Happy Meals for Happy Kids

 

QUESTION: I was going through some boxes in our attic and discovered one filled with those little toys my kids used to get in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Most people, especially mothers, consider these junk. Do they have any value or should I just toss them?

ANSWER: Believe it or not, some of those little toys are actually little treasures, depending on their condition. McDonald's is famous for its Happy Meals, and kids the world over I have been fattened up on weekly doses of them for over 40 years. Since the early 1980s,  the main hook has been the toy included with the meal. 

Many collectors of McDonald's memorabilia are mostly interested in toys that relate to specific McDonald's characters, but there have also been many tie-ins with established movie, TV and toy lines. Those tie-in items appeal to collectors who are specifically interested in what the Happy Meals promoted.

The first major tie-in to the action adventure market was with Star Trek. The series  returned from TV limbo in the form of a highly promoted film in 1979, and producers planned a huge promotion. This included Star Trek Happy Meals based on the movie. Six different boxes featured activities. One box encouraged kids to fill in the dots to complete a picture of the Enterprise while another offered a chance to decode a message with Mr. Spock, and so on. Toys and premiums included plastic Video Communicators, iron-on transfers of the characters and the Federation symbol, and "Navigational" wrist bracelets. 

Just as collectible are the items that McDonald’s made available to their restaurants, such as display signs, a cardboard Enterprise, and, rarest of all, a silver smock worn by McDonald's employees, which featured an emblem that combined the Star Trek and McDonald's logos. 

Another heavily merchandised franchise was The Dukes of Hazzard, the campy rural action show that dominated TV in the early 1980s. In the summer of 1982, McDonald’s  test marketed a Dukes of Hazzard promotion in St. Louis. The items included plastic cups with pictures of the various characters, and vacuumed plastic meal containers in the shape of the vehicles from the series, including the General Lee car and Daisy's Jeep.

Hot Wheels came to McDonald's in 1983.The cars were the subject of a national promotion, but there were also certain cars distributed only on the East Coast, and some only on the West Coast. Others appeared nationwide. McDonald’s offered 14 Hot Wheels cars in Happy Meals at any given location. There were "Collect All 14" store displays that included these 14 cars. The cars from this promotion individually sell for  $10 to $15, but the 14-car display unit commands can sell for between $300 and $400.

E.T. was a huge promotion for McDonald's, thanks to the family-friendly appeal of the movie. Although E.T. appeared in theaters in the early 1980s, the first Happy Meal with an ET theme didn’t go on sale until 1985. It offered  two different box designs and a series of four posters depicting scenes from the film.

Hasbro, the toy industry giant, got into Happy Meals with a combined promotion for Transformers and My Little Pony. Transformers, robots that became vehicles and other mechanical devices, were one of the top selling action figure lines of the 1980s. Each original Happy Meal promotion include four different small Transformers. Today, they sell for between $40 and150 each for diehard Transformers collectors and up to $100 if they’re still in their cellophane baggie packs.

Ghostbusters, the cartoon TV show known as the Real Ghostbusters spun off of the hit movie, became the next big craze for kids in the action/adventure genre. Ghostbusters appeared in McDonald's Happy Meals in 1977 with four different boxes and school supplies based on the Marshmallow Man and Slimer ghosts seen in the film and cartoon series. These included a pencil case, ruler, note pad and eraser, pencil and pencil topper, and pencil sharpener. All are difficult to find and highly collectible.

Hot Wheels returned in 1989 with more cars available in different regions. There was a 12-ear display that now sells for $300, followed by repeated promotions, shared by Mattel's other titan, Barbie, throughout the 1990s.

Not to be outdone, Matchbox also had a promotion in 1988, featuring a 16-car counter display and cars that now sell for $8 to $10 each.

The I990s proved to be even mare interesting for action-adventure tie-ins, as several popular super heroes became involved with Happy Meal promotions.

1991 saw McDonald's teaming with Disney to promote Hook, the retelling of Peter Pan with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. The official Hook Happy Meal boxes, which featured striking artwork, contained four Hook floating bathtub toys.

A tie-in with the TV cartoon version of Back To The Future caused some controversy. The assortment consisted of four rolling toys, but Doc's time traveling Delorean car had wheels that small children could remove and swallow. McDonald's issued an advisory to parents, urging them to avoid giving the cars to small children. The next big promotion also had its share of problems.

In 1992, McDonald's was ready to cash in on Batman merchandising and featured a big promotion involving Batman Returns with four vehicle toys, including Catwoman’s car. 

For some reason, Halloween toys are usually big hits. The Ronald and Pals Haunted Halloween McDonald’s Happy Meal set featured a 20-inch display used at McDonald's restaurants in the 1990s. The company ran their 1998 promotion nationally during October. Unfortunately, many store managers trashed most of the displays afterward. The promotion included six toys—I am Hungry, Witch Birdie, Black Cat Grimace, Jack-o-lantern McNugget Buddy, Ghost Ronald, Scarecrow Hamburglar and Ghoul.

