Mac Tonight - Advertising Campaign

Advertising Campaign

The campaign included 29 commercials, initially airing from 1986 to 1988. Doug Jones played Mac Tonight in 27 of them. A number of 3-inch hard plastic Mac Tonight toys were available in Happy Meals. Mac Tonight also was a cameo in a Big Mac commercial in 1988, as a costumed greeter when the woman entered McDonald's. In 1997 and 1998, McDonald's sponsored Bill Elliott's #94 NASCAR, with Mac Tonight featured on the hood artwork. During the late 1980s through the early 1990s, people in Mac Tonight costumes used to greet McDonald's customers, along with Ronald McDonald, Grimace, etc. There is an ironic twist in McDonald's reference to the song. Mack the Knife originated in The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, which is told from a Marxist world-view point. Brecht was an ardent Marxist, having also written the German labor anthem Das Einheitsfrontlied. Weill, though not as committed to the movement as Brecht, was still a supporter of socialism, who most likely would have been amused at the contrariness.