The McDonald's Fish Item That Didn't Even Last 3 Months On The Menu

McDonald's has over 43,000 locations worldwide (per Statista), and it has obviously made some smart moves over the years to reach the pinnacle of the fast food business. But even this massive corporation has swung and missed with new products. One case in point was the short-lived Fish McBites, just one of several discontinued McDonald's menu items that are unlikely to come back. Some foods, like the lower-calorie McLean Deluxe hamburger, managed to hang on for several years. The Fish McBites, on the other hand, lasted less than three months.

In January 2013, McDonald's announced a new product, a sort of Chicken McNuggets but made from pieces of Alaskan pollock — the same type of fish used in the Filet-O-Fish. The breaded fish nuggets came in three sizes with tartar sauce and were also a Happy Meal option — the first new addition to the kids' meal in a decade. McDonald's also released the Fish McBites as a limited-time menu option. Companies often test new products this way to see how they perform. In this case, the fish nuggets were a dud with consumers and became a bit of a joke. The likes of NPR's game show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," lambasted them as being little better than cat food. Additionally, the accompanying advertisement campaign probably didn't help.

McDonald's had already established a culinary beachhead with seafood via its Filet-O-Fish, so why executives felt the need to add fish nuggets to the mix is anybody's guess. Then there was the advertising campaign. It featured a talking, singing, and rapping fish mounted on a wall who extolled the virtues of Fish McBites while singing "Fishy, Fishy," and then repeating "Fish-Fish McBites-McBites" over and over before being joined in a rap with other mounted fish. This wasn't the first time McDonald's advertising sailed into uncharted waters — who could forget McDonald's unusual crooning moon-headed mascot in the '80s?

Still, the singing, wriggling fish on a wall didn't seem to help sell the product. The company's profits remained stagnant following the rollout of the Fish McBites. By April 2013, Fish McBites were quietly pulled from the menu less than three months after their release. Today, you won't find these fish nuggets on any McDonald's menus in the United States, but if you're curious to try them across the Atlantic Ocean, these fish nuggets are still available in the United Kingdom (without the "Mc" in front of the "Bites" in the name).