The McDonald’s Happy Meal for Disney Toy Story2 in 1999 includes pretty much every recognizable toy from the "Toy Story 2" movie. The complete set included an incredible  20 toys, which doesn’t seem possible for the movie.

Not all McDonald's toys were tiny plastic junk. Some, like It’s Happy Meal Girl Doll from 1997,  were big plastic junk, part of a series of Happy Meal baby dolls. Actually, these dolls were surprisingly well made for something produced by a burger chain.

And while the intention of Happy Meals was to get kids to eat McDonald’s foods and make them happy, those same little toys are making many collectors happy as well. 

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Meals That Made Kids Happy

 

QUESTION: When my kids were very young, they used to love going to McDonald’s for Happy Meals. A lot of parents hated these packaged meals for the little toys included in them. And I wasn’t any different. But recently, I discovered a box of these little toys as I was cleaning out a closet. My kids are all grown up and have their own children.  McDonald’s still offers Happy Meals and many younger parents still hate those little toys. What can I do with them? Are they worth anything?

ANSWER: The answer is yes, but...and there’s always a “but.” To be of any value to a collector, Happy Meal toys need to still be encased in their packaging and not used. There are some rare pieces that have value even if out of their packages, but generally, as with other toy collectibles, mint in package is the rule.

McDonald's collectors aren’t simply food groupies picking up recent Happy Meal toys. Collecting McDonald's memorabilia can be a complicated affair. Categories are numerous and subcategories extensive. Items can be instantly available or hard to find. Prices range from a couple of dollars to thousands. As with any collectible, the law of supply and demand rules.

McDonald's memorabilia encompasses a vast amount of local, regional, national, international material-ephemera, advertising and print items, cross-collector character items, McDonaldland character items, restaurant pieces, books and comics, sports and non-sports cards, glassware , and plates, watches and jewelry, garments, vehicles, dolls, toys, and more. The list is almost endless.

The McDonald brothers started their fast food drive-in restaurant in 1948, so an item from the early 1950's could carry a hefty price tag.

A novice McDonald's collector could amass hundreds of Happy Meal toys in a very short time. For example, nearly 90 different toys had been in Happy Meals in 1996 alone, and millions of each toy had been issued. You can easily find toys from recent years selling for one to two dollars. A manufacturing variation or recall may create a toy of a little higher value, but even these are available in quantity. 

Happy Meal toys and related display memorabilia remain are the most popular items to collect. Each Happy Meal has a specific and variable number of toys, including a special U3 toy which meets special standards for children under three years age, some bags or boxes, a stand up display and possibly counter displays, as well as banners, posters, and signs.

McDonald's collectors are as fussy about cleanliness, condition and completeness as any other collectible collector. Since McDonald’s had many of the items produced in the millions, prices for most packaged items remain low, and the package must be perfect. Loose Happy Meal toys have little value, especially once they’ve been tossed in a box, as the paint rubs off and are lost. Paper items need to be pristine and unmarked to bring top dollar. 

Figurine Happy Meals toys are the most popular, especially those which feature well-known characters. Special packaging can also increase the desirability. The April 1996 Walt Disney Masterpiece Home Video Collection Happy Meal is a McDonald’s collector’s Holy Grail—eight nicely made classic figures, each in a fitted half-size videotape box, with well designed color cover artwork and McDonald’s logos. Dumbo is the U3 toy in the set. A single Happy Meal bag completes the set.

Happy Meals which feature books, buckets, or. little-known characters are usually of lessor interest to collectors, but there are exceptions. The four small soft cover Beatrice Potter Peter Rabbit books from a 1998 Happy Meal, in mint condition, complete with the Happy Meal box are worth about $80 as a set. The Peter Rabbit Happy Meal was a "regional" which had limited geographic distribution. Any books that have been in children's hands are hard to find unblemished. Usually, this happens moments after opening the package as little ones’ hands are often sticky from eating fries and the like.

Elusive, scarce items can bring big dollars. The growing interest in fast food collecting has helped many wonderful older items to surface. However, many may or may not be valuable. Experienced McDonald's collectors look for complete older items in excellent condition and newer items that might be unusual or limited.

Most non-Happy Meal McDonald's collectibles feature the company name, one of the corporate logos, the trademark “M,” or recognizable characters.  Remember that a copyright date is only the year of first issue—a seemingly early piece may still be in circulation.

Early and scarce are the key words in McDonald’s collecting, although they may not occur simultaneously. Look for design features and characters no longer in use, such as Archy McDonald, the early character Speedee, items with the golden arch logo with a slash mark, and items related to the old style "red and white” restaurants. A 1966 Ronald McDonald costume with slash-arch logos, complete with makeup and wig, surfaced at an unclaimed storage locker auction. Needless to say, a collector paid several thousand for that hot item.

