Mayor McCheese was the character who served as mayor of McDonaldland.
He was introduced as part of McDonald's McDonaldland advertising world, which featured a cast of human-like and food-inspired characters. Mayor McCheese had a large cheeseburger-shaped head and wore formal mayoral clothing, making him one of the campaign's most distinctive visual figures.
The character was different from the Hamburglar, whose role centered on stealing hamburgers, and from Grimace, who was portrayed as a large purple character. Those figures belonged to the same advertising universe but had separate identities and functions.
Mayor McCheese became especially recognizable through television commercials, restaurant displays, and promotional appearances. His title made the fictional setting feel like a complete community rather than simply a collection of unrelated mascots.