Remco McDonald's McDonaldland Playset & Characters Mayor McCheese Kids Meal Toy

Description

Old Collectible Remco "Lawsuit" McDonald's McDonaldland
Style No. 801
"The Playset for the McDonaldland Characters"
Dated 1976
Comes with Some Characters . . . Including Mayor McCheese
Set is in good used shape.
Box is a little rough.
Have what's pictured.
Train winds up and runs, but can't haul all the cars and all the figures, runs slow.
Lighten the load and it really picks up steam.
Also has some of the characters (that normally don't come with the playset):
Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese, Hamburglar, and Grimace.
Note: I'm shipping this in its original box (pictured) covered in wrapping paper, so box may get some handling in the post.
THE LAWSUITS:
It didn't take long for McDonaldland to come under attack. Mayor McCheese possessed a number of similarities to another personality created by producers Sid and Marty Krofft: H.R. Pufnstuf, who featured prominently on Saturday morning lineups from 1969 to 1973. Both McCheese and Pufnstuf were rendered as live-action, life-sized puppets with ridiculously large heads, and both had mayoral sashes as heads of their respective governments. (And while McCheese had an M or "mayor" written on his sash, Pufnstuf had a medal which hung down from the cummerbund and said "mayor.")
The similarities didn’t end with the characters. Just as Mayor McCheese lived in McDonaldland, H.R. Pufnstuf inhabited his own imaginary realm, Living Island. Both fantasylands were comprised of similarly-rendered “magical” creatures, buildings, and backgrounds—which made sense, since Sid and Marty Krofft had been consulted by Needham, Harper & Steers before they landed the McDonald's account.
According to the Krofft's lawsuit, "In early 1970, Marty Krofft ... was contacted by an executive from Needham, Harper & Steers, Inc., an advertising agency. He was told that Needham was attempting to get the advertising account of McDonald's hamburger restaurant chain and wanted to base a proposed campaign to McDonald's on the H. R. Pufnstuf characters. The executive wanted to know whether the Kroffts would be interested in working with Needham on a project of this type.
Needham and the Kroffts were in contact by telephone six or seven more times. By a letter dated August 31, 1970, Needham stated it was going forward with the idea of a McDonaldland advertising campaign based on the H. R. Pufnstuf series. It acknowledged the need to pay the Kroffts a fee for preparing artistic designs and engineering plans. Shortly thereafter, Marty Krofft telephoned Needham only to be told that the advertising campaign had been cancelled."
Unbeknownst to them, Needham had won the McDonald’s contract and was hiring former employees of the Kroffts, including their main voice actor.
So in 1971, the Kroffts, believing that McDonald’s characters were based directly upon their own life-sized puppets, engaged in a series of legal battles with the McDonald’s corporation. In the midst of the conflict—a full five years after the Kroffts began pursuing litigation—Remco was asked to produce the fully-licensed toys for McDonald’s in 1976.
After a six-year battle, the courts ruled in the Kroffts’ favor. In Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions Inc. v. McDonald's Corp., the plaintiffs proved copyright infringement, showing: a) their ownership of [the] copyrighted work, b) the circumstantial evidence of access to work, and c) that there was a substantial similarity in both idea and expression. “We do not believe that the ordinary reasonable person, let alone a child, viewing these works will even notice that Pufnstuf is wearing a cummerbund while Mayor McCheese is wearing a diplomat’s sash,” the appeals court stated. Predicting the defendant’s appeal based upon the “Look and Feel” defense, the court concluded that McDonald’s had unjustly utilized the “total concept and feel” of the Krofts’ H.R. Pufnstuf program. McDonald’s was required to cease production of (many of) the characters and stop airing television commercials featuring the denizens of McDonaldland. They were also ordered to pay the Kroffts more than million: 00 for each commercial, 00 for each promotional item, and 0 for other infringing acts.
Although some of these characters have been gone for nearly 40 years, the action figures survive as collectibles, making regular appearances on eBay. But what happened to the characters? A few years ago, I posed this question to McDonald’s then-Media Center Contact/Corporate Communications and Social Responsibility Team leader, Julie Pottebaum. Here—verbatim—was her reply: “Mayor McCheese and his friends are indeed alive and well, enjoying life in McDonaldland. Ronald McDonald has taken over the mayor’s responsibilities since being appointed Chief Happiness Officer. Ronald McDonald remains front and center, and he reminds us of the kid that lives in all of us.”
If you like old, unique junk, please go into my eBay site and type a word like “knife”, “holster”, “gun”, “glass”, “women's” anything you are interested in, in the search box.
You will have fun browsing.
I have an 8x40 shipping container, 3 storage units, and a garage full of junk from the last 40+ years that I am trying to get rid of. I will eBay as much as possible in-between my search for a job (out of work).
The stuff I’m selling is used and has been in my storage for sometimes up to 40 plus years and will have dust, grease, dirt, and dirt dauber nests.
On Feedback: mine is set to "Automatic," so when positive feedback is given on a purchase, positive will automatically be left for the buyer.
Thank you for taking your time to look.
Shipping and Returns Information:
Disclaimer: I ship within 3 business days of cleared payment, and that was specified when this ad was created as my ‘handling time’ “Delivery in 2 Days”, IF shown on the ad in red, is generated by eBay shipping software that is way-overly optimistic, not me. Thank you for your understanding.
Postage charged is to cover actual postage, handling, packing materials, time, car & gas, and eBay postage fees.
Important, Shipments Outside the United States of America:
For international shipments the buyer must be aware of duty costs and is responsible for all duty costs.
Know your importation rules / taxes before purchasing.
Also, if an international bidder, please double-check shipping cost, because it will not be discounted. Priority-mail cost will be charged for first-class international packages in some cases to cover handling and above.
I do not offer international postage tracking. Since USPS cannot track some international packages, the Buyer will bear full responsibility for local post-office delivery of the package once it ships and agrees not to hold the Seller responsible for non-delivered packages. No refund of purchase price or postage will be given for an international package that is lost or not delivered.
Again, thank you for your understanding.