Woodward sat in a courtside seat for the classic McDonald’s commercial, which featured Larry Bird and Michael Jordan as “horses.”Youtube
What if you are old enough If you remember the 1990s, then you probably remember the Super Bowl commercial that featured an epic equestrian showdown between Michael Jordan and Larry Bird with a Big Mac on the line.
Jackie Woodward remembers it better than most of us: She was on set in December 1992 when director Joe Pytka was working with advertising agency Leo Burnett )’s Jim Ferguson and Bob Shallcross’ creative team teamed up to shoot the McDonald’s commercial.
At the time, Woodward was a senior director at the fast-food giant, overseeing sports and celebrity marketing. Her boss, McDonald’s chief marketing officer Paul Schrager, approved the ad; Woodward was assigned to the shoot to make sure everything went as planned.
The ad — “Showdown” — went on to earn USA Today’s Super Bowl ad list, the ultimate sign of mass approval before the age of social media and smartphones.
Woodward also remembers the trouble he faced while filming at the Rosemont Horizon (renamed Allstate Arena in 1999) in Rosemont, Illinois. The stadium is just a few miles from O’Hare International Airport. “We were on the flight path that day, which meant the shoot took a lot longer than it should have,” she said. “I do remember it was frustrating for everyone.”
Both Jordan and Bird were “talkative — these guys know their jobs and they’re going to show up and do it,” Woodward said. Jordan’s daughter, Jasmine, had just been born, and Woodward remembers Jordan proudly showing photos of his newborn to the production crew.
The commercial opens with Bird shooting hoops in the open sand while Jordan sits down to eat his lunch: a McDonald’s bag with a Big Mac and fries. Bird looked at Jordan and, after challenging him, added, “The first one to miss gets to see the winner eat.” A moment later, he added a warning: “No dunks.”
And just like that, Jordan and Bird matched each other in a series of increasingly ridiculous shots that bounced the ball off the scoreboard and into the rafters. The story ends with Bird and Jordan planning the shoot on the top floor of Chicago’s 100-story John Hancock Center. Woodward said the effects and sequences that made the ad so effective were added in post-production.
“The fact that it’s still memorable 30 years later speaks for itself,” she said, crediting Pytka and the Leo Burnett advertising team for making the ad so magical.
Showdown was so popular that it spawned a sequel starring Charles Barkley, which debuted during the 1994 Super Bowl. Woodward also participated in that shoot in December 1993 at Carefree, near Scottsdale, Arizona.