McDonald's
Mcdonald's is a North American-based fast food restaurant chain. In the past, they have offered many transformers toys as part of their "Happy Meals," targeted to human children.
Promotions
1996 Beast Wars Promotion
Promoting the then new Beast Wars cartoon and toyline, Mcdonald's offered five different toys as part of their Happy Meals, one of which was aimed towards children of age three and younger. To date, this is the only time when there have been new characters introduced solely as fast-food exclusive.
Two different cardboard boxes, containing both food and toys, were distributed:
The first box featured a purple, mechanically-style background with punch-out cards of Optimus Primal, Dinobot, Razorbeast, Polar Claw, Cheetor, Rhino and Panther, with an additional card depicting both Optimus and Megatron in the midst of a fearsome fist-shaking contest. Additionally, it featured the two following jokes:
"Q:Why do robots keep batteries in their wallets? [1]"
"Q:What did the Transformer sing when he paddled upstream? [2]"
The second box had a green, mechanically-styled background with punch-out cards of Megatron, Terrorsaur, Tarantulas, Scorponok, Manta Ray, Beetle and Waspinator, with the same card featured on the first box representing Megatron and Optimus shaking fists at each other. This box also featured two jokes.
The hand-painted artwork featured on the characters' punch-out cards showcased the characters' robot mode in the foreground with designs heavily based on early promotional designs of the first wave toys. Both Optimus and Megatron appear as a bat and an alligator respectively, and all characters have their color schemes based directly on their toys'. Scorponok even appears orange, as early promotional photos presented him. Save the card featuring both Megatron and Optimus, each card's background was dominated by a representation of he character's beast mode rendered in a realistic fashion (to the point where it sometimes did not match up with the animal-kibble on the characters' robot modes).
While the Beast Wars toys were targeted towards the boy patrons, Barbie dolls were targeted to the girls.
1998 Beast Wars Promotion
Mcdonald's promoted once more the Beast Wars toyline two years later, this time focusing on the Transmetals sub-line. Three toys were produced, depicting three characters that, although part of the main cast on the television series, had not received toys depicting them in Transmetal bodies. Mirroring the gimmick of Transmetals sold in stores, they possessed a "metalized" look on some parts of their bodies.
The meals were now distributed in paper bags instead of cardboard boxes, and featured much more crudely drawn depictions of the promoted toys, directly based on the characters' toys, posed statically. The first bag presented on one side Dinobot, Blackarachnia and Scorponok standing in a thundercloud, while a lightning bolt strikes a stony landscape. Said landscape is in actuality a simple puzzle to be solved, as explained on the bag:
"Wild storm, MAXIMIZE! See which beast changed into a robot by filling in the spaces that have one dot.[3]"
Notably, Blackarachnia was depicted mis-transformed in the artwork.
The second bag featured on one of its side similar artwork, this time depicting Dinobot's robot mode in the middle of a field, riddled with flows of lava, spewed forth from a volcano in the background. The bag instructs:
"TRANSFORMER Dinobot is a robot in disguise! Follow the lava trail from his cool robot mode to see which beast he changes into." The possible choices depicted are either A: A mechanical scorpion (depicted on another side of the bag, which the puzzle also occupies), B: A mechanical velociraptor or C: A mechanical black widow spider.[4]
This time around, My Little Pony toys were the girl-targeting counterparts to the Beast Wars figurines. Artwork and puzzles for these toys occupied the remaining two sides of the bags.
2000 Beast Machines Promotion
Two years later still, Mcdonald's promoted the Beast Machines toyline, successor to the Beast Wars franchise. Unlike the previous toys it offered during the Beast Era, this time its toys meant to depict the charactersas they appeared in the televised show, as opposed to new characters or bodies. The result was a varying degree of success in terms of show-accuracy, with most toys concentrating on one mode to be most faithfully a depiction of the character.
