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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

Yeah, My Dad is quite a badass. I think he felt bad because my Brothers both had Birthday’s that fell in July and Sept. could make the trek to Showbiz Pizza or place that was like Chuck E. Cheese called, Bullwinkles. It was like Chuck E. Cheese in every way, but it had Bullwinkle Characters in it. I don’t remember it all that well, except hanging out around the Natasha and Boris area WAY too much.

Chestnuts roasted by Jester @ 07/18/2008 1:14 AM

Um, that comment was directed at Rainbowfeet BTW. It wasn’t just a random exclamation of boasting about my Dad.

Chestnuts roasted by Jester @ 07/18/2008 1:15 AM

Yeah, even the Barbies were ok, because my sister was sort of my best friend, and there needed to be female characters to offset the males. We always played ken to be an egotistical braindead asshole and abused him something feirce. It was fun.

Action figures of that size were the perfect toys for in the pool, there’s something infinitely fun to sinking/drowning characters when you’ve never actually known a drown victim.

Chestnuts roasted by Justin B @ 07/18/2008 1:17 AM

0301-7819-8932 Here’s my code in case you change yur mind Neg. Also Matt I do believe you have Diamond. What do you say to a battle?

Chestnuts roasted by ULTRAMAN @ 07/18/2008 1:20 AM

i loved the McDs toys that were modeled after the fries, hamburger, and drink..and they transformed into robots(?). also lines that were cartoon themed, all of them. off the top of my head the Fragile Rock and Muppet Babies toys instant winners.

also, i dont know about bests, cause i think i culled all expectation of owning the best when the anticipation was that the next toy could be even better.

Chestnuts roasted by dphunkt @ 07/18/2008 1:24 AM

Justin, i totally remember those earth day kits now, previously forgotten, thanks for refreshing my memory on that…ah, good times.

Chestnuts roasted by Shad @ 07/18/2008 1:25 AM

Hey, While on the subject of McBoo pails, Didn’t the ghost one glow in the dark?

I seem to recall that.

Chestnuts roasted by Jester @ 07/18/2008 1:29 AM

The red Koopa Paratroopa that came with a little squeezy pump so you could make him jump ^__^

Chestnuts roasted by Bluejay @ 07/18/2008 1:31 AM

Jester, yes it did, but not all of them. not until like 89 or 90. after ones from years past broke I’d always have glowing faces with non glowing lids mix and matched.

Chestnuts roasted by Justin B @ 07/18/2008 1:35 AM

I seem to recall that my mom still has a Frankenstein pail. It’s currently filled with broken Crayola’s if memory serves me right.

Chestnuts roasted by Jester @ 07/18/2008 1:39 AM

the thing about the mcboo pails was…because you got one every time you ordered a happy meal and because they had them for a few years in a row I had, like, multiples of each one of those…man, I wonder why they seem to be impossible to find on ebay? you would think otherwise.

Chestnuts roasted by Anonymous @ 07/18/2008 1:39 AM

Who else here has toys of Mac Tonight? I do.

They still do Happy Meals in the boxes, but I think they came back within the last 5 years.

One of my favorite Happy Meal Toy sets I remember was a huge cross-promotion where you had like 20 toys that were all cars of a large train. The locomotive had Ronald, you had Hot Wheels, 101 Dalmations, Muppet Babies, Barbie, Tiny Toons, assorted other toy lines to boot.

I, too loved the Hot Wheels promotions. Got many a great car from those. My favorites were the tiny Drag Racers. I got hours of fun out of those, I wish I could find them. I also remember some years the “Boy” toy were mini Tonka cars.

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 07/18/2008 1:40 AM

I have a huge luggage bag full to bursting and too heavy for one arm full of Hotwheels and matchbox cars, including probably most of the ones I ever got from McDonalds, and yes, the drag racers were great. nascar and funnycar McDonalds shit.

I didn’t care for their Tonka lines, but I was older.

Chestnuts roasted by Justin B @ 07/18/2008 1:45 AM

My favorite Happy Meal was the Mario Bros 3 series. The boxes for it were a toy onto themselves. They had cutouts so you could use the box itself as a playset for the toys. You were MEANT to take them home and play with them.

Chestnuts roasted by Brian @ 07/18/2008 2:08 AM

Probably a tie between Boo Pails and Changeables, which I think you’ve both written about, possibly more than once. But I also remember something from Hardees (back when they had more than 2 locations) when Ghostbusters 2 came out. I don’t remember the toy at all, but the food came in this weird molded plastic box that was shaped like a proton pack or a PKE meter or Ecto 1 or something… it was like just the packaging was a whole different toy, and I have a very dim, hazy memory of it being awesome. Anyone else remember anything like this?

Also, long time reader (like, 5 years now), first time poster. Hello, everybodeee!

