It may not be hamburger week at The A.V. Club, but we’re always committed to providing the best burger content on the internet. Having already shared a historical timeline of the American hamburger last week, here’s a look at the brand evolution of famed hamburger-provider Mickey D’s. Created by Fast Company, the video condenses 74 years of McDonald’s history into a swift three minutes.
From its humble origins as a 1940s California restaurant called McDonald’s Bar-B-Q, McDonald’s slowly ballooned into the ubiquitous national franchise Americans love and love to hate today. Interestingly, it wasn’t until the late 1960s that McDonalds began to advertise explicitly to kids, culminating in the creation of the Happy Meal in 1979. But as the video points out, Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me documentary marked a turning point in the cultural conception of fast food from which McDonald’s has never fully recovered. Let’s hope that new sexy Hamburglar can help.