I remember attending birthday parties at McDonald's (1970s) before such a thing began happening at pizza joints. All the kids got a Happy Meal, and then we all went to the play area. Happy Meal prizes were special before the age of home computers, and the playground still had some play equipment that today would be considered "unsafe", meaning it was actually fun getting flung off the little merry-go-round, or climbing to the highest top of the slide and looking far down below at our very concerned mothers. McDonald's had delicious French fries for as long as they fried them in beef tallow, then the lawsuits and 1980s health fitness crazes hit them (really? McDonald's selling "salads"? blasphemy!). For a while back then, fast food restaurants advertised their low affordable prices "because" it was fast food. Nowadays, much fast food tastes bland in comparison and costs as much as regular restaurants.
As unfortunate as it may be, its the consequence of “progress”. Some things get better and others suffer as a result. But we can be thankful we have memories like those you mentioned, having lived through some pretty amazing times.
Those playgrounds were awesome. My kids loved it. I not so much but they claimed they were made from recycled polystyrene they used then by them . Idk but it's what they claimed.
0:29 I had the little cheeseburger and ice cream transformers and i played with them so much i wore them out XD such a tiny thing but i LOVED it as a child
I remember the original changeables being huge in the UK. Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles (cause over here ninjas were to be feared..... supposedly) were also super popular, despite the needless name change. This video has put me in the mood for pizza! 😂
Unfortunately many of the modern promotional items are uninspired. The only notable quality being the IP they are based on. Not any unique quality of the items themselves.
There were so many fun ones to choose from… narrowing them down to fit in a 10 minute video was a difficult task. Those pull back cars would have been a great addition though!
I knew the Halloween pails & McNugget buddies would be saved for Halloween. Great picks here! I’d have included the 3 stuffed muppets from McDonald’s for Christmas, the stuffed Disney characters from Hardee’s also from Christmas, the BK Star war glasses for the original trilogy, & BK TMNT toon videos promo. You could’ve also mentioned the Star Wars Phantom Menace promo that went to Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, & KFC
I had the TMNT "Coming out of their Shells" cassette and used to play the hell out of it. In 2nd and 3rd grade, That was really the first music I listened to on my own... And I got made fun of for it. 😂 The early 90s were awesome drenched in neon and snap bracelets.
I remember BK was giving out 45 records with a hit song on them. We also had a huge drinking glass collection of Bugs Bunny and friends. I want to say from BK or McDonald's. Loved my glasses. Simple memories that I hold dear to me. 😊
I miss the Taco Bell kids meal! One of the best things that I got from one of their kids meals was a set of tin Digimon trading, which I wish I still had. Maybe I can find some on Mercari. Speaking of finding kids meal promos on Mercari, I found two of the four DVD games that Wendy's once gave away in their kids meals. The two that I got were for Goosebumps and Maya & Miguel, the former I like to play around Halloween.
When I saw the title of this I was hoping you’d include the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coming out of their shells cassette from Pizza Hut. Thank you so much! I LOVED this album when I was 10 and can probably still sing mist of the songs. Back then I wanted to marry Donatello. 😂
That’s awesome! A friend of ours who does some content work over at The Retro Network (who also happened to play RD in our previous serious ‘Retro Detention’) is also quite the “Tour” fan. So there was no way we were going to leave that out. 😉
I actually found one of those Transformables little milk cartons in a thrift store along with a green crayon holder guy! In the 90s there were of course Beanie Babies offered with Happy Meals that caused ruckuses!
I was never into the happy meal toys, probably because I was too old at the time. I did enjoy the one where the loony toons got snap on costumes of DC comics superheroes. They seemed fun
I remember in the eraly 80's McDonald's had Fast Mac (race cars with Ronald) ect. They were "pull back..& go".. I also remember the Muppet Babies figures. Burger King didn't have bad toys either-depending on the character!! I remember the Bernstein Bears figures too. And, collectable glasses.
@@RetroDaze thanks for the reply :) I really miss the Muppet Babies figures, the Bernstein Bears, The Firsher Price Fun with Food series-they did have McDonald's themed food. But this was the late 80's, I was a little too old for this. But I didn't care!! And like I said, Burger King had good toys as well. They had the Burger King Kids Club "kids" :) Um..Simpson's Characters..They had Characters from a show called Capitol Critters..(somebody check this out!!)it had Neil Patrick Harris in it. ♥ aka, Max. It was a short lived series!! 1992-6 to 8 months, maybe half a season.
