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04/20/2005: McDonald’s Bacon Bits from 1987 on 4/20.

God, it’s beautiful out tonight. Makes me want to run outside and eat an eighteen-year-old package of bacon bits.

Don’t ask me how I got it, but to your left is a package of complimentary McDonald’s bacon bits from 1987. With smoke flavoring! Provided to customers who ordered Chicken Salad Oriental or some other leafy shit, it’s a big pile of nasty that has only gotten nastier with age — click here for a look at what’s inside. While it must be considered poison at this point, the stuff’s actually held up pretty well, with credit for that largely attributed to its heaping dose of sodium erythorbate, whatever the fuck that is. The package claims it’s “100% real bacon,” which is an admittedly awesome clever way of saying it’s not 100% bacon. Whatever bacon in there is 100% legit, but shhh…there’s other stuff too. Naughty bits from Captain Chemical. One of the Fry Guys. Yay 4/20.

In 1988, McDonald’s sought to recapture some lost sales margins in what was obviously the best way for a fast food chain to do so: By giving away free foreign coins! The “Fiesta Coin” packets each contained a legitimate foreign coin, given out either in Happy Meals or whenever someone bought some ill-conceived test-market burger with the word “Fiesta” in the title. Can’t really remember, but I’m totally crushing on the confetti-drenched packaging.

I really didn’t come home expecting to write about old bacon bits tonight. Life is full of surprises.

Hey, I remember the Fiesta Coin thing. I got one when I was little, thinking it was an actual coin with some McDonald’s character on it. Instead, I got Mexican currency. Disappointed, I threw it away.

Well, I really didn’t come home expecting to READ about bacon bits tonight…so there ya go. Life is a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in a Twinkie. Or something.

I remember the bacon bits, I remember the coins…hell I remember everything about McDonald’s from the 80’s. I worshipped that place and my life centered around it. It got to the point where it wasn’t just about the Happy Meal junk, but I became so infatuated with that place I was happy just to see the sign from the highway.
The Fiesta promotion was this thing where you get Chicken McNuggets and one of five or six coins (I think I still have mine laying around somewhere), plus some new dipping sauce they were offering for the promo. I remember the commercial, all these McD’s employees were wearing sombreros and singing "Fiesta! At McDonald’s!" Yeah, typical McD’s tune from the time in the background.
I also remember the Oriental promo. Another Chicken McNuggets thing where you get some oriental dipping sauce, a fortune cookie, and chopsticks. One time my brother ordered it and they were out of everything that came with it. That was shitty. I still feel bad for him to this day.

I get a lot of e-mail about the oriental McNugget campaign. Hopefully will find the ad someday.

I have a really strong stomach.. but when I clicked on the link for the picture of the actual bacon bits I almost barfed up my Star Wars Cheetos!

Matt, I actually have the oriental Chicken McNugget commercial on a tape somewhere. Fat guy with glasses makes failed attempts to lift nuggets with chopsticks, fails often, finally just grabs the nugget and pops it in his mouth.

Woo-hoo 10th post. I recall having a McDonalds record with halloween songs. I cannot beleive that dates me at age 25.

Hey Matt, speaking of improbable pairings of food and ostensibly worthless foreign currency, do you remember the Barq’s root beer "Soviet Union Going out of Business Sale!" promo? Definitely an odd one.

I know some of the monster foods you’ve exposed yourself to have got to have stunk more, but that bacon is the grossest shit I’ve ever seen. It’s just a big pile of scab. Blech.

Matt, I know you said that you won’t say how you got that pack of bacon-bits, but I seriously think you could write an entire article on how you obtain some of this crap. Seriously, I imagine you must get most of this type of stuff from eBay, but I doubt you could find old, obscure food like this there as well. I mean, who would have the mind to hold on to a 20 year old package of McDonalds bacon-bits?!

Man, all this talk about McDonalds makes me wish I wasn’t completed sickened by the place. Or any fast food/junk food at that.

I didn’t expect them to look that bad. And Chicken McNuggets in Asia? Asia’s where all the good food comes from. I hate you, McDonalds!

