The Failed '80s Fast Food Trend Created By A Legendary Actor

Not every food idea pushed by a famous person is a winner. Sure, every celebrity seems to have their own brand of tequila, and Paul Newman turned a holiday gift idea into a charity-feeding food empire, but for every Wahlburgers there's a Weene World, the ill-fated restaurant opened by Mickey Rooney in the 1980s.

Modern audiences may only know Mickey Rooney from his cartoonishly racist performance as an Asian character in the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's," but he actually had a career spanning almost 90 years: his first screen credit was as a child actor in 1927, while one of his last was in a "Night at the Museum" sequel in 2014. Along the way, he picked up an Emmy Award and three Oscar nominations — and enough goodwill to start a chain of hot dog restaurants selling his unique spin on a hot dog — the Weenie Whirl. 

A Weenie Whirl was a round hot dog with a hole in the middle into which mustard or other condiments could be poured before being placed on a hamburger bun. Sure, it's a little weird, but weirder things have caught on, right? Two locations of a chain called "Mickey Rooney's Weene World" one in New Jersey and the other on Long Island, opened in the early 1980s (yes, it's spelled "Weene World." No, we don't know why).

It should be noted that Weenie Whirls were far from the only business venture Mickey Rooney pursued. A 1981 profile in the New York Times described a staggeringly ambitious man juggling a half-dozen business ideas at any given time, whenever he wasn't acting or writing novels and screenplays. None of these ideas, ranging from disposable shorts to soda for dogs, were successful, and his lack of business acumen ended up getting him in serious financial trouble.

Unfortunately for Rooney, Weene World was no exception. Maybe if he opened one location in Los Angeles in the 1950s or 1960s, it could have become a beloved local favorite. But this was the 1980s — McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King were slugging it out for dominance across America, and smaller fast food chains had trouble competing (a fate which befell Arthur Treacher's, which has only three remaining locations). Consumers were unmoved by Rooney's offerings of the Eric Von Weene (with sauerkraut as its condiment), the Yankee Doodle Weene (with cheese), or the Hawaiian Weene (with pineapple and raisins). Both locations were closed by 1985, and Rooney moved on to whatever else caught his fancy. But hey, maybe there's some alternate universe out there where people are surprised to find that the Weenie Whirl guy also did some acting.