Burgers, Batman, and A Freakish Clown

A recent trip to McDonalds and a stroll down memory lane.

My daughter, who is growing like a friggin’ weed, is in-between Pre-K and Kindergarten. For one week and one week only (this week), she and I are hanging out while mom is at work. The week is off to a wonderful start. Yesterday we did two parks, met a new friend in the neighborhood, and did something that we essentially never do… went to a fast food restaurant for lunch. Despite my lobbying for Taco Bell, home girl wanted a Happy Meal.

The drive-thru line was preposterously long, so we decided to take our chances dining in. I can’t recall physically being inside a McDonald’s MCD 0.00%↑ restaurant in realistically three or four years and yesterday was a really awkward experience.

There were two registers at a very small front counter and four kiosks that allowed customers to complete their own orders without interacting with another human. Since there wasn’t anyone actually running one of the two registers, everyone who walked in had to use the kiosks to order their meals. That’s annoying enough, but what compounded the experience was how poorly managed this particular location itself was.

Every single ordering kiosk was out of paper, so nobody was getting receipts for their orders. Since I was paying with cash and not a card, I didn’t know if my order was even accepted by the kiosk because they don’t take cash payment. I later found out the order was in the system but it wasn’t being prepared because I hadn’t paid yet. Which, again, I wasn’t able to do until a worker started operating one of the registers.

This issue has been known for at least 4 years

Despite this apparently being a well-known problem, I wasn’t the only person in this cash-buyer predicament. Another guy who came in shortly after I did just walked out when the machine wouldn’t take his cash. The few staffers that were in the building seemed to be going out of their way to not be helpful to the people in the building. I proposed leaving as well while again mentioning Taco Bell or an alternative burger joint multiple times but Princess needed the toy.

I can’t tell if this is good or bad parenting…

Anyway, after about 15 minutes I was finally able to pay for the fast food. Patience was wearing thin both with myself and the small, hungry child that accompanied me. We received our burgers shortly after paying. The food itself was fine and that’s where the compliments end. Every single napkin dispenser in the dining area was empty. As was the ketchup container. Both of the fountains were out of order, so drinks couldn’t be self-refilled. But the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was the toy in the Happy Meal. To be clear, she was fine with it. But I thought it sucked.

This trip was about getting the toy. And the toy that came with that meal was a cheap statue/figurine from one of the Marvel super hero movies. Literally the only way to play with this thing is by moving one of the arms. It doesn’t really do anything else. This is not how I remember Happy Meal toys.

“Back in My Day”

I’m a massive weirdo so I still have some of my Batman toys from when I was a kid. I have exactly three toys that I kept that were acquired from McDonald’s Happy Meals - and all three of them were from the McDonald’s Batman Returns Happy Meal line. Believe me when I tell you, these things are fire.

I had all of these with the exception of the Penguin’s Roadster. Back in my day (shudder) the Happy Meal toys actually had some engineering and moving parts. The Batman Returns Batmissile toy has six wheels and a spring-loaded Batmissile release. It’s awesome, and that’s why I kept it. Super cool collectible.

We actually ended up playing with the Batman Returns Happy Meal toys when we got back to the house. Because they’re cooler than these new, sorry excuses for Happy Meal prizes…

I’m going to age myself here, but when the Batman Returns movie came out (1992) I was 5 years old. What’s funny is I absolutely remember that Happy Meal commercial from the YouTube GOOG 0.00%↑ link above. What I don’t remember is all of the apparent parent-panic that resulted from the intensity of Batman Returns.

At the time, Tim Burton’s take on Batman was a fairly large departure from the campy 60’s mainstream Batman persona up to that point. Coincidently enough, it was McDonalds and the profit motivation of blockbuster film merchandising that are pretty much the reason why Tim Burton was booted from Warner Brothers’ WBD 0.00%↑ Batman franchise before Batman Forever.

This Cracked explanation is pretty funny. There’s even a slight nod to the Happy Meal toys mentioned above.

Things Change

The problem for me with McDonald’s going forward is the food simply isn’t good enough to justify that dine-in experience again. And waiting in a drive-thru line that spills out into the street is a non-starter. I won’t do it. But more importantly, in our admittedly limited experience with Happy Meals since my daughter was born, the toys have been underwhelming. They don’t make them like they used to, amirite?

Now aside from the reality that every single grievance raised in this post is little more than a first world problem, I think the broad theme is simple; things change. My expectation for a dine-in experience at McDonalds won’t be the same as a future 36 year-old’s expectation for a dine-in experience at McDonalds 20 years from now. Tim Burton’s dark, violent interpretation of Batman was not well-received by parents of young children in the early 90’s. Now it seems to be the primary way the character exists on the big screen.

Life goes on.