McDonald's called its original 1948 mascot Speedee.
Speedee was a chef character created to express the McDonald brothers' emphasis on fast service. The brothers redesigned their San Bernardino, California, restaurant around a simplified production system in 1948, and the mascot's name reinforced that promise.
Speedee appeared in early McDonald's signs and promotional material before Ronald McDonald became the chain's best-known character. The design was not the same as the later Hamburglar, Grimace, or other advertising figures introduced as McDonald's expanded its family-oriented branding.
The 1948 date is significant because it marks the restaurant's shift to the Speedee Service System. That system helped establish the operational identity that later branding, packaging, and advertising would communicate to customers. Speedee therefore belongs to the earliest period of McDonald's visual history, before the Golden Arches became the dominant symbol.