Podcast: The Ride - Mac Tonight with Mike Scollins

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

For a brief period in the 1980s, McDonald's used a jazz singer with a talking moon for a head to promote the idea of eating hamburgers at night. It worked!Despite only appearing for a short time, this suave moon man still lives in the hearts of many adult podcasters. Mike Scollins (Late Night with Seth Meyers) returns to PTR to share in the general fondness for our good pal Mac."Defunct McDonaldland Gang with Emily St. James" episode is up at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride⁠ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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A fun month of discussion centered on McDonald's. The characters, the playplaces, the happy-meal toys. Podcast The Rides-M-M-M-Mpland will make you annoying. It will make you want to tell your friends' facts about the grimace they don't care about. Podcast the Rites MacMunk. Podcast the Rites MacMunk. Podcast the Rights Make-Mond. Podcast the Rides-Mek-Munk.

Papa-Papa-Pa-Pah. The Ride. It's a good time for the great taste of Mick Month, podcast The Rides' month-long celebration of the themed entertainment of McDonald's. I'm Scott Gerdner, joined by a hep cat named Mike Carlson. Hey, I'm here. I'm cool, and I am feeling very jazzy today. I really wish we did more jazz on Podcast the Ride in general, but finally, jazz is here.

Well, so much jazz is so much jazz. Jazz is boringly sung by people with regular faces that are not giant and shaped like other things. So this is, this is really our avenue of jazz. Hey, Daddy-o, it's Jason Sheridan. Hello. Oh, wapapalup, gentlemen. That's a little more rock and roll, right.

All right, sorry. But I don't think of be disillade. You know, actually, Aaron and I had an argument about a song that we found an animatronic of Mac Tonight. Today's subject, we've found him a version of Mac Tonight doing a song that we had a really many argument about like, is that in the vernacular of Mac Tonight? And maybe that's something we can throw to the whole group at some point. Oh, that's a good question, yeah.

Because easy, does it have to be jazz? Does it have to be 50s? Because the animatronics made some big leaps. They just like, I don't know, we got to figure out something people know. Yeah, it's a good point. I actually, that's interesting, like would Mac Tonight work and some others? genres. I don't know. I mean, that's something we'll have to discuss here. Oh, yeah, because that could be the key to updating him if you could, you know, if he, if he were to do a trap. And that might be a key to returning him

to public prominence. But let's, you know, let me, let me give the official announcement of today's topic, something that I, I consider a big one. To me, it's a big, I don't know if this is to everybody. There may be some people who don't care about this. There may be some people who were too young to remember it, but in my mind, a giant topic that we are finally doing here today is Mac Tonight, who is, of course, McDonald's late 80s spokesman, the lounge lizard with a crescent moon head who promoted McDonald's at dinner. Do you guys find this to be a big one? Are you, are you racked with nerves in the same way that I am? Yeah, I mean, I'm not racked with nerves. I will say that. Sometimes I am. You know that. I come in hot, sometimes.

times like electric mice orchestra or whatever the hell it was called that became a huge one that was a huge one all of a sudden when the mic when i hit record so i'm not feeling quite the this pressure like that but this does loom large i think mcdonalds looms large jason and i eat mcdonalds every other day um so mcdonald is a is a big part of our lives in general and this is just one of the top characters of all time this is one of the big ones that looms large in our head you mean just general characters. General characters, yeah. I mean, I'm saying McDonald's Association is definitely part of it, but, you know, for

sure, this is, this is, this guy meant a lot to us in our childhood. Yeah, I specifically had a number of the Happy Meal toys and they were in the rotation for a while, you know, wow, rotation meaning what? Like, a toy, like, favorite. favorite toys. You were playing with them. Playing with them. Well, one of them was a jet ski.

Oh, Mac Tonight on Jet Ski. So you know that lived in the bathtub. Fine, fine. You made bathtub fun. Yes. Good idea. And he was really, I mean, in a lot of ways, Mac Tonight was in a similar way to Joe Camel,

sort of an aspirational character, who you would maybe be as an adult. What kind of a cool life you would have? A window into, to me, I assumed, This is what adults like and that his life is what my life will be like as an adult. But there's, you know, there's zero reason to not bring our guest in at this point. A guest who long ago stuck his neck out as a McFan. So in forming McMount, we always knew he would be a part of it.

It was just a matter of what. And I think this is a good one returning to the show from Late Night with Seth Myers and the writer of the upcoming film, Brian, Mike Scalins. Hey. Yeah. I'm so excited. It's doing this is better than dinner The Mac Tonight Happy Meals I remember even as a kid thinking that was kind of inappropriate

Because Mac Tonight is for adults And Happy Meals are for kids Right Yeah that's true I see that I see what you're saying Because Mac tonight does not exist in the same universe as Ronald McDonald Like he's never met the grimace They've not shown that

But we don't Do we know 100% for sure They met, oh, you're saying they met, if they met it's off camera. Right. It was just like on the way, just passing between sets. Right, like in all hands meeting or something. Yeah, everybody, everybody get in here. Them and the, well, that's where, that's where you, if they ever included all of, you know,

because there's other McDonald's characters, by the way, there's McDonald's Land and then there's Mac Tonight, but like, something I was remembering. Do you guys remember the character Hugh McCattuck? Hugh McCaddick, where can anyone name the portray? of Hugh McCaddock. Not off the top of my head. I'm embarrassed. I don't even know who this is. This was a, this was more adult,

like not silly cartoon world McDonald's character, a pompous news anchor portrayed by Phil Hartman. So there are so there could have been in all hands in which Hugh McCaddock and Mac Tonight in which like, you know, it's like a company meeting and like the West Coast meets the East Coast meets the Central.

This could have happened. But I don't think that they're not I don't think it's just that they're not familiar with each other. I don't think they exist in the same world. I think where Mac Tonight's from, there is no Ronald McDonald. Well, is it possible? I'm jumping ahead, I'm sure. Is it possible that the sun goes down in McDonald's land

and then Mac Tonight blooms? Like, he is the night man? It sounds beautiful, but I think we've seen Ronald McDonald at night. Yeah, he might not exist. Well, that might lend credence to what Jason is saying is that they like, they can't in sort of a vampire rules way. Like, Ronald is such a sunny persona. He can only exist during the day and Mac can only exist at night. Does Ronald's head, like the sun goes down and it just mutates into the moon?

I don't like that. Is it possible? Oh, he's him? Yeah. Well, he would have to, he would stretch a lot. He would grow. Yeah, Beatlejuice. Alec Baldwin's character from Beetle...

Or no, no. Which one had the long face? Baldwin or Davis. Al Baldwin, right? Okay, it was Baldwin. Oh, no, wait. Gina Davis pulled her face down. Gina Davis pulled her face.

Yeah. I don't know. We get into weird Tyler Durdin vampire rules at this point. So, this was not my intent. This is just like spit falling. I mean, I like the idea that it's like, Like when Lois Lane would be like, Clark, you just miss Superman again, you know? You just miss Mac tonight again.

And Ronald's like, I think he knows I appreciate what he did. Birdie, yeah, birdie's telling him. You wouldn't believe it. And it's also, like, sorry to bring things to what I bring up all the time, but it's a Baywatch Baywatch Knights scenario in that world where he has one job. His job during the day is doing magic for children. his purple and hamburger friends. And then at night he's got a whole other world.

I don't know. Or also, here's the other thing with rules, Scots, is it that Mac Tonight is a fan of McDonald's and would like watch a commercial with Ronald McDonald in it. But Ronald McDonald is fake and a commercial creation to him just a McDonald's fan. Does that make any sense? No, that's a great question. In my mind, it was always just parallel universes. Oh, sure.

Okay, okay. I think if you mentioned Ronald McDonald's tonight, he'd be like, who the fuck is that? Wow. Wow. Which is in sort of theme park territory, the way that, like, certain theme park characters cannot acknowledge each other. Where is that true? Can anyone help me out of, like, if these characters, if a kid brings up Bell to Sleeping Beauty, she has to go, I'm not sure I know about her. Hmm.

Yeah, I mean, like, in Disneyland, there are these rules sometimes for the princess, the face character. and I'm trying to remember what specifically they have to say, but they have to be kind of vague because they don't want to step on different, like, continuity or something. So they always, it feels like it's always a vague answer or something. But they might know of princesses, but they don't know very much about the other princesses. But I think if you asked Bell about Jessica Rabbit,

she'd be like, oh, that's not a name I'm familiar with. Yeah, that's true, yes. Even though they are both Disney characters. Right, that's true. And she, oh, the woman in the big coat, the modest woman in the big coat I'm not familiar with her I saw her once

and I really appreciated their big coat I may have seen her at church well look before we keep diving into the realm of quantum physics as it relates to Mac Tonight you know I said some basics at the top but let me just like really quickly again reiterate

yeah he's Mac Tonight was a campaign in the late 80s it was based around how do we get people to go to McDonald's for dinner? And Mack himself is a slick dude playing the piano in a suit and in sunglasses. And, of course, his head is a giant crescent moon as sharp as a blade. A kind of, it's, well, I was going to say frightening head, but I don't, I don't know. I don't want to put that on it. I want to hear what everybody's, like, core feelings are about this character.

And especially you Scones having picked this topic. What are kind of, what do you flash to? What are your, like, what are some of your primary associations, your earliest associations? What's your Mac Tonight journey? Well, you touched on it a little bit. I'm not remotely scared of Mac Tonight. He's my friend. And I love him.

And it is like a Joe Camel kind of like aspirational cool. Like Spuds McKenzie was always kind of tongue in cheek. We know that this is a joke. Joe Camel was like, this is the life that you want to have. And I think that that's the same with Mac Tonight. I assumed like when I went to bed, the adults would start playing piano on the clouds and go to McDonald's. Yes. There's something like, I feel like when I flash to, like, why does Mac Tonight have more of a hold on me than other individual mascots or whatever?

I feel like I definitely knew about him as a kid, but it was such like early childhood stuff that it's very faint memories. It's in that. We've talked about baby brain before. And that's where he lives for me is like, you know, when I try to parse, what was going on from ages one to six? Well, I don't know. I remember my parents. I remember my sister. I remember a big moon guy. Like, it's all his little flashes.

And the fact that he went away pretty quickly, I think added to this feeling of, did this happen? Did we hallucinate this? And by the time, I think, tell me if you guys agree, like, as we hit the 2000. and were reflecting on childhood nostalgia stuff. Mack Tonight was one of the most just odd, surreal, psychedelic. I don't like it like I don't mean he's scary, but there was something scary about the commercials and their like portrayal of the nighttime. It just really felt like did this happen more than so many childhood things. Yeah, it was like a flash.

Yeah, it was like a flash. It was just a moment. And then it makes it feel a little bit more like a nightmare in that way. like Mac wasn't on TV for five years straight or anything where you really have strong memories of seeing it. I think it's also, I mean, I'm not afraid of him, especially now. He's my friend now, I think. That's the way I feel about it. But I do think his like, grotesque appearance similar to like Pinhead stuck with me. Like these are the, these are characters from early childhood. Pale characters. I was like kind of upset by, but ultimately

Yeah, ultimately like, ultimately like upsetting me at that age was good and made things more memorable. I mean, I guess Pinhead is my friend now. If I really want to be honest about it. It's, well, he's got he's got such sights to show you. Yes, he does.

