McDonaldland is a McDonald's media franchise and the fictional fantasy city inhabited by Ronald McDonald and his friends and family. 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, Klasky Csupo, and more, with the latter establishing the basis for the relaunch of the brand for the 21st century.
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, his nephew Ferris, Dina, Ant, Goat, 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. Since the McDonaldland portion was relaunched in 2008, several of the characters including Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird, and the Hamburglar have been 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.
Overview[]
Setting[]
McDonaldland takes place predominantly in its own high fantasy city, but parts of its own world occasionally 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 Sundae Mountain.
In The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald and The New Ronald Adventures, 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 Saint Patrick's Day to promote the Shamrock Shake. Technomancy like vehicles were shown in some ads, which included flying saucer-like hamburgers.
Locations[]
The most often occurring regions, as seen in numerous McDonaldland commercials and video games are a forest, city, 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.
Relaunch[]
[TBD relaunch]
History[]
[TBD history]