McDonald's Brings Back Its Szechuan Sauce For 'A Few Lucky Fans,' All Thanks To 'Rick & Morty'

As part of a promotional campaign for the Disney film Mulan, in 1998 McDonald's released a limited-time-only Szechuan dipping sauce for its Chicken McNuggets. The product was quickly forgotten by most (it certainly didn't make our list of discontinued fast food items we miss the most) — but Justin Roiland, the co-creator of popular Adult Swim series Rick & Morty, never forgot about it, and in the April premiere of the show's third season , mad scientist Rick Sanchez rants about how much he wants to track down that long-lost sauce. Well, it appears as if the show has a fan at McDonald's, because the company replied this weekend in a hilarious way.

The episode resulted in an online petition to bring back the sauce that received nearly 40,000 signatures, so McDonald's took the bait and over the weekend delivered a 64-ounce jug of the sauce to Roiland, along with a cheeky note claiming that the company was able to go back in time and bring back a few bottles of the stuff from 1998. (They company cheekily explained why they couldn't bring back more: "If we left the portal open, we'd have puka shells, bucket hats, and boy bands as far as the eye can see.")

McDonald's followed up with a Tweet of their own, along with a video of three bottles of the sauce sitting on a shelf for 19 years. The company claims that these are the only bottles of the sauce in existence, but their letter to Roiland noted that "a few lucky fans will also get to experience the glory." The company confirmed in later tweets that there are no plans to bring the sauce back, but it's good to know that they can just go back to 1998 to get some more whenever they want to.