star trek happy meal 1979

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Fast Food in Space: Remembering McDonalds’ Star Trek Meals (1979)

In December of 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture premiered in movie theaters. The 40 million dollar+ film was heavily merchandised through toy companies such as Mego but also — surprisingly — via McDonalds.

In particular, the fast food restaurant introduced a Star Trek -themed Happy Meal with delightful art from illustrator Ron Villani, and featuring a number of games on the box for diners and pre-pubescent Trekkies to enjoy.

For instance, you could play “ connect the dots ” on one panel of the box, completing an image of the U.S.S. Enterprise on the “ viewer screen .”

Or, on another panel you could solve a maze, helping to “ guide the Enterprise through a meteor shower .”

The Star Trek Happy Meals also featured factoids about the Trek universe, and such aspects as the Klingons or the Federation.  Amusingly, the Federation was described as overseeing “ the universe ” and keeping peace there.

That’s a big job!

Some panels on the McDonalds Star Trek Happy Meals also recreated in comic-book format scenes from the movie, for example the destruction of the Klingons by the space ‘cloud,’ or a report by Starfleet outpost Epsilon 9 that the intruder was on a direct course for Earth.

The boxes also featured Klingon Code to break, and some bad jokes.

What do you call a sick Klingon?

An ailing alien!

Finally, The happy meals also came with a toy in each box: a small plastic, silver communicator

I was nine years old at the time of these Happy Meals and I remember begging my parents for them. I’m pretty sure my sister and I got at least one each, but we threw away the boxes (d’oh!). So short-sighted of us!

My favorite part of the whole campaign, however, was the TV commercials, in which a bumpy-headed Klingon served as pitchman.

You can watch those advertisements below, in celebration, perhaps, of the 50 th anniversary of Star Trek this year:

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How Star Trek Created The Happy Meal

Star Trek: The Motion Picture causes weird bouts of nostalgia. Fans experience the film in different milieus. However, kids in the Winter of 1979 will remember that first film changing their fast food tastes. Before the late 70’s, kids eating at McDonald’s were forced to eat off the adult menu. Advertising genius Bob Bernstein thought it was weird, but went along with it. However, he noticed his kids enjoying specific cereals due to their boxes. Couple that with the insane Star Wars hysteria of the time, Bernstein drafted a plan. Working with McDonald’s marketing, the ad team recut the adult menu into a smaller offering designed for children. As a result, the Happy Meal was born.

The kids would get a burger, a small fry, cookies and a small drink with their Happy Meal . But, the big catch would be a branded toy. Star Wars was too big at this point to obtain a license. Plus, Burger Chef and eventually Burger King beat them to that. What was the right property to obtain, as Christmas 1979 loomed on the horizon?

When McDonalds decided to go national with the Happy Meal concept, they wanted to anchor the idea to a successful property. What was big, Sci-Fi oriented and landing in theaters shortly before Christmas? The answer was Star Trek: The Motion Picture . McDonalds figured that kids would see the movie, want to a eat a Happy Meal afterward and play with the accompanying toys. McDonalds agreed to all of this without seeing the final film.

Kids could live out their favorite scenes from the movie with a Starfleet game, plastic Star Trek rings, a bracelet, Double Glitter iron-on sheets and a toy communicator. All of these trinkets were good enough for V’Ger , but would they entice the kiddies? Well, McDonalds didn’t have to worry about the toys. However, some parents took issue with the graphic design of the boxes.

The first mass-released box given to small children featured a drawing of the film’s famous Transporter Room accident. This would be the first and last time that a Happy Meal featured a disintegration. Happy Meal movie tie-ins stayed strong until Batman Returns had some questionable Happy Meal toys. Enjoy your Star Trek day and try to find these old Happy Meal promos on eBay. Time well spent.

Star Trek Happy Meal

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The Star Trek Happy Meal , also known as the Star Trek Meal , was the first ever movie tie-in Happy Meal from McDonald's, ranging from December 1979 through February 1980 . The tie-in was based on the movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture .

The meal came in five different box designs full of games and jokes, as well as a prize toy, which includes a walkie-talkie, a USS Enterprise ring, a set of temporary tattoos, and a miniature die-cut board game.

McDonald's Happy Meals from the Old Star Trek Movies

1979 saw the revival of the Star Trek franchise with Star Trek: The Motion Picture . McDonald's was part of the marketing blitz. It tried to draw in kids by offering Happy Meals inspired by the movie and its fresh take on Star Trek . The box included a connect-the-dots game, corny jokes, and puzzles.

McDonald's commercials pushed this Happy Meal option. One of them used a Klingon as a pitchman. The narrator offers a translation, but the character is not actually speaking Klingon--just gibberish. He's assuming that no child who was watching would know the difference.

You can see more photos of the Star Trek Happy Meal and another commercial in the series at Flashbak.

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Everything We Know About McDonald's Famous Happy Meal

Since 1979 , McDonald's Happy Meals have been an integral part of most childhoods, and whether it's a once a week, once a month, or once a year treat, the excitement level for that iconic cardboard box is the same. Those perfectly salted fries and arguably plain but oh-so-tasty hamburger with just the right amount of rehydrated onion and pickle are the epitome of fast food deliciousness. But let's be honest — it's the toy that really matters when you're anxiously waiting in the backseat of the car.

As a kid, you didn't concern yourself with the history of the Happy Meal, or strange stories associated with it. So long as you could get your hands on that toy, what did you care? But adults might find it surprising that their little one's favorite meals have been used as a drug front , or that the apple slices take an unusually long time to turn brown. And did that Minion toy really say what we think it said? Let's dive into the untold truth of McDonald's famous Happy Meal.

Vintage toys can be worth a pretty penny

Most of us had that box of beat-up Happy Meal toys from our childhood that at some point in our teen years got put into the donation pile without a second thought. But if you'd kept that box, and if those toys had been in pristine condition and in the original packaging, they might be worth a pretty penny today.

In May 2018, LoveAntiques.com commissioned a toy expert to compile a list of "the most valuable McDonald's toys you may have at home," and the potential sales figures might surprise you. At the top of the list, coming in at $450, is a set of TY's Teenie Beanie Boos from 2000, which the site says is "much rarer than their toy shop equivalent." The oldest toys on the list, both from 1979 and going from $400 each, are a set of Underwater Monsters, and Robots by Diener Keshi. Not too shabby for a few pieces of plastic, right? On the flip side, if you somehow managed to track down all 101 toys from the 1996 101 Dalmatians collection, you'd only be looking at $220, and considering you probably spent more on the Happy Meals, that's not such a great return on investment.

But how much can you really get for them?

Now you're probably kicking yourself for tossing your Happy Meal toys all those years ago, but are those numbers even feasible in the real world? According to Today , who spoke to experts in toys and antiques, the likelihood of getting rich quick from vintage Mickey D's toys is not great, but of course there are always exceptions. Dov Kelemer, president of DKE Toys, explained, "Unfortunately, in my toy dealing experience most modern McDonald's Happy Meal toys have little or no value to collectors and I doubt there are any notable auction houses selling them." 

Today reports that most toy listings on eBay are firmly in the under-$100 range, with an occasional jaw-dropping auction price popping up, like a complete set of 100 Years of Disney Magic toys for an astounding $10,000. "As with any collectibles category, the main factors of value are supply and demand, impacted often by a 'nostalgia curve'..." antiques appraiser Gary Sohmers noted. In other words, rare gems could fetch high dollars, but most likely won't.

San Francisco tried to ruin all the fun

San Francisco might be considered the West Coast's foodie paradise for adults, but in 2010 they voted to dash the dreams of all Happy Meal-loving kids when, according to Reuters , its Board of Supervisors passed a law requiring that "restaurant kids' meals meet certain nutritional standards before they could be sold with toys." The law, which went into effect in 2011, allowed toys to be given away provided that the meal "have less than 600 calories, contain fruits and vegetables, and include beverages without excessive fat or sugar."

McDonald's obviously opposed the law, saying in a statement, "We are extremely disappointed with today's decision. It's not what our customers want, nor is it something they asked for." Of course, the company quickly found a loophole for this new law without having to comply with all those pesky nutritional requirements: A 10 cent donation to the Ronald McDonald House (via Business Insider ). By tacking an extra dime onto each Happy Meal purchase when a toy was included, they were able to satisfy their obligation to the law and benefit their charity at the same time.

The cheeseburger Happy Meal is a thing of the past

Since that 2011 San Francisco toy ban , McDonald's has made some positive changes to its famous Happy Meal. The option of apple slices (which actually began in 2004), gave parents the choice between french fries or fruit, but today, a regular Happy Meal bundle automatically includes the choice of apple slices, low-fat Yoplait Go-Gurt, or Cuties (when in season), and a smaller kid-sized fry. The soft drink option is also long gone, and now it's a choice between milk or apple juice. It was a good start...

But thanks to chocolate milk and cheeseburgers, the Happy Meal was still hitting above that 600 calorie mark. In an effort to finally get the numbers down, McDonald's removed the cheeseburger and chocolate milk Happy Meal options in June 2018, as per Today . The chocolate milk was slated to return later with reduced sugar. Currently, the highest calorie combination — six-piece Chicken McNuggets, fries, Go-Gurt, and 1% milk — comes in at 530 calories. Great news, right? Not for everyone. While you might think this healthy change would be celebrated all around, adult consumers took to social media lamenting the removal of the cheeseburger, dubbing it a #sadmeal . Proof that you can't win 'em all.

