A look back at some trippy McDonald's ads

You people in the ad business now have no idea about the height of surreality that things got to in the late '70s and early '80s. Take a trip down Memory Lane with Stay Free, the excellent 10-year-old 'zine (remember 'zines?) that "explores the politics and perversions of mass media and American (consumer) culture," according to its Web site, www.stayfreemagazine.org. Author Tom Harrod chronicles and comments on the supreme silliness of several old-school McDonald's ads, many featuring Ronald McDonald, who—I must say—aside from the hair, looks alarmingly like Michael Jackson. All your favorite characters are here: Evil Grimace (pictured, looking not so evil, at left), Mayor McCheese, happy singing trash cans and "Car-Crashing Disheveled Elderly Man." Uh, don't remember him? author Harrod explains:

"Educators were worried about the messages Hamburglar and Evil Grimace were sending kids, so they were briefly replaced with Car-Crashing Disheveled Elderly Man, who would liven up commercials by crashing his car into all sorts of things while screaming about McDonald's food."

Good times. Check the story out here, which also includes downloads of the spots. They're enough to make McDonald's current ads with characters waxing euphoric about their "fruit buzz" seem staid in comparison.

—Posted by Mae Anderson

June 2, 2005 in Anderson | Permalink