Fast Food Commercials That Stick With You

I apologize for not writing in here for quite a while.  Real life has once again gotten in the way.  So, you know what?  I'll expand this special food theme into October as well to make up for it.

So, what's the theme for today?  It's all about commercials.  Specifically the commercials for fast food places that have made an impact on us.

These are the commercial jingles that have somehow stayed in our brains for twenty-five years, but yet we can't remember how to do basic arithmetic or what we need to purchase at the supermarket.

I'll tell you what inspired this post though.  Actually, I'll show you.

Yeah, yeah...I know.  It's shocking to see Jason Alexander of "Seinfeld" fame with hair.  But what is even more shocking is that I remember this commercial vividly.

A friend of mine posted this on his Facebook page last week.  It's a commercial for the McDLT which first came out in 1985.  Now, the product itself was designed to keep your lettuce and tomato crispy and fresh, while your burger stayed nice and warm.  It was a brilliant concept, but with more and more companies steering away from styrofoam packaging in the 1980s, the shelf life of the sandwich was short.  But it's absolutely amazing how more than 30 years later, that commercial is still etched in my mind.  Even more impressive was the fact that I was only four years old when the McDLT commercial first aired!

Anyway, it got me thinking...what other fast food ads made that much of an impact?  Well, I've searched YouTube to come up with some examples.

Now, keep in mind, I've only put examples up over the last three and a half decades.  If you have any other ones to share prior to say, 1982, I'd love to see them!

And since I started off with McDonald's, let's post another one from them that I remember a lot.

Okay, so the Mac Tonight ads were designed to try and make McDonald's a little more classier.  Because I know that when I think haute couture in the culinary industry, I think of Big Macs.  Around 1987, McDonald's tried using a dapper crescent moon doing his own take on Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" by singing about wanting a "Mac Tonight".  For what it's worth, the commercials were quite well done, and I think I still might have a Mac Tonight fridge magnet hiding in my garage somewhere.  But it didn't quite gel with the general public.

I was probably still taking six hour naps when this commercial first started airing for Wendy's, but I think everyone tried to imitate Clara Peller's "Where's The Beef" inquiry!  It was an ad designed to promote the fact that Wendy's used more beef and had larger patties than the other fast food joints out there.  I can attest that as far as fast food burgers go, I definitely like Wendy's quite a bit.  Sadly, the commercials only lasted three years as Clara Peller passed away in 1987.

Moving away from hamburgers for now, some of the best commercials that I have seen for fast food places come from pizza joints.  And Little Caesar's commercials are probably some of the funniest and most creative of their time.  Who could forget the conga line commercial with the surprise twist ending?

Or the various commercials featuring how stretchy their cheese pizza was?

Yeah, those cheeser cheeser commercials sure were memorable.

Another pizza company that had great commercials was Domino's.  At least, back in the late 1980s, they did.  Having been a fan of the animation art known as Claymation back in the day, watching the commercials that starred the Noid was always a fun experience.  The Noid was kind of like the Trix rabbit in a way in that both wanted to eat the product that was advertised, but neither mascot came out the victor.  At least the Noid ended up getting made into a video game called "Yo, Noid!"

Seriously.  I'm not kidding - and it was a tough game too...I couldn't make it past level 11.

Sometimes the ads weren't for the food themselves, but for the toys that you could purchase with the meals.  Back in 1990, Burger King ran a promotion where if you bought food from them, you could also purchase one of five Simpsons stuffed toys for $3.49.  Unfortunately, I only managed to get three of these toys.  I missed out on Maggie and Bart.  But I still have Homer, Marge, and Lisa kicking around!

Okay, so here's a commercial that actually predates me by a few years, but I have to include it because of the fact that it has a slogan that became an instant earworm.  Long before McDonald's started lovin' it, Burger King made it clear that you could "hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us".  And as someone who could be quite picky about what they wanted on a burger (as in, you put onions and mayo on my burger and you will die a slow and painful death), this was a good thing.  Years after this commercial aired, they redid the commercial (with I believe the same actors who filmed the original).

A more recent commercial from McDonald's, I have to admit that the fish singing the "Filet-O-Fish" song was catchy as hell.

And I have to say that this Dairy Queen commercial for the "Flamethrower" burger was absolutely laugh out loud the minute I first viewed it sometime in the 2000s. 

Finally, to end things off on a heartwarming note, we have this commercial from McDonald's that used to air for a couple of years during the winter months.  It was a commercial that I absolutely adored as a kid, and if anything it helped me realize that Ronald McDonald was actually a very nice clown who just appeared to look like something from Satan's kitchen.

Okay, so now I turn the floor over to you.  Which commercials from fast food places did you enjoy the most?