If there is a god of ludicrous ideas that later seem inspired, he must have smiled on Brian Thompson one night four years ago. A comedy writer living in Los Angeles, Thompson had been bingeing on true crime podcasts when he decided to create a show that would plumb the stupidest, least consequential mystery he could imagine.
For reasons he can't fully explain, he came up with: Whatever happened to pizza at McDonald's?
Maybe you are too young to remember. Perhaps you forgot. Or there's a chance you've blocked it. But the home of the Big Mac began selling pizza in the mid-1980s.
McDonald's gave up a few years later. Nobody lamented the passing of McPizza, and nobody was urging its return. Which, to Thompson in the fall of 2016, made the topic all the more appealing.
"I knew there were a lot of McDonald's that are open 24 hours, so I could call one of them right then," he said. He called two. At the first, an employee hung up. But at the second, a manager was sincerely stumped. "Sorry about that," he said, politely. "Have a good night."
By 3 a.m., Thompson had edited the calls and added some narration. Then he uploaded Episode 1 of the "Whatever Happened to Pizza at McDonald's?" podcast to iTunes. That was 177 episodes ago.
More than just a joke
What started as a lark meant to amuse himself has evolved into something far richer — a deadpan satire about podcasts, the business of podcasting and the quirks of investigative journalism.
"Whatever" has a core audience of about 30,000 listeners. It has spun off an online version of a board game and a self-published book ("How to Be an Investigative Journalist"), and Thompson has shot a TV pilot episode that his manager is shopping around Hollywood.