I remember as a kid being perplexed by why the Remco McDonalds action figures existed, mostly because even then, I knew Ronald and co. were corporate shills. I guess all action figures are in some respect but this was really blatant.
I also remember really being curious to see how they made an 8" Grimace (still my favourite character) and being kind of let down he was just a plush of sorts.
They actually make reproductions of these figures, check it out.
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It is funny to note how most of those characters have been awol for a while.
I mean if Grimace pushed shakes and Big Mac pushed... big macs, what the heck did the 'Professor' push in Mcdonaldland?
And NONE of these area as creepy as the new Burger King...
Wow, Captaun Crook and Chief of Police Big Mac, though I missed out on these, Grimice had to be my favorite of all these characters, didn't he have four arms at one time?
Yes, Grimace did indeed have four arms in the early days.. Evidently he had surgery to "fit in" better with society.
I like the little joystick controlled head action most of these figs had. Too bad they didn't do this for G.I.Joe instead of the "eagle-eye" feature.
Not only did Grimace have 4 arms, but apparantly he was evil as well. Search “Early Grimace McDonald's Commercial” on Youtube and see for yourself.
A young Jodie Foster is one of his victims.
Evil AND not too bright, he fell for the old "I'll distract him with my postman disguise and beauty contest letter trick", that Grimace...
There is a McDOnalds about 10 minutes away, that has a display case showing all the memorabilia, and has the full original set of these guys in there. I used to be friends with this one kid about 17 years ago, and he had the ronald.
Myself, I had the plush pillow like ronald they made
Grimace had 4 arms because he was based on Seymore Spider from HR Pufnstuf. Mayor McCheese was Puf, Hamburgler was Witchiepoo and McDonaldland was Living Island. McDonalds lost the rights to use all this stuff (and changed Grimace to 2 arms) when they lost the court battle to Sid and Marty Krofft for ripping them off.
Yes, but one of the Youtube commenters made a good point: The Kroffts had a lot of nerve saying they were ripped off when Pufnstuff was a ripoff of The Wizard of Oz. Living Island was a lot like Oz, they had one human who gets stranded there and befriended by strange creatures, the villain was a witch who looked/talked like the Oz witch, and the witch is after something magical that the human possesses (magic flute/ruby slippers).
I had never thought about that before, but it seems kinda blatant!
Pufnstuf was always said by the Kroffts as their take on Oz. They made no secret about it. But the first batch of Oz books are in the public domain. McDonalds hired the Kroffts to design McDonaldland and it's characters. After the Kroffts did the work, McDonalds said they decided against it and didn't pay. Then out came McDonaldland commercials, and the Kroffts sued and won.
ah
got it, thanks.
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