04/24/2004: The Million Dollar McDonald’s Contest Song.
Discussion Thread: 74 comments
First post! (Like I care)
Posted by
Dane @ 04/24/2004 9:35 AM EDT
i didn’t win a million, but now i want a Happy Meal. you win, McDonalds Man.
Posted by
zann @ 04/24/2004 10:25 AM EDT
i dunno.
Posted by
kennef @ 04/24/2004 11:01 AM EDT
?????
Posted by
Ryan @ 04/24/2004 11:32 AM EDT
eh, I hated that damn record…through it accross the room when I didn’t win.. my friends all didn’t have record players, and wanted to come over and listen to it at my house, but I wouldn’t let them in fear that theywould win and it would be on my record player.
Posted by
chad @ 04/24/2004 11:37 AM EDT
I remember when you would find records like this in all sorts of places. Bound in magazines, backs of cereal boxes, that sort of thing. Now, I got two episodes of Barney Miller on DVD from a box of Total. I miss the Jumpin’ Jarvis I got out of Cookie Crisp.
Posted by
kingklash @ 04/24/2004 11:45 AM EDT
What happend you found one that had the whole song on it?
Posted by
Jared @ 04/24/2004 12:43 PM EDT
I can only imagine Matt trying to get a the $1,000,000 out of McDonald’s 20 years after the contest expired. The look on that cashier’s face…heh.
Posted by
Evan @ 04/24/2004 12:49 PM EDT
i remember getting this record when I was little and we could never afford to buy new needles for our record player, so I never got to hear my record at all. oh well, bet I didn’t win!
Posted by
kidneyboy @ 04/24/2004 2:19 PM EDT
HI-larious! Where do you find this crazy stuff? Keep driving on and reviewing.
Posted by
Advance_Soldier @ 04/24/2004 2:22 PM EDT
Nice!
I remember when that song became poetry of the playground with all the bad-ass paddycake moves.
Posted by
Kristal @ 04/24/2004 3:31 PM EDT
Oh my gosh, I remember the hell out of this stupid promotion, unless I’m engineering childhood memories again. What a goofy idea.
Did the Krang in the menu just change to a fake one with french-fry-bag eyes? Or has it always been that way?
Posted by
Piscez @ 04/24/2004 4:36 PM EDT
The "make-your-own" Krang was always on this version of X-E. Say less about the yellow, though.
1. RealAudio? PLEASE tell me you aren’t reverting back to your old ways.
2. I had one of those. Lost it.
Posted by
"MR. GAME & WATCH" @ 04/24/2004 6:17 PM EDT
RealAudio is retro chic. But, no.
Posted by
Matt @ 04/24/2004 6:19 PM EDT
"I’d like an order of fries, a quarter pounder with cheese, I love the light in your eyes, will you go out with me please? …I am in love with a McDonald’s girl…"
Posted by
RU Hungry @ 04/24/2004 7:37 PM EDT
80s McDonald’s stuff rules. Happy Meals, tv commercials, etc. I think I remember Matt C. posting that audio file awhile back on X-E, and that’s why its RA? We had that record when I was a kid, didn’t win. Heh, I can see Matt C. tracking the winning record down today in 2004. But I wonder, did anyone actually WIN this? And if not, did they even make a winning record? O_o
Hey, Matt C., how ’bout those new adult Happy Meals? New healthy meals that come in a cardboard package, with a salad and bottled water. (Dasani). I can’t see these things catching on…people go to McDonald’s to eat yummy(?) junk food, not water and vegetables. I applaud McDonald’s for the effort, but I don’t see these meals becoming very popular. Would you consider reviewing the adult Happy Meal? It might not be substantial enough for a full article, but it would make a good blog entry if anything.
Posted by
Death by Stereo @ 04/24/2004 9:01 PM EDT
Does the new adult Happy Meal have free toys?
Posted by
- @ 04/24/2004 9:08 PM EDT
Matt, can you please do an article on Pokemon Colluseum for gamecube? I wanna see what you think of the new pokemon games. Do they swim or drown?
