Макдональдтану: Ronald McDonald әлемі

Fast food themed media franchise and fictional world

McDonaldland is a McDonald's media franchise and the fictional fantasy world inhabited by Ronald McDonald and his friends. Starting with the creation of Ronald McDonald in 1963, it is primarily developed and published by McDonald's. Initial attempts to expand the McDonaldland universe by marketing agency Needham, Harper & Steers were seemingly retconned due to legal issues, but ongoing aspects were expanded in McDonald's projects in collaboration with Data East, Virgin Interactive, Treasure, SEGA, and Klasky Csupo. The series centers on an adventuring magical clown named Ronald McDonald, who has red hair, white and red face paint, and wears a yellow jumpsuit over a red and white striped long sleeve shirt with yellow gloves. His most regularly occurring friends are Grimace, the Hamburglar, Birdie the Early Bird, the Fry Kids, the McNugget Buddies, and the Happy Meal Gang. The fictional world has a variety of inspirations from general high fantasy and low fantasy, to corporate culture and corporate personality, to more specific influences including Christian media and the artwork of Koichi Kimura from McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure. In addition to being used in advertising, the characters were used as the basis for themed equipment in the "PlayPlaces" attached to some McDonald's outlets, small recreational activity rooms intended for young children. While the McDonaldland portion has received somewhat less attention since 2003, several of the characters including Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and the Hamburglar are still seen in commercials, Happy Meal toys, and materials supporting the Ronald McDonald House Charities. The characters received entire dedicated McDonaldland themed line ups of Funko Pop! figures in 2019 and onward, including Ronald, Grimace, the Hamburglar, the Fry Kids and McNugget Buddies, Birdie the Early Bird, Mayor McCheese and Officer Big Mac.

McDonaldland takes place predominantly in its own high fantasy world, however parts of the McDonaldland world have low fantasy interactions with the real world. In earlier commercials, McDonaldland had sentient trees that grew apple pies, a hamburger patch, a French Fry patch, a shake volcano, Filet O Fish Lake, and the one shot Sundae Mountain. In The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald the denizens of McDonaldland were shown to be able to travel between worlds using PlayPlace slides. Ronald is an adventurer with magical powers that acts as an ambassador for good and freedom, such as traveling to the rain forest to bring attention to endangered species and deforestation or delivering a safety PSA on the importance of seat belts. Redemption arcs are incorporated within McDonaldland media. Grimace, a purple monster, was originally an antagonist that stole beverages and shakes from customers, but has since become a good guy. The Hamburglar, also originally a villain, was a thief that targeted hamburgers and sandwiches, but he is now more of a lovable rogue character. McDonaldland has many similarities with the real world; for example Uncle O'Grimacey, a character originally created for the Christian holiday Saint Patrick's Day to promote the Shamrock Shake. Technomancy like vehicles were shown in some ads, which included flying saucer like hamburgers.

The most often occurring regions, as seen in numerous McDonaldland commercials and video games are a forest, town, sea, and outer space. Their exact geographic layout is unknown, but within these regions are several locales including Grimace Island, a Western themed area, several portals to real world McDonald's restaurants, the Moon, and Ronald's home.

The namesake for McDonaldLand is the McDonald's restaurants founded by Richard and Maurice McDonald, popularized by Ray Kroc. Ronald McDonald was originally portrayed by Willard Scott, a former Bozo the Clown actor. In 1963, he and Washington, D. C. franchisee Oscar Goldstein created the initial aspects of the character. The initial idea to expand the McDonaldland universe was outsourced to Needham, Harper & Steers in 1970–71 at the request of McDonald's for its restaurants. The first commercial aired in January 1971. The early commercials were built on an upbeat, bubblegum style tune and feature a narrator; many have plots that involve various villains, like the Hamburglar, Evil Grimace, and Captain Crook trying to steal a corresponding food item but are constantly foiled by Ronald. In 1973, Sid and Marty Krofft sued McDonald's, claiming that the entire McDonaldland premise plagiarized their television show H. R. Pufnstuf. In Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions Inc. v. McDonald's Corp., the Kroffts also claimed that the character Mayor McCheese was an infringement on their copyrighted character H. R. Pufnstuf (a mayor himself); Pufnstuf's voice actor, Lennie Weinrib, was even involved with the McDonaldland ads, as the voice of Grimace. At trial, a jury found in favor of the Kroffts, and McDonald's was ordered to pay $50,000. The case was appealed by both parties to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The appeals court in a 1977 decision, reassessed damages in favor of the Kroffts to more than $1,000,000. As a result, McDonald's was ordered to stop producing some of the characters, or they must be modified to become legally distinct, and to stop airing commercials featuring those characters until then. Grimace had a non speaking appearance in an advertisement for Monsters vs. Aliens Happy Meal toys, and also made a cameo in the 2022 McDonald's Super Bowl LVI commercial with Kanye West, where Grimace is animated and voiced by Ryan Reynolds. Funko designed several ongoing Pop! Vinyl! figures starting in 2019 representing numerous McDonaldland characters including a line dedicated to The McNugget Buddies, as well as some characters thought to be retconned like Mayor McCheese & Officer Big Mac.