But why don't those apple slices turn brown?

Parents celebrated when McDonald's made the change to include apple slices in their Happy Meals, but alarms started going off when consumers realized that the fruit took an unusually long time to turn brown . So what's the deal?

A quick glance at the ingredient list for the apple slices will clue you in — along with the fruit you'll find calcium ascorbate, which according to McDonald's is "a blend of calcium and vitamin C to maintain freshness and color." But is calcium ascorbate some scary chemical we should be afraid of? Nope. According to the FDA , it's "generally recognized as safe when used in accordance with good manufacturing practice," and at the end of the day, actually makes those apple slices much more palatable than if not treated. This is because as soon as an apple is cut, oxygen starts to deteriorate its flesh and causes it to turn brown. Thanks to the calcium ascorbate dip (also called NatureSeal ), the cut apple slices are protected from those changes in texture, color, and taste, and have an impressive 21-day shelf life.

WTF did that Minion say?

A Despicable Me Happy Meal toy caused an uproar when outraged grandparents alerted the media to a Minion , which was included in their grandchild's meal, that appeared to be spewing profanity (you can listen here ). Indeed, to those of us with potty mouths, the toy does seem to be saying, "What the f***?"

McDonald's, however, denied the claims, and a spokesperson told MarketWatch that the loin cloth clad Minion toy included three recorded sounds: "Para la bukay," "hahaha," and "eh eh." Apparently "hahaha" in Minionese sounds an awful lot like "WTF?" in English. "We're aware of a very small number of customers who have been in touch regarding this toy, and we regret any confusion or offense to those who may have misinterpreted its sounds. The allegation that this toy is saying anything offensive or profane is not true," the company said. McDonald's did not pull the toy over the controversy, and there's no telling how many kids picked up a useful new phrase.

A Happy Meal with a side of heroin

Imagine if you rolled through the McDonald's drive-thru for a special surprise for your kids and ended up with a Happy Meal full of heroin. Sounds unbelievable, but that's exactly what you would have gotten at one Pittsburgh location if you said the magic words: "I'd like to order a toy." Since a toy can legitimately be purchased separately from a Happy Meal (in some  regions ), the request wouldn't have seemed too out of the ordinary for those in the know, but in this case that "toy" was actually heroin, as per CNN . 

McDonald's employee Shantia Dennis was arrested in 2014 after she was busted by undercover police officers for, among other charges, possession with intent to deliver heroin. After receiving a tip from an informant, the officers ordered a "toy" in Dennis' drive-thru, paid her $80 for what should have been about a $2 bill, and got a Happy Meal box full of 10 small bags of heroin. No word on whether the order also included the usual hamburger and fries, but if it did, it was a real "value meal."

What exactly is Mario doing?

Over the years McDonald's has featured several Super Mario collections , and some of those toys have struck consumers as a bit odd.

In 2017, a collection that debuted in the UK prompted punny headlines  like, "Super Mario McDonald's UK Happy Meal Toys Revealed, Evidently Much to Mario's Relief." See, Mario is supposedly sitting on a pile of bricks, but if you use your imagination, you can easily see Nintendo's favorite plumber copping a squat on the toilet. EuroGamer.net reported that commenters had a field day with the revelation, with one user remarking, "So that's where the phrase 'sh***ing bricks' comes from!" Cue the rimshot.

In another incident, tabloid website The Mirror reported on a toy that "looks like it's performing a sex act." This particular Mario had a mechanical arm with a boomerang in his hand, but when the boomerang was removed, the hand was left with a hole in the middle. Couple that with the up-down motion of the arm and, well... you can come to your own conclusions as to what Mario was doing. Tyler Atfield, the "horrified father" at the center of this story who allegedly gave quotes like, "They should not be giving out toys that look like that. My kids started doing the action and it was so wrong," later said that he was the victim of a prank  and had never complained about the toy. Prank or not, it does look a little suspicious, doesn't it?

They give McDonald's a notable distinction in the toy world

We know that McDonald's has sold billions of burgers, but what about Happy Meals? While the company isn't typically forthcoming with juicy statistics when it comes to their Happy Meal sales, Sense360 was able to glean some mind-blowing data from a 2016 McDonald's press release. By calculating the data based on a snapshot of sales, the firm determined that the fast food company sells — are you ready for this? — 3.2 million Happy Meals per day. So, if McDonald's is selling 89 Happy Meals every second, and there's a toy in every box, you don't need a calculator to know that the Golden Arches is also doling out a whole lot of toys. In fact, they're the world's largest distributor of toys. 

"We distribute 1.4 billion toys a year globally," Pam Edwards, McDonald's director of consumer product safety, told The Toronto Star in 2015. "There's about 550 [toys] a year that are designed and distributed around the world." Unbelievably, they're all designed and produced in one place: The Marketing Store. The development lab has been heading the task for over 30 years, and the process for any given toy begins 15 to 18 months prior to landing in your Happy Meal. Makes you appreciate that plastic Pokémon a bit more, doesn't it?

What's the real deal with the 6-year-old Happy Meal?

We've all heard those rumors about McDonald's food never rotting , and a viral Facebook post in 2016 only added fuel to that fire. The post featured images of a 6-year-old Happy Meal that looked not dissimilar to a fresh Happy Meal, and exclaimed, "It's been 6 years since I bought this 'Happy Meal' at McDonald's. It's been sitting at our office this whole time and has not rotted, molded, or decomposed at all!!! It smells only of cardboard. We did this experiment to show our patients how unhealthy this 'food' is... There are so many chemicals in this food!"

But it's actually not chemicals that preserve the food and prevent it from rotting — it's the lack of moisture. Any food needs moisture and warmth to rot, and McDonald's food, just like any other food, will in fact start to decompose in a warm, moist environment. But left in its paper wrappers, and starting out on the dry side as it is, it simply dehydrates rather than rots. Bottom line: It might be surprising to see a 6-year-old Happy Meal looking fairly edible , but it could result in a broken tooth.    

McDonald's first sold an adult Happy Meal in 2004

In 2004, McDonald's capitalized on both the familiarity and good feelings engendered by the Happy Meal to launch a special combo meal aimed at adults, a crucial element of a health-conscious publicity campaign. Under intense scrutiny at the time following lawsuits alleging that they encouraged unhealthy eating habits that led to obesity and other health complications (per The Guardian ), McDonald's introduced salads, cut its "Super Size" option on fries, and unveiled the Go Active! Happy Meal, according to CNN . 

Different from the traditional Happy Meal in every way, the Go Active! Happy Meal was marketed to adults, centered around one of four large salads as an entree, included a bottle of Dasani water, didn't include French fries, and cost more ($5.99 in most areas, as per CNN). What made the Go Active! Happy Meal a Happy Meal was the free prize — a clip-on pedometer which could be worn to count steps along with a "Step With It!" booklet full of health and fitness tips. The Go Active! Happy Meal was initially a limited time offering, before it was added to the regular menu. It ultimately disappeared from McDonald's combo meal board.

McDonald's released another Happy Meal for adults in 2022

Nearly 20 years after dabbling in the idea of a Happy Meal for adults, McDonald's fully embraced the idea of sharing the kids' menu fun with grown-ups via the Cactus Plant Flea Market Box. Packed in a cardboard box with McDonald's famous "Golden Arches" on top doubling as a handle, it's a Happy Meal in everything but name, only for grown-ups.

Cactus Plant Flea Market, according to  McDonald's , is an artistic and creative collective that makes unique, hand-made clothing. It partnered with the fast food chain to design the meal promotion, as well as a series of giveaway T-shirts and the toys that come inside the Happy Meal for adults. According to CNET , those toys are a set of four figurines, three of which are surreal, crooked-grinned, four-eyed takes on McDonald's characters Hamburglar, Grimace, and Birdie. The fourth is the proprietary "Cactus Buddy," dressed in a McDonald's logo T-shirt.

The Cactus Plant Flea Market meal is a premium item at a premium price: about $10, which is significantly more than a kids' Happy Meal. That cost covers fries, a soft drink, and the customer's choice of a Big Mac or 10 Chicken McNuggets (and the toy, of course). The promotion ran throughout October 2022.

In the 1980s, McDonald's sold Happy Meals in Boo Buckets

The McDonald's Happy Meal almost always comes inside a cardboard box or paper bag with a toy hidden inside. Sometimes, however, the packaging is a reusable or keepsake item that serves a special purpose. In the fall of 1986, according to The Sun , McDonald's introduced the Halloween Pumpkin Happy Meal , with the familiar kids meal arriving inside of a " Boo Bucket ," one of three orange, lidded plastic pails made to resemble a modest Jack-o'-lantern. The three varieties included the McPunk'n (a standard Jack-o'-lantern pumpkin), the McBoo (a ghost face), and the McGoblin (a monstrous visage). Adorned with spooky imagery, the buckets were meant to be used by kids to hold and store all their sugary loot obtained on Halloween night.

The promotion proved so popular that McDonald's kept up the Boo Buckets for years, making the McBoo and McGoblin buckets in white and green, respectively, for Halloween 1990 . The chain undertook a temporary move to glow-in-the-dark McBoo Bags, before it was discontinued in 2016, per Nightmare Nostalgia . In October 2022, McDonald's announced the return of the Halloween Happy Meal, complete with newly designed Boo Buckets in orange pumpkin, green monster, and white ghost varieties.

