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X-E’s ’08 Summer Megaparty: Burger Tyrant.


Bah, this shit's ridiculous. I've been seeing commercials for this Burger King "Club BK" kids' meal starring Pikachu and Apple Fries for a while now, and it seemed like just the type of neoclassic Happy Meal worth blogging about. I realize that Burger King doesn't make Happy Meals, but you know what I mean.


I expected the world, but what I got back was this sad, boring bag, with a Pokemon toy haphazardly shoved in with overcooked fries and crown-shaped chicken tenders. They didn't have Apple Fries in stock, which is kind of unbelievable. If there's one thing I'd never expect anyone to sell out of, it's APPLE FRIES.

That isn't what's bothering me, though. What really bugs me is the total lack of customized packaging. There's no "experience" to this.

BACK IN MY DAY, the Happy Meal was as much about its flashy bravado as its toys and cheeseburgers. Was there a single kid in the country who didn't at least try to keep the house-shaped Happy Meal box in perfect working order throughout their meal, free of folds and fry oil? Hell, a good many of us, myself included, went so far as to take those boxes home with us, working under the idea that we'd keep them forever and ever. We never did, but the fun was in the notion that we could.

Those Happy Meal boxes, with their colorful artwork and random puzzles, were as much a part of the filthy food experience as anything else. When McDonald's began phasing out the boxes in favor of less-artful bags, I was sad, but at least the bags still had the same gamut of illustrations and puzzles...albeit less colorful ones.

But this?! An unrelated bag lacking any kind of kiddy theme? APPALLED.


To protest, I refuse to acknowledge the neat holographic Prinplup card or the Pokemon-themed card holder it came with. Take that, BK.

In anti-celebration of this disappointing turn of events, I'd like to institute a new survey. In the comments, talk about your favorite Happy Meal toy ever. Yes, the free toys you got from other fine greasy food establishments are totally fine to talk about, too.

On the plus side: If getting pissed about the quality level of a Burger King "Club BK" kids' meal is the worst thing that happened to me today, I think I'm still in the black.

Posted by Matt on 07/17/2008. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 264 comments

My mom went to BK. She brought me Pikachu -_-

Someone’s gotta die.

Chestnuts roasted by Neg @ 07/18/2008 9:21 PM

Hey Forko, I was thinking of the Mario with the spring too. We had him and the Koopa with the pump movement. I was also thinking about how I never had one, but I wanted to acquire the Back to the Future animated series toys, like Doc Brown in the DeLorean. They didn’t look that great, but there was always a serious lack of BTTF toys.

Before I mention my favourite fast food toy, speaking of the Happy meal boxes, does anyone remember the plastic space ships they came in at one time? I would imagine it was in 1983, when my family drove from Canada to Arizona to visit my snowbirding grandparents. We went to a McDonalds a couple of times, and it was so much more exciting than the McDonalds in our city. One, they had those great playgrounds where the ply equipment was in the shape of McDonaldland caharcters. And two, the Happy Meals came in plastic or blue flying saucers. So cool. I don’t even know if there was a toy inside, but the saucer itself was an excellent and large toy you cuold play with after. I don’t think it was even promoting anything like a movie.

Now, my favourite fast food toy line is only from 2005. The Burger King Star Wars toys. It was when Revenge of the Sith came out, and the line was so good, they even had a second wave in the fall of that year. I have every single one, and it was great because Burger King here didn’t care if I even bought the food each week, I could just buy the toy. (Although out of guilt I sometimes bought fries). The figures are all those disproportioned big head figures, and each does something different. Some are tops, some have LEDs, some squirt water, and some were little vehicles or stuffed animals. But what I like about them is the likenesses and paint jobs on each character. I swear the Padme and Obi Wan are the best liknesses I’ve seen on Star Wars toys. And nicely painted, not just cheap slap dash jobs. The harder to get figure was the Vader where when you opened him up, inside was Anakin, so it was like two figures in one. And carbonite Han had Han hiding inside the block. Such a cool line, I was really hoping they’d do the same for Indiana Jones this year, but all they had was a contest or something.

http://www.rebelscum.com/restaurant.asp

Guinness: I’ve never been to White Spot here, but in college someone told me about the Pirate Pack and I thought they meant it was an edible pirate ship, lol. So I was mildly disappointed when I finally did see the real thing at someone’s house and realized it was cardboard with places to tuck food into. But I do agree, it must be the coolest die-cut folded elaborate meal box ever.

