Fast food companies obviously do a ton of marketing to kids, because kids are the only people who are dumb enough to eat that slop. A colorful clown or cartoon character is enough to convince a little twerp that reprocessed beef sludge is a meal worth coveting. But sometimes restaurants miscalculate the mascot design process, and things get a little weird. In this article, we'll share the worst ideas ever used to sell burgers, tacos and other slop. Bring a barf bag.
The Worst Fast Food Mascots
Fast food is a pretty disturbing thing when you look too closely at it, and the same goes for mascots. Peruse this list of the least-effective characters ever designed to shill shakes and boost burger sales.
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By K. Thor Jensen February 13, 2012 |
Credit: Weinerschnitzel
The Delicious One |
Hot dog-focused fast food chain Wienerschnitzel already has a few strikes against it just because of hot dogs. You all know what's inside hot dogs, right? So it's a true mystery that they would make their company mascot a giant anthropomorphic weiner. The Delicious One, also known as the World's Most Wanted Weiner (sorry, Ron Jeremy), starred in a series of commercials where he struggled to evade the chomping mouths of people who crave animal intestines, buttholes and other unsellable parts. And he was human-sized, which means he was filled with so much of that stuff.
Credit: McDonalds
Mac Tonight |
When fast food chains try to market to adults, the results are usually pretty dire. Case in point: McDonalds's introduction of "Mac Tonight" in 1986. Created to advertise the franchise's extended operating hours, this hideously deformed lounge lizard crooned a Bobby Darin-derivative tune about coming to Mickey D's after the sun goes down. Mac was taken off the air in 1997 but has recently made a comeback in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. Most interestingly, the character was played by Doug Jones, aka Abe Sapien from Hellboy.
Credit: Arby's
The Oven Mitt |
At first glance, the Arby's oven mitt isn't that terrible of a mascot - he vaguely resembles the chain's cowboy hat logo, he seems to have a pretty good attitude, and he isn't malformed or full of animal guts. But the problem with Mr. Mitt (as he wishes people would call him) is that he's basically chroniclly depressed. The most memorable commercial from the oven mitt's tenure as mascot had him moaning about not being born with a nose. I guess if you had to work at Arby's, you'd be depressed too.
Credit: Del Taco
The Beast |
The worst thing about The Beast, a short-lived spokesthing for the Del Taco chain, is that he replaced a perfectly good mascot. From 2000 to 2006, Del Taco commercials featured Dan the Marketing Man, a clueless goof who screwed up the Mexican restaurant's attempts to introduce new products with his utter incompetence. For some reason, even though customers loved Dan, they decided to fire him and go with "The Beast," a garboon in a crappy Teen Wolf costume who encouraged diners to "feed the beast." It didn't work.
Credit: Jollibee
Jollibee |
The thing about a lot of these mascots is that they might be demented but at least they have some kind of personality. You can't say that about Jollibee, the face of the Filipino fast-food franchise. This blank-faced insect quite literally has absolutely nothing going on inside him at all. He's the apotheosis of cute for cuteness' sake, and it freaks us out. I bet if you ask the corporate office about him, the official answer is that he was born without a soul.
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