Fast food toys so good that people throw out the food

[GCrites]

We still get some gold Pokemon tiles from the 1999 Burger King promotion traded in at work from time to time. This wasn't a free kid's meal toy -- I recall you had to buy a Whopper Combo and pay additional monies to get the Pokemon Tile. I remember people would just pay the money and throw out the food to get their Polywhirl, Mew Two or whatever. Got any stories about similar events?

[Scott5114]

When I worked at Burger King occasionally we would have toys–can't remember which–that were so popular people would come in specifically to get a toy. Our franchise did allow people to purchase a toy without the food in such cases. I don't know if that's something that's possible at all Burger Kings.

It was kind of funny going from the magic of getting kids meal toys to being a teenager and being the one to hand them out. We would pre-make kid's meals by opening up the bags, putting a toy in each, then rolling them up for later use when a kid's meal was ordered. We didn't really look at the toys other than that, so there wasn't really a schedule of the toy changing on a certain day of the week; usually kids would get whatever happened to be in the bag we grabbed for them, which could have been packed with this week's shipment of toys, or the previous week's, or even something that had been sitting at the bottom of the crate since the beginning of the promotion or even older. Some employees who had kids of their own would go to the lengths to haul the big crate of kid's meal toys to the counter and let kids pick what they wanted when we had a few different toys available. They loved that.

Speaking of fast food toys, every once in a while we'd have one where two different toy options were available, a "girl toy" and a "boy toy". I always felt kind of uncomfortable asking the customer which one they wanted in this case because of a few occasions when I was a kid where I simply didn't like what was on offer as the "boy toy" and found asking for the "girl toy" to be embarrassing. Now, in a post-My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic world, and with changing public opinions on gender roles, I would be surprised if this practice was still commonplace.

[gr8daynegb]

In the 1980s/early 1990's those Alvin and the Chipmunk glasses, Smurfs, and many other cartoons or themed glasses.........technically not a toy but when fast food places gave out items worth keeping and not of inferior quality

[Big John]

90s Beanie Babies at McDonald's

[OCGuy81]

In the 1980s/early 1990's those Alvin and the Chipmunk glasses, Smurfs, and many other cartoons or themed glasses.........technically not a toy but when fast food places gave out items worth keeping and not of inferior quality

McDonalds had those cool Halloween buckets that had a happy meal in them.  Had lots of those growing up.

[Brandon]

90s Beanie Babies at McDonald's

Those were so popular that various restaurants were running out of them.  People would buy the Happy Meal and then just toss the food as they only wanted the Teenie Beenie Baby inside.  At one point, they were worth more on the aftermarket.

[gr8daynegb]

In the 1980s/early 1990's those Alvin and the Chipmunk glasses, Smurfs, and many other cartoons or themed glasses.........technically not a toy but when fast food places gave out items worth keeping and not of inferior quality

McDonalds had those cool Halloween buckets that had a happy meal in them.  Had lots of those growing up.

I remember those buckets, you still see some of those around here and there.  It was either Hardee's or McDonalds but I liked the California Raisins toys they sold back in the day

[Big John]

I remember those buckets, you still see some of those around here and there.  It was either Hardee's or McDonalds but I liked the California Raisins toys they sold back in the day

It was Hardees

[gr8daynegb]

And while they may not be toys there have been, and still are, people who spend way too much money at McDonalds hoping to win the Monopoly promotion...........to then find out via Netflix documentary what actually happened

[kevinb1994]

And while they may not be toys there have been, and still are, people who spend way too much money at McDonalds hoping to win the Monopoly promotion...........to then find out via Netflix documentary what actually happened

It happened here, as the JAX FBI office was involved. But they're no longer at the old office building in Arlington (on the old Expressway of the same name), now they're just down the road from my house (on GATE Parkway, GATE being both a petroleum company here (which happens to have a convenience store, but no free air) and short for Gateway to Florida).

[GCrites]

Oh I totally remember the Monopoly scam while it was happening. I noticed myself that a lot of the winners were coming out of the New South. I was in a McDonald's in 1998 or '99 and a lady confronted the workers about why all the winners came from the South. One young man had something that sounded like a prepared statement. He said, "Unlike here in Ohio, many of our locations in the South are much newer and we haven't had nearly as many locations down there for very long. More of our winning pieces are going to that part of the country in order to help us promote those new locations." The lady was just like "Hmmm, okay."

[hotdogPi]

The fairly common free food instant wins made it not entirely useless.

