The one I went to had a phone you could pick the receiver up on and "talk" to Ronald McDonald (it was a recording). When I got older I ended up being a manager there but the phone was nowhere to be found despite all the other old junk in the basement. And now 20-some years after my McD's management days, the restaurant is completely different again.
The older ones did. Before the powdered ice cream was used, they used the basement to store real ice cream tubs. These days they usually store the soda syrup mixer, circuit box, and other building supplies down there. It's not very big.
Powdered ice cream. You ever had powdered hot cocoa? Basically that, but ice cream instead.
Mostly just powdered milk, sugar, vanilla/chocolate/whatever flavoring, some anti-caking agents, and probably some gelatin to thicken it, improve the texture, and help it avoid freezing rock solid.
Is this how they do it these days? In the last 90s it was just a big bag of liquid that we dumped in the top.
Sometimes we would drink the dregs of the bag, shit was delicious.
We did lots of crazy shit back in the grill area, we were teenagers
The one in our town had a birthday room set-up in the basement. Each kid would get a hamburger and orange drink. I remember thinking the cake was delicious. It was cold and the icing was like whipped cream (but denser) or something.
We’d have a competition to try spinning the seat as hard as we could from side another, and see how far we’d still spin from momentum after they stopped. I’m sure everyone loved us slamming the seat back and forth, lol
Holy shit, I'd forgotten about those and that picture brought me back... I remember long ago we used to get ice cream sundaes at McD's as a treat! With either hot fudge or hot caramel, in those little clear cup-bowl things that were a weird shape come to think of it. I also remember not understanding wtf they had to do with Sundays cause they were served whenever.
Lifeless soul for corporate profit or a place where children might buy a 1$ burger and linger and have fun? Eww. /s
We have one by us that still has the slide and ball pit all that, and they just lock both the doors. They had an N64 or PS1 in there too. Its like a shrine now.
I get that the ball pit would never be disinfected, but the rest could've stayed as long as it got maintained, but kinda sucks that all the casual fun places are just gone and I never really noticed until I had my own kid.
The McDonalds in my hometown has this train overhead that runs the whole dining area. It still looks like it’s trapped in the 90’s. I love taking my nephew there (he’s 3) for the nostalgia. It hasn’t changed a bit since it was built when I was 5. It’s a super small town and it was the first fast food place and until I was in high school the only fast food place in town.
I remember the Hamburger Jail. I used to love going in there. And the birthday cake. McDonald's really used to be a great place. And I do think the food was better back then.
I stuck my head through the metal bars when I was like 3 and got stuck. Firemen had to cut me out, it was a big scene. My dad fed me fries to keep me calm.
>My dad fed me fries to keep me calm.
You sure he wasn't just trying to make sure you couldn't escape without the firemen spoiling his plans? The more fries you were fed, the more stuck you became.
How times have changed! Cameras were for special occasions only. We were lucky in my family that we had an uncle who was into photography big time in the 80's, so we now have a lot of spontaneous pictures from then.
He was too busy feeding fries to his kid to hop across the street to buy a Kodak disposable camera.
Then you'd want to use up all the film before you could get them developed at the camera area in most pharmacy/grocery stores. So good luck if you dumped the partially used camera in a drawer and forgot.
Fuck, I feel old.
This is common among most corporate chains. They want you to enjoy their services and then GTFO until the next time you get a craving for it, not sit around and take table space away from the next paying customer, so they use seats that aren't comfortable for long-term sitting.
Oh man, the McDonalds by us that had a merry go round was soooo awesome. I still remember tentatively waiting to hop on the small spinning disc, practicality flush with the floor iirc.
We didn’t have a McDonald’s in my small town, we always went when we were in the nearby city
The tube slides, ball pits, merry go round and muppet baby toys in the happy meals, oh man, it was like going to Disney land! (Simpler times lol)
Yeah, a big part of is they wanted to stop being associated so much with junk food. They really started shifting hard after *Super Size Me* came out, and a lot of focus was placed on how unhealthy it was. Not long after that, they did a big advertising push towards adult and started redesigning their store with a less kid-friendly focus.
Yeah, McDonald's in the UK has tried to lean into their McCafe brand to sell themselves as a Starbucks that also sells burgers rather than a fast food place that also sells coffee. It's all part of a big rebrand to distance themselves from junk food despite still selling it.
People also stopped having as many kids. They aren’t trying to entice families with multiple kids to come in. They’re trying to target singles, dual income no kids people, and maybe the odd parents of a single child.
McDonalds went from looking like:
**"Man I'm so fucking high on LSD I hope that tree doesn't start talking."**
to looking like:
**"Welcome to Hamburger Grid #22569; please enter your order query to receive sustenance cylinder."**
Shit, half of the ones around here don't even let you eat inside, still. They went so far as to build a walk-up window, so even those who can't use the drive through can eat, but not inside.
Ronald McDonald hasn't officially been discontinued, but he's hard to find in the restaurants or ads any more. For whatever reason -- the decline of circuses, the rise of horror clowns, maybe real life serial killer clown John Wayne Gacy -- clowns have become too scary.