Happy Meals have different names in different countries

McDonald's is a global company, and as such, offers similar fare around the world, adapting its food and marketing to local tastes, dietary restrictions, and languages as appropriate. To that end, McDonald's has sold some variety of what's known in North America as the Happy Meal in more than 100 countries, according to " Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia ."

By and large, the Happy Meal is known as the Happy Meal in other English-speaking areas or a literal translation of the phrase in the local dominant language. In places where that phrase doesn't quite translate directly, McDonald's devised new names. In French-speaking areas of the Canadian province of Quebec, the Happy Meal is called Joyeux Fesin, or "Happy Birthday." In Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, kids can order a Cajita Felitz (literally "Happy Little Box"), and in Japan, the combo is called the Happy Set .

The Happy Meal was born in Guatemala and St. Louis

The McDonald's Happy Meal, likely the most famous kid's meal in history, officially launched across the U.S. in 1979. However, it originated in Guatemala half a decade earlier. According to Consequence , Yolanda Fernandez de Cofiño ran Guatemala's flagship McDonald's outlet at the time. Noticing that parents seemed a little overwhelmed when ordering for their children, de Cofiño created the "Menu Ronald," a fixed children's meal named after the McDonald's clown mascot. Inside a little bag came a conveniently packed order of a hamburger, small fries, and a small ice cream sundae.

Knowledge of de Cofiño's innovation made its way to McDonald's global headquarters in Chicago by the time American employees started working on the idea of a kid's meal. In the 1970s, McDonald's biggest competitor was the now-defunct chain Burger Chef, which invented the fast food kiddie combo with the 1973 Fun Meal, according to Insider . 

Per the Chicago Tribune , McDonald's St. Louis-based regional advertising director Dick Brams figured that was a good idea and put McDonald's midwestern ad company, Bernstein-Rein, on the case. ""I came up with the Happy Meal, in 1975, as I watched my son at the breakfast table reading his cereal box," Bob Bernstein said. "He did it every morning. I thought, we make a box for McDonald's that holds a meal and gives kids things to do."

What the first Happy Meal toys were like

After McDonald's decided to roll out a kids combo meal pack in its thousands of stores in the late 1970s, it worked with two advertising companies. According to " Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia ," Bernstein-Rein devised a concept called the Happy Meal with the initial design of "Circus Wagon Happy Meal." Costing $1, it came in a cardboard box covered in puzzles, jokes, and stories and illustrations of Ronald and his McDonaldland friends. The box contained a burger (with or without cheese), a small order of fries, a small soft drink, a small bag of cookies, and one of five free toys: a stencil tool called a McDoodler, a McWrist wallet, a puzzle book, an identification bracelet, or an eraser. Meanwhile, the Stoltz Advertising Company designed the McDonaldland Fun-To-Go box. Honing in on the then-new concept of the McDonald's drive-thru, the Fun-To-Go box was all about driving and cars. Its toy was based on the video game "Space Invaders."

Bernstein-Rein test-marketed the Happy Meal in Kansas City, while Stoltz promoted the Fun-To-Go meal in St. Louis. The far more successful Happy Meal won and became a permanent part of the McDonald's menu. Within the first year, the Happy Meal would give away countless rubber balls, plastic jewelry, action figures, toy cars, and miniature flying discs.

The first Happy Meal promotion was for Star Trek

McDonald's has partnered with many movie studios and production companies over the decades for branded Happy Meals meant to get kids excited about blockbuster movies, popular TV shows, video games, toy lines, and other kid-centric forms of entertainment and commerce. While McDonald's most famously partnered with Disney in a $1 billion deal in 1996 (per the New York Times ), the very first time the fast good company used Happy Meals to promote a film was in 1979, with Paramount Pictures' "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." The G-rated sci-fi epic and continuation of the short-lived cult 1960s TV series, "Star Trek" hit theaters in December 1979 and was promoted via McDonald's, which launched the Happy Meal earlier that year (via " Toys and American Culture: An Encyclopedia ").

Per the Star Trek website, the Star Trek Meal promotion involved six different boxes, each including a different comic book-style adaptation of a scene from the movie. Kids who got their hands on one of these early Happy Meals received a hamburger or cheeseburger, fries, a drink, a little bag of cookies, and a toy. These could be a "Star Trek" ring with a secret compartment, a mini-board game, an iron-on sheet, a bracelet, or a replica Video Communicator.

Parents were unhappy with the Batman Returns Happy Meal

The 1989 big-screen "Batman" movie brought in $251 million . When "Batman Returns" arrived in 1992, Warner once again pulled out all the promotional stops, even securing one of the most high-profile marketing opportunities available: teaming up with McDonald's for a series of tie-ins, including a Happy Meal featuring toys made up in the likenesses of characters from the movie.

According to Entertainment Weekly , some parents weren't pleased with the "Batman Returns" Happy Meals, as the concept of kid-oriented combo meals didn't quite mesh with the film's dark and violent content. Indeed, "Batman Returns" earned a PG-13 rating from the MPAA, what with its scenes of electrocution, clowns killing innocent people, kidnapping, and reprehensible villains like The Penguin. "It's fine to make 'Batman Returns' an adult film, but don't market it to kids," said Faith Daniels, who dedicated an episode of her talk show "A Closer Look" to the controversy. Religious and decency advocacy group the Dove Foundation publicly protested the McDonald's Happy Meal. "Parents trust McDonald's," a spokesperson said. "So why is McDonald's promoting a movie to little kids that's filled with gratuitous graphic violence?"

The outcry may have pushed director Tim Burton to walk away from the Batman franchise after two films. "I think I upset McDonald's," he told Yahoo! News . "[Company reps asked] 'What's that black stuff coming out of The Penguin's mouth? We can't sell Happy Meals with that!'"

The Happy Meal mascot was a little terrifying 

McDonald's is no stranger to character-based branding, what with its enduring "McDonaldland" cast of characters lead by Ronald McDonald. Many of those advertising mascots corresponded to particular menu items — Grimace loved shakes, the Hamburglar stole hamburgers, and Birdie was an "early bird" to promote the McDonald's breakfast menu. It wasn't until 2014 that McDonald's in the U.S. started using a character associated with the Happy Meal. That figure, per CNN , was Happy, a living, breathing Happy Meal box with cartoonishly long limbs and a couple of bulbous eyeballs.

Meant to be kid-friendly and fun, Happy was not immediately embraced as such. Within hours of McDonald's launching its Happy campaign, the internet savaged the 3-D creature that many found to be frightening, off-putting, and grotesque. "Happy is not for everyone," McDonald's senior director of U.S. marketing Julie Wenger said in response to the vicious public commentary. "He's about having fun. Really for kids and families" (via CNN).

You used to be able to get a Happy Meal on flights

One of the main reasons the Happy Meal exploded in popularity and has remained popular for more than 40 years is because of its convenience. It's a compactly packed and affordable boxed meal option for a hungry kid available in a matter of minutes at any of McDonald's 13,000-plus locations (per USA Today ). In the 1990s, it was possible for parents to get their kids a special treat of a Happy Meal in a place where food options were much more limited: on an airplane. 

In 1991, according to the Los Angeles Times , United Airlines partnered with McDonald's to serve Happy Meals to kids on flights heading in and out of Orlando, Florida, a family-friendly tourist destination home to Disney World. Happy Meals had to be ordered well in advance of the flight. The idea catered to the large population of kids on planes traveling to and from Orlando while also seeking to help right an air travel slump. United even installed special food carts on planes that kept hamburger patties warm. According to Click Americana , the Happy Meals didn't come with fries because they were difficult to keep hot and crispy. Kids got macaroni and cheese in those airborne Happy Meals instead. The promotion died down in 1993.

Why McDonald's includes QR codes on Happy Meals

Over the course of 2013, according to MarketingDive , McDonald's introduced QR codes to its packaging. What look like little black and white boxes filled with jagged, squiggly lines, unlock a digital experience — when a smartphone camera is pointed at a QR code, it takes the user to an app or website to provide extra information or entertainment. McDonald's initially brought out QR codes to link customers to dietary information, then embraced the technology for its Happy Meal. Kids or their parents could scan the QR code with a special McDonald's smartphone app that would provide games, activities, and interactive features used in conjunction with some Happy Meal toys.

Any number of apps can scan QR codes, but McDonald's designed the Happy Meal codes to work specifically with its smartphone software. This caused some problems in 2020. According to Promo Marketing , McDonald's ran a Happy Meal promotion for Disney's "Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway" theme park ride. The packaging utilized a QR code, which would take users to a contest entry page. But that's only if they used the McDonald's app — if they used any other QR reader, it wouldn't work at all.

In 2020, McDonald's offered Thank You Meals

Expanding upon the idea of combo meals bearing the names of passive feel-good emotions, McDonald's built on the idea of the Happy Meal in 2020 with the "Thank You Meal." According to USA Today , McDonald's wanted to publicly and meaningfully pay homage to first responders and front-line health care workers in the early, chaotic, and panicked days of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. And so, for a period of about two weeks from late April to early May 2020, any health care worker, paramedic, police officer, or firefighter could receive a meal at a participating McDonald's outlet in the U.S. The combo meals, available all day, came packed in a cardboard Happy Meal box to hopefully inspire happiness and smiles.

