McDonald’s Netherlands has managed to do the impossible: release a Christmas advertisement so bleak that even the Grinch might send them a sympathy card. Instead of delivering the feel-good warmth Americans once expected from holiday ads—yes, even from giant corporations—McDonald’s dropped a cold, AI-generated oddity described by viewers as nothing short of “terrible” and “joyless.”
This bizarre commercial, stitched together by a cocktail of algorithms and sleepless creatives, proudly reimagines the classic It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year as—brace yourself—“the most terrible time of the year.” Because apparently, somewhere in the boardroom, someone decided that what families really crave during the holidays is a cynical rewrite of a beloved Christmas song.
The creators insist this gloomy detour was by design. According to Little Black Book Online, the film—produced by TBWANEBOKO—was meant to “challenge the conventions of holiday advertising.” Chief creative officer Darre van Dijk explains, “From the start, we wanted to challenge the conventions of holiday advertising. It all started with the idea of rewriting one of the most iconic Christmas songs.” He adds that the rights holder approved changing the title to “the most terrible time of the year,” which apparently inspired the whole campaign.
From there, the team dove deeper into the AI rabbit hole, brainstorming exaggerated Dutch holiday scenes and working with a global roster of AI specialists. They brought in the Los Angeles directing duo MAMA to elevate the visuals. Van Dijk recalls asking them if they wanted to make a film entirely through AI: “And not an almost-AI film, but one with real production value combined with the craziness that AI makes possible. Challenge accepted. Working together with the best prompters, we got to work, and now, together with McDonald’s Netherlands, we have created our first fully fledged AI commercial.”
Let’s be honest: when you have to tell people your ad has “real production value,” you’ve already lost the plot.
Even more suspicious? Comments on YouTube are turned off. And that’s never a good sign—unless your goal is to avoid the digital equivalent of a rotten tomato avalanche.
On X, viewers weren’t buying the shiny corporate spin. One user slammed it: “It’s joyless, artificial, nauseating, and made by a combo of automation and people who clearly don’t want to be there. All in all, a perfect representation of what it’s like eating at McDonald’s.”
Ouch. That about covers it.
For decades, McDonald’s ads delivered warmth, community, and—dare we say—actual charm. But in an era where corporations race to replace human creativity with machines, this AI-spawned holiday special feels less like a festive treat and more like a warning about what happens when Big Tech steamrolls genuine artistry. Bah Humbug on steroids.
