9. The McDonalds Effect
Global fast food chain brand MacDonald’s cashed in on the Bat-craze in 1992, but were left somewhat devastated when Tim Burton’s sequel to his dark but still family entertainment original, had been turned into a horror film with ultra bleak and mature themes, with disturbing violence and overtly sexual references that turned off parents from taking their kids to see it or have any association with its merchandise.
Two decades ago, these French fries holders were used to advertise the blockbuster with the iconic bat logo printed on the packaging but many were likely chucked away when MacDonalds had trouble selling tie-in merchandise and shut down production on their Batman Returns themed happy meals. This parental and advertisers backlash ultimately led to the end of Tim Burton’s association with the Batman universe.
Who would have thought this is now seen as vintage memorabilia?
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8 Comments
The best Batman face ever came from this film: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maoi84c2Ny1retlxso1_250.jpg
Good memories.
*giggles*
I used to have a book about this movie when I was a kid, with tons of concept art, behind the scenes photos and the like. It’s actually one of the books I credit towards my interest in movies and how they are made. Great article!
Also, do you embed YouTube vids by just copying the embed code from YouTube? I tried that for an article and it didn’t seem to work. :/
Hi Drew
You can either copy the link URL in the main body of a post or you can paste the enbedded code into the HTML. The embeded code nt he main body wont work.
Ed
Thanks Ed!
PLEASE get rid of those annoyingly loud auto-play ads.
Hi Mark,
There shouldn’t be any auto-play ads? Could you drop me an email peter@whatculture.com with a description of the ad next time one pops up so I can follow up with our ad team.
Peter