In May 2014, amid the stressful period of AP exams, final exams, and an annoying Spanish III Honors project, a bright light came into my life. Something that would offer a little relief during that strenuous time. While listening to the radio on the drive home with my dad, Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” started playing. As I was singing along, he told me I should look up Mac Tonight. After finding the 1980’s McDonald’s commercials in which he appeared, I immediately had to know everything about this character. But a little history first...
”Mack the Knife” tells the story of a criminal named Macheath who indulges in arson, robbery, rape, and murder. Based on the character and song from The Threepenny Opera, “Mack the Knife” was introduced to U.S. audiences by jazz legend Louis Armstrong in 1956, but made popular by Bobby Darin in 1959. Darin’s version hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, peaked at number six on the Black Singles chart, and earned the Grammy for Record of the Year. A true crossover hit, this song about a thieving, murdering rapist is clearly meant to bring everyone together. To this day, Darin’s rendition remains the definitive version.
Ella Fitzgerald recorded a live version in Berlin in 1960 where she forgot the lyrics after the first verse and improvised new ones while imitating Louis Armstrong. And guess what? She won a Grammy for this performance. As far as American achievements in Germany go, this is up there with Jesse Owens’ performance at the 1936 Olympics and the Allies winning both World Wars. That’s just a fact, and it’s clear that the song about the homicidal pyromaniac just guarantees meteoric success. And Mac Tonight is no exception.
The Mac Tonight marketing campaign began in 1986 for McDonald’s franchisees in Los Angeles, California in order to drum up business during dinner hours. Instead of putting celebrities in the commercials, the geniuses in the marketing department decided a borderline-creepy anthropomorphic crooner moon man would be the best option as to attract baby boomers. Can it get more American? Oh yes. They decided to have Mac Tonight playing the piano on top of a giant Big Mac. Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself.
Yeah, those goosebumps are real and don’t worry, they’ll only be there for about twenty minutes. Over the following year, the campaign expanded to other cities along the West Coast with some businesses experiencing a ten percent increase in dinnertime business. In September 1987, Mac Tonight went national. That’s right. In less than two years, Mac Tonight went from an L.A. focused campaign to appearing on televisions across the country, having his own Happy Meal toy, making America’s youth his bitch, and having parents believe it was a good decision to go to McDonald’s for dinner. This guy had the juice, plain and simple.
And who was under the moon head, you ask? Well none other than Doug Jones, frequent collaborator of Guillermo del Toro, who appeared in Academy Award-winning films such as Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water.
In order to heal this nation, we must bring back Mac Tonight because it combines two great ideas in American history: We can show universal affection for a song about a serial killing sex offender, no matter which rendition is performed, while simultaneously still finding dignity in stuffing our faces with some of the unhealthiest food known to man so that we may all die of heart attacks before the age of 40.
And if you disagree with that, then try to disagree with this;
You can’t.
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