Cheeseburger Challenge

The Cheeseburger Challenge is a modified speedrun of M.C. Kids invented by Draco as a way to prevent performances of the game from getting stale. It was introduced in the 2016 Extra Life marathon and the rules of the challenge state that any time Draco dies during the run he must stop playing the game and eat an entire McDonald's cheeseburger without stopping the timer. The initial novelty of the challenge drew attention from the M.C. Kids speedrunning community who have routinely supported it when it is featured every year during the charity marathon. Draco's any% run from 2018 and 100% run from 2019 are both included in the official leaderboards for the game on Speedrun.com where they each sit at last place due to the act of Draco eating the cheeseburgers wasting a significant amount of time.

Normally the runs are a standard any% completion with a basic route. 100% runs are generally not attempted due to the increased difficulty resulting in eating more cheeseburgers. When a 100% run was featured in 2019 the cheeseburgers were replaced with McNuggets to account for the likely increase in deaths. Draco had made prior arrangements with McDonald's to purchase 40 nuggets (2x 20 piece) plus a specific set of varying sauces (3x of 7 sauces, one for each world in the game) however when Draco's brother went to pick up the food the restaurant refused to give him any of the sauces despite Draco getting prior permission -- and paying -- for the sauces ahead of time. Thinking fast, his brother went to Popeye's and explained what had happened and despite not actually buying any food the restaurant gave him an entire paper bag full of sauces, saving the challenge in the process. In acknowledgment of Popeye's saving the run in 2019, Draco replaced the McNuggets with Popeye's tenders for the 100% run done in 2020.

The 2020 marathon featured "atomic tenders" which were pieces of chicken covered in Dave's Insanity Sauce (180K Scoville). This challenge started a brief trend of Draco incorporating spicy sauces into the Cheeseburger Challenge. In 2021 Draco put together a "Russian Roulette" run where he went back to cheeseburgers and brought out ten different hot sauces escalating in heat each tagged with a number between 1 and 10. Upon death Draco would take a cheeseburger and then draw a card with a number on it corresponding to one of the sauces. The hottest sauce at #10 was just under 1 million Scoville. In 2022 Draco opted to start the run by eating a Paqui Reaper Chip from that year's "One Chip Challenge" and then ride out the heat while eating a cheeseburger with Dave's Insanity Sauce on it each time he died. The Reaper Chip weighed in at over 2 million Scoville. Draco ate the chip and was fine for the first 20-25 minutes of the run, however halfway through the game he doubled over in abdominal pain and had to step away from the set for a while to recover. Following the marathon Draco elaborated and said the chip itself wasn't that hot and tasted absolutely terrible and he was just playing up the reaction for the camera, however about 10 minutes into the run he said his stomach started to hurt and it only got worse as the minutes passed. He said when he excused himself he actually went to go lay on the floor in the bathroom after taking some Pepto Bismol because he had no idea if he might throw up or have to use the toilet. He did eventually return to the stream after about a half hour and completed the rest of the game without doing the challenge since he was still feeling uneasy.

Following the disaster of the Reaper chip from 2022, in 2023 Draco returned to a normal cheeseburger challenge and used some of the "Mambo" sauce that McDonald's was giving away as a promotion at the time. For the 2024 marathon the standard McDonald's cheeseburgers were replaced with White Castle sliders. This was done because earlier in the year Draco had started taking a new medication that affected the rate at which he was able to digest food and eating the smaller slider cheeseburgers would allow him to continue the spirit of the challenge at a pace that he'd be able to safely handle.

Past performances of the Cheeseburger Challenge

• 2016: (Any%) Debut of the challenge, one cheeseburger upon each death.
• 2018: (Any%) One cheeseburger upon each death.
• 2019: (100%) One McNugget upon each death, due to more difficult levels being played.
• 2020: (100%) One Popeye's chicken tender covered in Dave's Insanity Sauce upon each death.
• 2021: (Any%) One cheeseburger upon each death with a randomly selected hot sauce on a heat scale of 1 to 10.
• 2022: (Any%) Start the run by eating a Paqui "One Chip Challenge", then one cheeseburger with hot sauce upon each death.
• 2023: (Any%) One cheeseburger upon each death.
• 2024: (Any%) One cheeseburger slider upon each death.