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Weird History Food is gonna buy and fly to McDonald's for their Discontinued Menu Items. Sadly, McDonald's menu Items don't last forever. With the ever-changing fast-food landscape, these McDonald's treats just couldn't keep up. Some of these delicacies never got a chance to shine and were retired before they could find an audience. Others were just questionable ideas with unfortunate slogans.
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0:00
They say the diamonds are forever, but sadly, not all McDonald's menu items are diamonds
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Poor marketing, stiff competition, and just plain bad ideas have doomed many would-be Big Macs to
0:11
the big menu in the sky, but every single one of them was beloved by somebody. So today
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we're going to take a look at some discontinued McDonald's menu items people never forgot
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Okay, somebody keep an eye out for the Hamburglar. He probably has half of these stashed in his car
0:27
Originally tested in select markets in California, The Big and Tasty first dropped in 1997 and then went nationwide in the year 2000
0:37
as part of a promotional tie-in with Disney's California Adventure Theme Park in Anaheim
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As its size-oriented name might suggest, The Big and Tasty was intended to be a direct competitor for Burger King's Whopper
0:48
but it never really took off and was discontinued in the U.S. in 2011
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However, if you desperately need a fix, The Big and Tasty is still available on select U.S. military bases
0:59
All you have to do to get one is enlist. When McDonald's first introduced their now-iconic Chicken McNuggets
1:07
consumers could dip them in one of four sauces – barbecue, sweet and sour, honey, and hot mustard
1:13
But even for McNuggets, time marches on. And in 2011, the fast food giant introduced some new varieties
1:19
including sweet chili, honey mustard, spicy buffalo, and creamy ranch. With all the new options, it was decided that some of the old ones should move on
1:28
and with that, hot mustard sauce was slowly phased out, being completely discontinued in the U.S. in 2014
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Turns out, while the sauce was removed from McDonald's menus nationally, it's still available in select markets
1:41
apparently at the whim of your local McDonald's owner. Introduced for a limited time in 1988
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and then joining the menu on a more permanent basis in 2003, chicken selects were essentially mcdonald's version of chicken fingers despite being offered
1:57
with sauces like spicy buffalo creamy ranch honey mustard consumers didn't seem too hot on picking
2:02
this chicken they undersold nationally and were deleted from the u.s menu in 2013
2:07
in the summer of 1987 mcdonald's decided purely from the goodness of their hearts to offer
2:15
consumers the chance to supersize their meal with an extra large drink inside of fries americans do
2:21
love more, but McDonald's super-sized menu items officially bit the dust in 2004 after lackluster
2:27
sales. A need to trim what it considered to be a bloated menu, and public clamor for healthier
2:32
options brought it back down to size. Won't anyone think of the fries
2:39
Originally introduced in the Midwest in 1985 and nationally in 1988, the cheddar melt is basically
2:45
a quarter pounder topped with onions sauteed in butter, teriyaki sauce, and cheddar cheese sauce
2:50
on a rye bun. That, uh, actually sounds pretty good. It was last seen in 2004 and briefly again in 2014, but as of 2023, it remains off the menu
3:03
Introduced in 2009, the Angus Burger, also known as the Angus third pounder, which is
3:08
more fun to shout at a drive speaker was part of a long series of attempts to market higher menu items But it seems like the public just isn interested in buying fancy food from McDonald You can only spend so much money on a cheeseburger until you start wondering
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why you're buying it from a clown. The Angus Burger was put out to pasture in 2013
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Although it's a staple of their menu now, there was a time when walking into a McDonald's and
3:34
asking for a salad would have gotten you on the news or perhaps thrown in jail
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That would explain why some of Mickey D's early attempts at serving healthier options just didn't work
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Like the McSalad Shakers, which were basically just salads in a cup
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Despite the good intentions, these precursors to McDonald's Premium Salads, which came in three flavors
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Chef, Grilled Chicken Caesar, and Garden, were discontinued in 2003 due to lackluster sales
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BLT stands for Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato, and it's one of the most famous sandwiches in the universe
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The McDLT stood for a McDonald's lettuce and tomato sandwich, and is only remembered by those who experienced it
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Wait, shouldn't it be an MLT? Introduced in 1984, the meat and bottom half of the McDLT were prepared separately from the top half
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which included the lettuce, tomato, American cheese, pickles, and sauces. Both were then packaged into a specially designed two-sided Styrofoam container to be assembled when you were ready to eat
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The problem was, that container was worse for the environment than a McOil spill
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The company discontinued the weirdly named burger in 1991. Now considered one of the biggest product flops of all time
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the Arch Deluxe was McDonald's attempt to sell a burger for adults. The burger was made with high-end ingredients
