We Need To Talk About McDonald's. Again.

Guess which two feuding juggernauts are back on their bullshit... That's right, good ol' Mac & me are at it again and I'm making it public.

By now I'm sure you've heard about the pails -- they're rolling out "retro" Happy Meals in their old fashioned Halloween buckets, closely resembling the designs they used in 1990. This news propelled me into a narrow range of 2 whole emotions. Immediately I was cynical: "Someone in marketing musta glanced at the internet in the past 20 years and managed to put 2 & 2 together." I just had this annoyed flutter of "too little, too late, jabroni." They go on sale starting Oct. 18 which is entirely too late considering Halloween apparently started in early August. And there's no kinda buildup either; I heard about it through bloggers and tweeters and "influencers" - not through colorful restaurant signage or thunder-clappin' commercials featuring talking chicken chunks. Anticipating several social media weeks of "omg guys!!" brought me to my second emotion: divine apathy. 

I already have the pails, because I'm hip. Or because they've always been around and if you really cared you'd have them too. And if you don't, I won't undermine your excitement for this crumb they decided to throw us; let them have their money and we can have our fun. My kid gets Happy Meals semi-regularly so it's likely he'll get to have the experience without the bullshit baggage I would bring to it. Not unlike this freakish faux pas: 

It's hard to pin down exactly what the intentions were behind this idea. The Adult Happy Meal(?) This inappropriately suggestive name is the name - I'd think even "Grownup Happy Meal" or "Big Kid Happy Meal" would've been: more fun, less clinical, not sexual. 

Not that it's ever been a concern to me regarding fast food presentation, but I can't imagine this is environmentally conscious - unless the justification was that people will wanna save the box to commemorate yet another instance when McDonald's tried to remind us that they're no longer cool but they totally used to be. Except they managed to bungle this too. 

Let's take a closer look at some shit.

So here are your Adult menu items. I actually like the simplicity of the either/or variety and that there isn't some "healthy" third option. Though I'll admit I had no idea that McNuggets had four distinct shapes - however arbitrary it clearly is. 

"We (love) 2 c u (smile)." Except the smile is all distorted, as are all our old friends - like fading memories where once-familiar faces just become jumbled shapes. Why do this to us? They're an uncomfortable midpoint between their original flawless designs and the wretched minimalism of Pop! Funko bullshit. And it appears that this original crew has been infected by this foreign body. 

The fact that they recognize and celebrate their old red-roof architecture feels almost abusive in a way - like your partner telling you "remember how nice I used to be to you?" But the real point of concern here is "Cactus Plant Flea Market" and its apparent mascot "Cactus Buddy." Firstly, Buddy, your t-shirt/ball cap ensemble is a thinly-veiled attempt at trying to be one of the cool kids, and your second set of eyes are annoyingly ambiguous. And secondly, who do you represent and what does it have to do with burgers? We're running outta space on this box and I have questions. 

And there it is, we're all outta bubblegum. A boring box that was a pleasure to throw away, 4 toy possibilities, and this crude emoji is standing in the spot that clearly belongs to one Ronald M. No Officer Big Mac, no Captain Crook, no Mac Tonight, just this yellow wad of window caulk with a hidden agenda. And Jess called it: she asserted that there'd be a higher ratio of this toy per location to guarantee their promotional quota was met. Behold: 

And what is Cactus Plant Flea Market? I don't know, I had to look it up. And if you don't know, you can look it up - investigative journalism be damned, I'm not doing Mickey D's dirty work for them, because if they're looking to shine a light on some small company by turning it into a Happy Meal toy, they didn't do a very good job. 

They've been terrified of accidentally appealing to children for decades now - hence the drab marketing and architectural overhauls. But if they really wanna appeal to adults, bring back the fancy glassware à la Batman Forever or The Flintstones, or even the old 1970s McDonaldland ones - let the Cactus character have his own cup, and modify his look to match the original lineup, not the other way around, because the only thing this piece of plastic is good for is to stick it. Whoever was in charge of this campaign must also be in charge of the ice cream machines, because comparatively the Halloween Happy Meals are looking pretty competent right now. We can only hope Buddy dies on the way back to his home planet.

- Paul