Still from commercial via McDonald's

Why can't McDonald's in America be as awesome as it is overseas? From teaming up with the Italian government to use local products for its McItaly burger, to a complete ban of beef and pork products from its menu in India, McDonald's is surprisingly sensitive when it comes to infiltrating and usurping the culinary identities of myriad cultures of the world. Plus some of the stuff they come up with in the process sounds like I want it in my mouth.

So it's no surprise to hear that McDonald's has created the "Swiss Weeks" campaign in Switzerland, a country that incorporates three different cultures — Italian, French and German. Not only is McDonald's creating a different burger for each of the three different cultural regions — the McBärn, McRomandie and McTicino — but it's also producing commercials for each burger in the language of its region (all three commercials can be seen here). Each burger utilizes local brands and ingredients exclusive to the region, such as Emmi Kaltbach-brand Emmentaler cheese and a hashbrown patty for its German-inflected McBärn burger, pictured above.

—Rachael Oehring

Photograph: Ads of the World

The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest has analyzed 128 food and entertainment companies on how they market to children, and most came up way short. Though McDonald's only scored a C-, it did better than most companies in the study. Mars Inc. came out on top with a B+, mostly because of its policy of not advertising directly to children under the age of 12.

Despite these low marks, we can't help but think about those halcyon days of children's marketing, when Saturday-morning cartoons were packed to the gills with seizure-inducing commercials for toys and horrific-looking foods that we were supposed to beg our moms for. Surely there's been some improvement since then? Hit the jump to see a few of our favorites.

The Videos »

Photograph via Eating the Road

From Eating the Road comes the The Big McSausage Egg Surf & Turf Mac sandwich composed of a Big Mac, Filet o Fish patty, McChicken patty, McMuffin egg & sausage patty that clocks in at $7.71 and 1,730 calories. The tricky part (we love this) is that since the sandwich combines breakfast and lunch items, timing is key: "You must be there precisely at 10:30 AM just as they’re winding the signs over to lunch." It's part of their "Will They Build It" series — a previous entry included the Taco Bell Nacho Cheesy Blackjack Volcano Gordita Crunch.

As if the visuals weren't creepy enough, the voiceover on this McDonald's McRib commercial from 1989 says: "A big slice of pork in a sassy sauce, tempting huh? Like a barbecue in a bun without the bones. And with a big icy Coke, well, you're only human, huh daddy? CHOMP."

We're doing a caption contest on this one: Best caption (our pick) gets you a copy of Michael Symon's Cook to Live, with or without the dustjacket.

The video »

"Breakfast Burrito" is an ad that turned the Edmonton Sun into a McDonald's breakfast burrito — wrapper and all — with an “egg, sausage and cheese front page domination." By Cossette Toronto, which won the Best of Show award at the Canadian Newspaper Association’s 2009 Extra Awards. Couldn't tell if this was just a concept or actually executed.

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Alright. Enter the British comedian/musician Chris Cohen, who alters the McDonald's commercial with a different audio track, described as "the real life version," that's maybe a little critical of its customers (calling them "greedy tw*t bankers, posh city nobs, deranged psycho hags, scraffy young sh*ts," among many others). And it's almost a trend! Cohen's version is the second parody of the commercial we could find — the first was by TheTwistedOmentum. Language, of course, is mildly NSFW:

The original plus the parodies »

The recipe + the video »

McDonald's in Portugal is such a big fan of Fancy Fast Food — the blog that takes basic items from fast food restaurants and styles them to look like haute cuisine — that they're totally ripping it off in a nationwide contest, "Desafio Gourmet," or "Gourmet Challenge."

Update: Erik R. Trinidad, the creator of FancyFastFood.com, gave us a statement:

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In the segment "Tip of the Hat / Wag of the Finger" Stephen Colbert tipped his hat to the Louvre for embracing American culture and installing a McDonald's:

McDonald's will fit perfectly with the French culture, because after all, what is a French mime but a mute, humorless Ronald McDonald? And if that's not enough to convince the French, we'll offer their kids the "Ennui Meal"... Think of all the new visitors they'll get with masterworks like the Grimace de Milo or the McLisa.

The video »

Photo composite: Eat Me Daily

Sacrebleu! A McDonald's restaurant and McCafé are going to open in the Louvre museum next month (more specifically in the underground approach to the Louvre, known as the Carrousel du Louvre). The plans are for a "quality" McCafé and a McDonald's restaurant, likely the fancy kind that serve macarons. An art historian working at the museum told The Telegraph: "This is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum."