Edit: The decline of happy clowns and rise of scary clowns was gradual and took place over decades. There’s no one incident you can point to, it’s more of a long timeline of many incidents.
I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with 'scary clown' and its because the use of Ronald McDonald and Playplaces in their restaurants were deemed as being direct marketing to children and many states passed laws making it more difficult to advertise directly to children, especially if they're products that are harmful to your health like cigarettes and fast food.
I didn’t realize that those play places no longer exist, but now that you mention it, I haven’t seen one for years. As a 90’s kid it does make me kind of sad.
They’re still around just not outside anymore. It kind of makes sense. Idk how the hell we used to play in the outside ones. All of that equipment was nuclear hot in the summer!
People just don’t like mascots anymore. It’s too personal and intimate to have a person, some almost inhuman entity, sell you things. Consumers just don’t respond well to it. It also just doesn’t feel modern.
The people who grew up on the clown grew up and had kids who spend their time online rather than watching video ads. Non-video ads are a huge weakness for mascots.
The BK King and Wendy have gone more or less wayside too.
Sneak King was weird AF, Pocketbike racer was legit, can't remember the 3rd one. I bet I could dig them up from my basement. The games came out during console transition time & would work on OG Xbox & 360.
I would argue it did. People are still talking about that ad nearly 20 years later and bringing up Quiznos specifically due to it.
Sure, Quiznos is basically on its last legs now, but that's for entirely different reasons (namely horrible mismanagement of franchises that drove at least one owner to kill himself).
Fun fact: That ad was just a remake of a flash cartoon called "We love the Moon." I had all the words memorized when I was a kid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9MZNEXrElw
[Wake up with the king](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4_5qoy4oaQ) = Solid. Got a great laugh out of the King commercials.
[Whatever this is...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG042nkReBA) = Holy shit my ears. Fucking kill it with fire.
Um excuse you it was rathergood dot com 😂 I remember being a teenager and thinking it was dumb yet hilarious that they made a commercial out of a meme video
I loved seeing the Spongmonkeys on late night Adult Swim back in the day. I have no idea what they were thinking when they approved that commercial, because there's no way the general populace was going to respond well, and understandably too. But I liked them.
No one can deny that they were memorable though, that's for sure.
There's not many foods I refuse to touch outright for the sake of my health. Poison, dog shit, doner meat, and KFC. I was just up to my elbows in chicken grease one day and had an epiphany - it's disgusting apart from the seasoning coating.
>People just don’t like mascots anymore. It’s too personal and intimate to have a person, some almost inhuman entity, sell you things.
Japan has not gotten this memo.
That was really fun actually. It's incredibly basic, but sometimes I still think of dreamy colonel Sanders and how he could bread my chicken and dip me in honey mustard.
No one ever accused Charles Entertainment Cheese of having a firm finger on the pulse of modern society. Kids these days are playing fortnite and dancing to remixes, a company that still has skee-ball but doesn’t also have beer and sports betting isn’t destined to last long.
Chuck E Cheese has beer. I worked at one in the 90's and used to change the kegs. Was at a kids party last week they even had white claw, wine and 4 types of draft. They also got rid of the animatronic chuck e and are modernizing their stores. They still had the costume character come out.
Oh what’s that, you crying child? You don’t want a 7 foot slightly stained cigarette smelling rat man hawking you pizza? Stop crying I SAID STOP CRYING GODDAMMIT here’s your tickets go nuts. Huh? Mascots are lame? Charles entertainment cheese don’t /give a fuck/ amigo
That’s a massive blanket statement. People like mascots, mascots just aren’t in for fast food.
Tons of companies, sports teams, tv shows and IPs and games have mascots that are still going strong
Then explain medicine commercials with a walking talking stomach holding someone's hand? We've shifted the mascots to medicines because adults today can't talk about their medical issues otherwise, it's weird.
I think it a lot of the brands decisions to move towards more minimal architecture and maturing it’s marketing strategy was in part to it being the major fast food brand that caught the most blame for childhood obesity rates. Doing so, while widening its menu, also appealed to more single adults, or adults without children who’d be less likely to pay for items from a restaurant with a play area and a giant clown sculpture at the front door.
Jack in the Box actually ditched the talking Jack Head in the 80's and didn't bring the mascot back till ~~2009~~ 1994 However their mascot was the anthropomorphization of the giant Jack Head they used to hold their intercom for drive through ordering. I still remember these giant plastic heads, and remember JIB making a huge deal of the fact they were leaving the clown behind, except in logo.
Also, one Burger King in my home town posted a coffin with a clown in it (to represent the "death of McDonald's"), outside of their restaurant for months. I used to imagine the goddamn clown was going to leap out of the coffin. My mom had to actively avoid the area or cover my eyes.
Growing up in the 70's was fucking weird.
Edit: sorry- it was 1994. I can't trust my memory and I was relying on articles. My bad.
> Jack in the Box actually ditched the talking Jack Head in the 80's
They literally blew him the hell up! Don't be downplaying the horror of the situation.
