One of the most infamous films that I’ve ever gone to see in a theatre is the 1988 “E.T.” rip-off, “Mac and Me”. I just re-watched it today on Youtube for the first time in ages. It’s notorious for being one of the most product placement-heavy movies of all time with some blatantly obnoxious plugs for McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, and I remember that the original trailer featured Ronald McDonald himself plugging the fact that this was his movie debut. As a child, a movie starring Ronald McDonald seemed very appealing to me. Stop laughing…
In actuality, Ronald was only in the movie for about a minute or so, as he was featured in a very bizarre sequence that had NOTHING to do with the plot. It involved the wheelchair-bound hero disguising his alien friend in a teddy bear costume and taking it to a birthday party at (you guessed it!) McDonald’s. It’s probably the most elaborate children’s birthday party I’ve ever seen, as it features full-fledged dance numbers and the whole sequence obviously serves no other purpose in the film except to serve as a long commercial for Mickie D’s! And, to this day, I have no friggin’ idea what the deal is with those dancing football players…