Pokémon Happy Meals To Return To McDonald's In The UK

To be brought by a bunch of sweaty adults that will throw a load of food away just for some cards they can sell.

Yay, more cardboard junk for my kids because they don’t make real toys anymore…

I’ll still buy them though but it’s a real shame McDonald’s eco friendliness only happens in the West while their restaurants in Asia offer proper plastic toys. It’s almost as if they’re only doing it to appease people or something…

Anyways, grumble, grumble, grumble etc. Take my money and get it over with.

Can I order a Pokémon burger with that?
I'll have a Chansey patty.

It's sad that we already know that they're gonna be cards (mostly bought by scalpers). I liked the toys they used to give...

I lost my Gen VII McDonald Figures to a fire.

Suddenly, I'm hungry for mcdonald's.
for no particular reason of course.

Scalpers gotta scalp, I guess.

I hope they are proper plastic toys rather than just cards, the previous Mario ones they did around 2016 were really cute and nicely made. I'd like a little Pikachu or something to put on my desk.

As an aside... (forgive me if this is off topic but I don't really post on other websites or social media and this is at least vaguely relevent)

I ate McDonalds fairly often for most of my life, simply because it was cheap and they were everywhere and I travelled a lot. I never really thought of it as my favourite place to go - if I wanted a proper treat I'd go for almost any other burger restaurant or fast food chain, I prefered most of them - they were more expensive but the food was better - Five Guys was probably my favourite, their stuff is awesome and objectively far better in every way.

However since 2019 I've been on a health kick for various reasons and eaten almost no meat, no carbs, no vegetable oil, no sugar, no dairy, no drinks except water or black coffee. In general I've gotten used to this and now I find it easy - I walk around supermarkets and highstreets and never crave anything. I feel happier and healthier and within 3 years I look and feel 20 years younger, quite literally. I turned 40 this year but get asked for ID when buying alcohol for friends. Crazy.

Weirdly though, after 3 years, the ONLY thing I still get cravings for is McDonalds. Sometimes obsessively. It gets to the point where its all I can think about and I find myself still awake at 3am looking up videos of people eating McDonalds food until I check myself and realise what I'm doing is insane. Its so strange that I irrationally, powerfully crave something I never before associated with being my favourite thing, and the things I always prefered never cross my mind.

Something about their marketing and/or food, and how it is embedded in our childhood responses to emotions based on toys, birthday parties, advertising in kids shows, having videogames based on the characters etc must have really, really powerfully kicked in on a primal level. Its embedded in me to feel "weird" if I haven't eaten it for a while. I still haven't given in to temptation, but its not gone away. I'm from the UK so its not just MCG addiction btw.

Endearing children to this rubbish from an early age is extremely irresponsible, not to mention the supporting of such a corporation.

I'll admit that I perhaps went there a little too often during my uni days as it coincided with the introduction of their "loose change menu" which allowed me to get a full meal for as little as AU$5.00, but I've since made the decision to cut most of the crap out of my diet. Mind you, I'm a skinny guy, and it didn't matter how much McDonald's I ate as it never made me gain mass. Perhaps I was blessed in that my body was good at ejecting toxins, and McDonalds' "food" is in no shortage of those.

@Kienda The "eco-friendly" toy change was just some virtue-signal marketing B.S. as they went back to plastic toys very quickly. It was just an extremely transparent attempt at trying to give themselves a shining image.

Honestly, the scalpers are doing kids a favour - if they get all the cards, there's less reason for the kids to get addicted to the trash McDonalds crap out (and then fewer 10-year-olds that are heavier than a beer-loving 40-year-old man.)

I liked the plastic Pokemon toys - they were decent quality considering they only cost about £1.50. I'm not really interested in the cards anymore.

@Tremblucay imagine being vegan in the pokemon world and you make plant based pokemon haburgers for your friends

One of them comments "wow this is vegan? It tastes just like real bulbasaur"

@Gitface they haven’t gone back to plastic here in the UK. Two schoolgirls campaigned for it and ruined the joy for every other child.

@Zenszulu what do you mean they’ll throw a load of food away?

McDonald’s food is precisely the type of food they eat every day!

My 2 young daughters recently discovered McDonald’s Happy Meals (we managed over 4 years before they did!). We’ve had some naff toys that they’ve enjoyed, but they know about Pokémon thanks to me so we’ll definitely have to get them one of these each.

They also know who Mario is (again, thanks to me!) so whenever they next do Mario Happy Meals I’ll have to get them those too.

@GravyThief because last time they were buying so many they were dumping the vast majority of the food in bins outside the places. which is just wasteful regardless of what food it is.