Chestnuts roasted by CMJ @ 07/18/2008 9:55 PM

My unspoilered review of Dark Knight:

It was awesome, everyone was great, wonder what’s gonna happen next, everyone go see it now if you haven’t seen it yet.

The End :)

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 07/18/2008 10:31 PM

My unspoiled review of Dark Knight:

It was awesome, everyone was great, wonder what’s gonna happen next, everyone go see it now if you haven’t seen it yet.

The End :)

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 07/18/2008 10:32 PM

Wow it must have been good to get a double spoiler free review! ;)

Chestnuts roasted by Dan @ 07/18/2008 10:34 PM

My spoiler free review of Dark Knight:

Needed Fleshing Out. Heath was spectacular.

Chestnuts roasted by Neg @ 07/18/2008 10:49 PM

It’s all about the Hot Wheels. For someone who loved Hot Wheels, they were always the best toys.

My dad’s friend’s daughter worked at McDonalds at some point during the mid-90s, and she managed to grab the Barbie/Hot Wheels display. You know, the thing that shows you all the toys that you can get.

Because I was young and stupid, I actually opened the thing up and took the cars out. I mean, come on, there’s a whole friggin set of Hot Wheels McDonalds cars for me to play with, and the only thing keeping me from it was a box, don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing at that age?

Looking back on it, the full display would have had a bad ass thing to have, although, I doubt I would have had the room to keep it. Thankfully, the cars from that set along with all my other Hot Wheels are still in two large bins under my bed.

Hell yeah to never growing up.

Chestnuts roasted by Yitzy @ 07/18/2008 11:08 PM

Yitzy: You got that right, NEVER grow up. =D Always remember, growing old is mandatory, but growing up, that’s OPTIONAL! =D

Chestnuts roasted by ULTRAMAN @ 07/18/2008 11:17 PM

In Vancouver, we have White Spot restaurant, and they had Pirate Packs. A kids meal in a box that looked like a pirate ship and it came with a toy and a paper pirate hat. I never ever did get one as a child. Regrets, I’ve had a few…

Chestnuts roasted by Visaman @ 07/18/2008 11:22 PM

So I’m reading all these, and… Most of the Mcdonalds toys you’re talking about? I have. In big waterproof totes. My mom used to work at Mcdonalds from 1990 – 1997..ish.. and .. she used to get me ALL the toys.

I’m looking to sell if people are interested?

Chestnuts roasted by Cat the Vampire Slayer @ 07/18/2008 11:31 PM

For me it’s hands down the McDonald’s Happy Meal “Back to the Future” toys circa 1991. I so desperately wanted a sparking Delorean.

Chestnuts roasted by Chris D. @ 07/19/2008 12:15 AM

These were some of my favorites:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neatocoolville/93463653/
I remember having each and every one of them (and a few duplicates) in various colors.
I don’t know when they came out, but I have it narrowed down to the 1980-1985 range, since I started junior high in ’85 and wouldn’t have been caught dead eating a Happy Meal after that.

Chestnuts roasted by Simon @ 07/19/2008 12:54 AM

The universal monster toys from BK were the stuff. I still have the water spitting Creature from the black lagoon. But the most fun toy was the purple rhino thing from Small soldiers. It had this little orange thing on it’s back that acted like a catipult. My friend and I used it to launch BK stale fries at each other. It caught on and half the people in the place engaged in a fry war. The employees were not amused.

Chestnuts roasted by Goththom @ 07/19/2008 1:25 AM

I’ve never posted a comment here before but I read the site regularly, and this topic was compelling enough to finally put my two cents in.

