
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 4, 1993                   TAG: 9312070254
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News
DATELINE: DALLAS                                LENGTH: Medium

WAYNE AND GARTH: YOU'RE JUST NOT MCWORTHY IN TEXAS

Concern about potentially objectionable language and sexual innuendos have prompted McDonald's owners from Lubbock, Texas, to Lawton, Okla., to ban sales of "Wayne's World" videos, part of a nationwide McDonald's promotion.

"We're talking about sludge and junk," said Lucy Brown, a Lubbock-based community relations coordinator for franchises in the Texas Panhandle and southwest Oklahoma.

"I know a lot of kids. The sad thing is, it goes in subliminally, even though they don't listen to a lot of the statements, which I'm not even going to reveal to you because they are gross. Just gross."

The movie is one of four videos offered in the fast-food chain's national promotion. A cooperative of 10 west Texas and Oklahoma franchise owners voted to ban the sale of "Wayne's World" just before the sales began last month, prompted by warnings from the owner of the McDonald's in Plainview, Texas, about the movie's content, Brown said.

"He counted all the tasteless violations. There were 34," she said. "We are in the Bible Belt personified. We've got enough problems."

Or as Wayne and Garth might put it: Sell that? NOT!

While the restaurateurs declared the dweebish duo incompatible with the McDonald's family image, they deemed Morticia, Gomez and the rest of the creepy Addams clan to be appropriate fare.

The outlets are offering "The Addams Family" along with "Ghost" and "Charlotte's Web," Brown said. The videos sell for $5.99 with the purchase of a sandwich.

Russell Greene, manager of a McDonald's in Canyon, Texas, said some chain employees were puzzled by the decision to ban a movie about two goofy, slang-prone teen-agers airing a renegade cable TV show from a suburban Chicago basement, while approving the ghoulish "Addams Family."

"It does seem like a contradiction in terms," Greene said. "But at least the Addams family is a family."

Although both movies received PG-13 ratings, Brown said "The Addams Family" is unobjectionable because "it isn't vulgar. There's a difference between weird and spooky and tasteless."

\ THE LOCAL ANGLE\ \ Mike Grimm, owner of MKG Enterprises, which operates 16 McDonald's stores in an area between Roanoke and Wytheville: "We'll probably run out of them [Wayne's World videos] in the next week and a half. I wish we could order more of them."\ \ Jaie Brown, regional marketing manager, McDonald's Corp. for the area from Roanoke to Virginia Beach and some of North Carolina: "The operators make their own business decisions. We make no influential judgments at all."

- Staff report

by CNB