"We have been inspired by the way our franchisees have been going above and beyond to support their local communities throughout this trying time," Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald's USA said (via Restaurant News ). The program was such a hit that McDonald's revived the Thank You Meals in 2021 as a free giveaway for teachers, per USA Today .

Beanie Babies and Pokemon Happy Meals caused a sensation

McDonald's has enjoyed phenomenal Happy Meal sales over the past 40-odd years thanks to some tie-ins with already popular toy brands and franchises. But McDonald's embraced a cultural phenomenon in 1997 when it unveiled a specially produced line of Ty's Beanie Babies. According to Time , the Teenie Beanie Babies were a smaller, highly collectible version of the already small, and highly prized stuffed animals sought by toy aficionados and speculators in the late 1990s (per WBUR ). McDonald's sold an astounding 100 million Beanie Babies by year's end and brought back the promotion annually until 2000, by which time the fad had died down.

The only other time that McDonald's would reach such heights of consumer frenzy with Happy Meals came in 2021, when it launched a series of Pokémon-themed boxes and giveaways to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the multimedia franchise, according to Fast Company . A total of 50 cards featuring adorable fighting monsters were available only through Happy Meals, according to Polygon . So many adults descended on McDonald's outlets across the U.S. — some camping out, some buying armloads of meals and then throwing out the food just to keep the cards — that McDonald's corporate office recommended individual stores place a limit on Happy Meal purchases.

• McDonald's
• Paramount Pictures

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (McDonald's, 1979)

• View history

The First Happy Meal, Promoting Star Trek The Motion Pictur

Between December 1979 and February 1980, McDonald's offered five different Happy Meal boxes based on Star Trek: The Motion Picture . [1] . There were 5 different carton boxes, and they came with toys the following toys:

Star Trek Rings, 4 total

• Starfleet Insignia
• The Enterprise

Star Trek Glitter Iron Ons, 4 total

Star Trek, Starfleet Game

Star Trek Navigation Bracelet

Star Trek Video Viewers, 5 total

• List pending

1979 Star Trek The Motion Picture McDonald's Commercial

References [ ]

• ↑ Geek Dave (14 August 2019). Looking Back at McDonald's Star Trek (English) . Warp Defactor. Retrieved on 30 May 2021.

https://www.startrek.com/article/a-collectors-trek-7-the-tmp-happy-meal-promotion

• View history

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of fast food restaurants. In 1979 McDonald's ran promotional ads that tied in the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture with their Star Trek Meal. The offer was valid at participating McDonald's and lasted until February 1980 (or until supplies lasted).

When the production of The Motion Picture ran into financial difficulties in February 1979, Paramount Vice-president of Marketing and Licensing , Dawn Steel , was charged with creating another revenue stream to help cover the ballooning production costs. She did so by organizing a merchandising and licensing fund drive, which climaxed in a highly imaginative presentation, held in the largest theater on the Paramount lot. A resounding success, the presentation was met with enthusiasm by the attending prospective licensee companies, which included McDonald's. Signed on together with beverage company Coca-Cola, The Motion Picture constituted one of the first times that a non-Disney motion picture production was involved in a tie-in merchandising campaign with products from the the food industry and subsequently, crudely drawn comic strips (as no other imagery was yet available) were featured on the containers of both companies, a legendary one featured on those of McDonald's, featuring Klingons eating hamburgers and drinking Coca-Cola. When Steel showed studio head Barry Diller concept commercials featuring Klingons gobbling up two of America's largest brand names, he laughed out loud. Steel had never seen Diller laugh, before or after. ( New York magazine, 29 May 1989, p. 45; Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History , pp. 108-109; The Keys to the Kingdom , 2000, Chapter 6)

Happy Meals endorsed by a Klingon in a 1979-1980 McDonald's commercial

Often incorrectly credited as McDonalds's very first outing in their " Happy Meal " concept, which was introduced a few months after the presentation in June 1979, The Motion Picture was nevertheless their first movie themed one, starting its run in December 1979. McDonald's ran several thirty second television commercials, with narration done by Gary Owens ; promoting the Motion Picture Happy Meals, one of them presented by an actor dressed as a Klingon speaking in, what was supposed to be, Klingonese (at the time the language consisted only of a few exclamations, and it took until Star Trek III: The Search for Spock before the language was somewhat beefed out by linguist Marc Okrand ), with a voice-over "translator" endorsing the Happy Meal, consisting of a regular hamburger, fries, soft drink, a McDonaldland cookie sampler, and a Star Trek prize. Reportedly, McDonald's sunk $20 million dollar in the television ads to promote their 50 million Star Trek Happy Meal boxes. ( Playboy magazine, January 1980, p. 310) Some of these commercials can currently be found on the video sharing website YouTube .

Six different Happy Meal boxes were released (officially, the count is five, but there were two versions of the box featuring Spock ), each featuring movie-inspired artwork, puzzles, and a short comic strip , created by artist Ron Villani, depicting a key action scene in the film. Each box had two jokes, including, for example:

• Q. What's most important when transporting "Bones"?
• A. To get the real McCoy.

The prize included with the meal consisted of a black or gray plastic "video communicator" that, when assembled, could be used to scroll the comic strip that was included, "secret compartment" rings (molded with images of Kirk , Spock and the movie Starfleet insignia), iron-on sheets featuring movie-inspired graphics and characters, toy versions of the USS Enterprise , K't'inga -class cruiser, long range shuttle , drydock , air tram , orbital office complex , travel pod , and the Epsilon IX station , and the board game Star Trek: Starfleet .

• 1.1 #1 – " Star Trek Stars"
• 1.2 #2 – "A Pill Swallows the Enterprise "
• 1.3 #3 – "Time. And Time. And Time Again."
• 1.4 #4 – "Votec's Freedom"
• 1.5 #5 – "Starlight, Starfright"
• 2 Other info
• 3 External links

Video communicator comics [ ]

Each installment was eight illustrated panels in length and concluded with " Thus ends another chapter in the saga of the U.S.S. Enterprise . " In each strip, the Enterprise is depicted in its pre-refit configuration.

#1 – " Star Trek Stars" [ ]

This comic was a brief introduction to the Enterprise , its crew, and its mission. The Enterprise is described as the " command ship of the Federation ". Decker and Ilia are aboard, and the ship is en route to stop an alien force speeding toward Earth, likely V'Ger .

#2 – "A Pill Swallows the Enterprise " [ ]

The Enterprise is trapped

Captain Kirk is awakened from sleep and informed that the Enterprise has been enveloped in a capsule. Spock is at a loss to explain it, and the construct is impervious to phasers . Suddenly, the crew see a "heavy Delphus meteor " approaching. Concluding that a "retro blast" would be ineffective, the crew braces for impact. The meteor is stopped by the capsule, which then dematerializes, and Spock concludes that they have a good friend out there.

#3 – "Time. And Time. And Time Again." [ ]

Uhura visits the Bronx

Kirk and Spock prepare to beam Uhura down to the planet Turages. The equipment malfunctions, and she materializes in 172 billion BC, confronted by a gigantic beast. She then appears in a rectangular construct drifting near a star in the year 21,000, using her communicator to send the message that she is "three solar systems ahead". Spock discovers that the transporter has been sabotaged. Uhura appears on home plate in Yankee Stadium in the year 1940, holding a bat, and surmising that the Klingons must be behind her predicament. She is then beamed back to the transporter pad of the Enterprise , along with her bat, with Spock quipping that "it was just a matter of time."

#4 – "Votec's Freedom" [ ]

Kirk and Spock beam down and meet Votec. He recalls how he fought in a war against the Nozda, and stayed behind to allow his people to escape. He was captured, and determined never to tell where his people were. Spock says that he can break Votec's chains with his new "ultra laser ", and Votec plans to rejoin his people.

#5 – "Starlight, Starfright" [ ]

On a viewscreen , Kirk shows McCoy subplanet 897-JOJ. McCoy is then abducted by transporter and is informed that a Doctor is needed for experiments. Spock offer that the Argontrons are afraid of darkness, so the Enterprise arranges for darkness and rescues McCoy with a shuttlecraft.

Other info [ ]

A derelict McDonald's (or possibly another recognizable chain) turned into a blacksmith shop was mentioned to be featured in Star Trek: First Contact , according to the script.

External links [ ]

• McDonald's at Wikipedia
• McDonald's Star Trek Meal – website featuring the boxes and prizes that came with the Star Trek meal
• Original advertisement  at YouTube
• How Star Trek Created The Happy Meal at Fandom.com
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Arch Rivals: Unboxing the History of the McDonald's Happy Meal

By jake rossen | apr 17, 2020.

Bob Bernstein was getting annoyed with his son. It was the mid-1970s, and Bernstein, an advertising executive based in Kansas City, watched as 10-year-old Steve applied the same ritualistic approach to his breakfast. Each morning, Steve would pour himself a bowl of cereal then sit at the table staring at the cereal box. He read the front, the back, and the sides, over and over again.

When his father asked him about this seemingly peculiar routine, Steve explained that “It’s just something to do.”

Bernstein realized Steve was no outlier. Unlike adults, who prefer to socialize and chat, kids liked looking at something while they ate. He kept this lesson in mind when McDonald’s tasked him with developing a child-friendly meal package that would hopefully entice younger consumers into eating at the restaurant more often.

