Mcdonalds Playlands!!!

Remember when mcdonalds playland had a merry-go-round and a slide, and a hamburgler jail!!!!!!!!!! Man those were the days. Those playlands were like mini carnivals man. Do you know what kids play in these days???? Tubes that burn your knees and have been barfed in more times that you'd like to know and the most unsanitary ball pit that i'd rather have my child play in a port-a-jon than in one of those pits.

Kids piss all over those things. Bet no one ever pissed on the merry-go-round.

 

i remember when macdog's had REAL arches on both sides of the little booth like joints that they were then. this was before there was a ronald mac, or playlands or any of that, back when if you ordered a hamburger ANYWHERE you would get chainge back from your dollar. and i'm talking double chese, all the trimmings, a WHOLE dill pickle and you choice of a side of mac or potato salid or slaw or a bag of your choice of chips! when a bigger then big mac that was all real cow meat, with no 'texpro' (i.e. soy filler) at all what so ever. i don't think they'd invented that stuff yet either. was 55 cents! (and that INcluded the side and the pickle).

in those days franchise joints like macdogs, or mickey d's if you prefer, were considered crappier them mom and pop greasy spoons and generaly were.

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the playlands at my mcdonalds' always reaked of feet, so i always hesitated to go in. i feel like i missed out on a huge chunk of my childhood

 

Didn't they stop putting ball pits in when a kid got stabbed by an used needle with AIDS on it? I haven't been in a McDonalds in so long that I don't know for sure, but I thought they removed those.

 

oh you did

 

*raises hand* I did...haha...but they cleaned it up right after, whoever the adult with me was at that time made sure they did. But ohhhh, I thought I'd never find anyone else who remembered the merry-go-round! At yours, did they have a button on the wall that you just had to push and it would go? Oh, that playground was wonderful. I remember when most of the playplaces were outside, too, and your parents would have to go outside and feel the ground to make sure you weren't going to end up with second degree burns on your feet...oh boy. Haha. Or...were mine the only ones that did that? And the ball pit...oh I loved the ball pit. Especially on hot days because towards the bottom, it was always really cool cuz they had been hidden from the heat. I found so many toys in there...and a shoe!

 

When I was young, I actually had a birthday party at McDonalds I was only like 4 or 5!!!

I used to love the ball pools.

 

when i was young enough for mcdonalds playlands that, as mentioned previously, didn't exist yet, parks had amusement parks, any city worthy of the name had some kind of train ride in the park, not to mention trollys to ride there on.

of course i didn't live in cities so i had to ride there on a train too. on my dad's pass. which was good for me and or mom too. they'd go different places sometimes but there was always one of em with me. they didn't believe in sitters.

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There was a tiny amusement park for little kids in the city park in the town a few miles from here when I was growing up. I barely remember it, but I'm almost certain there was one. Granted, that may be my memories of carnivals and stuff getting confused, but I'm pretty sure there was a little area with a few rides when I was little...I'll have to ask my parents and see.

 

Do you remember the other Mcdonalds characters like mayor mccheese, grimace and hamburglar?

 

The grimace was cool.

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Fast food places had some class back in the 60s, much like the cars and music did back then. Each had a unique kind of design.

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think thats bk....

 

yup i remember the first jack in the boxes. their claim to faime was the first drive up fast food windows! and you could easily spot them because the whole building was shaped like a giant child's toy jack in the box complete with the big ugly face on the end of the giant cloth wrapped spring that it would pop out of the box when you turned the crank on real ones. i think some may even have had the giant crank on the side opposite the drive through!

i'm not sure i'd exactly call that 'class' though. but it certainly was unique.
macdonalds of course had its actual 'golden' arches as a ubiquotous and identifying arcitectual element.

these were more early 70s or at earliest LATE sixties.

i miss lil's,
NOT a franchise,
just a joint where everyone in town used to hang out for coffee, her husband fritzie's pies, and sandwedges. which was more typical of the late 50s/early 60s era. when railroads still ran passinger trains with their own color schemes, greyhound ran a bus almost every hour, with often four or more sections (bussess) on each scedule, and what made a city a city is that it had trolly cars.

hamburger's (w/ side AND WHOLE pickle) $.55
tuna " $.45
egg 'salad' " $.35
pie (slice fully 1/6 of a 13" pie) $.45
coffee $.10
rock ola juke box 3 plays for $.25

and you wouldn't believe the people who ate in there. hoboes and beatniks who could maybe just spare $.50 to splurge and eat someone else's cooking,
rubbing sholders with a former child actress who went on to become an ambassador, and a retired steamship company ceo who used to give us all rides, if we needed a lift somewhere, in his rolls!

not to mention all the lower middle income employees of infrastructure, (the railroad, the p.g.& e., the forrest service, and so on) like my dad, and their offspring, like me.

oh and there are a couple of people who are now local tribal elders who used to eat in there all the time too.

there wasn't a 'playland' but kids didn't act like they needed to be exiled to one either.

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The playland at the McDonald's in my town had the "old stuff" until I was probably seven...then they switched to all the plastic crap. The old one was outdoors too, which was cool...

 

They used to be called by their proper names back then, such as McDonalds and Burger King (not McD and BK).

Speaking of plastic, McDonalds got really goofy in the 90s by doubling the size of the styrofoam pack so that the hamburger stayed hot on one side and the tomato stayed cold on the other. They took a lot of heat for that one from the environmental groups. They got rid of all the styrofoam after that and went to paper.

Once in a while you'll see an old McDonald's of the style in the 60s but that has been converted to some other type of business. I saw one that was converted into a bank.

I don't know if any of the 60s style buildings are left. I saw a news clip many years ago of a group in some city that was trying to preserve the supposedly last 60s style McDonalds in the U.S. They were trying to keep it from being demolished by declaring it an historic landmark. I don't think they were successful.

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Some group has been taking old cabooses from trains (cabooses are getting rare now) and converting them into diners. That's an idea. There used to be a lot of those portable type diners that looked like a train car. Not sure what the proper name is for those. They've pretty much disappeared too.

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This one restaurant called Spaghetti Warehouse has an old train car inside their actual restaurant htat you can dine in...they also have converted beds into tables with the headboard and footboard as the backs of the booths. It's pretty neat.

 

My favorite thing was thoses trees, they had frech fries that would "grow" on them.

I don't think all of them had that though

 

Dont worry about it. the staff pissed over everything in those playgrounds