Panda and fast food toy lovers are in heaven right now!

From June 6th til July 3rd, 2008 “Kung Fu Panda” toys are at McDonald’s. There are 8 action characters to collect. I’ve already got my paws on Po and Master Shifu and they are absolutely kick-ass!

The overall design is excellent. I love the attention to detail. Kudos to McDonald’s! This is one of their better sets that I’ve seen in a while. 

Po is huge. He’s a big toy. But then again, he is a giant panda. Po has a switch on his back that if you turn on and twist his arm, he’ll make kung fu noises – quite startling I might add since it scared my nephew. I wonder if that’s Jack Black’s voice. 

What’s cooler than Po’s “Waa Haa!!!” noises is Master ShiFu’s crazy footwork. Wind him up and he shuffles and hustles like he just drank a gallon of red bull or something. Love it!!! By the way, doesn’t Master ShiFu remind you of Splinter? For those who have no clue who that is, look up “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” on wikipedia.org and then you can go back to watching “Hannah Montana”.

As for me, I’m going to try to go to the movies and see “Kung Fu Panda.” 

Here are the other six characters to collect:

Trust me, it’s not as exciting as the title suggests.  Taco Bell is currently giving away dinosaur toys with their kids meal. There a 4 to collect.  I’m sure some kids will love it, but this is pretty much a snoozefest for me.  I know it’s not as easy as I make it sound, but Taco Bell really needs to hook up with some big name company to pump some life into their kids meal toy offerings a la Burger King working with Nickelodeon.  Their chalupas are good though…

This is so cool!  From now until May 8, you can go to your local McDonald’s and pick up a super-cool American Idol toy, as well as vote for your favorite idol toy here.  Inspired by the hit show, McDonald’s has 8 cute American Idol-ish character toys (each representing a music genre) for us to collect.  Each toy plays a song from his or her music genre. 

( Disco Dave )

( Rockin’ Riley )

( Soulful Selma )

( Country Clay )

( Lil Hip Hop )

( Punky Pete )

( New Wave Nigel )

( Hippie Harmony )

As of this post, Rockin’ Riley is in the lead and is set to become the next American Idol toy!!!  It’s definitely the hair!

As for me, I’m voting for Ms. Hippie Harmony and that’s only because she looks like the girl from Little Twin Stars.

I was on eBay the other day and I came across a listing for a giant-sized blowup Spongebob Squarepants going for $999.00!!!  The price isn’t the crazy part. 

The person who posted the listing goes on to say that this enormous Spongebob was taken from a Burger King restaurant when he/she was told by his/her manager to take it out to the back with the trash and decided to instead save it.  As I read this, I remembered that a bunch of these Spongebob balloons were stolen from several Burger Kings in 2004. 

Yup, I was right!  I found the following article and I just couldn’t help but wonder if I found one of the stolen Spongebob balloons.  Hmm, I may have a future in investigations or something… 

There are a gazillion fast food toys out there and yet, some toys seem to stand out more than others.  These toys will be honored (as they should be) in the I Love Fast Food Toys Hall of Fame which I have created today to offer a place for these extraordinary toys a place to shine.

I’m excited (’cause I’m a dork and a half) to announce that the first set of toys to be inducted into the I Love Fast Food Toys Hall of Fame are the…

(drum roll)

…Super Looney Tunes Toys from Mcdonald’s (released in 1991)!!!

From ordinary to super, Bugs Bunny becomes Super Bugs, Petunia Pig becomes Wonder Pig, Taz becomes Taz Flash and Daffy Duck becomes Bat-Duck!

So freakin’ cool!  So Hall of Fame worthy!!!

Even though McDonald’s and Disney announced that they were ending their long-running Happy Meal partnership in 2006 (for more details read this), McDonald’s current Happy Meal promotion proves that they obviously kept each other’s phone numbers. 

Until the 10th of April, Disney Princess and Pirates of the Caribbean toys are available at McDonald’s.

Disney stated in 2006 that despite their contract ending with McDonald’s, they “look forward to a more flexible, non-exclusive relationship” where they will work with them every now and then. Let’s hope more often than not. 

Some noteworthy promotions currently going on at fast food places:

Fans of Spongebob Squarepants can thank Burger King once more for releasing another awesome set of Spongebob Squarepants toys.  These Wild West themed Spongebob toys are being issued by Burger King to promote the new Spongebob movie “Pest of the West” airing on Nickelodeon on April 11, 2008.  Collect all 8!

If you head on over to Hardee’s, you can get your hands on four fun “Bee Movie” toys.  These toys are to promote the “Bee Movie” being released on DVD.

Of course, if you want your toys to come with that all-important interactive factor, look no further than your local Sonic.  Sonic currently has a set of toys called Bionics – neat gadgets.  Collect all five!

Who knew that a simple question could cause quite a ruckus?  I’m not referring to the question of “Barbie or Hot Wheels?” here, rather the question of “Is it for a boy or for a girl?”  It turns out that many people are asked “Is it for a boy or for a girl?” in McDonald’s all over America when ordering Happy Meals and many are outraged because they feel the question is downright sexist.  Every now and then, McDonald’s Happy Meal comes with either a Barbie toy or a Hot Wheels toy and who’s to say that a Barbie toy is strictly for girls and a Hot Wheels toy is strictly for boys?  Beats the hell out of me!  I’m not in the mood to get into a debate, but I am interested in finding out where McDonald’s stands on this issue.

It turns out that when people take their complaints to McDonald’s, whether via e-mail or in person, McDonald’s representatives always (a) apologize for the way their employees handled the situation and (b) assure that this is not the way they train their employees in dealing with Happy Meal toys. 

It so happens that I have a good friend who works at a McDonald’s and when I told her all this juicy gossip, she immediately shot me a look and said “They don’t train us!”  She told me that all they do is tell them what the current promotion is and that’s it.  I asked her how she asks customers what toy they want and she told me that she asks “Is it for a boy or for a girl?” and that she never even thought twice about it.  All her co-workers do the same thing.  She then relayed to me that there’s been several occasions where she’ll have a parent ask for a Barbie toy for their daughter and the daughter asks for a Hot Wheels car instead.

As long as McDonald’s continues to have “Barbie or Hot Wheels” Happy Meals, there will always be controversy over it.  Personally I don’t care for either sets of toys.  Give me Disney characters any day!

I thought I’d kick the I Love Fast Food Toys blog off by saying hello (in French) and welcoming everyone.

This blog is an extension of my website www.i-love-fast-food-toys.com.

In addition to the I Love Fast Food Toys site, I wanted a place where I can post fast food toys related stuff.  This blog will serve that purpose and I want it to go hand in hand with the website. I hope you’ll check both the site and this blog regularly. Thank you!