Yesterworld: The History & Downfall of McDonaldland and the Disney-McDonalds Happy Meal

when it comes to the history of fast food restaurants there's certainly no shortage of interesting stories from taco bell originating as a hot dog and hamburger stand kfc's infamous secret recipe or jack-in-the-box's innovation of the two-way drive through intercom but few of them have as fascinating of a history as mcdonald's or more specifically the world and characters of mcdonald land in the happy meal it's a story that spans over 50 years and goes in quite a few unexpected directions so sit back relax and let's take a deep dive into one of fast foods most iconic and absolutely bonkers advertising campaigns the story begins in 1940 with the very first mcdonald's in san bernardino california which was owned and run by maurice and richard mcdonald it began as a fairly modest drive-in restaurant serving hamburgers barbecue hot dogs and other eateries by way of car hops however despite its success eight years later the mcdonald's brothers decided to close the restaurant for refurbishment and make a number of drastic alterations one of them was the implementation of a new speedy service system as well as focusing on the restaurant's most popular food item hamburgers just these changes alone would allow mcdonald's to deliver a customer's order in a staggering 15 to 30 seconds another change was getting rid of the slower car hop service in favor of a self-service counter system beyond operational changes was rebranding the face of mcdonald's with a new official mascot fittingly named speedy but what made the mcdonald's franchise really take off was a milkshake mixer salesman by the name of ray kroc you see in 1954 while on a business trip ray kroc found himself at the original mcdonald's location and he instantly saw the restaurant's potential so he made a deal with the mcdonald's brothers to begin franchising the fast food restaurant all over the country well i said why don't you get somebody to do it they said well we don't know anybody who want to do it i said well how about me he said you want to bother with it he said sure now to dive into the entire history of how ray crock grew the mcdonald's franchise and essentially weaseled the original owners out of the business is more than we can get into here so for our story you just need to know that in 1961 ray kroc officially bought them out and began focusing on expanding the fast food franchise exponentially but first was to establish a new mascot that was a bit more enticing than a winking hamburger with a protruding belly that for some reason had human hands and feet sure the restaurant's golden arches were already very recognizable in the same year of the acquisition mcdonald's debuted the first iteration of the soon to be iconic golden m logo but ray kroc wanted to enter the world of television advertising and more specifically reach the most influential demographic of all children enter bozo the clown who was first introduced on television in 1949 and by the 1960s had become the world's most famous clown and household name numerous actors played the terrifying i mean charming clown during the height of his popularity one of these was radio personality willard scott who in 1962 was approached by mcdonald's to see if he was interested in playing a different kind of clown isn't that mcdonald's hamburger delicious mom told me never to talk to strangers well your brother's right as always but i'm ronald mcdonald give me a mcdonald's shake in 1963 the restaurant's new mascot ronald mcdonald made his first appearance on television and would appear in two more commercials that same year these proved to be such a success that after he was given a quick makeover to appear less like he stumbled out of a garbage can continued to promote the restaurant all through the 1960s it didn't take long for ronald mcdonald to become one of the most familiar faces to children all across america but this was only the beginning of his rise to fame in the 1970s mcdonald's began moving away from its walk-up counter-style approach to sit down roofed restaurants they wanted to focus on creating more of an experience for customers rather than just having them pick up their food and walking off property but this went beyond just the dining aspect of the restaurant as they wanted to create a host of new characters alongside ronald and boost their influence on children even further get ready get set mcdonald's ah the fitter pattern of little feet as they hurry towards our famous mcdonald's hamburgers is music to our ears now for those unaware the 1960s and 70s were the boom of saturday morning cartoons and as cynical as it sounds the driving force behind this wasn't entertaining children but advertising the children you see companies knew that getting kids hooked on cheaply made television shows was the best way to advertise toys games candy and especially totally not addicting sugary cereal but what made cereal commercials especially unique was their world building catchy bubble gum tunes and their irresistibly charming mascots in many cases these commercials were similar to a mini cartoon series with various skits and shenanigans telling a quick story which of course revolved around promoting the company's product and again totally not addicting sugary cereal sugar