And Mac tonight, I would say ring a ding ding ding, I've got such sights to show you. Ring it is closer to jazz than the little Richard. Yeah, I know. So that's good. I guess if it's from our childhoods and it's pale white, maybe it just had a, because this is what you described as the journey that I had with the Patrick Nagel paintings and the Nail salon that I ultimately based movie Psyty on, like it scared the hell out of me in

1987 and then became my friends and something I was fascinated by as the years went on. Why was there so much, why are there so many angular pale white characters around this time? It's a great question. I don't know. Something in the air? I don't know. But there were a lot. I don't know why. We got to reckon with him now. Was he based on Max Headroom? You know what? I don't know if he was based on Max Headroom, but in reading... I love those two together.

Yes. I think that it was discussed as an influence within the ad agency that came up with him. I think they wanted him to be striking and surreal and a style that only exists in this one character similar to Max Headroom. Yeah, we like, we, again, Max, Max had room, I never watched anything of it. It was kind of upsetting, but it does have a little bit of a hold. He's not as big of a friend to me as these other characters, but he does exist in that same space for me. Yeah, kind of otherworldly, in his case, cyber kind of world. Mac Tonight is more like, uh, jazzy, yeah, nightclub. like, ooh, when I'm going to be a dope,

I'm going to be hanging out with Mac tonight at the cool club. Mac tonight is analog. You know, he's not digital. Yeah. Max Headroom is digital. There's a very big distinction there. I just want to make that clear. But they both kind of occupy,

pre-internet, kind of occupied that space of my head where I was like, is this a false memory? Like, did I invent Max Headroom or is that like a real guy until it was something that I could Google? Well, and just because your memory, because I'm assuming like special effects and makeup and whatever we're the same, they all feel like part of the same family just because of the way, the whatever graininess of the TV we were watching,

plus the fact that like, like in the same way that we were, we like Marful Lump because he feels men in blackish, I think. Do you know, do you know Marflump, Scott? I don't know who Marfellump is. Marvel Lump was a character invented specifically to promote the Star Wars prequel.

Oh, Star Wars and Pepsi, yes, of course. Pepsi, Star Wars. Pepsi, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah, I, another thing that I think has made him have a hold on me, and this is one of those, sometimes I've got to throw things out there

in the show just to like, is some, is there some saint out there in the audience who has the same phantom memory as me? Like, okay, just to broaden it out. Like, Mac tonight existed in an interesting space where he was in commercials, but sometimes in bits and pieces he would be in the restaurants, rare, but sometimes you would catch him in your regular local McDonald's restaurant.

And I swear that one that I went to a lot in Woodland Hills, which was across from the now defunct Prammerod Mall, I think that there was a mural of Mack tonight outside the restaurant. And I think that this mural involved, like, and you made me think of this, Mike, by saying analog, I think it had like fiber optics in it. like Disney 80s fantasy land style, it would like the sky would sparkle. And it was this very striking, magical image in the outside of this one McDonald's.

But as I've Googled anything related to this, I can't find any existence of Magdaleney murals across different McDonald's. But as we now live in this world, which we'll have to reckon with in McMount of the blandening of McDonald's, that they're all the same fucking box. And none of them are unique like the way that they use, or very rarely are they unique the way that they use. to be. Like, I can't believe, now that they're all just this, like, trying to go for this boring big box coffee shop, whatever the fuck, urban chic, whatever they think they're doing, that sucks, the fact that this chain used to have, like, a magical fiber optic display of twilight and a moon man, like, that's insane. I was going through and watching old McDonald's stuff, and Jane literally said, that's a McDonald's. And it's like, yeah, they used to have a lot more,

fake plants and like ceramics art and atriums they're like a greenhouse yeah I yeah Wendy's had a sunroom Wendy's had a sunroom the burger wars of the 80s

you know it's like World War II led to the advent of so many technological leaps forward you know same thing yeah what were you going to say Scones I was going to say I did a panel show at UCB a couple weeks ago and I was trying to make some loose analogy of like, you know, it's kind

of like how McDonald's used to be so beautiful and now they're so bland and I've never been like more left out to dry in my life. Everyone's like, what the fuck are you talking about McDonald's used to be beautiful? What? They were at least like interesting and it was like, there's never been an interesting McDonald's. Oh, this is bullshit.

You were being gaslit. You're in the right place. You're the right, you're here on the right month. That's a lot of what we're doing here. No one in the audience was stepping up for it was awful. Oh, come on. An entire room of people. They were so magical. Something that we're going to talk about, I think, like, I don't think it's going to get its own episode.

It came in distant in the poll in Club Mickey 3s. But it could be the official branding. But something that was mentioned was the, it was pitched as an episode topic, was the fake McDonald's in the city of industry where they filmed and continued to film all their commercials. So like there was this. one, I guess still is.

Now they've just remodeled it to be a bland McDonald's. But there's a McDonald's that no one can access because it's just like available for filming and they can wheel in and out any sort of product, anything that would be in a McDonald's. But that was like the ultimate brick, like, brick sunroom McDonald's of your dreams.

It's the one that was used in Mac and Me. And I think any McDonald's that looked like that, and that's how all the ads would look. I, look, you're not wrong. Beautiful is the word. We were out running some errands the other day, and we were going through areas they had been through in a while. And I'm like, all the McDonald's and Starbucks look like glorified shipping. They're just rectangular boxes.

It's so odd. It's tragic. It's very sad. And often what you'll have is that like an interesting one, ones that I will mention later in this episode, because they had a fucking robot of this moon guy. There are ones that were, where not only did the robot go away, the entire restaurant went away,

because that's something they'll do is they'll like burn one to the ground and then rebuild it on the same property as a shipping container. And what could be sadden that? Yeah, that's upsetting. I would not want to see that happen in real time. Like if I live next door to one. Yeah. That would be like I'd have to move.

You'd have to move, at least temporarily while they changed it. They did that to one. and like the area I used to live to look like like Studio City area. Riverside. On Riverside. Yeah, Riverside. They had a perfectly fine McDonald's and they demolished it and they built a weird

two-story box where it's like the kitchen is upstairs and they send the food down. I agree with you. But I'll say this. Don't you want to see that second floor? You can't go up there. More than anything. No. Why not?

They're doing stuff up there. They're doing things up there and you can't go up there. I was like, okay, well, at least they're doing. It's a two-story McDonald's, and that's interesting. Obviously, there's a couple of those, but like I've never, I've never been to the second story of a McDonald's before. But no, you can't go up there. It's only for kitchen staff, I guess.

I guess they send things down on a little conveyor or an elevator, excuse me. Like a dumb waiter. I guess, but I want to see it. And we can't. So it's, it's like frustrating in a different way now. They're breeding a real Mac tonight in there. They might be. But they won't.

Every time I go in and I say, can I go upstairs? They say, no. Let me upstairs. There's no way you haven't been on the second floor of the McDonald's. There's a bunch of two-story McDonald's. That's a little strange, right? Yeah, yeah. They, the Orlando one, you must have.

The Orlando one, we're getting ahead of ourselves that has the Mac tonight, I only find myself in there late. And the second floor is closed at a certain point. Oh, I didn't know that. I think because drunk people hassle the rope. robot. Because the second floor is where Mac Tonight lives. Right. So the last time I was in there, which was one of our live shows, we stopped. That's when I ate pasta. I got a big like hoagie and a big thing of pasta for McDonald's.

And we could hear Mac Tonight upstairs, but it was closed. And they wouldn't they, I mean, I guess I could have really been like crazy. Well, it becomes his bachelor pad in the evening. He was making love to several human women. wall. It's so sad. We can hear Mac tonight upstairs, but we can't go see it. I know. It was upsetting.

What a trap. All I could do is eat a giant thing of McDonald's pasta. What do you think is he attracted to, would he have sex with a regular woman? Or would he, would his type be like a shapely lady in body, but then the head is like a Saturn? I love, I don't know why we got to say it's just ladies. I think he's sucking and fucking. Like, it's late night. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Well, and because who gives he's irresistible to anyone. So, yeah, I think anybody's game to get down with Matt. It's all good. The style, like the time your Spudge McKenzie or Joe Camel, they certainly seem to be exclusively with human women. I don't know why that was. Joe had a camel girlfriend.

She wrote a motorcycle. Yeah, he did. That's true. You're right. He did. But he was hanging around a lot of human women. Spud's had sex with women. Human women.

Joe I think Joe did too To be fair to Joe Good And for sure he did And by this logic Then Mac did as well We all agree that all of these characters Fuck I think Spuds

The most problematic one As the least human But that's just me I don't maybe Maybe people are excited That Spuds was having sex with ladies You don't have to be excluded Like Jason's attracted to human women

But he also is in love with Cleo From Heathcliff The Tall sexy Lady Cat So Jason goes both ways In a way Both of the two ways you can go. Spuds also isn't like anthropomorphized in any way other than they put some sunglasses on him. Yeah, Spud is a regular dog.

There are instances of people having sticks with dogs. It just feels too close. I mean, he could, if Ronald McDonald morphs into Mac tonight, Spudge McKenzie could morph into a freakish human dog hybrid in the evening. It's more suited to have sex with a human woman's body? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you said, yeah, that felt like you were like you were pushing that so hard out of your mouth.

Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out where my chalkboard is to like get some equations going. All right. So your brain is working overtime right now. Yeah. It's his full enigma machine. Like what he's staring, thinking. You're uncovering new.

And I brought up, I brought up Cleo and your steam started coming out of your ears. Yeah, that's right. Your monitors get a little foggy. You know what we should do, I think? I've got some videos in the chat. Mike, can you just play the primary one Mac Tonight commercial? And I don't know that this is the first one. I don't even know if it's the main one, but it's the one that's in the highest quality.

It's a little weird AI restored online, but it's the best quality sound we're going to find. And I think maybe this is just a good thing just to acquaint us with the basics of who he is, what he sings, the universe in which he lives. Can we throw that on? When that clock strikes, half their six to fade, the time to head for golden light. What do you say we just watch that a bunch more times and not do the podcast as usual?

Does that sound good to everyone? We just go like, oh, ooh, and a awe at it and giggle. Again. We all turn into my one-year-old. What does anyone want to point out about that? What is exciting and great that you saw in those 30 seconds? The close-up of the salad. I didn't want to lead with chef salad, but I do remember like, oh, you can get a salad

with a bunch of long lunchmead on if you want something healthier than burger. If you're pushing word salad. Pushing we're open at two in the morning, come to McDonald's. Like, no one's doing that because they want a salad. Yeah. Yeah, it's very weird. Well, that's true. But this is, yeah, not only is it, I mean, the salad is in an ad full of visual delights, the salad is, it pulls a lot of focus.

But also, let's, let's, in context, Mac tonight is flying through the sky playing piano on a cloud. And he's passing by a huge big Ben type clock tower. and then out of stone doors in the tower, which are shaped like food items, food is shoved, propelled out of them, including burger, fries, and then finally this salad. So this is a magical dinner spitting clock.

