10 Vintage McDonald's Ads That Give Us Major Nostalgia

Isn't it interesting how a single bite of your favorite childhood meal, say a McDonald's cheeseburger and fries, is enough to spark a walk down memory lane? Truth be told, even the commercials associated with said meals are enough to make you wax nostalgic for the simpler times left behind. A trip down the slide at McDonaldland Playland. A big slurp of an icy-cold Coke. Your very first bite of a Big Mac. Those memories are as faded as the images from the low-res McDonald's commercials you've grown to love, and yet, still delicious to think about.

All of this is thanks partly to the clever marketing campaigns that McDonald's has run over the years. Most consist of happy images of people gladly chomping on their nostalgic treats. Most also boast simple jingles that many fans of the burger giant can still sing along to all these years later. But the nostalgia factor is also switched on by the promise of the eras left behind, captured for a few moments in time in the form of a snappy commercial.

And if all of this makes you hungry to revisit some of these special moments, you're not alone. The best of those old McDonald's commercials, though dated, are also kind of timeless. They reconnect us to something that is a bit universal in all of us. Although there are dozens of them that are worth looking at, the following 10 vintage McDonald's ads count among the very best at conjuring up major waves of McDonaldland nostalgia.

For those of us who grew up during a certain era, the first rap song we ever heard didn't come from the likes of Eminem or 50 Cent. It came courtesy of McDonald's. Before this snappy bit of wordplay became a commercial television earworm, it showed up in a college newspaper as one very long headline in 1974: Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. However, once it became a TV commercial, it became the rap-tastic jingle we know today.

McDonald's corporate only featured the jingle consistently in ads for just under two years, but it was enough to set fire to the campaign. It was a poppy jingle that encouraged people to forget about the Watergate ordeal and the end of the Vietnam War for a while and to enjoy a summer filled with Big Macs, McDonald's best, and arguably, most-famous burger. That was optimistic since the McDonald's Big Mac cost 85 cents, nearly double the cost of a gallon of gas, which was around 53 cents at the time, but the optimism worked.

Despite the commercial's short lifespan, the song, however, has been used in commercials ever since. Among the jingle's most notable resurrections came by way of a 2008 contest held in conjunction with MySpace.com. It asked fans to concoct their own songs using the rap song's lyrics as inspiration for a Big Macky toe-tapper of their own. The occasion celebrated the big burger's 40th anniversary and intended to make a new generation of Big Mac eaters have the same rap song stuck in their head, ad infinitum, like the rest of us.

Anyone who pays attention to online culture knows that you've officially arrived if you get your own Reddit page. Case in point? The 2009 McDonald's Filet-o-Fish commercial featuring a blue animatronic fish singing, "Gimme back that Filet-O-Fish ... Gimme that fish." And according to some Reddit thread members, it was a song well-remembered and oft-sung. To be fair, if it didn't include lyrics that asked fish eaters to consider what it might be like for them to sit in the middle of the sandwich, it could be any tune you'd hear on Top 40 radio. That it includes all of those elements plus a bumping rhythm that practically forces your head to bop to the beat means that, naturally, you must sing it all the time.

But it isn't just the Redditors who loved the tune. It got a nod from Rachel Ray.  She didn't just talk about the spot. She featured a full replica of the commercial's set and invited the commercial's actors for a visit. One of them revealed that it took between 40 and 45 takes to get the commercial just right, and in the process, he ate the equivalent of 12 Filet-O-Fish sandwiches due to all of those bites. As for the dancing fish, he became the big star of the season. Not unlike merchandise you collect from actual franchises, the blue fish became a product line worth your fish and chips and vinegar. Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS carried the melodious fish, which eventually sold out and spawned knock-off commercials trying to recapture some of the success of the original ad.

The Hamburglar, one of McDonald's most famous and beloved mascots, first flashed on the Adland scene in 1971, and saying that he flashed isn't very far from the reality of his first appearances. The original iteration of the character was a creepy old man who wore striped prison garb and a T-shirt that said, "Lone Jogger," which he revealed to the unsuspecting by opening up his trench coat like a flasher. Thankfully, someone at McDonald's headquarters gave the Robble-Robble Rowser a makeover. He became cute, almost cuddly, and while he was still a hamburger thief, he was less creepy and more kid-friendly. As a result, became a popular way for McDonald's to sell hamburgers and cheeseburgers — so much so that he made regular appearances in commercials until the mid-1990s.

