McDonaldland introduced characters such as Mayor McCheese and the Hamburglar.
McDonaldland was a fictional advertising world created for McDonald's campaigns beginning in the early 1970s. It presented the restaurant as a colorful place populated by characters linked to McDonald's food, products, and family entertainment.
The setting included Ronald McDonald alongside figures such as Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie, and others. These characters appeared in television commercials, packaging, playground designs, and promotional materials, creating a connected brand universe rather than a series of unrelated advertisements.
McDonaldland is sometimes confused with a real theme park or an individual mascot. It was an advertising setting, not a physical country or permanent amusement park. Its characters also changed over time, and not every McDonald's market used exactly the same cast or campaigns.