How TV shows are ordering sides of authenticity with real fast-food chains

Bill Keveney | USA TODAY

TV has a taste for fast food.

Famous franchises are playing key supporting roles this year: McDonald’s had a prominent cameo in this week’s finale of FX’s The Americans, and Arby’s is frequently mentioned and makes appearances on the cable network’s Baskets.

They join other real-world fast-food chains that earned exposure in recent years, including Burger Chef on AMC’s Mad Men and Subway on NBC’s Chuck. Among them, only Subway's appearance was part of a sponsorship deal, the networks say.

The McDonald's iconic golden arches, symbol of American commercialism and efficiency, served as a poetic final food stop for The Americans' Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, Soviet spies impersonating U.S. citizens, as they fled the country after their tourist-agent covers were blown.

Creator and executive producer Joe Weisberg says he loved “Philip’s final goodbye to this greatest icon of American capitalism, as he had become enamored of capitalism and America.”

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As Philip (Matthew Rhys) — who's more open to U.S. culture than his Soviet loyalist wife, Elizabeth (Keri Russell) — carries a food order to the car, their ambiguous, ambivalent American existence is on display in the blinding, white fluorescence of the restaurant's dining area.

McDonald’s cooperated with producers, but that doesn’t mean finding a 1980s-era, highway-adjacent restaurant was easy. The one featured in the episode is in Staten Island, N.Y., and the series relied on computer graphics to get the perfect roadside placement.

“There aren’t that many left. And then they found that one, which is literally like a dropdown from heaven to be the perfect McGlowing embodiment of everything we wanted to represent in that scene. It was so beautiful,” Weisberg says.

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Mad Men created an authentic 1960s world by having real companies, such as Burger Chef, serve as advertising clients for fictional Don Draper and his colleagues,

The Emmy-winning drama masterfully commented on changes to family life, creating its own version of the admen's campaign for the now-defunct fast-food chain, which aired in 2014. It brought Don and colleagues Peggy and Pete together for dinner in one of the restaurants, underlining their bond as a work family.

Baskets is more prosaic than poetic in its use of Arby’s: The “We Have the Meats” emporium reflects a thick slice of Americana infrequently served in scripted TV.

“You don’t really see fast-food places being used, or real places being talked about. (But) the country has kind of turned into this fast-food mentality. We want to highlight that,” says Zach Galifianakis, who plays aspiring clown and former Arby’s employee Chip Baskets (and his twin brother, Dale).

The show underlined that link by hosting an Emmy-consideration event this week at a Los Angeles Arby’s that has been featured in the series, including in a Thanksgiving episode that aired in February. Arby's, which has been a punch line for The Simpsons and Jon Stewart, among others, has been cooperative with the series, he says.

Executive producer Jonathan Krisel, snacking on curly fries in the restaurant’s dining area, says the connection grew over time from a single mention in the series pilot. “We always wanted to have real places” in the show, whose Middle America characters also frequent Costco in their hometown, Bakersfield, Calif.

Louie Anderson, who plays Chip's mom, Christine, has his own fond memories of the Sunset Boulevard Arby's in Los Angeles, where FX hosted an Emmy-related event this week.

"In 1984, I moved over near here and after (performing at) The Comedy Store, we came here every night to the 2 a.m. drive-through. I got an Arby's special, two different kinds of fries" — "Here's your headline!" Galifianakis interjects — "… a Jamocha Shake," Anderson says. "And then I'd drive through again."