Fast-forward to 2023, when McDonald's wanted to make some changes to the Big Mac and needed the perfect spokesperson for the job. Enter the Hamburglar again after a decades-long hiatus. To present these new features to the public — softer bun, more melty cheese, the works — the Hamburglar appeared in two commercials, one of which was called "Heist." It featured the masked bandit lowering himself from the ceiling of a Mickey D's and stealing a tray of burgers. He still spoke in gibberish, or Robble-ish, the peculiar language known spoken by the Hamburglar, and he was still his hamburger-stealing ol' self. For many who grew up with the mascot, seeing the cute little crook crooking once again probably warmed the heart and, presumably, sold a few burgers besides.

"It's my kind of place," the 1967 McDonald's commercial, is enough to make you nostalgic for a time when wing-tipped convertible cars reigned, and Mickey D's workers wore crisp white hats and black bow ties to work. The commercial opens with a tune that snaps with a clap-clapping rhythm, like the kids' song "Bingo," but for grownups. The ad features the same kind of imagery that made TV fans in the '60s and '70s associate the "Brady Bunch" with family-friendly TV fare — a family in a convertible going through the drive-through to grab a quick dinner, set against a backdrop of a song that tells everyone that McDonald's is our kind of place. Heck. It even features a shaggy dog that would make the Brady kids proud.

Unlike some ads from today, which embrace a concept that only someone with a Ph.D. in Philosophy can figure out, the old McDonald's ad also gets straight to the point. The food comes fast, which means parents won't be trapped in the car for hours with squabbling kids. And because kids mean spills, each order comes with drinks with spill-proof lids and an enviable supply of napkins to keep those leather car seats clean. You'd get the distinct feeling that everything was so wholesome that a McDonald's dinner not only tastes better than avocados and broccoli, but it's also better for everyone, too.

Want to know what it takes to get on the Cannes Lions shortlist? Well, if you're McDonald's Germany in 2011, you take a potshot at rival Burger King in a viral ad. "Package," a short film by the burger giant, took a look at a boy who was bullied endlessly by boys who kept stealing his McDonald's lunch. Each time he opened his lunch bag, the mean boys magically appeared and stole items one by one until he was left with nothing but empty McDonald's lunch bags and boxes. This happened a number of times before the bullied boy got wise and broke out a decoy, a Burger King bag, and was finally able to eat in peace as his former bullies walked by. They might have been hungry enough to steal a McDonald's burger but not enough to steal one made by rival Burger King.

Understandably, the powers that be at Burger King were upset and demanded that McDonald's remove the ad. However, by then, the commercial featuring the bullied boy was already zipping like wildfire around the internet. As most people know by now, once something takes off on the internet, that's just about all she wrote. That you can still find copies of the commercial on sites like YouTube demonstrates this reality unambiguously. There's no need for McDonald's to keep playing the ad when fans, armed with screen-captured copies of the ads, are willing to share it over and over and over again.

In 1986, an advertising campaign featuring one big-headed moon man got some serious street cred when it surpassed the recognition factor of the New Coke ad campaign. McDonald's dropped $500,000 and waited a whole year to get an ad campaign that would whop the Whopper, so to speak. The campaign started out as four TV ads in California. As a mascot, Mac appealed to a decidedly different crowd than many of the burger giant's other commercial targets: adults. 

He was born into a tough market. Mac appeared during the 1980s when the burger wars had pretty much spiraled out of control. Mac had some steep competition. He hit the scene at about the same time that famous commercials, like Wendy's "Where's the Beef" campaign, were in full swing. But with his cool look and sound and a theme song, "Mac Tonight," inspired by Bobby Darrin's "Mack the Knife," grownups couldn't get enough of Mac. Actor Doug Jones, of "The Shape of Water" fame, embodied Mac in those early commercials. Eventually, Mac played the frontman in at least 27 commercials over a three-year period.

As profitable as the campaign was, it wasn't without controversy. Bobby Darrin's estate sued McDonald's because the Mac Tonight song and Mac's mannerisms were too close to Bobby Darrin's performance. And if that weren't enough, in 2007, Mac was commandeered by a hate group to be its mascot. McDonald's responded by taking down videos on video-sharing sites, but the damage to Mac was already done.

"There's more in the middle of an Egg McMuffin than an egg in the middle of a muffin," as the words of the 1970s-era commercial proclaim. Indeed, given that the Egg McMuffin officially birthed breakfast at McDonald's in 1971 – some 30 years after the chain's founding in the 1940s – it is at the very heart of the morning revolution started by the burger giant. And given how ubiquitous the eggy sammy is now, it's difficult to believe that it wasn't always a thing. Franchisee Herb Peterson hatched the idea for the Egg McMuffin because he wanted to create a portable version of his favorite breakfast, Eggs Benedict. Peterson had been getting feedback from his customers: They wanted to eat at McDonald's earlier than its then-opening time of 11:00 a.m. 

