McDonaldland was McDonald’s national advertising campaign built around a family-friendly fictional world.
The campaign introduced a cast of brightly colored characters who lived in a landscape shaped by restaurant imagery. Ronald McDonald served as its central figure, alongside characters such as Mayor McCheese, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and Birdie the Early Bird.
McDonaldland appeared in television commercials and other promotional material beginning in the early 1970s. Its visual style helped McDonald’s turn ordinary menu items and restaurant features into recognizable parts of a shared advertising universe. The campaign was especially aimed at children and families.
McDonaldland is sometimes treated as though it were a real theme park or a single television series. It was neither: it was primarily an advertising setting used across commercials, promotions, and merchandise. Individual characters had different introductions and roles, so the campaign’s cast changed over time.