The Sad History of McDonald's Happy Meal

the McDonald's Happy Meal is like the Manhattan Project of marketing to Children once the world saw kids lose their Collective Minds over that smiling little box and the surprise licensed toy inside there was no putting the genie back in the bottle but how did one of the most famous parent traps ever created come to be and how has it changed over the years this is a McDonald's Happy Meal your kids will love it it's food and fun in a box games puzzles jokes and a prize a fries [Music] today on weird history food we're serving up the kids-sized history of the Happy Meal [Music] but before we get started be sure to subscribe to the weird history Food Channel and let us know in the comments below what other fast food Nostalgia you would like to hear about okay let's get happy happy wonder what time it is I know [Music] in 1974 Yolanda Fernandez de cofino also known as Donya Yoli opened Guatemala's first ever McDonald's franchise location alongside her husband Jose being a mother herself Donya Yoli noticed that McDonald's had no reasonably sized options for small children and three four and five-year-olds were being made to eat the same big meals as their adult counterparts giving a toddler a Big Mac is asking them to grow up real fast this nine layer gastronomic Indulgence is known as a Big Mac what's more getting young kids to make even the simplest decision can be a near impossible task then the wee ones were often overwhelmed when it came time to order so Dono Yoli decided to make her very own child-friendly option that had both smaller portion sizes and fewer choices she introduced to her restaurant the menu Ronald a kid-friendly option that came with a burger a small fry and a sun day it was an instant hit in McD's corporate in Chicago took notice though it may be hard to imagine a time when kids wouldn't throw their favorite Marvel superhero in front of a train for a trip to Mickey D's McDonald's had been losing steam among families and children for years the clown alone was no longer enough to lure them in one told me never to talk to strangers well your brother's right as always but I'm Ronald McDonald the now defunct Burger Chef with its endless supply of free toys and the immortal Burger King seriously how long has that guy been on the throne had both made major moves to tear families out from Ronald's clutches what's more McDonald's Had redesigned many of its restaurants away from the old white and red tile interiors and renovated them with brick walls you know like school kids love school they were no longer as vibrant and welcoming as they once were and kids took notice McDonald's needed to Pivot hard if they wanted to stay relevant in the Family Market and Bob Bernstein was just the man for the job Bernstein's Ad Agency had managed the company's Marketing in several cities for over a decade he'd already tried handing out free stuff to kids before such as the happy Cup and the sippy Dipper straw but even the cutest McDonald's pencil puppet couldn't bring in the Rugrats one day while sitting at the breakfast table with the Sun Bernstein had an epiphany cereal companies had been stuffing toy prizes within their boxes for decades and he noticed that kids would absolutely flip their wigs over even the smallest surprise these boxes often featured games puzzles and jokes on their side panels if McDonald's could somehow capture The Wonder of the cereal box and sell it to their pint-sized customers the company's woes would go the way of Birdie the early bird meaning they were turned into chicken nuggets [Music] in 1977 by combining donioyoli's child-sized combo meals with Bernstein's cereal box inspired concept the Happy Meal made its U.S debut its name was a reference to a 1960s McDonald's jingle that called the restaurant a happy place [Music] it was initially introduced only regionally for McDonald's franchise locations in Kansas City Denver and Phoenix man Phoenix gets all the good stuff its first iteration featured a regular sized burger fries Keebler cookie a soda and a Cracker Jack toy the Box the food came in also featured several exterior panels with games puzzles and jokes just like those featured on the exterior of cereal boxes or should that be exterior boxes the kids loved it but the McDonald's corporate heads and franchise owners alike remained skeptical they tested it out in Regional markets for two more years before finally giving it the green light and happy meals at last wound up in restaurants across the U.S in 1979 just in time for a tie-in with Ridley Scott's alien oh turns out they skipped that one are you sorry sir that you brought your son along to see alien no ma'am I think you should have seen it it's something that it needs to know that things feel like that could happen in life that could be a true story this first happy meals cost a dollar and 10 cents a pop and each contained a toy surprise kids never knew what toy they were going to get making the Happy Meal the perfect gateway to a future gambling addiction the initial prizes included the McDoodle stencil spinning tops and McDonald's themed erasers wish we could have seen those kids faces light up when they got their erasers later that same year the Happy Meal put forward its first ever movie tie-in featuring a Klingon commercial for Star Trek the motion picture a along with the Star Trek themed Happy Meal box despite its immediate popularity among families and kids and thus its growing popularity with the corporate office many franchise owners remained skeptical thus while the corporate heads were busy giving Donia Yoli the 1982 Ronald award for her idea her second Ronald award fellow in her 1980 award for being the first franchisee to host children's birthday parties many franchise owners refused to sell happy meals at their own locations they felt that constructing the happy meal boxes added too much to the already busy workloads of their employees and the toys took up too much valuable storage space within their restaurants likewise the Happy Meal came and went from Individual locations for its first couple years on the market and it wasn't until 1984 when McDonald's introduced the chicken nugget that the Happy Meal became a Mainstay in locations across the nation [Music] thank you McDonald's slowly phased out Bob Bernstein's idea of putting games puzzles and jokes on the boxes exteriors and they instead focused on upping the prize game by collaborating with movie studios and popular toy brands in the process they made some of the most memorable choking hazards of the last 40 years by their 1982 partnership with Playmobil McDonald's ordered 30 million Playmobil figures to give away with their Happy Meals Distributing 10 million of which after just one week the Figures were too small and thin though and they were quickly found by the consumer product