Pranking a restaurant is one of those fun things you can do that will pretty much never result in something good.
No matter how good your voice impressions are at the drive-thru, no matter how large and energetic the fish you leave in the urinal may be; the best you'll get is a few hundred words on articles such as these, and at worst, you could end up being banned or facing criminal charges.
Still, regardless of the fun quotient of these practical jokes, there are some causes out there that are definitely worth pranking for, and Jevh Maravilla had one of those rare causes when deciding to prank his local McDonald's in Houston, Texas. Noticing a bizarre lack of Asian representation in those cheesy posters underneath the Golden Arches, he decided to do something about it.
It went pretty well, you could say. Jevh's tweet above got retweeted more than 250,000 times, and a million likes showed just how well his 51-day streak of prankage went. It seemed like McDonald's didn't notice that someone had so cleverly changed their poster, but there was another person in a very high place who was definitely paying attention.
Somewhere in Beverly Hills, Ellen DeGeneres was probably sitting in her living room, scrolling through her Twitter feed like you or I would, when she came across Jevh's tweet above. After doing some more research into the prank, she could have called out to the kitchen to her partner, actress Portia DeRossi, for her input.
"Portia, honey, did you see those two boys who pranked a McDonald's? I think I might get them on my show at some point."
That, or at least it's how I'd like to imagine it, is how Jevh Maravilla and his partner in crime, Christian Toledo, ended up on the Ellen DeGeneres show. But their 15 minutes of fame was just the beginning for this plucky pranksters; Ellen also had a personal gift for the pair, which she shared with them as they appeared on her show.
You can watch the video below, but let's go through it play-by-play in any case. Jevh and Christian revealed that despite their newfound virality, McDonald's had to remove their posters for renovation purposes. The Golden Arches, however, did say they would auction off the poster, donating the proceeds to Ronald McDonald House Houston charity.
Good, yes, but it gets better, don't you worry.
Ellen then revealed the real reason she brought them onto her show; thanks to the boys' efforts to raise awareness about the lack of Asian representation in fast food marketing, McDonald's will feature the two students in an upcoming campaign, complete with a $25,000 check for both boys.
Needless to say, they were pretty chuffed with the reward. That'll certainly help with those pesky student loans, won't it? Just goes to show, though; maybe the only reason you haven't been given a check for restaurant pranking is because you haven't been pranking hard enough.