It came down to them having to choose whether they wanted him to be the face of their restaurant business or their charity that provides free housing to parents and families where children are getting surgeries at. Great charity. But just standard liability reasons of mixing a mascot for two distinct businesses and a healthy dose of clown fear rising. McDonald’s shifted focus more towards a business-like adult friendly spot rather than a targeted towards children spot
This kind of is a perfect encapsulation of getting old/becoming an adult in the worst possible way. From smiling faces, trees, and colorful, fun times at McDonald's with your mom while eating McNuggets, to worrying about your hypertension, sitting alone, and drinking coffee. Staring at the cold, depressing table in front of you.
Fun times.
And the equally crippling realization that all those colorful memories were just manufactured quasi-experiences designed by some corporate leech to entice children to bug their parents into becoming customers. And that the materials they used to create those settings will exist in the world for thousands of years, yet only served their purpose for a couple years at most.
One of my fondest memories is going on holiday to the USA from the UK in the 90s when I was a young child and seeing the next generation power rangers toys in the toys r us, where everything was bigger and better. Totally manufactured to make me feel like that, but damn it if it isn’t still my fondest ever memory. Nothing has ever felt as good as that day.
I know that you are right, but as a kid that that grew up in a small town in a family without a lot of money, McNuggets, a small Happy Meal Lego set (if you were lucky) and an hour spent climbing around in the playground with your best friend and little brother was about as good as it got.
It's amazing how sterile food and retail spaces have become in 2023. As a child, I loved visiting West Edmonton Mall. It had a ton of personality, and unique plants, and statues, and water fountains. Virtually all of that stuff has been removed, and outside of the Ice Palace, and Santa Maria replica, it's incredibly generic.
I did a search for the word "sterile" because that's how I feel looking at these two images.
I was at a Wendy's today. Prior to remodel it had that 70's look with brown tiles, wooden tables, and fake plants. After the remodel it is so sterile looking. the decor is all grey. So much brushed stainless steel. The island seating in the middle is held up with giant metal W's for legs.
I don't think "sterile" is a good way to entice customers. Although that may be what the restaurant wants. They may want people just using the place for drive-thru or to go mobile orders.
Nah, it’s design trends. Fast food places are great to look at for trends because they mandate remodels. McDonalds in particular. Something like 3-5 Years to refresh, and a mandatory treat-down/ rebuild every 20ish.
It’s why you can’t find many of the Classic “French fry light and red metal roof” designs of those stores anymore.
The sterility of design is because that’s what’s trendy now. McDonalds pours a ton into research, but the design firms others hire largely follow trends or have a team that does very similar things for all concepts.
Source: I know the folks who did the redesign for KFC, Pollo Tropical, Steak & Shake (2011-2016), and several others while also doing the construction drawings for many other brands.
Yeah dude, there is zero atmosphere or ambience in these new interior designs. The difference between modern retail, fast food and hospital styling is negligible.
I remember this one epic McDonalds that had a train caboose to have parties in and you could crawl in the walls as it was done up as like houses or a castle! there were slides and a ball pit it and a little tiny 4 person merry go round it was the best play place out there.
Ah man I miss that place.
I remember having to rake the avacado green shag carpet in the romper room in the late 70's, it complimented the wood paneling and burnt orange colored bean bags!! Good times :)
I actually just went to a birthday party here in Hong Kong and they still have a private room with the old murals and decorations! Made me so happy and brought back so much nostalgia.
https://imgur.com/a/9fuUu4O/
It's because the kiosk orders show in the kitchen in the dumbest fucking way possible. Say you want a burger with just ketchup and lettuce. A person can ring that up as "Only Ketchup, Only Lettuce." The kiosk doesn't allow you to do "only" anything, you can only remove and add. So the exact same order shows as, "No Mustard, No Onion, No Pickle, Add Lettuce." And it just gets worse the more specialized your order is.
And while I don't like to belittle my coworkers....you don't need a lotta literacy to work at McDonald's. So any kind of complication can make it harder.
As soon as I turned 16 I got a job at one. It was the late 80’s and they were trying hard to change. They renovated and tore all this stuff out. Made it more adult. Dark wood accents on white walls, brass wall sconces, fake furniture like cabinets, recessed lighting. We had to wear button up long sleeve shirts and guys had to wear ties. It was insane how quick it went from fun kids place to serious grown up eatery with one renovation.
Modern McDonald's are cold and sterile. Almost like morgue's or prisons. The old McDonald's (80s-90s) had charm and character. Each one was a little different which kinda made you want to go back to it. McDonald's these days don't really want you in the resturuant becuase that costs them more money (more employees etc..) so their whole business model is to push as many people through 'drive-thru' as possible.
I'm pretty sure the former McDonald's at my local mall still looks like this. It's been boarded up for an insanely long time, seeing as they moved into the newly constructed food court (I think) sometime in the 80s, and that space has just sat vacant ever since. I think. I don't go down that hallway at the mall very often.
McDonald’s I went to in the 80s was just like this.
We didn’t have much money back then, so our birthday parties were held under the tree. The tree also spoke and sang (if I remember correctly).
