This McDonald's UK Filet-O-Fish Ad Was So Controversial It Had To Be Pulled From Air

For an ad that runs just 90 seconds, McDonald's UK's "Dad" spot packs in a surprising amount of emotional weight — and then tries to tie it all together with tartar sauce. The 2017 commercial, created by the agency Leo Burnett, follows a young boy questioning his mother about the father he never knew. He wants to know if they had anything in common — eye color, football skills, taste in music — but each answer seems to highlight their differences. The dad was tall, athletic, confident, and brown-eyed. The boy, clearly, is not.

Then they stop at a McDonald's. The mother glances at her son's face and sees tartar sauce on his chin, just like his dad used to get when eating a Filet-O-Fish. "That was your dad's favorite, too," she says with a small smile. The music swells. They connect — not through shared traits or memories, but over a fish sandwich and a napkin moment. It's supposed to be sweet. For many, it just felt bizarre.

Viewers — especially those who had lost parents themselves — accused the ad of trivializing childhood bereavement for corporate gain. Grief charity Grief Encounter reported being flooded with calls from concerned parents and criticized the brand for reducing shared mourning to a menu item. McDonald's apologized then pulled the ad entirely from all media. And though it's not one of the most well-known scandals in McDonald's history, it was enough to force an internal creative review — and to put the Filet-O-Fish in a very weird spotlight.

Not everyone thought the ad crossed a line. While grief charities criticized it for using bereavement to sell fish sandwiches, some viewers pushed back against the outrage. On X, one user who had lost their own father called the spot "classy," suggesting that if a different brand had released it, critics might've praised it instead. Another user described it as "sensitive" and even refreshing: "Grief is a day-to-day part of life," they wrote, "I think it's good that advertisers are acknowledging this." Even on Reddit, where takedowns are usually swift, there were voices defending the ad's intent — even if they didn't love the delivery.

Still, that didn't stop the eye-rolls. One commenter on Reddit labeled it a "tasteless ad for tasteless food," and others questioned the choice to mine such emotional ground for something as neutral as a Filet-O-Fish. McDonald's has had a number of strange commercials (check out our list), but this one felt especially mismatched — sentimental in theory, but tonally disjointed in practice.

It also wasn't the first fast food brand to bungle the emotional pitch. A Burger King ad that once caused controversy in China, as many perceived it to be racist, sparked its own international backlash, showing just how quickly a tone-deaf campaign can unravel. This UK spot didn't cause global outrage, but it did leave McDonald's with a mess to clean up — and one fewer Filet-O-Fish ad in circulation.