The Sad History of McDonald's Happy Meal
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- Weird History Food is going to make you giddy with the History of the Happy Meal. McDonald's Happy Meal started, in 1974, in of all places, Guatemala, which was its first McDonald’s franchise by Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño. You'll get a good prize when you watch this video on every kid's favorite meal, the Happy Meal.
#happymeal #mcdonalds #weirdhistoryfood - Zábava
Those toys from the late 80s early 90s were actually pretty good
Arguably the best
They missed several of the good toys like Inspector gadget.
And the box had cutouts you could play with.
Now kids can be unsatisfied af when it comes to toys.
Some of them are worth good money too! An entire inspector gadget set auctioned for a few thousand dollars.
@@scottysblog7317 Thats wild
"It was a total attack against kids!"
As a kid who saw Batman Returns in theaters on his 9th birthday, Danny Slaski was a plant and was trained to say those horrible lies.
Like he really came up with that on his own. Sure, Jan.
He definitely sounds rehearsed and not even well-rehearsed. It's creepy.
Probably was first in line to see Barbie
Yeah, he was full of it. Mamas boy
@@traeherren2269 I saw Barbie before its worldwide premier but I have no issue with violence in movies (which Barbie also had). You're just a sensitive snowflake who can't handle a teeny ounce of criticism, no doubt in my mind about it.
We’ve kept most of the toys my kids got by turning them into Christmas Ornaments. Just hot glued an ornament hook on it and after a decade, they had a ton. My wife also kept them as gifts for her pediatric patients at her clinic.
That's dope, buddy! 😊
Does McDonald's even have happy meals anymore??
I have many of the 101 Dalmations toys, which were Christmas themed!
@@j.d.contreras392yes
😮😮😮
"Alien could be a true story"?? What, what? Go back to that guy!
I know. I laughed hard at that. That has to be the dumbest thing i heard in a while.
@@Rattrap007If the internet was a thing when that guy did that interview, he would forever be a meme online now.😂
He seems like the type of guy that believed horse dewormer fights viral infections.......
@@jasonflay8818and you seem like the type of guy to let the government that constantly lies about shit inject an experimental vaccine into your body. It's ok though, that myocarditis and blood clots won't be too bad once you get used to them.
@@jasonflay8818and you seem like the jackass to let a government inject you with experimental vaccines
I'm a senior, and the Happy Meal is just the right size for me. The toys go to a friend of mine's kids.
That thing packs 990kcal..better stay very active.
we were too poor to afford happy meals. going out to McD's was a treat. usually mom would order a couple of the large orange drinks and large fries and the free courtesy cups which were divvied up among up while we each got the basic hamburger or cheeseburger. a treat would be those McD coupon books from the late 80's to the early or mid 90's which gave you sundaes, pies or cookies. i do remember those nintendo and back to the future toys that our more affluent friends could afford.
Same here. Maybe two or three times a year at most. But it was a real treat because our McDonalds had the playground. I used to get scared that I would get trapped in the Big Mac jail and not be able to get out.
One memory i will never forget is being 9 and after a movie with my dad we stopped off at McDonald's. At the time they had the "making movies" promotion and i got the megaphone. Going home dad saw a young couple smooching heavily on the sidewalk .Dad rolled down the window and being silly uses the megaphone telling them to knock it off and they jumped 😂 they then laughed we chuckled about that night alot
Sounds like a memory a senior citizen would have
@@circusbrains Atleast I’m not a clown
@@Mbeiie f*ck off. I think it's a funny and neat little story
Alright - Who else noticed the subtle quiet "MY LEG" at 13:41
That shout is officially our new 'Wilhelm Scream'
I remember the beanie babies fad. My uncle collected a bunch of the rare ones at the time. They aren't worthless, as people do still collect them, but they're also not worth as much as people once thought. As for him, we only tease him a little over it.
Beanie Babies were the crypto of the 1990s.
It is a sign of how old I am that the Beanie Babies I've accumulated over the years (most of them gifts from former girlfriends; I graduated high school in 1995, FWIW) are "celebrating" birthdays that make them older than I was when I got them.
I've kept them not because of some nostalgia for those old relationships (well...mostly...I do occasionally have the "I should've married that girl" moment, but gimme a break, I'm in my 40s and divorced.) The reason girlfriends gave me them in the first place was because I've always been a stuffed animal collector.