To facilitate this new era of fast-food breakfast deliciousness, the franchise owner solicited the help and consultation of a personal friend, Julia Child, to develop the breakfast delight. Eventually, the Great Breakfast Sandwich Experiment was ready to be introduced to Ray Kroc himself. The Mickey D's founder loved the first versions of the sandwich, which was open-faced, but otherwise mostly the sandwich we know today. All the fast-food chain needed, then, was a series of commercials to bring the breakfast sandwich to the market, bringing us back to the idea that there's more to the Egg McMuffin than the egg in the middle of a muffin — much more, as it turns out. By 1987, 25% of all breakfasts eaten in restaurants came from McDonald's, per Weird History Food, and it's only grown since then.

What do you get when you mix Ronald McDonald, the Hamburglar, and a classroom of talking puppet hamburgers? You get a sweet little commercial circa 1986 called "Hamburger University," a kitschy frolic through the McDonaldland mythos that shouldn't be confused with McDonald's real-life Hamburger University. While both the real Hamburger University and its Muppet-happy TV commercial counterpart are designed to sell more hamburgers, the latter has the cuteness factor going for it in a way that the former never will. 

That the commercial features the Hamburglar prominently in it isn't an accident. As a part of the McDonaldland crew, the burger thief was originally intended to embody the mischief that comes with childhood and a good, wholesome lunch at McDonald's. In the "Hamburger University" version of the character, the Hamburglar's unfortunate Lone Jogger days are behind him, having been replaced by an adorable masked bandit with wiggling ears. In the faux 'Burger University class, a room full of animated hamburgers becomes the frightened victims of his hamburger heist. A timely intervention by Ronald McDonald himself saves the little burgers from becoming lunch and sees the burglar doing penance by writing "Don't take burgers, Robble Robble," presumably about 400 times, thwarting a future rise of the Hamburglar and his thieving ways once again.

Few things give a commercial campaign a leg-up like a celeb appearance, and for the rollout of the 2003 "I'm Lovin' It" campaign, McDonald's called in the big guns: Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams. The former lent his rap stylings to the iconic McDonald's jingle and an extended Top 40 hit, while the latter penned the lyrics. While the tune itself has some full-blown lyrics, including the title phrase, "I'm Lovin' It," it might be the simple "ba da ba ba ba" that keeps people humming the song. It turned out to be enough of a hook that it was probably one of the factors that turned "I'm Lovin' It" into Mickey D's longest-running campaign. 

As it turns out, that last phrase was initially an afterthought, a phrase tried out by the ad execs during a 3:00 a.m. work session that brought the campaign to life. However, the simple phrase was still as catchy the next day as it was the night before. It proved to have the kind of sticking power the campaign needed. McDonald's wanted to appeal to a younger set with the new ad campaign, thinking that it would help bolster the company's bottom line after it had posted its first-ever quarterly losses. Having a jingle that people hum in the halls at work goes a long way toward keeping it relevant as the years go by. McDonald's tweaks the execution of the jingle slightly. This keeps the song's popular elements alive, all while permitting the fast-food giant to make changes to it from time to time to maintain its fresh factor.

"You deserve a break today" was a cornball ad campaign that dominated McDonald's commercials from its inception in the early 1970s and ran off and on until finally faded out in the 2000s. And lest it seem a bit disrespectful to say that the phrase was a bit corny, it's worth mentioning that even a Mickey D's exec thought so. Still, the ad worked. These days, with ads like "I'm Lovin' It," which embrace the reality of a more segmented society – starting with the big "I'm" at the beginning of the phrase — the more you-centric sentiments of "You deserve a break today" represent a time when people could use a break and still be a part of the collective consciousness of the age. Certainly, the fact that people largely worked in offices instead of at home or in coffee shops like they do today probably also helped make the campaign successful. A desire to escape the office for an hour was (and still is) a thing during the heyday of the campaign.

Most of the ads from this period were upbeat and presented groups of people enjoying activities together. In one, there were cheerleading squads waving pom-poms madly. In an Australian version of the campaign, fresh-faced workers in crisp blue uniforms danced lockstep with one another. But no matter where in the world the commercial originated, a few things remained constant — the big smiles lingered on the faces, a byproduct of getting the break they so desired.