McDonald's Just Surprised the Guys Who Pranked Them With a Huge Check & Their Own Ad

Pulling a prank on a multinational corporation and having it go viral can go either one of two ways: the company in question will press charges and you'll end up in court or tey'll hand you a fat check for your efforts and even put you in one of their ads. That's at least the takeaway from what just happed for the two guys who slyly put up a giant portrait of themselves in their local McDonald's. The mega-chain just gave them $25,000 each and will feature them in a forthcoming marketing campaign. 

In an effort to call attention to the fact that none of the hanging posters of smiling customers in their local Texas Mickey D's had any Asian people in it, friends Jevh and Christian decided to blow up a giant photo of themselves and clandestinely hang it on an empty wall in the restaurant. They managed to pull it off without getting caught for over 50 days, too, but when a series of tweets revealing their scheme went viral a couple weeks ago, both McDonald's and avowed prank-lover Ellen DeGeneres took notice. 

On the September 18 episode of "The Ellen Show," DeGeneres welcomed the two friends on and had them walk her through their grand scheme. Then she praised their efforts, and made quite the big reveal: McDonald's is going to put them in an upcoming marketing campaign as a thank-you for their guerrilla commitment to addressing the issue of diverse representation in their local outpost. Finally, she unleashed an even bigger surprise by parading out a pair of jumbo $25,000 checks as a reward for their efforts. 

So, that just goes to show that when done right, pranking pays. See, mom?!

h/tFoodbeast

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Joe McGauley is a senior writer for Thrillist. Follow him @jwmcgauley.