Truth lol@@edwardleemiller-eo8jp
There was so much hype
Imagine if all the people who bought into that bought into the stock market or precious metals. Things that actually appreciate in value.
Happy Meals seem to have a rather unexpectedly devastating history behind it. I grew up receiving fast food toys. They're not typically the best quality but I've got some good memories with it.
Yeah I know what you mean but on the bright side if you still have any of them some are worth some money.
Totally agree, at the time I was just thrilled to have a toy. Best part was the mystery behind what you'll get. Apparently today about 5000 happy meals are sold per minute making Mcdonalds the largest "toy distributer" in the world. I also have a video that goes in depth on fast food restaurants through the decades including when Mcdonalds got its start 🍔
It's kind of the opposite to me, I'm from Latin America and here toys from big brands like Mattel and Hasbro were always very expensive, so most of the toys I had as a kid were mostly bootlegs, but the Happy Meal toys were of a higher quality compared to them, I actually still have some of them in a box and most of them are in perfect condition, except those that used batteries
Do you think any of them are worth a fair amount? Relatively speaking of course @@pablocasas5906
@@pablocasas5906 Me too, me too. I never got Barbies or Action Men.
Love your videos. Everything appears completely normal until the clip of the Dad explaining why it was OK to take his kid to see Alien. ‘He needs to see it because things like this might happen’.
Was looking for this comment 😂
Different time. Excuse bad parenting (albeit probably accidental) by saying trauma is good.
@@charpkun You're being charitable. I think that guy was a legit nutter who seriously believed Alien was a documentary.
@@charpkun That was just a few years before my time, but I'm pretty sure it was not normal for an adult to think that the events of Alien could actually happen and was something that children needed to be prepared for. All my friends in elementary school WERE allowed to see R rated movies like Rambo, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, but there parents didn't think they were preparing their children for Freddy Krueger attacks.
I literally LOL'd hard. I wonder if he's still around? Probably showing his great grandkids "Sharknado" so they'll be prepared. You know, for a REAL Sharknado....😂😂😂
I actually remember when these came out. We were so excited! My mom bought them for us one time. She never bought them again because it wasn’t enough food and we were still hungry. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thats cool that you remember that though even though it was just a one time thing😂 maybe thats why
@@everylastcrumb It’s because we constantly asked for them and she said No!!🤣🤣🤣🤣. I’m the end we just wanted the toy. We were poor. Fast food was a luxury and my mom was going to get her money’s worth. Funnily enough we ended up with all the toys anyway because my grandmother would get them from the secondhand store.
So, you get a happy meal and an xtra hamburger or a side of chicken nuggets. Everyone is happy with the meal. 😉
@@GoddessLadyReiI could eat 10 cheeseburgers, lol. I hated happy meals, way too small.
@@GoddessLadyRei That literally happened to me a few years ago. I was babysitting my nephew and we went on a trip. When we went around McDonald's he asked if he can have a Happy Meal, so, I relented. After all, he was quite athletic, so, there was big chance he'll waste those calories. So, I ordered him a Happy Meal with Cheseburger and added bacon in it, because he loves bacon. I also ordered Big Mac menu for myself. I was surprised when we got the Cheeseburger outside of the Happy Meal box, but I said maybe they did this because it was custom order. Well, imagine my nephew's shock when he found another Cheeseburger inside the box. Of course, I didn't let him to eat the added Cheeseburger. I am good uncle and I care for his calory income 😅
The biggest promotion I loved was the McBoo pails. I LOVED them. When they came out last year, I bought my first happy meal in 30 years lol.
My mom worked at McDonald's during the beanie baby craze, she brought me home all the ones in the display cases once they sold out.
Imagine a world where managers stuck up for their employees and said "you're asking them to do too much" ...without extra pay. Those franchise owners are unsung heroes
I have a strange happy meal trauma. As a wee kid I got invited to a friends birthday party, we were going to the movies (care bears or something, can't remember) and then to McDonalds! I had never been to McDonalds before then, and the hype surrounding it got me quite exited. We got seated, 6 kids and one adult (birthday boy's mom) and she ordered 6 happy meals and something larger for herself. The waiter (yes, this was long ago) comes back with the sad news that they only had enough boxes and toys left for 5 happy meals. Mom does an eagle eye stare, scanning the 5 kids that weren't her son to eventually focus on me, shattering my expectations and excitement by saying 'Ow you wouldn't mind having just a burger menu would you?'.