PS. DIE EVIL SONY FOR TRYING TO KILL NINTENDO WITH PS2.
Posted by
TOM @ 04/24/2004 9:39 PM EDT
No free toys, but they come with pamphlets promoting nutrition and excersize…what a crock. No toys, puzzles, jokes etc. I also heard that McDonald’s will offer fruit in the place of french fries in the regular kiddie Happy Meals. Again, I don’t see this going over well.
Posted by
Death by Stereo @ 04/24/2004 9:43 PM EDT
I heard in a news story that the Adult Happy Meals are supposed to come with pedometers, too. But that could have changed. I dunno.
Not a bad idea, but yeah, if I want a salad, I’ll eat at home, you know? I’ll live on the edge, too- drink tap water.
Yeah, I heard about the fruit, too. Isn’t that what the pies are for? Just kidding. 
Posted by
Rainbowfeet @ 04/24/2004 11:05 PM EDT
Heh, I remember those! I didn’t have a record player, but I learned a way around it. Take a sheet of paper, wrap it into a cone. Tape the cone together.Then
take a small needle tape it to the bottom (re:skiny) end of the cone point downward. Now for the tricky part. Insert a pencil into the center hole of the record until it is firm. Have someone hold the cone above the record with the needle where a player’s needle would go. rotate the pencil. This is not something you would want to do to a precious 45, but for something like this it worked in a pinch!
i remembered like the first 20 seconds of this song to this day
Posted by
mikey @ 04/25/2004 1:23 AM EDT
Dye you say? Ooh….I am so intrigued :) What color is Mr. Caracappa’s coif now?
Posted by
Kristal @ 04/25/2004 2:23 AM EDT
Oh, god. I used to listen to this record over and over on my little fisher price player. Back then, the song was just the coolest for me.
And the "Good Time, great taste" song is something I remember fondly as well. I remember when they first introduced it in a commercial I still have on tape. They went off on a tangent, singing stuff like "rubba rubba burger on the six-top bee-bop" and stuff like that.
Posted by
Number5 @ 04/25/2004 6:37 AM EDT
Ah the mcdonalds memories. Listening to squiare records, Memorizing whole menues, men with moons for heads.
Also, the word "pedometer" disturbs me greatly.
Posted by
Trippy the 8th Dwarf @ 04/25/2004 9:22 AM EDT
Fun Fact: If you order every food item mentioned in the song and then eat it all in one sitting, you’ll feel bloated, sick, and regretful of all the bad decisions you’ve made in life. Try it for yourself!
We never had the record promotion here in Canada, but the song did work its way into the Canadian ad campaign just the same. Usless trivia: in Canadian McDonald’s, low fat milk and decaff coffee aren’t available, and happy meals weren’t available at the time, either, so they all got left out of the song. The American version always sounded odd to me for these reasons.
And speaking of shameless McDonald’s promotions, review "Mac and Me" (C’mon, ya had to see that coming!)
I also remember this promotion - don’t know if we ever got the record, because I sure know we didn’t win.
Um…does anyone have a record player to hear Matt’s record? ; 0 )
Posted by
starwenn @ 04/25/2004 12:15 PM EDT
I loved those square records you’d get from promotions. It was more fun watching it rotate on the turntable than listening to whatever crap was on it.
Posted by
Nachokhaki @ 04/25/2004 12:29 PM EDT
But there was one guy I went to elementary school with that had this song down to a T. Flawless execution every time.
Posted by
Nachokhaki @ 04/25/2004 12:32 PM EDT
Pointing out the obvious for those having a dense day: click the pic, hear the song.
Have a good weekend, all.
PS — as we speak, I’ve got gross dye in my hair and I’m trying to muster up enough courage to touch the icky worms necessary to feed our latest fish, something Petland called a "Dolphin Whale."
Posted by
Matt @ 04/25/2004 12:36 PM EDT
Rainbowfeet, you’re right. The new adult meals do also come with pedometers. I forgot about those…
Posted by
Death by Stereo @ 04/25/2004 12:45 PM EDT
Dolphin Whale? Is that anything like a Wholphin?
