Fast Food Toys
 

 

I really started enjoying fast food toys when my daughter was old enough to start eating Happy Meals. At first I was really only hooked on the wind-up toys. McDonalds and Burger King seem to be the best producers of wind-up toys outside cool Japanese robots. After I had looked into the sort of stuff that was available, I realised the were some other pretty cool toys out there. If I had to pick, I would choose Burger King over McD's. McD's produces too many toys based on lame straight to video Disney movies, whereas Burger King produces more edgy fast food toys e.g. Universal Monsters, The Simpsons and Scooby Doo. Some of my favourites are pictured below. If you click on the picture you can see a bigger image.  
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The Frankenstein toy from the Universal Monsters series (1997) is my favourite. Like all the toys in this series, he has a cool "extra". If you lie him down on his slab, there is a button you can push to make his head light up with an eerie green glow. 
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The Dracula toy does a pretty good job of looking like Bela Lugousi. He fits inside his coffin and by twisting a switch at the side, he can be made to spring out. 
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Another great Universal Monster toy from Burger King. His "extra" is pretty similar to Dracula in that he pops out of his cellar. A nice extra touch is the moonlight scene which pops up behind him.  
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This is probably the lamest of the series. The Creature from the Black Lagoon is pretty poorly cast meaning he stands a little lop-sided. His "extra" is that if you add a little water to him, he can be made to "dribble" by pushing a button.
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Aaaaaaaaah. Wind-up robots. Clockwork Nirvana. This is a surprisingly hard to obtain set from Burger King (who else?) released in 1998. There were five robots in the series. At the moment I've only managed to get four of them. This first robot winds-up and bounces around off of any obstacles. Click here to download a small movie (windows media; 74kb)
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This robot goes like a rocket when you pull him back. Not strictly speaking a wind-up but close enough. Click here to download a small movie (windows media; 50kb)

 
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I love wind up toys with legs. This one walks along whilst the radar dish on top of his head spins. Click here to download a small movie (windows media; 67kb) 

 

 

    
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My favorite of the series. This one is absolutely ingenious. He walks along for a few seconds, then stops and a window in the front of his chest snaps open to reveal a picture of a spaceship taking off. The cover then winds back over the picture and off he goes trundling along again only to repeat the process a few steps later. Genius. Click here to download a small movie (windows media; 110kb) 

 

  
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Aaagh. . . The Simpson's. If you ever needed any reason why Burger King rules for fast food toys, then look no further than the 2000 and 2001 series of Simpson's toys.  Not sure about Apu. . . He seems a bit tall and the choice of pose seems a bit obscure. I guess it is from the episode where he and his wife have 9 babies. l would have preferred a more generic pose, maybe something from the Kwik-e-Mart?

   
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When it comes to the supporting cast my favorite is Professor Frink. I always have mixed feeling towards any other figure which occupies a space which should rightfully belong to the great Professor. This is still a pretty good figure, though the expression on the face looks more constipated than drunk.  

  
 

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An excellent figure. Great pose, good expression. Bart as Bartman seems like a strange choice though. . .  

    
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Sideshow Bob.  A good figure, but the face isn't quite sinister enough for me. Of course, I would have preferred Professor Frink. . . .

  
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An excellent figure. Great pose, great expression.  This figure really captures the evil megalomaniac that is Monty Burns. 

    
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My favorite of the series. Homer is a man amongst men. The older I get (and the older my family get), the more I can sympathize with him. Homer with a donut is archetypal Simpsons and the look on his face is pure genius. 

  
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Krusty the Clown. A good pose and the colors are all nicely done on this figure-it is one of the most colorful of the series. The face does look a bit vacant though. I like the money-grabbing aspect of Krusty and I would like to have seen this brought out a little more in the figure.

   
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Lisa and her sax. A nice enough figure.  Pretty standard fare, though I'd probably moan if they'd gone for an obscure casting.

 
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There's maybe not a lot you can do with Maggie, but l would still like to have seen some articulation. That aside though, it is still a nice figure.  

    
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This is a strange one. Technically the figure is fine, but a vacuum cleaner? I guess they wanted most of the characters to be cast with some object but they could have picked a better and more representative one for Marge. I think a shopping trolley is more akin to Marge and since it appears in the titles, it is one which everyone is familiar with.