Good lord. She sounds like a terrible mother and hostess 😂 I could never dream of parading a hoard of kids only to leave one in the dust like that. That's just bad manners!
that's hella weird, if i were her i would make sure that the birthday boy is the one without toys. singling out one of the guests is just rude
nice copypasta, but google says this is a 12 year old reddit post.
That sucks dude.....
You must've been the biggest kid lol
We didn't have the most money when my son was growing up in the 90's. As a toddler and preschooler, around 90% of his toybox was Happy Meal toys.
It's still something
Next time go to the Salvation Army instead of a disgusting fast food place
I remember a collection of happy meal toys McDonald's realeased here in Brazil in the early 2000s when I was a kid. There were 4 plushies themed after animals of our local fauna. Everybody LOVED it, it was a very successful campaign. The plushies had very good quality, and they weren't small, they were regular sized and didn't even fit inside the happy meal box. We will never have something this good again, toys nowadays are trash
(Edit: typo)
Well, at lest in Brazil, you still have Happy Meal. You naighbours in Chile banned Happy Meal (or, more accurately, toys in unhealty foods) 😁
Wow this is news to me
@everylastcrumb I think this campaign I mentioned was exclusive to Brazil, because McDonald's made a partnership with a local soda company in order to promote it. If you Google "mclanche feliz pelúcia leve o seu filhote" you will find photos of the plushies
I remember a Happy Meal, or Cajita Feliz (Happy Little Box) as we called it in Argentina, set of toys that consisted of some colorful animals plushes that came in plastic eggs
the main takeaway is that alien could be a true story
The Teeny Beanie Baby promotion was pretty disturbing. I think this was the dawn of the Karen. Mothers went into McDonald's, ordered Happy Meals and literally threw the food into the wastebasket, just to get the Beanies. I couldn't believe it. 🤦♀️
So basically it was like a Christmas riot?
I think mobs of rowdy people getting violent over small things has always been an issue though. People were doing the same for Cabbage Patch Kids in the 80's.
I just hated how wasteful that was! I mostly not only ate the happy meal that had the teeny beanie baby in, but I ordered an extra hamburger because one hamburger wasn't enough!
@@LeoMidori That's correct. And later, Tickle Me Elmos. And when stores started doing "Black Friday" post-Thanksgiving sales.
I can't remember if you were able to buy them separately or not.
One ticket back to the 90s please 🥤
I'd love to go back to 1995, but only if I get to quantum leap into my 18-year-old body. Being 46 and too old for all the fun stuff would be just depressing.
@@SimuLordWhat the heck would I do with all that energy I had back when I was 18. I'd probably go for a hike and experience the joy of not being winded after 10 minutes of walking.
I’ll take the ticket back to the 80’s. Thx.
The "Food Changeables" were and remain one of the G.O.A.T Happy Meal toys
Yeah! They made the adult Happy Meal, but around the same time, they brought back the Halloween pails. Happy Meals caused so many grown adults to go crazy over said pails, the Pokémon card promos, the new McNugget Buddies, etc.
As a kid i had that star trek meal. It blew my mind, and i held on to it forever
You left out the part where Burger Chef sued McDonald's over the Happy Meal.
Claims that the "Funmeal" predated the Happy Meal.
Burger Chef lost the court case.
McDs were far bigger than Burger Chef even back then
@@BeyondDaX Regardless, a "Happy Meal" isn't exactly a direct ripoff of something called a "Funmeal". "Happy" and "fun" aren't the same things. If McDonald's called their own kid's meal a "Fun meal", then yeah, McDonald's would lose that case if Burger Chef got to it first. After all, they don't own the word "meal", and you can't sue someone for making a food that you also make. Otherwise every burger place would be able to sue each other for making burgers lol.
The video also forgot to mention how much McDonaldland lore was cribbed wholesale from the Sid and Marty Krofft TV show *H.R. Pufnstuf.*
¿Did McDonald's ever sue Burger King for their Happy Meal equivalent?
Surprised you didn't mention the 2021 Pokémon scandal when scalpers were going into McDonald's to ask for 100 Happy Meals before kids could get a chance to collect them. Man that was a dark time for Pokémon.
