Mayor McCheese was the McDonald’s advertising character introduced in 1971 to represent a cheeseburger.
He was one of the central figures in McDonaldland, a fictional community created for McDonald’s commercials and promotional material. Mayor McCheese had a human body and a large cheeseburger-shaped head, making the product connection immediately visible to viewers.
The character’s mayoral role gave McDonaldland a civic structure and helped make its fantasy world feel like a complete community. He appeared with Ronald McDonald, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and other figures in stories designed especially for children and families.
Mayor McCheese is sometimes confused with Officer Big Mac because both had official-sounding community roles and food-shaped heads. Their names and designs were different: Mayor McCheese had a cheeseburger head and was the town’s mayor, while Officer Big Mac was associated with law enforcement. The character was later discontinued, but remains an important part of McDonald’s early-1970s branding history.