Trivia / Where's the Beef?

• Breakaway Advertisement: The phrase "Where's the Beef?" has broken off from its advertising origins to be symbolic of something that has no "meat" to it, whether figuratively or literally.
• The Merch: "Where's the Beef" had an astronomical amount of products made in its short lifespan, including bumper stickers, frisbees, clothing patches, t-shirts, a Milton Bradley game, earrings, and even its own rap song.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Clara Peller's contract with Wendy's was terminated in 1985, just under a year into the ad campaign's lifetime, after appearing in a Prego commercial where she finds "the beef" in their spaghetti sauce. While Peller's union contract allowed her to appear in ads for products that didn't directly compete with Wendy's, executives at the fast food chain considered the Prego commercial a Take That!, with Denny Lynch stating that "Clara can find the beef only in one place, and that is Wendy's." While Peller was vocally resentful about the circumstances of her firing, she was nevertheless able to continue riding the fame that the ads brought her until her death in 1987.
• Short-Lived, Big Impact: The ads lasted for less than a year thanks to a contractual dispute with Clara Peller. However, the ads are still well-known to generations too young to have seen them, and "where's the beef?" has become a common phrase for questioning the "substance" of a concept or idea.
• Throw It In!:
  • Clara Peller was not wearing her hearing aid when she said her classic line, "Where's the beef?", so it came out as a bellow. The producers thought it was funnier that way and kept it.
  • Clara's original line was supposed to be "Where is all the beef?", but she had difficulty saying it due to her emphysema. The producers decided to run with it anyways, and that decision led to its memetic status.

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