Wow, the Hot Wheels/Barbie toys goes right back to the earliest days of the Happy Meal? That's awesome, those are iconic.
I remember when McDonald's was giving out toy story figures. I went up to the counter and asked the kid if he had a Woody. He started laughing and then I realized what I just said...😮
Every time I'm just blown away by how uncreative, cowardly, and unimaginative, the suits in corporate are. They would sell a gray block until the end of time, and the thought of introducing different colored blocks that might sell more, is just completely out of the question. "Why would anyone want something other than gray?", is the thought process.
sadly it seems all the big honchos of stuff like this are all jsut morons who never look outside their windows to see how real people act
Why do you think they wanna make every restaurant and chain look like a sterile hospital floor now?
You're just ignorant, alright?
I live in Phoenix, I'm trying to figure out all the "good stuff". We did break the record last month for the most consistent days over 110°, so that's something I guess.
Don’t forget about all of our racist retirees too! 😂
@@roguesample luckily I live far enough away from sun city that I don't interact with them types very much. The ones I have are (mostly) cool.
Sometimes my mom liked getting the toys just as much as my brother and I did, especially the holiday ones. The Halloween buckets would be used as outdoor decorations and the Christmas ones she would turn into ornaments. Half the tree would be covered in them!
The Beanie Baby panic would repeat itself a year or two ago with Pokémon cards and may repeat again this year.
Makes me wonder what the next toy panic will be
Did the McDonald's Pokemon cards actually matter to anyone though? I can't recall ever hearing about that promotion at all until my mom asked me to get her a Happy Meal and I just so happened to notice it came with cards. The Beanie Baby craze was all the rage for sure, and I do clearly remember that and I remember the excitement over the McDonald's collaboration, but I never heard a peep about the McDonald's Pokemon card promotion that happened recently.
(edited for clarity)
Nothing will ever come close to McDonald's Beanie Babies. People really were buying multiple meals and throwing out the food.
Loved the Batman Forever glasses. My family had all of them except for Robin (that glass was sold out at every local McDonald's close to where I used to live).
That is really awesome my oldest brother got one of those glasses back in the mid 90s and we still have it to this day
Tamagotchi deserves its own video and how dare you imply nobody remembers it 😂 everyone in my generation had one at one point. They were definitely a fad one that thrived for a short while.
Nobody as far as today's audiences in the west remembers it save for the ones in Japan and those that got these tamagotchis in the states to begin with
As the parent of a child who had one, they are hard to forget.
Here in Argentina you can still find bootleg versions of Tamagotchis
You didn’t mention the coveted Halloween pails throughout the decades and as recent as last year! Must be saving those for their own video.
They have the Halloween pails this year too!
Oh what memories of having a Happy Meal-obsessed kid! My son was born in 1989- and soon figured out the McD's toy collections in the H.M.s
He knew that as long as we ate (very) healthy food the rest of the week, he would get the meals with the best toy collections. The food was secondary, but g.d. if he didn't get the whole collection.
The week we got the Batman figure, he lost it before we made it home. He was heartbroken- so back we went, to get another Happy Meal and _the last batman figure they had!_ (I think they had to pull him from the display case😂) Although he has lost much more valuable items, he still has that Batman figure!
Now you might think I was raising an entitled brat. But today, he is one of the kindest, well-mannered young men you could ever meet. He is the greatest blessing a mom could ask for.
I think it's sad that the Happy Meal is no longer toy-based. Not all kids love McD's- but I've never known one that didn't love their little toys!❤
Maybe things are just different here in Canada, but they still do monthly toys, and you can also opt in for a book instead
Some fun, some food, it's all inside this Happy Meal.
I found a tiny Sonic game while cleaning out my childhood room, thing had to be 20 years old. Still worked!! The sound is warped and the graphics aren't as clear but it still works!
Oh the LCD games, right?
@@LeoMidori Sonic happy meals have a so bad it’s good commercial from Pakistan. It’s a very viral classic and you’ll laugh at it when you’ll watch it.
@@SlapstickGenius23 I have seen it, it's incredible. I haven't in some time though, I'll go check it right now
8:04 the food changeables in my opinion were some of the best happy meal toys to ever come out of any fast food place ❤
Yeah. They actually did them more than once. One year they turned into robot dinosaurs.
