Cavalcade of Awesome

I’ve have been going crazy the last few days looking up McDonald’s stuff. YouTube, Google Images, Flickr, X-Entertainment, anything I can find about Mickey D’s house of beef. I find this place unbelievably fascinating. It’s not just the food, though, it’s the whole McDonald’s mystique. The whole history, advertising, menu and pop culture influences of the world’s greatest fast food chain is endlessly interesting and entertaining. Oh, I won’t eat there, mind you, especially after watching Super Size Me. I still love the burgers and fries, but I feel so guilty eating them after watching that documentary.

Not many other fast food chains have created an entire world named after itself filled with colorful life-size puppet characters that love to eat fast food. Not just love to eat it, but live to eat it. It’s insane. The McDonaldland characters almost deserve their own article here on my blog, and they just might get it the way this week has been going, but today I’m going to show you some of my favorite McDonald’s commercials that I remember as a kid. The ones I watched over and over on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons. I found so many good memories while surfing YouTube the other day that I thought I’d share. Maybe you remember them too. I’ll also include, at the end, some other funny or classic commercials I came across in my digging. Enjoy!

Commercial #1 – Larry Bird vs Michael Jordan – The Showdown

Classic. One of my all-time favorites. Mostly because I have a stalker-like, awkward love for Larry Bird. Seeing Jordan and Bird face off in the ultimate game of horse for Jordan’s bag of burgers is awesome. This commercial even inspired a sequel or two that included Charles Barkley. This was back when the NBA was still cool. What happened? Click here for the commercial

Commercial #2 – Mac Tonight

This particular commercial is the one I first thought of when I decided to write this article. The character and song in the commercial display an unbelievably cool vibe, especially for McDonalds. Mac singing Sinatra-style on top of a giant burger like some Vegas lounge act gone crazy. Wonderful! I still love this commercial and the song. The production values are ridiculously high. Check out the giant McDonald’s/box of fries towards the middle. So cool. Click here for the commercial. I believe there were a couple of different versions of this commercial using the same song including one where Mac is singing inside a rollercoaster as he rolls around and in-between yummy McDonald’s food.

This commercial was actually redone this year with updated song and CGI animation. Click here for it. It’s pretty good, but not as good as the original. Nothing like seeing a dude in a quarter-moon costume that can only move it’s mouth.

Commercial #3 – First Day

This video was shown constantly during the week after school. It centered on two guys who just started what looks like high school. They are having a hard time in the beginning fitting in but figure it all out by the end of the day and then head for McDonald’s to unwind. I remember this vividly for two things, both shown in the above pics. In the first, the water fountain shoots a giant stream of water into another kid’s face. In pic two is the image of water fountain boy standing amongst what must be the Chicago Bears’ offensive line. What school did these kids go to? Cherynobl? WTF?! It’s a crazy commercial that sums up what it’s like to start a new school, except for the fact that these kids are navigating the school hallways like pros by the end of the first day. But that’s life in McDonalds’ commercial land. Cool song and cool commercial nonetheless. Click here to watch it.

There are some other Mickey D commercials I love, but those are the ones I remember most. I’m sure there are more, but YouTube has a limited selection.

YouTube did, however, have a slew of commercials I’ve never seen before and have quickly fallen in sloppy love with. Check these out:

Origin of Grimace

You may wonder, what the hell is Grimace? You know how each character in McDonaldLand actually represents an item or items on the menu? Birdie the Early Bird is for the breakfast menu, Mayor McCheese was for Big Macs, The Fry Guys were for the fries (obviously). Well, Grimace was meant to represent McDonald’s milkshakes. This commercial is Grimace’s first appearance. You can see he started out as kind of the Hamburgerlar, but with milkshakes. Also, notice that he has 4 arms (see pic) and is a little bit more menacing than later commercials.

Welcome to McDonaldLand

This is the first commercial to introduce audiences to McDonaldLand. A fast food “Shangri-La” where kids could walk amongst gardens of growing cheese burgers and apple pie trees. Oh MY GOD how criz-azy is this commercial?! That song, it’s hypnotic! It brings 7 different kinds of crazy to my eyeballs. It’s like watching HR Puf-n-Stuf while tripped out on Crystal Meth. Unbelievably kooky. Haha. Mayor McCheese is a pimp, tho.

And finally….

If Ronald McDonald were a chick…and hot.

In Japan McDonald’s decided to semi-retire the scary clown visage of Ronald McDonald. They replaced him with……..her. Click here to see this commercial for the Tomato McGrand sandwich in Japanese. I don’t think this chick is supposed to be Ronald McDonald, I think they are just putting her in Ronald’s outfit. There’s a guy version of this commercial here. I like the chick better.

I hope you’ve enjoyed delving into my McDonald’s obsession this week. I want to write another Mickey D’s article talking about forgotten sandwiches that they used to serve, but we’ll see if it gets done.

Have you had your break today? I’m lovin’ it!

UPDATED!!! — See Part II of this article here! More awesome McDonald’s commercials!!

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This entry was posted on August 8, 2007 at 7:17 pm and is filed under food, humor, McDonald's, pop culture with tags advertising, fast food, McDonald's, pop culture, TV commercials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.