4:50
including a quarter pound of beef on a potato flour bun, bacon, leaf lettuce, tomato, American cheese
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onions, ketchup, a secret mustard, and mayonnaise sauce. But despite spending the modern equivalent of over half a billion dollars
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on its introductory advertising campaign, more than any fast food company had ever spent to promote a menu item
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the burger never took off with the public and was discontinued in 2000
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The Son of Mac was a single patty version of the Big Mac, kind of like hamburger training wheels
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for the Big Mac version of a Whopper Jr. That, as the name implies
5:24
most people who want a Big Mac want it, well, big. Possibly for that reason
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the Son of Mac never really caught on in the US. It was sold in Australia and New Zealand for a while
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but has since been discontinued in those markets as well. But hope springs eternal
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The little burger no one wanted is still sold in Canada, having found its niche as the Kids' Match
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Traditionally, a triple-double is when a basketball player gets 10 or more points
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assists, and rebounds in a single game. But McDonald's left many a sports fan confused
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when its triple-double burger had nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with Batman
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The super-heroic sandwich consisted of three beef patties and two slices of cheese, served on the same type of sesame seed roll used for the McRib
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and was released as part of a promotion for the 1995 blockbuster Batman Forever
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That's the one with Jim Carrey. So why was it called a triple-double when the whole point of the sandwich was to promote Batman
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Well, McDonald's probably figured no one would want to order something called a Batburger
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Whatever the case it was discontinued after the movie left theaters in the late summer of 1995 What do you get when you cross a chicken McNugget with an onion ring You get one of McDonald very early attempts to please vegetarians the onion nugget
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They were exactly what they claimed to be, onion rings in a convenient nugget shape
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To this day, no one exactly knows why they disappeared from test markets in the 1970s
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but that's given them an air of mystery and a cult following among fast food enthusiasts
6:50
McDonald's attempted to expand their breakfast offerings and cash in on the growing market for breakfast bagels by releasing three delicious varieties
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A ham, egg, and cheese bagel, a steak, egg, and cheese bagel, and the Spanish omelet bagel, which included sausage, pepper jack, and American cheese, and an egg stuffed with onions and peppers
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That's pretty early in the morning to book a guaranteed trip to the restroom
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Another poor seller, the Spanish omelet bagel was banished from the menu during the early 2000s
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Not to be confused with McWings, a similar product that is still sold at many international McDonald's locations
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Mighty Wings weren't a big seller for the fast food giant. In fact, after rolling out the bone-in chicken wings with spicy breading in 2013
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franchises were forced to sell millions of discounted wings just to get rid of them all
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Sounds like a mighty failure and a mighty pain in the ass. The Big 33 slash McJordan special was a quarter pounder with bacon and special barbecue sauce
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named after basketball players Larry Bird or Michael Jordan, depending on where you were eating one
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In some parts of the country, it was called the McJordan Special in honor of Jordan
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and in other places, it was called the Big 33 in honor of Bird's jersey number
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presumably because the McBird Special just sounds like you're about to eat a McDonaldland character
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It was ultimately discontinued in 1992, but a 20-year-old jug of the barbecue sauce
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sold on eBay for just a hair under $10,000. Borrowing its name from another discontinued menu item, Chicken McBites, Fish McBites were
8:23
basically just nugget-sized pieces of the McDonald's Filet-O-Fish served with tartar sauce. So it was like eating a fried fish patty your parents had to cut up for you
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Introduced in February of 2013, the menu item that was also called by the equally bad but
8:37
also more fun name, Fish McDippers, sold so poorly that they were discontinued by April of 2013
8:43
In 1979, the first Star Trek movie hit theaters, ACDC released the album Highway to Hell
8:51
and McDonald's released the chopped beefsteak sandwich. Despite being described as the best sandwich McDonald's ever produced
8:57
this oblong burger on a bun with onions and barbecue sauce disappeared in the early 1980s
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So, what happened? Well, the burger, which was served with a side of onion nuggets and only available between 4 and 9 p.m.
