The 9 Most Awful McDonalds Commercials Ever Made

Posted at 5:04 AM Jun 06, 2008

By Teague Bohlen

If you've watched even an hour of television in your life, then you've probably been subjected to a McDonalds commercial. Most are merely annoying, but some reach levels of lunacy that few can recover from. We're not talking about Mayor McCheese and the Fry-Guys weird here—that stuff was made to be weird and wacky. This, rather, is Crispin Glover weird—stuff that's just off without even trying. This list of ads takes you on a chronological journey through the star-studded, sometimes racist madness that is the last half-century of McDonalds propaganda.

9) Before the Rickroll

Never gonna give you up, McRib. Yes, the ‘90s were a confusing time for us all. Thank god we had all that harmonica music.

8) Birdie and the Black Ronald

No, that's not the title of the sitcom that followed Chico and the Man—it's a McDonalds ad from the late ‘80s notable for two failed experiments. One was an obviously African-American Ronald McDonald, which isn't so much wrong as it is odd, like if Captain Crunch was suddenly drawn as Chow Yun-Fat from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. And the other was Birdie, a failed character in the McDonaldland cast. McDonalds claims that Birdie is still around, but it's telling that Birdie disappeared at around the same time that the McChicken sandwich came into being.

7) It's Mac Tonight!

The late 80s was apparently a good time for the great taste of McDonalds. Or at least for this illogical new McDonalds character "Mac Tonight" to come out, do a little ivory-tickling, a little crooning, a little…WHAT THE FUCK, IS THAT A MOON SINGING? IS HE WEARING A LIBERACE SUIT? IS THAT CLOCK GIVING BIRTH TO FRIES AND BURGERS? YOU TOLD ME THIS WAS THE GOOD ACID

6) Woman Very Excited to Give You a Free Mug (and a Song)

These mugs were ubiquitous back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, lingering sadly in offices and breakrooms where they'd been abandoned by people who realized "hey, just how often am I planning on going to sit down and enjoy a mug of coffee at McDonalds, anyhow?" Eventually, they were collected and put into a giant landfill, along with the massive stacks of Styrofoam breakfast containers, that eventually created the island-nation we now know as Sri Lanka. Another reason this campaign failed was that this was attempted back when McDonald's coffee sucked. Not even Grimace would touch the stuff, and that fat purple bastard wasn't choosy.