If I’d've been eating Cheetos and chugging soda just now, I would’ve been sneezing nasty goo for months!

the scary part is that the bacon bits probably dont look much different now as they did 20 years ago. eww

Them’s some nasty bits. You know what’s funny? I am a vegetarian, and someone told me Baco’s actually are veggie friendly, meaning they actually contain absolutely no bacon or meat product whatsoever. I don’t know if that scares me or not. I am not positive, this entry just reminded me of that. Next time I go to the grocery store I think I’ll check that out.

Ewwww, I really wanna know what it smelled like, its so gross yet I cant stop thinking about them

Speaking of Popes, why did they choose such an old pope? They’re just going to keep dying and eventually we’ll run out of choices and end up with Paris Hilton as pope. We need a young pope to attract a new demographic, the young hip culture that writes about 20 year old junk food and seedy thrift shops. Sarcasm, that’s hot.

They chose an old pope because they didn’t want another pope that will be there for 30 years. After this pope, they may go for a younger pope who will last longer.

Mr. Matt is like some modern-day Indiana Jones, by day, working for a highly-respected kids’ network. By night, stalking the far-flung reaches of the upper eastern seabord, relentlessly in search of just one more pop culture artifact from lost civilizations. Even though he is subtly mutating from constant exposure to toxic fumes and low-level radiation from decades old food and cheap plastic, he will not rest until his mission is complete. Only his Woman truly understands him, but she draws the line at holiday-themed beers.

Them some nasty bits. I had a bag of those star wars cheetos today I wanted to throw up it made my tounge look like i was eating sewage. i had yoda grane

Mr. Mr. Mr., it probably wasn’t too big of a deal when you threw away the peso, they’re worth pretty much nothing even today.

damn, matt, you didnt say what they bacon bits smelled like. the suspense is killing me!

Holy shit, Ben XVI DOES look like Sen Palpatine.
Does that mean that the Roman Catholic Church = The Dark Side? Hmmmm…

My favorite new WTF? show is Krystala on AZN TV (formerly International Channel). You do not need to understand Tagalog to enjoy this show:
Summary Schedule

As soon as I saw the picture of the new pope, I immediately started thinking, "The hate is swelling in you now." Uncanny.

Y’know, X-E keeps coming up with things that surprise me, and today was no exception. Bacon bits…bloody brilliant. Alliteration aside, keep up the good work Matt!

I could see someone having 18 year old bacon bits in their condiment cupboard. The one in my dads house looks the same as it did in the 80’s. I gotta see if I have anything cool like that in there. I love articles about old food. Espescially the pacman noodle soup. That was the most facinating thing to me. Not only was it old but its amazing to think the deli that ahd it never took it off the shelf. I bet you could still eat that pacman soup but I sure wouldn’t want to unless I was in a pit and thats all they gave me.

Great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
Mutilated monkey meat,
Little birdies dirty feet.
All mixed up with bloody brilliant bacon bits.
And I forgot my spoon!

oh god…old bacon bits. As if fresh baconbits wheren’t bad enough. Or even old imitation bacon bits. No, they had to be real bacon bits. I don’t remember much McDonald’s from the 80s and I certainly don’t remember that. What I DO remember was the "Do the Arches" commercial. "You can do the arches! For the good time, great taste…of McDonald’s!"

Has anyone seen the new kool-aid commerical where Koll-aid man falls down and loses all of his kool-aid. he basically died from it and got back to life by pouring several hundred packages of suger free in him and the firefighters.
We really are drinking his blood.

I might be imagining this, but I could’ve sworn I saw some kind of game show spot with K-A Man, Sugar Bear and another big character. Weeeeird.

I don’t know where you get all this old food, Matt, but…bah bah bah bah bah…I’m lovin’ it. Well, not entirely. Those bacon bits will give me bacon nightmares.

From now on, new Pope is Palpatine to me. The underground, super secret Star Wars marketing has worked. I don’t know who’d be Darth Vader, but I find this highly disturbing.

