Which McDonald’s character wears a striped shirt and is famous for stealing hamburgers?

The Hamburglar is the McDonald’s character famous for stealing hamburgers while wearing a striped outfit.

The character was introduced as part of McDonaldland, McDonald’s fictional advertising world. Early versions looked more like a small, mischievous adult thief, with exaggerated clothing and a distinctive speech style. Later redesigns made the Hamburglar shorter and more childlike, helping the character fit the family-oriented tone of the campaigns.

His role was simple and highly repeatable: he wanted hamburgers, especially McDonald’s hamburgers, and other characters tried to stop or catch him. That recurring conflict gave television commercials a recognizable story structure and made the character easy for children to identify.

The Hamburglar is sometimes confused with Grimace or Mayor McCheese, but those characters had different personalities and designs. McDonald’s gradually reduced the character’s prominence as its advertising moved away from the large McDonaldland cast.