I still have those food changeables.
Happy Meals were a TREAT as a kid, and those Changeables will forever be the S-tier of Happy Meal toys
That kid saying Batman was too violent was the lamest kid to ever exist.
I love the Happy Meal! My kids when they were elementary aged loved them too! They are young adults now but sometimes they would get a Happy Meal as a snack.
We always have a choice between chicken nugs or burger. We also have choice between boy or girl toy. And we could get milk, apple juice or water. If we wanted soda there’s no charge to get soda instead. There is an up charge to get a shake.
Sometimes I get a Happy Meal (as an adult) because it’s enough for me.
As a kid I loved Happy Meals!!!
I remember my childhood in the mid 90s, it was common to see the happy meal toys in garage sales and my parents were happy to spend a few nickles rather than a few bucks for the toy I wanted.
I remember getting those yellow plastic cups with characters or a plastic bag hand puppet as an occasional promotion when I was really little. But in 1977-78, I lived in southern Illinois and the McDonalds there introduced a version of a Happy Meal called a Fun-To-Go. It came in a cartoon covered box with the golden arch handle but it was narrow (like a kid briefcase). It held a hamburger (vertically), small fries and a tiny bag of McDonaldland cookies. The prize was always a squishy rubber eraser- a high top sneaker or a race car, never a character. We moved to AZ in late 78 and my mom tried to order one and the people there were so confused but when mom explained it, the lady pulled out the now familiar house shaped box and said, "You mean a Happy Meal??"
Seeing the teanie beanie babies unlocked a memory from my childhood ('95) of having the little Nanook wolf. Think I'll buy one for my shelf :)
If I remember, MacDonald's in the late 80's early 90's had a huuuuuuge Happy Meal sale spike with the Muppet Babies cartoon series toys. Everybody in school was showing off theirs for at least a month or so.
They should just do Food Changables every year.
We still have those over here in Malaysia. It doesn't happen often, but if they are giving out merchandises from huge franchises such as Hello Kitty, expect the area to be flocked hours before the place is open.
When I worked at Wendy's, people at the drive thru would call their kids meal a "Happy Meal" (my favorite time is when a man at the drive thru asked if we had a "Children's Plate?")
I miss those days when kids fight for their fave toy in the Happy Meal.
and we would harrass the cash to exchange them I would do
My mom had a day care in her home. She always asked the kids to bring her the toys when they were done. She had a huge collection, several old popcorn barrels full! We always liked playing with the toys.
The "my leg!" snippet from Spongebob at the end there was the chef's kiss on an already great video!
I remember my dad took me to the McDonald's at the local University, they were the only ones that had Bennie Baby's every other store was sold out, very clever.
Anyone else ask their adult caregivers to take them to whichever restaurant had the better toys that week?
A+ video!
Such a comprehensive video about Happy Meals, really learned a lot!
I wanted a happy meal on only a few occasions. One I remember was around 1994 because they had a hydraulic water gun I wanted to experiment with hydraulics. I think that was McDonalds.
I worked at McDonald’s in 97 and it was a pure nightmare. Didn’t get paid enough to deal with those parents.
As a happy meal kid that collected all the toys growing up The best happy meal toys hands down are the Flintstones cars and houses. I still have the complete set.
The star trek happy meal was the best one they ever had.
Oh God, I had some of these toys from the 80s... I got old. :(
Nostalgia of the best kind. Yes, I enjoyed Happy Meals and the Big Kids meals when they did that for a brief bit.
I think Burger King when I worked there if they didn’t like the toy we could sub the toy for an ice cream cone
I always remembered the toys having a crazy strong plastic smell out of the package. It made me feel sick for a few seconds. Little did I know that I was taking in chemicals by breathing that in and touching it. I didn’t go out of my way to smell it. I also was expecting there to be a reference to Adam Sandler “Can somebody get this kid a happy meal!!!”
One of my favourite movies as a teenager, if only because I had a crush on Dylan Sprouse….
