Where IS the beef: an investigative report

January 10th 1984, a day that will live in infamy, for that is the day Wendy’s dared to ask: where is the beef? This question took America by storm, yet somehow it has never been answered. Let us first look at the commercial that inspired this investigation: three old women bought a hamburger from The House of Buns: Home of the Big Bun and demanded to know “Where’s the beef?” which is a simple question with no simple answer. I looked into those who worked on the commercial and was not pleased: William Welter led the marketing team at Wendy’s at the time and cannot be found, Cliff Freeman wrote the commercial and cannot be found, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample was the ad agency responsible for the commercial and went under not long after, and two of the three women in the commercial cannot be found. If you ask me, this smells of a conspiracy. What happened to these people? What did they know? The one person to remain relevant after the commercial was Clara Peller, the woman who actually said the famous line, so what made her special?

Clara Peller became a celebrity and went on to do interviews and star in other commercials, so she may have been too big for Wendy’s to handle quietly. Wendy’s was still able to ensure she didn’t say anything they didn’t want her to. In an interview with Bryant Gumble on the Today Show in 1984, Joe Sedelmaier, the commercial’s director, kept a watchful eye on her. He would instruct her to do things like “say that again” and “look up at me” and she would listen, almost as if she was under his control. Denny Lynch, a higher-up at Wendy’s at the time, once said “Clara can find the beef only in one place, and that is Wendy’s,” effectively taking her voice from her. So, despite being unable to do what they did to the others, Wendy’s still found a way to silence her. She obviously knows something, Wendy’s paid her $500,000 for the three commercials—which is a lot—and it is almost too obvious that her wage was so high because Wendy’s was paying her off. In later years, after leaving Wendy’s, Clara appeared on talk shows and in commercials and seemed to only be able to say rudimentary things such as “where’s the (blank)” and similar short sentences of no substance. I have no proof Wendy’s hurt Clara, making her unable to say anything about what happened behind the scenes of the commercial, but I sure as heck believe they did.

Others who have looked into the whereabouts of the beef include a middle-aged man, who originally asked the question and whose existence has pretty much been erased, and DJ Coyote McCloud, who performed the 1984 hit song “Where’s the Beef.” McCloud’s career ended within the next year. Coincidence? Impossible. This begs the question: what did Wendy’s do to these individuals? We may never know because Wendy’s did a fine job of covering their tracks. And I know what you’re thinking, “Why are you looking into Wendy’s and not this House of Buns the commercial was attacking? They seem like the more obvious suspect.” It is because my research has found that the House of Buns is not a real place, it only exists within these Wendy’s commercials. You must ask, why did Wendy’s launch an attack on a fictional fast food chain and then silence everyone involved in the attack? I deduced that it was to get the public to focus on the House of Buns and not Wendy’s. They were diverting attention from themselves, and we fell for their evil plot. What is Wendy’s hiding? What secret is so big that they are willing to (allegedly) make so many people effectively disappear?

This is only the tip, but I can tell that I’m at the precipice of something huge. I think they know I am onto them, every day this week there has been a van with the Wendy’s logo sitting outside of my room, and call me crazy all you want, but I know for a fact that Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, has been following me for the past month. Also, I awoke the other day to find my bed full of Big Macs that seemed to be torn apart in a rage filled fury with a note that said “Love Big Red.” I fear for my life and the lives of my loved ones, but I must search on; the story is too important. Please do not let me end up like Clara Peller, with the ability to speak her own mind stolen from her, or like William Welter, a faceless name never to be heard of again. But whatever happens, no matter what, please make sure I do not end up like DJ Coyote McCloud, the thought alone terrifies me. So please contact me, work with me—maybe together we can take down Wendy’s. Dave Thomas can only silence so many people. Do it for Clara, do it for Cliff, do it for the middle-aged man, do it for Coyote, do it for me, do it for yourself. Quality may be their recipe, but justice is ours.