By 1979, Bernstein’s Happy Meal was being rolled out nationally, and would go to become an indelible part of the fast food franchise’s business model. Tucked into a cardboard box full of illustrations, games, and puzzles was a complete meal, plus a toy.

But Bernstein’s claim of sole Happy Meal authorship has been hotly debated over the decades. In fact, no fewer than four entities, including one Guatemalan franchisee and one pioneering burger joint, have made a convincing argument that they, not Bernstein, were responsible for this contribution to popular and gastronomic culture.

In the early 1970s, McDonald’s didn’t have an organized outreach program for marketing to children. While the fictional McDonaldland and characters like Mayor McCheese and Grimace appeared in commercials, the actual menu wasn’t particularly kid-friendly. Parents and employees were to forced to watch helplessly as younger customers gave slapdash orders, cobbling together a meal from the menu. It exasperated adults, who wanted to get in and out more quickly, as well as restaurant franchisees, who felt the company could be doing more to attract kids.

The company asked Cleveland, Ohio, advertising expert Joe Johnston to research the problem; he came up with the idea of a sack that had activities on the packaging. But a bigger influence for McDonald’s was one of their biggest fast-food competitors, Burger Chef. In 1973, the burger chain introduced its Fun Meal, a cardboard box with games, riddles, and comic strips that housed a burger, fries, a sugary treat, and a soda. There was also frequently a toy or small vinyl record inside. In 1978, Burger Chef had even scored big with a license for a Star Wars Fun Meal, possibly the first example of a major movie tie-in with a fast food kid’s item.

The Fun Meal definitely pre-dates Bernstein’s assertion that he came up with the Happy Meal in 1975 or 1976, which was when he had been assigned the task by McDonald’s St. Louis regional advertising manager Dick Brams. In fact, Paul Schrage, the senior vice president of McDonald’s, was aware of the Fun Meal and so was Brams. It was Brams who directed Bernstein to come up with a way for McDonald’s to offer a menu option just for kids.

Whether Bernstein knew about the Fun Meal or simply used his son’s cereal box habits to inform his choices is unclear: In 2019, Bernstein told the Chicago Tribune that he had already been working on a design for a kid-friendly menu item when Brams contacted him. What we do know is that Bernstein developed a pre-sorted kid’s meal that was served in a cardboard box featuring puzzles, jokes, and games. (Bernstein trademarked the Happy Meal name, though he later transferred it to McDonald’s for $1.)

After two years of market testing in cities like Kansas City, Phoenix, and Denver in 1977 and 1978, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal to the rest of America in 1979. Each box, which had a circus wagon theme, came with a hamburger or cheeseburger, fries, cookies, and a soft drink. Inside the $1.15 box was a “special prize” that was one of several novelty items. Kids could find a McDoodler stencil, a McWrist wallet, an ID bracelet, a puzzle lock, a spinning top, or a McDonaldland character eraser. Later that year, the company entered into its first Happy Meal licensing agreement, issuing a Happy Meal tie-in for the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture . Happy Meals have been a perpetual presence at McDonald’s ever since.

To Bernstein’s chagrin, Brams’s death in 1988 brought with it reports that Brams was the “father” of the Happy Meal. In fact, Bernstein had been given a bronze Happy Meal in acknowledgment of his efforts the previous year. He gently disputed the claim, saying that Brams became involved with the Happy Meal only after it had been conceptualized. Certainly, the two could have differing viewpoints on how much each brought to the assignment of creating a marketing strategy for kids.

But any combination of Brams and Bernstein leaves out one crucial contribution in the Happy Meal timeline: the work of Yolanda Fernandez de Cofiño, a onetime Guatemalan McDonald’s operator and now president of McDonald’s Guatemala, and the individual McDonald’s credits for being the originator of the Happy Meal.

Yolanda's husband, José María Cofiño, founded the first McDonald’s in Guatemala in 1974. Yolanda noticed that customers, particularly younger ones, didn’t have a full understanding of how McDonald’s labeled their food. A kid might order a Big Mac not knowing it was a substantial burger.

To solve the problem, Yolanda created Ronald’s Menu in 1977. It was a way of designating a fun food order for children and consisted of a burger, fries, soda, and a sundae. Yolanda added a toy or novelty item that she had purchased at a local market. However, Yolanda’s idea didn’t include an illustrated box; Ronald’s Menu was served on a tray.

Yolanda claimed she presented the idea of the kid’s menu during a McDonald’s marketing conference in Chicago in 1977, the same year the company began market-testing Bernstein’s Happy Meal in select cities. In 1982, the company gave her a silver Ronald McDonald statue for developing the Happy Meal as well as raising the brand’s profile among children.

It seems as though McDonald’s was faced with a key problem—marketing to kids—and that several people had a similar approach as to how best to address it. While Yolanda conceived of offering a toy with a meal, it was Bernstein who was conceptualized the McDonald’s Happy Meal packaging, and it was Brams who stayed busy securing toy deals for the Happy Meal in the years to come.

Naturally, Burger Chef had a different interpretation. In 1979, shortly before the Happy Meal was scheduled to roll out nationally, the company sued McDonald’s for $5.5 million for infringing on their Fun Meal idea. The lawsuit fizzled out, however, and the ailing Burger Chef franchise was eventually absorbed by Hardee’s in 1982.

By 2017, McDonald’s was selling an average of 3.2 million Happy Meals daily, which have been stuffed over the years with everything from Transformers to Teenie Beanie Babies , which were greeted with high consumer demand in 1996. Collectors covet original Happy Meal toys and particularly the boxes, which were frequently thrown away and consequently became valuable when found intact.

Who was responsible for those boxes? History has a few answers. In all likelihood, McDonald’s took note of Burger Chef’s Fun Meal and wanted to create something similar. Bernstein shaped that notion into the Happy Meal around the same time Yolanda was offering a value menu option to kids. Like McDonald’s itself, which was opened by Richard and Maurice McDonald but brought to new heights by Ray Kroc , everyone had something to contribute.

Remembering the greatest decade, the 80s.

The Crazy History Of The Happy Meal

The Happy Meal is a form of kids meal that was created in 1979 and became a big part of fast food in the 1980s. It was made up of three items and included a toy. The packaging and toy in the Happy Meal would soon become a marketing tie-in with TV and movies.

Are there any kids who grew up in the ‘80s that haven’t had a happy meal? It was a pretty simple process when you were a kid screaming for food. You’d get a hamburger, or chicken nuggets, fries, and a drink. And there was a toy in there.

The toys started out quite simple and then became huge collections that would take forever to get. McDonald’s then realized they could start some great marketing tie-ins with whatever movie was going to be a big hit with kids that year. Sometimes that would be a mistake though as we’ll get to later.

So today is all about the history of the Happy Meal. It’s a crazy story that actually has some noble beginnings but grew into another fast food juggernaut here to take over all our lives.

You can go the podcast route, or keep reading for the whole story!

The History Of The Happy Meal

The crazy thing I learned in researching all this is that the Happy Meal has roots in a desire to help mothers and not directly created by some corporate stooge.

The story starts in the mid-70s with a woman named Yolanda Fernandez De Cofino. She lived in Guatemala and her and her husband operated several McDonalds there. Yolanda was very aware of the number of young mothers that she saw coming into her restaurants and she knew the challenges they faced with raising young kids.

Noticing how difficult it could be for a mother to feed screaming kids she came up with the “ Menu Ronald ” or the Ronald Menu . This was a meal that offered a hamburger, fries and a small sundae as a way for these mothers to more effectively feed their children.

Somehow, and I’m really not sure how, the idea was eventually brought to the attention of McDonald’s management in Chicago.

How Cereal Influenced the Modern Happy Meal

Eventually, the concept of the happy meal was turned over to a guy named Bob Bernstein. Bernstein developed this concept into the Happy Meal we know now.

Berstein was a consultant for McDonald’s and would regularly meet with owners of McDonald’s. They would go over all things related to customer experience but the one big one that would come up from all these clients was how they could create a better experience for families with kids.

Up until the Happy Meal, if you watched kids in a restaurant, whether it be fast food or a regular one, kids would often pick at their parent’s meals. Kids menus, in general, were not a big thing yet and it’s hard to think of any form of food service that doesn’t cater to kids picky requests now.

So this was 1977 and the idea passed on from Guatemala was seeming like a good idea. Why couldn’t you just package a kid’s specific meal? This was McDonald’s though and it wasn’t as simple as just throwing some food together. You had to think about branding and the McDonalds experience.

Bernstein made note of when he ate breakfast with his son that his son would spend the whole meal reading the back of the cereal box, like most of us, did. For a kid growing up, this was basically your daily newspaper. Berstein wanted to take this concept and bring it into kids meals.

The idea Yolanda had was great but the package was the key.

Developing The Happy Meal Packaging

Berstein would call in his creative team to start working on mockups for the kid’s meal packaging. His team would use some paperboard boxes and had the idea to form them similar to a lunch pail. This would look familiar to kids and they also had the smart idea that they could turn the handles into the golden arches to carry it.

They had a lot of real estate on this box to cover with kid-friendly content. They called in some nationally known children’s illustrators and told them they had a blank slate to create whatever they wanted on the box’s sides. They could use any ideas they wanted including things jokes, art, games, comic strips and anything that would be similar to that cereal box experience.

The comic strips could be cartoonish or fantasy but anything that would appeal to a kid. Each box had to have 8 different items on the tops and sides to keep kids interested.

