The Milwaukee Museum of MAXImalism

Max Knowlton-Sachner’s house is essentially Riverwest’s own House on the Rock, containing all sorts of stuff that is a mix of quirky, creepy, amusing and totally fascinating.

by

Cream City Collectors

We could write a whole magazine issue about all of Max Knowlton-Sachner’s collections. When you enter his Riverwest home, you get immediately dumbfounded by the sheer number of shelves of meticulously arranged objects, carefully curated curiosity cabinets, stacks on stacks of vintage media and all the posters and artwork adorning the walls. Knowlton-Sachner’s house is essentially Riverwest’s own House on the Rock, containing all sorts of stuff that is a mix of quirky, creepy, amusing and totally fascinating.

Knowlton-Sachner’s prized VHS collection, which he has devoted a whole room to, contains thousands of tapes with an emphasis on horror and cartoons. Other accumulations of his —which are either stored in different rooms or packed away in boxes—include M&M memorabilia, Necco candy wrappers, Eagle Pencil Co. products, Rocky Rococo memorabilia, Garbage Pail Kids, Hudson’s Bay blankets, California Raisins memorabilia, official and unofficial Madballs, vintage Milwaukee t-shirts, vinyl records (with significant sections for P-Funk, ‘70s African and Jamaican music), talcum powder tins, vintage toys, comics and magazines, old-fashioned tools, kitchenware and dental equipment, antique dolls, poison bottles and household cleaners, animal skulls and more. “I’m drawn to things with cool logos,” Knowlton-Sachner says. Many objects in his house have been gathered over the years from estate sales and thrift stores, or online marketplaces like eBay.

McDonald World

One of Knowlton-Sachner’s proudest and most robust collections lines the walls of his kitchen—his McDonaldland memorabilia. McDonaldland refers to the fantastical universe of characters created by McDonald’s to promote the fast-food franchise’s offerings from the ‘70s to 2000s. McDonaldland is where Ronald McDonald and others like Mayor McCheese, Grimace, the Hamburglar, Officer Big Mac, Birdie the Early Bird, Captain Crook, the Professor, the Fry Kids, the McNugget Buddies, the Happy Meal Gang and Apple Pie Trees live. Each character corresponds with a different product; Officer Big Mac is obviously for the flagship McDonald’s sandwich, Grimace is for milkshakes, Birdie is for the breakfast menu and Captain Crook is for the Filet-o-Fish, for example.

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“I love anything that is in a fantasy land with all its own characters and stories, like the Wizard of Oz, or especially if its mascots for a food chain,” Knowlton-Sachner explains. “McDonald’s was the king of not just fast food but their marketing was insane. Just look at all this stuff. If all that wasn’t cool enough for you, in the ‘80s they created a real McDonaldland that they put it in stores for kids to play on. Now you go to McDonald’s and it’s just a gray, boring box with nothing fun.”

The McDonaldland universe predates the chain’s marketing deals with media corporations like Disney, Looney Tunes, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks and Mattel. Knowlton-Sachner is not interested in any of that stuff. Everything he has relates to classic McDonaldland lore, from collectible Happy Meal toys and boxes (some of which he has saved from childhood) to puppets and action figures. Having these items all in one place reflects how certain characters had radically changed in appearance over time such as Grimace, who originally had four arms, and Hamburglar, who originally had a more sinister look.

“My favorite character is probably Officer Big Mac, even though I hate police, because I like that he has a Big Mac for a head,” Knowlton-Sachner laughs. He also likes Grimace, noting, “I used to think he was just a big dumb purple thing —which he is—but now he’s become one of my favorites because of how lovable he is.” Knowlton-Sachner also appreciates Mac Tonight, who is not technically a McDonaldland character but had debuted to promote the company’s late-night menu. “He kind of did his own thing, which I related to him as a person.”