04:35 The quarterpoundersarous (lol or some ridiculously cute name) and the frydog dino were not just 2 of my favorite happy meal toys...they were 2 of my favorite toys altogether growing up!
in 1987 Mcdonalds had released the Design-o-saurs. Each was a Mcdonaldland character riding on a dinosaur that you had to assemble yourself from a plastic sprue of colored plastic. They also came with a sticker sheat to some color and more details to the figure. I wonder if you have heard of these. They seem to be quite obscure.
@@jamescampbell4334 We covered those thoroughly in a recent video! Here: Collectible Promo Glasses Of The ‘70s, ‘80s, & ‘90s czcams.com/video/BBBfeRcDLa4/video.html
I have those Mcrobo Changables! Back when these came out, there wasn't a Mcdonalds anywhere near us, so we went maybe once or twice a year. So when we wnet and I got the Mcnuggets one, I begged my parents to come back next week for the others, but they said no. Then Dad went back to the register to order some more food. When he came back he said "Put these away quick." and gave me 3 other Changables! He had basically bribed the cashier into giving him the some leftovers from the previous weeks.
Pizza Hut: Land Before Time puppets and Back To The Future 2 sunglasses Burger King: color changing Aladdin movie cups Hardee's (I think): Gremlins books with records
Damn i still remember most of this. I still have a few Garfield and batman glass cups lol. Now that we look back we can see how corporations targeted kids, especially with the video games 😂. I also still have some dominos noids laying around somewhere.
While the intent of the corporations may not have been honorable, the products and media they presented to us transcended their purpose and took on lives of their own in our young minds.
@@RetroDaze nice, yea that's a good way to look at it, their products definitely gave us good times and fun. Great channel man, I'll be looking forward to more videos, much appreciated 👍
Oh man! Burger Chef was, at one time, second only to McDonald’s in sheer number of establishments. It was a huge franchise. Sadly it was rolled into the Hardee’s brand and disappeared.
Dress up Mcnuggets-McDonald's Halloween Pails- McDonald's Backstreet Boys-BK Taco Bell kids meal mascots Nacho and Dog Nintendo McDonald's Pokemon The Movie- BK Pokemon 2000-BK Disney Classics - McDonald's 101 Dalmatians- BK Titan AE-Taco Bell Neopets- McDonald's Inspector Gadget-BK
Does anyone know if i could sell any of the promo toys? I have all my late daughter's & no grandbabies to pass them down to..where could i sell them??? 😊
Miss those days... 😔
We all do!
I remember attending birthday parties at McDonald's (1970s) before such a thing began happening at pizza joints. All the kids got a Happy Meal, and then we all went to the play area. Happy Meal prizes were special before the age of home computers, and the playground still had some play equipment that today would be considered "unsafe", meaning it was actually fun getting flung off the little merry-go-round, or climbing to the highest top of the slide and looking far down below at our very concerned mothers. McDonald's had delicious French fries for as long as they fried them in beef tallow, then the lawsuits and 1980s health fitness crazes hit them (really? McDonald's selling "salads"? blasphemy!). For a while back then, fast food restaurants advertised their low affordable prices "because" it was fast food. Nowadays, much fast food tastes bland in comparison and costs as much as regular restaurants.
As unfortunate as it may be, its the consequence of “progress”. Some things get better and others suffer as a result. But we can be thankful we have memories like those you mentioned, having lived through some pretty amazing times.
Those playgrounds were awesome. My kids loved it. I not so much but they claimed they were made from recycled polystyrene they used then by them . Idk but it's what they claimed.
0:29 I had the little cheeseburger and ice cream transformers and i played with them so much i wore them out XD such a tiny thing but i LOVED it as a child
😆 There was just something fascinating about such a tiny thing being transformable.
I still have some of them leftover from my late daughter HollyBear 😊
Absolutely 👍🏽 ❤
Aaaa this brings back a lot of good memories for me
That’s awesome! Just what we like to hear. 😉
I remember the original changeables being huge in the UK. Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles (cause over here ninjas were to be feared..... supposedly) were also super popular, despite the needless name change. This video has put me in the mood for pizza! 😂
You can never go wrong with pizza, no matter what side of the pond you’re on!
I think my mom enjoyed the promotions and toys in the kids’ meals even more than we did!
@@katmacoconnor At least that maybe made it easier to convince her to take you to get some. Ha!
I had lots of these. I really liked the sport themes they all did as well. Not sure why they don't do fun stuff anymore.
Unfortunately many of the modern promotional items are uninspired. The only notable quality being the IP they are based on. Not any unique quality of the items themselves.
The changeables were the best! Also, my favorite was the mini pull back cars. I had the big mac cop car.
There were so many fun ones to choose from… narrowing them down to fit in a 10 minute video was a difficult task. Those pull back cars would have been a great addition though!