"We need a young pope to attract a new demographic, the young hip culture that writes about 20 year old junk food and seedy thrift shops. Sarcasm, that’s hot."

Is this a not so subtle suggestion that Matt should try his hand at becoming the next leader of the catholic faith ? He could always deliver sermons on the evils of Pokemon addiction……

I hear that Star Wars fans make some very loyal & very fanatical followers……

Wasn’t there also a Canadian, possibly a Quebec-exclusive, Chicken McNugget Oriental commercial that had an older Chinese guy in some sort of traditional costume in some sort of Buddhist or Taoist temple setting that McDonald’s of Canada had to withdraw after complaints from Asian groups? I don’t remember any of the specifics beyond what I’ve already said, but I think it happened in around 1985 or so.

Oh, man, I WOULD be eating my new addiction (Sun Chips - no, really) while looking at the picture of those Bacon Chips.

Of COURSE Matt didn’t eat them! If he did, he wouldn’t be here to tell the tale!

Thanks, guys. Now I’ll never be able to look at the Pope without thinking of "Star Wars" again.

I also remember the Oriental Chicken Nugget promotion, but I probably didn’t try it. Even in the mid-80s, I was a devoted Hamburger woman. I still won’t eat Chicken Nuggets/Fingers/Strips anywhere…unless they somehow come up with unbreaded ones. Those things are two-thirds breading. :p

Unbreaded McNuggets? That reminds me of that one Sunday Bloom County strip wherein Opus walked into a Burger King and ordered a Whopper sans bun.

If it requires utensils to handle properly, I don’t think it will ever be available at McDonald’s, and I have difficulty imagining fried chicken without breading.

Wow never in my 5 some odd years of coming here did I ever expect to actually run into an equally ancient food fossil featured here but I officially stand corrected. One day a few months ago I couldn’t find a working lighter for the life of me so I decided to rummage through some fo the doors in my kitchen hoping to find a pack of matches or soemthing. Dear god I never realized the kind of crap my parents shoved in drawers and forgot about over the years. I found a damn near identical packet of Mickey D’s bacon bits to the one in the pic up there. I didn’t have the balls to tear the packet open but from the firmness of the foil packet I’m pretty sure its contents was little more than a solid brown turd. The drawer held even more horrors like packets of soy and duck sauce from a chinese take out joint that closed down a good 15 years prior that had eaten through the plastic and become a giant mass of nastiness. I am NEVER going through the drawers in this house ever again >_<

jhnnywalkr, in other words, the new pope is just a temp? Wonder what his next gig is…I bet we’ll see him on "The Simple Life: Nuns" now that Paris dumped Nicole.

I’ve been waiting for the next food article-ette. This gives me the opportunity to relay my own vintage food story. Several months ago, my grandmother had an accident that placed her in a hospital for several days, and made her decide to move into a retirement home. (She’s doing fine, just so ya know) Before she could sell her house, though, it needed to be cleaned out. While cleaning out the kitchen, I found a tin of Nestle Quik(chocolate milk powder). Now, this was old Quik. Predating both the "NesQuik" name change and the font change on the package, this was maybe from the early 90s. When I went to grandma’s house back then, I’d always have a glass or two of the stuff, but I thought her supply had run out around the time I stopped drinking it. So I find this tin of Quik in the cupboard, open the lid, and it turns out the thing is half-full! This was the very same tin of Quik that those childhood glasses of chocolate milk goodness came from, the tin I thought had run dry years ago, this was the Quik of my Youth!

My favorite thing in the world used to be getting a chef salad from McDonalds. I mean, it had the smell of TMNT slime, and it features eggs, ham, turkey, and some form of dressing. But, the bacon bits, and the croutons, added to that lovely chef salad…..mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

ahhhh.. dear god, there should be a warning beside that link to the inside of the bacon bits package.. traumatized me..

just to let you know sodium erthobate(excuse the spelling i’m sure its wrong)translated to salted worms and its also in bologna and hot dogs

I swear Matt must have 1.21 jigawatts of electricity power hidden away in his garage to get some of this crap

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 20th, 2005 at 9:52 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.