Monday, June 9, 2008

Old School Fast Food

I was thinking about McDonalds today (for some reason). Sometimes, you've just gotta have it (fast food, that is). It seems like McDonalds, Wendy's, and Burger King alike have all gone through huge changes in their menus, promotions, and activities in the past 30 years I've been around. I thought I would "reminisce" a bit about what "I" remember from fast food restaurants from when I was younger. Feel free to add . . .

McDonalds:
  • Double Feature burger
  • Cheddar Melt
  • McRib Sandwich (for the Flintsone movie with John "I ate my family" Goodman)
  • Daily Double (had real fresh tomatoes and real lettuce . . not the usual crap)
  • Happy Meals in pails that you could bring to the beach with you. They usually came with little shovels and strainers so you could collect crabs and such
  • 2 for 2 dollars Big Macs (now they're like almost 4 dollars for one!)
  • McLean Deluxe (the low fat burger thing they had)
  • Bullseye BBQ Burger (with bacon!)
  • (help me out with this one!) They had some burger that came in a styrofoam little container so the hot side (meat) stayed hot, and the cold side (iceberg lettuce and tomatoe) stayed cold. What was that called?
  • Burgers coming in Styrofoam little containers
  • Little plastic caps that you used to put on top of your car roof if your drive thru order wasnt ready. Remember those? They had a special parking lot for those people, and usually you got something free (apple pie) for waiting . . .
  • Happy meals that came in little "pumpkin buckets" around Halloween. I had "McBoo."
  • The "other" characters (who have been upstaged by that pedophile we call Ronald) like Birdie, Fry-Guys, Grimace, and the Ham-burgalar
  • The wonderful Christmas season commercials McDonalds used to have (my favorite was when pedophile Ronald helped some sorry looking kid, sitting alone on the side of a pond while his friends all ice skated with great aplomb, become the greatest ice skater of them all, as Ronald swirled him around the ice and then touched his buttocks).

Burger King:

  • Burger Buddies (stuck together little burgers--cute)
  • A.L.F. puppets that you could get with the purchase of a burger
  • the "double cheeseburger" not being a "regular" menu item-but a special
  • When Burger King, one day, decided they would become more like a regular restaurant--you were seated, given popcorn as a free appetizer, and then given a menu from which to order. Remember that?
  • International Chicken Sandwiches: Ham and Swiss cheese (French), Mozzarella and marinara sauce (Italian) and lettuce, tomato (American)
  • The whole "Herb" campaign Burger King had, where some mysterious guy named Herb was stealing all the Whoppers all across the country. To help catch this "Herb" guy, if you identified yourself by name to the cashier ("my name is Jared and I'd like a Whopper") then you would get a Whopper for 99 cents. If your name really WAS Herb, then you were supposed to say "I'm not the Herb you're looking for." Does anyone else remember this?
  • 99 cent Whoppers
  • Simpsons watches that talked when you pressed the button
  • Cakes--they used to have Burger King cakes, because Kris used to have them for her parties. They had pictures of the "king" on them

Wendy's

  • Without question, they had THE best toys
  • When you paid for your order, your change came out via a cool little slide on the side of the cash register
  • Wendy's had "beads" you had to walk through to get through the doorway (like hippy beads)
  • "Where's the beef?" commercials

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wendy's use to also have a salad bar along w/ all the fixings for your baked potatoe.

I remember this b/c as me, doogie & keith would enjoy our big fat juicy cheeseburgers mom would be watching her wait getting a salad from the salad bar. Now you can only order the pre-made salads.

Anonymous said...

What's up Bean? Are you having to good of a time in there or what?

Anonymous said...

McDonalds also featured the " All American Meal" which was $1.99 and included a cheeseburger, small frie and drink.

Also the McDonalds in Raynham, after 8pm there cheeseburgers were like 10 cents. Jared worked there for an hour.

I had a burger king cake once. I also had a party at McDonalds and everyone gave me glow in the dark barbie....it wasn't a funny april fools joke for a little girl!

Anonymous said...

potatoe??

wait (weight)??

small frie???

Anonymous said...

I remember your jaunt of working at McDonalds...what was your manager's name...it was something funny weird- GWALTER!!! THats it

I believe you were speaking of the McDLT with the double sided styrofoam container. HOW ABOUT BAG O BURGERS?!?!?!?

I loved the old school pail/halloween happy meals as well as the fancy BK dinner phase...they gave out popcorn!

Do you remember a place called Rex's- it used to be where the Burger Kings are at the RT.24 reststops are now. THey had great kids meals. The box they came in had pop-out masks of their mascot Rex the alligator. Good times.

Well done with this blog. It was thought provoking. Thanks for the mammories.

Anonymous said...

Oh and what about the Simpson dolls you could get at BK at the outset of Simpson mania. You would pull a string on them and here hilarious catch phrases such as "Don't have a cow, Man." And "Doh!"

how fun.

Remember the old playground at McDonalds with the Merry Go Round and those things you'd sit on and bounce to and fro. I liked sitting on the Filet O Fish one.

Anonymous said...

sorry indian spelling bee champion I don't know why I spelled weight as "wait". My hands were typing faster than my mind was working! That's what happens at the end of the day.

Anonymous said...

PS I also had the record with the Big Mac song...2 all beef patties special sauce...lalala

Anonymous said...

Does anyone remember when Wendy's also had the taco bar? You could make burritos, tacos, etc... And they had chocolate pudding too.

I used to love going to McDonalds for breakfast. They had the Hot Cakes that came in that flat styrofoam container. I loved those. And the orange juice came in this little plastic cup with a foil top on it.

Anonymous said...

The taco bar was my favorite!
Did I mispell anything???????

Anonymous said...

belle, i often do things faster than my mind is working too . . .he he

does mcdonalds actually still have the "big breakfast," which was the eggs, hotcakes, and sausage??

one funny thing about mcdonalds breakfast (that I know from my past career as a nugget man) is that they actually do use fresh eggs . . .we cracked the shell and everything.

you know what is so funny--even after being done millions of times? when a pasty white fat kid goes on a field trip with his class, they stop at BK for supper, and he is SOOO original by wearing the paper crown thing they give out . . .and he is such a visionary . . .his comedy is overwhelming . . .NOT. he should be thrown in the fry oil for being so lame.

Anonymous said...

Good blog Jared, you have a good memory. Wendy's chili is pretty good. Jared remember when you blamed your Zit-face on working at Mcdonald's. You were so handsome in your uniform.