McDonald’s created McDonaldland for characters such as Grimace and the Hamburglar.
McDonaldland was a fictional setting introduced in McDonald’s advertising in 1971. It presented the restaurant’s characters as residents of a colorful fantasy world, with Ronald McDonald acting as its central figure. The setting gave the company a connected universe for commercials, promotions, playgrounds, and merchandise.
Characters associated with McDonaldland included Grimace, the Hamburglar, Birdie the Early Bird, and Mayor McCheese. Their designs and roles changed over time, and some characters were later used less frequently or retired.
McDonaldland is sometimes treated as merely a group of mascots, but it was specifically the fictional world that connected them. That shared setting was an important part of McDonald’s family-oriented branding in the 1970s and afterward.