Ronald McDonald Statue

Walking into Knowlton-Sachner’s kitchen, you immediately notice the Ronald McDonald statue in the corner, which sits in front of an even larger Jolly Green Giant statue. He reckons that the Ronald statue is the most expensive piece of memorabilia in the McDonaldland collection. Then he points to one of the more obscure McDonaldland Characters on his shelf, Uncle O’Grimacy, who was Grimace’s Irish uncle and promoted the Shamrock Shake. Upon taking down a Happy Meal toy from a shelf, Knowlton-Sachner opens it to reveal a tiny notepad. “Every toy came in its own packaging, and along with it had a little card with its name and picture and information about it you could collect.” 

He continues, “Every side of a Happy Meal box would have a game or maze or word search or something you could punch out and make a finger puppet out of. So much creativity and art went into everything. Each cookie box came with a trading card you could cut out that had the Professor on it. Because there were seven McDonaldland characters, then you had to collect all of them.”

Besides characters, Knowlton-Sachner’s collection features a framed McDonald’s artwork section, framed menu item wrappers and placemats, employee-only items like flare, newsletters and handbooks, and dioramas of the restaurant. “It’s hard to say what my favorite things are, but the stuff that’s in these frames are so rare and unique. If you take those handbooks out of the frame and open them, they’ll have cartoons that someone drew just for that handbook.” Out of an orange envelope, Knowlton-Sachner presents a Big Mac recipe card, a Mac Tonight pin display board, a birthday book, a folder of Ronald McDonald fan club materials and coupons from 1971.

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He then diverts attention to other rarities like a McDonald’s Shanghai chicken nuggets bag, a McDonald’s pizza box, a McDonaldland poster with the original Evil Grimace, McDonald’s temporary tattoos, a Chopped Beefsteak pin employees wore to promote the new sandwich and an employee of the month ribbon. He also has a Founder’s Day certificate hung to look like it is falling off the wall but purposefully angled that way so the light reveals a 3D photopolymer holograph of the original McDonald’s mascot Speedee. Knowlton-Sachner mentions, “You can’t get something like that anymore.”

Beyond what he has up on shelves, Knowlton-Sachner has several McDonald’s uniforms, including a golden vintage server’s dress. “These might someday get framed. When you find them, you get them, because you’re probably never going to find them again.” He also owns a stack of VHS tapes comprising McDonald’s training videos, McDonald’s cartoons produced by animation company Klasky Csupo and even a reel of McDonald’s commercials from before they went into syndication.

“People ask me what my grail is for this collection,” Knowlton-Sachner remarks. “My dream—which will never happen because I would have to be rich and have land—would be to recreate the McDonaldland playground with all the equipment. It’s all out there but they’re like tens of thousands of dollars for each thing. There’s actually a couple people in Milwaukee who have some of these things and I drive by their houses sometimes.”

Childhood Memories

In addition to his McDonaldland collection, Knowlton-Sachner shares two McDonald’s-related stories, the first of which being when got his head stuck between the bars of Officer Big Mac’s head “jail” while playing on the playground as a kid. “My dad had to come rescue me. He had to go to the counter and get a pad of McButter, and McButter my ears so we could squeeze my head out.”

His second story recalls when he first bought frames at Value Village for items in his collection, where a guy had taken Knowlton-Sachner’s folder of McDonald’s stuff from his cart when his back was turned and was attempting to buy it from the store clerk without knowing who it actually belonged to. “I almost fainted. I started freaking out and searched everywhere in the store. They were closing in like 15 minutes, and I was about to come to terms with the fact that I was going to have to leave the store without my stuff, then I saw this guy, and he was upset because he was trying to buy it but they wouldn’t sell it to him because there wasn’t a price on it. He didn’t know how upset he was about to be because I went up and said “That’s mine, you can give it back now.” He said “No it isn’t” and thought my cart was all stuff that was about to get stocked. He wanted me to prove that I brought it from home. I got serious and told him he wasn’t going to make it out of the store with my stuff. The woman behind me got nervous and yelled at him to give it back to me.”