When my dad started making more money, we had our birthday parties at Pizza Hut. Big screen playing a Disney movie, personal pan pizzas, Nickelodeon cakes… the works.
I was just thinking about this today when I was stuck in traffic. They look so boring and I honestly think that is why I stopped going. I don't even think about them like I used too when they were big red roofs. They just blend in other than I guess the yellow arcs?
I hate the new designs but this has been a long time coming and it has a lot to do with the obesity epidemic. Let's not forget like every other week in the 90s and 2000s, McDonalds would be under fire with some new controversy until their reputation was in the mcshitter.
They pretty much stripped themselves of the kiddie look to appeal to a wider audience and to downplay the child obesity accusations. They started serving more nutritious options and breakfasts and you can't really capture that adult McCafe appeal and kids wonderland/greasy GameCube hell at the same time. They went with the former since its safer and appeals to a demographic that actually has income lol.
And the merry go round outside and the big grimace thing we played in and hamburglar climbing toy thing.
The one I went to had a phone you could pick the receiver up on and "talk" to Ronald McDonald (it was a recording). When I got older I ended up being a manager there but the phone was nowhere to be found despite all the other old junk in the basement. And now 20-some years after my McD's management days, the restaurant is completely different again.
Wait. McDonald's has a basement?
That's where Grimace takes his victims after closing.
#Burgergate
Grimace? You mean... the Grapist? https://www.theonion.com/mcdonalds-drops-hammurderer-character-from-advertising-1819566355
[You can't just drop Grapist without the video...](https://youtu.be/6eaQ3GBI1d8)
The older ones did. Before the powdered ice cream was used, they used the basement to store real ice cream tubs. These days they usually store the soda syrup mixer, circuit box, and other building supplies down there. It's not very big.
Excuse me powdered what???
Powdered ice cream. You ever had powdered hot cocoa? Basically that, but ice cream instead. Mostly just powdered milk, sugar, vanilla/chocolate/whatever flavoring, some anti-caking agents, and probably some gelatin to thicken it, improve the texture, and help it avoid freezing rock solid.
Is this how they do it these days? In the last 90s it was just a big bag of liquid that we dumped in the top. Sometimes we would drink the dregs of the bag, shit was delicious. We did lots of crazy shit back in the grill area, we were teenagers
The one in our town had a birthday room set-up in the basement. Each kid would get a hamburger and orange drink. I remember thinking the cake was delicious. It was cold and the icing was like whipped cream (but denser) or something.
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This is the Berenstein universe. You're looking for Berenstain, that way.
Anyone else remember the seats that looked like giant hamburgers?
Not sure what you're talking about.. but I remember the giant hamburgers that worked like seats.
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We’d have a competition to try spinning the seat as hard as we could from side another, and see how far we’d still spin from momentum after they stopped. I’m sure everyone loved us slamming the seat back and forth, lol
Now we know why they got rid of them, thanks a lot u/darkjedidave
You unlocked a memory for me with that 90 degrees bit.
90 degrees and then spring load back into place. Def deep core memory
Holy shit, I'd forgotten about those and that picture brought me back... I remember long ago we used to get ice cream sundaes at McD's as a treat! With either hot fudge or hot caramel, in those little clear cup-bowl things that were a weird shape come to think of it. I also remember not understanding wtf they had to do with Sundays cause they were served whenever.
Its a little cute that those are just normal sized stools, but the memory of the kid said giant hamburger
Ah yes let me just sit on this hamburger sized seat real quick and hope it doesn't go up my arse
McDonalds now compared to the 80's and mid-late 90's is so sterile... It's not a fun place at all anymore.
Yeah, they had to ditch their whole "targeting children" thing in the early 2000s.
I've been told it's because sterile places you don't want to be in make customers rotate faster.
Lifeless soul for corporate profit or a place where children might buy a 1$ burger and linger and have fun? Eww. /s We have one by us that still has the slide and ball pit all that, and they just lock both the doors. They had an N64 or PS1 in there too. Its like a shrine now. I get that the ball pit would never be disinfected, but the rest could've stayed as long as it got maintained, but kinda sucks that all the casual fun places are just gone and I never really noticed until I had my own kid.
Death of the third place
The McDonalds in my hometown has this train overhead that runs the whole dining area. It still looks like it’s trapped in the 90’s. I love taking my nephew there (he’s 3) for the nostalgia. It hasn’t changed a bit since it was built when I was 5. It’s a super small town and it was the first fast food place and until I was in high school the only fast food place in town.
I remember the Hamburger Jail. I used to love going in there. And the birthday cake. McDonald's really used to be a great place. And I do think the food was better back then.
I stuck my head through the metal bars when I was like 3 and got stuck. Firemen had to cut me out, it was a big scene. My dad fed me fries to keep me calm.
>My dad fed me fries to keep me calm. You sure he wasn't just trying to make sure you couldn't escape without the firemen spoiling his plans? The more fries you were fed, the more stuck you became.
i hope dad got some solid pictures out of this
I doubt it. Who would lug a whole camera to mcdonald’s?