It's very striking. Yes. Also, the lettuce and tomato burger, like, that's not a thing I associate with McDonald's. I associate, like ketchup, mustard, onion pickles, or lettuce and mac sauce, you know? What burger are we looking at here? That's a good question.

Ooh, that's a good question. I mean, this is before. I mean, it might be like an 80s relic, like a McDLT or something. Yeah. Is that the Mick Delight? Or there was also, there was also Arch Deluxe, but that was after this. But related to another, like, McDonald's adult's dinner campaign that kind of flailed. I'm also confused because what I was reading.

was that like, oh, they're trying to get people to eat dinner at McDonald's. But I always thought Mac tonight was for like late night McDonald's. Hmm. I did as well, yeah. What time is it on the clock? I think this is important. I feel like in my head it's six, but what is it actually? It's 630.

And he sings like half past six. I think it's an implied late night. But they, but I think that like if you want to get that out of it, you can, but maybe they, I think maybe they, it's like McDonald's already had its midnight munchy audience. What they want is like classy adults doing a date night or trying to get dates, trying to turn McDonald's into like a, into a cool singles lounge. I think that's the overall goal here. Yeah, they weren't, I don't even know if there was even a big push for like the stoner crowd at this point. Like that was maybe just like you don't even want to attract those types.

to your restaurant. Like, we know they're there, but we don't just talk, we don't talk about them. We don't take their money. And certainly Mac Tonight was not presented as like, it's 2 a.m. What the fuck is open?

Where are we going to eat? No, but the same time, I don't believe he's awake at 6.30. I always thought it was for like 2 a.m., like we're 24-hour drive-thru now, but I guess I was wrong. You know what I mean?

There is another ad that shows the 24-hour sign, but I think Burger Dinner they were trying to get some of the market Uh huh Burger dinner

is a specific Like you're saying like a collie like an apple bee We're trying to take like dinner away from Applebee's or something that would have a burger I Wednesday's and Burger King more Okay So they're just taking shots at each other at the time Yes it was a war

It was a burger war Like Wendy's had the Super Bar, so that's dinner made, you know. Everyone's happy with the Super Bar or burgers, you know. So this Mac was the way to like say, yeah, yeah, they have that. But have you figured out how cool this will make you if you eat a burger and a salad at 6.30 p.m. here. I'm going to take a wild swing here and say that if I had to guess, and I can't guess Scalons' feelings, but

that Mike and Jason, I think, probably feel the way about dinner at McDonald's that Mac does. I think both of you would be like, I think you're going, you're ring a ding dingin if dinner is McDonald's tonight. I think you are, you're shouting dinner just like this guy.

I'm saying, B'bop, baloob, I'm eating dinner, is what I'm saying. Yeah. I don't think we were the, it wasn't a problem. They didn't have to get us to eat dinner at McDonald's. Because the McDonald's was by where the Cub Scout meetings were by. So I, the way my mother behaved, do you think they were an hour apart when really they were seven minutes apart?

I got to go out of my way. We got to eat. We got to eat. We got to get our on time. And I'm like, what are the happy meal toys right now? Yeah, I, dinner McDonald's was not something I had to be sold on. We would do that. Hopefully once a week maybe. Maybe it wasn't that frequent. Once a week, really? It felt like once a week.

Maybe it was like three times a month. I don't know. But yeah, we had one real close to the house. And yeah, it never, it was never, I'm trying to think like none of the meals felt odd having had like no McDonald's time frame was weird for us I mean I guess other than like a 2 a.m. which is just not usually you're not up that late as a child but sure sure scones dinner at McDonald's either as a child or today what's uh does this happen uh today no

back in the day when this commercial would have been airing it would have been my top choice that give it a Michelin star I'm so excited this is interesting I wonder if I did because I did do, you know, even though I'm the least of the three hosts, I'm the least enthusiastic today about eating at McDonald's, but as a child, of course. But even then, it was like pretty firmly a lunch thing. I don't remember a lot of dinners. And then I also feel like, I mean, I don't think the ad cares whether you sit in or drive through, but it does feel, it's something, it does, it is dinner at McDonald's. And I, I feel like they are trying to open it up to, I feel like

there's an implied come sit down and eat been here. It's a classy environment as classy as this jazz moon. Yeah, that is sort of without saying saying it. That is kind of what you feel. I mean, I feel the best way to eat McDonald's is on your lap in the car while you drive. That's my preferred. It's the hottest it's going to be. But even the 80s when the restaurants were beautiful?

Well, if the restaurants are. still beautiful, then I would have to go in and support it. But right now, I think that's the optimum way to do it. There's nothing to look at today. But, yeah, as a kid, for sure, it was like you did want to go inside. There were play places. You wanted to see the big display of the Happy Meal toys because they were actually in there. So you could at least get a look at all of them, not just on a graphic of some kind.

So, yeah, I think that that, I guess they were trying to convince adults to come in. come into the showroom and see what we've got in McDonald's. Because this also wasn't like the only campaign they had running. The Ronald McDonald's were run ones were running in tandem. But Saturday morning cartoons is not going to show you a Mac Tonight commercial. They're going to show you Hamburgerger. Yeah. And it's not really, yeah, yeah.

I don't think kids, I don't think he is being aimed at kids, even though they, the fact that he did turn into the Happy Mail campaign is kind of shocking. I don't know if I'm morally offended by it, but it is weird if you think about it. This campaign meant for adults turns into kids toys. It's like if they gave us Walter White's this year in a happy meal. Like, that's not what they're for. They aren't ready.

They aren't ready for the sinful lives. Does the commercial remind anyone of Peter Pan's flight? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Not just the Big Ben, but also the city down below. Yes, that is the little miniature city. down below, and that's a thing to say in general, is that, like, people can discuss is this character, like, silly, is he scary, is he cool, whatever? The ads themselves are magic.

These ads are incredible, this, like, incredible immersive world, all built within a soundstage. You got to look at this and think there is nothing digital going on, and yet it's fully committed to surreal world. In the same vein as, like, the HBO intro, where you're, you're going to, you you go through the miniature. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you watched that, like, how they made it? Yes. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Herculian. It's like, yeah, true craftsmen involved at every. And then the things that you think are digital, like, just like weird swish,

you realize were lights on a machine that we're spinning around really. It's like, it's all so cleverly done. I really do put these Mectonite ads top on the list of like, just magical, surreal stuff, analog from that era. of your, these are your favorite movies, some of them. I would rather, oh, look, hey, no complaints for me in the last couple weeks being like, should I, should I watch a film tonight, or should I prepare for this episode and watch lots of Mac Tonight commercials in a row?

I think I know. Look, La Dolce Vita is a drag in some parts, you know, and it's got a sad ending. Other languages, snooze, I don't want to read. Scott's, uh, the end of, um, If you've seen eight and a half where all the characters come back and make a little parade, all the characters from the director's memories. Scots is just led by like Mac tonight. And then there's the paint.

There's the girl from the Rio album paintings. And there's a bunch of like musicians like with synthesizers. They got them in little carts. Yes. Lee Rittenauer from the cover of Earth Run. Yes, that's right. Yeah. This is great. This is my heaven that you were describing.

That's the one that I had locked and loaded to play. I don't have other ads, but if you watch all of them, and it's a wonderful thing to watch all of them, you get, he's in, like, he's in kind of a, like, amusement park or county fair sort of environment, and he's driving around. Yeah, like a roller coaster car. there's one where he passes a lot of constellations that of course form the shapes of different McDonald's food he passes by a McNugget being dipped into sauce and he shouts big dipper there's one where he's dropping his keys into a fish bowl and another lady is pulling them out they were really good they're well done I another another like basic mode of Mac tonight that is very striking and charming is, I feel like they knocked out a lot of ads

where he is on top of a giant revolving hamburger. I'm watching these with Aaron, my wife, who's been a vegetarian forever, and she's like, this is crazy, but the giant burger makes me hungry for a burger. You show me a picture of a burger, no, but that burger, oh my God. And I... She's a vegetarian because the portions are too small. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. But she sees that burger and she's like, okay. If you're going to kill some cows, do a lot, do a ton of them and let me eat all of them. It's the waste, really.

She hasn't seen a compelling character advertised hamburgers to her in years. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we'll see. I think it's in her head. I think in three weeks time, just like she'll just suddenly dinner. What do you want to go for dinner? Dina. The defuncland really repeats, really highlights him saying.

dinner. I mean, it's good. It's exciting. It builds up. Yeah. Dinner can be, well, what's dinner? You can kind of go down. It's a down note.

But dinner is up and out. And that's proof that I was wrong and it is not about 2.30 dining, 2.30 in the morning dining, because it is clearly for dinner. Right. Yeah, it's dinner. Yeah. I think, well, I think, you know, I think it's just, it's night. All are welcome, but probably the group they're least likely to,

get are like pre-child adults on a date. I think that's who they are trying to get to come out dinner at McDonald's. Look, it's a pleasant setting. You know, there's lots of food options. There's glass ashtrays or like really disposable tin ashtrays. There are. Did they have ashtrays at McDonald's? Oh, they had to, yeah.

Yeah. Wait, this is news to me. Just at the tables or like, we're going to just smoking a McDonald's? Most places where people were smoking. Yeah. Macsite would get, but you can find there's like really sturdy glass ones on eBay. But there was also those like really flimsy gold or silver like disposable ones that it gets so nasty.

Dang. I'm seeing everything you're talking about. Yeah. The brown glass ones are pretty beautiful. They're great looking at. Yeah. Yeah, geez. I don't think I realized.

I mean, and I recognize this was a different time and people smoked indoor it, but it's still like, still feels smoking a suit. Didn't smoking a cigarette at McDonald's feel weird even in 1987? I guess not. I don't think it did. Definitely not to Mac tonight. I mean, don't you remember, like, I don't know with stuff. Like, when I was a kid, I don't, there was no, like, I don't think McDonald's had smoking and non-smoking, but almost every restaurant we went into, you would say, non-smoking, please. And we would go sit.

Right, right. We'd go sit in non-smoking, and if they put you right near the smoking, you would just smell the smoke. There was no, like, filtration system. There was no, like, so I assume McDonald's was just like anything goes. Yeah. You could smoke a Stogee in McDonald's, Jason. Yeah. I don't know.

To eat a McDonald's burger smoking a parliament, drinking one of their good sodas. I mean. Waste deep in a ball pit. Yeah. Oh. brother swim trunks I'd be worried about melding the balls

yeah swim trunks for sure you're ashing on the balls this hey there's a dead fry guy in here if you dig deep enough you guys might you guys haven't cleaned it a while you forgot to feed him fries because colors have really faded

us rotting away smoking a cigarette in the office or big Mac play place jail would really be nice. And you could easily put it out on the metal. The metal will be fine. You could put that, you could keep at, you could be dropping. I mean, I guess you can't stand up, but you could drop your cigarette and stomp on it in there and it would be fine.

Oh, we talk about the dream of finding one of those of owning one, the old playland or play place equipment. And yeah, if you could, I guess really the thing would be today to like, I don't know how many adults could fit in one of those, but like hot boxing in there. That's the, that's the move. Yeah, yeah. All that smoke sucked into that mouth. Ten cigarettes going at once, ten people in there.

