Image via Complex Original
In 1979, McDonald's changed the game permanently by introducing the Happy Meal. They'd given out toys before that landmark year, but as the '80s dawned, it got extra real with your cheese burger, with new toys entering the rotation on a regular basis.
Put your nostalgia cap on and prepare to grab something from the Dollar Menu later—after you revisit your childhood via these toys, you'll definitely be craving some Mickey D's.
Here are the 50 coolest Happy Meal toys of all time.
50. Fly Wheels
Year: 2007
They're spinning tops that you do battle with. Genius. Kids would never have to battle with flicked quarters again. Actually, that's kind of sad.
49. Mighty Duck Pucks
Year: 1997
Based off the much less interesting cartoon in which the ducks are some sort of aliens, but still play hockey, these pucks were perfect for whacking the crap out of. You had to take out your frustration at not being Gordon Bombay somehow.
48. Ronald McDonald Mask
Year: 1974
This toy was not so much fun as it was intensely Jason Voorhees-type terrifying. Hell, it came with the eyes and mouth not cut out. Scaring your sister was never so easy.
47. Play-Doh
Year: 1983
It was the early '80s, the first time that thousands of kids ate Play-Doh for the first time. Jigger of Doh with Coca-Cola back is still the most ordered drink special in the ball pit.
46. Changeables
Year: 1989
McDonald's has a long history of anthropomorphizing food, but they took it to a whole other level when they decided to make their menu items into weird transforming robots. They were fun to play with, and had you desiring Mickey D's practically all the time, which makes them possibly the smartest Happy Meal toys of all time.
45. McDonald's Restaurant by Life-Like Buildems
Year: 1969
One of the first toys McDonald's ever made was, well, a McDonald's, complete with ample trash cans and a detailed interior for you to play your favorite game: McDonald's! This is generally accepted as the starting point of postmodernism, a culture experiencing the hurt of late capitalism.
44. Digi Sportz
Year: 2009
The exact type of hand held games we used to pay 30 dollars for were now being given to kids for eating a single order of Chicken McNuggets. Spoiled... jealous.
43. Nerf
Year: 2009
Remember in Willy Wonka when the TV kid gets shrunk pocket-sized and his moms throws him in her bag? The folks at McDonald's took a page out of Roald Dahl's classic and shrank your favorite Nerf toys.
42. Ronald McDonald Doll
Year: 1970
This old-school doll, really just a pillow, was enormously popular and probably a large inspiration for the official Happy Meal toy that would be unveiled nearly ten years later.
41. McFavorite Clown Valentines
Year: 1974
Free paper Valentines from everyone's favorite burger crew. If you brought these to the ladies in your third grade classroom, your swagger tripled.
40. Fraggle Rock Veggie Cruisers
Year: 1987
It seems like every house in America owned one of these radish cars at one point (a radish car in every garage!). An underrated Henson creation, the denizens of Fraggle Rock are dark horse candidates for best muppets ever.
39. Little Golden Book
Year: 1982
The first and most respectable series of books McDonald's would ever offer, these were very short versions of some great stories, beautifully illustrated and free! Well, not free—you paid for them with your burger.
38. Fast Macs
Year: 1985
Little heads popping out of wind-up cars—they're annoying, they're sharp, and you probably shot them into your parents' legs until they threw them away. Then it was on to the next one.
37. Lunch Box
Year: 1987
Bringing your school lunch in one of the two styles of Happy Meal lunch boxes usually meant that you were kind of poor. But they were cool enough to put pencils in, for sure.
36. Ronald Reads The Night Before Christmas
Year: 1972
One of a handful of Ronald McDonald records, this one was just weird enough to be desirable (because listening to a record of corporate jingles is only funny in theory).
35. The Little Mermaid
Year: 1997
The most successful Disney/McDonald's yielded some hugely popular toys, these plastic pieces from The Little Mermaid among them. These toys, all of which floated in water (duh), were pegged to the '97 re-release of the Disney flick.
