New Toy Story Short Celebrates Kid's Meal Toys!

[beaker]

As a lifelong fan of kid's meal toys, I could not be more thrilled at the new short opening with the Muppets film next week. I've always considered kid's meal toys some of the coolest stuff out there, and more often than not kid's meal toys are often way better than their expensive toy store counterparts...often times, they are the only toys made for a movie or show. From garage sales, flea markets, ebay, toy shows, etc Ive now and then come across some amazing finds that I never saw in their initial run.

Sadly, like so much else we once took for granted, kid's meal toys are under attack from parental and other groups. Many fast food chains now only have "activity booklets" and other garbage. While Disney refuses to have toys ever again with Mcdonalds or fast food, and some cities like San Francisco have played Big Brother in outright banning them.

But for many kids, especially kids who grew up poor like me, these were often a wonderful alternative filled with a lot of good memories.

So seeing the preview of this short couldnt have thrilled me more...that, and you want to talk about obscure? It spoofs the 1988 Mcdonalds Mcchangeables which I remember fondly

And...this past summer, Japan's Mcdonalds brought them back!

But it doesn't matter if it's Mcdonalds, Taco Bell, Wendys, Burger King, KFC, Long John Silvers, Hardees, Carls Jr, Arbys, Sonic, White Castle, etc.... some of the best toys on ebay IMHO came from these establishments.

 

[Drtooth]

Tell me about it. Kid's meal toys are often the ONLY merchandise a TV show or movie ever gets. I treasure my TacoBell Super Cow and the Catscratched toys I was able to get. As one of the many who missed out on the Monsters VS Aliens movie toys, I love my Missing Link and the bad guys who's name escapes me at the moment. And oh, my complete set of KFC Eek the Cat toys. Wish I could get my hands on the Bonkers BK figures I had (all of them but Toots). I was very disappointed there wasn't a Darkwing Duck kid's meal toy except for some Disney Afternoon Beach party water shooter.

I understand completely that parents are going nuts over the insane obesity epidemic (the media added the epidemic to send people into a frenzy)... but the kid's meal toy is a kid's right. Sure, half of them get thrown out or broken... some of us keep them and always have them. I have some of the first McDonald's toys which were plastic snap together vehicles with flat pieces of plastic.

I HATE that Disney has to pick a fake moral objective with these things. Muppets are one thing, but I wanna see a Phineas and Ferb promotion. I like the Jaxx Toys, even though they use the same sculpts and you only have to buy like 1 or 2 sets... but I want more P&F cheap collectibles... especially Dr. Doof.

 

[Slackbot]

I love the mermaid. She's such an obvious shout-out to AndrAIa from ReBoot, the first all-CGI TV show. It's fitting, since ReBoot had a few Pixar homages, including a monumental statue of a familiar lamp and a game sequence based on Toy Story.

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

ha im actually looking forward to seeing it now...well i did want to see but couldve past in favor of muppets..i need to see the beach vacation one

 

[Drtooth]

Now that I think of it, I think I'm losing my love affair with collecting this stuff. I went nuts getting the entire Simpsons Treehouse of Terror set this year (since I barely got half of them in the past)... I actually was going to stop after McD's Young Justice promotion, but then it was followed by a Batman Brave and The Bold one (which I only got 6 of, and went nuts doing so).

 

[beaker]

Yeah I love all the Burger King Simpsons toys. I wish theyd commercially release every simpsons character in that scale. Tho my favorite Simpsons figures are the 1990 Kenner ones

Though I have to say, a lot of Mcdonalds toys feel kind of lame. Like the Dreamworks ones...while the MvA ones were cool, the Shrek/Kung Fu Panda/TMNT 2007/etc ones just felt like hollow lame junk.

Remember in the early 2000's when Burger Kings kids meals got into epic playset sized ones, like the Rugrats?(rug rats figures that all came with playset pieces that snapped together to one big one) I mean again, late 2001: the Monsters Inc Mcdonalds toys. Just amazing

 

[Slackbot]

There were some pretty dang good MOTU McDonald's toys when the most recent series was being broadcast about 10 years ago. I will not eat McDonald's food, period, but I did go in there to buy some of the toys.

 

[mr3urious]

The Idol Happy Meal set may very well be the worst promotion of all time. Just watch and judge for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMidFJdLcSY

 

[Drtooth]

Though I have to say, a lot of Mcdonalds toys feel kind of lame. Like the Dreamworks ones...while the MvA ones were cool, the Shrek/Kung Fu Panda/TMNT 2007/etc ones just felt like hollow lame junk.

The McD's TMNT were better than the uberexpensive cruddy movie line... that's for sure. Managed to get all 8 of those. I kinda dug the 2004 BK TMNT line too... got all 5 of those. I just want something that's figural. I really hate those activity books and puzzles and pinball games and stuff like that that Wendy's gives out. I ALWAYS got those lame things. I did frame a Kirby board game though.

Current ones don't measure up quite to the Monsters Inc one, sure... but they're amazing compared to the really old ones I had. Tiny little vehicles, snap together 2-D cars... I think I even got a toothbrush once. Still, I LOVED the Batman Brave and the Bold minifigure collection... 3 figures in a package? Brilliant. If you got the entire collection, you wind up with 24 toys. Too bad I'm still missing the Gentleman Ghost set and the set with Twoface and Solomon Grundy. Wish they'd do another Sonic one, even if it was the weird little video games again. or a Mario one.

The Idol Happy Meal set may very well be the worst promotion of all time. Just watch and judge for yourself.

There was a Kid's Bop CD collection... even the Idol one didn't suck that much. That was a complete low. Even if you count the Michael Jordan exercise promotion... a STOPWATCH?!!? What kid wants a stop watch? Especially a cheap wind up one?

One of my personal favorites was BK's Powerpuff Girls/DBZ 2 figures in one meal promotion. You get the girls toy AND the boys toy and they're both pretty good shows. Too bad I missed out on the second one. And I wish my Kuririn balancing figure didn't get all scratched up.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

I saw the short, not that good though, not as good as Hawaiin Vacation. Too bad though, a lot of other people in the theater seemed to like it