The McDonald's advertising campaign featuring Mac Tonight singing “Mack the Knife” was called Mac Tonight.
Mac Tonight was a sunglasses-wearing, crescent-moon-headed character introduced in 1986 to promote McDonald's evening business. The advertisements used a rewritten version of the song “Mack the Knife,” emphasizing the word “Mac” and presenting McDonald's as a place to visit at night.
The campaign was especially associated with the United States and became one of the chain's most distinctive character-based promotions. Its visual design made the character easy to recognize, while the musical reference gave the advertisements a strong connection to a familiar standard.
Mac Tonight is sometimes mistaken for a permanent McDonaldland mascot. Unlike Ronald McDonald and other recurring characters, Mac Tonight was principally a campaign character tied to nighttime promotion. The campaign was later discontinued, but its imagery remains a notable part of McDonald's advertising history.