I grew up in St. Louis for a while, loved Burger Chef!
If we could have ONE fast food place back, we would absolutely choose Burger Chef!
I knew the Halloween pails & McNugget buddies would be saved for Halloween. Great picks here! I’d have included the 3 stuffed muppets from McDonald’s for Christmas, the stuffed Disney characters from Hardee’s also from Christmas, the BK Star war glasses for the original trilogy, & BK TMNT toon videos promo. You could’ve also mentioned the Star Wars Phantom Menace promo that went to Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, & KFC
That TMNT video cassette promo is a personal favorite.
I had the TMNT "Coming out of their Shells" cassette and used to play the hell out of it. In 2nd and 3rd grade, That was really the first music I listened to on my own... And I got made fun of for it. 😂 The early 90s were awesome drenched in neon and snap bracelets.
"We're the Turtles... and you can count on us!" 😎
@@RetroDaze Oh man, I really need to look that album up now...
I remember BK was giving out 45 records with a hit song on them. We also had a huge drinking glass collection of Bugs Bunny and friends. I want to say from BK or McDonald's. Loved my glasses. Simple memories that I hold dear to me. 😊
You should check out our recent video on collectible drinking glasses!
I miss the Taco Bell kids meal! One of the best things that I got from one of their kids meals was a set of tin Digimon trading, which I wish I still had. Maybe I can find some on Mercari.
Speaking of finding kids meal promos on Mercari, I found two of the four DVD games that Wendy's once gave away in their kids meals. The two that I got were for Goosebumps and Maya & Miguel, the former I like to play around Halloween.
When I saw the title of this I was hoping you’d include the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coming out of their shells cassette from Pizza Hut. Thank you so much! I LOVED this album when I was 10 and can probably still sing mist of the songs. Back then I wanted to marry Donatello. 😂
That’s awesome! A friend of ours who does some content work over at The Retro Network (who also happened to play RD in our previous serious ‘Retro Detention’) is also quite the “Tour” fan. So there was no way we were going to leave that out. 😉
I actually found one of those Transformables little milk cartons in a thrift store along with a green crayon holder guy! In the 90s there were of course Beanie Babies offered with Happy Meals that caused ruckuses!
Don’t even want to THINK about the Beanie Baby thing. Uhg!
We don't speak of the Beanie Baby craze. Not a proud moment in our country's history. LOL
I had Fraggle Rock toys and Berenstain Bears toys from McDonald's
There was such a wealth of McDonald’s promo offerings… an entire video series could be devoted to them.
I was never into the happy meal toys, probably because I was too old at the time. I did enjoy the one where the loony toons got snap on costumes of DC comics superheroes. They seemed fun
We featured those a few years back on an episode of Retro Detention. They were pretty decent little promo toys.
Old enough to remember about half of these.That was fast haha
They say time flies when you’re collecting fast food premiums. 😆
@@RetroDaze Lol
I remember in the eraly 80's McDonald's had Fast Mac (race cars with Ronald) ect. They were "pull back..& go".. I also remember the Muppet Babies figures. Burger King didn't have bad toys either-depending on the character!! I remember the Bernstein Bears figures too. And, collectable glasses.
Those racers are big time sought after collectibles for McD’s fans.
@@RetroDaze thanks for the reply :) I really miss the Muppet Babies figures, the Bernstein Bears, The Firsher Price Fun with Food series-they did have McDonald's themed food. But this was the late 80's, I was a little too old for this. But I didn't care!! And like I said, Burger King had good toys as well. They had the Burger King Kids Club "kids" :) Um..Simpson's Characters..They had Characters from a show called Capitol Critters..(somebody check this out!!)it had Neil Patrick Harris in it. ♥ aka, Max. It was a short lived series!! 1992-6 to 8 months, maybe half a season.
Yup, my kids were born in 86 & 1990
@@AmericanAztec88 They may have had a few of these promo items then.
I grew up in the 80's but as a young kid I only thought McD's had kids meal with toy. Never knew other places had toys lol
It’s surprising how many places got in on the action, AND that McDonald’s wasn’t the first to do it.
04:35
The quarterpoundersarous (lol or some ridiculously cute name) and the frydog dino were not just 2 of my favorite happy meal toys...they were 2 of my favorite toys altogether growing up!
That’s awesome! Some of those Changeables were actually pretty cool.
in 1987 Mcdonalds had released the Design-o-saurs. Each was a Mcdonaldland character riding on a dinosaur that you had to assemble yourself from a plastic sprue of colored plastic. They also came with a sticker sheat to some color and more details to the figure. I wonder if you have heard of these. They seem to be quite obscure.
Going to have to research these!
