Combined picture from a McDonalds Brochure, notice the typo.
In 2004, McDonald's in the UK had made a few television advertisements for kids to keep healthy. This would feature a British version of Ronald McDonald and a few cartoon characters named the Yum Chums.
Adverts
These series of adverts go like this: It would show Ronald McDonald at a gym. Then it would show what is inside his stomach, pitch black with cartoon eyes saying if they're ready. Then it would fade into a colourful environment with the YumChum gang:
- A purple blobby character who has a skateboard (and looks suspiciously like Grimace).
- A female character who has a swirly tail and likes dancing.
- A small, smart green creature with glasses.
- A big, brown hairy monster
- A smaller, blue bouncy ball with a green baseball cap.
All these characters would sing about the joy of being healthy. Below are some of the TV advertisements that aired around August 2004:
- 5 a Day: This is the most known advert in the series. There was a part when some characters turned into fruit and vegetables. Also there was a part where the gang were giving out some high fives in front of a trippy background. A screenshot of the advert was found and lyrics from the website 'CreamCheese' can be found below.
- Drinking water: This advert had the characters had the characters swimming in water whilst singing a song entitled 'Water! You know you 'oughta!'. One part featured the green character drinking water from a bottle and telling viewers to drink lots of water.
- Exercising: Nothing is known.
After one of those adverts, it would zoom out and Ronald McDonald would be doing entertaining things (like juggle tomatoes and making them splat everywhere). Then he would say the slogan - 'It's what I eat, it's what I do. I'm lovin' it'.
Lyrics
Don't let your YumChums get glum, put healthly stuff in your tum! Think about the things you eat, dont give us toooo many treats!
Run about, jump around and play
and you will feel yummy everyday.
We're looking for our veggies, 5 a day is what we need. We've got to have our veggies today, hey hey!
We're feeling kinda fruity, come on now be good to me! We've got to have'em all to play, hey hey!
We're looking for our veggies, 5 a day is what we need. We've got to have our veggies today, hey hey!
5, gimme 5. Gimme gimme gimme 5-a-day! 5, gimme 5. Gimme gimme gimme 5-a-day!
We're feeling kinda fruity, come on now be good to me! We've got to have'em all to play, hey hey HEY!
Five a day lyrics
Today
Right now, there has been no footage of the advertisement. But there have been forum posts in the past talking about how annoying this advert was. The picture above was found in a McDonalds Brochure, albeit split in half.
Links
http://web.archive.org/web/20041212001742/http://www.yumchums.co.uk/