Top 10 Creepiest Fast Food Mascots Ever
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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 said 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.
01:05Now 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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10:46Number 1 – Freddy Fazbear – Freddy Fazbear's Pizza
10:50It was just a matter of time before the animatronics turned murderous,
10:53but we're actually focusing on 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 – Burger King – Burger King
11:10The Burger King started out as a friendly-looking cartoon king in the 1950s,
11:14and went through a couple of cute iterations.
11:20The version dubbed the Creepy King by many was introduced in 2004 and stuck around until 2011.
11:26The character is essentially a man wearing a grinning face mask of the king that's too big
11:30for his head. While that's unsettling and kind of threatening on its own, the mascot also didn't
11:46talk, was kind of dead in the eyes, and often showed up in random places, presenting people
11:51with food. Burger King CFO Josh Kobza claimed the removal of the king was largely due to his
11:57tendency to frighten people. Which mascot made its way into your nightmares? Let us know in the
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