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Question about obscene content or cursing on the air.

Sorry, Frank -- michael hagerty made me do it:

- None of the DQs in my immediate area sell burgers or other foods - They're smaller shops with only soft serve and frozen treats. If I remember correctly from my youth where there were lots of DQ locations, only the DQ Brazier shops sell hot foods as well. A fun fact - The "soft serve" that DQ uses in their shakes, cones and other treats can not legally be called "ice cream" per FDA regulations - because it's not.

- There were a few Hardees where I grew up, but all are now shuttered. I remember nearly everything I ordered there from the burgers to the roast beef sandwiches to breakfast sandwiches being fairly tasteless compared to BK and McD's..but the ones in that area did have a heavily advertised special in the early 90s that was well suited for broke college students - 2 burgers and 2 fries for $2.

- I recently had an ad for Steak & Shake pop up in my Instagram feed - trying to sell franchises. Supposedly you could get in for $10k, they'd hire staff, train everyone and stock the place initially and you'd get 50% of the profits once in operation. You had to be a full-time owner with no other obligations. I'm sure there was a lot of fine print, because if owning a Steak & Shake franchise was that inexpensive to start and easy to maintain, lots more people would be doing it.

- I'm surprised to see White Castle so low on the list. While they don't have a huge number of locations, you do find them seemingly everywhere, sometimes in the most unexpected cities and locations.

- There are a few others like Smashburger and BurgerFi that I expected to see on the list, but didn't make the top 16, I guess.

Now back to your profanity-laden tirade.
At least in much of the midwest and south, Dairy Queen has opened their Grill and Chill locations
 
Steven Spielberg, as I recall, insisted "E.T." be shown unedited. It had the S-word in it...
This is true. And 31 years ago, Sears backed Spielberg, CBS agreed and The New York Times reported....

No big deal.


The CBS VP was right---by the time it got to TV, nine years later, people had worn out their VHS copies. And if there was a young first-timer, Mom and Dad could very gently remind him or her that they don't talk like that in their house.
 
Begging Frank's indulgence for one moment (and please don't kill this post, because it took some time to type up)---I just found the latest ranking by QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) magazine, so we can finally land on hard numbers and current facts (because those matter). These are the 2020 numbers, published August 2021---next update will be this August.

Burger places only, by USA sales:

1. McDonalds ($40.5 billion--was #1 and $37.4 billion in 2017)
2. Wendy's ($10.2 billion---was #3 and $9.2 billion in 2017)
3. Burger King ($9.6 billion---was #2 and $10.0 billion in 2017)
4. Sonic ($5.6 billion---was #4 and $4.4 billion in 2017)
5. Jack in the Box ($3.6 billion---was #6 and $3.4 billion in 2017)
6. Dairy Queen ($2.9 billion---was #5 and $3.6 billion in 2017)
7. Whataburger ($2.6 billion---was #7 and $2.2 billion in 2017)
8. Hardee's ($2.0 billion---was #8 and 2.1 billion in 2017)
9. Culver's ($1.9 billion---was #10 and $1.4 billion in 2017)
10. Five Guys ($1.7 billion---was #9 and $1.43 billion in 2017)
11. Carl's Jr. ($1.5 billion---was #8 and $1.48 billion in 2017)
12. In-N-Out ($1.1 billion---was #13 and $647 million in 2017)
13. Checkers/Rally's ($854 million---was #12 and $844 million in 2017)
14. Steak 'n Shake ($800 million---was #11 and $939 million in 2017)
15. Freddy's ($643 million---didn't make the cutoff in 2017)
16. White Castle ($565 million---was #14 and $547 million in 2017)


If you bundle Hardees' and Carl's this year, you're at #6. So my apologies to Semoochie.

I'm not quite sure why Hardee's and Carl's went to reporting separately. Looking through QSR, every food item that gets print is something both restaurants are doing.

We forgot DQ before, which admittedly makes a lot of its money from ice cream, but does sell burgers.

Summary: McDonald's is four times as big in sales as the next guy, Wendy's and Burger King are in a serious fight for #2. Sonic's doing half what they are and Jack and Carl's/Hardees' are only doing 60% of Sonic---which is surprising to me.

Everything below that on the list gets hurt by being regional, but In-N-Out damn near doubled its revenue in three years.

(we now return you to obscenity and profanity, already in f&$#ing progress)
Sorry, Frank -- michael hagerty made me do it:

- None of the DQs in my immediate area sell burgers or other foods - They're smaller shops with only soft serve and frozen treats. If I remember correctly from my youth where there were lots of DQ locations, only the DQ Brazier shops sell hot foods as well. A fun fact - The "soft serve" that DQ uses in their shakes, cones and other treats can not legally be called "ice cream" per FDA regulations - because it's not.

- There were a few Hardees where I grew up, but all are now shuttered. I remember nearly everything I ordered there from the burgers to the roast beef sandwiches to breakfast sandwiches being fairly tasteless compared to BK and McD's..but the ones in that area did have a heavily advertised special in the early 90s that was well suited for broke college students - 2 burgers and 2 fries for $2.

- I recently had an ad for Steak & Shake pop up in my Instagram feed - trying to sell franchises. Supposedly you could get in for $10k, they'd hire staff, train everyone and stock the place initially and you'd get 50% of the profits once in operation. You had to be a full-time owner with no other obligations. I'm sure there was a lot of fine print, because if owning a Steak & Shake franchise was that inexpensive to start and easy to maintain, lots more people would be doing it.