safety commission to be hazardous for children under three McDonald's issued an immediate voluntary recall and they offered to trade free cookies or ice cream in exchange for the bloodthirsty figures not a bad deal if you prefer eating sugar over plastic in 1983 McDonald's got back on track with a partnership with Mattel they made officially branded Hot Wheels for their Happy Meals along with the Barbie loves McDonald's playset for toy stores across the country [Music] I have a Big Mac to go the rest of the 80s saw media tie-ins with Ghostbusters The Berenstein Bears Muppet Babies My Little Pony and the Little Mermaid they also had food changeables which were basically just Transformers that turned into McDonald's Foods rather than high-speed Vehicles apparently the war for Cybertron was decided by fries and a coke McNugget Buddies vague Mr Potato Head knockoffs hooded nugget form and Jungle Book windups which closed out the decade with walking versions of Ka Shere Khan and King Louis where do the stars of Sega Sonic 3 go when the game's over manic are you guys in there hey here's a hint they're at McDonald's the 90s kicked things off with a Super Mario Brothers 3 partnership which put plastic Marios Luigi's Goombas and Koopas in households everywhere right alongside all the Nintendos that had recently arrived to destroy everyone's reading comprehension these were then shortly followed by two separate DC Comic tie-ins one of which was considerably better received than the other toys featuring Looney Tunes characters in classic DC superhero costumes debuted in 1991. in case you ever wanted to see bugs and Daffy Juiced up like a pair of South Florida bouncers one year later the golden arches released what should have been a golden tie-in with the 1992 Blockbuster Batman Returns a movie that is very much not for kids I was very violent it was a total attack against kids the whole movie parents and Christian groups argued that the film's violent content shouldn't be promoted with toys intended for pushing the film's graphic content on young children and McDonald's actually canceled the promotion the rest of the decade was pretty smooth sailing for the hamburger chain as they landed even more media tie-ins for their Happy Meals including Spider-Man Power Rangers Pocahontas The Lion King and Mulan they also had major Partnerships with some of the country's biggest toy brands like Barbie Furby and Tamagotchi remember two of those still all of these Partnerships pale in comparison to what may still be the biggest Happy Meal toy ever the Teeny beanies Beanie Baby the following is in code to avoid panic in the streets Bay or akbay at McDonald's maze first released in 1997 during the height of the Beanie Baby craze the original teeny beanie lineup was so coveted that McDonald's had over 100 million of the Little Critters made and if you're thinking that should have been plenty you do not remember the year 1997. customers bought up arm loads of Happy Meals but told the cashiers to hold the food they only wanted the toys restaurants in major cities and across the Midwest quickly sold out and fist fights and brawls broke out in franchises Across the Nation there were even reports of McDonald's delivery men being assaulted as they tried to restock restaurants as a result kids were often left toyless while the adults around them racked up dozens of teeny beanies in hopes of an early retirement for each of the three years that followed McDonald's came out with an all new exclusive lineup of teeny beanies but they were never again able to repeat the fervor of that first teeny beanie Spring which is probably for the best foreign people have started to question McDonald's practice of targeting children and many have accused the Happy Meals of being an unethical attempt to entice kids and undermine parents after all your parents don't love you like SpongeBob toys do boy they made a lot of those as concerns mounted over both America's ever-increasing obesity epidemic and its love affair with generating plastic waste these accusations only grew louder by the mid-2000s it seemed that everyone from parental groups to governmental bodies across the globe had had enough of the clown even Disney turned its back on the golden arches in 2006 and the two went over a decade without collaborating on any new promotions like Roxette said it must have been love but it's over now for a little while facing this pressure to change McDonald's decided to take the issue head on and has spent the past 15 years attempting to address these concerns while the Happy Meal does still come with a toy the toy is now often made of 3D paper or recycled plastic what's more McDonald's has pledged to reduce fossil fuel-based plastic usage 90 company-wide by 2025. check back on this video in two years and let us know how they did all the while the company has cut both soft drinks and cheeseburgers from Happy Meals replacing the former with a choice of milk water or juice and the latter with plain hamburgers fellas it's called a Happy Meal not a sad meal they've also Shrunk the size of the kids fries and have added apple slices to all Happy Meal orders reducing the caloric value of a Happy Meal by 20 of the process today almost one in four orders of McDonald's contains a Happy Meal and about 4 million Happy Meals are sold in more than 100 countries every day that amounts to over 1 billion Happy Meals sold per year or 1 billion tiny little toys that will clutter up kids rooms the world over most recently playing on millennial Nostalgia for childhood materialism McDonald's tried his hand at making happy meals for adults they partnered up with Lifestyle brand cactus plant flea market to make the all-new combo which was basically just a boxed version of The Big Mac meal or 10 piece McNugget meal but with a creepy little fluoride statue to show off at work 40 year old Happy Meal kids lost their ever-loving Minds for these toys proving once and for all that no matter how old you get you're never too old to get into a fistfight over beanie babies so what do you think did you get happy for a Happy Meal let us know in the comments below and while you're at it check out some of these other weird history food videos [Music]

Channel: Weird History Food

Views: 520,991

Keywords: history of the happy meal, when did the happy meal start?, facts about mcdonald's happy meal, how the happy meal has changed over time, what is the story behind the happy meal?, weird history food, weird history food mcdonald's, mcdonald's happy meal, happy meal, what was the original happy meal?, who invented the happy meal?, happy meal beanie babies, happy meal toys, happy meal toys list, adult happy meals, the beanie bubble happy meal, cnn business, mashed, yesterworld, eater

Id: MBzyFXKLIOc

Length: 13min 58sec (838 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023