The Hamburger Helper Helping Hand was never intended to to handle this kind of meat.

The pasty white creature is up to his knuckles in debt and there are rumors surrounding a suspected addiction to hand lotions. Hamburger Helper Helping Hand, or 4-H to his friends—the few that are left—is at the end of a career in show business.

"He was getting to be a real handful," said Jean LeMain, 4-H's former agent. "When he first started out he had a great work ethic; he worked his fingers to the bone. But then the fame got to him, and he started thumbing his nose at the very people who had helped him get his hand in the door. Eventually, he wouldn't listen to anyone. 'Talk to the hand', he would say, before flipping them the finger."

4-H started his career as a hand model and struggled early on to get hand jobs. Opportunities were scarce and the work chafed him, but all the time he held on to his dream, to make it one day in show business, to show up those who said he’d never make it, to make his mom proud.

He got his big break in 1963 as a meat handler in a series of commercials for Steak Boy, a precursor to Hamburger Helper. Talent scouts liked his fresh, scrubbed look. Before long he was promoting sausages and finger foods. In 1977 because of his hands-on experience in the kitchen he was handed the Hamburger Helper account and became a superstar.

With the fame, and everything he ever wanted came, came an attitude that he was indispensable. He had to be treated with kid gloves by his handlers.