mean mr winter is freezing our summer i'll sweeten him up with super sugar super sugar crisp is coated with super sugar to make it taste so sweet post super sugar crisp cereal part of a balanced breakfast unsurprisingly mcdonald's wanted to get on on this too so they reached out to needham harper and steers a short time later the ad agency came back to mcdonald's with a brilliant concept called mcdonald land a magical place filled with all kinds of unique and lovable characters alongside ronald there was mayor mccheese officer big mac and the professor as the good guys within this world the villains consisted of captain crook and the hamburglar with a few other mischievous non-puncentric characters like grimace and the goblins mcdonald's loved the idea and before long production began on the television commercial series for mcdonald land in thinking about where this little society could live and operate we came up with the concept of a gigantic set in which the mcdonald's food items the menu items were the chief elements and landmarks the basic plot of these tv spots were pretty straightforward ronald mcdonald and some random child would get into shenanigans on this magical island each adventure was structured to promote a very specific menu item which had a direct tie into the plot in fact many parts of the land itself was quite literally made of mcdonald's delicacies so sort of like a willy wonka factory of high cholesterol now because each and every one of these 1970s mcdonaldland commercials is absolute comedy gold let's take a deep dive into some of the best [Music] [Applause] [Music] one bright installments day in mcdonald's land ronald big mac and their friend tim were on their way to mcdonald's when suddenly [Music] the burger alarm cried jim one adventure had ronald and his friend tim encounter the hamburglar who's trying to steal all those delicious mcdonald's hamburgers so with the help of a giant milkshake machine aboard a train ronald decides to whip up an irresistible mcdonald's chocolate shake he then tricks the crafty old hamburglar into giving back all those delicious mcdonald's hamburgers but thankfully he gets his just desserts as he winds up getting arrested by officer big mac get yourself ready another adventure features ronald mcdonald and his friend billy fishing for filleto fish sandwiches on phillyfish lake when suddenly the despicable captain crook shows up as you can probably predict he demands for them to hand over all those tasty fillet fish sandwiches never said billy but ronald instead puts a hole in his ship causing captain crook to sink down into the waters of philly fish lake the two friends are then allowed to enjoy all those tasty fillet fish sandwiches and i'm not even exaggerating how many times they shoehorn the word fillet fish into this one get yourself ready for a trip yet another adventure features the professor working on a machine that'll make the best hamburger in the world but what the silly professor doesn't realize is duh mcdonald's already has the best hamburger in the world this one also features a terrifying ronald mcdonald laugh that'll haunt your [Music] dreams a final example had meri mccheese in a panic over a swarm of goblins in the french fry patch terrified they'll gobble up all those delicious mcdonald's french fries what'll we do nothing said ronald but instead of helping ronald simply says well if you can't beat him join him so he really took the easy way out on this one don't forget to feed the wastebaskets cause they're hungry too [Music] campaign was a huge success and before long the popularity of the characters spawned a very profitable line of merchandise there were mcdonald's then playsets comic books coloring books bed sheets puzzles calendar souvenir glasses slippers posable figurines and even a board game when it came to the restaurant itself many were adorned with elaborate murals of the land and its characters there were also concepts for a couple mcdonald land high chairs that were never produced and thank god because these would have been absolutely traumatizing to children everything surrounding mcdonald land was so ridiculously lucrative that eventually other fast food restaurants applied this world building to their own marketing strategy but one of the most iconic and nostalgic parts of this whole phenomenon was the mcdonald land playground welcome eric to mcdonald land yeah you are done of course it's me and all your other friends too come on in and look around after being welcomed by mayor mccheese and officer big mac there were all kinds of ways to have fun on the mcdonald land playground there was the captain crook spiral slide a quote exciting ride with a twist another was the mad professor slide the mcdonald land teeter-totter the apple pie tree and the filleto fish spring ride of course how could i forget the mayor mcchee's roundabout the hamburglar swing as well as the filleto fish and burger patch pond another exciting adventure was the grimace bouncing bend where kids could literally bounce around inside of a cage with metal bars which mcdonald's strongly emphasized was safe for children the evil grimace can bounce and bend all day and is completely safe for children perhaps the most iconic of all was the big mac climber where kids could reach new and exciting heights and again was totally