Posted by
squee4242 @ 04/25/2004 12:55 PM EDT
I wish. 
Posted by
Matt @ 04/25/2004 12:56 PM EDT
Mac and Me was one of my favourite movies growing up,hehe
Have any of you seen the Jason Alexander McDonald’s commercial?
Posted by
alisa @ 04/25/2004 5:38 PM EDT
c’mone matt, you were asked a fair question and I and other mattfans wanna know? Staying with what, red is it now, or doing something different?
We need to know. Hell, post a pic.
Oh, and couldn’t you find a copy of the song file with the WINNING song? Wouldn’t that be something? I bet just listening to it all these years later will turn your hair gold.
Posted by
spooky @ 04/25/2004 6:17 PM EDT
A Big Mac, Mc DLT, a Quarterpounder with some cheese…
… Mc Nuggets, tasty golden French fries, regular and larger sizes.
AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
Posted by
Kaynyne @ 04/25/2004 6:41 PM EDT
Interesting song. Listen to "Life is a Rock" by Reunion sometime, though … the melody and percussion of the lyrics are pretty familiar.
I still remember the day we got that thing in our sunday paper. I was five years old and I think it was during the wintertime. I remember knowing that it was going to come out that Sunday, and like the first thing I did before even eating breakfast was going downstairs, tearing through the Sunday paper, finding that square record and running over to my blue and tan Fisher Price record player, and finding out that I lost.
Posted by
Anita @ 04/25/2004 11:26 PM EDT
Damn, memories. I used to have a friend who’d invite me over, and we’d sit there and listen to that damned record. I didn’t say they were good memories.
Posted by
C-Funk Dizzle @ 04/25/2004 11:40 PM EDT
Just off the top of my high head and way off topic, I’d like to toss up three movie review suggestions: O.C. & Stiggs, Freeway, and Tetsuo? Any fans?
Posted by
kidneyboy @ 04/26/2004 2:06 AM EDT
I’d rather have Matt review more expiered or other wise disgusting food
Posted by
Fucko The Clown @ 04/26/2004 3:12 AM EDT
Yan Yan or Nads
What’s worse?
Posted by
Fucko The Clown @ 04/26/2004 3:17 AM EDT
"Life Is a Rock" is a great song! It’s also in a great, cheap-ass movie called "The Specials," starring everyone’s favorite annoyer-of-Debra-Messing, Thomas Hayden-Church, as the leader of a team of superheroes.
Also, I can’t remember the last time I had fast food. I think maybe it was November.
"Usless trivia: in Canadian McDonald’s, low fat milk and decaff coffee aren’t available, and happy meals weren’t available at the time, either, so they all got left out of the song."
A-wel Cruiz: I dunno about the decaf coffee or the low-fat milk, but I got plenty of Happy Meals from Montreal-area McDonald’s locations back in the early-80s back in the days before I switched to eating Big Macs (around 1984 or so).
I remember this. I also remember sometimes they’d put records on cereal boxes as premiums. They were made of light plastic and said if the record sounded funny to put a quarter on them. Amusing
Posted by
Killer Duck @ 04/26/2004 9:08 AM EDT
I remember this song but it was in french on tv here in quebec, canada.
"Big Mac, McDLT, un quart de livre avec fromage, un hamburger un cheeseburger…"
ok i don’t remember the whole thing, but i can’t help humming it when i peruse the McD’s menu….
Posted by
-Jen- @ 04/26/2004 10:22 AM EDT
I can’t remember much of this record stuff but what I do remember was the frenzy of buying happy meals when some cool set of toys came out. The McDonalds food transformers ripoffs and the hotwheels cars stick out in my mind for some odd reason. Does anyone else remember any of the old awesome happymeal crap that they liked or am I alone?