- I'm surprised to see White Castle so low on the list. While they don't have a huge number of locations, you do find them seemingly everywhere, sometimes in the most unexpected cities and locations.

- There are a few others like Smashburger and BurgerFi that I expected to see on the list, but didn't make the top 16, I guess.

Now back to your profanity-laden tirade.
Mentally remove DQ from the list, then.

Steak & Shake is reportedly in trouble.

Smashburger hit a real rough patch a couple of years back. Also, burger chains that don't have drive-thrus (Smashburger, Habit), tend to do less business---which is why Shake Shack has just unveiled a model for a drive-thru. Five Guys is an outlier in terms of how well they do as a pure walk-in.

There's clearly an appetite :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: for this conversation---can it get moved to one of the "non-radio" forums?
Y'all are making me hungry. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
 
Most of the DQs in my area have the full restaurant, but some places have older franchises that don't have to go by the same rules as the newer locations and some have better burgers and older items on the menu that the new locations don't.
In the Bellevue area of Nashville, there are two Dairy Queens within a couple of miles of each other. One of them is corporately owned, the other, locally owned. Guess which one is better!
 
Well, now, hang on. "E.T." was rated PG on its release. PG stands for "parental guidance". If there was nothing for a parent to be concerned about, it would be rated G. Spielberg didn't set out to make a movie for kids---he made a movie about a kid---largely based on himself and an imaginary friend he created to deal with the trauma of his parents' divorce.

This was never intended to be a Disney flick for all ages.
This argument doesn't work. Almost no one is making G-rated movies any more. Or TV-G TV series except on the kids' networks.
 
This argument doesn't work. Almost no one is making G-rated movies any more. Or TV-G TV series except on the kids' networks.
That's not Spielberg's problem, nor is it an argument that PG movies shouldn't have anything in them that G movies don't.

And "no one is making G-rated movies anymore"? E.T. is from 1982---40 years ago. Here's a partial list of the G-rated theatrical movies released in that time period:

WALL-E (2008)
Toy Story (1995)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Toy Story 4 (2019)
Ratatouille (2007)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
The Lion King (1994)
Finding Nemo (2003)
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Aladdin (1992)
The Little Mermaid (1989)
Ponyo (2008)
Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
A Little Princess (1995)
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Chicken Run (2000)
Babette's Feast (1987)
The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)
Whisper of the Heart (1995)
The Secret of NIMH (1982)
Tarzan (1999)
The Winslow Boy (1999)
Not One Less (1999)
Babe (1995)
The Road Home (1999)
A Bug's Life (1998)
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)
Mulan (1998)
Hercules (1997)
The Secret Garden (1993)
Winnie the Pooh (2011)
The Last Unicorn (1982)
The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Cars (2006)
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
The Cat Returns (2002)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
The Rookie (2002)
The Land Before Time (1988)
 
Well, it sure seems like a lot of kids' movies are TV-PG these days.
That suggests, VChimp, that they're not necessarily kids movies.

Here's the definition of the TV-PG rating:

TV-PG​


Programming rated TV-PG as stated in the United States TV Parental Guidelines signifies content with parental guidance suggested. It is equivalent to the MPAA film rating PG. Content may contain infrequent and/or mild language, little sexual content and/or references, mild violence and/or suggestive themes, dialogue, and mild sexual content/partial nudity, which may be inappropriate for younger children without parental guidance.


My kids are 28 and 30 now, but I promise you, when they were young, I checked the ratings. They didn't see PG material until they were old enough to have and understand a conversation with me about what was being shown on that screen, why someone might do or say that and why we, in our house didn't. There's no one size fits all, but I'd say right around 8 or 9---maybe 10, was when we gradually began introducing PG content.
 
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All I know is there seem to be very few movies kids can watch, and yet they do, and it was my perception "E.T." was enjoyed by kids too.
 
All I know is there seem to be very few movies kids can watch, and yet they do, and it was my perception "E.T." was enjoyed by kids too.

What I don't understand is your point. Spielberg made the movie he wanted to make. The MPAA rated it appropriately, telling parents they should not allow younger children to watch it without their guidance.

Kids enjoyed it? Well, yeah---they'd probably enjoy a lot of PG, PG-13 and even R-rated movies. That's why the ratings exist---as a guide for parents, so they can make informed choices about what their kids see and hear.

And as to "very few movies kids can watch", I just gave you an incomplete list of 43 G-rated movies released since E.T. So I have no idea what you're trying to say.
 
I do think that there are movies geared toward kids that put in just enough material to get a PG rating.
Here's the thing---kids are not a monolith. The ratings system acknowledges that. A "G" movie can be shown to any age. When we were raising our kids, we'd figure a PG is good for 8 or 9 on up, but we'd watch it with them and be ready to hit "pause" and have conversations. So PG-rated "kids-geared" films are geared toward older kids. That may be the filmmaker's vision. It's not a story that they're trying to tell a six year-old.

PG-13 is exactly what it says...Parents Strongly Cautioned. Some Material May Be Inappropriate For Children Under 13. And your mileage may vary on your kids' age, but if you've had the right conversations while watching the PG stuff, you know your kids well enough to know. And again---that PG in PG-13 means "Parental Guidance"....we'd still be in the room, and we'd hit "pause" and have conversations, all the way to age 17, at which point they, in theory, can go to a theater and buy a ticket to a movie that's rated R. Or for that matter, one that's rated NC-17, though those are pretty much the unicorns of the movie world.
 
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