Wow! Great story! I was not aware of this stuff. Could you please do a story on Burger Chef? We used to go there all the time because they had good cheap food. Then there was a rumor going around that they were selling "worm" burgers. Needless to say, our franchise closed down. A Hardee's was later opened in it's spot. Thank you! ☮️🙏
As a younger millennial/ older gen Z kid my favorite happy meal toys I ever got were the mini bionicle toys to tie in with the bionicle movie. They were pretty cheaply made to be honest but each one’s head and mask were exactly identical to the full sized bionicles from Walmart and the dollar store so I had plenty of spares and little “villagers” to protect with my full sized bionicles 🤣
Yeah, I remember those, the Tohunga/Mctoran. They were actually promos for the launch wave of BIONICLE in 2001, not for the Mask of Light movie.
I have a whole collection of the beanie babies I wonder if they are worth anything.
They definitely are! There are whole shows dedicated to the worth of those early beanie toys from McDonald's. They may have videos right here or another creator. Happy hunting 😀 Good luck
The history of the fast food fish sandwich would be interesting not just the Mc Donald's Fillet of Fish but the whole history of "Fast food" sea food Long john Silver's lost franchises like Arthur Treacher's (though there is still an active franchise in Ohio) or ;lesser known franchises like Captain D's. That or a a history of Bojangles because it's the best and you can't not love a restaurant named Bojangles.
Those looney tunes superhero toys were my JAM.
As an 80's baby, I can NOT put into words how freaking bats**t crazy we used to go over the happy meal back in the day...the food was good and the toys were LEGIT!!! (sigh) Not anymore though...those days are long gone!
My favorite era of McDonald's toy was the ones that came together and made a bigger toy. Specifically the inspector gadget one. They were all separate toys but came together to form inspector gadget. What a time to be alive lol.
Real quick edit: there was also all the Disney plates and cups you could get. I remember vividly eating of my Hercules plate almost every day as a child.
i remember putting the giraffe beanie baby in the microwave and getting yelled out by my mom. good times
I remember having some of those toys, especially the transforming food.
What I remember most is the toy line for Inspector Gadget. My family was extremely poor at the time so my sister and I only had the chest piece but you could collect both arms and legs if you find them with enough meals bought.
I sure got happy for happy meals back in the days. I remember the adult happy meal and ordered 3. 😅
Yes, I would be excited about an eraser when I was little. Haha!
I loved Happy Meal tie in commericals as a kid, and I grew in a family that never ate at McDonald's. So to compensate for that (and save some money in hard times), I buy any Happy Meal tie in I want!
All I know about those creepy adult happy meals was my then two year old nephew and mom walked into a McDonald's and got some food. The person in front of them bought that adult happy meal, and my nephew thought it was his so he went to grab it. The 40 year old who bought it nearly got into a fight with a 2 year old, but at least the guy got his creepy four eyed grimace figure. My mom wouldn't have let my nephew take the other person's food, it was just a mistake made by a toddler who thought the colorful box was his.
What kind of adult fights over a 2 year old like that.
I knew full well I was being targeted as a kid. And loved every Happy Meal moment of it. I even rebought some of the toys on eBay. Nostalgia is what it is. Super Mario Bros. 3 were the best.
Bought a ton of these when I was in corporate! Two Happy Meals for lunch, make sure the toys weren‘t dupes! My co-worker wents nuts for his wife who wanted the 101 Dalmations, only to find he could just order them all at once at the end of the promotion! McD and BK toys were good, but Jack’s and the rest were terrible. (: Too many of them are either in their original packaging, or in poor faded condition. Still fun to collect and two HM‘s were still cheaper than a regular meal!
I LOVED Happy Meals growing up. My parents didn't have much time to spend with us, and we often ate homemade meals that were boiled/steamed veggies with rice, so getting food from McDs was always a special treat for us kids. I have very fond memories of Happy Meals and the toys, and I'm a living testament that their food isn't addictive, and that eating it young does not mean I come back to them, as I haven't even at McDs for over a decade.
Happy meals in my country still are the calorie inducing meals they always been. But they do offer juice instead of soda. As long as a inner child lives happy meals will never leave 😂
My GOD the Beanie Baby era. Somewhere in the confines of my attic I have probably thousands. Thousands of them, not just from McDonald’s. That was a HUUUGE thing when I was a kid.
The fact that you don’t even know what’s in your attic is concerning.
@@thefonzkiss - I actually don’t know a single person who can name every item in their attic..but ok.
Perfect timing! I was just reminiscing about Happy Meals a couple days ago and wondered what they're like today. I'm excited to watch!