Posted by
Tim @ 04/26/2004 10:54 AM EDT
The Happy Meal transforming food robots are a staple of flea market grab bags. Along with a couple of chewed-up army men, three Legos, a Spider-Man with a missing limb, and some toy from a vending machine. Speaking of the flea, went to Old Paris Flea Market up in OKC yesserday, saw a set of SPADER-MAN figures. Yes, SPADER-MAN. Was he bit by James Spader? Don’t know, don’t care. Ol’ Spadey even had a mototrcycle to ride. Same folk even put out a set of Batman figures. Didn’t call him BETman or any thing, though. Rats. Continued my search for cheap NES clones.
Posted by
kingklash @ 04/26/2004 11:59 AM EDT
does anyone remember the record that came with Ghostbusters Cereal.. it had Egon on there talking about some contest you could win.. I think there was about 4 different versions of the record and it was on a flexi thin plastic..
Posted by
celery @ 04/26/2004 12:13 PM EDT
Holy crap, my friend had this record. It was the cheap plastic kind of record you had to put pennies on to play. And it was awesome and we listened to it over and over, and even now I remember the lyrics through the "happy meal" part, somehow.
Posted by
youjik33 @ 04/26/2004 12:25 PM EDT
I totally didn’t remember this promotion until I downloaded the file and listened to the song. Holy crap, I used to be obsessed with trying to memorize the lyrics to this song. Bastard is gonna be in my head for days now…
Posted by
B-Dawg @ 04/26/2004 1:36 PM EDT
kidneyboy, Freeway is an awesome movie! Reese Witherspoon as a psycho bitch Little Red Riding Hood. She even had a basket and went to grandmas! Hee!
I have the DVD. Dy-no-mite!
How about Time Bandits? "Don’t touch that, mom! It’s EEE-vil!"
kingklash, my kids love those transformer McD’s toys. I swear, there’s a new one at every yard sale.
Hey, I was just thinking - Matt, didn’t you say that awesome haunted house that you reviewed gets dressed up for Xmas, too? Did you ever get any pics?
Posted by
trajeal @ 04/26/2004 2:05 PM EDT
That record was torture! Everyone had to have it, yet did anyone win? On a record side note, wan’t there a sunday paper record with the Simpsons on it? Possibly around the time the Who shot Mr. Burns episodes were out?
Posted by
Mugzy. . . @ 04/26/2004 3:26 PM EDT
ug! me am hungry!
Posted by
sgh @ 04/26/2004 4:22 PM EDT
Screaming tangent…. In that PetsMed ad, does that boy worry you more than the fact that Buddy had fleas? "What’s wrong with Buddy?!" Forget Buddy, what’s wrong with you? Never saw a pooch with fleas before? I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread….
Posted by
kingklash @ 04/26/2004 5:05 PM EDT
damn that’s not fair, you just had to pick real audio, to play that file, not only is it a horrible program, but it’s blocked on this system….I’ll never be able to hear the mcdonalds menu again…..if only I could remember it.
Posted by
brandon @ 04/26/2004 5:27 PM EDT
MAATT! Why didn’t you answer my post about pokemon?!
Posted by
TOM @ 04/26/2004 8:36 PM EDT
I learned this song off of a placemat we got at McD’s with the words on it. My friend and I practiced and practiced until we could do it. That song stuck in my head and I could still sing it with no problem years later. I just recently went to a website to find the words. I wanted to see if I had it right. I was a little off on the egg Mcmuffin bit, but still had it.
I got the record, put it on, and was getting very excited until, sure enough, they screwed up at the very end. I was quite bummed.
Posted by
Stilewalker @ 04/27/2004 10:39 AM EDT
Holy fuck. I swear the weirdest things happen to me at the weirdest times. On Saturday, I was chillin with some homies and my girl Mara brought this song up and started singing it. She only got to the "tasty golden french fries regular and larger sizes," but I was dying to hear everything. And then today I happen to visit the site and it’s on here! Whoa. What a fucking conincedence.
Posted by
Emmaaa @ 04/27/2004 11:10 AM EDT
Ahh, the poetry of the streets.
Posted by
kingklash @ 04/27/2004 11:18 AM EDT
Jeee-zus Krumbly! Monday night, stoned again, and jammin’ to this goddamn song again…too many times. Oh God make it stop!!
