From unsettling clowns to disturbing animated characters, fast food restaurants have given us plenty of nightmare fuel over the years. Join us as we explore the most unsettling mascots that have represented popular restaurant chains. Warning: you might never look at your favorite fast food joint the same way again!
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00:00I'll get it.
00:02Nope, I'll get it.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the more unsettling mascots
00:09and fictional spokespeople for well-known fast food restaurants.
00:12Rest in flames, flat top cooked burgers.
00:21Number 10, Jackbox, Jack in the Box.
00:24Clowns are a popular mascot, despite having an entire phobia named after them.
00:28My sources tell me you've been calling Jack in the Box, junk in the box.
00:31So?
00:32I take these things personally, Brad.
00:34Get lost.
00:35Sure, just try my food, apologize, and I'll go.
00:37I said get it, clown!
00:38I wasn't punk!
00:39I've spent millions of dollars improving my kitchens to make our best burgers ever!
00:43The early incarnations of Jack in the Box's Jack I. Box appeared in the 1950s drive-thrus
00:48and on large restaurant signs.
00:50Considering the size of the Jack heads, they could appear quite harrowing.
00:54After being retired in the 80s, the late 90s brought Jack to life following an effort to change things up.
00:59Hot.
01:00Yes, we are.
01:01We won't make it till you order it.
01:03Our best ultimate cheeseburger ever, now at Jack in the Box.
01:06Ads soon featured the new CEO, who, despite having a male human body,
01:11had a giant white ball for a head that's often accessorized with a yellow clown cap.
01:16While that might not seem so bad, the ad campaign featured at least one commercial
01:20in which Jack threatened and physically attacked a man for criticizing his food,
01:24and then force-feeds him.
01:26You get to try my best burger ever, and all I want is your honest opinion.
01:31Tasty!
01:32Really? You're not just saying that because I'm kneeling on your spine?
01:34No, no, I shouldn't have dissed your food, man. I'm sorry, Jack.
01:41American kids will know this face well.
01:43Hi there. I just got an idea how to make Chuck E. Cheese's better than ever.
01:48Did you know, however, that the Chuck E. Cheese Mouse actually started out as a rat?
01:52This was way before Internet sensation Pizza Rat.
01:55The restaurant was founded in 1977 as a relatively new concept.
01:59Fast food, arcade, and family entertainment all in one.
02:09Who better to represent your dining establishment than a rodent reminiscent of a creepy uncle?
02:14The earliest incarnations of the OG Pizza Rat were by far the most unsettling,
02:19as he told jokes in a New Jersey accent while smoking a cigar.
02:22Fun fact, the original Chainz animatronic show featured a wall-mounted version of Chuck E. Cheese
02:27that could only move certain parts of his body.
02:29Not disturbing at all.
02:37Dairy Queen has been around since 1940.
02:39It was only in 2006, however, that they unleashed the Dairy Queen lips as its spokes...mouth?
02:50The ad campaign somehow lasted until 2011,
02:53despite the fact that there's little that's more terrifying than disembodied facial features.
02:58If you can't turn your mascot into a costume that can easily be worn by a human,
03:02then it probably isn't a very good mascot.
03:09A juicy single is just 99 cents.
03:13We have so many questions.
03:14What happened to the body that the mouth belongs to?
03:16How does it get to Dairy Queen to sample their ice cream?
03:20And where does the food go after it's eaten?
03:22Do the lips ever get to hang out with the Rolling Stones records logo?
03:34Arby's has been in business since 1964.
03:37In the early 2000s, the restaurant saw a decline in sales and needed to save itself from sinking lower.
03:52So, the Hatted Sandwich Shop spent $85 million to develop its new mascot with an ad agency.
03:58They came up with an oven mitt named Oven Mitt.
04:01Again, that's $85 million.
04:04The slightly off-looking mitt was featured in commercials and voiced by Tom Arnold.
04:21Sometimes, Mr. Mitt hangs on the wall giving pep talks to employees.
04:24Sometimes, he works out.
04:26And sometimes, he gets slapped around in high fives.
04:28The thing is, does anyone want to work with a Tom Arnold oven mitt lurking around?
04:33We'll take the Hamburger Helper Glove instead.
04:35At least Lefty is helpful.
04:48Showbiz Pizza was founded in 1980 and quickly became a Chuck E. Cheese competitor.
04:53You've never seen a place like Showbiz Pizza Place.
04:57We'll serve you a pizza.
05:00In fact, founder Robert L. Brock was attached to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater until ties were cut in the late 70s.
05:06Brock opened a similar establishment, complete with eerie animatronics.
05:10Cue Billy Bob Broccoli and the Rockafire Explosion,
05:13the animatronic band in charge of entertaining and or dispensing nightmare fuel to children.
05:19Appearing tonight on three stages at Showbiz Pizza Place, the Rockafire Explosion.
