Put your back into it, Seth! And pickles and pickle and mustard! We take the layout to a builder, custom build the kitchen to our exact specs. - Tada! The Speedee System is born. The world's first-ever system to deliver food fast. It's totally revolutionary. - And a complete disaster. - Why? Opening day, cars pull up onto the lot and they start honking immediately because no carhop comes up. You place your order! - We try to explain to them the walk-up window. And they are bewildered. Now they're furious. What do you mean I gotta get out of my car? Most of them just cuss us out and drive off. And the few that stay are mad as heck because they're eating off paper and they gotta discard their own trash. - Why? - You're doing great. Yeah, we won't be coming out to the car, but you can come on up. Welcome to McDonald's! We may have underestimated the learning curve. - So by five o'clock Dick is calculating how much it's going to cost to go back to drive-in. But I am not ready to throw in the towel. I go back to our old Hollywood days, I think to myself, we gotta go big with this. We gotta put on a show. So I say, "Dick, I wanna throw a grand re-opening. A gala premiere that would put Louis B. Mayer to shame." So we rent a bunch of spotlights. Same ones we used to haul around in the Columbia days. We get sparklers, a juggler for the kiddies. It is an event, people show up in droves. - And then... - The flies. They must've been drawn by all the lights. Millions of them. It was like a scene outta Exodus. The Pharaoh would've released the Israelites.
The Founder
28.3s
See all this open space here now? We've rearranged the fry situation. So now it's stage left. The deep fryer stage right. Begin! That's great. - Come on, guys. - We're pretty tied up here. - Watch out, it's the timing of the Lazy-Susan. Those are finished burgers. You can't... Hold it. I-I still think there's a third version. - What do you want to move? - I want to move everything. Back to stage left, please.
The Founder
18.1s
- And Dick is running around with this stick marking where all the equipment should be. - Tuck in. Tony are you going to skip the pickles when we're really doing it? - They do it over and over, hashing it out. Choreographing it like some crazy burger ballet. What's going on over there? - Yes! No! No!
The Founder
20.5s
We got it all drawn. This is better. - Is that all right? I think so. I guess... I guess... Let's assume our battle stations. Okay. Okay. Finally, after about six hours of this, we get it just right. It's a symphony of efficiency. Not a wasted motion.
The Founder
15s
- I tell him we're closed. - We're closed. - But he looks so cute. Hang on. Hang on. What would you like, Son? - Can I buy a bag of burgers from you? - Three? - Yes, please. And I feel bad, so I fire up the grill and I make him a batch. There you are.
The Founder
10.3s
Total disaster. Now it is towel time. The next day, Dick and I meet up to discuss going back to the old format. And as we're talking there's a knock at the service window.
The Founder
5.2s
You feel good about those pickles! Ketchup! Use your Lazy-Susan.
The Founder
1.8s
Good form, Jasper.
The Founder
1m15s
Well, we were young and hungry. There wasn't a job to be had in all of New Hampshire. So we decided to pack our bags and head west. To Hollywood. I wanted to be in the movie business. And Dick, well, he wanted to be... - Employed. - So we landed jobs at Columbia Pictures driving trucks. - Huh. And after a few years, we had enough saved to buy our own little piece of showbiz. A beautiful little movie theater in Glendora. Which would have been swell. Except for the timing. It was September of '29. One minute we're screening the Gold Diggers of Broadway, and next it's, "Brother can you spare a dime?" - I couldn't. - Nobody in town was making any money, except for one fella, Wylie Reid. Had a hot dog and root beer stand. Hey people still gotta eat, right? So we decide to open up our own little stand, hot dogs and orange juice, in Arcadia. And it went okay. I mean we weren't going gang-busters. There just weren't enough people in Arcadia. Meanwhile, one town over is San Bernardino and we want to relocate, but we got no money for a new stand. And that's when my brother here comes up with one of his brilliant ideas. Tell him, Dick. - Well... - He says, why don't we move the stand we've got. Put it on a truck. Genius, right. Only there's one little problem. On the road between the two towns, there's an overpass. And the building won't clear. Now I figure that's it, we're done for. But then Dick says, "Why don't we saw the building in half?" - Saw it in half...
The Founder
10.3s
- Unique. Original. Totally innovative. There's nothing like this. Nothing in the entire food service sector. - Nice brochure, professionally done.
The Founder
6.9s
- Take a look at the blueprints we got. We had those done locally. - I never forget a face.
The Founder
27.1s
- Let me see. Oh, those. Yeah. That's just my little way of separating us from the rest of the pack. You like 'em? I call them the Golden Arches. - You look familiar. Have we met before? - I don't think so. I think I would have remembered that. Peruse the inside here if you don't mind. - Take a look at the, read that. - Yeah. - The Fold-a-Nook. It's like a Murphy Bed, for your kitchen. Huh?