Ronald McDonald – The primary cultural icon and official mascot of McDonald's. He is a clown with red hair and a big red smile who wears a yellow jumpsuit and red shoes. The Hamburglar (performed by Frank Delfino from 1971–1992, Jerry Maren in some commercials, Tommy Vicini from 1992–2003, voiced by Larry Storch from 1971–1986, Charlie Adler in "The Hamburglar Touch" commercial and in The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald, Howard Morris from 1986–2003, and Carl W. Wolfe in some commercials during the 1990s) – A pint sized burglar who was introduced in 1971 as one of the first antagonists of the commercials where he often attempts to steal hamburgers and cheeseburgers from Ronald. He was often referred to in his first commercial appearances as "the crafty old Hamburglar" and at least one ad promoting McDonald's breakfast menu as "The Lone Jogger", wearing a white T shirt displaying that name on the front. Originally, the Hamburglar spoke in a gibberish language which had to be translated by Captain Crook. He was reintroduced in 1985 as one of the main protagonists, with a radically friendlier appearance, where he spoke in normal sentences, but retained his penchant for trying to steal burgers. In 2015, McDonald's brought back the Hamburglar as part of the promotion of a new sirloin burger. Grimace (performed by Patty Saunders from 1971–1983, Mauri Bernstein in some '80s commercials, Terry Castillo Faass from 1983–2000, voiced by Lennie Weinrib from 1971–1986, Frank Welker and sometimes Larry Moran from 1986–2003, A 2014 Tweet from the McDonald's Twitter account stated "Grimace lore says he is the embodiment of a milkshake or a taste bud." In 2021, Brian Bates, a franchisee in Canada, stated in an interview widely reported on in the press that Grimace is an anthropomorphic taste bud. Writing in The Takeout, Lillian Stone disputed this, pointing out other material that established that Grimace was part of a species of Grimaces, including his Uncle O'Grimacey who promoted the Shamrock Shake. To celebrate the 51 year anniversary of the character's inception, in 2023, McDonalds ran a promotion to celebrate Grimace's birthday with the release of the Grimace Shake, which became an Internet meme on social media platforms. Fry Kids (various voices in the commercials, Kath Soucie, Paul Greenberg and Nika Futterman in The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald) – Introduced in 1972 as "Gobblins", the Fry Kids are small, shaggy, ball like creatures with legs and no arms who try to steal other characters' French fries. In 1998, Fry Kid #1 is yellow, Fry Kid #2 is red, and Fry Kid #3 is blue. Birdie the Early Bird (performed by Felix Silla 1979–1986, Patty Maloney 1986–2001, voiced by Russi Taylor in the commercials,) – A scientist who is McDonaldland's inventor and researcher. He was introduced in 1971 and has invented different devices throughout McDonaldland such as the Psychedelic Electronic Hamburger Machine (which made only pumpkins for some reason), the Dinner Gong, an invisible car that helped Ronald McDonald get to McDonald's to meet with the kids, a magnetic bat, and the Chicken McNugget Dip O Matic. In his first appearances, he was a bespectacled man with a beard, neck length hair, and a hat. In the 80s, he was a bespectacled man with a moustache, a long nose, and a helmet with a lightbulb on it. The character was dropped in 1985.

Ronald McDonald appears during a child's birthday party at a McDonald's in one scene of the film Mac & Me. He is portrayed by Squire Fridell, who played Ronald in commercials during the latter half of the 1980s. Mayor McCheese makes appearances in three episodes of the Fox animated television series Family Guy: "Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air", "Road to the Multiverse" and "Valentine's Day in Quahog". In all three episodes, he is voiced by John Viener. Clerks: The Animated Series featured the fictional mayor and chief of police of Leonardo, New Jersey wearing costumes based on Mayor McCheese and Office Big Mac, respectively (both had been going to costume parties when the episode's plot, a deadly virus supposedly being released into Leonardo, occurred, and in the case of the mayor he was unable to remove his costume when the zipper got stuck). Steve Dave and Walt asked "Big Mac" if "this administration will ever bring the Hamburglar to justice", while a reporter inquires as to whether or not Grimace is immune to the virus ("Nothing can kill the Grimace"). "Mayor McCheese" was voiced by Al Franken while "Officer Big Mac" is voiced by Mike McShane. On the DVD commentary, Kevin Smith indicated that had the show gone past 6 episodes, "Mayor McCheese" would've been kept as a recurring character (with him always in his costume, always being on his way to or from a costume party).