Chestnuts roasted by Hanglyman @ 07/18/2008 2:13 AM

didn’t actually come in a happy meal, think it was a buck more, but I loved the disney glasses that were made to commemorate Animal Kingdom…

Chestnuts roasted by JennyB7 @ 07/18/2008 2:28 AM

Hey Hanglyman ! =) Be sure to come by and post often.

Chestnuts roasted by ULTRAMAN @ 07/18/2008 2:34 AM

There are a lot I’ve liked, but the ones that stick out to me the most are the Garfield ones that were similar to the Muppet Babies figure/vehicle two-packs, and the Super Mario 3 toys.

But I didn’t care for the jumping Mario (I had one like that already, in classic colors and sans Raccoon power) or Luigi; rather, I dug the Goomba and Koopa Paratroopa most. I also got the under-3 Raccoon Mario fingerpuppet, which was a favorite of mine for many years, acting as my main Mario “action figure,” despite lacking the “action” part.

That’s where Wendy’s came in only a few years ago; they gave away full-fledged Mario action figures in their kids meals. Blister-card, five points of articulation, a pretty good sculpt… it remains a favorite to this day, even this late in the game.

–LBD “Nytetrayn”

Chestnuts roasted by LBD "Nytetrayn" @ 07/18/2008 2:52 AM

Oh are we doing favorite happy meal toys?

I must have missed it because someone *cough* crossed out Manaphy~

I have to go with the Hotcakes Pterodactyl. However, the orange cell phone that turned into a periscope has always been nipping at its heels…er, talons.

Chestnuts roasted by Neg @ 07/18/2008 3:11 AM

My favorite was the Luigi w/ starman pullback toy from McD’s. I still have it, and play with it. Daily.

Chestnuts roasted by Guido @ 07/18/2008 3:12 AM

FRAGGLE ROCK VEGETABLE GO CARTS!!!!!!!

The Happy Meal boxes had punch-out holes you could race the cars through. The box was an accessory! Tied with that was Astro-Sniks, little figures that were trying to compete with those PVC Smurf figures of the 80′s.

After that, any “sample size” toy from a larger toy line, like Playmobil, Capsela, or those crinkly colored tube building toys that were like big bendy straws.

Chestnuts roasted by Shawn P @ 07/18/2008 3:20 AM

Hmm, quite a few come to mind. The Flintstones Movie product placement offered a sweet line of Bedrock houses and establishments with neato cars. The Hot Wheels toys were always good because that was as close to a toy that you’d get on a trip to K-Mart. Burger King’s Toy Story toys were also of high quality. But among the coolest were the McDonald’s food robots that were like Transformers but shaped like various Mickey D’s treats.

Chestnuts roasted by Cigar @ 07/18/2008 3:23 AM

I didn’t read over all the posts, so I don’t know if anyone mentioned this or not.

BUT! Does anyone remember the Power Rangers/McDonald’s promotion of (I think) 1995. I’m fairly sure it was for the Power Rangers Movie. The toys were simply awesome.

http://www.lorenjavier.com/toychest/asian/images/adamwithninjazord.gif

There is a pic of the black ranger of the set.

Basically, you got articulated (arms, legs AND heads), scaled-down versions of all the rangers. As a bonus, you got their zord, complete with wheels so it could roll along in the most awesome of fashions.

Insert Power Ranger into said zord, and you instantly had hours of fun.

The full-sized Power Rangers toys made by Ban-Dai were always hard to find (especially Tommy the Green Ranger. Even though I did have two, one is still mint-in-box somewhere). And the zords were VERY expensive, therefore collecting a full set of rangers and their zords was pretty hard.

The McDonald’s toys offered a great alternative. And hell, the detailing on them was great for McDonald’s toys.

As an added bonus, they were roughly the same size as GI Joes, which meant I had an entire army of baddies for my pint-sized rangers to face!

Chestnuts roasted by nateFNalbright @ 07/18/2008 3:40 AM

I remember the plastic Grimace comb (because I’m 80) and the Shirt Tails from Wendy’s. Wendy’s also had the Mr. & Little Miss books which were really boss. Oh, I also liked the McDonald’s barbies and McBoo pails. Can’t remember much more than that.

Chestnuts roasted by Faith @ 07/18/2008 3:41 AM

I wouldn’t admit this anywhere but here, but my favorite happy meal toy was the Muppet Baby figures they gave out in McDonalds in the mid 80s. I really loved that show as a kid. They were still displayed in my room when I was a teenager listening to NIN at full blast while my parents wondered what they were going to do with me. Now that I’m 30 I still have them sitting on a shelf in my spare bedroom. The only other childrens meal toys I have besides those that I have kept since my childhood are one of the bean bag reindeers Wendys gave away in the 80s and the Alf puppets given away by Burger King. I think I have the Simpsons figures stored somewhere here as well.

Chestnuts roasted by Jack @ 07/18/2008 3:56 AM

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