[rickmastfan67]

The fairly common free food instant wins made it not entirely useless.

As long as you got a decent item.  A free small fry wasn't really going to cut it. lol.  Now, if you got a free fry that had the coupons on it, that was a different story at least.

[bandit957]

The only fast food toy I remember is a Ronald McDonald pencil eraser from about 1979.

I remember several promotions involving drinking glasses, but my family would constantly bust the glasses.

[bandit957]

Another thing sort of like fast food toys was the prizes in cereal boxes.

I remember cereal boxes that had license plates, little magnets, and a little plastic balloon launcher. I also remember something called a Diving Tony, which was a little Tony the Tiger that you would put in a bottle of water and watch him dive to the bottom and back up again. I also remember Froot Loops having a cardboard record.

One of the most common cereal prizes back then was bubble gum.

[Scott5114]

The fairly common free food instant wins made it not entirely useless.

As long as you got a decent item.  A free small fry wasn't really going to cut it. lol.  Now, if you got a free fry that had the coupons on it, that was a different story at least.

I would hate it when it would give you a free breakfast sandwich or free coffee or anything like that. I hate McDonald's breakfast, and even being free isn't enough to get me to eat it. (And I don't drink coffee.)

[GCrites]

The only fast food toy I remember is a Ronald McDonald pencil eraser from about 1979.

I remember several promotions involving drinking glasses, but my family would constantly bust the glasses.

I've got a couple McDonald's Garfield mugs left over from when I was a kid and bought a glass with the Big Mac Sheriff from the thrift store a few years back.

[bandit957]

I think Hardee's offered a 'Gremlins' storybook and record. But this was mostly for younger kids, so I was probably too old for it. I saw 'Gremlins' when I was about 11, but that was probably too old for this item.

Also, does anyone remember a weird commercial for Perkins restaurants around 1982? The commercial is about a drinking glass you could get at Perkins and featured a little girl talking about the glass. At the end of the ad, it shows her walking from the house, slipping on the sidewalk, and shattering the glass.

[rickmastfan67]

The fairly common free food instant wins made it not entirely useless.

As long as you got a decent item.  A free small fry wasn't really going to cut it. lol.  Now, if you got a free fry that had the coupons on it, that was a different story at least.

I would hate it when it would give you a free breakfast sandwich or free coffee or anything like that. I hate McDonald's breakfast, and even being free isn't enough to get me to eat it. (And I don't drink coffee.)

The McGriddles are decent.

[SkyPesos]

Not exactly the same, but there were scalpers that went to McDonalds and buy their stock of Pokemon cards when it was the toy earlier this year.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Not exactly the same, but there were scalpers that went to McDonalds and buy their stock of Pokemon cards when it was the toy earlier this year.

Not surprising considering those cards have some serious value.

[GCrites]

We've already had some of those Pokemon cards come through work but none of the heavy hitters. I bet a burger or two got tossed over those.

[bwana39]

When Logan was about three, they all were that way. He would throw a fit to go to Wendy's, McDonalds, Burger King, Chick-Fil-A, or about any place that had toys and swear he was hungry then not eat after he got the toy. He has gotten a whole lot better.

My ex sister in law has collections of complete sets of movie character toys given out at particularly McDonalds and Burger King.

[OCGuy81]

And while they may not be toys there have been, and still are, people who spend way too much money at McDonalds hoping to win the Monopoly promotion...........to then find out via Netflix documentary what actually happened

It happened here, as the JAX FBI office was involved. But they're no longer at the old office building in Arlington (on the old Expressway of the same name), now they're just down the road from my house (on GATE Parkway, GATE being both a petroleum company here (which happens to have a convenience store, but no free air) and short for Gateway to Florida).

Is this still on Netflix?  What's the name of it.  I'd be interested in watching that.

[kevinb1994]

And while they may not be toys there have been, and still are, people who spend way too much money at McDonalds hoping to win the Monopoly promotion...........to then find out via Netflix documentary what actually happened

It happened here, as the JAX FBI office was involved. But they're no longer at the old office building in Arlington (on the old Expressway of the same name), now they're just down the road from my house (on GATE Parkway, GATE being both a petroleum company here (which happens to have a convenience store, but no free air) and short for Gateway to Florida).

Is this still on Netflix?  What's the name of it.  I'd be interested in watching that.

Apparently it was on HBO, not Netflix (I watched it on the old HBO Go app before HBO Max was launched). The name of the documentary is McMillions.