5 Fast Food Mascots From The '80s And '90s That Deserve A Comeback

Since the industry's inception, countless fast food restaurants have featured mascots. For a while, as we entered the heady 1980s, the brands behind now-forgotten fast food mascots started to punch above their weight. Marketers were taking big swings, and some truly wild creations were developed, and a lot of money was spent bringing these burger-, taco-, and pizza-slingers to life. Even though they're bizarre and don't necessarily speak to our appetite, they had character. So yes, we want to see them return!

So many of these short-lived fast food mascots should rise from the ashes to remind us of late-night value meals. We need Anthropomorphic pizza slices that can talk to tell us to eat more pizza. We need cute animals to charm us into buying tacos. And more than ever, we need the algorithm to serve us ads about dastardly fast food burglars and their latest heist hijinks. There was just something better about the world when we knew there was a den of thieves plotting underground to get their hands on an affordable, tasty meal. So here are five 1980s and 1990s fast food mascots that deserve a comeback.

No self-respecting health inspector would allow a dog to be selling tacos, but that doesn't mean we don't think there should be more pets pushing drive-thru eats on us. Gidget made her debut in September 1997, amidst the Burger War advertising campaigns between McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King. The Spanish-speaking chihuahua cut through all the noise between the burger-slingers and famously made "¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!" or "I want Taco Bell!" into one of the biggest memes of the late 1990s.

If Pizza Hut is a nostalgic chain that deserves a comeback, the same applies to its Pizza Head mascot. The Pizza Head show (aka just Pizza Head) was a series of ads by Pizza Hut that told a tale of a simple slice of pizza with a face made of toppings. Between 1993 and 1997, 16 commercials were produced. If the humor and look are familiar, that's because the spots were directed by Walter Williams, who famously made a name for himself as the creator of Mr. Bill, the irreverent and violent "Saturday Night Live" claymation character.

CosMc made their McDonaldland debut in 1987 as an alien being who constantly craves McDonald's. The character would be retired in 1992 after a series of commercials. Then, CosMc would also go on to be the inspiration for the short-lived McDonald's spinoff concept restaurant, CosMc's, which mainly featured McCafé items and drinks that couldn't be ordered at a regular McDonald's. The concept lasted just about one and a half years and will soon be defunct as test stores close. 

The Noid was an especially strange mascot, and one that we'd like to see again. Essentially, the Noid was a metaphysical being that was the ultimate (and always failing) foil to Dominos pizza delivery in humanoid form, all while wearing a skin-tight suit. The commercials ran from 1986 to 1995, and in 1990, Capcom even made a video game about the Noid. He's popped up from time to time over the years on Domino's merchandise, in a 2016 pinball game, and, most recently, in 2021, appeared in the mobile game "Crash Bandicoot: On The Run" as a promotional tie-in.

If you were alive and glued to the TV in the 1980s and 1990s, "time to make the donuts" was a phrase you probably heard uttered by Dunkin' Donuts mascot Fred the Baker at least a few times per day. Fred started as a Sisyphean character who seemed exhausted by the constant grind of waking up early to serve fresh donuts, but then evolved into a more joyful character who still had to roll that boulder, or rather, Munchkin, up a hill.