I'm not sure that he's smoking. Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah, be so cool from the outside. Yes, it's just billowing. Yeah, yeah. You'd think he was on fire maybe. He'd be concerned. Let's talk about the song, which is a big piece of this.

his favorite song, a, not parody, but a rewrite to tribute to the song Mack the Knife, popularized by Bobby Darren, but technically from the three-penny opera, which is a German play from the 20s.

We owe the whole campaign to the existence of Mac the Knife and an ad guy named Brad A. Ball. Did he get into the business because his last name was like the kind of pit that they have popularized? You like to think so.

Not sure. Oh, Bob, we like to see that here. Well, your resume. You just went on top of the pile. But the campaign 100% came from this guy going, hearing Mack the knife and going, this is, ah, there's got to be, what if it was Mac tonight? And the true, the true story, they got the rights to the song. And before they figured out it was a moon guy.

It was just, there's got to be a campaign here. Mac Tonight. This is something let's get cooking. It's weird that it began that, but the song is why we have him. It does feel like the character design comes first, but yeah. Weirdly not. And this is a guy who there's a, I'll mention a bunch of things that are pulled from a great oral history from Mel Magazine, which is written by Brian Van Hooker.

But he, he very much claims credit, I think, is like spearheading the Mac Tonight effort. But then as you're reading it, you're like, and then, these other guys, they thought of the moon guy. Like, what's a pretty big? What is the moon guy? That's almost the main. But I did, if I hadn't started singing Mac tonight to myself, there would be no moon guy. Wow. I mean, I guess everyone prioritizes a different part of that for being important.

But yeah, you would think the moon man. It's that pin pal's episode of Simpsons where Marge is like, well, who got the 710 split? And Homer's like, but I came up with a chant. And the team was my idea. The team was my idea? Yes, yes. Wow, that was incredible. Folks, Michael, here, your style icon.

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash the ride for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash the ride. But yeah, that is, I don't know, do we like the song? I mean, I don't think I have any feelings about the song outside of his version, but I like, I like his version. What could I say? Yeah, it's, I mean, it's good. I don't want to to seem like I'm trashing the song

but it's almost irrelevant to me because of his just he's so striking I'm so attracted to him not in a sexual way I'm so attracted to the moon man face it could be a different genre

it could be 80s post punk it could be almost anything else as long as he looks like as long as he has that face I'm in but I like this I like the tone they went with I like it but yeah I mean it's funnier

it's funny that it's a song about a murderer from a 1920s anti- or a German anti-capitalist show now used in the most capitalist way possible

for a guy who's probably murdered just here and there just casually he's had to like protect the date and like oh maybe he's like inconvenienced or something yeah but we also don't know where he's from he could be from a land of moon people and that planet is a lot more like kind of war-torn

even than ours. So who knows what he did? I've never once considered the possibility that there are other people that look like him. It's possible he comes from a different, or our moon or some other, he lives inside of our moon or something, and who knows what's going on there?

Who knows? That's right. He's on a part of our moon that the astronauts didn't land on. There is a cave in which people, in which there are a bunch of moon-shaped people. So he's from the moon and also made out of. of the moon.

That's right. Yes. Well, aren't we all made out of the Earth if you really want to talk about? You know, we're technically... Is this not where we return? Earth faces or anything, but we could technically say... But our heads are kind of round. They're kind of round.

That's true. Like the Earth. And his face is like the, when the moon doesn't look round. It all adds on. It's all very clean, I think. He was, yeah. Mac and I could have been in their military, like his military, whatever it was. You don't know he would...

He could have been a musician in the military. He could have been like an infantryman and he's like had a lot of kills. We don't really know. But if you're killing other moon, it's a war between unless it's like, well, maybe it's Crescent's versus full moons.

They don't get along. Oh, I would not like him if he was a full moon though. Yeah, they would bother me. Yeah. Full moon would be tougher. All the appeal's gone if he's full moon.

Yeah. Full moon would be tougher. Yeah, I think for sure. But yeah, I mean, who knows, who knows how many planets he went to war with

before he came to Earth and delighted us. and realize the music was the way to go. Right. We don't know. Another aspect of the physicality of him, I was thinking about this, that I think it seems like we're landing on that maybe he prefers having sex with humans. But if he, back on his planet, if he is from a race of Crescent Moon people or beings, whatever, imagine him trying, imagine a Crescent Moon trying to kiss another Crescent Moon.

This is very awkward. I think if a Mac Tonight is in love with a female Mac Tonight, how do you, like, you're just going to be you've got to go in at the right angle, right? I think there's a lot of head tilting. Yeah, yeah. That's what it's almost like. It's a lot of like turning a rubik. Fizzering with my hands.

I don't think Mac Tonight kisses on the mouth. Can't. Do you think maybe the kissing is like there are two points of the moon rub against each other? like the bottom chin part of it it like rubs with the chin of the woman and then the top part of the head and that's where like the erogenous zones are on the face.

That's like how the con ends have sex. Don't the con ends put their cones together? So it's double the pleasure that a cone head can have because there's two tips. Right. So yeah you just rubbed hips and then that's with a start of it at least. Because he's human below the waist he still has the same erogenous zones as the rest of us.

Does he? Does he? But it's a matter of can his... I guess they never got into that in the ad campaign, but I assume so. It's a crescent moon. Is his penis white and like pockmarked like the moon? Oh. Are there craters...

Okay. On Mac Tonight's super pale penis, are there craters like the moon? And does that act like... ribbed for her play oh god this chalkboard is getting full well here's the okay for sake of argument his face the head is smooth

so he doesn't have craters on his face yes exactly but that doesn't mean but also our faces don't have exactly the same texture as our penises so complete agreement it's possible I'm not saying it's impossible it's just a matter if you if you think a head logic applies to crotch logic I think he's got something going on there that we don't even know

we don't even know what it looks like I think we'd be horrified maybe by it What about just like beam of light Because he's sort of like ethereal and magic and twilight And moonlight I think maybe just pure bright light What if it looks like the mouthpiece of a trumpet Could it could be a gaseous He's a music guy

It's like a music guy, and he's almost like pure music. He's open, like, he lives to be musical. So it's like a sat, maybe a saxophone read, the mouthpiece of a saxophone or something. That's, ooh. Yeah, if something tells, something makes me feel more like saxophone. It unfurled. Yeah. And also does his, is his, uh, when he unveils whatever's going on down there, is it like shoved into a drawer like that clock.

And then all of a sudden, the door opens and the top like how it shoots. Yeah, yeah. Bw-wh-wh-ha-ha-ha. Hey. Hey, let's make the food holes look like my genitals. How about that? It just looks like a shelf and door to you humans, Daddy-o. Yeah, have we considered that was his penis they were showing us?

No, we have. Out of content, you assume it's part of the clock, but if you saw the greater surroundings. It might have just been a real tight shot on his crotch. So is it the crotch burgers or fries or ham salad? ham salad Definitely Everybody's going with ham salad For sure

That's what he's pitching for dinner Oh no Did he dinner? Dinner? Dinner is served That's a tough sell Ham salad is really more of a lunch food I knew Jason

Would have an opinion about that You know what If I'm going through a little bit of history Of the character There is look I guess sensuality is just part of the whole thing because they come up with this campaign, right? They license,

so they license the song from three penny opera. This is important for later. That is who they get the license from. And they start building the whole thing. This was a SoCal campaign. It was meant to only, I guess there's lots of many, many different regions of McDonald's

throughout the country. And this was a SoCal campaign. But then it starts, like it does very well and it starts going, national, I don't know, I'm not sure which point, but this is that guy Brad A. Ball, I think. He says, okay, we loosely pitched the idea of Mack tonight to McDonald's headquarters in Chicago, and once they said, okay, we armed ourselves with storyboards and presented it to

the franchisees. I'll never forget that because I presented it on stage, and then two of the franchisees ran up and kissed me on the cheek. They were so excited about it. They were excited. That's how electric this idea was, is that it was presented, and so, meet your new campaign, and then two people came up and kissed the guy. Was this a normal occurrence that ad exposed? Can I tell you something that bums me out about

that is that that would never happen today? Like a franchise McDonald's would not be like given free reign to make their own ad campaign and look what it got us. It got us smack tonight. I thought you were about to say oh people can't kiss each other at a franchisee meeting anymore.

I never, I don't get to kiss my friend's wives. I want to kiss a stage. You can't just run up on stage. You can't just run up on stage destroying plays anymore. That's why I'm really nostalgic for the 80s. Playing a big one on Hamilton. Jason used to, though, go in to every McDonald's and kiss the franchisee on the cheek.

So he hasn't been able to do that since. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, can I speak to the franchisee? No, not the manager. No, you miss heard me. The regional or the local franchisee, I don't know how many locations they have. Jason has an open-mouth kiss for them, and there will be some tongue because he can't help himself.

This is a second gate argument that we don't have, we check that one out. What was that called? That was the indecent proposals episode. That was my indecent proposals. It'll be litigated in little ways down the red. Yeah, yeah. Okay, to keep going a little bit with how this whole thing comes together. So they have the song, right?

Somebody else says, what if it was a moon guy? Oh, yeah, I guess. That's a good detail, sure. But then how do we do the moon guy in this pre-CGI era? And they start talking to experts in this field. A guy named Steve O'Neill builds the head. He worked on Ghostbusters. He made Spock ears and Clingon foreheads for Star Trek, a real master.

He built that the Mac Tonight head, which was 10 pounds, difficult to wear. At this point, maybe a good thing to say is that one thing, Scalons, you've told us about your Mac Tonight journey is that you have portrayed this character. You have been on screen as Mac Tonight. Would you care to tell us how? I mean, I would never claim to be the real Mac Tonight. But it did feel like when you can franchise out and become a bozo or something, even though you're not the real bozo.

I did get to play My two greatest joys at late night Were playing Mac Tonight and Count Chocula Oh yeah right And the Mac Tonight Uh Was weird It was not a pitch

It was pitch to me Um not from me And they 3D printed a Mac Tonight Uh mask for me to wear on the show And I don't think I've ever been more miserable in my entire life Oh no You thought your ultimate dream I was so excited to be doing this

And I hated every second of wearing that. It gave me an even greater appreciation for masked characters in the park because I only had to wear it for 10 minutes and I was so unhappy. Jesus. What was it something you could put on and off yourself

or did you need help? So then you're having to like, give me out. I had help. Yeah, yeah. Gee, and could you assess really quickly like this has got to be fast and people have to be watching me and pulling this off me?

