A McDonald’s Super Sizes Tray Liner

I love old fast food tray liners and this one is no exception. Look at how cute this one is with a gigantic soda, order of french fries and a shake towering over this quaint little valley as a bi-plane flies overhead and a station wagon and sports car cruise down the road. Adorable and the very embodiment of the American Dream.

We were all so much more innocent in those days. McDonald’s proudly boasted “Our Biggest Are Back!” and we, the consumers, happily drank as much soda, ate as many fries and slurped as many milkshakes as we possibly could. Demand was so great that the “super size” basically became standard issue with your fast food order. No one ever thought about calories or fat intake or how livestock was being treated back then. We didn’t know and frankly, even if you told us, we wouldn’t have cared.

This guy took the fun out of everything.

I’d love to see McDonald’s give the middle finger to all the health nuts someday by running a huge ad campaign advertising the return of the Super Size. You know what? Forget simple advertising. They need to go back to proudly boasting. Scratch that — how about downright BRAGGING?

Holiday Huggables Muppet Babies at McDonald’s

The offerings during the holiday seasons at fast food restaurants always blew the doors off the typical cheap kiddie toys you could get in a Happy Meal, Kids Club meal and the like. That’s when the fast food chains would partner up with some type of timeless childrens’ property and give us a plush toy that would last a lifetime. If not physically, then certainly in heart and spirit, but then again, I’m speaking for myself. Though I no longer own a Holiday Huggable, I’ve always found comfort in knowing that they exist, I owned one and that my Baby Fozzie was an extremely important piece of my stuffed animal collection!

It’s pretty funny that a stuffed animal from a fast food joint can mean so much to you but that’s what is so wonderful about being a kid. The most simple things can be the greatest things when you’re young and innocent. So what does that say for me when I’m pushing thirty and wish I had my Baby Fozzie back?

The Holiday Huggables were a part of the 1988 holiday season and available with the purchase of any McDonald’s grub (for an additional fee). I want to say they probably cost about $1.99, which I think was the standard fast food plush toy rate, but I certainly didn’t pay for it– so what do I know? I wonder if my parents kept the receipt…

Sadly, in my house a Baby Kermit never slept. Somehow both my sister and I had Fozzie. Hey, I loved Fozzie as much as anyone, but why couldn’t I have a Kermit ?! I seem to recall a friend having Kermit and being very jealous over it all.

Good Halloween Treats and Candy

I’ve discussed what candy I didn’t like while trick or treating, now let’s talk about what I did like. This list could go on forever, so instead of listing all the great candy that’s available all year ’round (bite size Snickers, Mounds, Twix, etc) I’m trying to limit this list to what felt extra special to me around Halloween.

Dubble Bubble – Never once as a child did I ever ask my parents to buy me some Dubble Bubble, but it was always a standard around Halloween and in the spirit of the season, I enjoyed it (it’s just too bad the flavor didn’t last long). Huge bags of those stuff were, and are still, produced. This guaranteed you could always get a handful of this stuff and throw it into your bag.

Mary Janes – Mary Janes took me a while to get used to, but once I did… MMM!

McDonald’s Halloween Happy Meal Pails

At first glance, you may think this commercial is a fairly simple McDonald’s Happy Meal commercial… but wait! There’s more!

How many of you owned a McDonald’s Halloween Happy Meal pail? Raise your hand. I know I did. This commercial is from the early ’90s, but if memory serves me correctly, the Halloween pails debuted in the late ’80s. I know for sure I had the pumpkin pail and I believe the ghost pail as well.

One question though — did anyone ever actually use these to go trick or treating? If so, you were really limiting your candy intake for the night. I kept my pails around for crayon and Hot Wheels storage.

McDonald’s Halloween Gift Certificates Tray Liners

Here are a couple of McDonald’s tray liners hyping up their super awesome Halloween Gift Certificates.

A gift certificate for a McDonald’s sundae was one of the greatest items you could ever give me on Halloween (don’t worry, a list is coming shortly of such things)! It was money in the bank — I knew come November 1st,  I could walk into any participating McDonald’s, slam my $5 in gift certificates down on the counter and walk out with five hot fudge sundaes (with or without nuts, depending on my mood).