safe for children come play on the great equipment that makes mcdonald land a fun place to go the world and characters in mcdonald land continued to bring mcdonald's record sales and profits all through the 70s but behind the scenes trouble was brewing for the fast food restaurant you see it turns out needham harper and steers who remember was behind the campaign didn't come up with the idea of mcdonald land on their own as later revealed they'd first reached out to sid and marty croft the creators of hr puff and stuff hr [ __ ] stuff mayor of living island terrific i never met a man before pleased to meet you sir well howdy despite only consisting of 17 episodes h.r and stuff was a very popular children's television series which ran continuously from 1969 well into the 70s the show took place on the fictional land of living island where as the name implies everything was alive so when needham harper and steers reached out to the creators of hr puff and stuff their idea was to use the characters and world of their show as a template for a new fictional land called mcdonald land the show's creators accepted the offer and began developing the artistic designs and engineering plans that were then to be pitched to mcdonald's however at the last minute they were told the campaign was scrapped so the creators moved on of course a short time later the campaign did become a reality and the cross noticed a few too many striking similarities between mcdonald land and their show from the concept of a land filled with living inanimate objects a forced with talking trees and even a number of nearly identical side characters the most damning evidence however were the similarities between mayor mccheese and h.r puffinstaff who also happened to be a mayor he also had a nearly identical voice to the character of dr blinky hiya mayor mcgee's what's new well you see this this mcdonaldland happy cup is new come on i'll show you what it looks like it's the most fabulous invention you ever thought although to be fair the voice actors on both shows were simply emulating the voice of the legendary edwin butter oh thank you butter yes that's fine in 1971 the creators of hr puff and stuff filed a lawsuit against mcdonald's and while i won't get into the details for the sake of time it's a pretty fascinating read for six long years the lawsuit dragged on which unbeknownst to many was happening in the background during the rise of mcdonald land and its characters although by this point they'd pretty much abandoned having children play a role in the shenanigans in december of 1977 the courts finally reached a verdict mcdonald's was guilty of copyright infringement as part of the settlement mcdonald's wound up having to pay the crops more than 1 million dollars in damages or just over 4.5 million dollars today as far as the changes to mcdonald land itself it gets a little complicated the court's findings basically concluded that mcdonald's infringed on the overall look and feel of the show not any specific character or element because of this mcdonald's was given a pretty generous amount of time to adjust the world and characters of mcdonald land accordingly so we'll come back to this in a bit in the meantime the lawsuit wasn't the only problem mcdonald's was facing you see franchise owners are finding that despite a previously successful ad campaign kids didn't really want to eat at mcdonald's anymore the culprit star wars kind of burger chef introduces star wars fun meals for your kids a hamburger french fries and coca-cola imagine how much fun your kids will have as the 1980s drew near other fast food restaurants began offering incentives based on the worldwide phenomenon that was star wars such as burger chef star wars inspired fun meal another example were the collectible star wars glasses from burger king so all of a sudden mcdonald's had steep competition when it came to the children's demographic although this wasn't necessarily a new concept as in the mid-70s burger chef began offering small toys with what they called the fun burger the integration of star wars simply created a much much wider appeal and mcdonald's was slow to catch on unless you count the free shaving razors with the purchase of a delicious mcdonald's breakfast sandwich however it turns out the solution was already in motion in 1977 but the company just didn't know it yet as the story goes restaurant owner yolanda fernandez who along with her husband established the first mcdonald's in guatemala had come up with what she called the ronald menu this was designed specifically for children as well in the us mcdonald's items like the big mac were household names in guatemala they were not this resulted in parents not knowing what to order or what sizes were best for their children with kids unable to finish big macs who thought they were just a regular hamburger so within the ronald menu was a regular sized hamburger small fry small coke and a small sundae with an inexpensive toy she'd purchased herself at a local market word of this eventually found its way to bob bernstein the founder of one of mcdonald's advertising firms in a case of true serendipity a few years earlier he had the idea of a mcdonald's kid's food carrier featuring puzzles jokes and trivia like a cereal box so he simply combined yolanda's menu concept and his