The question is pretty short and to the point. What exactly is Grimace, the McDonald's character? I mean Ronald McDonald is a clown, that's pretty clear. And the majority of the remaining McDonald's characters seem to have at least a passing resemblance or relation to McDonald's food. The Hamburglar is a thief that steals hamburgers. Birdie is a giant bird. Not sure if she produces the eggs for Egg McMuffins or has some relation to Chicken McNuggets, but she's pretty clearly a bird. Mayor McCheese has an enormous cheeseburger for a head. The Fry Guys look like a wad of French fries. Well, really they look like pom-pons, but at least the have some relationship to french fries, its in their name. Grimace? I guess he likes shakes. Or are they called partially gelatinated non-dairy gum-based beverages?
But what is he? To me he always looked like an enormous gumdrop. According to Wikipedia, he's a member of the "wumpus" species with short arms and legs. Which begs the question, what's a wumpus? I mean there must have been some thought process behind the original design. So I looked it up, and it turns out Grimace was not always good, nor did he only have two arms. Here's visual proof:
This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2009.