The McGreat Escape

McDonaldland: to some, a beacon shining from the rocky shores of a forgotten country. A country built on the backs of men like Ronald McDonald and whatever Grimace is. A country built on a foundation of dreams and hope, where hard work is rewarded with meat and drink and playtime. But to others, McDonaldland inhabits a much darker recess of the great halls of memory. To a silent many, McDonaldland is a psychedelic deadfall for the imagination and, to a brave few, a literal prison for mind and body.

My name is Brandon Reilly and I was once stuck inside the giant burger head of Mayor McCheese for an entire afternoon in 1984. This is my story.

It was a beautiful day in the suburbs outside of Pittsburgh. The big orange sun was drying the previous evening’s rain. A pleasant petrichor rose from the steamy sidewalks on which my tricycle tires came rolling to a stop in front of the apartment in which my mother and I lived. Belly rumblin’. Nuggies needed.

Nuggies is what I called Chicken McNuggets at the time. I was four. Suck it.

“Lunch time!” my mother called out, as if hearing my insides rumble, restless as a manor-less meerkat. “What would you like to eat this afternoon?” My mother knew damn well what I wanted.

“Nuggies.” I folded my arms and gave her my best you-MUST-be-joking face.

“Chicken nuggets it is!”

“Nuggies…” I corrected.

After a short car ride in which I was forced to repeatedly turn down the Carly Simon cassette my mother used, I believe, to ruin my childhood (maybe it wasn’t about me), we made it to our destination. The McDonald’s closest to our apartment was packed with a hapless band of regulars: Itchy Black Guy in a Dirty White Tank Top Who Won’t Sit Down, Extraordinarily Fat Family Shamefully Giving In, Nervous Asian, Emo Teen with Ironic Happy Meal.

The line to order was long, so I was relieved of my station and ran to the barbed metal hellscape of McDonaldland. For some of the younger readers out there I should take this moment to explain that prior to 1992 everything intended for use by a child was painstakingly manufactured with the sole purpose of maiming or otherwise causing severe physical or emotional trauma. Kids in the ‘80s were women in the ‘50s were 19th century blacks were 18th century Native Americans. Kinda.

I scrambled past the Fry Guys, Ronald, the Early Bird, and Hamburglar. I had my eye on the H.N.I.C. – Mayor McCheese.

Mayor McCheese was an enormous cheeseburger who appeared from 1971–1985 in the mythical McDonaldland Universe; he sports a top hat, a diplomat's sash, and a pair of pince-nez spectacles. In McDonaldland he lorded over all, a giant metal humanoid with a hollow tube for a torso leading to a large cheeseburger head with actual steel prison bars for teeth.

Prior to that day, I had been afraid of the rusting monstrosity, but, no, not this day, I thought. I was four, becoming a man; I had to face my fears. I carefully made my way up the ladder, through the tube, and into the hollowed out head.

My fears were unfounded. It was surprisingly comfortable, and soon I was dangling my arms between the bars, calling out and waving to the people going in and out of the restaurant. Just as I was beginning to get comfortable, my mother called from the restaurant’s door. Lunch was ready. I turned to climb down the ladder when I was immediately, irrationally paralyzed with fear. The fall was thirty-five feet if it was a foot. Death was upon me, and at such a tender age. I would never ride a dinosaur, I thought, never stab a guy, never meet the California Raisins. I was too young to die. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to climb down the ladder.

I called to my mother. She ran to the mayor and buried her hand shoulder-deep into his torso. A relatively large woman, she was unable to fetch me from my Golden Arches Gulag. I wept with embarrassing girl-like sobs and generally freaked out.

This went on for some time. My mother pleading for me to climb down, telling me there was nothing to fear. Foolish woman, I thought, if I climb down now there will certainly be lava. Coming to her senses, my mother ran into the McDonald’s, fetched the unassuming middle aged Asian man, and returned with him, directing him to where I was being held. He quickly maneuvered his body into the Honorable McCheese and plucked me from my fast-food fortress.

No worse for wear, I ran off to eat my cold nuggies.

The moral of the story? Well, it’s more of a really, really specific parenting tip: out of the hapless band of regulars at your local McDonald’s, Nervous Asian is always your safest decision when looking for help getting your kid out of a big hamburger head. Probably because the Asians are generally very small.

The former mayor was banished from McDonaldland in the late fall of 1985. He lives in Palm Springs with his wife, the Early Bird, and their two adopted Fry Guys. Mr. McCheese plans on running for Comptroller of the Carl’s Jr. on Palm Canyon Drive.