Pizza Hut: 👋🤪👋
Domino's:
😂
How about those collectible glasses with lead paint decorations? 🤪
@@jamescampbell4334 We covered those thoroughly in a recent video! Here: Collectible Promo Glasses Of The ‘70s, ‘80s, & ‘90s
czcams.com/video/BBBfeRcDLa4/video.html
I think I still have a TMNT pizza coupon. Wonder if Pizza Hut will still honor it...
I want to be there when you present it to them. 😆
6:45 actually you could play with them lol we made sandcastles all the time from cups
Hey... good call! Though, it is hilarious to watch the kids in the ad "play fighting" with them. 😆
I have those Mcrobo Changables! Back when these came out, there wasn't a Mcdonalds anywhere near us, so we went maybe once or twice a year. So when we wnet and I got the Mcnuggets one, I begged my parents to come back next week for the others, but they said no. Then Dad went back to the register to order some more food. When he came back he said "Put these away quick." and gave me 3 other Changables! He had basically bribed the cashier into giving him the some leftovers from the previous weeks.
Now that’s a smooth dad move right there. 👌🏻
@@RetroDaze I'll tell him. Yeah, That's one of the best presents he gave me.
Just awesome.
Pizza Hut: Land Before Time puppets and Back To The Future 2 sunglasses
Burger King: color changing Aladdin movie cups
Hardee's (I think): Gremlins books with records
Great stuff! Pizza Hut was a huge backer of the Land Before Time films. Really put their weight behind them.
Damn i still remember most of this. I still have a few Garfield and batman glass cups lol. Now that we look back we can see how corporations targeted kids, especially with the video games 😂. I also still have some dominos noids laying around somewhere.
While the intent of the corporations may not have been honorable, the products and media they presented to us transcended their purpose and took on lives of their own in our young minds.
@@RetroDaze nice, yea that's a good way to look at it, their products definitely gave us good times and fun. Great channel man, I'll be looking forward to more videos, much appreciated 👍
I remember from 1985-1988 taco Bell's had the hug-a-bunch meals
It doesn’t get as much attention as other establishments, but Taco Bell has had some really great promotions through the years.
They used to give away HUGLETS, sometimes other objects like crayons
Huglets? Gonna have to look that one up.
Okay
I miss hardes man they had great breakfast and toys
We are lucky to have one attached to a nearby filling station.
Taco bell had the Muppets like Ms Piggy
Were they on glasses, or were they some kind of toy?
Love the Batman forever cups from mc Donald's
Likewise!
I had that tape
Despite it’s campy nature, that tape had some catchy tunes on it.
I was born in 1966 and I never heard of a Burger chef
Oh man! Burger Chef was, at one time, second only to McDonald’s in sheer number of establishments. It was a huge franchise. Sadly it was rolled into the Hardee’s brand and disappeared.
I was born in 1985 and still eat happy meals.
Na my favarate one is the 4x4 stompers from McDonald's
Nice. Who didn’t enjoy Stompers back in the day?
OUR AREA PLAY AREA GOT CLOSED WHEN A 3 YR OLD DIED FROM PLAYING IN A BALL BOX NEAR A LAKE WITH A MOCCASIN IN IT!!!! CRAAAPPP!!!!! 😢😢😢😢😢😢
Oh man. That’s awful. What a crazy thing to happen.
The Tiny Toons Adventures carts for McDonalds
Nice choice!
Taco Bell was way better. I had that exploding Death Star that they discontinued because the spinning parts could hit kids in the eyes!
Ha! One of the more infamous promotional items of the past.
Dress up Mcnuggets-McDonald's
Halloween Pails- McDonald's
Backstreet Boys-BK
Taco Bell kids meal mascots Nacho and Dog
Nintendo McDonald's
Pokemon The Movie- BK
Pokemon 2000-BK
Disney Classics - McDonald's
101 Dalmatians- BK
Titan AE-Taco Bell
Neopets- McDonald's
Inspector Gadget-BK
Nice list!
@@RetroDazethank you 😊
How about the California raisins from Hardee's
@@timwright3438 Nice choice! Anything California Raisins was fun back then.
Jurassic park would have vern a good one
Does anyone know if i could sell any of the promo toys? I have all my late daughter's & no grandbabies to pass them down to..where could i sell them??? 😊
Very sorry to learn that Kay. It’s possible you could list them on Ebay or Etsy and someone might want them.
@RetroDaze thank you I will do some looking! Just found your channel & it brings back a happier time in my life,for sure!!😊
Thnx again 🧡💙🧡
That means a great deal to us here. Bringing back memories of good times is all we want to do. So glad we could do that.