A lot has changed as we have grown up over the years. McDonald’s has changed right along with us. However, some memories are worth keeping. Do you remember birthday parties at McDonald’s? What about the secrets the old McDonald’s playground contained?
Here are forty things that you may never have known about or will never want to forget about when it comes to the way McDonald’s used to be:
#1 The tray liners
There were games and things to do on the tray liners. Everything about McDonald’s was for the kids.
Yes, McDonald’s used to provide ice cream cake! For only a few dollars a kid, they did pretty much everything. A lot of parents decided that it was the perfect option and the kids weren’t complaining.
Every year around Halloween, schools and businesses would give these to kids. It offered the opportunity to take a break at McDonald’s after all that trick-or-treating.
This Nintendo 64 was available in a few locations. However, it only ever seemed to work about a quarter of the time. Tech failures – happening for as long as we’ve had technology.
One of the best things about McDonald’s has always been the Happy Meal toys. One of the best things about the 1980s was Inspector Gadget. Combine the two, and you have achieved perfection.
There is a distinct possibility that it contained no actual orange juice, but you could find it at every school event. It was lurking at summer camps too. Schools and parents would rent the coolers from McDonald’s.
These Tiny Toons flip cars provided endless hours of fun. The best part was that no one yelled at you for using them while still inside the restaurant.
Sure, McDonald’s gave away a lot of toys from cartoons and movies, but sometimes they got back to what it was really all about. When that happened, we had Halloween chicken nuggets.
Not all of the ashtrays looked like they could be thrown out along with the burger wrappers. McDonald’s also had these amber ashtrays that every restaurant seemed to have back then.
Kids in the US lucked out with the Super Mario Bros 3 Happy Meals. In Canada, they were even luckier. They had Super Mario Bros 3 scratch and win cards.
McDonald’s didn’t want the magic to end when you got home. They gave away this series of plates. If you rummage through enough cabinets, you might still find them in a few houses today.
In 2000, McDonald’s wasn’t willing to let us forget all the magic we had experienced. They partnered with Disney to bring us these glasses to go with the plates.
Not only were these awesome Looney Tunes superheroes found in Happy Meals, but they also came with accessories. The costumes could be snapped on and off.
There are some things that have come from McDonald’s that you might be surprised about if you weren’t there for them. These mugs are one of those things.
Things like ashtrays on the tables during a birthday party didn’t worry anyone too much. They just took it for granted that the kids weren’t going to use the things.
McDonald’s wasn’t always as aware of environmental concerns as they are today. These containers will probably be reminding us of McDonald’s for the next 10,000 years when they’ll still refuse to decay.
Collecting toys from McDonald’s was a huge thing for some kids (and parents too). No matter how hard you tried, there always seemed to be one from the series that you would manage to miss.
These coffee stirrers were kind of perfect. Unfortunately, McDonald’s had to discontinue making them to save their image after it became obvious that the spoons were also a little too perfect for a certain type of drug use.
