Ohio.
A wind tunnel is a research tool developed to assist with studying the effects of air moving over or around solid objects.
Aerodynamics (shaping of objects that affect the flow of air, liquid or gas) is a branch of fluid dynamics concerned with the study of forces generated on a body in a flow. The solution of an aerodynamic problem normally involves calculating for various properties of the flow, such as velocity, pressure, density, and temperature, as a function of space and time. Understanding the flow pattern makes it possible to calculate or approximate the forces and moments acting on bodies in the flow. This mathematical analysis and empirical approximation form the scientific basis for heavier-than-air flight.
Wendy’s was founded by Dave Thomas in 1969 and was named after Dave’s second daughter, Melinda Lou Thomas, then 8 years old, whom her older siblings nicknamed “Wendy” (originally “Winda”, stemming from the child’s initial difficulty saying her own name), as Thomas stated in his A&E Biography show.
Bacon is defined as any of certain cuts of meat taken from the sides, belly or back of a pig that may be cured and/or smoked.
Cheddar cheese is a hard, pale yellow to orange, sharp-tasting cheese originally (and still) made in the English village of Cheddar, in Somerset.
In 1970, Wendy’s was the first fast-food chain to offer a drive-through window. Implemented initially at Wendy’s second location, the “Pick-Up Window” used a speaker box to allow a customer to drive up, place an order, then drive to the window to complete the order.
“Beginning in the 1970s, Joe Sedelmaier a former art director at J. Walter Thompson and Young & Rubicam, gained notice for fundamentally changing the way television spots were cast and filmed. He replaced the actors who seemed too plastic, too perfect mannequins with offbeat people like Clara Peller.”
Originally Wendy’s had only two kinds of chicken sandwiches, breaded and grilled. Their spicy chicken sandwich started out as a promotional sandwich but was put on the menu full-time in 1996 due to its popularity and the fact that compared to most promotional sandwiches, it was much simpler to make (it used the same condiments as the standard breaded chicken sandwich). To this date, it is the only promotional sandwich to have been upgraded to full-time menu status.
Mechanically separated meat (MSM), also known as mechanically recovered meat (MRM) is a paste-like and batter-like meat product produced by forcing beef, pork or chicken bones, with attached edible meat, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue. Mechanically separated meat has been used in certain meat and meat products since the late 1960s. This product can be contrasted with meat extracted by advanced meat recovery systems.
Joe Sedelmaier (b. 1933) is a director and producer of television commercials working in the USA. He became unusually well-known in the 1980s as a result of directing a series of off-beat commercials.
After successful early growth of the [Wendy’s] chain, sales flattened as the company struggled to achieve brand differentiation in the highly competitive fast-food market. This situation would turn around in the mid-1980s. Starting on January 9, 1984, elderly actress Clara Peller was featured in the successful “Where’s the Beef?” North American commercial campaign for Wendy’s. Her famous line quickly entered the American pop culture (it was even used by Walter Mondale in a debate with Gary Hart in the Democratic primary election) and served to promote Wendy’s hamburgers. Peller, age 84, was dropped from the campaign in 1985 because she performed in a commercial for Prego spaghetti sauce, saying she “finally found” the beef. Peller was soon after replaced by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas himself.