McDonald’s will be serving Happy Meals in Halloween Pails beginning Oct. 18, the fast food giant announced on Thursday, Oct. 6.
Pails will be replace the Happy Meal box while supplies last at participating restaurants.
The containers, also called Halloween Buckets, were launched in the 1980s but discontinued in 2016.
Thursday’s announcement follows weeks of fan anticipation and speculation on social media.
“We heard you loud and clear … if spooky SZN doesn’t include McDonald’s Halloween Pails, then you don’t want it,” McDonald’s said in a news release.
The pails will feature three characters introduced in 1986: McBoo, McPunk’n and McGoblin. They will come in orange, white or light green with jack-o-lantern faces on the sides.
The pails are made of plastic and recyclable, according to the company. In 2021, it announced an initiative to make sustainable Happy Meal toys out of renewable or recycled materials, aiming for a 90% reduction of fossil fuel-based plastic.
But a lot of the original buckets never made it to landfills. Earlier designs have become collector items. On eBay, the online auction, some 1986 buckets have bids in the $20-$30 range.
McDonald’s news release included tips from TikTok on how to repurpose Halloween Pails as fashion accessories, planters or musical instruments. It said content from influencers such as Sidclusive, beatsbyblack, saracampz, themartinezcasita, and laurdiy will go live on the social platform on Thursday.
Social media has played a roll in recent fast food roll-outs, stoking interest in new products and nostalgia for old brands.
The strategy of using TikTok to reach new audiences has been deployed by other restaurant chains in recent months, including El Pollo Loco and Denny’s. Taco Bell tapped into nostalgia on social media in its relaunch of Mexican Pizza earlier this year. It is repeating the move this week with a poll to decide which retired menu item it should bring back next.
McDonald’s tapped into nostalgia earlier this week with a Happy Meal for adults called the Cactus Plant Flea Market Box, which comes with McDonaldland figurines along with a Big Mac or Chicken McNuggets combo.
“While the box is still a staple in the Happy Meal world, there are certain things that parents remember, and wish their child could experience. They remember the toys being better, and the containers for Happy Meals depending on the time of year,” wrote Ashley Wehrli in a post on Moms.com, one of the many websites and news organizations that were trying to figure out what McDonald’s would do while the company was keeping mum.
Thursday’s announcement was preceded by a Oct. 1 video announcing Boo Buckets on McDonald’s Canada’s Twitter page. Even before that tweet, the news was an open secret, thanks to intense internet interest.
One source websites turned to was Mark Vayntraub, an East Coast blogger who goes by Markie_devo and who has been mentioned in stories by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.
On Oct. 1, he put up posts on Facebook and Instragram predicting buckets would return on Oct. 18 and citing an unnamed McDonald’s employee as his source.
“Once again I have to disclose. McDonald’s has not confirmed or denied this,” the posts read.
Markie_devo also predicts that Burger King will come out with a Ghost Pepper Whopper and has posted a “preview” of Starbucks’ winter menu.
Source: www.mercurynews.com