The food contents stayed simple and would include a burger, small fries, and instead of small sundae a package of cookies which were seen to be a less messy option. The meal would also come with a small drink and Bernstein would call it the “Happy Meal”

Launching The Happy Meal

They wasted no time in getting the Happy Meal into our grubby little hands as McDonald’s was pretty sure they had developed a good idea. They started to roll out commercials and radio ads for the Happy Meal in October 1977. They started with a test market in Kansas City to fine tune everything with the marketing.

They then slowly introduced it into other markets and then had a full nationwide rollout that happened at the end of 1979 to get this baby all ready for the 80s.

The first Happy Meal was a circus-wagon-themed and contained one of six different toys. Those first six were:

• A “McDoodler” stencil
• A “McWrist” wallet
• An ID bracelet
• A puzzle lock
• Spinning top
• McDonald land character eraser

The Evolution Of The Happy Meal Toys

Giving away a toy with food was clearly not McDonald’s idea but they packaged it up nicely. Before the Happy Meal toy, they had the “treat of the week”. The toy would change weekly but with the Happy Meal, it was a surprise to find out what you would get…

I think this is part of the big appeal with the Happy Meal. Each box you get is different and that appeals to kids big time. I think its also related to the big time success of things like the Cabbage Patch Kid as they were so many unique ones that kids would feel special with what they were getting. It wouldn’t be the exact same as every other kid out there.

The toys started off simple and cheap but have become much more complex over time. McDonald’s also didn’t wait in having a tie-in promotion. In 1979, almost right when the Happy Meal came out, they released the Star Trek Meal.

This was to promote Star Trek: The Motion Picture in December 1979. The packaging used for the Star Trek Meal was made up of various images from the movie and contained some games too. There was also a comic strip adaptation of the movie and they also realized an ingenious device early on: They would introduce a set of toys that you would need to collect all of to complete the set. This way kids would be wanting to come back to get more Happy Meals to get that missing toy, nerds, too.

Connecting With Disney

Probably the biggest advancement of the Happy Meal was in 1987 when McDonald’s first introduced a McDonalds/Disney Happy Meal. This was a perfect storm of two huge enterprises coming together over deep fried food. Disney has thrown pretty much every cartoon entity at the Happy Meal including:

• Mickey Mouse
• Simba and the Lion King
• 101 Dalmations

And why stop there? McDonald’s opened the floodgates with every other property they could get their hands on and over the years you’ve seen tie-ins with Transformers, Hello Kitty, G.I Joe, Lego, Barbie, Hotwheels, and Teletubbies.

The Beanie Baby craze of the ‘90s would also be a big part of the Happy Meal and McDonald’s put out a miniature version of the crazy popular stuffed animal and ended up selling 100 million of the bloody things. They would keep offering them annually and would even offer Beanie version of Ronald McDonald, Grimace, Birdie, and the Hamburgler.

Some Of The Notable 1980s Happy Meal Toys

This was the golden age of the Happy Meal toys as they were starting to incorporate in all kinds of cartoons and characters that we already knew and loved. Here are a few standouts:

• The Muppet Babies- 1987
• Garfield Vehicles- 1989
• Duck Tales Figures- 1988
• Fraggle Rock- 1988
• Berenstain Bears- 1986
• Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers Cars- 1989
• Fry Kids- 1989
• McDonalds Pullback Rack Cars- 1985
• McNugget Buddies- 1988

Not So Fast Tim Burton…

So a lot of marketing tie-ins were starting to happen and pretty much all of them went off without a hitch. Except for one…

And that leads to Batman Returns , the sequel to the massively popular Batman directed by Tim Burton. Kids love Batman right? So what could go wrong?

The story of Batman is a pretty dark one already with a kid seeing his parents murdered in front of him and turning into a vigilante to take down all criminals. But things got weird in Batman Returns . I think it’s an awesome movie but you have a lot of dark stuff including a sex-crazed penguin man, a plot to kill little kids, and a lot of death along the way.

The super dark tone of Tim Burton didn’t seem to mesh well with the bright and happy yellow and red motif of McDonald’s. Before it was even finished Burton was arguing with the censors over the movie and was actually cutting out scenes and extra violence to bring it down to a PG-13 rating instead of the proposed R rating.

Since the final version was still up in the air McDonald’s only got to see a very rough cut and, not sure what the movie would end up being, signed a deal. So they started marketing this “family friendly” film with their food and Happy Meals.

Maybe it was Michelle Pfieffer being thrown out of a skyscraper or people being electrocuted to death but something didn’t feel that “family friendly” about Batman Returns . Parents started complaining about how the movie was unsuitable for children and McDonalds flipped out.

According to Burton:

“I think I upset McDonald’s. (They asked) ‘What’s the black stuff coming out of the Penguins mouth? We can’t sell Happy Meals with that!’”

The original Batman clearly wasn’t intended for children but this all gets out of hand and it’s ultimately McDonald’s fault for not being more involved with what they market. It was too late as people were pissed. One angry parent would write:

“Violence-loving adults may enjoy this film. But why on earth is McDonald’s pushing this exploitative movie through the sales of its so-called ‘Happy Meals?’ Has McDonald’s no conscience?”

So McDonald’s is pissed, Warner brothers are pissed that McDonald’s is pissed and Tim Burton is caught in the crossfire. The Happy Meal/Batman Returns debacle is seen as the start of what got Tim Burton removed from the franchise he had started. And the Batman movies went to crap until Christopher Nolan took over.

This whole ordeal made McDonald’s much more proactive with the toys and movies they would market with the Happy Meal. They would now have to go over entire scripts and it actually gave McDonald’s a lot of power dictating how films would go. It was said that McDonald’s demanded that Steven Spielberg tone down some of the violent scenes in Jurassic Park before they would sign up. It’s also why the next Batman movies returned to the more campy/cartoony style.

It looks like commerce will always trump art. You’d think McDonalds would be a bit more understanding with the whole Batman thing since they also use a clown…

Making The Happy Meal Healthier

This hisory of the Happy Meal would not be complete without some mention on the nutriton issue. McDonald’s has always been cricized on the quality of their food and I get that. At the same time they never pretended to be anything other than fast food. When you go there hungover as hell after a heavey night of drinking you know why you’re going in.

It’s not to have a kale salad.

When it comes to the Happy Meal though changes have had to take place over the years. Not a lot has changed with the Happy Meal, they added chicken nuggets in 1983 and then started to introudce little cartons of 1% milk. In 2011 they added in apple slices with a low-fat caramel dip and reduced the portion of the fries to 1.1 oz.

But even with the smaller portions there’s a lot of crap in those boxes. A cheesburger with fries and a chocolate milk contain almost 700 calories, 27 grams of fat, and a whopping 1.046 mg of sodium.

Adding the apple slices, and reducing the fry serving, may be because of what happened in 2010. On Novemeber 2, 2010 the San Francisco board of superviseors passed a law that childrens meals sold in restaurants had to meet a certain minimal nutrition requirement before they could be sold with toys.

This was a way, they hoped, to cut down on childhood obesity. Toys could only be included in meals that had 600 calories or less and less than 640mg of sodium. The meal would also have to include fruits and vegetables and beverages without an excess of sugar and fat.

Sounds good right?

Except McDonald’s were able to circumvent that law by charging ten cents for the toys. The state of California filed a class action lawsuit in 2010 to ban Happy Meal toys but the suit was dismissed in 2012.

The Legacy Of The Happy Meal

Bet you didin’t think this little box caused so many issues did you? Either way, the history of the Happy Meal is an intersting one. It fully burst on to the scene in the 1980s when we all came to know it and love it.

It was a great combination, at the time, of getting to have fast food but getting a surprise and a toy all at once. That’s some powerful stuff that has made a lot of people life long consumers of McDonald’s. We at least remember the good feelings of being taken there for something we weren’t normally going to get to eat.

It was fun to “collect all 6” of certain things and I think my favorite were definitley the Muppet Babbies and those Pullback race cars. Those still stand out in my mind.

So there’s no stopping the Happy Meal at this point, it’s too much of a heavy weight when it comes to marketing and promotion. McDonalds reportedly spends more money advertising to children than to adults and teens combined.

At the end of the day giant corporations like this will dictate a lot of our spending but when you look back on the history of the Happy Meal it at least had some humble begginings.

And check your closet for those Beanie Babies because they are worth BANK these days…

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Published Dec 22, 2016

TBT: Trek Video Communicator from TMP Happy Meal

McDonald’s is celebrating Star Trek ’s 50th anniversary by dipping into their archives to share a very cool TBT. It’s a video of the Star Trek Video Communicator that was included in the Star Trek: The Motion Picture -themed Happy Meal box that McDonald’s provided to young patrons – and Trek fans, of course, back in 1979.

As detailed by a Collector’s Trek guest blog that ran in 2012 here on StarTrek.com , “Each Communicator consisted of a plastic housing with one of five comic strips inside. Feed the strip through the communicator to watch the story unfold inside the small viewing port. 23rd century technology available… way back in 1979.”

Check out the full guest blog HERE .

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Star Trek McDonald's Happy Meal comic strips

McDonald's Star Trek Meal Happy Meals Star Trek: The Motion Picture tie-in packaged in six boxes. Five comic strips were printed on six boxes, each strip depicting scenes from the film (one strip was printed on two boxes). The writer is unknown. Comic strip art by Ron Villani. For more information, see The TMP Happy Meal Promotion by James Sawyer.