Posted by
kidneyboy @ 04/27/2004 12:11 PM EDT
This may be obscure, but one of my most memorable "plastic records" was from the Bloom County collection "Billy and the Boingers: Bootleg". The bulk of it revolves around some of the characters forming a band. The greatest part was that the book came with one of those records, which included songs by the actual band! (or so it claimed…) The songs were "I’m A Boinger", and "U Stink But I Luv U". Anyone else remember this?
Posted by
Bean @ 04/29/2004 3:02 PM EDT
I used to love this one too… I had it memorized perfectly up until the "hot cakes" part, and I could never get past that.
Every once in a while (about once a year) I would remember that song, and always be able to get to that exact point.
Hearing it again now… same fucking thing. Sang along perfectly, and then fell into mumbling at "hot cakes"
At least now i can make an MP3 of it and have it forever. One day i’ll have the whole song down, i swear it. Good thing the menu hasn’t changed in 10 years…
Bloom County is my favorite comic strip of all time, and yes, I do have a mint copy of "Billy and the Boingers Bootleg" with the record still attached inside. There’s no point in taking it out now…
Posted by
Mars @ 04/30/2004 3:19 AM EDT
When I was a kid I used to race little toy cars on my dad’s record player.
Oh and yes I have played that record and is it just me or does it sound like Ronald McDonald and those evil fry kids are the ones singing?
Posted by
The Adamantium Elbow @ 04/30/2004 3:38 AM EDT
Mad Magazine really abused the concept, adding the cardboard records in the Super Specials years and years ago. It was either stuff from thier legendary albums (It’s a Gas!), or something making fun of a contemporary pop style (Let’s Make Out). Now that Sony has developed a 50% paper CD, maybe we’ll start having music bound into publications again.
Posted by
kingklash @ 04/30/2004 2:27 PM EDT
I just have to say that the "Good times, great taste" jingle is heaps and heaps better than the crappy "I’m loving’ it" that is poisoning the youth of America today. I just want to shoot Ronald in the back whenever I hear it.
Posted by
Mike @ 04/30/2004 9:40 PM EDT
I too despise the "I’m lovin’ it" ad campaign. Whoever came up with it deserves to have his brain removed with a hot poker up his nostril.
On a similair note, I got to thinking the other day about how long the oscar mayer jingle has been around. Can anyone else think of a jingle that has been around longer?
Posted by
Beerstalker @ 05/04/2004 4:03 PM EDT
Oh gosh! I remember this! I also remember seeing a commercial stating to do not throw the record away. In the commercial a man with the record throws it in the garbage then an announcer says something like "Hey! Don’t throw that record away! you could win up to a million dollars in McDonalds…blah-blah-blah" Of corse the man starts franticly trying to get the record out of the garbage bin. And Comedy ensues.
"does anyone remember the record that came with Ghostbusters Cereal.. it had Egon on there talking about some contest you could win.. I think there was about 4 different versions of the record and it was on a flexi thin plastic.."
yep! I remember opening up a box of cereal, getting the record out and racing over with my brother over to our mom’s turntable, putting the flexi record (technicly called a "sound sheet") on and hearing a message about the new GhostBusters II film we both were eager to see. I can still remember that last spoken line…"see you at the movies!" Ahh, those sweet, sweet 80’s.
I don’t have the McDonalds or the ghostbuster ones anymore…BUT I DO have a cardboard backed ALF record, one from a Sweetpickles thing (YUCK!), one thats an advertisment for a Swing record set, and symphonette thing, and one that came from an old 1977 issue of National Geographic thats about whales. (by the way, I’m a record collector now)
Posted by
donkey turds @ 05/06/2004 8:06 AM EDT
Oh man, when I caught glimpse of this today I thought, "No! Can it be?" I clicked it. I sang it. I kept that record for the longest time, of course trying to learn the song. I very distinctly remember this promotion — how odd.
Justin Timberlake came up with the IM LOVING IT crap.. kill him please..
Posted by
Me @ 06/13/2004 12:19 PM EDT
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