Speedee was McDonald's original chef mascot before Ronald McDonald became the chain's main advertising character.
The mascot represented speed and efficiency, two ideas central to the McDonald brothers' early restaurant system. Speedee was drawn as a chef with a hamburger-shaped head and appeared in early restaurant signs and promotional material. The name also echoed the restaurant's emphasis on quick service.
McDonald's adopted the Speedee symbol in the late 1940s, when Richard and Maurice McDonald were reshaping their San Bernardino restaurant around a simplified, highly efficient menu. The design was later replaced by the Golden Arches as the company's most important visual identifier.
Speedee is sometimes confused with later food characters from McDonaldland. Unlike the Hamburglar or Mayor McCheese, Speedee was an early corporate mascot tied directly to the restaurant's service model rather than to a fantasy advertising world.