mcdonald's cereal box idea and created the happy meal at first it was given a test run in a handful of cities where happy meals were made available at select mcdonald's locations the campaign proved to be a major hit with children and thus the happy meal went national in 1979. i do believe this mailbox is addressing me mcdonald's happy meal now that's what i call special delivery with the unveiling of the happy meal mcdonald's saw the addition of the happy meal guys which were used to advertise as the name implies the happy meal the same year saw the arrival birdie the early bird who as you can probably guess advertised the new mcdonald's early bird breakfast menu but while the happy meal gave mcdonald land a new purpose it was also undergoing major alterations you see around the same time the ramifications of the mcdonald's craft lawsuit began seriously affecting the world of mcdonald land first was redesigning the world itself drastically scaling back its for lack of a better word magic and wonder in fact more often than not they simply chose to feature the characters in the real world instead there was also the matter of the two most puff and stuff like characters mayor mcchee is an officer big mac the first to go was officer big mac leaving the world of mcdonald land as a lawless wasteland however in the early 1980s the courts ruled that despite these changes mcdonald's was still infringing on the copyrights of the crafts so the professor and captain crook renamed the captain were completely redesigned as a way to distance themselves even further from the lawsuit but evidently these attempts by mcdonald's to de-puffenstuff mcdonaldland still failed to appease the courts so the company relented and in 1985 retired one of the most iconic characters of mcdonald's merrimack cheese but hey at least we got the addition of the adorable but also kind of terrifying mcnugget buddies grimace here's some happy news about mcdonald's happy meal no instead of a hamburger you can get the rest of the 1980s would see a few additional changes to mcdonald land one of them was redesigning the hamburglar as well as an overhaul to the land itself to appear much more cartoony but the happy meal did more than shake up the world of mcdonald's land as it also gave birth to one of the most iconic and nostalgic restaurant integrations of all time mcdonald's and disney you see when mcdonald's first debuted the happy meal much like its competitors they also decided to get into the movie tie-in business their first integration was definitely an odd one with star trek the motion picture people of earth unite and bring your kids to mcdonald's for a star trek meal that's a regular hamburger fries soft drink a mcdonald's cookie sampler and a star trek prize the next few years saw a number of other movie tie-ins but in 1987 mcdonald's became the sponsor of the disney favorites happy meal a promotion of disney's home video re-re-re-releases of various animated feature films the next year was oliver and company mcdonald's first animated feature film titan of a new release from disney this was followed by the first disney theme park integration with mickey's birthday land and even a special tie-in with the upcoming splash mountain in 1989 but then in a less covered aspect of their partnership relations soured between the two companies after the drastic underperformance of dick tracy it was a film disney was truly banking on becoming a massive worldwide box office success which is why they spared absolutely no expense when it came to the film's marketing and merchandising they were so confident that they encouraged mcdonald's to really go all in with a massively expensive dick tracy ad campaign there's more than one way to win cash in mcdonald's dick tracy crime stopper game give it up prune faith with disney's assurance mcdonald's created a truly epic promotional lineup from expensive commercials contests and elaborate games however while the film was generally well received and had a decent run at the box office dick tracy failed to live up to its high expectations and was ultimately seen as an overhyped flop the intricate and rather expensive mcdonald's campaign was also a major flop and was a huge financial loss for the company so mcdonald's began to distance themselves from disney's ad campaigns including bowing out of promoting their next animated feature beauty and the beast however their rival fast food restaurant burger king was more than happy to fill in burger king invites you to meet the stars from walt disney's beauty and the beast now in theaters there's belle and the beast codsworth and chip you can collect all four at burger king a new one each week when you buy a kid's meal while technically the little mermaid kicked off the disney renaissance era beauty and the beast solidified it and the burger king promotion was a huge success as an attempt to get back in their good graces mcdonald's ran a modest ad campaign for disney's next animated film aladdin but disney also allowed burger king to run alongside and essentially compete against mcdonald's by running their own campaign which outsold mcdonald's by a pretty significant margin this is more than likely why burger king was chosen to promote their next animated film the lion king the burger king lion king promotion outperformed all that came before it