The Super Mario franchise and McDonald's Happy Meals are regular buddies, with promotions through different territories over the past few years. Super Mario is now coming back to UK Happy Meals in early 2017, which will be good timing with Nintendo planning its big Nintendo Switch reveal around that time - brand power and public awareness can be useful when combined around major announcements and launches.
A Nintendo Life regular has kindly forwarded us an image of a McDonald's note on the promotion, which will run from 11th January to 7th February; it will include balloons and activities along with an eBook promotion (which is a regular feature in current UK Happy Meals).
It seems that activities, the balloons and foldable paper things will take the place of conventional toys, but we'll see nearer the time when the range is announced. [Update: We've since been told that toys are very likely also included, they're just not confirmed yet]
It's time to think up an excuse for ordering Happy Meals, then. If you want to see grown men doing just that, we made 'unboxing' videos on two previous occasions when Mario Happy Meals came to the UK; this writer still shudders at the memory of the first video below.
So, will you be grabbing one of these Happy Meals in the New Year?
Comments 21
That settles it. I'm moving to the UK.
Luckily I have a 3 year old daughter so don't need any excuses
I got that Mario Kart racers series when they came out here in the US. You can buy the toys separately. It will run you from $1-$3. I can't recall the exact price.
11th January! The day before MARIO SWITCH is officially announced!
Wooooohooooo. My boy loves Mario.
Got them all last time. Mind you I also have the trolls too.
I grabbed a happy meal last time they did it, but I only got the Mario hat which is too small for my head
What about NA
I never ordered anything from Happy Meals and haven't ate McDonald's for like 6 months
I was briefly excited by the picture of the article until I read the title. I wish that McDonald's would do more Nintendo stuff here in NA. I even started planning a trip to get
myselfmy cousins a couple of Happy Meals.So who's gonna be the one to spoil everyone's fun by redundantly pointing out the lack of health benefits inherent in McDonald's food, and how they, in their incorruptible ubermensch wisdom, would never taint their body with such vile filth?
@UK-Nintendo
Ooh...thanks for the Mario toys photo.
@Equinox
Hm... let me guess. McDonald trigger diabetes, overweight for young kids who like to consume fast foods and soft drinks too much, right ?
@Equinox well you can also say that for most businesses, corporations governments etc
I think I've still got my Super Mario Bros 3 McDonalds toys from back in the '90s somehwere in the garage...
These look a bit higher quality!
Can't we have McDonald's toys from a good Nintendo franchise?
Nintendo is more at home appealing to kiddies and families. It's become part of their DNA.
Looking forward to this and the Nintendo Life unboxing video, lol. No: really the last unboxing video was funny rather than good.
haha these guys act like they've never had mcdonalds before.
Well, at least your happy meal boxes were folded down. They just don't even bother in Australia, at least the outlets around me.
TBH... children will probably get just as much (possibly even more) enjoyment out of those bits and pieces as they would out of a toy... I remember losing interest in most happy meal toys really quickly when I was little, but a balloon and colouring pad would have kept me entertained for ages... so this could be a smart move from McDonalds.
As for the collaboration... there seems to be a lot of focus on searching for Yoshi, which seems unusual... so I'm wondering if this might have something to do with the Switch game, which we won't understand until the presentation, which is roughly the same time as this promotion starts.
Having a game focused around saving Yoshi wouldn't be a bad idea... saving the Princess has been done to death, and Yoshi essentially being Mario's pet would be the next most logical choice... plus, he's probably the only member of the main Mario cast who hasn't been kidnapped at some point, so it's kind of his turn.
I'll just buy the toys for a quid.
That happy meal guy dressed up as Mario is terrifying.
Who the hell thought it was a good idea to give that monstrosity a mustache, badly fitting and much-uglier-than-Mario's overalls for the kiddies?
Holy sh*t.
Tap here to load 21 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...