McBusters is a trilogy of animated web shorts on Channel 101 created by Myke Chilian that serves as a mash-up of Ghostbusters and the McDonaldland mascots.
The videos serve as a Whole-Plot Reference to Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II, with Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese and Hamburglar using equipment to capture Fry Goblins and turn them into fast food to serve to their customers.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed. Ronald, McCheese and Hamburglar are still decent people for the most part, but are more prone to anger this time around and occasionally engage in behavior unbecoming of fast food mascots aimed at children. McCheese is the most notable due to punching Walter Peck unconscious to shut him up and yelling at Grimace to "shut the fuck up" when the latter complains about not being in the painting that results from defeating the Burger King.
- Adaptational Location Change: While the Ghostbusters films took place in New York City, the third and final video ends with Mac Tonight indicating that the series takes place in Fresno, California.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- The McNugget Buddies go from being harmless and amiable to bloodthirsty monsters who enjoy killing people.
- Birdie the Early Bird was as friendly as any other McDonaldland mascot, but here is reinterpreted as a demon McCheese dreams about in his food coma who initially appears beautiful before becoming scarier and vigorously pecking at McCheese's groin.
- Adapted Out: In spite of being a send-up of the original Ghostbusters films, there are no representations of Gozer, Dana Barrett or Oscar. On the side of McDonald's mascots, there is no acknowledgement of Captain Crook, Officer Big Mac, Iam Hungry, Uncle O'Grimacey, the Professor or CosMc.
- Affectionate Parody: In spite of all the violence and profanity, it is very clear that the series is intended as an enthusiastic tribute to the Ghostbusters films and the McDonaldland mascots.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: The first video shows one of the casualties of the fast food monsters unleashed from Walter Peck forcing the shutdown of the McBusters' deep-frier being a bush of burgers slaughtering a dog, much to the horror of the dog's owner who gets covered in blood as he watches his pet's offscreen demise.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: In McBusters 3, there is a spoof of ABC's After These Messages bumpers where the fire hydrant shoots the dog in the face.
- Big Eater: Mayor McCheese won't stop eating McDonald's food.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The shorts are far more violent and gory than any of the Ghostbusters movies or McDonald's commercials have ever been, with people frequently shown getting killed in gruesome ways.
- Composite Character: Various McDonaldland characters play the roles of Ghostbusters characters.
- Ronald McDonald is the leader of the team hunting supernatural creatures like Egon Spengler, while Hamburglar and Mayor McCheese both have elements of Peter Venkman and Ray Stantz.
- Mac Tonight takes Winston Zeddemore's role as the team's fourth member recruited sometime after the original three were active.
- Grimace is merged with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Louis Tully.
- The Burger King serves as the equivalent to Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters II (and disguises himself as Judge Wexler's counterpart), with creator of Super Size Me Morgan Spurlock being the representation of Janosz Poha.
- Birdie the Early Bird makes a brief appearance during Mayor McCheese's food coma, serving a similar role to the female ghost in Ghostbusters (1984) who was implied to fellate Ray Stantz.
- The web series features a character named Frymer, who is a combo of both Slimer from Ghostbusters and the Fry Guys from the McDonaldland ads.
- Creator Cameo: Eric Bauza, who voices Hamburglar, Grimace and a few others, appears in animated form among a crowd cheering on the McBusters in McBusters 3.
- Demoted to Extra: Of all the McDonaldland mascots featured in the series, Birdie the Early Bird gets the least amount of focus, as her only appearance is as a hallucination in Mayor McCheese's food coma in McBusters 3. She doesn't even have any lines.
- Entitled Bastard: Walter Peck in the first video insults the McBusters and has their equipment shut down despite their protests, then pleads for them to save him when he turns out to be wrong about the McBusters being phonies. In response, McCheese punches him unconscious.
- Extra-Long Episode: The first two videos last about five minutes, but McBusters 3 runs for over twelve minutes.
- Inappropriate Hunger: In McBusters 2, McCheese remarks that witnessing the carnage caused by Grimace puking pink sludge into the sewers is making him hungry for McDonald's while also addressing that this is a serious situation and that he may need professional help for reacting to the disaster this way.
- Jerkass:
- Walter Peck yells coarse insults at the McBusters and forcibly orders for their machines to be shut off in spite of Hamburglar's insistence that doing so will cause trouble.
- Morgan Spurlock has a serious hate boner for the McBusters and sadistically relishes getting them in trouble.
- Flipping the Bird: McBusters 3 does a unique take-off of a hypothetical Ghostbusters 3 logo by having the burger-headed ghost behind the prohibited symbol place his extended middle finger near the hand making a peace sign.
- Manchild: Mayor McCheese is childlike in various aspects, most notably in that the first video shows him devouring a Happy Meal and complaining that he got the girl toy. He also giggles and says he "made a poot-poot" when Mac Tonight complains about him cutting one.
- Medium Blending: The series is traditionally animated in 2D, but the third video features use of a stop-motion bumper parodying ABC's After These Messages station IDs and a live-action Parody Commercial for McBusters Cereal.
- Mythology Gag:
- Janine Melnitz' appearance is based on how she was depicted in the earlier episodes of The Real Ghostbusters.
- During Mac Tonight's job interview with Janine, Janine asks if he believes in magic. This is a nod to how McDonald's once had their advertisements featuring The Lovin' Spoonful song "Do You Believe in Magic" given the Repurposed Pop Song treatment.
- Grimace first appears as a representation of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man obsessed with milkshakes and cokes, then switches to being on the McBusters' side as a Louis Tully stand-in after he is defeated. This is a nod to how Grimace started out as a villain whose modus operandi was stealing McDonald's drinks before eventually being retooled into a more benevolent character.
- McCheese's food coma has him dream that he's in McDonaldland, complete with sentient trees and friendly anthropomorphic fast food everywhere.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Hamburglar's voice is blatantly Eric Bauza imitating Larry Fine of The Three Stooges.
- Parody Commercial: McBusters 3 features a commercial break where we are shown an ad for McBusters Cereal, which is really just fragments of burgers, fries and McNuggets with marshmallows.
- The Real Spoofbusters: The series is essentially a spoof of the Ghostbusters films using McDonaldland characters.
- Ruder and Cruder: The web series is far more profane than either the McDonald's ads or the Ghostbusters movies, featuring frequent utterances of "fuck" and "shit".
- Take That!:
- The No-Ghost insignia as depicted in Ghostbusters II is ridiculed when Hamburglar reveals that he's made new patches for their uniforms and Ronald complains that the insignia didn't need to be changed while pointing out that having the team wear patches that depict the ghost holding up two fingers makes no sense in-universe.
- The main villains of the videos are The Burger King and Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me fame, with both individuals portrayed in a blatantly negative light.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Morgan Spurlock gets turned into McDonald's food after he gets the Burger King free of the painting imprisoning him.