1979 Box features: Kirk, Klingons Three Klingon cruisers on patrol in deep space are destroyed by an energy bolt from a giant cloud.

1979 Box features: Spock, Federation The crew of Station Epsilon 9 witnesses the destruction of Klingon ships by a giant cloud headed for Earth.

1979 Box features: Ilia, Transporter Station Epsilon 9 is destroyed by the giant cloud.

1979 Box features: Spock, Bridge Station Epsilon 9 is destroyed by the giant cloud.

1979 Box features: McCoy, Bridge Kirk returns to command the Enterprise and two crewmen die in a transporter accident.

1979 Box features: Decker, Spacesuit Enterprise launches to stop the cloud, flames spurting from the nacelles.

Star Trek Video Communicator One of several toys offered with McDonald's Star Trek Meals. Five brief comic strips are part of an unassembled toy sealed in cellophane. The toy communicators are about 1.5" x 3" with a one inch square screen and made of black or gray plastic. The antenna is 3.5" and the two cranks are a little under 1.5 inches. When assembled with the included instructions , the color comic strip can be scrolled in the view screen. Writer and artist unknown.

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Happy Birthday, Happy Meal!

On June 11, 1979, McDonald’s introduced its first national Happy Meal promotion. Called Circus Wagon, it included six different cardboard boxes designed to look like festively decorated circus wagons. Each box, topped with handles shaped like the familiar golden arches, held a kid-sized meal and included a small toy, or premium, inside. The toys, depicting McDonald’s characters, were simple: erasers, decals for plastic ID bracelets, and “doodler” rulers incorporating different shapes with which to draw along with the measured ruler. Who knew at the time what a phenomenon Happy Meals would become? As of this month, they have been with us for 40 years!

Although the origins of Happy Meals are a bit murky, McDonald’s officially credits their “invention” to Missouri-based advertising executive Bob Bernstein. After noting the success of a kid-sized meal introduced by a McDonald’s operator in Guatemala and market testing several variations in different cities, Bernstein opted for the Kansas City, Missouri, test version: “a hamburger, fries, soft drink, packet of cookies, and a surprise inside the happiest box you ever saw.” 

At the time, Bernstein was convinced that the container for the meal was the most important component. So, he engaged nationally known children’s illustrators to design the graphics, jokes, games, and stories that appeared on the boxes. Who knew back then that it was the “surprise,” the little toy inside, that would be the key to Happy Meal’s success? 

The Star Trek Meal The 1979 Star Trek Meal marked a turning point in Happy Meal history, with the first Happy Meal designed to cross-promote a mass media feature, Star Trek: The Motion Picture . In the style of early Happy Meals, the boxes were striking, while the toys inside were still small and innocuous—a space ring, an iron-on transfer, a wrist bracelet, and a paper fold-out board game.

As McDonald’s began to focus on the toys rather than the boxes and to seek media tie-ins with their promotions, the popularity of Happy Meals grew by leaps and bounds. 

In 1994, McDonald’s celebrated the 15th anniversary of its Happy Meals with a special promotion of 15 premiums, each reflecting a different promotion from the previous years. These premiums could be interlocked to create a 15-car circus train—harkening back to the first national Circus Wagon Happy Meal promotion of 1979. Kids were surprised, then delighted, to find that when they moved the train along, each of them would spin, jump, or rotate on its own little train car. The Happy Birthday Happy Meal birthday train, part of The Henry Ford’s large collection of early kids’ meal toys, is featured here in its entirety. So hop aboard for a ride through the first 15 years of McDonald’s Happy Meals!

These date back to a Barbie-Hot Wheels Mattel tie-in from 1991.  The pairing of Barbie and Hot Wheels proved so popular that it returned three times in the early 1990s.  This promotion was the first to feature 16 different premiums and the first to offer separate premiums for both girls and boys (though sometimes girls preferred the Hot Wheels to the Barbie). Each original premium came with a coupon for purchasing the full-size toy in retail stores. As part of the birthday train, this Barbie twirled around, while the Hot Wheels car revolved inside the drum.

This figure references the 1985 re-release of the 1982 movie ET, The Extra Terrestrial .  The 1985 Happy Meal promotion featured four four-color posters that had to be hand-rolled by employees and secured with rubber bands as they would not fit into Happy Meal boxes. All royalties for the original promotion were donated by McDonald’s to the Special Olympics. As part of the birthday train, ET’s neck rose up and down.

This 1994 promotion was a tie-in to both the release of Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3 videogame (Sonic was created to compete with Nintendo’s mascot, Mario) and the Saturday morning Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon which premiered in 1993. As part of the birthday train, the paper “screen” revealed different scenes as it revolved inside the “television.” 

This birthday train car commemorates the 1990 Peanuts promotion that featured different Peanuts characters in a farm setting.  That series marked the 40 th anniversary of the Peanuts cartoon strip by Charles M. Schulz.  When pushed along, the organ “pipes” on this train car—shaped like a pack of French Fries—rose and fell. THF319292

These figures represent the 30 th anniversary re-release of the popular 1961 Disney film, 101 Dalmations .  The original 1991 Happy Meal promotion featured four poseable figures, including Cruella de Vil.  When this birthday train car was moved, the gift box lid opened and closed. 

These two figures harken back to the Hasbro tie-in from 1992 that featured both 5 poseable Cabbage Patch kids with “real” yarn hair and 5 heavy-duty mini-Tonka utility vehicles.  On the birthday train, the Cabbage Patch Kid’s horse rocked while the Tonka truck’s open-box bed lifted and dumped the present out.

This birthday train car relates back to the 25 th anniversary promotion (1987) of the beloved Berenstain Bear book series created by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Stories about Mama, Papa, Brother, and Sister were also featured on a Saturday morning cartoon beginning in 1985. As part of this train, the seesaw went up and down. 

Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies first appeared in a flashback sequence in the 1984 film, The Muppets Take Manhattan , then were featured in their own Saturday morning cartoon series.  The original Happy Meal promotion, with four Muppet characters each on a moving wheeled vehicle, dated from 1987.  As part of the birthday train, babies Kermit and Piggy twirled around.

A Little Mermaid Happy Meal promotion appeared in 1989, tied in with the release of the Disney animated film. The original promotion featured four Little Mermaid-related tub/bath toys. The first Disney tie-in actually appeared in 1987, featuring four activity books of classic Disney films.  When this birthday train car moved, Flounder “swam” in circles around Ariel.

These two birthday train cars represent Warner Brothers promotions from 1991: Tiny Toon Adventures based upon the Saturday morning cartoon of that name and Super Looney Tunes—in which five different Looney Tunes characters came with add-on super-character suits. When the Tiny Toons car was moved, Babs Bunny placed a candle on and off the top of the birthday cake. On the Looney Tunes car, the pair of cymbals that Bugs is holding closed in and out around Daffy Duck’s head.

The “Happy Meal guys” bought up the rear on the Happy Birthday Happy Meal caboose, 1994. When pushed along, the French Fry’s party horn moved in and out.

Teenie Beanies Conquer All By 1997, McDonald’s had sold over 100 million Happy Meals. They seemed successful and popular. But then, between the short window of April 11 and May 15 of that year, Teenie Beanies were introduced, taking advantage of the Ty Beanie Babies craze. This promotion blew all previous ones out of the water. Families who had never even visited McDonald’s were suddenly waiting in long lines to order Happy Meals. For many kids who grew up in the 1990s (and their parents), it was the most memorable Happy Meal promotion ever. 

This promotion also firmly established the adult hobby of collecting Happy Meal toys. So many adults came in to purchase Happy Meals just to collect the Teenie Beanies—and so much food was wasted as a result—that McDonald’s began, from then on, to charge separately if customers just wanted to buy the toy.    

While several series of Teenie Beanies were released after 1997, the 10 mini-versions of Beanie Babies from that year were the most successful. 

Still Going Strong Though many other fast food establishments have offered kids’ meals and related premiums, McDonald’s Happy Meals have remained the most enduring and popular. They have not been immune to attack, especially by parents and healthy eating advocates, and there has been recent talk of repurposing kids’ meal toys into apps and digital downloads. Despite these trends, there is no denying the visceral quality of pulling out, unwrapping, and playing with a new Happy Meal toy. For 40 years, they have made kids happy, let parents enjoy their own meals, reflected popular trends, and become an inescapable part of our culture.

Donna R. Braden, Senior Curator and Curator of Public Life, was one of those Moms who actually enjoyed waiting in long lines at McDonald’s for the thrill of getting the latest Teenie Beanies.

childhood , by Donna R. Braden , toys and games , popular culture , restaurants , food

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CinemaBlend

26 Ridiculous McDonald's Happy Meal Toys Based Off Movies

Posted: May 4, 2024 | Last updated: May 4, 2024

Collect all of these baffling disappointments and oddities!

Ah, the tradition of the McDonald’s Happy Meal toy. Throughout the decades, there’s been some rather interesting and odd entries in the history of these fun sized amusements. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the most ridiculous McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, based on some pretty huge movies.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Glitter Iron Ons - 1979

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a movie that still causes people to scratch their heads. So it’s kind of unsurprising that, out of a decent set of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, there’d be at least one to make you wonder just what was going on. If you thought the criticism of Gene Roddenberry was spicy, imagine being the person to greenlight glittery iron ons in the shape of various characters and the Starfleet insignia.