Our wardrobe person maybe built it up a little too much that I was like, preemptively a little nervous. He was like, we're going to put this on you at like the very last second because it's very uncomfortable. And I was like, okay, well, that's prepping me that's going to be very uncomfortable. And also said, just remember like focus on your breathing. Which ended up being a good tip, but also like wasn't something I wanted to hear because it was just setting me up for like, oh, I'm going to hate this. And I really did. And it's heavy. I mean, you could probably guess by looking at it. That thing's heavy. Wow. Wow. And claustrophobic, that's my thing. Like, I get I was feeling very claustrophobic in there, and I did need to focus on my breathing a little bit. And guys, you can't make good artistic choices when you're suffocating.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the character suffered a little bit. Jim Carrey, like Jim Carrey Grinch stories about him having to do like CIA training, the torture training. I'm like, yeah, that doesn't seem. I wouldn't be good with that, I don't think. Wow, we are getting back into like a pinhead country of like, like,

tort. Mac Tonight torture. It was worth it for the photos that I have now of me as Mac Tonight, who's been my guy forever. Yeah. But I did not enjoy doing it. Did you have to do anything that, like, did you have to do any physicality? Did you kind of like Mac Tonight move? Did it inhibit, did the discomfort of the head inhibit you from portraying the character the way you wanted to? Well, Mac Tonight gets discussed a lot on late night and he's taken on like a haunted persona, where Seth is very scared of Mac Tonight. So I had to start well behind his back at the end of the hallway,

then a flash of lightning, and then I run up to him breathing down his neck when the lightning flashes over. So I had to run far and fast during a staged lightning effect, and it's not great to run it. That sounds awful. Yeah, Jesus. I don't think we really see Mac Tonight run in any of these ads.

No, no. You only see his hands. Yeah, yeah. And then there's like another, I think, lightning effect and I attack Seth and like choke him. And then the feed cuts out. Wow. And you're supposed to think like Mac Tonight has killed Seth. Has that gotten his revenge for the shit that Seth has talked over the years?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Because, yes, I caught this too because I was trying to find this clip and I didn't find the clip, but I found a lot of, it's, there's a recurring thing where people send Mac tonight, stuff that we would all love to have. like Mac Tonight merch old ID is sent to Seth and he finds this all horrifying to even briefly hold

have you ended up with any of that stuff or have you gotten eyes on any of that stuff? I got a little action figure that Seth was that's not really a bit he's like I don't want this so he gave me that the 3D printed mask is still somewhere around the office

I was very delighted to find out somebody told me that I had been added to the Mac Tonight wickup. page. I don't even have my own Wikipedia page. I was having portrayed Mac tonight. And then I don't know if it was McDonald's or just some asshole that didn't want me to have a win. It was gone like two weeks later, that whole segment from the Wikipedia page.

Oh, man. Oh, bummer. Oh, bummer. Okay. Well, this, maybe this can help, we have people who are active on Wikipedia. They've given me awards that don't seem to exist and stole them from Gary Sass for me. Yeah, the National Daddy Award. That's right. something. Well, if anyone can add me back to the Mac Tonight Wikipedia page, that would be really helpful. It's just true.

You did portray him. It is true. But I guess that experience must give you more, that you wouldn't have already had respect for the real portrayer of Mac Tonight, that being Doug Jones. The famous Doug Jones, not our friend Doug Jones, though another Doug Jones we'd like to be our friend, a beloved and storied inhabitor of creatures. and things that are, characters that are physically difficult to play.

You know, he's many of Guillermo del Toro's greatest creatures in a shape of waterpans, labyrinth. He's Billy and Hocus Pocus. I'm sure there's a ton that I'm failing to name. But like a guy now known for incredible physicality and inhabiting these other worldly characters,

but mainly, clearly the career began with having incredible patience for laborious makeup processes. God bless. Because you hear about, he came to all this because the guy I mentioned right before Steve O'Neill, who built the head, had just done a commercial where there was an alien in it. And when they were talking about who to get for this, he said, you know, I just worked with this guy who was so great and so patient and down with it. And I already have his cast. So we don't have to do that again.

And I just think he's the guy. And he still had to go in and audition and he was very confused. why, like, why would you want me to be like a swinging jazz guy? And then he saw a drawing of the character and went, oh, I see. You're putting a big head on me. I understand. But still, there was physicality that he had to work out. And his audition involved a paper bag going over his head.

And like, okay, now do it again. But with a paper bag, they didn't give him eye holes. But other than that, you know, you had to be like a jazz guy anywhere. And this, and like, he might be one of the biggest, like, footprints of Mac Tonight. And that this launched this, this big, long career for this guy. But like with what you just described, where 10 minutes was horrible, he was like, you know, my career is starting and I don't want to be a bother. I want people to know that I am patient with this kind of thing. So he would just stay.

And it was very hard to get him on and off like the big hamburger, for example. So he would stay up there for five hours without. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. And there was a time where people came by and said, hey, you good? and he's like, yeah, yeah. And he didn't really understand everything that they were saying.

And what they were saying was, it's lunch. So he missed lunch and just sat, ironically, sat on top of a giant meal. He's more into. Yeah, yeah. All skips, yeah, who cares about lunch? Call me when it's dinner. But yeah, I think this was all a very taxing experience for him. And it's kind of amazing that he still managed to have this, like, he describes, like, the little mood.

This is no good on a podcast, but like there is this very, it's kind of like arms go up, they go in and then they flail out. I mean, he's just like a slinky, jazz hands kind of guy, which he did physicalize wonderfully,

I think. Real professional. It's insane that he is also the shape of water fish. Like Mac Tonight and the shape of water fish are played by the same. Yes. Yes. Main character of Oscar winning film.

And worth mentioning, the shape of water fish, fucks human women. Sensuality. All of that's why it. I'm gonna say. Every Jung Jones character. I got one question before I saw.

What does this guy like? What's he into? It better be what I want it to be. He is kind of as a weird vibe. It's very funny. He's the baron and what we do in the shadows. The TV show. And he's very funny in that.

Yeah, yeah. He's, yeah. I mean, like an incredible combo. of like, yeah, the physical abilities, but also good and funny. And, yeah, no, he's amazing. And also, like, everyone's first choice for that kind of thing now.

Yeah, really, yeah. Did he do the dialogue of Mac tonight, or was that the lounge singer? He was the singer. He did not. The speaking voice of Mac tonight was a guy named Roger Bear, who is the, he plays the comedian

in defending your life when they go to a stand-up club. Yes, so that's his, That's his main credit. The singing voice I'll get to in a second, but let me say this just as far as the physicality. Mike, can you play another video? The video is called Meet Mac Tonight. And this is probably you're not going to see Doug Jones here, but he's still at a hand in it, which I will explain. Donald's all over the Bay Area.

The Moon Man will be serving up fun for everyone. Maybe he'll even teach you to dance the Mac Tonight's ride. Bring the whole family for lots of fun. Just watch coffee stereo TV 20 or listen to coffee 10.50 a.m. for all the details. Don't know if it's out on all the excitement. Come on out and meet me at a McDonald's near you. Come on make it back to nice. That ad for anyone not watching it is it's clips of the real ads but then very like local news style at local McDonald's restaurant. So it's clearly a mix of the real things but then very like charmingly tokey.

Mac tonight appearing at a local McDonald's, how much would you have flipped out? I think we would all be carrying this. It would be 20 minutes of the episode if any of us had met our local spokesmoon at our local McDonald's. Well, it would have been good and traumatizing if we had met him. Yeah, you're right. What am I saying? It would have scared all of us a little bit. It would be 20 minutes.

It would just be like we'd all have the same kind of like, we walked in and he was like much bigger than we thought he would be like the line. We like didn't know if he would like us. so we kind of like hid behind a booth or something. Like that would be at least my, I'm sure it would have been my situation where I wanted to meet him. I wanted to be best friends,

but his moonhead was so intimidating that I was nervous. So in the same way that I was nervous meaning the Ninja Turtles are Cub Foods. Or Cub food, whatever it was called. Like the same way, you're like, I don't know. Like this scary,

he's a much scarier looking guy than the turtles were. Yeah. And I was afraid of the turtles. At one point, he's behind a counter, which is a very striking. It's so funny that he walks up

to some kids from behind. Like he's at work at McDonald's. He's in this great kind of like vinyl jacket, like slick black jacket. It's kind of a more cashed version of him. And then he does this great little hand jive to these kids. It's like a clap and a point

and a thumbs up and a like shakes the thumbs up. The whole little rap he does here is so awesome. I could watch it all day. It all, it makes him, it's great.

It makes him a little too human in my mind because I like, he's just like hanging out and like grounds him too much. I like thinking of him more as like a supernatural guy that flies through the clouds.

So, it brings him down. It brings him down. But I like seeing him. I like seeing him in this context. It just, you know, it humanizes him.

And maybe that actually is a good thing to really make me feel more for the character. And we kind of like finally gotten some answers to the questions we had. Like, where you come from what what's going on down there yeah right and he's i wonder if he did any like

work i wonder if he like sir like would take some of the trays out or bus a table like that would be i would like to see him do that i would like to see him help around the mcdonalds yeah that's true yeah how does how does he run a broom that's that's the most this the fanciest mopine you ever seen he would have some so he would be suave doing it. He would have, it would be very, like, I think, fun. He would dance as he mopped. Sure, I'd bear a minimum, if not dance on the

ceiling. There's no telling what this guy's going to get up to. Ideally, he's wearing a jacket that for whatever reason reminds me of Tully Savalas. I don't know why. Yeah. One interview I saw with Tully, like the interview where he's talking about living in the hotel by Universal, he just gives me like an old Tully Savallis vibe, which is a good thing.

It's very good thing. It's very track suit. It's not That fully attracts you. But anyway, this, I bring this up partially because here's something that Doug Jones said is that there started to be a demand for local Mactonites to appear. And they flew him to Chicago to film an instructional video. It was like a 20-minute video about how they were to behave and how to remain in character. I even had a choreographed dance number that they could do to the Mact Tonight theme song during their in-store appearances.

I have that on VHS somewhere, even though. I can't play it anymore. So somewhere, perhaps only at the home of Doug Jones, does this exist? I would love to see this limited use instructional video that's just about how to be Mac Tonight. And what this ad has taught us is that the Mac Tonight dance has a name. It is the Mactonite trot. He will teach it to kids. And Doug Jones himself had to pioneer to choreograph this routine.

God, I want to see that video. My holy grail. Yeah, that's incredible. If somehow anyone listening as a way, or if you could, took us up with him. I will, yeah, the ultimate video to watch. Do we know if, like, McDonald's has, like, an extensive archive?

They obviously have to have a lot of stuff preserved in some ways, but I don't know if they have all of it. I don't know if they have 90% of it. Like, I would be interested if something like this is sitting on a tape in McDonald's headquarters. Like, what is there? Or does nobody care? I always got the impression they didn't, like, preserve that kind of stuff.

They might not. They've thrown away MacTenite animatronics. They're not like in a museum somewhere like they should be. They're in the trash. Hideous, hellish. Although, one thing I will say, if you are interested in McDonald's museums, you can go to the Downey location in California, which I believe is, I don't think it's the first McDonald's.

I always get them confused. I think it is the oldest McDonald's still standing the way it was when it opened. And there was a little museum in it in which Mactonite is kept in a glass cage. And you can, like, You can walk up and look him in the eye, and it's kind of opaque sunglasses to where you can see his eyeballs. And his eyeballs are a whole other area that you might not even want to think. I think he sort of, he has to have sunglasses. Without him, he's a lot scarier.

