Happy Throwback Thursday! Today our throwback year is 1979, and that’s the year McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal!
The Happy Meal originated in Guatamala, of all places. In the mid-70s, Yolanda Fernandez and her husband ran several McDonald’s restaurants in Guatemala. She was focused on marketing the franchise as a family-friendly restaurant, but she realized that the menu portions they offered were simply too much for children. So she started offering what she called the “Ronald Menu”, which included a small burger, small fries, an ice cream, in addition to a toy.
The idea eventually found its way to McDonald’s management in Chicago. They handed the development of the product over to Ben Bernstein, whose advertising agency ran the marketing for McDonald’s in several cities. At the time, Bernstein had heard from McDonald’s franchise owners that they wanted to create a better dining experience for families and kids. Bernstein thought that if kids could just get a packaged meal all their own, instead of picking at their parents’ food, everyone would be happier. He had noticed his son poring over the various games and cartoons on cereal boxes at the breakfast table and had an a-ha moment. He called in his creative team to design some paperboard boxes that resembled lunch pails with golden arches for handles. Nationally known children’s illustrators were given the boxes as a blank slate to fill with their own colorful ideas. Bernstein named it the Happy Meal, and it was introduced in the Kansas City, Denver, and Phoenix markets in October 1977. More markets soon followed, and it was rolled out nationally in 1979.
Originally, the toys included in the Happy Meal were a McDoodle stencil, a McWrist wallet, an ID bracelet, a puzzle lock, a spinning top, or an eraser in the shape of a McDonaldland character. Happy Meals are often themed to tie in with a movie or TV show. The first tie in was the “Star Trek Meal” in 1979 to promote Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Today, McDonald’s sells around a billion Happy Meals a year – that’s about 2.7 million per day! Learn more here.