Ronald McDonald

Ronald McDonald

You’ve got to hand it to McDonald’s marketing team when it comes to mascots whose image we’ll never get out of our heads, ever (we’re looking at you, Grimace).

In May, the fast-food giant debuted a fresh face to lure children into eating “healthy” menu items: a Happy Meal box sporting a big, toothy smile. Still, nobody beats the original. Ronald McDonald’s red hair and perfectly painted face have long been synonymous with the fast-food industry—so much so that when artist Banksy wanted to make a statement about deplorable fast-food labor practices, he sculpted the mascot, installed it in New York City, and had an actor in tattered clothes buff its clown shoes.

Here’s another fun fact: Willard Scott, who first played Ronald McDonald in an ad for the Washington, D.C., market in 1963, was dropped from the initial national spots because he was too pudgy to play an “extremely active” Ronald.

(Photo: McDonald's/Facebook)

The Burger King

The Burger King

What ever happened to the King? “Call it the Whole Foods effect,” Ron Paul, a food industry consultant, told USA Today. Turns out America’s No. 2 burger chain let go of its royal mascot in 2011 to switch the marketing strategy: less teen, more mom-friendly. The company changed gears by launching a commercial for the California Whopper, starring avocados, tomatoes, and lettuce. The change came as U.S. childhood obesity statistics were pushing the fast-food industry to rethink its cartoonish mascots. Perhaps cereal companies should follow suit?

(Photo: Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

Colonel Sanders

Colonel Sanders

Unlike Ronald McDonald, Burger King, and other characters dreamed up by marketing executives, Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken was a real person. After being forced out of his restaurant at 65 years old, he sold the rights to the secret recipe for his pressure-cooker fried chicken, which was flavored with 11 herbs and spices. A liquor-and-food conglomerate bought Sanders’ franchise, and he stayed on as a brand ambassador, sporting a white suit and traveling around in a Cadillac. Though he earned $70,000 a year, the Colonel wasn’t happy.

“I’m not too proud of having my name associated with some of my restaurants,” Sanders told The Milwaukee Journal in 1975. “Drive out of any town now and everyone is selling his piece of chicken or hamburger up and down the highway. You can’t get a decent meal anymore.”

Outraged by how his recipes were reduced to third-rate imitations, Sanders opened a restaurant fashioned after a family dining room. He then began a campaign against KFC and was reportedly paid $1 million to keep quiet. In his book Colonel Sanders and the American Dream, Josh Ozersky wrote that Sanders didn’t stop speaking out against KFC. He thinks the chain’s “original recipe” most likely isn’t the one concocted by the Colonel.

(Photo: Kroop/Flickr)

The Noid

The Noid

Remember the Noid? Yeah, neither do we. The forgotten Domino’s Pizza mascot had a brief run in the 1980s. The Noid—a play on the word “annoyed”—was created to promote the company’s “30 minutes or less” delivery promise. The character starred in a series of spots in which it manifested what could stop customers from enjoying their pizza. (Want to avoid the Noid? Order from Domino’s!)

In 1989, however, the campaign took a tragic turn. An armed 22-year-old man named Kenneth Lamar Noid, troubled by the chain’s mascot, held two workers hostage at an Atlanta Domino’s location. The employees got away, and Noid was sent to the Georgia Mental Health Institute. Police told the Boca Raton News that the suspect thought the ads were aimed at him. Noid stayed at the institute for only three months. (It seems that when it comes to mental illness, our justice system hasn’t progressed that much.) “Unable to shake the idea that the Domino’s ad campaign had intentionally targeted him,” as Zachary Crockett wrote for Priceonomics, Noid took his own life in 1995.

(Photo: Domino's/Facebook)

Taco Bell Chihuahua

Taco Bell Chihuahua

Everybody loved seeing Taco Bell’s resident pooch in the commercials that aired from 1997 to 2000. The problem was, people didn’t want Taco Bell’s menu items. Though in 1998 customers snatched up 13 million plush toys modeled after the four-legged figure, the chain’s food sales dropped low enough that Taco Bell hired a new president and advertising agency. Just like Burger King, Taco Bell jettisoned its mascot and started focusing on its menu in ads instead. No commercials featuring slo-mo shots of flying lettuce here: The chain started capitalizing on the food mash-up trend, and with the Doritos Locos Tacos hitting it big in 2012, continues to do so (waffle taco, anyone?).

(Photo: Chris Weeks/Getty Images)

Starbucks Siren

Starbucks Siren

The origin story of Starbucks’ muse remains contentious. The coffee purveyor’s official party line is that the logo is based on a “16th-century Norse woodcut of a twin-tailed mermaid,” but a Yale medieval studies student begs to differ. Turns out, there's no such thing as a 16th-century Norse woodcut. “[It] makes about as much sense as a Pictish steam engine, a Carthaginian novel, or a 19th-century Roman illuminated manuscript,” Carl Pyrdum wrote on Got Medieval. According to Mental Floss, anti-Semitic groups have argued that the lady in question is the biblical Queen Esther, supposed evidence that the company backs Zionist plots.

Either way, over the past four decades the logo has undergone various adjustments. No more exposed breasts and widely spread split tail. Also, is it just us, or has the siren been looking much younger lately? Apparently, real live women aren’t the only ones subjected to ridiculous body standards.

(Photo: Carlos Hernandez/Flickr)