Behind glass, particularly feels like you're walking up to like Hannibal Lecter. Don't worry, he's behind glass, but still, like, proceed with caution. More crimes, as Mike established. He'll help you solve a murder, though. I don't know. The mask. The solution. Mack tonight's secret eyes

inspired the Pan's labyrinth eyes on the hands. The guy. That guy who I know has a name, but he's eye man to me. I don't know what else to. Yeah. I forget his name.

Doug Jones played eye man, of course. I, uh, anyways. Keep trying to make him say dinner. We don't. You don't do that for every one of the characters. We don't need to know Most of their food preferences That's like that clip where Michael J. Fox

Keep, he's filming a different movie And he keeps saying Doc Is, oh really? I didn't know that clip. Yeah, I forget what movie it is And maybe it's the Frighteners But there's a couple times When he just accidentally says Doc

That rules. Oh man, it's in him. That's wonderful. So like, and he keeps going on Another Guillermo del Toro movie, right? The Frighteners? Oh yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah, right?

I think so. Or is it Peter Jackson? No, Peter Jackson. Oh, that's right. I knew that. Yeah. I knew it was too perfect. I knew it was too perfect.

But now we know. We know who it is. And I don't know if it's good or not. I cannot recommend. But the video I would like to see. Let me talk about the singing voice of Mac tonight a little bit because I was very pleased with what I found here. The singing voice.

So much effort, by the way. So many people came together to Britain. There's one guy is in the suit. There's three puppeteers work in the head. Then there's speaking voice. Then there is singing voice. All different people. And Scalans, of course.

That is the list of people who have portrayed Megton. That's right. Thank you. Yes, I don't include you. Brock Walsh is the name of the singing voice. And I was excited because when I'm looking them up, I'm like, oh, he's got a lot of credits in the early to mid-80s. This is, I am always thrilled to find a guy. who is on Discogs.com, who has a lot of, like, liner notes, credits on stuff that I really like.

This guy, a singer-musician, a songwriter, he was, he did a lot of work with Andrew Gold, who is the writer of what we now know is the Golden Girls theme. That was originally a song on his record called Thank You for Being a Friend, and that has backing vocals by Brock Walsh, aka Mac Tonight. He sings another really good song on that album called Never Let Her Slip Away. So I'm fine, like, oh my God, this guy sings on songs where I, I specifically love the background vocals. He wrote the song Automatic for the Pointer Sisters,

one of their best songs. That rules. A co-writer of that. Co-writer of, speaking of Pocus Pocus, come little children, the Sarah Jessica Parker haunting song. He wrote with James Newton Howard. And if anyone knows Christina Aguilera's first album, he wrote a song called Blessed.

So, like, writer of really prominent stuff. sings on prominent stuff, a good career besides Mac Tonight. Also, one solo album that only came out in Japan in 1983, and I'm like, I'm looking at this. That's a good year for me. That's a good cover for me. The album's called Dateline Tokyo. And I want to play a song from that. That's one of the other clips you got in the crawl there, Mike.

So this is a song called After the Lights Go Down. of course, I knew somebody I love was coming soon. Sure enough, my man Steve Lukather from Toto, played guitar on this, my favorite dude. Can you, but there's something else about it, and that's why I did this big wind-up. Mike, can you play the voice of Mac Tonight singing his song that he wrote called After the Lights Go Down?

Cool. It bells, spread through some noise, but keep you. You're outside down. Okay, that's enough of that. Ooh, I like that. Oh, I see that. So you can hear Mack in it a little,

even though his singing style is obviously very different. But let me throw the, I think there are a few listeners who know where I'm going with this. Do you guys know what I'm about to point out about this song? No. No.

Okay. No. So, this song is called after the lights go down. But the lyrics that we just heard were, hey there boys. Hey, there boys. is, what we are listening to is a retitled version of a song first performed several years prior by a band called Halix.

If you don't know, because we haven't talked about this in a long time. In the 1981, there was a sci-fi rock band that played at Disneyland, at Tomorrowland specifically, for one summer only. It's this crazy Star Wars band with a wookie type guy and a robot driving around in a cart. We mentioned this on the show.

a long time ago because I met an executive who mentioned it to me. We talked about it on the show which inspired this fantastic documentary made by Matt Serrano and Defunct Land. Halix now, there is such a cult of Halix where I'm like, I'm sure that some people listening as soon as that began were like

fucking hey there boys, which is also mentioned in the YouTube comments. But anyway, what a bizarre like we've known about Halix. So I've heard that song. This weird circuitous thing where the eventual voice of Mac Tonight was writing,

maybe, I think people think this is the best Halix song. He wrote a song for this. The moon guy wrote a song for the wookie guy and the robot guy. Wow. Really, that's, that's the simulation stuff

in my mind. It's crazy. This is crazy. And that fucking Toto is on it too. Like my favorite. And Steve Lugather is on it. That's really weird. It's all been waiting there.

I'm so happy I know about this. I guess check out. more Brock Walsh because you might think like I don't know I don't know that I need to hear a bunch more like a ratatat jazz stuff but I like I like what I'm hearing here yeah that's real I mean that really there's millions of people on the planet earth why is it that we only talk about like only 40 of them seem to have come up on the show in nine years yeah that's what's weird about it is yeah is it is it magical simulation or is it just that not that many people were in the music industry I guess that's really what it is.

I prefer to think of the magical version. I mean, that's all crazy to me. Anyways, there's a little tribute to all the great artists who came together to put this thing, to say nothing of like the fucking production design and just whoever, the orchestration that like, that like, I don't know, that big band, like they had to pull a lot of musicians together to make this music. It's all great. I think there was a lot of excitement.

As I said, it was presented. People kissed the guy on the cheeks. They were so excited. But then the Mactonite ads come out and dinner sales go up 10%. They skyrocket. And an ad that was supposed to be just California becomes a nationwide campaign. I don't think it was ever in the expectations of the people putting this together that it would go national. This reminds me of like how the people making Toy Story or the Lion King thought they were making like the scrappy one.

And maybe Disney will mention it a little when it's ready. And instead it becomes the big iconic one. Yeah, Mac Tonight, he blew up in a way that was unintended. It suggests to us that, like, I mean, it suggests that we aren't wrong to be fixated on it, that it did have an impact on the population. There was some, it's not just, oh, this is a weird little thing. We're preoccupied by, but it moved. It changed people's eating habits.

That's how strong this character was. until 1988. And how do you spell it? D-I-N-N-A-H? Okay. I'll have to find out more. Never had dinner before. You had dinner, but that sucks.

Dinner rocks. There's a new meal. The world would be the same if Halix didn't exist. I think I'm sad. It's sad to say that sentence outlaw, but I think it's true. The world would not be the same if Mack tonight hadn't existed. Well, they just didn't get the platform. That's a lot of the sadness of the documentary.

And with the story that those guys found is that they kind of didn't get the run at it. But Max and I did. These crafty folks came together and it blows up. And it blows up to, as we've said, it becomes Happy Meal Toys. I haven't revealed until now that I've got one of them here. A bunch of them are in the house. I'm really happy that things that I bought in 2013 bored with eBay money have become actual toys of children in the house. house, that's a good thing. But my oldest loves these guys. We got the jet ski that Jason mentioned.

I've also got, I got a big one. I've been sitting, look who's been down here all there. This huge foam guy. Where'd you get that? This is also eBay. This is just, this is one of the rare things where I ever was like, I'm just going to, I'm going to start finding Macdonite stuff and might find as much as I can. But this is like, it's made out of, I mean, it's foam or some kind of rubber or something, just from the way it looks and is aging and feels, it is something that is giving me

cancer as I speak. However I die, whatever it ends up be, you will know that ultimately it was from being next to this for a few minutes. Slow inhalation of 30 year old foam. Yeah, I think so. But I'm willing to keep having

it by me because there's a little thing on the back that is a message from Mac himself and it says this, hey, I'm Mac Tonight, the hip star of McDonald's advertising. Just my presence will lend a cool, classy atmosphere in any setting. You hear that any. Wedding, funeral. Peace negotiations between nations, wherever.

Mac's going to help. Complete the mood with some of your favorite jazzy swing tunes. That's it, hipsters, sit back and enjoy an evening with Mac tonight. We can do. No complaints from me. Look it out of the box. Is it just like a foam thing that is meant to like sit on your desk? I, what I can't tell, this is a good question. I don't know if it's meant to not have the backing because it has like a cardboard backing with his logo and a city scape and him. And I can't, I mean, I think it would just be a lot plainer. It would just be a head.

I think I think the environment seems like part of it. But then I'm like, what is it? Is this, is it just supposed to be in your house or was this for franchisees to have, you know, up on a shelf? somewhere. I'm not exactly sure the point of it. Wow. Well, I think a toy fair, the toy company NECA showed off that they're grimace. They're doing seven-inch McDonald's figures. And now I'm thinking like, I mean, they got to show more at Comic-Con at San Diego and may, God, I wonder if McDonald's would let them do a seven-inch Mac Tonight figure.

They should. They should let them. That would be a big seller, I think. I think we're far enough removed from the racist dorks who tried to claim him. Like, in internet history, like, that's ancient history on the internet. So I think they could reclaim it, you know? Yeah, that's a weird thing. Yeah, that's, when Mack tonight comes up, that is something that is part of it. And I feel like I remember previous suggestions of like, well, you can't do Mac tonight

because of the, because of the thing. And now I'm like, what's the thing? He was used in alt-right art in a Pepe the Frog way. But there's been several, there's been multiple generations of awful alt-right shit. Like, yeah, I think you're right, ancient history. And they don't, they can't have this. This is ours. It's not there is.

One fucking troll can't draw this guy badly and then take him from everyone. Fuck that shit. No, he's not. He's the victim of this story. He is. He is. If anyone's like calling him a neo-Nazi, it's like, you're the problem. because he never did anything remotely resembling that.

His image was used, yeah. If you drew us into January 6th, that doesn't mean we were there. Right. No, we can't do Scott anymore. It's too dicey. Can't do Scott anymore. I feel like when we started the show, we're like, you know, yeah, rides and hotels, theme park stuff, and then we can branch out to like something like Mac tonight.

Like we were all on board about Mac tonight. I think there was, I felt a sense of like, eh, we'll let all that weird stuff cool down and then we'll get to it. And here we are. We made it. Yeah, we made our dreams came true and all the weird stuff has been replaced by infinitely more and worse weird stuff. But it thankfully doesn't involve at least this character we like.

I'm glad we cleared that out of the way. It's been acknowledged and now we can have more fun. We can talk about, I think you can't, in the episode without talking about animatronics. We addressed this a little bit. This to me, the ultimate proof of the impact on culture, on habits,

as Mike said, the fact that McDonald's, which has a strange animatronic history. There is a history, a history that does in fact include very stray, sporadic Ronald McDonald's animatronics. I don't even know where the hell

they ever were. There might not have been more than three. but it's a weird, it's like something they've like experimented with, but then not fully committed to. And Mac Tonight almost got like the best animatronic run that they ever did. Because we are still maybe roughly competing with Chucky Cheese here or they're discussing. Is that the kind of thing we should do? And I don't have an official count, but I think that there were at least six animatronic Mac Tonight's across this great nation. Yeah, that's, I was doing a little.

little poking around and obviously as you're saying there's nothing definitive like again there's no like definitive number but it was I was not to say it's like a small amount but I guess it's actually good for McDonald's because like we didn't have robot shows and all the McDonald's so it's not

bad six is still pretty good when there wasn't like a robot grimace in most McDonald's yeah primary characters almost only represented that's kind of that is bigger representation than the McDonald's land gang yes right so that's that's, I guess, speaks to how excited everybody was about him.

