The Big Mac Song (1975)

The words “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun” are ingrained in my head forever! I’d bet it might be for you too? In the commercial below, we see folks struggling with the now more than famous slogan for the classic McDonald’s Big Mac. I remember this commercial as if it just aired yesterday! It’s a fun one, and we’d recite the lyrics often when I was a small lad back in elementary school. A challenging phrase to nail to be sure!

Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.

A few facts about the Big Mac song:

• Many franchises in the United States ran promotions during the original campaign that awarded a free burger to customers who could recite the slogan within a specified time (usually two or three seconds).

• It was so successful that the McDonald’s operators in New York City ran out of Big Mac buns.

• McDonald’s Australia emulated this promotion in the mid-1980s, and some Brazilian McDonald’s around the same time offered a free Coca-Cola instead of the sandwich, which is a lot cheaper.

The Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun concept for the jingle was created by Keith Reinhard, Chairman Emeritus of DDB Worldwide, and his creative group at Needham Harper and Steers.

Originally, the ingredients appeared as a one-word heading for a McDonald’s ad developed for college newspapers. The words were then set to music created by Mark Vieha, who performed the original jingle.

The first run of commercials ran only a year and a half, going off the air in 1976, but its popularity remained beyond its TV life. After the jingle, McDonald’s followed up with a promotion based on its customers spontaneously having a “Big Mac Attack.”