Which lucky auction winner will take home this dead-eyed hellhusk that used to be Mac Tonight?

By William Hughes  |  November 30, 2018 | 12:45am
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Which lucky auction winner will take home this dead-eyed hellhusk that used to be Mac Tonight?

Former fast food spokes-“person” Mac Tonight was many things to many people. For McDonald’s, he was a chance to promote post-lunch dining options to a late-’80s crowd. For actor Doug Jones, he was the first step toward a career full of fantastical creations and acting in bulky suits. For the estate of the late Bobby Darin, he was a “Mack The Knife”-parodying irritant that had to be smacked down in courts. But for the kids, he represented one thing, and one thing only: Giant, smiling, unsettling moon-headed terror.

As it turns out, those of us rightly terrified of Mac’s head-bobbing antics back in the 1980s didn’t know the half of it, because we blessedly couldn’t see the eyes that lurked underneath those over-sized novelty sunglasses he always wore. Now, a new auction of one of the foam heads Jones wore during one of the 27 Mac Tonight commercials he filmed has revealed the awful truth. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, what blasted hellscape do these particular peepers peer upon?

Here’s an official description of this gape-mouthed horror-homunculi, courtesy of memorabilia marketplace Prop Store, which is including the lot in its upcoming “TV Treasures” auction:

The tall, open-mouthed foam appliance has blue acrylic eyes, white teeth, and custom-made hand-painted black 1950's-style sunglasses. Mac’s bottom lip is cable-operated to simulate singing and speech. The head is in very good, production-used condition overall with foam still supple. Some slight damage and hairline cracks on back, where the actor squeezed his head into the appliance.

(Prop Store’s site also has pictures of said “hairline cracks” in the back of the head—and we’re just saying here—but we’re not entirely convinced that something didn’t hatch out of there some time in the mid-’90s, skittering away to start a new, awful life for itself.)

The opening bid for Mac’s corpse starts at $1,250, which is, admittedly, pretty steep. On the other hand, what price is too high to pay in order to have absolute knowledge of where this fucking thing is at all times, thus ensuring that it’s not out there in the world somewhere, slowly It Follows-ing its way back to you every time you sleep?

 
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