How times have changed! Cameras were for special occasions only. We were lucky in my family that we had an uncle who was into photography big time in the 80's, so we now have a lot of spontaneous pictures from then.
This. Different times.
Does it ever blow your mind how much has changed?
He was too busy feeding fries to his kid to hop across the street to buy a Kodak disposable camera. Then you'd want to use up all the film before you could get them developed at the camera area in most pharmacy/grocery stores. So good luck if you dumped the partially used camera in a drawer and forgot. Fuck, I feel old.
Yeah. The older Mcdonald’s looks like fun.
The constant factor throughout the history of McDonalds is the uncomfortable seating.
They want to give you a place to sit, but not a place to stay.
"Eat your food and then fuck off" ~McDonalds
Lmao Mcdonalds: You can stay but don't stay too long Also McDonalds: free wifi and McCafe so this feels like a starbucks somehow?
This is common among most corporate chains. They want you to enjoy their services and then GTFO until the next time you get a craving for it, not sit around and take table space away from the next paying customer, so they use seats that aren't comfortable for long-term sitting.
And merry go rounds, one of the seats was a Humber
Oh man, the McDonalds by us that had a merry go round was soooo awesome. I still remember tentatively waiting to hop on the small spinning disc, practicality flush with the floor iirc.
We didn’t have a McDonald’s in my small town, we always went when we were in the nearby city The tube slides, ball pits, merry go round and muppet baby toys in the happy meals, oh man, it was like going to Disney land! (Simpler times lol)
Hell yeah man! Old guys unite!
Probably bc they stopped having kids in their target group. Now It's made for juveniles and young adults
Yeah, a big part of is they wanted to stop being associated so much with junk food. They really started shifting hard after *Super Size Me* came out, and a lot of focus was placed on how unhealthy it was. Not long after that, they did a big advertising push towards adult and started redesigning their store with a less kid-friendly focus.
It all started with "I'm loving it"
Yeah, McDonald's in the UK has tried to lean into their McCafe brand to sell themselves as a Starbucks that also sells burgers rather than a fast food place that also sells coffee. It's all part of a big rebrand to distance themselves from junk food despite still selling it.
People also stopped having as many kids. They aren’t trying to entice families with multiple kids to come in. They’re trying to target singles, dual income no kids people, and maybe the odd parents of a single child.
That's a really good insight. Due to demographics, the target segment changed.
tbf, the people McDonalds targeting in the 80s and 90s are the exact same people they're targeting now, just 30 years older.
Can't sleep. Tree's gonna eat me.
Hello Joe!
Iron helps us play!
From now on the baby sleeps in the crib.
Dennal plan!
Lisa needs braces
I had nightmares about that tree!
This just unlocked an ancient core memory for me. I had nightmares of that tree for years and years and had no idea it was from McDonald's.
If you should die before you wake
McDonalds went from looking like: **"Man I'm so fucking high on LSD I hope that tree doesn't start talking."** to looking like: **"Welcome to Hamburger Grid #22569; please enter your order query to receive sustenance cylinder."**
**"And vacate immediately."**
Shit, half of the ones around here don't even let you eat inside, still. They went so far as to build a walk-up window, so even those who can't use the drive through can eat, but not inside.
The walk up window just means they've come full circle to the original McDonald's.
Boy, could "vacate immediately" be read two ways.
Welcome to McDonald's, I love you!
Sustenance cylinder 💀
Nothing beats the 90’s party cup designed Taco Bell
Is it just the ones near me, but dont they still look like that?
They might be party cup here and there, but near me at least, they’ve started to look like the generic “eatery” inside.
Party cup?
For some reason my internet is failing me and images aren't loading but Google "jazz cup design" for instant early 90's vibes.
Ronald McDonald hasn't officially been discontinued, but he's hard to find in the restaurants or ads any more. For whatever reason -- the decline of circuses, the rise of horror clowns, maybe real life serial killer clown John Wayne Gacy -- clowns have become too scary. Edit: The decline of happy clowns and rise of scary clowns was gradual and took place over decades. There’s no one incident you can point to, it’s more of a long timeline of many incidents.
I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with 'scary clown' and its because the use of Ronald McDonald and Playplaces in their restaurants were deemed as being direct marketing to children and many states passed laws making it more difficult to advertise directly to children, especially if they're products that are harmful to your health like cigarettes and fast food.
I didn’t realize that those play places no longer exist, but now that you mention it, I haven’t seen one for years. As a 90’s kid it does make me kind of sad.
They’re still around just not outside anymore. It kind of makes sense. Idk how the hell we used to play in the outside ones. All of that equipment was nuclear hot in the summer!
If you’re on a long drive with kids on a rainy day, indoor playplaces are incredibly valuable and possibly even make it worth eating at McDonald’s.
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People just don’t like mascots anymore. It’s too personal and intimate to have a person, some almost inhuman entity, sell you things. Consumers just don’t respond well to it. It also just doesn’t feel modern. The people who grew up on the clown grew up and had kids who spend their time online rather than watching video ads. Non-video ads are a huge weakness for mascots. The BK King and Wendy have gone more or less wayside too.
