YMMV / McDonaldland

• Adaptation Displacement: Plenty of people are more familiar with McDonaldland than with its seeming inspiration, H.R. Pufnstuf.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: The Hamburglar:
  • Is he a Harmless Villain who only wants to steal food? Or is he a monster who eats other sentient beings? The fact that the burgers are alive in McDonaldland seems to support the latter.
  • This article posits that he is in fact a Robin Hood-esque revolutionary who steals to survive and opposes Ronald and Mayor McCheese's brutal dictatorial regime.
• Common Knowledge: It has been a common misconception that Birdie the Early Bird is intended to be a chicken, with people accordingly joking about her apparently endorsing a restaurant that has chicken nuggets as one of its products or the other McDonaldland characters killing her to make McNuggets. None of the ads have ever indicated Birdie to be a specific kind of bird (aside from the one-minute cut of "The Night Birdie the Early Bird Came to McDonaldland" implying that Early Bird is her species and not just a title) and the instances where she was shown flying clearly showed her flight capabilities to exceed those of a chicken.
• Designated Hero: Ronald McDonald's efforts to thwart his rogue's gallery in the earliest commercials sometimes fall into this category:
  • In one ad, Ronald and two kids are glooming over the loss of McDonald's triple-thick milkshakes and Coca-Cola, because the Evil Grimace has stolen all the cups. To outwit the baddie, Ronald disguises himself as a mailman and delivers a fake letter informing Grimace he has been selected for the "McDonaldland Beauty Contest", which convinces Grimace to leave with his nicest swimsuit. Impersonating a postal worker is actually considered a federal offense.
  • In another, Ronald and a young boy are at Filet-O-Fish Lake looking to catch some of the namesake sandwiches, until they come face-to-face with the nefarious pirate, Captain Crook. The Captain demands that Ronald and the kid hand over the Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. In response, Ronald does what anyone would do in that situation; he casts his fishing line onto Captain Crook's boat and pulls the plug in the middle, leaving the pirate to drown in the lake. Yikes!
• Designated Villain: The Hamburglar, Evil Grimace, and Captain Crook are presented in the earliest ads as supervillains who need to be stopped by Ronald, but from their activities, it really seems like it's because they're really hungry (or thirsty, in Grimace's case).
• Epileptic Trees: There's always been debate in regards as to why the McDonaldland advertisements ceased, even if the official story was to do the "I'm Lovin' It" campaign. Some believe that the only reason this happened was due to the backlash towards them following the Super Size Me documentary. Others believe it was due to further legal issues with the supposed H.R. Pufnstuf plagiarism.
• Fanon: The Griddler might be this. The jury's still out as to whether there ever really was such a character or not.
• Fridge Horror: Most of the food in McDonaldland is alive... including the ones Hamburglar tries to steal... seemingly including even the ones Ronald gives the kids to eat...
• Funny Moments:
  • In one commercial for McDonaldland Cookies, all the characters settle down for bed. They all immediately begin squabbling and being rowdy over ridiculous things, and Ronald (who is the only one genuinely trying to sleep) is pretty annoyed, which doesn't happen very often. It isn't until after he's met their demands for McDonaldland Cookies and turning the moon off that Grimace, Mayor McCheese, Hamburglar and Captain Crook are willing to go to bed.
  • The 1995 Halloween ad campaign revolves around Ronald trying to decide what costume he'll wear this year. He eventually gets his idea after meeting a goofy Frankenstein's Monster, who responds in kind by going as Ronald!
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • Thanks to YTMND, Mac Tonight is depicted as a violent, racist criminal known as Moon Man. Over the years plenty of "Moon Man Raps" have been made using text-to-speech in which the mascot sings about killing ethnic minorities.
  • Ronald McDonald too, perhaps inevitably, used to have this reputation, not only due to the obvious "no clowns are trustworthy" phenomenon, but also from the commercials where he frequently appeared randomly in children's houses and did unusual things with them and the bizarre "Ran Ran Ruu" Japanese remix videos featuring him, often to the tune of menacing Final Boss themes. He has, however, been almost entirely eclipsed in this regard by the Golden Arches' new mascot, "Happy◊", usually depicted as a soul-stalking demon straight out of a survival horror game — and honestly, it is really not hard to see why.
  • "Uncle O'Grimacey was dropped because of an incident relating to the IRA" story mentioned in the Pop Culture Urban Legends entry has circulated on Twitter a few times, leading to lots of comments portraying O'Grimacey as an outspoken, perhaps even violent, Irish nationalist.
  • The Grimace himself is often parodied as being some sort of Blob Monster or Humanoid Abomination that eats people rather than the adorable Big Fun fuzzball he's known as. This is something of a sly reference to the character's original conception, as he was initially a villain like the Hamburglar, with four arms and goat-like legs who tried to steal all the milkshakes in McDonaldland before McDonalds realized that they made him into Accidental Nightmare Fuel and changed his character to be Lighter and Softer. According to Clerks: The Animated Series, nothing can kill the Grimace. This saw a revival in 2023 with the "Grimace Shake" meme where drinking the titular shake would suddenly kill the consumer because it contains the Grimace's unholy essence, or summons the Grimace himself to do the deed, or because the shake is too unhealthy, or some other deranged thing.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ronald was created and originally played by Willard Scott, who would skyrocket to fame as the longtime weatherman on Today.
  • Many of the puppeteers who had performed in the mid-'80s McDonaldland commercials (including Tim Blaney, Kevin Carlson, Carl J. Johnson, Bruce Lanoil, and lead puppeteer/puppet builder Tony Urbano) would go on to puppeteer on films and shows like Flight of the Navigator, Short Circuit, Men in Black, Team America: World Police, The Mr. Potato Head Show and several Jim Henson productions. Urbano also did the bat effects in It Lives by Night.
  • In one of his first Hollywood roles, Mac Tonight was portrayed by Doug Jones, now known for his roles in films such as Hellboy (2004) and The Shape of Water.
• Unfortunate Character Design: The very reason for Mac Tonight's Memetic Psychopath reputation as "Moon Man", some have noticed, was that his all-white head mixed with the crescent moon shape makes him look like he is wearing a Klan hood.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: In one commercial, Ronald is giving out hamburgers for smiles. When Captain Crook asks for one, Ronald says that he can't have one until he learns to smile. Captain Crook hadn't been doing anything wrong at the time, making us feel sorry for him and Ronald coming across as mean for denying a hamburger to Captain Crook just because he wasn't in the habit of smiling. Granted, Captain Crook does soon learn to smile, and Ronald happily gives him one, but it still feels like he shouldn't have had to when he wasn't hurting anyone else.

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