Most people think the same toys appear in all McDonald’s Happy Meals. In fact, they vary from region to region and country to country. This brings the total issued into the millions. And the more produced of any collectible, the less value it eventually has. 

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Going for the Prize Inside

 

QUESTION: Ever since I was a kid and read the back of the cereal box as I was downing a bowl of cereal before going to school, I’ve loved them. Cereal boxes were fun and often had games to play on the back and many contained prizes inside. Recently, as I was cleaning out an old desk drawer, I came upon several of the prizes I had retrieved from cereal boxes. At first, I would eat the cereal until the prize suddenly fell out as I poured some of it into my bowl. But after a while, I became impatient and dumped the cereal from a newly opened box into a large bowl or pot to search for the prize. Are these little prizes collectible today? I know mothers detested the prizes found in McDonald’s Happy Meals and saw them as junk. What about the cereal prizes? 

ANSWER: A cereal box prize was a form of advertising that involved using a promotional toy or small item that cereal makers offered as an incentive to buy their brand. Prizes could be found inside or sometimes on the cereal box. The term "cereal box prize" is sometimes used to include premiums that consumers could order through the mail from an advertising promotion printed on the outside of the cereal box.

Cereal makers distributed prizes and premiums in four ways. The first was an in-store  prize handed to the customer with the purchase of one or more specified boxes of cereal. The second was to include the prize in the box itself, usually outside the liner bag. The third was attaching the prize to the box, such as printing games and trading cards on the cereal box or simply attaching the prize to the box with tape or shrink wrap. Some prizes included a gameboard or other interactive activity printed on the box that corresponded with the prize inside the box, which kids used as a gamepiece. The fourth method of distribution was to have the consumer mail in the UPC proof-of-purchase labels cut from a specified number of boxes, sometimes with a cheque or money order to defray the cost of shipping. A third-party sent the premium to the consumer by mail. 

In 1909, Kellogg’s offered the first cereal box prize. Shoppers who purchased two boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes received a copy of Funny Jungleland Moving-Pictures, a little booklet illustrated with dancing tigers, storks, horses, hippos and more. Children pulled a tab to slide new pictures in and out, creating new combinations of the animals’ heads, bodies and feet. By 1912, consumers redeemed The Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Book 2.5 million times.

With the success of the Kellogg’s prize campaign, other cereal makers, including General Mills, Malt-O-Meal, Nabisco, Nestlé, Post Foods, and Quaker Oats, followed suit and inserted prizes into boxes of their cereals to promote sales and brand loyalty.

The first prizes buried inside cereal boxes were small pinback buttons decorated with World War II U.S. Military insignia, available in Pep, at that time Superman’s favorite cereal. 

By the 1920s, cereal companies turned to then-popular radio shows to advertise their premiums. 

The invention of a screw injection molding machine by American inventor James Watson Hendry in 1946 changed the world of cereal box prizes. Thermoplastics could be used to produce toys much more rapidly, and much more cheaply, because recycled plastic could be remolded using this process. In addition, injection molding for plastics required much less cool-down time for the toys, because the plastic wasn’t completely melted before injected into the molds.

During the 1940s and 1950s, cereal prizes followed a transportation theme, with metal or plastic cut-out planes, cut-out trains, and license plates included in General Mills offerings. It wasn’t until 1943 that Kellogg’s placed a model airplane into a package of its Pep Whole Wheat Flakes cereal. 

Also in the 1950s, the maker of Wheaties distributed brightly-painted steel automobile maker emblems, representing 31 American and European auto makers, including  luxury names like Bugatti, Alfa Romeo and Rolls Royce alongside now-defunct manufacturers like Kaiser, Hudson and Riley. 

In the 1970s, Hendry developed the first gas-assisted injection molding process in the 1970s, which permitted the production of complex, hollow prizes that cooled quickly. This greatly improved design flexibility as well as the strength and finish of manufactured parts while reducing production time, cost, weight, and waste.

All kinds of collectible figures—from rocket ships and submarines to cartoon characters and rings—could be cranked out and hidden beneath cereal. 

In the early 1980s, Apple Jacks cereal included a rubbery, squid-looking toy in every box that could be thrown at walls and slowly “crawl” down to the ground as it stuck and unstuck itself. Even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got their turn. 

And in 1996, General Mills distributed the PC video game Chex Quest on CD in boxes of Chex cereal.

Today, cereal box prizes have become a unique collectible. Most vintage cereal box prizes sell anywhere from $5 to $30, but rare ones can go for as high as $175 for a Banana Splits TV Show ring and and $250 for a General Mills Lucky Charms Game.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the "The World of Art Nouveau" in the 2022 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.