Pranking McDonald's Pays Off for Friends

It was all about increasing diversity, they say
By Luke Roney,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 20, 2018 6:04 PM CDT
Updated Sep 21, 2018 2:33 AM CDT
Pranking McDonald's Pays Off for Friends
The golden arches.   (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Payback's a … well, in this case, payback is $50,000. That's what two friends in Texas got after they pranked the McDonald's in Pearland by hanging a poster of themselves in the restaurant to give it some Asian representation, FOX reports. "We were eating at McDonald's one day and we looked around and saw there were posters around that didn't have any Asians," Jevh Maravilla tells KHOU. "We felt like it was our duty to put ourselves up there." And that's what Maravilla and Christian Toledo did. They had a picture taken showing them holding a burger and fries and added a logo and other effects so it would fit in at the store. Then they had the photo blown up into a poster. In July, the pair and some friends secretly hung the poster at the McDonald's, USA Today reports.

For the operation, Maravilla even wore an old McDonald's uniform shirt he scored at the Goodwill for $7. The poster hung undisturbed for 51 days. Then they posted the prank on Twitter and let the cat out of the bag. The two appeared on Ellen on Monday to talk about the prank. During the show, Ellen DeGeneres gave them each $25,000, which was provided by McDonald's, to be in an ad campaign highlighting the burger chain's "commitment to diversity," per KHOU. As for the impostor poster that hung at the Pearland McDonald's, it was removed for renovations, FOX reports, and it will be auctioned off to benefit the Ronald McDonald House Houston charity. (More Texas stories.)

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