Saturday, December 09, 2006

SUPER-SIZE THIS

Love it or hate it, we've all grown up with the hamburger culture that is McDonald's. In Brighton for such a long time, the only place to hang out for a milkshake was the appalling Wimpy joint, and when McDonald's wanted to open up a restaurant in Western Road, there were even quaint street protests about it. Fast Food Nation should be enough of a deterrent.

If aliens were to visit our planet (and surely they've got better things to do with their time), they could be forgiven for thinking, judging by the advertising, that today's Mickey D's was a leading health food chain - until it became glaringly obvious that not one single child ever ever EVER orders the fucking carrot sticks or the fruit bag.

So yes, how times change. Here's McDonald's first ever TV advert - it's from 1963 when Ronald hadn't yet quite perfected the serial killer chic of the clown.

6 comments:

Sypha said...

Wow, Ronald sure was pretty creepy looking back then (not to mention the fact his voice sounded like Jello Biafra's).

There's a McDonalds near the store I work at, but I almost never eat there, unless I forget my meal at home or something. The fries I can tolerate, but their chicken nuggets are truly vile.

Davecat said...

Original Ronald -- truly, truly disturbing. Kinda like a skinner version of John Wayne Gacy's Pogo, but with food on his head. That food tray hat was a brilliant idea.

I haven't eaten at a McDonald's in probably under a decade; I'd stopped just after reading 'Fast food nation'. sypha_69's right, though -- their fries aren't bad now and again.

Anonymous said...

Had the clip been a little longer maybe we'd have seen our tray-hat wearing friend being run over by the bloke in the VW...

Anonymous said...

Anyone noticed how the Burger King looks like now? Reminds me of a zombified cross between Jesus and Elvis. I freaked the first time I saw it 'cos I was getting high watching TV with a friend...

Anyways I just noticed that someone sabotaged the Wikipedia entry for Ronald McDonald with three porno pictures. Now if they only did that for Protest Warrior's Wiki listing...

Anonymous said...

Is the state of education in the US THAT low?

Anonymous said...

Yes, it's that low. Although in some states I think they justify a trip to McDonald's as a pop-culture history lesson.