Fast food marketing in decades past seemed to operate under the strange assumption that customers would crave burgers more if they were hawked by uncanny, sometimes disturbing characters. Before focus groups and child psychologists refined mascot design, fast food chains created some truly bewildering brand ambassadors that would never make it past today’s marketing departments. Let’s take a nostalgic yet slightly disturbing trip down memory lane with these bizarre fast food mascots that somehow got approved.
1. The Noid from Domino’s Pizza
Domino’s Pizza introduced the Noid in 1986, a bizarre red-suited creature with rabbit-like ears whose sole purpose was to “avoid” him because he would ruin your pizza. This claymation menace wore a skin-tight red bodysuit with a giant “N” on his chest and had an inexplicable vendetta against pizza delivery. His maniacal grin and destructive tendencies made him more villain than mascot, leaving children confused about why a pizza company would advertise a character determined to sabotage their product. Food & Wine dives into the tragedy that was the Noid’s downfall.
The Noid campaign took a dark turn in 1989 when a mentally ill man named Kenneth Lamar Noid, believing the ads were personal attacks against him, held Domino’s employees hostage at gunpoint. This tragic real-world incident eventually contributed to the character’s retirement in the early 1990s, though Domino’s has occasionally attempted to revive him for nostalgia campaigns. The Noid remains one of advertising’s strangest cautionary tales: a mascot so weird that reality eventually became even stranger than the character itself.
2. Mac Tonight from McDonald’s
In 1986, McDonald’s introduced Mac Tonight, a sunglasses-wearing crescent moon with a human mouth who played piano and sang about eating burgers after dark. The character featured a giant plastic moon head, piano-playing hands, and a tuxedo, crooning McDonald’s late-night availability with Bobby Darin-inspired musical numbers. His unsettling appearance—part celestial body, part lounge singer—created an uncanny valley effect that made him simultaneously fascinating and disturbing. MEL Magazine takes a bigger bite into this mascot’s fascinating history.
Despite his bizarre appearance, Mac Tonight became immensely popular in late-80s advertising before legal issues with Bobby Darin’s estate over the song similarities eventually sidelined the character. Years later, the character would unfortunately be co-opted by internet trolls for unsavory memes, further complicating any potential revival. While Ronald McDonald remains the chain’s primary mascot, Mac Tonight represents a strange cosmic detour into nightclub-themed fast food marketing that could only have existed in the excess-loving 1980s.
3. The Burger King “King”
While most people remember the modern creepy King with his frozen plastic smile, the original 1970s Burger King mascot was equally disturbing in his own right. This version featured a king with an oversized plastic head, tiny crown, and red beard who would pop up in random situations holding burgers. His unblinking stare and fixed expression created a sense of dread rather than hunger, particularly in the versions where he would appear in people’s bedrooms or backyards without warning. Comic Book Resources isn’t afraid to call this monarch the creepiest of the mascots.
The King went through multiple iterations over decades, with the 2000s revival intentionally leaning into the creepiness factor as a marketing strategy. This version would silently appear in bed next to sleeping customers or stare through windows, blur the line between mascot and stalker. Though marketing executives insisted the character was playfully quirky, many children and adults reported genuine discomfort at the sight of his immobile face and boundary-ignoring behavior, making him one of fast food’s most memorably unsettling brand representatives.
4. The McDonaldland Gang
While Ronald McDonald himself was merely clownish, his supporting cast of characters in McDonaldland ventured deep into the truly bizarre. Officer Big Mac had a hamburger for a head with his face awkwardly placed between the buns, while the Hamburglar was essentially a burger-stealing criminal that children were encouraged to admire. The Fry Kids were literally just walking pom-poms with legs, and Mayor McCheese governed with a giant cheeseburger for a head.
Perhaps strangest of all was Grimace, a giant purple blob whose original purpose and species remained completely unexplained throughout his existence. Early versions of Grimace actually had four arms and was portrayed as a villain who stole milkshakes before being rehabilitated into Ronald’s slow-witted best friend. The entire McDonaldland concept seems like it was conceived during a particularly creative brainstorming session involving questionable substances, resulting in a surreal food-based universe that somehow became mainstream children’s entertainment for decades.
5. The California Raisins for California Raisin Advisory Board
Though technically promoting raisins rather than a specific restaurant, these desiccated fruit musicians appeared in numerous fast food promotions and happy meal toys throughout the 1980s. The California Raisins were anthropomorphic, wrinkled raisins with arms, legs, and sunglasses who performed Motown classics in claymation commercials. The disturbing implication that these raisins were singing and dancing their way to their own consumption never seemed to bother marketers.
The Raisins became so inexplicably popular that they transcended advertising to release actual music albums, star in an animated special, and even receive their own line of collectible figurines. In a particularly bizarre marketing move, these dried grape characters were even featured in tie-ins with restaurants serving items that contained no raisins whatsoever. The California Raisins represent the strange 1980s trend of food mascots with no logical connection to the products they were selling, creating nostalgic yet confusing memories for an entire generation.