tripling the sales of their kids club meals and selling a whopping 30 million toys mcdonald's on the other hand only ran a small campaign in the uk completely missing out on the lion king sales bonanza in the u.s supposedly mcdonald's franchisees were none too pleased with this so the company promised they would do everything in their power to once again become disney's go-to fast food chain two years later they did just that as mcdonald's and disney announced a 10-year promotional alliance in april of 1996. mcdonald's is celebrating a new adventure from disney and starting this wednesday you can take home the magic of 101 dalmatians when the fun's unleashed at mcdonald's your dalmatian location part of this new partnership resulted in the massively successful 101 dalmatians live-action remake tie-in and led to countless kids like myself obsessing over trying to collect all 101 dalmatian toys initially the mcdonald's disney relationship was a match made in heaven and their disney animated film happy meal integrations are a huge part of 90s nostalgia for many for me in particular it was the walt disney masterpiece collection especially the way the toy boxes were designed like vhs boxes yes i'm that much of a nerd but the partnership went beyond disney's animated feature film canon and also became integral in promoting theme park events such as epcot's millennium celebration mcdonald's also became a major part of disney's animal kingdom campaign which has always been of a particular interest of mine given its connection to the abandoned beastly kingdom but even during the avalanche of profits from the disney mcdonald's relationship between film releases the royal macdonald land was still going strong in terms of the happy meals themselves mcdonald land characters frequently appeared as toys or other forms of collectibles there was also the mcdonald land fund times the mctreasure island animated film and even a surprisingly well reviewed video game another spin-off was the wacky adventures of ronald mcdonald a straight to video series that was so popular that the restaurant locations often ran out of vhs copies but it's really in the early 2000s that the mcdonald land franchise and disney happy meal bonanza began to completely unravel our big local story tonight the federal government is now looking into that chicken head found in a mcdonald's meal investigators with the department of agriculture are looking into the discovery as well that is nasty that was pretty gross i don't think it's that bad a major part of the downfall was due to an increase in public awareness of the nutrition or lack thereof and fast food offerings especially when it came to mcdonald's all of a sudden the characters of mcdonaldland including ronald were seen as a devious marketing strategy encouraging childhood obesity and promoting high-fat hard and healthy food so the mcdonald's characters were scaled back from advertising all but disappearing in the early 2000s then came the wildly popular documentary super size me which demonized mcdonald's food offerings even further now i will say it is a great commentary on the country's over reliance on fast food but to be fair if you completely gorge yourself the way he does every meal every day for one month with virtually no exercise this could be applied to literally any fast food restaurant anyway the documentary's impact was so severe that mcdonald's dropped the entire super size option altogether and all but made the retirement of the mcdonald's land characters that much more permanent due in part to all the controversy citing new nutritional guidelines disney chose not to renew their deal with mcdonald's in 2006. in addition to the happy meal integrations this also meant the removal of the restaurants and mcdonald's food items in their theme parks hi how are you here he is i have a ronald graham for you for the next decade or so mcdonald's worked tirelessly to improve their image however outside of brief appearances by ronald the rest of the characters in mcdonaldland were nowhere to be found the only real way to see any of the original mcdonald land characters were through relics of the original playground and restaurant interiors it may have taken over a decade of improvements but it seemed to finally pay off as a new happy meal partnership between mcdonald's and disney was announced in 2018 while disney has once again taken a place within the mcdonald's advertising world the characters in mcdonaldland including ronald are still completely absent and more than likely will never return so raise a delicious chocolate milkshake to the fallen heroes of the most successful advertising campaign in fast food history but who knows maybe we'll see them [Music] someday

Channel: Yesterworld Entertainment

Views: 407,227

Rating: 4.9568124 out of 5

Keywords: yesterworld, Yesterworld: The History & Downfall of McDonaldland and the Disney-McDonalds Happy Meal, the history of McDonaldland, The Rise & Fall of McDonaldland, the history of McDonald's, the history of McDonald's Happy Meal, Disney Happy Meal, Disney McDonald's Happy Meal, disney mcdonalds happy meal, mcdonalds happy meal disney, Ronald McDonald, McDonaldland McDonalds, McDonaldland history, disney McDonalds

Id: 5rocCQr1jno

Length: 25min 13sec (1513 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021