If You Blinked, You May Have Missed This McDonald's Chicken Sandwich In 2001

Fast food restaurants have been offering promotional movie tie-ins for decades. The idea dates back to at least 1976, when Burger Chef offered promotional "King Kong" drinking glasses for the release of the remake. Nowadays, there are multi-movie tie-ins every year, from KFC's Supergirl Meal to Burger King's "Mandalorian and Grogu" menu. In 2001, McDonald's featured one of its New Tastes Menu items in a tie-in for the animated movie "Atlantis: The Lost Empire," offering the BBQ Chicken Sandwich for 99 cents.

The BBQ Chicken Sandwich was unusual for McDonald's because it featured shredded chicken in BBQ sauce on a bun, essentially making it a BBQ pulled chicken sandwich. Even KFC didn't have a pulled chicken sandwich on the menu until 2014. McDonald's introduced another barbecue chicken sandwich in 2019, but that one was a breaded chicken sandwich with barbecue sauce, much closer to the other chicken sandwiches McDonald's customers were used to.

The "Atlantis" promotion ran from June 15 to July 10, 2001, and also featured Happy Meal toys, themed drink cups, fry boxes, and takeout bags. One commenter who posted ten years after the fact fondly recalled the chicken sandwiches and said they were "actually awesome." That said, a more recent Reddit commenter said, "I remember these. I tried it once, and it was underdone and made me sick." With few other reviews but no contemporaneous ones available, it's hard to say what people thought of the sandwich when it was first introduced, or determine where it ranks among all the other McDonald's chicken items. It may have just been ahead of its time. However, there could have been another problem related to the movie tie-in.

McDonald's launched the New Tastes Menu, including the BBQ Chicken Sandwich, in January 2001. While the menu seemed successful at first, the kitchen upgrades needed to make it happen slowed service down. Add that to the fact that a BBQ chicken sandwich tied into a movie about Atlantis, an undersea kingdom, was a little perplexing. You could probably make a case for a fish sandwich fitting an "Atlantis" tie-in, but chicken seems unusual. Not that a fast food promotional tie has to reflect the movie it's related to very closely, but a movie that takes place underwater seemed like an easy setup for a new fish sandwich. Reports indicate the BBQ Chicken Sandwich didn't even last a year, and was discontinued sometime in 2001.

In October 2002, while the New Tastes Menu was still in effect, McDonald's introduced the Dollar Menu, which became one of the company's most popular promotions ever and lasted over a decade. The New Tastes Menu quietly vanished, though we think the Big N' Tasty, which was part of it, was a discontinued McDonald's menu item that deserves a revival.

The "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" tie-in was far from the only failed movie promo McDonald's has tried over the years. Amongst the many discontinued menu items we don't miss from McDonald's was the Super Hero Burger, released as a tie-in with "Batman Forever." This came after a 1992 tie-in with "Batman Returns," which caused controversy because people found the movie too dark and didn't like the film being promoted to children through the restaurant.