Happy Meal Toys Then And Now


When I was little the best part of a kid’s meal was getting an awesome toy with it. Kid’s meals used to have tons of toys to collect; if my memory serves me correctly sometimes you could collect up to 20 or so. I’m going to make a list of toys I remember from my childhood and give you a little backstory on them.

#1- 101 Dalmatians



“101 toys in all to collect, GOD DAMN ITS EXCELLENT!”


This is one of the toys I remember the most. They came out when 101 Dalmatians was released to video in 1996 but they reintroduced in 2001. The best part of these toys is that they made 101! And that took effort on the designer’s part. That is what the problem is with today’s toys, there is no effort!


#2- Peter Pan Ship



Notice the dials on the side of the ship to make the characters move.

This is another toy I remember fondly. To complete this toy you had to get each piece of Captain Hook’s ship. Each piece had 1 character and once you hooked it all together the awesomeness of the ship unfolds! The ship and switches and dials on it to make the characters move. Once again this took time and effort to design.


#3 – The Incredibles

Not much to say about these. When I was in the second grade The Incredibles movie came out. And everyone was bringing in their toys to school. They weren’t the most complex toys, but they were still fun nonetheless.



#4 – Sega Games (McDonalds)

Around 2003-2004 these games came out, at the time no one heard of electronic games in happy meals. These games were nothing special they had the same graphics as a Tiger Electronic wrist game (if you can remember those). They made bleeps and bloops while your character dodged barrels, caught objects, or jump on platforms. Like I said the graphics were nothing great, but the concept was revolutionary for the time.


The only games I remember getting is the one with the monkeys and the soccer ball.


#5- VHS Tapes (McDonalds)

These didn’t come with the Happy Meals I think you paid a couple bucks extra. The videos were about Ronald McDonald and his friends going on adventures, in fact they were called The Wacky Adventures of Ronald Macdonald. I use to watch them all the time and I’ve seen them all.




#6- Simpsons Toys (Burger King)

The Simpsons are in themselves retro and iconic! I personally love the Simpsons, when Burger King started putting out Simpsons toys I was ecstatic. They had regular Simpson’s toys, Treehouse of Horror 2 times, Simpsons watches, and Simpsons movie toys. That’s a lot of Simpsons!



#7- Star Wars episode 3 (Burger King)

I don’t think many people remember these toys; these toys came out on May, 11 2005. They came in hard plastic bobble heads for the characters; the spaceships had wheels, and plush toys for the space creatures.




Thanks for watching! If you recognized any of these toys that pretty cool.

See ya guys later!

- KidOf2000s