Sounds About Right: McDonald's Debuts Happy Meals for Adults

Even for adults, happiness is key. And as they say, you are what you eat.

Perhaps due to that idea, McDonald’s has announced an all-new treat for those long in the tooth but short on digestive joy. Now you can make like a Partridge Family member and get happy with the fast food phenomenon’s Happy Meals for adults.

For the endeavor, Mickey D’s has partnered with a streetwear brand. And in case you’re wondering, yes — you’ll be scoring a toy.

Per the New York Post,

The giant burger chain’s new “Happy Meal for the adults” — designed by Cactus Plant Flea Market, which has also done projects with the likes of Kanye West and Pharrell Williams — will feature a choice of food items as well as toy surprises.

On offer are Big Mac and 10-piece Chicken McNuggets iterations. And as always, fries and a drink will complete the combo.

As for the toys you and your pals can trade, they’ll be figurines of either Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie, or limited-time character Cactus Buddy.

Business Insider reports that the new knickknacks are sort of, well, psycho:

The box features McDonald’s iconic bright yellow and red color scheme, as well as pops of other bold colors. Alongside the four mascots available as toys, drawings on the box include other famous McDonald’s characters such as Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese, Captain Crook, and Officer Big Mac — all inexplicably with two sets of eyes.

McDonald’s is teaming up with Cactus Plant Flea Market to create “adult happy meals.” These meals will be available throughout the month of October and will include a classic McDonald’s character toy. pic.twitter.com/QuCoraaZIR

— IGN (@IGN) September 29, 2022

The meals debuted Monday, and they’ll be available for the remainder of the month. But as relayed on MSN, McDonald’s employees are ready for the promotion to be kaput:

[Staff] are reporting the hyper-popular promotion has brought about chaos and misery as they struggle to fulfill an avalanche of orders. “Bro, please don’t order those adult McDonald’s Happy Meals, bro, I’m begging,” wrote one [worker] on TikTok.

They’re ranting on Reddit, too:

Under the title “New Adult Happy Meals Are Killing Me,” one anonymous worker posted to Reddit…“We literally just came off the ‘Buy One, Get One for a Dollar’ (promotion), and we were swamped with Big Mac meals. Now with this, we have to literally stockpile them to survive a rush. I hate it.” …

“The most difficult aspect of this promo for the crew is the sheer volume of these meals that we are selling,” one worker told Kotaku via Reddit DMs. “Most stores I have seen have sold out of either the special boxes, Big Mac buns, or toys. (At) some places, it’s more than one of these.”

One problem is the packaging:

The issue appears to be that in order to buy one of the adult Happy Meals, customers need to pick up a Big Mac or a box of 10 chicken nuggets — significantly bigger and more complex orders than go into a traditional child’s Happy Meal box.

Beyond that, whereas children are limited in their purchase power, “Adults can just buy stuff whenever they like. And they are. In crazy numbers. And it doesn’t help that, apparently, the boxes haven’t even been designed to stack — something that puts additional strain on the staff who have to juggle the endless orders.”

Regarding grown-ups getting toy-augmented meals, that seems culturally appropriate. They say 40 is the new 30, but it may be the new 13: These days, parents buy game systems for themselves rather than their children. Amid our first-world frolicking, we’ve reverted to our childhoods as never before.

Not long ago, people past their 20s were old fogeys in unstylish duds with penchants for perusing the newspaper and McCall’s magazine. These days, mothers and fathers slip on skinny jeans; dad is rocking while mom is TikToking.

So a temporary Happy Meal for adults? It might make sense as a mainstay.

But since the opportunity’s merely momentary, race to McDonald’s and get your four-eyed collector’s editions while you can. I’ll get one, too. We can all brag about it to our friends this evening when we play Fortnite.

-ALEX