And it's, you know, what he was doing to the nation. But he also, like, burned fast and bright. Like, Mac Tonight wasn't around for that long, considering he had, like, animatronics. No, no. And that's a lot of the, yeah, yeah, the downfall, which, as we were saying, I think, makes him this weird flicker in our brains really quickly about the animatronics, which, thankfully, do some do exist, as we discussed, at the world's largest entertainment McDonald's in Orlando. Mac Tonight is still there. Now, we maybe don't have time to deep dive, and this will, of course,

be the topic that was voted on by the audience to be the main topic in Club Mickey 3s. However, I think it bears a little bit of mentioning, because that's one of the coolest things about it, that they have a robot Maconite. Scalins, you have been to this location several times. You've made a point of going mainly for Mac Tonight purposes. That's right, because I know that it is one of, if not the only Mac Tonight animatronic, that's still, like, publicly around? There was one of, like, the rock and roll McDonald's. Maybe one more.

I'm a little fuzzy. But he's been broken for a very long time, the music plays, but he does not move. And I humiliate myself enough to, like, ask a 16-year-old, like, are they going to, like, fix that guy? And he's like, what guy, you know, no one's asked that since you were here last to you're asking the same question. The guy's back. Yeah.

I'm sure you'll get in. Scott at the Chucky Cheese that has the band. Yes. Oh, look who's common. I did a kid's birthday. I did a real thing and I was paying the money.

So yes, I did. Excuse me. Can you put the band on please? Also do a 16 year old. I'm hoping that it is a matter of him being broken and not just like flipping a switch and they're still like, nah. Yeah.

Well, let me say this because we, you know, we get our suggestions in Club Mickey 3's from Club Mickey 3 members. And in one of those suggestions, somebody, I think, anticipating this discussion said, you got to talk about the Mac tonight, Amatronic, which is working again. That is what was said. So I don't know as of how recently this is true, but this is potential on the ground breaking news from somebody in our audience. And I do hope it is true. I would be thrilled that it was true.

That means it would have happened in the past. year because the last time I was there was August. I'm going to be back in August and I'm going to report back. You will find that for yourself. I'll be moved to tears if he's moving around. I also think that McDonald's sucks. It is not remotely what you like want

the world's biggest McDonald's to look like. It's not even like a picture of Ronald McDonald in there. Oh man. Well, this is what we're going to dig into. Sorry, you're going to do a whole other. I'm sad to hear that that's the case. I haven't been in there post-remodel, pre-remodel of, Oh, it was glorious. It was really something.

It's just got like some video games that have nothing to do with McDonald's and one animatronic that maybe works now. I don't know. But you can get pasta in there. I don't care about the pasta stuff. I want to like grimace walking around. And that's not what that is. You're right.

I'd rather have grimace walking around than pasta. Well, one thing I hate to say, if I had to, I was going through and I did take video when I was there. I was there in 2010. And I'll talk on the Patreon about my, experience, but Mektonite at that time, he wasn't on the weird shelf that he's on now. Right now he lives on a tilted shelf and mostly doesn't speak. But he used to have, I think when it started, it was a full like theater with a revolving stage

and the curtain came up and then he was revealed. Like they built him a whole environment. It was crazy. When I was there, they put him strangely still on a piano, but he was in like a little rainforest. And he might have been broken when I was there. I think it's always been a struggle with him, but I found a video, no, this wasn't my video,

this was a YouTube video, of him singing a really scratchy recording of I saw her standing there. And the mouth moved, I would say, on every tenth word, which is, that's a lot. That's not zero. Yeah.

So it's not like it was the greatest show on earth, but I still appreciate it being there. Was it, was it a jazzy version, or was it a more rock? It was the Beatles version. It was the actual song of the track. The singing was by Paul McCartney.

Did they change that first thought of like, she was just Mickey D's. If you know what I mean. Sorry if I miss this, but why was he in the rainforest? Don't know. Don't know. I think they maybe had that environment separately for some other reason. And then they decided to close the theater and just like,

I don't know, shove him in there. He was also in a big cape like a magician. There was a lot going on. One of the other videos, this is what Aaron was, see if you agree, Aaron was arguing that he should not be singing along to a recording of, with a little help from my friends, not the Beatles, but the Joe Cockhacker. And her argument was like, that's rock, not soul. It's certainly not jazz.

What do you think? Do you think that's an appropriate? I was like, I don't know, he's soul. full. I was a mixed to ambivalent. She was firm. He should not be singing that.

I want him playing jazz. Also, it's weird to hear him talking about friends. He's never been in a commercial with another person. Yeah. Who are these friends? He's always solo.

He has no friends. He lives in the sky. Well, isn't there, well, there's a later ad where I think there's people on a screen. Because we, there's like a woman holding a burger who takes her scrunchy down and shakes her hair out.

Oh, man. That could be a friend. There's ones that where he's kind of more the host of a party. This is a good catch, thank you. He's playing the saxophone. Yeah, he's not like, what decade was Mac tonight? All you need to hear is a woman takes down her scrunchy. She, this is later 90s, later mid-90s.

But it's like Mac tonight is kind of in the foreground, but the, she's holding the burger so close to her head. And it's like, is she, is she into the burger or into Mac, you know? Well, he's into her. We know that. Yeah, we know that. Yeah.

I think that if they were to change the way Mac is dressed, I'm more comfortable with him doing different genres. But if he's in, like, the suit and, like, has that presentation with the sunglasses, I want him jazzy, I think. I do agree with like the I don't necessarily want to see him do a different genre unless there's an aspect of him that's different

but I'm interested in I'm interested in seeing him do other genres I just want to see a different outfit I don't want to see a different I don't know oh yeah why a suit and then you're playing yeah yeah I got a good rule with them you dress him like Billy Corrigan and he's Mac Tonight Tonight

we can do a whole like different genres perhaps they have the same video is like a little bit similar too right And it's certainly the, yeah, nod to the old movie with the moon, yeah. And Billy Corgan has the same facial color as Maxonite. Same color as Maxon. He's the other side of the one of the moon that we were talking about. That's just a big circle.

Oh, that's right. That's what, wow, Billy Corgan answers the question of what if Macdonite wasn't a crescent. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to see him do everything, but I want him to change up the look. Sure. Yeah. I think that's smart.

And the magician cape was not doing it. I don't know why he's, you know, magician. That doesn't help you get into any genre, really. Okay, so weird. Orlando one, we know, but there's a bunch of weird other ones. Woodbridge, Virginia, the solid gold McDonald's, which is in Greenfield, Wisconsin, which is vaguely rock and roll, and that is gone. Okay, okay.

Yes. There was, small, small chance is one in Stony Brook, New York. In which, and it's the only animatronic that was ever built in which he is given, first a little set with skyscraper windows. And out of those windows pop his backup singers seen only here. Maybe he's only friends. He does have friends. And the friends are called the rockin chickens. And the chickens pop out of the window and sing.

I don't, I think we're mixing. I don't, I don't think I know why chickens with this guy. I don't, yeah, I don't care for it when you're just saying it to me. When I hear it, I get a little. You wouldn't, you wouldn't like the. Little character stars with faces that sing or something. That I'm on board with. Okay.

They're more Muppity. The way like birdie is a bird, are they humanish chickens? No, more, yeah, I think Gonzo's chickens would be kind of the comp. Yeah, but even more like limited. It's very confusing. I don't know why I don't get it. It didn't take any, didn't have the chickens anywhere else. There was one in Warren, Ohio.

For some reason, they kept the. And the piano, but they changed it to the hamburger. And I don't have the photo and I can't show you. But imagine the hamburger looking like he fell asleep at a piano bench. I mean, I like this sound of that. I like this a lot. It's having a bad day. It's a melting hamburger.

As I'm sure we're established, I'm a hamburger guy. He's just trying to reform. He's trying to get back on his feet. Hobbies are helpful. So anytime. I, uh, there is one more to discuss and I've just put a video in the, in the chat. Uh, there was a bizarre effort made to go, all right, the character Mac tonight has decreased in relevance, but maybe kids still want to see an animatronic piano show in our restaurant.

And that leads to the strange situation in Plainview, New York, in which the same skin and same piano were left, but it was changed into a different character. Uh, Mike, would you like to, would you please play the video I'm going to show here of Rory the Lion? Here's Rory. All right. I'm Rory, and I'm your host here in beautiful Plainview McDonald's. It's so great seeing all my friends,

having fun and enjoying great food. He's got a beret on. He gives me a warm furry film, just like these great summertime hits. I think that's enough, Rory. He's just like tinkling over Miserlou. which does have piano as you think and then he does

Papa um mao mao and so already we're mixed here he's basically like a beatnik looking guy sunglasses a kind of a scary humany zubilee zoo sort of lion and beret sunglasses so he looks like a beatnik but plays surf music in this setting

I don't think I can make heads or tails of Rory do you guys feel like you have a sense of Rory yeah he's got I mean his His fur, like his main, is so, like, well-styled. It's like, it looks so clean. It looks so, like, he straightened it with, like, a straightening iron. Like, this is just not, this is such a, like, well-kempt line. Like, he looks immaculate.

It's brushed out, for sure. It's brushed out, but it looks so smooth. It's brushed out. He knew it was going on stage. I think the sunglasses and beret are cool. You maybe, you know. You maybe like Rory? Maybe you're voting Rory?

I think I like Rory. Rory 26. Even with a Travolta Bray. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a beret, a maroon beret. His face is like, if you said this was a human being in like makeup, I would believe you. Like just seeing a picture of it.

He's kind of complex as a, I think here's what bothers me about Rory. And I watched a little more Rory content than you guys have seen. But it seems like the show was him going, hey. It's me, Rory. All right. You're in McDonald's, and here we go. And I don't... Okay, but where are you?

And what... I don't think it's the nice guy. Is, like, Mac Tonight's not as popular as it used to be, but, like, you know who's even less popular? Someone that we just invented that no one's ever seen before. Yeah, Rory. Why isn't this the hamburger? If that was grimace at the piano, I would be making a road trip.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yes, I agree. Why... Yeah, Rory has the least name recognition. he could possibly have. He didn't exist. Rory lives in Plainview. Is Plainview known for lions to lions roam the streets in Plainview?

