Doug Jones Remembers ... Mac Tonight

The campaign was created locally for the west coast, and to bring up the after 4pm dinner business. The first 4 spots were shot in late 1986, with the first airings in early 1987. So I was the originator of Mac's physical character. With the crazy success of these spots on the west coast, McDonald's spread the campaign nationwide in the U.S. in the summer of 1987, and shot 2 more spots to add to that run. With more crazy success nationwide, more and more spots were shot, and the campaign went throughout all the free world by 1988.

This initial blast lasted over 3 years through spring of 1990, with a re-visit to the character, including newly produced commercials in 1996 and 1997.

There were only 2 commercials in which I did not play the character, and they were filmed with a replacement actor when I was in China working on "Warriors Of Virtue" in early 1996. So the total campaign over all these years included 29 spots, with my gangly limbs gracing 27 of them.

This was only my 4th commercial booking when it started, so you can imagine how excited I was to get involved with a campaign that had this much exposure and success for so many years. And I truly loved the character of "Mac". He was so smooth, hip, cool, and never felt the need to impress anyone … he just sat at his piano, spinning on a giant burger, or floating on a cloud, entertaining himself in the solitude of the open night sky. If the public wanted to join in on the fun, they were very welcome, with his "love ya babe" attitude.

Doug Jones
Los Angeles, April 14th, 2006