r/interestingasfuck • u/Charming_History7423 • 11d ago

/r/all McDonald's in the 80s compared to today

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

56.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

666

u/emilyrosecuz 11d ago

Where’d all the talking trees go? They were a hit in the 80s/90s. Loved seeing a talking tree as a kid, very comforting.

Designers and architects need to start doing LSD again honestly

44

u/Effective_Dirt2617 11d ago

I’ve seen the old McD’s fiberglass setpieces for sale from time to time at antique shows. They are absurdly expensive but they’re out there. You can probably find one if you want.

10

u/zachary_grey 11d ago

There’s going to be an estate sale in IL of Mc items from the people who did the commercials from 70’s-90’s. I think their IG is something like “filminginmcdonaldsland” if anyone wants to look.

18

u/TheSchneid 11d ago edited 11d ago

I do often think about how weird TV and music were in the '90s.and early 2000s (for instance things like sifl and olly making it on TV) and I think a lot of it was actually impacted by a big LSD resurgence in the late '80s and early '90s when the dead were touring.

The people graduating college in the late '90s had definitely been doing a good amount of acid in their high school years. It was before that family that made like 70% of the acid in the US had gotten arrested too.

We can honestly probably thank the grateful Dead for some of the weird trippy shit that we saw on TV and in movies and music back then.

5

u/Sempervirens47 11d ago

Lawsuit! They ripped off a children's TV show from the late 60s called H.R. Pufnstuf, to create the McDonaldLand characters. They had talked to the creators about making characters for McDonalds and been turned down, so showing intent was easy and McDonalds lost the lawsuit. Other than Ronald, all those other characters like Mayor McCheese and talking trees and stuff had to go or they'd be paying the creators they ripped off big money. Maybe they could have created a new, original McDonaldLand, but with fewer children in the developed world today, is it worth it?

10

u/DOG_DICK__ 11d ago

They need to stop microdosing this stuff. A tab is a tab for a reason, it's not meant to be any smaller of a dose buddy.

2

u/jk147 11d ago

I still remember the ball pits and slides, that is all but gone now. And did they remove Ronald McDonald all together?

2

u/some1saveusnow 11d ago

Oh anything that isn’t business school planned and analytically assessed for maximum ROI stream is out. And that’s the talking trees unfortunately

2

u/moonchic333 11d ago

Lmao that’s my first thought. More psychedelics! More psychedelics!

2

u/LifeWithAdd 11d ago

Sitting at the tree with a bunch of other random kids. Playing with your happy meal toys together then running outside shoving your shoes in the little holes and climbing into the damp smelly tubes. Playing together for as long as mom will let you then never seeing them again. Man I miss it.

1

u/Tnemmokon 11d ago

Deforestation hit the Magical Forests the hardest....

1

u/Beneficial-Economy11 11d ago

I learned recently that the trees were for thise fried apple pies that had lava in them. I had no idea. I thought they were just LCD nightmare.

1

u/seasnakejake 11d ago

Pajama Sam!

1

u/snarfsnarfer 11d ago

I miss the burger jail thing

1

u/electrical-stomach-z 11d ago

People who have never touched LSD in their lives have made far weirder things.

1

u/nolan1971 11d ago

The thing is, seeing the nostalgic items like this in person now they end up just looking dated and sad.

0

u/Vusstar 11d ago

Hated that shit as a kid lol.

6

u/Gowalkyourdogmods 11d ago

How dare you

But seriously, this was my era as a kid and I honestly do not remember these at all.