Secrets of McDonald’s: 50 Years of the Big Mac (Channel 5) was the latest in the channel’s strand of glorified corporate videos, telling the soft-soaped story of our biggest businesses. It was marginally better than the recent Marks & Spencer one but only by the width of a French fry.
The documentary traced the fast food company’s journey from Route 66 diner to planet-conquering giant. We saw how it revolutionised the restaurant industry with its assembly line approach to food preparation, then harnessed aggressive marketing with the Golden Arches and a cartoon character called “Speedee”, later to become clown Ronald McDonald.
Franchising deals fuelled its virus-like spread across America and...