OK, we issue a challenge: the first person to send in a photograph of themselves, with a Big Mac (or a Royale with cheese or whatever they call it these days) and fries, in front of the Mona Lisa, we'll PayPal you $30. Update: David Lebovitz makes the argument that nobody wants dollars anymore, so we'll sweeten the deal and make it €30 (which is ~$44 US).

Photos via adsoftheworld.com

Out of France come these ads for McDonalds' McCafe's macarons by TBWA, Paris, France in which they look just like mini-burgers. Sort of a reminder to the public, saying, "Hey, even if you're not a fan of the burgers, you could always stop in for a pretty good macaron." But before everyone goes "yuck!," apparently the macarons from McDonalds are not entirely bad. In Michael Steinberger's Au Revoir to All That (buy at Amazon) — see the related excerpt on Slate — he finds out that McDonalds gets their macarons "from Holder, the company that owns Ladurée," the renowned luxury cakes and pastries brand based in Paris that's famous for their macarons.

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You know what zey call a Royale with cheese in America? Zey've got the imperial system of measurement over there, zey do not know what a royale is. Zey call it a Quarterpounder with cheese!

The video + the original + an video interview with the creator »

McDonald's is running an ad campaign in Japan that uses Mr. James, a bumbling white guy who speaks broken katakana (i.e. accented) Japanese. Basically a gaijin, a derogatory term for a foreigner in Japan, he's even got his own blog while he tours McDonald's locations across Japan. People are upset because he's perpetuating racist stereotypes, and comparisons to Stepin Fetchit being made. Even stern letters are being written to McDonald's by FRANCA, a human rights group concerned with the rights of non-Japanese residents in Japan.

Here are a couple of commercials we dug up:

The videos »

The owner of the McDonald's at 541 6th Ave (between 14th and 15th Street) in Manhattan is keeping the location open while it undergoes a much-needed renovation. Subjecting customers to the indignity of a construction site, there's exposed drywall, missing dropped-ceiling tiles, a random application of blue tape, and worst of all, fold-out metal chairs and tables made fancy with disposable plastic tablecloths, below a huge sign announcing "Pardon Our Appearance During Remodeling."

This specific McDonald's always had a tired-but-vintage early 90s charm, in that almost futuristic formica-meets-vinyl-meets-Zubaz-leopard-print kind of way (see photos below). According to renderings of the coming improvements hanging on a wall, it's going to be replaced with one of those future-thinking McDonald's that'll include a glass front, communal seating, subdued lighting, columns with writing in French, and knockoff Arne Jacobsen chairs.

Now, the owner might argue that profit margins are slim, that rents are high, that you can't close down, but this is just pushing the limits of decency and sanitation. Some might use the term "fucked up." It would have been better to shut the place down and get the renovation over with, especially before the department of health steps in. On with the show:

More photos »

Photo via fox23news.com

Yesterday at a McDonald's in Albany, NY, PETA terrified children by handing out "Unhappy Meals." Inside the box: a bloodied rubber chicken, a packet of ketchup blood, a "McCruelty" t-shirt wrapped up in a blood-splattered chicken sandwich box, and a cardboard cutout of a knife-wielding Ronald McDonald.

One of the customers who brought her son to McDonald's for lunch said, "I don't want my son to be around something like this. This is not fair for a child," reported Fox 23 News.

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Ron English made these X-ray portly Ronald McDonald collectible toys as a follow-up to the sculptures recently displayed in Milan. Out of stock for the moment, they were on sale at the Japanese online retailer Zozotown for ¥8,400 (~$88). The semi-translucent shell comes off to reveal a glow-in-the-dark skeleton:

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This video of a Big Mac, fries, and soda, starts out like food porn — sumptuous photography, shallow depth of field, etc. — but like in the Matrix, the simulation starts to break down, revealing that the fast food is entirely digitally rendered.

It was easier to make the video using computers than shooting it live. Bruce Branit, of Branit|vfx, wrote: "We used photo modeling techniques from a real photograph of a Big Mac and the the fries. The fry box, Dr. Pepper, ice, bubbles, smoke, straw, environment, etc are all entirely CGI. The real reason to do this spot as CGI was to be able to choreograph the camera move in limited time and budget."

The video »

Photo via thedongallery.blogspot.com

Portly Ronald McDonald sculptures by Ron English at The Don Gallery, Milan Italy. See more photos of the show at The Don Gallery's blog.

Up close and personal »

Photograph: Getty Images via gossipgirls.com

Heidi Klum at a promotional event for McDonald's new upscale Snack Deluxe hamburgers on May 25, 2009 in Munich, Germany.