Thank you folks for staying tuned and finding out the current rankings! I know you've been waiting a while and here is the first one!
Bernice
Name: Bernice
AKA: Bernice
Species: Bernice
First appearance: 1992
Marital Status: Single and ready to Mingle
Tier: TBA.
Notable traits: Bernice is brown. And has a nose. Also has a movie script.
Bernice first showed up with a lot of disrespect put to her name, being called simply "Something" and being on a TV. Bernice wasn't actually given a name until sometime after her first appearance, which just goes to show you how much she was originally intended to be a throwaway character.
But starting this list with a throwaway would be weird right? And you're correct. Bernice was not relegated to a single one-off appearance and was instead made to be a somewhat recurring character, even having the key role in a 3-part ad series.
In this series, Ronald is trying to make a movie. But Bernice the script. Bernice notices that she is hungry for something. She eats the script, causing Ronald to be unable to make the commercial. Ronald is then forced to use his magic to find out who the ad is supposed to be about. He finds the letters:
K
D
I
S
and uses magic to decide they spell...
KIDS.
He gets it wrong. Bernice knows the original ad was supposed to be Ronald's awful fanfic addition to the Fast & The Furious cinema film series (the word was SKID, referring to skid marks that tires make). Bernice saved film and cinema that day. And all she had to do was eat a script.
Interestingly, Bernice bears a striking resemblence to a certain fictional character from 1986...
yes that's right.
Hooter. Both of them have long noses. Both of them eat things they aren't supposed to. This makes me think Bernice is an homage to Hooter, which is awesome.
Sadly, Bernice gets little representation outside of the commercials she's starred in, having no appearances in any games as far as I can tell, nor any direct toys featuring her. This means her lasting legacy is pretty poor, and I have to dock points from her for this. Otherwise, she's pretty cool as a weird design that they used whenever non-food needed to be eaten.
Some other things she's eaten:
Cities
(Interesting piece of actual trivia about this ad: They filmed 5 versions of this with kids of different nationalities to use in different parts of the world. And this was in 1996.)
The Happy Meal Box
Overall Bernice's legacy is the crumbs she left behind, and the fact she was able to turn a one-off appearance into a pretty diverse role where she played both Ronald's friend (in Making Movies) and a foe type role (in Ronald In the Movies). This definitely makes her a pretty interesting character overall.
TIER: Would share a Meal With
NEXT:
The Fry Kids
Name: Fry Kids
AKA: Gobblins
Marital Status: Open
First Appearance: 1972
Notable Traits: There's a lot of them and they have lots of colors and are kinda stringy looking.