Why McDonald's Was Sorry for Selling 100 Million Happy Meals #175

This week, Harley and Big Lynch break down how McDonald's accidentally caused the biggest fast food promotion disaster in history: selling 100 million Happy Meals in 10 days during the 1997 Teenie Beanie Baby craze and having to publicly apologize for it. Big Lynch delivers a full PREsentation on the history of the happy meal, the $1 billion 1996 Disney exclusive deal that nuked the toy arms race, and cover some of the other great fast food toy promotions. The boys discuss how 75% of family fast food trips are kid-driven, why toys went from afterthought to the entire reason you buy the meal, the Pizza Hut Book It program flanking McDonaldland, Burger King's 1989 Kids Club move, and the Pizza Hut Metal Gear Solid demo crossover. Plus: Donnie's tenant catching him on camera doing dirt in their living room for an hour, the Planet Fitness jerk chicken treadmill cup holder girl, the Batman glass collab being undefeated, Tim Sparks converting 80 Pizza Hut locations back to red roof Classics, White Castle's vending machine empire, Milka's German shrinkflation ruling, and Wendy's new CEO Bob Wright walking into five straight quarters of declining sales. New episodes of Double Dusted Discussion every Monday.Tell us what you think at r/EpicMealTime, @EpicMealTime on Twitter, or [email protected] sure to subscribe and follow the podcast. New episodes every Monday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices