Why McDonald's Happy Meals Are Served In A Box
Before little kids sat staring at electronic devices while they ate, they stared at the boxes their food came in. That was the case in the late 1970s, when Kansas City ad executive Bob Bernstein watched his son read and re-read the illustrations on his cereal box. Bernstein used that inspiration to design a comics- and puzzles-covered box for the Happy Meal, McDonald's signature kids' meal that today sells at a reported rate of 5,000 per minute.
The box itself was a way to attract parents of small kids to come in for an easily bundled burger and fries meal for their little ones. Meanwhile, the splashy decorations on the box, featuring a toy inside, made the kids want to return to McDonald's again and again.
McDonald's released its Happy Meals in 1979 for $1.10 each. The sweet cereal box origin story has had critics since, given Burger Chef, a Midwest burger giant at the time, had already been marketing its own "Fun Meal" for a full six years. Burger Chef sued McDonald's but, not having secured a trademark or patent for its "Fun Meal," Burger Chef lost in court.
Over the next decade, hundreds of Burger Chef locations closed, and remaining stores were largely bought out by Hardee's, while the Happy Meal became a McDonald's staple. On the 10th anniversary of the Happy Meal, McDonald's thanked Bob Bernstein for his advertising acumen with a bronzed Happy Meal box for his desk.
How Happy Meals have changed over the years
Whether the Happy Meal was an invented idea or a stolen one remains a matter of debate, but that the Happy Meal became a marketing phenom is indisputable. Today, more than a billion Happy Meals are sold annually, and because each one of those comes with some kind of trinket or treasure inside, the Happy Meal has positioned McDonald's to regularly rank as the largest toy distributor, by volume, globally.
Happy Meals were initially designed in the shape of a cardboard lunch pail with a handle that mimicked McDonald's golden arches. The early editions offered the now discontinued sweet treat called McDonaldland cookies. To appease parents, kids can now switch out their Happy Meal soda for apple juice or milk, and substitute apple slices in lieu of fries. McDonald's added Chicken McNuggets as an option in 1984 and around that same time upped the ante in Happy Meal packaging, like McDonaldland Express trains and "Ship Shape" plastic boats, with the idea that kids would beg parents to keep coming back until they could collect all four in the set.
Today, McDonald's is scrambling to present a more sustainable solution, with corporate promises of less plastic and more recyclables, from the Happy Meal packaging down to the toys inside. That's likely to have the peripheral effect of driving up even more interest in vintage Happy Meal boxes that we remember with love.