6. Spongmonkeys from Quiznos
In what might be the most unappetizing food campaign ever created, Quiznos introduced the “Spongmonkeys” in 2003—rat-like creatures with human eyes and mouths, guitar-playing abilities, and a screechy singing voice. These creatures appeared to be taxidermied rodents created through primitive computer animation, singing “We Love the Subs” in an ear-piercing screech while their human-like eyes bulged unnaturally. The connection between these disturbing creatures and sandwich consumption remains one of marketing’s greatest mysteries.
The Spongmonkeys appeared in only a handful of commercials before public disgust forced Quiznos to retire them, but their brief run created a lasting impression of discomfort that many attribute to the chain’s subsequent struggles. Originally created as internet content by British animator Joel Veitch, these characters somehow convinced Quiznos executives that associating rodent-like beasts with food preparation would drive sandwich sales. The campaign remains a legendary marketing misstep that achieved memorability at the expense of actually making people hungry.
7. Jared the Subway Guy
While not a costumed character, Jared Fogle became Subway’s de facto mascot through his weight-loss story, appearing in over 300 commercials between 2000-2015. The strange aspect wasn’t the person himself—though that would prove catastrophic in the futurev—but the uncomfortable concept of building an entire fast food brand identity around one customer’s weight loss journey and before-and-after photos. Jared would appear in commercials holding comically large pants, creating an unusual mascot premise centered on dieting rather than food enjoyment.
This mascot choice became catastrophically problematic when Fogle was investigated and ultimately imprisoned for serious criminal activities, immediately transforming the brand’s image from weight-conscious to deeply tarnished. While other mascot failures merely confused customers or created branding issues, the Jared saga represents perhaps the greatest mascot-related disaster in fast food history. It serves as a cautionary tale about building brand identity around real individuals rather than fictional characters whose behaviors can be controlled.
8. Jack Box from Jack in the Box
Jack Box began as a literal jack-in-the-box clown head atop drive-thru speakers until a 1980 commercial campaign in which he was blown up, only to return in 1994 as a business-suited man with a giant ping pong ball-like head. This disturbing hybrid—business professional body with an expressionless round white head—created an unsettling corporate mascot who spoke with a deadpan voice while never changing his painted-on smile. His backstory inexplicably included being the founder and CEO of the company despite being a fictional character.
What makes Jack particularly strange is how the company leaned into his unsettling appearance, creating commercials where he terrifies board members, gets hit by buses, or engages in corporate politics—unusual themes for fast food marketing aimed at hungry customers. Jack’s unchanging expression regardless of situation creates an unintentionally disturbing effect, particularly in ads where he interacts with his human wife and son (who inexplicably also has a giant ball head). Despite his oddness, Jack has become one of fast food’s most recognizable and long-running mascots, proving that sometimes the uncanny valley approach to marketing actually works.
9. RoboRonald from 1990s McDonald’s Japan
While American children were familiar with the flesh-and-blood Ronald McDonald, Japanese customers in the 1990s were introduced to RoboRonald, a terrifying mechanical version that combined the inherent creepiness of clowns with the cold precision of robotics. This life-sized animatronic featured jerky movements, an unchanging smile, and eyes that seemed to follow customers around the restaurant. The robot would perform pre-programmed routines and greetings that fell squarely into the uncanny valley, creating an experience more fitting for a horror movie than a children’s restaurant.
What made RoboRonald particularly strange was his placement directly inside restaurants, where he would sometimes malfunction mid-performance, freezing with his mechanical arms outstretched toward terrified children. While McDonald’s hoped to create a futuristic, tech-forward image with these robots, they instead created nightmare fuel that many Japanese adults still remember with shudders. Though not widely known outside Japan, RoboRonald represents one of the strangest international adaptations of a mascot in fast food history.
10. The Herb Campaign from Burger King
In 1985, Burger King launched a baffling marketing campaign centered around “Herb,” the only American who had never tasted a Whopper. Rather than creating a costumed character, they built anticipation around finding this mysterious Herb, eventually revealing him to be a nerdy, bespectacled man in a white short-sleeved shirt. The weird part wasn’t Herb himself but the entire premise—building a campaign around a person who explicitly did not eat at your restaurant, then revealing him to be profoundly forgettable.
The $40 million campaign became one of fast food’s most notorious flops, with confused customers unsure whether they were supposed to identify with or pity Herb. When finally revealed in a Super Bowl commercial, Herb was so unremarkable that the campaign immediately lost momentum. Though not visually disturbing like other entries on this list, the Herb campaign represents a different kind of mascot weirdness—a character concept so fundamentally flawed that it made customers uncomfortable through sheer awkwardness rather than appearance.
These bizarre mascots represent a wild era in fast food marketing when companies were willing to take strange creative risks, often with questionable results. While today’s fast food advertising tends toward appetizing food photography and celebrity endorsements, these weird characters remind us of a time when a giant moon head or a purple blob could somehow convince Americans to buy more burgers and fries. For better or worse, these unusual mascots have been permanently seared into our collective memory, alongside the jingles we can’t forget and menu items we wish would return.
