Wacky Adventures of Ronald Mc Donald - History

History

Although the series is "free-standing," ongoing artistic influences can be inferred from the ways certain characters were drawn for animation. For example, the character Birdie shares certain aspects of grooming and costume with Eliza Thornberry, and the rendition and bearing of the Hamburglar, reminiscent of Darwin and of Chuckie Finster, may have been an influence on the design of Otto Rocket. Elements of early K-C "house style" are also very evident on other supporting characters like Sundae the dog and the Chicken McNuggets. Co-protagonist Tika, however, is a very normal looking human girl of color. Iam Hungry appeared in one part of the episode "Visitors From Outer Space." Also, Mayor McCheese made an appearance in the final two episodes.

A new character named Franklin was also introduced in the first volume in 1998 as the son of Dr. Quizzical (a scientist who was the inventor of Hamburglar's "Quizzical Bear Call", seen earlier in the episode). Tika was also included as a human sidekick to Ronald McDonald in the first and fourth volumes. In the first and sixth volume, Ronald was seen driving a sarcastic anthropomorphic car called the McSplorer.

Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, musicians for Rugrats, provided the music for these videos. John Holmquist, who has directed some Rugrats episodes, directed these videos.

The last video released, The Legend of McDonald-Land Loch, is the rarest of the six videos, because it was not distributed into stores and was available on the Klasky Csupo webpage that sold the videos.

By various accounts, the titles turned out to be rather popular, and individual McDonald's locations frequently ran out of tapes, which were sold individually for $3.49, and could be bought with a small vanilla ice cream cone or a small Diet Coke. Klasky-Csupo therefore agreed to carry them for direct sale at their online gift shop, which closed in the fall of 2005.

Preceding this video release was a 30-minute VHS tape from Hi-Tops Video titled "The Adventures of Ronald McDonald: McTreasure Island", released on February 7, 1990. The animation was not in the Klasky Csupo style, instead in the style of the costumed characters and how they were depicted in the company artwork. DIC animated the special, which featured an appearance by Captain Crook.

In 1999, a Happy Meal released at the restaurant featured LEGO vehicles for children to build. The front of each vehicle had an image of one of the Klasky Csupo McDonaldland characters.