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'Rick and Morty' fans are fried over lack of Szechuan sauce

McDonald's apologizes after sauce vanishes quickly, ending up on eBay. Some fans are still unhappy.

Headshot of Gael Cooper
Headshot of Gael Cooper
Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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rickmortysaucegif

Maybe next time, Rick.

 Adult Swim

Plenty of "Rick and Morty" fans were disappointed on Saturday, the one day that certain McDonald's locations offered the now-cult favorite Szechuan sauce mentioned on the show back in April.

If you haven't been keeping up on decades-old fast-food product revivals, here's the scoop: The sauce was briefly offered as a tie-in to Disney's "Mulan" movie back in 1998. Then it vanished. And that was it, until the April mention brought Szechuan fans out on social media, clamoring for the dip.

And finally, the restaurant chain granted that wish, offering the sauce for one day only: Saturday Oct. 7, and only at a few locations. Fans were enthused going in.

But even those who were near a supposed-Szechuan-sauce-selling McD's had trouble acquiring some, and they were vocal about it on social media.

McDonald's apologized for the limited quantities in a tweet sent out Saturday. In response to a question about whether restaurants were really limited to 10 to 20 packets and whether the sauce might be offered again, McDonald's referred CNET to the tweet.

But fans weren't soothed by the "sorry." 

And the inevitable eBay auctions from the lucky few drew even more complaints.

First published Oct. 7, 1:57 p.m. PT
Update, 4:11 p.m.: Adds apology tweet from McDonald's.