34. Jungle Book Wind-Ups
Year: 1990
These irresistible wind-up guys from the Disney classic were pretty charming. The only possible source of beef is how lame they made Shere Khan seem. He has one of the baddest names in the history of cartoon villains, and yet his toy seems remarkably bitch-made.
33. Dinosaur Talking Story Books
Year: 1989
You got a book about dinosaurs and a tape so you didn't have to strain your eyes reading it. All that was left to do was grab a box of cookies on the way out and call it a fucking day.
32. Sports Balls
Year: 1990
Sports! Kind of. This was the first go-around for McDonald's and sports, and the results were pretty soft (hehe). But just a few years later, the chain brought in Michael Jordan for a Happy Meal release for some much-needed sports credibility.
31. Disney Activity Books
Year: 1987
The first pairing of Disney with McDonald's was a timid one, a litmus test if you will. Unsurprisingly, these activity books proved to be incredibly popular, cementing a long-lasting relationship between the two titans of American culture.
30. Berenstein Bears Books
Year: 1990
New Berenstein Bears stories written specifically to accompany your Chicken McNuggets!? Score. But can we be real for a second? Bears would never wear clothes like that.
29. Sippy Dipper Straw
Year: 1970
Is this the first ever silly straw? Probably not. But ask your parents to see what kind of a big deal this was. For a detailed break-down of different straws and their respective merits, see Nicholson Baker's short novel The Mezzanine. McDonald's should consider handing that out with upcoming Happy Meals.
28. Construx
Year: 1986
They're no K'Nex but you could build a space ship with them, as well as go off on your own to make something good for poking your friends with. Or trying to feed the cat.
27. Ronald McDonald Parachute
Year: 1969
Why exactly you were launching a clown into the sky is irrelevant. Just look at that Mary Poppins clown smile floating down gently in the parking lot. Crash-landing in the asphalt jungle in front of the strip mall is the closest any of our generation ever got to Vietnam.
26. Microscope
Year: 1976
At last: an actual mock-scientific gadget. There are surprisingly few moderately practical and educational toys in McDonald's history, and two of them are from the '70s, before the Happy Meal proper was invented. Thus you can plot humanity's decline to the tune of McDonald's toys.
25. Lego Super Travelers
Year: 1985
Lego got into the mix in 1985. With these sets, you could build a helicopter, an airplane, a boat, and a race car. Each one could be piloted through the McDonald's drive-thru of your dreams.
24. Multiplication Machine
Year: 1976
Not the most fun you'd have with a toy from McDonald's, but we applaud them for still believing in the potential of America's youth.
23. McWrist Wallet
Year: 1977
If you don't know what a wrist wallet is, think of those trick rings movie villians wear that contain little portions of poison for slipping into drinks on the sly. Got it now? Time to pour some salt and pepper into your sister's milkshake.
22. Rubber Band Motor Boat
Year: 1981
Toys are really the only thing that made bath time fun (maybe also bubbles), and toys that move on their own in the water? C'mon, man! What's better than that?
21. Star Trek Video Communicator
Year: 1979
The first official Happy Meal toy was a video communicator. It held one of four Star Trek comics in a realistic-looking holder. Because Star Trek is hard sci-fi. Don't you forget it.
20. Ronald Styro-glider
Year: 1980
Projectiles are always fun when you're young. Even the ones made from balsa wood that therefore possessed a life expectancy of approximately 10 minutes.
19. Marvel Heroes
Year: 2010
Even the people that make the burgers know that there is nothing more bankable than superheroes. Mickey D's put your favorite Marvel cats in with the Nugs for ultimate satisfaction.
18. Space Rescue
Year: 1995
Perfect for rescuing things from space. Draw out your plans, look through your astro viewer, grab your loot with your three-inch long grabber, and resport back to base.
17. Ronald McDonald See Behind Glasses
Year: 1978
Hands down the best trick glasses after X-ray specs, these insinuated that people are always doing things behind your back that you need to know about. Which is a harsh lesson for a youngin'. But you gotta grow up sometime. Thanks, McDonald's. Look what you've done for us.
16. Camp McDonaldland
Year: 1990
Actual working camping gear, including cutlery, a collapsible cup, a canteen, and a kit with bandages—because things could get rugged in the ball pit.