Why is this appropriate? I don't know that Plain View is known for anything. There's no facets. It's a nice name. It's a unique name, but besides that. I agree with you in thinking-wise, like, okay, you're McDonald's, like, put the hamburger in. But if I really get down to it, I would love any business, any corporation that has all these

different mascots. I would like 10 to 15 new characters every year. We love it when Chuck E. Cheese tries a new character and we love going back and seeing the 30 Chuckie Cheese characters that they don't use anymore. So I applaud them trying Rory is what I'm saying. And I want more Rory's. I want them to throw Rory's at us every other month to see what happened, to see if one will stick. You got me on board. I like the spirit of this. Yeah. The spirit of it is good. I just think I think like we get too stuck in. in our pop culture now with the same basic set of characters

that like, oh, it's just Batman. It's just Ronald McDonald. These are the ones. But like throw more at us. Let's see what else we can get. Let's build the mythology. And I applaud. I'm standing and applauding McDonald's

for trying Rory. And I believe they should bring Rory back. I want to figure of Rory now. Do we got to make room for a Rory episode now? I think maybe we do have to have a Rory episode. We're going to bump major stuff. I mean, I would support that

after that enthusiasm, but unfortunately there is no more to Rory besides him saying I'm Rory. I think we've done it. They did a disservice to Rory then. Rory deserved him down. Yeah, yeah. But at least Rory hasn't been claimed by the alt-right.

Nobody wants Rory isn't wanted by the regular media and he isn't wanted by the alt-right trolls either. We're claiming Rory now for ourselves. for podcast the ride. Rory is a socialist icon. Rory.

Oh, yeah. Rory's in DSA. Rory's a union man. Yeah, Mom, Donnie endorsed Rory, and he's going straight to the top.

MSNBC has been talking about how bad Rory is for the country all morning. They're very mad. They only up to the profile of Rory. They only up to the profile of Rory. Suddenly Rory is the most popular figure in America.

Oh, Stronging. And of fact, Rory. James Carville is really disturbed by this trend of Rory being popular. Trump's bragging. You got to hang out with Rory. Trump loves Rory, though, because he's so attractive. Look at his handsome guy.

The main, look at his beautiful main. It's rushed out. The day after the Rory meeting, Trump suddenly appears in a beret. Yeah. Roy, folks, we've hired a great person to clean up. the reflecting pool. His name is Rory. He said I'll drink all the green water.

He's drinking. Is that the plan? He's drinking up the Al-Durie. He mostly eats carrion, but he's trying to get more fiber in his diet. So he's going to drink the algae. He needs more greens. He's from the jungle. He likes it.

That's what he likes. That's what he knows. Should we admit now that the world's biggest McDonald's fan Trump will be on podcast the ride before this month is over. Oh, my God. The grand finale. We do have him. We do have him.

We do have. You never be able to end that episode. Happy Meals with Donald Trump. Look, the, the Nelke boys got BB Netanyahu and we got Mr. Trump. We've got an interview

you definitely won't walk out of. Yeah. They don't even know what you're doing. They don't know about wars. He's dorks. What's going on in the world? Oh, no. Are there more robots around for me to look at?

I only know about moon guys. He bought the shoes for us and Rory, so now we got to wear them. There's no way I'm a size 10. Come on. I'm five foot nothing. Yeah, we're in person for that when we fly to the Oval Office. Yeah, that's right. Yes.

You know what's amazing is that he has not put a McDonald's or put a McDonald's in the White House, Richie Rich style. Something I did want to make sure got a little, just at least a brief mention in McMount is that Richie Rich had a McDonald's and what a great scene that is in a otherwise flawed film. But him having the McDonald's, then that it is just a, it's not just like a machine that gives it McDonald's food. There are full-time employees. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He did think the reflecting pool was just shaman. rock shake for a while and was very excited. I did my face in. It's delicious.

We recently had the Richie Rich on in the background because it auto played on YouTube. It's one of those free movies. And we have been saying there's an exchange in it where Richie's mom is yelling. I think they're trying to kill us. And Richie's dad goes, I know dear. and it's very funny and we've just been saying that nonstop around the house

maybe Richie Rich is going to be reclaimed maybe we're even I mean I don't think I don't think you need to push very hard to get me and Mike to talk about the Harvey Comics characters

are they eat Richie Rich. He would literally eat the rich he is a socialist icon and he would he would he would Mall Richie Rich to death, you would say we should not have billionaires.

Yeah. He would be covered in Richie's blood explaining the like, explaining. He's just our new Luigi. Because he finally killed Richie Rich. Yeah, he's talking to the baseball, the scrappy baseball kids. And just like Luigi and he's like, he's kind of hot, right? He is kind of hot. Lori Defense Fund.

The hair is so in camp. Who does he use? Is it a style? What is he? Who does he go to? Come on. You imagine how awful Richie Rich is going to be when he grows up. Fucking, he'll be the worst movie star, the worst CEO.

I took care of him now. Let's party. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I, uh, well, we should start out the door. I mean, I guess the, the thing to say is that, uh, all of us, everything's going great. We got robots. We got merch. The culture.

is being changed. And then a guy named Dodd Darren ruins it all. Dodd Darren is Bobby Darren's son. He says, hey, you stole my dad's thing and I'm suing. Now, from what I said way earlier, that was boring, they licensed the song from the three penny opera. And so thus they had the rights to the song. But Dodd Darren's argument is, well, you're kind of doing my dad's version.

You're doing the jazz version, regardless of where the songwriting, you know, whatever rights came from. And it's a lawsuit that they probably would have fought and won. But McDonald's was like, I think we did everything we were going to do with McDonald's. Let's just, that's the end of that. Bye. And then he was, and that's the end. So Dodd Darren.

And Bobby Darren, of course, played in Beyond the Sea by Kevin Spacey. As we discussed before. Yes. I got curious if Dodd Darren was involved in that process. And in fact, here's what happened. So he was a major part in the casting of Kevin Spacey. And here's what happened is Kevin Spacey really. Because it was going to be back tonight for a while. For a while it was going to be Mac. But they were mad at each other. Wait, this guy, wait a minute. Didn't I try to sue him? He's out. I got a better feeling about this guy. And he did, they were like, he made a really passionate speed. You know, he's just like passionate plea for why he should do it. And then and then they go, all right, you're in. You're going to do it. And then he said, oh, and I want to sing. It's not going to be Bobby's voice. It's going to be me.

And Dodd Darren said, I hope he comes around and realizes that he is wrong. But I think what he found is that maybe Kevin Spacey does not frequently come around and realize that he is wrong on a lot of matters. So thus he sang and thus the movie was what it was. And then on Broadway, there's Bobby Darren's show on Broadway right now. and he is played by my college classmate Jeremy Jordan. Oh, wow. We, also, we did not know each other.

That was my next question. That was my next question. I've never heard this guy before in my life. You've never spoken a word to him. My dear old friend on the Great White Way. He has been in a lot of Broadway shows, and apparently we were in either the same class or the class before,

he was in the class before at Ethica and would leave to do auditions. You mean the class at large, you mean not a specific class. Yeah, the graduating class. Yeah, no, I think he's class 2007. But look, you know, Kevin Spacey got a lot of flack.

He was too old. He was 45 when he played Bobby Darren. Jeremy Jordan is younger. He's 41. So Bobby Darren, of course, died at 37. So, but Jeremy Jordan, much more youthful and stuff. He's done a million things on Broadway. And a significant repair singer.

Yeah. And of course, he was in season two of Smash, the one no one watched. That show from 14 years ago that you were obsessed with, yes. Yeah. I remember you were. That's not a retcon. He really was talking about smash non-style. You got us.

Are we smashing? Are we smashing? Why didn't Jeremy Jordan come up then? Oh, gosh. Maybe he did, and I forgot. Maybe he did. Second season didn't really have the juice. You were embarrassed that you were in the same class as him due to the smash.

I was okay with him. Yeah. No, Mike and I would do Harold Night at UCB, and then I would leave to go home and watch Smash. So you're in a scene. and like you're being like a guy you're like All right, cotton candy here You're doing a character

But you're looking at the clock on the wall Like fuck, it's on a smash time Somebody black this down Some of smash time What will Christian Borel get up to this week? What will Deborah Messing Someone I'm sure will be normal forever Get up to this week

Deborah Messing is really worried about Rory The Lion I'll tell you what Her Instagram stories about Rory Yeah they're insane Small A lot of small dots. He's like a nice line to me.

I don't know. Calm down. All right. Well, look, on the way out of the door, have we missed anything that we want to shout out about Mac tonight, other than damning Dodd Darren for taking and the alt-right for taking them away from us? What needs to be said about Mac tonight on the way out? I just, I want this Mac tonight to be an inspiration to companies to try things, to expand the brand. to expand the characters.

And then I do feel, I mean, I guess we're probably going to talk a little bit about it. But I do feel like McDonald's right now maybe has a little more of a feeling like, oh, people do have a lot of affection for the brand and the characters in the same way the Disney characters. You know, like, similar. I'm not the same exact, but like kind of similar. We all feel certain ways about these characters. And I feel like if that's what's going on in the McDonald-Land corporate zone, maybe there's a place for Max somewhere in some kind of media.

That's what I would say. Maybe there's a way to bring him back. I agree that McDonald seems like they're embracing that heritage a lot more than they would have even five years ago. Yes. Grimmis's birthday was a ton of fun for a lot of people. Yeah. How did you celebrate? I got a Grimmis's birthday shake.

And behind me, my window looks out over the Today Show Plaza and Grimmis and Uncle O'Grimmissy were there. Wow. Wow. It's a big deal. Grimmis basically plays for the Mets now. So I think that they're starting to have fun with that kind of stuff.

I think Macint and I can come back. My main priority doing this podcast was clearing his name that he is not a neo-Nazi. And I feel like I didn't have to do that. Everyone's already on board. Yeah. Because it's not about retribution.

He didn't do anything wrong. He's a victim. And I think that we can reclaim him and he can come back. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, we've all done it together. He changed culture.

A bad culture tried to change him, but he's resilient. And we're going to lift him back up on a cloud, put him back on the sky pedestal where he belongs. We're changing culture back. That's what we're doing. And if anyone at the Entertainment McDonald's is listening to this, please have him up and running by August. You've got a heads up. Get this message out to the now 17-year-old. You're getting mature.

It is, it is time for you. you'd accept responsibilities, get up there, and bang that robot into shape, with a hammer and nails, I assume. That's how he works. Well, you were the guy for this. I'm so glad that we got to do it. Mike Scullins, you survived Mick Month. Let's exit through the gift shop. Is there anything you'd like to plug?

You could follow me on, I guess, Blue Sky or Instagram is my only social media, but just at Mike Scallens. Last time I was on the show, I talked about a film called, Brian that I just wrapped it has since premiered at South by Southwest, and there shall hopefully be some news soon about when you can see it. So keep an eye out. That is great. Yeah, keep track and Brian, very excited for you and to see how everything plays out with that. As for us, for McMmonth, for three bonus episodes every Mick month, pull up to podcast the ride the second window or get one more bonus episode. We're going out of it. That's the first time they've heard it. or get one more bonus episode on our VIP tier Club Mickey 3s.

As established, you'll find all of that at patreon.com slash podcast, The Ride. And of course, on Club Mickey 3s, you'll meet the Orlando Mac tonight, the pride of Orlando. And now I'm going to let you guys go and just like, I'm going to, I got my head here. And after our conversation, I wonder what would happen if we kind of touch tips a little bit? I need some private time. I'm going to let you guys go. See ya. Forever.

This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gerdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Sillio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit Forever Dog Podcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever. team and liking our page on Facebook.