Written by Jonathan Klotz | Published
After success ET ExtraterrestrialHollywood rushed to repeat its success and filled the 1980s with family-friendly alien adventures, some more successful than others, but none as notorious as the disastrous ones. Mac and me. Not only was the plot a direct rip-off of the Steven Spielberg classic, but the product placement was so obnoxious and in your face that an entire scene at a McDonald’s involved Ronald McDonald.
The McDonald’s scene isn’t the worst product placement in the movie. It is considered one of the worst films of all time, and it is impossible to sit down and enjoy it Mac and me Without doing it sarcastically.
A knockout blow to science fiction
plot Mac and me It looks like someone took a novel at I changed some words thinking no one would notice. Mac, who stands for a mysterious alien and only coincidentally reminds you of McDonald’s Big Mac, arrives in Los Angeles, befriends a young boy, is pursued by the FBI, and ends up using his strange powers to perform a miracle of healing. What makes it different is that Mac’s family is on the ground with him and of course the scandalous product placement.
ET Extraterrestrial It made Reese’s Pieces famous, and every other company in the country wanted the same kind of boost for their brands, which is why McDonald’s was featured prominently, including a five-minute dance sequence, which led to Ronald McDonald being nominated for a Razzie Award. However, the worst product placement is not fast food, but Coca-Cola. When the Mac family is finally found, they are dehydrated and are refreshed by the wonderful, refreshing flavor of cola.
While promoting his documentary Wonderful gifts pom: The greatest movie ever soldMorgan Spurlock noted Mac and me As “the worst thing you can do in your life, and my dear friends paid for it at McDonald’s” in an interview with Yahoo! films. At the time, critics, including Gene Siskel, panned the film for product placement and also for being a blatant fraud, which helps explain its impressive Rotten Tomatoes score of zero percent.
Paul Rudd’s favorite movie
But for a generation Mac and me More famous is the clip of a child in a wheelchair descending and falling into the water, thanks to Paul Rudd. Every time Conan O’Brien interviews Rudd, including on the podcast, he shows the same clip every time.
What most people don’t know, or have forgotten because their brains are trying to protect them from remembering the movie, is that baby Eric was killed by a stray bullet. Even in the 1980s, a decade of excess and excess, showing a child being photographed in a family film was considered too much, so the moment was cut, and instead, it simply died off-screen.
Don’t worry, though; It gets better.
Mac and me It now stands the test of time as an argument that not every director is a visionary, and not every film is a work of art. Some, although an argument could be made that this is true of most films, view them as simply soulless cash-in rip-offs to make money.
Product placement still persists today, but one of the worst I’ve ever seen involved McDonald’s competitor, Burger King, which Men in Black II He has a functioning restaurant inside the organization’s top-secret headquarters. At least when Vin Diesel talks about family while holding a Corona or an Allspark transformers He turns the Xbox into a killing machine, and they have a connection to the plot… sort of.
If you haven’t watched Mac and Me before and want to laugh with your friends or punish them, you can stream it for free on Toby, Pluto TVand Amazon Free.