Life | Food and Snacks | 90s | 80s
Remembering The Bizarre McDonald's Halloween Promotions You Used To Be Obsessed With
Halloween was basically the most important time of the year when we were kids. I mean, it's when you get to dress up in a costume that makes you happy and run around your town demanding candy from strangers, what's not to love?
While it wasn't quite as hyped up as Christmas was, there was one place that always seemed to know how to do Halloween right: McDonald's.
The fast food giant was always good at getting into the spooky spirit, bringing some of the best promotions and events for us to enjoy, and we still remember them to this day. Do you?
McDonaldland Halloween Figures and Tapes
Okay, so I think we can all agree that the McDonaldland characters are pretty iconic. Grimace, Birdie, the Hamburglar, and Ronald himself are all important characters that we shouldn't forget about.
McDonald's brought them back again as the stars of their Halloween 1995 campaign. Each character got their own little plastic figure as a Happy Meal toy, complete with costumes that would snap on.
But that's not the only thing that you could get with your McNuggets. The other option was one of the cassette tapes that they had recorded with the characters talking to you.
Seriously, it's like you're listening to a morning radio show, but your host is Ronald McDonald and he's telling bad jokes.
I may not remember actually receiving any of these tapes when I was young, but oh boy am I intrigued now. How did the company think that kids wanted these tapes? Do you think the people were excited to record these songs?
Imagine having McDonald's "Travel Tunes 'Funmobile' Singer" on your resume? I would be so thrilled.
Halloween McNugget Buddies
McDonaldland had many residents other than the iconic four. While there are a lot of characters people don't really remember, the McNuggets are pretty impossible to forget.
Especially because they were turned into toys for our Happy Meals.
The Halloween versions were perhaps the most iconic though, with the cute little ghosts, witches, and monster costumes becoming highly collectible, especially because they were interchangeable.
We'd trade with our friends and try to collect the whole set. Why? Don't ask, there's no answer that will make any sense now that you're an adult.
'Scared Silly' - The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald
Here's one you may not recall off the top of your head, but there was a brief period of time when Ronald McDonald had his own movie collection.
That's right, a bunch of partially animated movies starring Ronald and friends were made and released directly to video.
They called the collection The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald and the first installment was released in October of 1998. They called it Scared Silly and it had Ronald, his dog Sundae, Birdie, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and some other characters in it, and it is kind of horrifying.
Their version of Ronald is kind of terrifying, even more so than normal, but I guess McDonald's really wanted to try and stand out.
Here's best thing about it, it actually starts out with a live action segment, meaning that the world's creepiest looking robot dog is there. He's so great and his voice is so unexpected.
You can even find it all on YouTube, but watch it at your own risk, it's pretty spooky. I mean, not the plot, just everything about it in general.
Boo Buckets
Obviously Halloween wouldn't be the same without a Boo Bucket. Did any of us actually ever use them? No, but that's not the point!
These little buckets were too small to actually go trick-or-treating with, but they were very cute to have as decoration!
McDonald's first launched the buckets in 1986, and they had a lot of versions over the years. There were pumpkin, witch, and ghosts versions, but each of us had our favorites. (Classic pumpkin all the way!)
In my house, our buckets were used to serve popcorn and chips in, or to occasionally hold all my Barbie's shoes and Lego pieces.
They were the perfect storage system, and honestly, none of us cared that they were Halloween themed.
HT - Laser Time Podcast