It was 30 years ago today - that Mc Donald's Happy Meals started with prizes. No wonder I have a big belly...........

While I imagine it was a cost-cutting move, I think McDonald's made a mistake by getting rid of the Happy Meal boxes in lieu of ordinary Happy Meal bags. The boxes made the Happy Meals unique.

Uh Kennywood? They still have boxes - my kids pop out all the little card-board pop-outs all the time and I find them all over the house.

We still have the boxes over here, at least i think we do.

quote:

Originally posted by Over_Worked_Mom:
Uh Kennywood? They still have boxes - my kids pop out all the little card-board pop-outs all the time and I find them all over the house.

Really? I don't often by Happy Meals, but when I do look at them, all I ever see are bags. Perhaps the boxes are only used for certain promotions.

For example, remember the Teeny Beanie Babies Happy Meal promotions? I know those were in bags because I have some of the unused bags as part of the set.

I've seen bags, mostly for drive-thru, but all we ever seem to get are boxes. As I recall tho, that Beanie Baby promotion was a couple years ago? I just saw a bunch of them at the Thrift store tho - how sad.

The first Teeny Beanie Baby promotion was a fiasco for McDonald's, although not entirely their fault. People were buying the Happy Meals for the Teeny Beanie Baby but throwing away the food. People were upset about all of the wasted food, so McDonald's changed things for the next round of Teeny Beanie Baby Happy Meals where you could buy just the toy.

I think that changed things in the industry as a whole. I know that for the Star Trek movie promotion at Burger King, people were able to buy just the individual toys without having to buy the meals.

Just about every fast food place will let you buy the kid promotion toy without buying the kid food. My daughter stopped eatting that stuff years ago, but still insists on getting the toys.

Oh, Ice Age 3 & Night at the Museum 2 both had happy meal boxes at mcD. {We collect the boxes as well as the toys.]