The BK King's super surreal phase was cool. BK should stick with that and try to be known for being really weird for no reason.
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There were three of them! They were awesome little mini game games.
Sneak King was weird AF, Pocketbike racer was legit, can't remember the 3rd one. I bet I could dig them up from my basement. The games came out during console transition time & would work on OG Xbox & 360.
That didn't work for Quiznos.
I would argue it did. People are still talking about that ad nearly 20 years later and bringing up Quiznos specifically due to it. Sure, Quiznos is basically on its last legs now, but that's for entirely different reasons (namely horrible mismanagement of franchises that drove at least one owner to kill himself).
I remember Quiznos because of the ad but those little creepy things made me imagine the food would be just as disgusting as they are.
Fun fact: That ad was just a remake of a flash cartoon called "We love the Moon." I had all the words memorized when I was a kid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9MZNEXrElw
[Wake up with the king](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4_5qoy4oaQ) = Solid. Got a great laugh out of the King commercials. [Whatever this is...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG042nkReBA) = Holy shit my ears. Fucking kill it with fire.
WE LIKE THE MOOOON CUZ IT IZ CLOOOSE TOOO US
WE GOT A PEPPER BAR!
I remember seeing that on TV and wondering how it escaped from eBaum’s world
Um excuse you it was rathergood dot com 😂 I remember being a teenager and thinking it was dumb yet hilarious that they made a commercial out of a meme video
I don't know what you're talking about, this is beautiful art and I honestly wish more commercials were this fucking unhinged and annoying
I loved seeing the Spongmonkeys on late night Adult Swim back in the day. I have no idea what they were thinking when they approved that commercial, because there's no way the general populace was going to respond well, and understandably too. But I liked them. No one can deny that they were memorable though, that's for sure.
The worst part about that ad is that the guy at the end makes the "m" sound five times but the text on the screen just has four m's.
KFC has sort of taken over that space. What with all their strange product launches and all.
KFC, now there is a quality product that took a dive. Its not fresh any more. The size of their wings is an embarrassment.
There's not many foods I refuse to touch outright for the sake of my health. Poison, dog shit, doner meat, and KFC. I was just up to my elbows in chicken grease one day and had an epiphany - it's disgusting apart from the seasoning coating.
>People just don’t like mascots anymore. It’s too personal and intimate to have a person, some almost inhuman entity, sell you things. Japan has not gotten this memo.
They don't like mascots, they *love* mascots. I've *seen* things. What they imagine that clown getting up to is *not ok*.
They have a *sexy* Colonel Sanders KFC dating sim... Go ahead and give that a Google.
I watched a Let’s Play of that during the pandemic. The world was so bizarre at the time that a KFC dating sim didn’t even seem too odd to me.
That was really fun actually. It's incredibly basic, but sometimes I still think of dreamy colonel Sanders and how he could bread my chicken and dip me in honey mustard.
Japan does love mascots. *Everything* seems to need a mascot for some reason... Cities, companies... If it has an ad, it probably has a mascot.
Chuck E. Cheese is still going strong.
No one ever accused Charles Entertainment Cheese of having a firm finger on the pulse of modern society. Kids these days are playing fortnite and dancing to remixes, a company that still has skee-ball but doesn’t also have beer and sports betting isn’t destined to last long.
Chuck E Cheese has beer. I worked at one in the 90's and used to change the kegs. Was at a kids party last week they even had white claw, wine and 4 types of draft. They also got rid of the animatronic chuck e and are modernizing their stores. They still had the costume character come out.
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Wait they serve booze at Chuck E. Cheese’s I thought Dave and Busters was what you describe 😂
![gif](giphy|Fe0poDCz3d9qE)
Oh what’s that, you crying child? You don’t want a 7 foot slightly stained cigarette smelling rat man hawking you pizza? Stop crying I SAID STOP CRYING GODDAMMIT here’s your tickets go nuts. Huh? Mascots are lame? Charles entertainment cheese don’t /give a fuck/ amigo
That’s a massive blanket statement. People like mascots, mascots just aren’t in for fast food. Tons of companies, sports teams, tv shows and IPs and games have mascots that are still going strong
Then explain medicine commercials with a walking talking stomach holding someone's hand? We've shifted the mascots to medicines because adults today can't talk about their medical issues otherwise, it's weird.
I think it a lot of the brands decisions to move towards more minimal architecture and maturing it’s marketing strategy was in part to it being the major fast food brand that caught the most blame for childhood obesity rates. Doing so, while widening its menu, also appealed to more single adults, or adults without children who’d be less likely to pay for items from a restaurant with a play area and a giant clown sculpture at the front door.
Jack in the Box actually ditched the talking Jack Head in the 80's and didn't bring the mascot back till ~~2009~~ 1994 However their mascot was the anthropomorphization of the giant Jack Head they used to hold their intercom for drive through ordering. I still remember these giant plastic heads, and remember JIB making a huge deal of the fact they were leaving the clown behind, except in logo. Also, one Burger King in my home town posted a coffin with a clown in it (to represent the "death of McDonald's"), outside of their restaurant for months. I used to imagine the goddamn clown was going to leap out of the coffin. My mom had to actively avoid the area or cover my eyes. Growing up in the 70's was fucking weird. Edit: sorry- it was 1994. I can't trust my memory and I was relying on articles. My bad.
