Big Boy is a restaurant chain founded in 1936 by Bob Wian in the city of Glendale, California.
Bob wanted to buy a small hamburger stand, so he decided to sell his car for $300, which was a DeSoto Roadster. After this, he get his stand and called it Bob's Pantry.
While he was working, a jazz musician challenged him to create a burger completely unlike any other; Bob remained up to the challenge and cut a bun into three pieces and added two pieces of meat as well as an extra layer of cheese, thus creating the first ever double-decker burger.
On the other hand, one of his regular customers was a six-year-old boy named Richard Woodruff. Bob gave him free food in exchange for chores.
One day, one of his clients, who was a Warner Bros cartoonist, based on Richard, drew a chubby boy on a napkin and gave it to Bob; This is how Richard Woodruff's sketch became one of the most popular icons in the United States. Also, one day Bob forgot Richard Woodruff's name and yelled "Hey Big Boy" at him. after that something clicked and a name was born: Bob's Big Boy®
In the late 1940s, Bob modernized his restaurants, anticipating the freestyle cafeteria architecture of the 1950s.
Also, it´s worth mentioning that thanks to its hit, the name of Big Boy and even the character was widely used without permission. To this end, in 1952, Bob Wian instituted a formal franchise process and Elias Brothers became the first such "official" franchisee paying Bob Wian 1% of sales.
After this, Bob Wian needed Big Boy restaurants operating in multiple states to maintain national trademark protection in the United States, so they offered very generous franchise deals to Frisch's, Eat'n Park, and Parkette (later called Shoney's), all of these clustered near Ohio.
This can also resolve trademark infringements that allowed the rogue operator to become a licensed franchisee, such as McDowell's Big Boy in North Dakota.
Additionally, franchisees were allowed to subfranchise; these early sub-franchisees often used their own name and operated independently: Azar's under license from Frisch and Manners; Shoney's licensed from Adler's, Arnold's, Becker's, Elby's, Lendy's, Shap's, Tune's and Yoda's; (And an Eastern Pennsylvania franchisee Elby occasionally operated as Franklin's Big Boy before dropping out of the franchise.) Thus, many Big Boy franchises were variously named.
On the other hand, by 1956, Bob began handing out Big Boy comics to children's customers, the first was written by Stan Lee and drawn by Bill Everett.
Years later, and thanks to the hit of Bob's 2-deck hamburger, many companies tried to imitate it, among which is the McDonald's Big Mac which was introduced in 1967 and takes its name from "Big Boy: When Bob realized this, he decided to franchise Big Boy restaurants across the country, selling the rights to the chain to the Marriott Corporation later this year (1967). When Marriott made the purchase, it included Bob's Big Boy, so this name would come to be used by all Big Boys owned by Marriott and became common in parts of the eastern United States and elsewhere far from historic territory. of Bob.
By 1970 there were acquisitions and mergers in the franchises, and at the beginning of this decade, Frisch's acquired Kip's Big Boy, while JB's acquired Vip's, Kebo's, Leo's and Bud's, which were only rebranded as JB's. In addition, Shoney's acquired the Missouri territory previously assigned to Tote's. These franchises even appeared in some Big Boy commercials.
It´s worth mentioning that in 1975 Eat'n Park dropped the affiliation with Big Boy, but despite that, by the end of this decade, in 1979, there were more than a thousand Big Boy restaurants in the United States and Canada, and about 20 franchisees, of which Shoney's, Elias Brothers and Frisch's controlled the vast majority. These mega franchisees paid virtually no fees, for example, Frisch paid $1 per year for its four-state core territory; although by 1984 Shoney's also dropped the affiliation.
Time later, in 1987, Elias Brothers group bought the chain and moved the company's headquarters to Warren, Michigan, also bought Elby's and TJ's; thus, Elby's was unique in leaving and rejoining the Big Boy system; but a year later, in 1988 JB's dropped the affiliation.
It's worth mentioning that Big Boy franchisees differed a bit from each other in prices and menus, so after buying Big Boy, Elias Brothers tried to standardize the menu, but Bob's, Frisch's, and McDowell's (now known as Bismarck Big Boy) continue to offer distinctions from the standard Big Boy menu. Additionally Elias Brothers planned to phase out franchise names, only done by Big Boy Restaurants International after 2000. This was intended to strengthen the trademark but also prevent defections, as happened with Shoney's Big Boy who retained their identity as Shoney's. The same happened with Eat'n Park (1949-1975), Elby's (1956-1984, 1988-2000), Lendy's (1955-1964), JB's (1969-1979) and Abdow's (1963 - 1994) who kept their names after leave Big Boy; therefore, Big Boy now allows operators to informally identify themselves by location, such as Tawas Bay Big Boy in East Tawas, Michigan.
On the other hand, 5 years later, in 1992, Bob Wian passed away in North Hollywood, California.
But 6 years later, as we mentioned in the history of funko, in 1998, funko managed to close an agreement with those responsible for Bob's Big Boy, beginning to design a doll based on the icon of the restaurant, this is where the importance of this character for funko.
Years later, in 2000, the chain declared bankruptcy, but was sold to Robert Liggett Jr., who took over as president.
After acquiring it, Robert changed the name of the company to Big Boy Restaurants International and kept the headquarters in Warren. It´s also important to note that Robert was able to bring the chain back, as Immediately after this purchase, Big Boy Restaurants International, then known as Liggett Restaurant Enterprises, negotiated an agreement with the other major franchise operator, Frisch's Restaurants, in which the Big Boy's trademarks in Kentucky, Indiana, and most of Ohio and Tennessee were transferred to Frisch's ownership, and all other Frisch territories were transferred to Liggett. Thus, Frisch's was no longer a franchisee, but instead became independent co-registrars of the Big Boy name and brand, operating or franchising 121 Big Boy restaurants in the United States.
Years later, in 2018, Big Boy was sold to a group of Michigan investors and renamed the Big Boy Restaurant Group, with David Crawford serving as president, CEO and co-owner of the new company. In addition, the company is the operator or franchiser of 69 Big Boy restaurants in the United States and two in Thailand.
Finally it´s worth mentioning that Big Boy Japan operates 274 restaurants in Japan, also independent of Big Boy Restaurant Group, while the vast majority of the aforementioned franchisees, including Bob, remain in operation today, although Elias Brothers is now known simply as Big Boy, while the Azar's franchise closed in 2020
As a curious fact, in 2018 Ford launched a campaign called "Built Ford Proud", in which you can see the Big Boy being transported.
Finally, in this same year, 2018, Funko released the Pop! of the 20th anniversary for the Bob's Big Boy AD Icons series, although there are also some other versions of this character, among which we can find the following:
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