Not pictured: The most violently destructive character they are famous for.
RackaRacka is a YouTube channel created in 2013 by Australian twin filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou. The channel is known for producing comedy skits full of outrageous and bloody gross-out humor, as well as Hollywood-level practical effects and stunts created by nothing more than an independent amateur crew. The most popular character from the channel is the brothers' twisted interpretation of Ronald McDonald.
The brothers' feature film debut, Talk to Me, had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and was later released theatrically on July 27 of that year, being distributed by A24. It went on to gross approximately $92 million worldwide, becoming the distributor's highest-grossing horror film and second highest-grossing film overall (after Everything Everywhere All at Once).
The brothers' next projects currently include a sequel to Talk to Me titled Talk 2 Me and a Street Fighter film for Legendary Pictures.
No relationship to Rucka Rucka Ali.
Their videos provide examples of:
- Alternate Reality Game: All of their livestreams are disguised as real behind-the-scenes videos with no cuts, but they're actually just really long horror short films.
- Ax-Crazy: Almost every video with Ronald ends with him mercilessly killing everyone, or anywhere from one to a whole bunch of people.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: The reason why the Zombie Apocalypse is happening is because Carl stupidly wished for one for his birthday. Rick isn't happy.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Ronald's family (all clowns) is huge, and the extent of their depravity is proportionate to their size.
- Black Comedy: Pretty much only RackaRacka could make children getting graphically murdered funny.
- Bloody Hilarious: Their Gorn is (almost) always played entirely for laughs.
- Body Horror: Tongues are ripped out, heads are torn apart, people are disemboweled, eyes are gouged out, but it's all played for laughs. Except the Lovecraftian example in "Stunt Gone Wrong".
- Brother–Sister Incest: Just as a cherry on top of the Shock Value sundae, Ron and his sister make out at the end of "Meet the McDonalds".
- Cool vs. Awesome: A staple series of theirs. They've done Harry Potter VS. Star Wars, Game of Thrones VS. Lord of the Rings, Marvel VS. DC, Halo VS. Call of Duty, Walking Dead VS. Last of Us, and Ronald McDonald VS. Cookie Monster.
- Disguised Horror Story: "Stunt Gone Wrong" is set up as a behind-the-scenes livestream, but it's actually a dead serious Body Horror story.
- Eldritch Abomination: The elderly couple in "Stunt Gone Wrong" turn out to be this. They're very The Thing (1982)-esque.
- Evil Old Folks: The Grahams, an elderly man and his wife, are Heels for Ronald.
- The elderly couple in "Stunt Gone Wrong" are multiple versions of this. First, they just seem like crazy dangers to society, taking road rage to murderous levels. But then it turns out they've been sexually harassing and stalking a child for months, and kidnapped him. And then it turns out that they're actually Lovecraftian monstrosities disguised as humans.
- Establishing Character Moment: In Ronald's first appearance, he angrily reprimands Grandpa Graham for throwing a McDonald's burger on the floor, then physically attacks the old man when he refuses to pick it up. These two traits - Ronald's narcissistic protectiveness of his McDonald's products, and his sadistic habit of resorting to violence - define Ronald's character and his actions in all his appearances on the channel.
- Flanderization: In "Ronald McDonald Assaults Grandpa", Ronald only attacks Graham when the latter provokes him, and they have a brief but harmless fistfight with neither being seriously injured. Ronald's later appearances place a much stronger emphasis on his psychotic sadism, to the point where he's willing to outright murder people, including children, if he's even slightly offended. Justified in the fact that "Ronald McDonald Assaults Grandpa", and Ronald's two wrestling matches against the Grahams, were live events in front of real people, whereas most of Ronald's more violent appearances are scripted, completely fictitious productions.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Danny's made it known that he's the Responsible twin to Michael's Foolish. Michael is usually the one in front of the camera, doing the batshit stuff and getting a chunk of his back torn off in WWE wrestling matches while Danny is the one filming and editing.
- Gross-Out Show: Their videos are as disgustingly over-the-top as possible, with photorealistic special effects to compound it. The "WWE Beatdown" videos serve as an unintentional example, since the serious injuries that Michael (Ronald) suffered there - such as being accidentally stabbed in the ribs with a light tube and having a chunk of his bank torn off - were real.
- It's All About Me: Ron has a very high opinion of himself and fully basks in the glory when he's praised and cheered for something, as proven during his entrances in both the WWE Beatdown videos. If he feels that someone has disrespected him or the McDonald's products in some way, his ever-violent reactions will swiftly be there.
- Kill It with Fire: When the Burger King tries to take part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, his assistant - actually Ron in disguise - throws gasoline on him instead and burns him alive. Subverted when "Meet The McDonalds" reveals that the King survived this, but his face is now hideously melted and disfigured as a result.Ron: Burger's looking burnt, King.
- Monster Clown: Though he has yet to transform into something monstrous in a physical sense, mentally, Ronald would give The Joker a run for his money.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: All of their videos are, in the end, comedy. Even the horror videos are over-the-top parodies. But "Stunt Gone Wrong" is genuine, bone-chilling
Nightmare Fuel. - This Is Reality: "Real Life Street Fighter" includes a part where during an intense fight, Ryu smacks M. Bison in the face with a pole. It actually breaks his nose and he reprimands Ryu for actually hurting him and leaves in a huff.
- Rewatch Bonus: The Grahams' intense hatred of Ronald takes on a whole new meaning following the reveal in "Family Reunion" that their daughter is another fast food mascot, Wendy.
- The Rival: Ron was first introduced getting into a fist fight with Grandpa Graham, leading to an overarching story chronicling their rivalry that eventually concluded in "McDonald's Family Reunion". He also has the Burger King and Hamburglar, though the former only appeared twice and Ron eventually teamed up with the latter for the second WWE fight.
- Stylistic Suck: As a Take That! to Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous buggy launch, "Cyberpunk 2077 in real life" is full of intentionally crappy special effects including bad green-screening, poorly composited muzzle flashes, and obvious continuity errors between shots.
- Trash the Set: There's a guarantee that any time a video takes place indoors, the entire room will be wrecked by the end - at least.
- Unexplained Recovery: "Meet The McDonalds" revolves around Ron visiting his family to pay respects to his grandmother, intending to get his late grandfather's secret recipe from her before she passes. Though Grandma McDonald was shown on her deathbed during this sketch, she later appears alive and well in "McDonalds Family Reunion", with no mention of her previous illness.
- Villain Protagonist: Given Ronald stars as the mascot of this channel, he's pretty much one.
- World of Ham: Every video is essentially a screamfest between young men with Testosterone Poisoning.
- Would Hurt a Child: "Ronald McDonald Playground Slaughter!" revolves around the titular character being summoned to an indoor play area during a young boy's birthday party. After the children start attacking him, Ron finally loses it and starts killing all of them.
- Would Hit a Girl: Ron doesn't discriminate. Bottom line is, if he gets disrespected, there's no limits to what he'll try to do in heinous and chaotic retaliation.