05:25Billy Bob was an oddly-shaped brown bear in tacky overalls.
05:29His bandmates included Looney Bird, a bird-like entity whose head and sometimes hands were the only thing visible,
05:35and Duke LaRue, a freaky-looking mutt.
05:38There was also Fats Geronimo, a potentially offensive gorilla based on Fats Domino and Ray Charles,
05:44and Mitzi Mozzarella, a stereotypical cheerleader mouse.
05:58Fast food places need to learn that it's actually horrifying when sentient food items promote eating themselves.
06:10It's even worse if they don't realize they're about to be eaten.
06:13In the mid-90s, Pizza Hut unveiled its Pizza Head Show ad campaign,
06:17commercials in which a seemingly infantile puppet-style show featured an unwilling pizza slice getting continuously injured or murdered.
06:24He's placed into situations in which villainous pizza cutter Steve appears unexpectedly too off him.
06:36The thing is, if Pizza Head were a jerk, it'd be easier to root for the slicer.
06:40But he's shown as a high-pitched, innocent bystander taken off-guard by ravenous consumers.
06:45And he always looks so happy at first too, with his little toppings-adorned face.
06:49R.I.P. Pizza Head. The 90s were a crazy time.
07:03In the 1980s, Domino's introduced the Noid to the airwaves.
07:11New Domino's Pan Pizza.
07:14He's described as a personification of the act of getting pizzas delivered in 30 minutes or less.
07:19Hence the bunny ears, extremely fitted clothing, and general demeanor of a man likely on performance-enhancing substances.
07:25He was initially a claymation creation, which can heighten the creep factor score.
07:30The Noid just can't be the best. Domino's Pizza. Nobody delivers better.
07:36Here's the worst part.
07:37In 1989, a man with mental health issues named Kenneth Lamar Noid held two Domino's employees hostage
07:43because he believed he was being targeted by the campaign, and that the restaurant's manager had stolen his identity.
07:49Fortunately, there were no injuries, and he eventually surrendered.
07:52Domino's eventually stopped using the Noid to advertise in the 90s,
07:56though the character has occasionally made cameos.
08:06Number 3. Ronald McDonald. McDonald's.
08:10Though Post Cereal introduced their clown-based mascot Krinkles before Ronald McDonald's 1963 debut,
08:16it's clear that the hamburger-happy clown is the more famous of the fictional costumed characters.
08:25Originally portrayed by Willard Scott, the McDonald's mascot first wore a bizarre costume made from disposable take-out containers,
08:32complete with a drink cup nose. It was kind of awful.
08:36Ronald looked like he'd gathered his adornments from a local dumpster.
08:40He eventually evolved into the white, yellow, and red guy we're all used to.
08:51Ultimately, though, he is a clown, and clowns can be creepy.
08:55Imagine Ronald in a dark parking lot, staring you down as you nervously make your way to your car.
09:01His friends are no better. There's the mysterious Purple Blob Grimace, the criminal hamburglar,
09:06the mayor with a cheeseburger for a head, and more.
09:16Number 2. Sponge Monkeys. Quiznos.
09:19In the early 2000s, Quiznos turned a weird internet video into an ad campaign.
09:31Enter the Sponge Monkeys, a pair of... well, we're still not 100% sure.
09:36They look like disheveled rodents with human teeth, and are not identified as any earthly creature.
09:41Creator Joel Veitch admitted that even he doesn't know what they are.
09:45If we were to hazard a guess, we'd go with repressed sleep paralysis demons.
09:50The little creatures love a Quiznos sub,
09:52but we imagine that their employees would throw the sandwiches at the misshapen vermin
09:56just to get them away from their franchises.
09:58The response to the ad campaign wasn't great, and the Sponge Monkeys were retired only a year later.
10:03But that does not mean they were forgotten.
10:05In fact, the fuzzy mascots made a slight comeback in 2023,
10:09as part of Quiznos' own comeback attempt.
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10:47Number 1.
10:48Freddy Fazbear – Freddy Fazbear's Pizza
10:50It was just a matter of time before the animatronics turned murderous, but we're actually focusing
10:54on real mascots, not ones meant to chill you to the bone.
11:04So let's pave the way for our real top creep.
11:07Number 1.
11:08Burger King – Burger King
11:10The Burger King started out as a friendly-looking cartoon king in the 1950s and went through
11:15a couple of cute iterations.
11:20The version dubbed the Creepy King by many was introduced in 2004 and stuck around until
11:252011.
11:26The character is essentially a man wearing a grinning face mask of the king that's
11:30too big for his head.
11:42While that's unsettling and kind of threatening on its own, the mascot also didn't talk,
11:47was kind of dead in the eyes and often showed up in random places, presenting people with
11:52food.
11:53Burger King CFO Josh Kobza claimed the removal of the king was largely due to his tendency
11:57to frighten people.
12:07Which mascot made its way into your nightmares?
12:09Let us know in the comments.
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