E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial - A Pull-Out Poster - 1982

There’s a ton of toys you could market from the world of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial ; just ask anyone who played the infamously buried Atari game. At least there was an effort made in that home entertainment venture, as the McDonald’s Happy Meal “toy” was a collection of four posters to hang on your wall. And before you ask, no that Michael Jackson photo with E.T. wasn’t one of them.

The Real Ghostbusters - School Supplies - 1987

The Real Ghostbusters was a cartoon that was inspired by 1984’s Ghostbusters . That comedy hit had a pretty extensive toy line on a human scale, which may have been why when marketing this series to McDonald’s, school supplies were the chosen vehicle. “Something strange in the neighborhood” doesn’t even begin to cut it.

Hook - Peter Pan’s Tub Toy With Wheels - 1991

Ok, here’s a wild concept: a series of tub toys based off of Steven Spielberg’s Hook . Now take that a step further and give the kids a toy with Peter Pan that still has wheels. Yes, it’s technically multipurpose for play in that respect; but if that was the intent, why wasn’t the entire line made that way?

Batman Returns - The Penguin And Catwoman’s Ridiculous Cars - 1992

Hoo boy, were the suits at McDonald’s mad about Batman Returns . And they weren’t up in arms for the ridiculous vehicles given to The Penguin and Catwoman as a result; though that could have certainly carried a discussion. Apparently, Tim Burton’s grimmer sequel had some elements that made the company question how they’d turn it into a toy line. The answer: pretend you’re making toys for Adam West’s Batman for anyone who wasn’t Michael Keaton.

Space Jam - The Nerdlucks Toy - 1996

The entire line of Space Jam Happy Meal toys were kind of ridiculous, especially when you linked them all up into a huge basketball court of zaniness. Even then, most of the toys included had some sort of Basketball element included; save for one. The Nerdlucks skulking around in a trench coat has nothing to do with Michael Jordan’s sport of choice, and is actually kind of creepy when it moves.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie - A Line Of Stationary Ships - 1996

How, how, how do you have a toy line for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie , and there’s no Megazord? Ok, so the individual figures and vehicles were cool; but they didn’t connect into the singular beatdown machine that kids knew and loved. That’s a huge missed opportunity there.

The Hunchback Of Notre Dame - Esmerelda’s Tambourine - 1997

Disney was the king of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, especially with the studio dominating the slots open at Mickey D’s. So some movies were understandably going to be harder than others to make toys out of. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of those hard cases, especially when Esmerelda’s Tambourine was included to drive even the most good natured parent up a solid stone wall.

The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride - Timon’s Plushie - 1998

Oh Timon, sweet Timon; look how they massacred our boy. The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride had a line of plushies to its name when McDonald’s came a’callin’, and that was a natural fit. If only they hadn’t done one of Simba’s adopted dads so dirty, giving him a figure that looked creepier than he did mischievous.

Peter Pan - Captain Hook Spyglass - 1998

What is it with Peter Pan or Pan-adjacent projects that makes for weird Happy Meal collectables? Admittedly, the Disney classic made for some so-so toys that mimicked adventure gear, like a spyglass. But when that visual aid has the appearance of being part of Captain Hook himself, it’s most definitely a disturbing case of toys gone wrong.

Mulan - Ling’s Spinner Top - 1999

Hey, remember that scene in Mulan where she and her fellow soldiers spin into battle? Yeah, neither do we. A couple of those on-screen compatriots of hers suffered that very fate when it came to the home video promotion in Happy Meals. Ling in particular got the short end of the stick, as his smile is twisted into something that looks way too sinister for a Disney hero.

Inspector Gadget - Assemble Your Own Inspector Gadget - 1999

Ok, so here’s a toy that’s both ridiculous, but also ridiculously fun. Thanks to Matthew Broderick’s live-action Inspector Gadget movie, kids had the opportunity to collect all of the parts to make their own Go Go Gadget Tie-In! Even if it was fun, it was a pain to try and collect those parts. Or, even worse, keeping them all together, while trying not to think about which part of this disassembled person was the most fun to tinker with.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - The Witch’s Head Bag Clip - 2001

Bag clips are a trend that seemed to crop up in McDonald’s Happy Meal toys in the early aughts. Sometimes, the results could be cute, even if the whole enterprise seemed useless. And then there were things like the bag clip of the Evil Queen’s Witch form, which felt like an instant nightmare just waiting to happen. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night, forgetting this was clipped to your backpack.

Chicken Little - Chicken Little Whizzer - 2005

Disney’s Chicken Little is another solid base hit for movie tie-ins when it comes to Happy Meal toys. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for blunders, as the CGI feature actually saw a couple of its toys become a bit of a nesting doll scenario. To truly get something like the Chicken Little Whizzer to run, you needed to get the top to spin and then put it into the vehicle it belonged to. If you’re curious to see how much that doesn’t work, there’s video out there to satisfy your curiosity.

Hotel For Dogs - Stuffed Dogs - 2009

The concept of Hotel for Dogs included so many Rube Goldberg-style devices and contraptions that could have been turned into one gigantic playset. Instead of using such imaginative delights as the McDonald’s Happy Meal tie-ins, all kids got were a bunch of stuffed dogs. To be fair, they are cute and aren’t nearly as creepy as The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride stuffies from the '90s; but it’s still pretty underwhelming.

Night At The Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian - Larry & The Giant Squid - 2009

Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian has a mostly cute line of entertaining figures. And whoever designed this line gets some bonus points for making the Einstein bobblehead from the Ben Stiller movie a part of the fun. However, some of those points are deducted yet again, as a result of the severely weird “Larry & The Giant Squid” toy sticking out from the pack.

Avatar - Pandora’s Creature Toys - 2009

James Cameron’s Avatar had a merch blitz as voluminous as any movie of its stature would deserve. When it came to the McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, those efforts seem to have been a bit lax. While each of the figures have a cool glowing feature to them, the animals aren’t exactly the most mobile creatures; which in turn kind of robs that cool factor just a bit.

Star Wars: Episode I In 3D - Spinner Toys - 2012

It feels a bit surprising that some of the Star Wars movies and TV shows don’t have the same sort of Happy Meal toy support that other entries have had. Then again, if the drawing board results in anything like the spinner toys crafted for The Phantom Menace’s 3D release in theaters, then perhaps that’s why we haven’t seen Ahsoka or The Mandalorian gracing a Happy Meal box just yet.

The Wizard of Oz 75th Anniversary - The Wicked Witch Of The West - 2013

While it certainly seems weird to have McDonald’s Happy Meal toys themed off of The Wizard of Oz , the reality is all the stranger. That much is true in the form of the Wicked Witch of the West, one of cinema’s greatest villains, looking downright cuddly in this set of collectables. The more you think about it, the odder it is that a woman who got an entire episode of Sesame Street banned from TV looks this approachable.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Fashion Accessories - 2014

The practice of gender-divided toys at McDonald’s doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. But even the traditional Hot Wheels/Barbie giveaway makes more sense than this Amazing Spider-Man 2 collection, where the “Girls” side is mostly fashion accessories. Gwen Stacy was more resourceful than that, and you know it Mickey D’s!

The Lego Movie - Lenticular Cups - 2014

What’s the first toy you think of when you think The LEGO Movie? That’s right…lenticular cups? With a history of LEGO sets in the past, you’d think that McDonald’s would have come up with a Happy Meal giveaway that would embrace the Master Builder in everyone. Instead, kids were treated to a bunch of cups that had moving images on them. Odd flex, but certainly not the oddest LEGO toy McDonald’s would put out.

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water - Straw Toppers - 2015

Oh… what inspires talking straw toppers under the sea? The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water , that’s what! The superpowered cinematic adventure of that pineapple dwelling Nickelodeon character yielded a set of “toys” that allowed kids to put their straws in, with different sayings being spouted out as a result. We’re sure the kids remembered this one for a good five weeks.

The Lego Batman Movie - Collectable Tins - 2017

The lack of a LEGO set for any movie based on that toy line seems like an automatic missed opportunity. The LEGO Batman Movie wasn’t the first, nor was it the last case where exactly that sort of thing happened. What’s more, there were a couple “collectable tins” included in this collection that did exactly what they said on the tin. Not exactly the Bat-Action kids are looking for with their Happy Meals, is it?

The Lion King - Timon’s Figure - 2019

Alas poor Timon, McDonald’s did you dirty. As if his Lion King II: Simba’s Pride plushie in 1998 wasn’t traumatizing enough, the live-action Lion King remake in 2019 gave the world a totally bland representation of this Hakuna Matata believer. It’s hard to tell which is worse, but both toys are a disservice to a top tier Disney sidekick.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - Emperor Palpatine’s Bag Clip - 2019

One has to think that the bag clip of Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was hidden from the public for two reasons. The most obvious cover is that his presence in the ninth Star Wars film was a huge secret. However, when you look at how horrific the end result was, the second reason for not including him in the adds is all too clear.

Avengers: Endgame - Thor’s Figure- 2019

Every toy line has its entries that look oddly close to the actor it’s supposed to resemble, and one that’s way off the mark. Poor Chris Hemsworth found himself in the latter camp, as the Avengers: Endgame toys gave us a Thor that’s so derpy looking, it’s almost enough to still demand a re-do after all these years.

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