Most of my favorite kid’s meal promotions have already been mentioned, the Revenge of the Sith (BK) and Episode I (KFC, Taco Bell & Pizza Hut) promotions are very high on my list, as are Super Mario 3, Muppet Babies, Fraggle Rock and MOTU 2002 (all McDonalds). I never got any of the 101 Dalmations, but I thought the concept was really cool, and felt bad for anyone who set out to collect them all. The Thundercats BK kid’s meals were really exciting as a kid, but the Snarf straw-holder was the only toy that was worth the trouble.

I’m looking forward to the Clone Wars Happy Meal promotion McDonalds will have later this year. The toys have big heads attached to little ships, and look like they’ll fit in nicely with the two sets of BK ROTS figures from 2005. I just hope they make them available without buying the food, and they don’t do any chase figures.

Chestnuts roasted by Todd4LOM @ 07/19/2008 1:31 AM

Oh my God! I can’t believe I forgot the BK Universal Monsters toys! I just got a set of them at a toy show last year, and an extra Creature for my cubicle at work.

Chestnuts roasted by Todd4LOM @ 07/19/2008 1:32 AM

Is there some website where you can see fast food premiums ahead of time?

Chestnuts roasted by GwimWock @ 07/19/2008 9:25 AM

If there is I’m not aware of it. I saw an image of the Star Wars Happy Meal figures that appears to be taken from a pack-in booklet that would typically accompany the toy. Here’s the url:

http://www.rebelscum.com/photo.asp?image=http://www.collectinghq.com/im/0013955.jpg

Chestnuts roasted by Todd4LOM @ 07/19/2008 10:38 AM

I forgot to mention these before, but I really liked and still have these Marvel hero vehicles from Hardee’s. There’s Spider-Man, Captain America (I think), the Hulk, and She-Hulk.

Also, anyone remember Burger King’s Burger King Kingdom characters? I vaguely remember the BK closest to us had pictures of them in the playground: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burger_King_Kingdom

Chestnuts roasted by Teddy Ray @ 07/19/2008 10:58 AM

As a Burger King employee and a closet Pokémon fan, I too must register my disappointment with the lack of pizazz that this promotion comes with. But sadly, at BK, it’s become par for the course. Only a select few promotions get the “special bag” treatment nowadays, presumably because of the overlap between promotions. We recently did a promotion for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and the custom Indy bags lasted us well into the promotion for The Incredible Hulk that followed. If they’d made custom Hulk bags, we would have been using them only for the latter half of the promotion and into the Pokémon promotion, and it would have thrown everything out of whack. There’s no guarantee that we’ll use all our stock before the end of the month.

On the subject, my favorite Happy Meal/Kids’ Meal promotion ever is a difficult subject to narrow down, but I do have very fond memories of the McDonald’s Inspector Gadget promotion from June 1999. As that date suggests, it was a promotion for the crappy live-action movie starring Matthew Broderick, not the original cartoon, but the concept was awesome – six separate toys that could combine together to make a huge Inspector Gadget action figure. I was 12 at the time, and I was hell-bent on collecting all six of them, but thanks to my mom’s rule on how frequently I could eat at fast-food places each week, I only got four. Thankfully, my dad knew someone who worked at a McDonald’s and was able to get me the last two toys I needed, and my complete Inspector Gadget action figure still lurks about in the bowels of my home. It may be a relic of a movie that was absolutely terrible, but I was still proud of myself for finally collecting all the toys in a fast-food promotion for the very first time.

Chestnuts roasted by JBWarner86 @ 07/19/2008 11:18 AM

Forgot to mention this earlier, but I loved and still have these Marvel hero vehicles from Hardee’s. There’s Spider-Man, Captain America (I think), the Hulk, and She-Hulk.

Also, anyone remember BK’s Burger King Kingdom characters? I vaguely remember the BK near us had pictures of them on the fence in the playground…can’t get the link to work…google ‘em or wiki ‘em.

Chestnuts roasted by Teddy Ray @ 07/19/2008 11:59 AM

For some reason those damn “California Raisins” top my list. There was nothing remarkable about these small rubber lumps. They didn’t move, make sounds, or have accessories.
They always pop into memory though.