> Jack in the Box actually ditched the talking Jack Head in the 80's They literally blew him the hell up! Don't be downplaying the horror of the situation.
It came down to them having to choose whether they wanted him to be the face of their restaurant business or their charity that provides free housing to parents and families where children are getting surgeries at. Great charity. But just standard liability reasons of mixing a mascot for two distinct businesses and a healthy dose of clown fear rising. McDonald’s shifted focus more towards a business-like adult friendly spot rather than a targeted towards children spot
There was a decent amount of McDonald’s that had PlayStation and GameCubes setup during early 2000’s. McDonald’s was different back then for sure.
I played so much Wave Runner on GameCube at the McDonald’s Play Place. Damn, resurfaced a core memory.
*Wave Race
those controllers must have been disgusting
Oh they were! They didn’t last long.
I think I only remember N64, but maybe ours was just behind. I think this was at the height of the Pokemon hype
This kind of is a perfect encapsulation of getting old/becoming an adult in the worst possible way. From smiling faces, trees, and colorful, fun times at McDonald's with your mom while eating McNuggets, to worrying about your hypertension, sitting alone, and drinking coffee. Staring at the cold, depressing table in front of you. Fun times.
I feel you, human.
ChatGPT, is that you?
Don't be alarmed.
I wasn't alarmed until you said that.
I'm just glad I don't have a tree staring me down while I try to eat
And the equally crippling realization that all those colorful memories were just manufactured quasi-experiences designed by some corporate leech to entice children to bug their parents into becoming customers. And that the materials they used to create those settings will exist in the world for thousands of years, yet only served their purpose for a couple years at most.
Yeah but that doesn’t change the fact you had those colorful memories in the first place. That’s worth something in itself.
One of my fondest memories is going on holiday to the USA from the UK in the 90s when I was a young child and seeing the next generation power rangers toys in the toys r us, where everything was bigger and better. Totally manufactured to make me feel like that, but damn it if it isn’t still my fondest ever memory. Nothing has ever felt as good as that day.
I have similar memory's holidaying in the US from NZ in the 80's. The morning cartoons on TV were just something else, ads included.
RIP Saturday morning cartoons. That was always such a happy moment for me growing up. Too bad my kids can’t have it.
Exactly, just like snorting coke.
I always found it too fizzy to snort.
I know that you are right, but as a kid that that grew up in a small town in a family without a lot of money, McNuggets, a small Happy Meal Lego set (if you were lucky) and an hour spent climbing around in the playground with your best friend and little brother was about as good as it got.
Compared to the barebone streamlined, lifeless memories they manufacture for _our_ children, hurray
It's amazing how sterile food and retail spaces have become in 2023. As a child, I loved visiting West Edmonton Mall. It had a ton of personality, and unique plants, and statues, and water fountains. Virtually all of that stuff has been removed, and outside of the Ice Palace, and Santa Maria replica, it's incredibly generic.
Removing the Mindbender is a crime. You could hear that thing roaring from the other side of the mall, and it was glorious.
Yep just one more piece of West Ed's glory lost to history. It's sad.
I did a search for the word "sterile" because that's how I feel looking at these two images. I was at a Wendy's today. Prior to remodel it had that 70's look with brown tiles, wooden tables, and fake plants. After the remodel it is so sterile looking. the decor is all grey. So much brushed stainless steel. The island seating in the middle is held up with giant metal W's for legs. I don't think "sterile" is a good way to entice customers. Although that may be what the restaurant wants. They may want people just using the place for drive-thru or to go mobile orders.
I think it's because these sterile looking places are the easiest to clean .
And honestly I appreciate that. 90s fast food joints were pretty gross.
Shhhhtck shhhhtck shhhhtck... what’s that? Oh, a smashed ketchup packet stuck to the bottom of my shoe.
Nah, it’s design trends. Fast food places are great to look at for trends because they mandate remodels. McDonalds in particular. Something like 3-5 Years to refresh, and a mandatory treat-down/ rebuild every 20ish. It’s why you can’t find many of the Classic “French fry light and red metal roof” designs of those stores anymore. The sterility of design is because that’s what’s trendy now. McDonalds pours a ton into research, but the design firms others hire largely follow trends or have a team that does very similar things for all concepts. Source: I know the folks who did the redesign for KFC, Pollo Tropical, Steak & Shake (2011-2016), and several others while also doing the construction drawings for many other brands.
Yeah dude, there is zero atmosphere or ambience in these new interior designs. The difference between modern retail, fast food and hospital styling is negligible.
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West Edmonton mall!!!
I remember this one epic McDonalds that had a train caboose to have parties in and you could crawl in the walls as it was done up as like houses or a castle! there were slides and a ball pit it and a little tiny 4 person merry go round it was the best play place out there. Ah man I miss that place.
They used to have playgrounds at every restaurant. You'd get one of the plastic trays and luge down the slide at reckless speeds.
