White Castle was the original fast-food restaurant. And back in their heyday (before McDonalds), they had a company newsletter called “White Castle Official House Organ.” The Sackful was my attempt to reintroduce that. In keeping with their product, it’s hamburger-centric and onion-ey.

The client (who is actually a wonderful client) asked us to support a campaign created by their traditional agency. The campaign featured a character known only as “the Crave.” The character is basically a burger (inanimate) in an egg chair, with a phone (beige), who had a habit of dialing (but not speaking to) people at inopportune times.

We concepted and created a site that recast “the Crave” as an evil (yet silent) genius; sort of a brain-in-a-jar-type. The site would give you an inside look at his nefarious lair, buried deep within the steamy magma of Slider Island.

Within the lair, you could spy on the crave’s henchmen, or test new experimental sandwiches on rats, monkeys, ratmonkeys, the henchmen, and other disadvantaged mammals. Or you could play wonderful, absurd games including a Supermario-style quest where you must carefully guide a beautiful pig princess through a dangerous and arbitrary maze. Only at the end of the level can you drop the princess through a meat grinder, transforming her from a beautiful pork princess into a beautiful pulled-pork sandwich.

At night, to emphasize White Castle’s long tradition of 24-hr dine-in service, the site takes a psychedelic turn, becomes Night-Castle. The lair is black-lit with dayglo accents and velvet posters. Teddy Pendergrass* sets the mood by singing soulfully about the very special love between a man or a woman and a burger with onions.

Anyway, that was the plan, last I checked.

 *Or, more likely, a cheap Teddy Pendergrass imitator.

Before “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero II” there was a little idea I cooked up* with a brilliant young art director  for our stodgy liquor (tequila) client. Mariachi Hero!

Unfortunately, as is the case with most of my highly-amusing internet ideas, the client wanted no part of it.**   Now it’s available for sale at a reasonable price, plus development costs. How reasonable? Well, if you’re cheap, just steal it and find your own programmers. What a bargain!

*In my own spare time, natch.
**The above version has been repurposed for el vaquero, which is (the way I understand it) some kind of college mexican restaurant chain. Personally, I only eat at nameless taco trucks, but they don’t really “get” the internet.