I just miss the heck out of the McDonalds mascots that weren't obvious ripoffs of the Minions (but at least they fess up to it when they had Minions and Raving Rabbids Happy meal commercials, but that's another thread all together). I grew up in the 80's and early 90's when the things stopped looking like low rent New Zoo Revue type costumes and started looking like Disney walkarounds. And Frank Welker was Grimace because he wasn't expensive as heck (but well worth it) back then. Sure, there were odd mascot characters I only really knew from storybook Happy Meal promotions and that one advertisement for McDonaldland Kid's clothing, which I'm disappointed I can't find on Youtube. I had the streamlined lineup of Birdie, Grimace, the McNugget Buddies, the fuzzy haystack things that represented french fries for some reason, and of course Hamburgalar. Not that I didn't know of the others, they just weren't used much. Maybe the odd professor guy who was of the Newton Gimmick school of science.
What I am, not nostalgic for is the first Happy Meal toys. The little tiny model kits that you'd have to build, or rather beg your parents to do. I say that as a grown man happily playing with the Angry Birds Movie promotional toys. The ones you stack up and launch the birds at like in their app game? I hate to admit something I usually collect to dump into large plastic containers to say I have them actually have been entertaining. Then again it's the second closest I've been to playing the game aside from the homebrewed SEGA version that doesn't work, but I give it all the credit in the world.