McDonald's teased Rick and Morty (and chicken nugget) fans everywhere last month when they said "a few lucky fans" would get to experience the glory of Szechuan sauce, a limited-edition dip mentioned in the show. But one of the winners has sold his geekiest of prizes for $15,500 (£12,000) on Ebay – and it looks like DJ Deadmau5 has won it.
The fast-food brand announced three individual winners of the competition on Twitter at the end of last month, each of whom received a half-gallon-size Szechuan dipping sauce – apparently the last that have been made.
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One of the winners, writer and podcast host Robert Workman (who Barack Obama follows on Twitter, btw), however, decided to list his prize on eBay, saying, "No matter what amount it ends up at, I hope it ends up in the hands of someone that will thoroughly enjoy it."
And in a rather strange turn of events, DJ Deadmau5 got involved in the bidding, and the price soared up past the $15,000 mark.
Workman wrote on Twitter yesterday that the auction's winner actually changed his mind, so now it's fair game for the second highest bidder – which just so happened to be deejay Deadmau5. He got married this weekend, but after the festivities, he's apparently down.
Workman plans to donate part of the proceeds to charity. According to the listing, 10% will go to Extra Life, an organisation that benefits sick and injured children, and another 10% will be divided among various charities.
The Szechuan sauce frenzy began when the season 3 premiere of Rick and Morty aired back in April, featuring Rick's obsession with McDonald's Szechuan McNugget dipping sauce, a limited-edition sauce used to promote Mulan in 1998.
"I want that Mulan McNugget sauce, Morty," Rick says in the episode. "That's my series arc, Morty! If it takes nine seasons!"
Thankfully it didn't take that long for McDonald's to listen. Justin Roiland, the show's co-creator and voice of Rick and Morty, then tweeted images of a 64-ounce bottle of the Szechuan Sauce McDonald's had sent to him with a special Rick and Morty label.
McDonald's included a note with the sauce, too:
Justin, We finally did it. It took months, but we've finally brought back some Szechuan Sauce. We'll spare you the physics, but turns out, Dimension C-1998M is a dimension where it's always 1998. 1998 every day. No smartphones, no social media. It's a weird, scary place. But they've got Szechuan Sauce on the regular menu. So here we are with some precious cargo—the Szechuan Sauce you remember and some souvenirs from some of the dimensions we tried along the way. We wish we could've brought more sauce through, but we couldn't risk keeping a portal like that open. Think about it, if you knew in 1998 that McDonald's would have All Day Breakfast in 2017, would you really want to stay in 1998? Of course not. If we left the portal open, we'd have puka shells, bucket hats and boy bands as far as the eye could see. It's too risky, even for sauce as delicious as this. A few lucky fans will also get to experience the glory, but the first bottle in this dimension is for you. Stay Schwifty, Chef Mike
