If you grew up during the 90s, I’m going to take an educated guess and say that you’re familiar with eco-friendly PSAs and cartoons encouraging you to be a greener person. Did you watch that weird Disney short with the dinosaurs singing about recycling? Or have the theme song for Captain Planet stuck in your head whether you wanted it there or not? Well, if you grew up during the 70s, you had this stuff too…in the form of singing trashcans.

Okay, okay, it wasn’t just singing trashcans as the 70s were arguably the most environmentally conscious decade as far as pop culture goes (though this is debatable. I mean the United States did elect Ronald Reagan president when they were over). There was a lot of tree hugging to go around back then. But a series of McDonald’s commercials disguised as PSAs (or was it the other way around?) featuring hungry, ravenous wastebaskets who want nothing more than to eat your garbage lest they eat you instead? Of course that’s something Scrat is going to center an OT around.

In the first commercial (or what I’m assuming is the first commercial), what’s strange is that the wastebaskets themselves seem to be the things being advertised, as though they are an attraction at McDonald’s. “Come over to our restaurant so you can throw your hamburger wrapper away!” Ronald McDonald does make a comment about how there’s “great stuff” you can get over at Micky D’s, but then he starts talking about the wastebaskets like they are an endangered species in a PSA which uses a sad song from Sarah McLachlan to depress you. Also, in addition to the nightmarish image of singing trashcans invading your personal space as you’re just trying to finish your lunch, Mayor McCheese is just standing there, silent and terrified. Perhaps it’s because he knows that he is trash himself, and it’s only a matter of time before the wastebaskets come for him…

Future ads really play like all-out PSAs. In this one, for instance, the duo of singing wastebaskets urgently run up to Ronald to inform him that there are litterbugs taking over the city, so Ronald orders them to march to the park to make things right. And by “make things right” I mean a bunch of children with no gloves picking up garbage and sticking their hands deep into the mouths of sentient trash cans without so much as washing their hands afterwards, which makes the germaphobe in me flinch. Also, I just now realized what a living hell it must be to be a wastebasket. Sure, you get to enjoy eating garbage, but when you get full, instead of being able to take a dump or whatever, some trash collector instead forces your head open, reaches deep into your mouth, pulls a bag which is essentially your stomach out of you, and then gives you a new one. I mean, sure, these wastebaskets look happy about it, but I have a feeling those smiles actually hide deep pain…

And then we have this commercial, which is by far the most ambitious, as the wastebaskets have fucking multiplied and have gained the ability to march. Also, few people know this, but Ronald had a doomed run for the McDonaldland Senate. This ad is all that remains of his political career…

And speaking of America…they weren’t the only ones who got singing wastebaskets. A few years later, the UK got a musical ad featuring “litter bins” who…I’m not sure how to describe these. No, really, I’m not. You are not ready for these. I can’t place my finger on why, but there is something about these bins that makes them seem…fuckable. Or maybe I’m just saying that because Ronald looks way too happy to be around them and stuffing his junk in their mouths. Or maybe it’s the fact that they appear to be wearing tights….

Happy Earth Day, y’all! AND RESPECT YOUR WASTEBASKETS!!!