Chestnuts roasted by Kainzzo @ 07/19/2008 1:59 PM

Oh man, thanks to everyone who mentioned the upcoming Star Wars Clone Wars McD’s toys. Poked around Google and found an image and they look pretty neat. I remember attempting to collect all the BK ones a few years back.

Chestnuts roasted by Jon @ 07/19/2008 2:19 PM

I certainly agree with your views on the whole Happy Meal experience. Glad to say I still have one perfect condition box left (Hot Wheels)As for my favorite toy, that’s a tough one. I loved the Super Mario Bros 3 toys (obviously) and the Garfield in little cars toys but I probably got the most play time out of Pain and Panic from Disney’s Hercules’ toys. It was rare to find McDonalds toys good enough to hang with the rest of your action figures, much less out shine them in play time. Especially since most McDonalds toys have your favorite charcters oversized heads poking out Wacky Races-esque cars they’ve never driven before.

Chestnuts roasted by Lucky @ 07/19/2008 3:26 PM

I once had a McD’s Monsters Inc. themed meal in a nondescript brown bag once.

The other memory is the first Burger King Big Kid’s meal promotion, a Rugrats thing. The most interesting item about it was a mysterious green dipping sauce. Does anyone know what I’m talking about…?

Chestnuts roasted by Jonah Norason @ 07/19/2008 9:43 PM

Well, whilst we’re all sharing our Fast Food Toy memories, I figure I may as well join in. Okay, now before I start, here’s the thing. Up here in the Great White North of Canada, the Happy Meal didn’t appear until the mid-90s. You could still get the toys, though… If you asked for them specifically. This meant that what they had up there didn’t necessarily match up with what was being advertised on the US-made McDonald’s Commercials. Fun Food Changeables? Never came up here. McDinos? Not a chance. The Super Mario Brothers 3 Toys?… Actually, those DID come up north. I one gave myself a black eye looking straight down at the Raccoon Mario before it popped up.

Now that the background is out of the way, here’s the big story. Back around ’88ish, McDonalds did a promotion involving LEGO happy meals. I was a HUGE Lego nut back then, and totally flipped out when I found that this was one of the promotions that didn’t come up north… What happened next was by far the most awesome thing to have happened to me in my life up to that point. The family drove down to Niagra Falls, we crossed the border to the US… and I got a Happy Meal. Pretty much the whole trip down to the US was for the explicit purpose of me getting a Happy Meal, with the LEGO toy inside… I’m reminded of just how awesome parents can be sometimes.

Anyways… Despite the Happy Meal not coming up north until sometime around the Teenie Beanie promotion, I still got in on the collecting thing. I distinctly remember the Fraggle Rock toys, the Muppet Babies toys and the toys with the McDonalds characters in the go-kart things… They were mentioned sometime earlier in this thread. Anyway… The REAL things I liked that came out of McDonalds were some sort of… proto-transformer-things. I remember there were 3 of them, a car, a plane and a UFO thing. They had a pull-back-and-go function in their vehicle modes, and if you tried to do that while they were transformed, they’d clumsily ‘walk’. They weren’t very good at doing this on carpeted floors, but still, it was damn cool. I also remember a Star Wars promotion that had a 3-D Death Star puzzle as one of the toys, but I can’t remember which place was giving it away… I think it was Burger King. And of course, the giant Inspector Gadget toy was all kinds of awesome. It came to the point where between myself and my siblings, we had the parts to build a complete Gadget figure, but each of us wanted it to him/herself… That was a problem. OOH! and the McFormers that came with the Beast Wars promotion.

So anyways, I figure I may as well mention the stuff that the people I know still get when it shows up at a Yard Sale or similar. I know that my Mom is collecting the Dalmatians from the 101(and later, 102) Dalmatians promotions, as well as the outsized Crazy Bones from the Crazy Bones thing. My little sister USED to collect the NeoPets, but seems to be done with them. I myself don’t collect McDonald’s toys… Though I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on a set of the Fun Food Changeables.

Chestnuts roasted by DocDragon @ 07/19/2008 11:37 PM

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