McDonald's Cadmium and Lead Garfield Mug

About

Garfield Lead Paint McDonald's Mug refers to a series of painted Garfield glass mugs distributed by McDonald's in the 1980s which contain dangerous amounts of lead and cadmium in the paint coating. In 2022 a blog post raised awareness about the health hazard presented by the mugs, with the product becoming a subject of memes and references.

Origin

On October 11th, 2019, product safety blog Lead Safety Mama^[1] posted an entry about promotional Garfield glass mugs distributed by McDonald's in the 1980s. The mugs, which feature Garfield cartoons by artist Jim Davis and are distinguished by the year 1978 printed on them, contain dangerous amounts of lead and cadmium in the paint. Lead, at levels of about 1,000 the allowed limit, can cause brain damage, while cadmium, a known carcinogen, was nearly 150 times the amount considered legal in the state of Washington.

On April 12th, 2022, X^[2] user @stumblebee posted a PSA based on the article, warning of dangerous amounts of lead and cadmium contained in the paint. The post (shown below) received over 12,000 reposts and 35,000 likes in two weeks.

Spread

On April 13th, 2022, Redditor /u/laterment made a Reddit^{[3] [4]} post in /r/tifu about having used the lead-painted mug every day for a long time. The post (shown below) received over 27,000 upvotes in two years. On April 14th, Redditor PlebBot69 posted a screenshot of the /r/tifu post to /r/comedyheaven, where it received over 24,000 upvotes in two years.

As these and other posts about the health hazard spread online, the mug achieved popularity as a subject of memes and humorous references. For example, on April 25, 2022, Tumblr^[5] user weaver-z posted an I don't believe in that nonsense meme that received over 50,000 likes and reblogs in two years (shown below, left; authorship unconfirmed). On December 31st, 2022, Instagram^[6] user @garfigment posted a meme that received over 3,400 likes in eleven months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References