15. Sea World Animal Plushes
Year: 1988
The first stuffed animals offered at McDonald's were hugely popular. It was probably the closest these animals would come to freedom in the whole of their lives. Free Willy.
14. My Little Pony
Year: 1985
The same year that Happy Meal toys were really picking up, McDonald's introduced gender-specific toys, thus making children feel unified in their horror at receiving a toy meant for the other sex.
13. Crayola Markers and Crayons
Year: 1987
Crayola: tapping into the more creative parts of the sugar-addled child's mind since the dawn of the coloring-book era. Fuck them lines up, little ones!
12. M Squad
Year: 1992
A series of paranormal tools for finding Grimace's lost voice? McDonald's put in some real creative work crafting these. A stamp that is also a calculator, a video camera that's also binoculars, a compass/watch, and a walkie-talkie = old school ghost hunting. Busting feels so good.
11. Michael Jordan Fitness Fun
Year: 1992
Michael Jordan's fitness toy line attempted to improve upon the sports ball toys of yesteryear. They added a neon jump rope and a baseball that might have been filled with something besides cotton. Be like Mike!
10. McNugget Buddies (Halloween Costumes)
Year: 1988
These single-handedly blurred the line between food and toys at an early age. Who knew that dressing up Chicken McNuggets could be so fun? Ronald McDonald knew.
9. Halloween Pumpkins and Ghouls
Year: 1985, 1989
Everyone who trick or treated in the '80s and '90s knew about these coveted treasure chests. What they lacked in candy-toting capacity, they made up for in style. You might have kept a pillow case in your back pocket for real collecting, but you had to stunt on the block with one of these—shorties expected it.
8. Space Jam Plushes
Year: 1996
Michael Jordan re-entered the Happy Meal toy arena just four years after his successful line of sports equipment (read: toys). These were very challenging to collect. Chains only carried one at a time, a strategy McDonald's employed from the mid-'90s on out.
7. Transformers
Year: 1985
Hot Wheels were always cool, but what if your car ACTUALLY TRANSFORMED into a fighting robot!? It did if you bought a Happy Meal in 1985. Coincidentally, this is the moment when Happy Meal toys became huge.
6. Tiny Toons Noise Maker Cars
Year: 1992
Perfect for driving your parents insane, these wind-ups had clear domes where little balls would dance magically for you while you played. They also made a hell of a lot of noise. The individuals who designed toys for McDonald's were all childless.
5. Nickelodeon Game Gadgets
Year: 1992
Probably the longest lasting and most interesting toys Mickey D's ever offered, these came during the the true heyday of Nickelodeon. The hand clapping gun was great fun, and the microphone vibrated because of a spring inside, making it the go-to for fake sports announcing and marrying stuffed animals.
4. Super Mario Bros. 3
Year: 1990
Now here's a winning combination: cheeseburgers and video games. And one of the greatest video games of all time, at that. Didn't warm the kiddies up to mushrooms, though. They should've started making the Happy Meal burgers topped with paper thin slices of 'shrooms to start developing sophisticated taste buds at an early age. After all, that's the whole point of the Mario franchise, right? To promote one of nature's most delicious vegetables?
3. Barbie Dolls and Backdrops
Year: 1990
Barbie finally made her way into the toy rotation at the dawn of the '90s. She wouldn't leave, earning a spot as the third most popular Happy Meal toy ever.
2. Hot Wheels
Year: 1983
Hot Wheels are the highest-selling toys in the history of the burger chain. Those iconic cars, along with their partner in crime, Barbie, were the most heavily featured toys on the rotation, popping up somewhere near 15 times in the first 25 years of the Happy Meal.
1. Beanie Babies
Year: 1997
To this day, these soft pieces of plush crack remain the most popular Happy Meal toys of all time. Everyone completely lost their shit for Beanie Babies in the late '90s, and though the fever has subsided, there are still collectors out there. The McDonald's ones were smaller, but they had the tag, and bitches were bloodthirsty for the tag. It was like keeping the sticker on your flat brim, a status symbol if you will.