McDonald's

McDonald's is a popular fast-food restaurant company seen often with the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The logo is a yellow or golden M. It was founded in the United States in 1940, created by Roy McDonald and Richard McDonald, and was later transformed into a corporation by Ray Kroc.



Yuji Naka's plug
In a Sega.com interview with Sonic's creator Yuji Naka, he mentions that McDonald's is a place that Sonic and his friends like to eat at.

"When Sonic and his friends sit down to eat after a long hard day of chasing Dr. Eggman, what do they like to eat?"

- SEGA.com

"They probably eat McDonald's® hamburgers, I suppose? And I think they will get a complete line-up of Happy Meal® premiums."

- Yuji Naka

Toys
Sonic the Hedgehog 3

In 1994, McDonald's promoted the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive by giving away Sonic the Hedgehog toys in their Happy Meals. Four characters were produced: Sonic, Knuckles, Tails and Dr. Robotnik. These were released in the U.S. and in the U.K. Despite being a Sonic 3 promotion, Dr. Robotnik is designed to look like he does in the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon series (although the stock art on the bag for the toy depicts him as he looks in the games). For children under the age of 3, they had an alternative toy which was a yellow ball with a picture of either Sonic or Tails on it, with the classic "Sonic the Hedgehog Logo". Due to this toy not being advertised, aimed towards 2-year-olds and parents having to specifically ask for it while ordering their food, this Sonic Ball is extremely rare.

Also in 1994, during the promotion, there was a sweepstakes where up to 10,000 participants could win a free copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.

Happy Train

Also in 1994, McDonald's had a Happy Meal anniversary train, which consisted of 15 separate toys from different Happy Meal themes from the past ten years. All the toys were able to connect to one another to create a train. One of these Toys was Sonic themed. It was a pink and purple TV with a Sega Genesis on the top. When the wheels on the toy roll, the picture on the TV switches between a picture of Sonic wearing a party hat, Tails wearing a party hat, and then Dr. Robotnik running and yelling (Dr. Robotnik is once again designed to look like his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog appearance).

Handheld LCD Games
In May 2003, for the US release of Sonic X and Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut for the GameCube, McDonald's released a set of handheld games made by Sega:
 * Sonic Speedway
 * Sonic Action Game
 * Knuckles Soccer
 * Tails Skypatrol
 * Shadow Grinder
 * Aiai Banana Catch

Another set was released in 2004 after the launch of Sonic Heroes featuring every playable character but the Chaotix, as well as Billy Hatcher from Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (also made by Sega/Sonic Team). These games had different names and designs depending on the region they were released in. The games featured Sonic Heroes character artwork. Some regions did not receive these items until 2005.


 * Sonic the Hedgehog Extreme Boarding/Sonic Skateboard
 * Knuckles Treasure Hunt
 * Knuckles Baseball
 * Tails Sky Adventure
 * Tails Soccer
 * Amy and Rouge Tennis
 * Shadow Hockey
 * Shadow Hockey (chrome silver case)
 * Shadow Basketball
 * Cream Flower Catch
 * Big's Fishing
 * Billy's Giant Egg

Sonic X
A while after Sonic X appeared on US shores, McDonald's gave out toys (that look like the only official Japanese toys for the show with few exceptions) for the series in their children's meals (Happy Meal and Mighty Kids Meal). The Japanese Series 2 also shows Chris and Frances working at a WacDonalds, a famous anime parody of McDonald's.

In the UK and Australia, McDonald's released a set of Sonic X disk launchers: one with Sonic, one with Tails, one with Knuckles and one with Shadow on the launchers and the disks themselves.

Fighting Tops
In 2006, McDonald's of France released fighting top toys of Sonic and Shadow.

McDonald's Sonic Spinner Collection
In 2007, McDonald's released a collection of Sonic spinning toys in Europe.

Commercials
Being internationally popular, the Sonic McDonald's promotions appeared all over the world. Many different countries produced different kinds of commercials to advertise the Sonic giveaway toys.

Trivia

 * Sonic appeared alongside Ronald McDonald and Barbie in a Happy Meal commercial for the Happy Train. In this commercial, Sonic spoke with an extremely high voice and did not move his mouth.
 * There have also been Sonic Kids' Meal toys released at other fast food restaurants such as Jack in the Box, Carl's Jr. and Burger King.
 * In 1993, Sega published a McDonald's video game developed by Treasure and released only on the Genesis called McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, which is another sign of Sega's long relationship with McDonald's restaurants.
 * In Asian countries such as Pakistan, India and China, McDonald's gave away Sonic X spinning tops, school kits and card shooters.
 * In 2006, Sonic and Cream the Rabbit appeared in a McDonald's commerical, which only aired in France.
 * In 2004, McDonald's Pakistan released a low-budget commercial to advertise new Sonic toys promoting Sonic Heroes. The commercial has become infamous for its cheap character models (notably Rouge the Bat), questionable voice-over, and strange computer-generated animation even going as far as to misspell "games line" as "gamesime" and other things like "Cream Buttflubber Catch" instead of "Cream Flower Catch" which have sort of become memes in the community. They're also infamous for other licensed poorly-developed commercials such as Hello Kitty, Crash Bandicoot, and Crush Gear. This commercial can be seen above.