McDonald's

Cartoon Baby Kermit and Baby Piggy heading towards McDonald's in the commercial for Happy Birthday Happy Meal toy.

File:Mcdonalds-sesame-sponsor.jpg

Sesame Street sponsor

"McTwiddle's" from On My Way with Sesame Street Volume 13

Kermit and Miss Piggy visit McEats.

thumb|right|300px|UK McDonald's commercial thumb|300px|right|German McDonald's commercial

McDonald's is a world-wide fast-food chain known primarily for hamburgers. It has offered a number of Happy Meal toys for kids and other premiums based on Muppet productions such as The Great Muppet Caper, Muppet Babies, Fraggle Rock, Dinosaurs, Muppet Treasure Island and Chicken Dance Elmo.

McDonald's is the title sponsor of the McDonald's Thanksgiving Parade, which has featured Bear in the Big Blue House, Muppet and Sesame Street balloons over the years. In recent years McDonald's has also been one of the corporate sponsors for Sesame Street.

In 1990, McDonald's financed the Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue TV special that aired simultaneously on NBC, CBS and ABC, and included Baby Kermit, Baby Piggy and Baby Gonzo among other cartoon characters. The same year, McDonald's sponsored a simulcast of the dubbed special in Germany.

In 2003, a German McDonald's commercial used a toy Kermit puppet by Applause to promote the Muppets 25th Anniversary Happy Meal plush.

McDonald's Canada is a sponsor of Waste Reduction Week, which features Sesame Street characters like Oscar the Grouch.

Premiums

For a list of promotions, Happy Meals, and other marketing tools for Henson feature films and Television series, see Category:McDonald's.

References

• On My Way with Sesame Street Volume 13 features a page of Twiddlebug riddles which spoofs the McDonald's franchise as "McTwiddle's." The riddles go on to include a real recipe for making McTwiddle burgers.

• In Miss Piggy's Rules, Miss Piggy instructs the readers that a bad first date would be to "get the Happy Meal in the drive-thru line at that little Scottish place." Further along in the book, in the section "What You Say vs. What Your Really Mean," she uses the example of saying, "I don't care where we go, as long as we're together" means, "Whaddaya mean, we're going to MacDonald's (sic)?"

• In a The Muppets comic strip dated October 24, 1982, Kermit and Miss Piggy use a "drive-thru" at McEats.

• The Flintstones featured a restaurant called "Rock Donalds".

Trivia

• Loretta Long was struck by a car, after using the washroom at a McDonald's, while waiting for her Chinese food in February 2010.

See also

• Ronald McDonald