They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To . . .

I believe I've blogged on this before, but I have been yet again caught off guard by my children's generation's McDonald's toys.  Miller and I walked to our local Mc D's this morning while our tire was being fixed.  The poster in the window made the five year old in me drool.


Take a stroll down memory lane with me.  I didn't spend a lot of meal times in McDonald's as a child but we did go there as an occasional treat.  A happy meal.  What a treat it was.  Cardboard box with punch outs to play with for hours on end or to turn the box into some sort of house.  Equally cardboard hamburger with the tiniest bits of onion possible so that there was no way to get them out of the blob of mustard you hated even more than the onions or their pickley cousins.  But it was all worth it for THE TOY.  After wrestling with that fully BPA filled plastic bag a quality item would come spilling out into your joyously quaking hands . . .

I mean check out the craftsmanship and attention to detail.  You can almost tell which McDonald's character each one is supposed to be.  Well they didn't look exactly like this at first of course.  You had to put it together and hope you did tear the small pieces to shreds when pulling them off the plastic frame that held them all together.  I mean I distinctly remember these priceless items.  Even at five I kind of think I had to be thinking "what a rip off" as I rode home with my Hamburglar helicopter on the floor of the Buick because it had already lost a propeller.

Fast forward to this morning . . .

Um.  That's right.  Not only do they now have girl and boy toys, the girl ones are MADAME ALEXANDER DOLLS.  I had to gaze at Madame Alexander dolls through glass cases or crane my neck to look at the top shelf of friend's rooms.  Never in a million years would one of these come tumbling out of my happy meal (that now has white meat chicken nuggets, apple slices, and a milk).  What's next?  Faberge Eggs in the Cheerios box?

McDonald's, you've come along way baby!