McDLT

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The McDLT was a new fast food creation released by McDonald's in 1985. The new sandwich was created as a reaction to the growing belief that the fast food hamburgers were bland, unhealthy, and stale, often due to long periods of time sitting under heat lamps after preparation.

The idea was to take the standard McDonald's Quarter Pounder and then mimic the process a chef in a typical American home might use to create a burger. To this end, the meat portion was prepared separately from the other toppings, such as lettuce and tomato, and then both were packaged into a specially designed two-sided container. The consumer was then expected to finalize preparation of the sandwich by combining the hot and cool sides just prior to eating.

This two-sided container contributed unexpectedly to the demise of the sandwich in the public mind. Around the time of its debut, McDonald's came under criticism for the amount of non-biodegradable solid waste produced by its restaurants, particularly in the form of polystyrene sandwich containers. In order to facilitate the separate temperature zones trumpted by the marketing, the McDLT's container was twice as large as an ordinary burger. The company eventually discontinued the sandwich but re-introduced it 2001 under a new name: the Big N' Tasty.

Marketing

The McDLT is perhaps best remembered for its marketing, which focused on variations of the theme "Keep the hot side hot, and the cool side cool." A fairly well-remembered 1985 commercial released to market the new sandwich featured a young Jason Alexander, and has obtained a minor following on the web as a shining example of 1980s era television advertising.

External links

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