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costs $1.29 at a time that a regular burger set you back 40 cents
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Nobody wants to be seen paying extra for onion nuggets. Maybe that's why they only sold them at night
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The McPizza was created to compete directly with Domino's and Pizza Hut
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and in that sense, it was a pretty dramatic failure. But the problem with pizza, if indeed pizza can have a problem
9:30
is that it takes a while to prepare. Since most people who opt for fast food want their food fast
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this item never really caught on with customers, and it was discontinued by around 2000 Except for some reason or another it still available at a single location in Orlando Florida Maybe Mickey likes it Introduced in 1993 the McLobster was a
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lobster roll served in a hot dog bun with shredded lettuce and something called lobster sauce. At
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nearly $6, McLobster was too expensive for the average McDonald's customer because spending too
10:00
much on food is the precise experience a McDonald's customer is trying to avoid. It was discontinued
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nationally in 2017, but occasionally resurfaces in the New England and Atlantic Canadian regions
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where lobster is more abundant and less expensive. Similar to their brief flirtation with Mexican food, McDonald's also briefly tried getting it
10:21
on with Asian cuisine in the form of Shanghai McNuggets, but the company didn't really put
10:25
their heart into the relationship. The Shanghai McNuggets were essentially just regular McNuggets
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sold with sweet and sour sauce, hot mustard, teriyaki sauce, a fortune cookie, and chopsticks
10:35
It was discontinued in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, McDonald's introduced a line of healthier products known as the Deluxe
10:44
line, and the McLean Deluxe was the Golden Arches' attempt at a healthy burger, which
10:48
contained ketchup, mustard, pickles, tomato, a lettuce leaf, and a reduced-fat patty
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all in a bakery-style roll. And thanks to ingredients like seaweed and other additives, the sandwich was 91% fat-free
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But part of the experience of going to McDonald's is ordering something that could stop your
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heart like a traffic light. So the McLean Deluxe was discontinued in 1996 after flopping with the public
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The whole Deluxe line followed in 2000. McSoup was essentially Campbell's soup in a McDonald's cup, and well, that's pretty much all there is to it
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It came in two flavors, chicken noodle and broccoli and cheese, and was served only at certain times of the year in colder climates
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Locations in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Portugal still make soups available to customers, albeit very different ones
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but American consumers have been forced to go McSoup-less ever since this one disappeared from the menu
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This cheeseburger that had a slice of pineapple where a beef patty would normally be
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was created as a vegetarian option for Catholics who didn't eat meat on Fridays
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McDonald's CEO Ray Kroc thought this meatless burger would be way more popular than the Filet-O-Fish
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and he bet a fortune of money on it. But when he normally had a pretty sharp business sense, this is a bet he lost
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McDonald's voted with their wallets, and the Filet-O-Fish soundly trumped the McCoola
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McSpaghetti included pasta, marinara sauce, meatballs, and a cheese topping. It hung around until the 1980s, at which point it was discontinued everywhere except Orlando, Florida
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Wait, really? What is it with that place? There's also a McSpaghetti on the menu in the Philippines, but that one is actually a completely different dish
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During the 90s, McDonald's considered bringing the product back. They tested Mick Spaghetti in a few select markets and discovered, much like with Mick Pizza, consumers weren't biting
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Ray Kroc hated hot dogs. Why? Because according to Kroc, you never really know what's in a hot dog's skin
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He hated them so much, he banned them from ever being sold at his restaurants
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But he made one crucial mistake. He didn't live forever. After Kroc's passing, Mick Hot Dogs found their way into a few markets, only to fail miserably
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They haven't been seen on a McMenu since the late 90s. Ray may have been onto something
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