#33: McLean Deluxe Burger
While McDonald’s isn’t exactly the poster child for healthy food, the fast food giant has often tried to boost its nutritional reputation. A rather amusing effort was the launch of the McLean Deluxe Burger. The ads boasted a whopping “91 percent fat-free” claim. However, this seemingly healthy option fell flat on its face when customers actually bit into it, realizing that it was far from tasty.
In the grand culinary theater of fast food, it was a performance that fell flat. Judged by the merciless metric of sales, it was an undisputed underdog, a distant cousin to the reigning royalty of regular burgers. The majority of diners gave it the cold shoulder. Today, if its fleeting existence is remembered at all, it’s with a chuckle and a shake of the head, as they fondly dub the ill-fated product the “McFlopper.”