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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.

Posted by Matt on 04/20/2005. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 62 comments

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.

Chestnuts roasted by jhnnywalkr @ 04/21/2005 10:05 AM

Some are, some aren’t.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 04/21/2005 10:07 AM

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

Chestnuts roasted by IHAQ @ 04/21/2005 10:32 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Kennef @ 04/21/2005 11:02 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by jhnnywalkr @ 04/21/2005 11:21 AM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash reporting from space, on the lookout for Senator Pope-altine... @ 04/21/2005 11:39 AM

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

Chestnuts roasted by Rosella @ 04/21/2005 12:44 PM

kingklash, I would watch that show/TV-movie-of-the-week.

My favorite new WTF? show is Krystala on AZN TV (formerly International Channel). You do not need to understand Tagalog to enjoy this show:
http://www.filipinochannels.com/filipino-channel-show/show-krystala.php">Summary http://www.i-channel.com/ic/ps.jsp?programID=3432&scheduleStartDate=2005%2F4%2F18&scheduleEndDate=2005%2F4%2F25&month=3&dayOfMonth=21&year=2005">Schedule

Chestnuts roasted by ME @ 04/21/2005 2:17 PM

All the more reason to bring back 4-Armed Grimace

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 04/21/2005 3:17 PM

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!

Chestnuts roasted by nerothewizard @ 04/21/2005 3:34 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Pat @ 04/21/2005 3:35 PM

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!

(but I have a straw)

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 04/21/2005 3:37 PM

http://www.jimhillmedia.com/mb/articles/showarticle.php?ID=1397">Could a new CEO at the Walt Disney Company mean that "Star Tours" is finally going to get a new ride film?

Chestnuts roasted by ME @ 04/21/2005 3:44 PM

Here is what I got when I Googled "Oriental McNuggets"

http://www.marychen.com/chinky.html

Chestnuts roasted by Joe in OH @ 04/21/2005 3:51 PM

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!"

Chestnuts roasted by Derek @ 04/21/2005 4:01 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by RAS @ 04/21/2005 5:00 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 04/21/2005 5:12 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Dr. Acula @ 04/21/2005 5:22 PM

Matt, I saw that same commerical. The other character was Mr. Penut.

Chestnuts roasted by Beta-Theta @ 04/21/2005 5:33 PM

bacon uterus
bits uterus
fiesta uterus
love uterus

Chestnuts roasted by Gnarly and the Tubular @ 04/21/2005 7:23 PM

"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……

Or perhaps a cult would be more his style?

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

Chestnuts roasted by lucidique @ 04/21/2005 8:05 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Steve Brandon @ 04/21/2005 8:23 PM

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

Chestnuts roasted by starwenn @ 04/21/2005 9:01 PM

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.

Chestnuts roasted by Steve Brandon @ 04/21/2005 9:22 PM

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 >_<

Chestnuts roasted by The Krypt Angel @ 04/21/2005 11:00 PM

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