In the latest example of not letting your memes be dreams, McDonald’s announced that adults can get back in touch with their inner child by opening up a Happy Meal and discovering a toy of their own. Yes, Happy Meal toys for adults are gonna be a thing, at least for a limited time.
A McDonald’s promo page reveals that the new Happy Meal is a crossover with Cactus Plant Flea Market, a fashion streetwear company. Instead of getting whatever toy McDonald’s is doling out for the kiddos, adults who order a Cactus Plant Flea Market Meal Box will receive either stylized figures of McDonald’s mascots Grimace, the Hamburglar, or Birdie, or one of a CPFM original character, Cactus Buddy. The promotion will run October 3 through October 30.
This news originated from a cryptic Facebook post from McDonald’s in which the fast-food company said, “one day you ordered a Happy Meal for the last time and you didn’t even know it.” I’m not sure if the McDonald’s social media person intended for folks to take this as some kind of threat, but the fact that it just left its message at that was ominous. It turns out McDonald’s wasn’t getting existential about the fragility of the human body, but the longevity of one’s inner child. Also foreboding, but suitable for marketing purposes I suppose.
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Looked at generously, the promotion might actually do some good by giving youngsters a bit of a break from the soul-crushing disappointment of grown-ass adults buying all the stock of kids-promoted toys. Case in point, in the McDonald’s Pokémon Happy Meal promotion last month customers were supposed to receive a Pokémon spinner toy, a cardboard Pikachu coin, and a pack of four holographic trading cards. Instead, many received leftover Space Jam 2 toys after a bunch of scalpers bulk-bought McDonald’s supply of pocket monster cards.
That wasn’t the first time scalpers have reared their collective heads during a Happy Meal promotion for kids. Safe to say, adults will only be competing with themselves over CPFM’s Happy Meal toys because I doubt any zoomers even know who the OG McDonald’s mascots are outside of Sir Ronald McDonald. This is probably for the best, considering a Google search of the Hamburglar has a high probability of scaring them for life if they ever discover McDonald’s disturbing 2015 rebrand. Yes, IRL Hamburglar is real, and he will hurt you if given the chance.
Let’s just hope that come October 3 we don’t get a repeat of folks making fools of themselves as they did during the Rick and Morty Szechuan sauce debacle. Given how ugly these things are, frequenters of the clown delicatessen likely need not worry.