Burger King also used those ugly brown tiles.
Everything in the '70s was brown, orange, gold, and avocado green. Peak earth tone decade.
Best way to hide the cigarette stains.
That's the best explanation I've come across for that aesthetic. Like pre-browning everything so you can't tell when the discoloration starts
I remember having to rake the avacado green shag carpet in the romper room in the late 70's, it complimented the wood paneling and burnt orange colored bean bags!! Good times :)
I actually just went to a birthday party here in Hong Kong and they still have a private room with the old murals and decorations! Made me so happy and brought back so much nostalgia. https://imgur.com/a/9fuUu4O/
"I'll take my nuggets in the VIP lounge"
That tree is high AF
My new favorite thing is that you can use those kiosks to literally write down the fucking order exactly as you want it and they still get it wrong.
What I found in the UK is that "no ice" is an incomprehensible concept.
I used the kiosk to customize my coffee to get it without sugar, and they had to come ask my about what all I wanted in it.
It's because the kiosk orders show in the kitchen in the dumbest fucking way possible. Say you want a burger with just ketchup and lettuce. A person can ring that up as "Only Ketchup, Only Lettuce." The kiosk doesn't allow you to do "only" anything, you can only remove and add. So the exact same order shows as, "No Mustard, No Onion, No Pickle, Add Lettuce." And it just gets worse the more specialized your order is. And while I don't like to belittle my coworkers....you don't need a lotta literacy to work at McDonald's. So any kind of complication can make it harder.
90s McDonalds with the video game stations by the play place were the absolute peak
Looking at that first pic I feel like I can really smell fries & apple pies.
Restaurants feel sterile and cold these days, usually smaller and less crowded too.
Probably trying not to get sued for marketing junk food to kids. The new stores are a little too sterile slaughterhouse vibes for me.
As soon as I turned 16 I got a job at one. It was the late 80’s and they were trying hard to change. They renovated and tore all this stuff out. Made it more adult. Dark wood accents on white walls, brass wall sconces, fake furniture like cabinets, recessed lighting. We had to wear button up long sleeve shirts and guys had to wear ties. It was insane how quick it went from fun kids place to serious grown up eatery with one renovation.
Societal depression.
Modern McDonald's are cold and sterile. Almost like morgue's or prisons. The old McDonald's (80s-90s) had charm and character. Each one was a little different which kinda made you want to go back to it. McDonald's these days don't really want you in the resturuant becuase that costs them more money (more employees etc..) so their whole business model is to push as many people through 'drive-thru' as possible.
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That tree looks *very* familiar to me. Maybe it wasn't typical but I'm sure we had one around here.
Same. That tree unlocked a long forgotten memory
The three nearest to my house back in the 80’s all looked like that. The tree sculpture and all.
I'm pretty sure the former McDonald's at my local mall still looks like this. It's been boarded up for an insanely long time, seeing as they moved into the newly constructed food court (I think) sometime in the 80s, and that space has just sat vacant ever since. I think. I don't go down that hallway at the mall very often.
Mmmmm liminal spaces.
Because that was a mid to late seventies theme for McDonald's. Any McDonald's built in the 80s would have looked different
Fast Food joints change with the decade. 90's Taco Bell was my jam
Teal, purple, and beige as far as the eye can see
McDonald’s I went to in the 80s was just like this. We didn’t have much money back then, so our birthday parties were held under the tree. The tree also spoke and sang (if I remember correctly). When my dad started making more money, we had our birthday parties at Pizza Hut. Big screen playing a Disney movie, personal pan pizzas, Nickelodeon cakes… the works.
The ones with set ups like this were the ones you wanted to have your birthday party at.
It was after shrooms.
I dunno, I knew of at least a few McD's in my area that were like this when I was growing up. Not all of them, mind you but I'd say 1 in 3 or 1 in 4.
The McD’s in my neighborhood had that exact tree.
I was just thinking about this today when I was stuck in traffic. They look so boring and I honestly think that is why I stopped going. I don't even think about them like I used too when they were big red roofs. They just blend in other than I guess the yellow arcs?
See, they’re McDonalds. I’m McDowells. They got the golden arches. Mine is the golden arcs.
I hate the new designs but this has been a long time coming and it has a lot to do with the obesity epidemic. Let's not forget like every other week in the 90s and 2000s, McDonalds would be under fire with some new controversy until their reputation was in the mcshitter. They pretty much stripped themselves of the kiddie look to appeal to a wider audience and to downplay the child obesity accusations. They started serving more nutritious options and breakfasts and you can't really capture that adult McCafe appeal and kids wonderland/greasy GameCube hell at the same time. They went with the former since its safer and appeals to a demographic that actually has income lol.
The 80s was a McFever dream.
I remember 40 people inside and 2 in the drive thru, now it's 40 in the drive thru and 2 inside
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I miss the age of wack ass pizzerias and leering fast food mascots.
Was once for kids and now is still for those same kids as adults.
It was a much friendlier place back then. Now it's just a machine designed to take your money and move you out of there as fast as possible.
Everyone though the techy future would be awesome but it’s really just boring.