Discontinued | show | 2018 | Official Clip - video Dailymotion

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Broadcasting from the safety of his bunker in the year 2037, host Bruce Campbell revisits humanity’s greatest pop cult | dHNfcWVuTnRDMGZiLTQ

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00:00We're starting today with a name known the world over who has served billions.

00:04I'm talking about McDonald's. Mickey D's, the Golden Arches.

00:08McDonald's introduced the Arch Deluxe to the world,

00:11targeted to mature adults, which honestly sounded weirdly erotic.

00:17Welcome to McDonald's after dark.

00:21Let's drive right through this story.

00:25Hi, I'm Andre from Discontinued, and I'm heading out to the streets of Los Angeles,

00:29hoping to find people who can remember the fabled Arch Deluxe.

00:33Have you ever heard of McDonald's Arch Deluxe?

00:38No.

00:39No, I never have. I think it has spider earth worms.

00:43What?

00:44She seemed to be an unreliable source.

00:46That is a happy meal, I guess.

00:48So we headed back to the Nostalgia Connoisseurs to find out what is

00:52McDonald's Arch Deluxe, the country's favorite new burger.

00:55And not just because of the hat.

00:57What is an Arch Deluxe? It just sounds like coronary artery disease.

01:05See, this is a grown person's burger right here.

01:08The Arch Deluxe was like the little kid wearing their parents' clothing.

01:12You know, like when that kid just want to be like,

01:14I'm a grown up too. And you just see like the daughter just with the makeup all over the face.

01:19It was a kid's meal for adults.

01:21Odd choice for the fast food restaurant that introduced the world to Ronald and

01:25whatever fresh nightmare these guys came from.

01:30A lot of times that's a kid's first word.

01:32And what we having for dinner? McDonald's.

01:34That was grounds for celebration. My shirt was off.

01:36I'm doing cartwheels in the backyard,

01:38even though we didn't have a backyard. It was like a parking lot.

01:40Ronald and these guys peddled McDonald's burgers and

01:44happy meals quite successfully for over 20 years.

01:47Until Burger King and Wendy's came around to butt in on the market share in the late 80s.

01:55So in the early 90s, McDonald's got all the focus groups and they did all the market research

01:59and they found out that everybody thought that McDonald's was a kid restaurant.

02:02When they're like, no, we're not.

02:04So Ronald McDonald exchanged a wig.

02:05What would I do?

02:08For a hat.

02:09So they hired a chef.

02:11McDonald's executive chef.

02:12I remember they would say like, was created by the head chef of McDonald's,

02:15who is not the head chef at any McDonald's. I'm positive.

02:20He wasn't exactly Gordon Ramsay, but you know, they put him in every single commercial.

02:24It's right up your alley.

02:26Real chef or not, McDonald's took over a year to come up with this new burger.

02:30They had special sauce. They even threw bacon on it.

02:33Like this sandwich was fully equipped.

02:36It was essentially in like a burger briefcase.

02:40I remember like my dad ordering them and it would like rip through the bag

02:44and it was like a big burger, but that felt excessive.

02:48So in order to appeal to adults, McDonald's had to think outside the box.

02:52A box so big, it ripped open the bag.

02:54The bag of money they were about to drop on this marketing campaign.

02:58Come on, dad.

02:59So they spent $200 million to advertise this thing,

03:02which is like one of the biggest ad campaigns for this thing that nobody really wanted.

03:07$200 million is small potatoes because McDonald's projected

03:11the Arch Deluxe to pull in $1 billion their first year.

03:17The marketing team took a hard left turn from McDonaldland and into adulthood.

03:23The slogan for the Arch Deluxe was the burger with the grown-up taste.

03:27So they were doing these commercials. It's like Ronald McDonald in a business suit.

03:30That's like uncomfortable. Like clowns are creepy enough as is.

03:34Then when you like dress them up like they're going to a job interview, it's even scarier.

03:38Because they were like kids at this point.

03:40A lot of adults don't want them to do McDonald's if they don't have the kids.

03:43So you got to have the kids in there, man.

03:45Okay, so they brought the kids back into the commercials, but even those were a bit...

03:54You're telling me if I eat anything from McDonald's, I'm going to end up growing up?

03:57I don't want to grow up.

03:59It might have failed even before it began. Might have been too fancy for old McDonald's.

04:04The Arch Deluxe campaign confused everyone.

04:07Nice hat.

04:08It alienated their target audience and failed to bring in a new one.

04:12After five years...

04:13Sales just kept declining until 2000, they gave up. And that's it. They pulled it.

04:19And I don't think anybody noticed.

04:21I didn't even know the Arch Deluxe was discontinued.

04:24I thought it was like the McRib and it was going to come back. It just never came back.

04:28All in all, the Arch Deluxe went down as the most expensive failed campaign in McDonald's history.

04:35For a burger nobody seemed to want or like.

04:38Wait a minute. No one liked the Arch Deluxe? Oh.

04:42Okay, maybe some people liked it.

04:45I also liked it.

Discontinued | show | 2018 | Official Clip

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