Finding Grace in a Burger Bun: An Incrediburgible Quest
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dick and Mac are content with their lives: they enjoy making burgers by day and stargazing by night. Ray Kroc is a workaholic chasing success at any cost. When the brothers' relaxed approach to business collides with Kroc's ruthless ambition it will birth one of the world's best-known brands. This is the story of two very different approaches to making hamburgers - and two very different approaches to making money.
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:07.5 | Pushkin. |
| 0:30.3 | With jerky movements, a golden droid walks up to the counter of a burger restaurant. |
| 0:34.2 | He turns to his companion who's lagging behind. |
| 0:38.1 | R2D2, hurry up, says C3PO. |
| 0:44.2 | At the counter, C3PO asks for a Star Wars poster. |
| 0:53.0 | The smiling young server explains that if he buys a large Coca-Cola for 49 cents, the poster's free. |
| 1:03.0 | The year is 1977, and Star Wars is a sensation in the nation's cinemas. |
| 1:11.3 | Nowadays we expect any major movie to have a tie-in with a fast food chain. |
| 1:15.9 | But in 1977, that idea was very new. |
| 1:20.3 | The burger restaurant? Go on. Have a guess. |
| 1:23.8 | I'm going to guess that your guess was McDonald's. |
| 1:32.2 | But no, the advert was for burger chef. You've never heard of Burger Chef? For a while, |
| 1:38.8 | it was almost as big as McDonald's, and in many ways more innovative. Burger Chef had the Big Chef before McDonald's had the Big Mac. Burger Chef had the fun meal |
| 1:44.2 | before McDonald's had the happy meal. |
| 1:46.8 | When McDonald's introduced the happy meal, |
| 1:49.4 | Burger Chef sued, saying they'd ripped off the idea. |
| 1:53.3 | Where McDonald's had its clown, Ronald, |
| 1:56.4 | Burger Chef had a jocular cartoon chef |
| 1:59.2 | with a chirpy teenage sidekick. The Fun Burger! With a jocular cartoon chef with a chirpy teenage sidekick. |
| 2:02.7 | The Fun Burger! |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.