Worked at a McDonald's in high school... and any time I heard a crying child in the dining area I would yell "someone get that kid a happy meal!" 😂
Hi Weird History, this was such a great video! As a 2000s kid, I have tons of nostalgia for Happy Meals, especially the Littlest Pet Shop ones. Knowing how popular Squishmallows are, I have a feeling that when they finally come to U.S Happy Meals, people are going to go crazy like they did with Beanie Babies. As for the bright colored buildings turning into dull, boring buildings, Jack In The Box can tell you plenty about that. Seriously, the 60s and early 70s Jack In The Box buildings were super cool, as they were box-shaped, brightly colored [sometimes with checker-board patterns], and the signs had Jack on them, although his design on the signs was always inconsistent. My favorite design is the one from the 1970s animated commercials [only three are on CZcams], and that version of Jack was also voiced by Paul Winchell, voice of Tigger and inventor of the artificial heart! I really hope you'll do a video on Jack In The Box Restaurants one day, because the story is super crazy [even owned by RALSTON PURINA at one point], and I'd love to see you cover the pre-90's versions of Jack [especially the aforementioned 70s era Jack].
I remember when I had my first Happy Meal. We were coming home from vacation and we stopped at a La Crosse Wisconsin Mcdonald's. We had heard about Happy Meals but weren't around us (strange since we were about 45 minutes from McDonald's headquarters). My parents went to get them and coming out of McDonalds smiling because they got one for me and one for my brother. After that I would get them often, I remember the Star Trek spaceship for example. Years later I was working at McDonalds as a teen when the Fry Guys were in them. I saw adults coming in for them but felt stupid ordering a Happy Meal at work. I still have a few of the Teeny Beanie Babies, and a Furby from a Happy Meal. I got 101 Dalmatians figurines but not sure where these are now. I actually found that even though I'm an adult I sometimes order a Happy Meal for lunch because it's good for that, wouldn't order for dinner though.
Shout out to all my fellow 80s/early 90s kids. I know you were all eating these cereals watching saturday morning cartoons w me
I’m just amazed how big the burgers were back then.
The Sad History of McDonald's Happy Meal
Ironic isn't it?
Joke aside I was liked getting a happy meal as a kid. The Hot Wheels and other toys were cool.
0:01 I'm convinced this Manhattan Project joke is for the recent release of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer movie.
Burger Chef was 1st in the idea departments where the other chains copied them years later...
I just loved getting to the toys and going " I Remember those!" I never once returned a single toy.
I'm 44, and I indeed lost my mind over the Adult Happy Meal.
For how stupid and creepy the toys looked, Jesus!
"It was a total attack against kids!"
That cracked me up. The wooden, unnatural presentation shows us he he was forced to memorize the lines, why use "kids", instead of "us" or just "it was scary". No kid talks like that and the adult who wrote those lines was dumbass. Both probably never saw the film either.
I had to go look up the "ban" that happened in 2011 for San Francisco MacDonald's for including toys and the way it was gotten around was charging 10 cents for them outside of the meal box! Haha!
Still remember Happy Meals promoted YuGiOh and Pokemon cards. Those were the days.
McDonalds Australia has this 1-2-3 concept with their happy meals.
1: Choose Main: Hamburger, Cheese Burger, 6piece Chicken Nuggets or Wholemeal Snackwrap
2: Choose Side: Small fires, Grape Tomatoes or Apple slices
3: Choose Drink: Plain water, Sparkling water/Soda Water, Apple Juice, Strawberry Yoghurt
Happy meals = the original lootbox.
Another food related idea is the history of cereal competition offering toys inside the boxes. One cereal company actually offered an actual record on the back of their cereals you would cut out from the back of the box to play on your record player.
I think that happened more than once. My dad told me about one where the owner of a cereal company had a girlfriend who wanted to be a singer but she was terrible, so he put a record of her singing on one of these cereal box records. He told me this MANY years ago, so I might have some of the details wrong.
There were also records in cereal boxes made of really flimsy plastic. The Ghostbusters cereal had these at one point, tied to some sort of contest.
I've had 1 Happy Meal in my life, bought it as an adult because I wanted the Adventure Time toy that came with it. Not bad for a kid's meal tbh
McDonald's Happy Meal : Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds
“Happy Meals For Adults”
Because Peter Pan Syndrome is real…and marketable.