After arriving overseas at the end of last year, McDonald's restaurants across the UK have now finally got their hands on a Sonic the Hedgehog 3-themed Happy Meal, though the tie-in toys are a little different to those found in the US (thanks, Eurogamer).
Yep, while our friends across the pond landed plastic figurines of Sonic and co. to mark the arrival of the third movie, UK Happy Meals instead get a range of fabric balls with the faces of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles or Shadow emblazoned on the front. There are also some, uhh, Super variants of select characters, but we won't get into that here.
The toys launched earlier this week and will be sticking around until 13th February, so you still have a bit of time to get out there and pick up a burger or two. There's even a new Happy Meal trailer (what a world we live in) that we've attached above, which shows Sonic, Tails and Knuckles racing Shadow to deliver a meal first — talk about fast food.
The fabric balls are part of McDonald's latest efforts to improve its sustainability, with the company pledging to phase out plastic toys completely by the end of 2025. We've already seen this in action with the European cardboard variants for the Mario Movie Happy Meal, but it's nice to know things are still moving a bit greener (even if it is only around tiny plastic toys).
What do you make of these Sonic Happy Meal toys? Will you be picking one up? Let us know in the comments.
[source mcdonalds.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 17
I know McDonald's isn't a paragon of quality or anything, but damn! They brought down the quality of their toys to a point where it almost matches the quality of their food now!
Wow. Sonic and the gang must have fallen on hard times if they have to go and deliver food.
I was at McDonalds in Sweden for the first time in like 10 years and actually bought a happy meal for my kids. This was before Christmas. It was supposed to contain a Sonic toy. But they where out of stock. So we got a really ***** book about Dispicable me 4 instead… They have ended up in the trash 😅
@KayFiOS
It's because of a pledge to reduce plastic going to landfill.
Most of those happy meal toys don't get kept and just end up in the trash, so now they make them out of disposable materials like paper or cardboard, or less harmful fabrics.
While the current Sonic toys are MILES (Prower?) better than the cardboard stuff Happy Meals have had for several years now, it's naturally a huge downgrade from what we had 20-25 years ago. I still remember how excited I was for those LCD SEGA games back in the day...
Still, me and my best buddy went for a Happy Meal after we saw Sonic 3. I honestly expected much worse out of the toys. We don't have that ball from the advert though - over here, the toys are static figures of the characters that can be placed inside these plastic rings and spin around.
Nice trailer, too bad that the toys themselves aren't particularly great - how I miss the relatively nice classic plastic toys (and I still find ridiculous phasing them out when they shouldn't be thrown away first and foremost and if people really want to for some reason they can and should just recycle them)!
We already had them in Germany last week (maybe even earlier?).
Why is UK late here?
@RupeeClock Oh I understand the reasoning behind it, but it's not going to stop me from poking fun at these things for how silly they look. I'll take any excuse to talk smack about McDonald's!
Catch them all you can. That sounds familiar somehow . . .
@RetroGames
It's "Catch them while you can", referring to limited time availability.
UK Happy Meal toys are dire these days. Just some cardboard guff or a cheap plush. These Sonic balls are particularly terrible.
As a child of the 90s who has some fond memories of the toys you used to get at fast food restaurants, this is just sad.
Cardboard or fabric?
Reducing plastic might be the line we're handed, but reducing cost is likely the real reason behind it. But it's just as well, I guess, I'd never take my kids to eat food of that quality anyway...
@Ladasta haha, didn’t know Nintendolife censor ”bad language”
Sorry. Another word for my ”curse word” is crappy. I hope that is fine
Edit: Yes! Crappy was ok. I’ll remember that.
I love how Sonic just gives Shadow one singular nugget lol
They had them in Netherlands weeks ago.
@Ladasta what was the book about
It basically had no story. It only presented the characters basically.
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