Photo Essay: McDonald's Halloween Bucket Collection

I have a collection of Halloween treat buckets issued off and on as Happy Meal containers by the McDonald's fast food chain since 1985. I've shown some of these in previous blog posts, but I thought I would take some photos of the entire collection, since MickeyD's issued the most lame versions yet this year.

Also, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to SydLexia's fantastic photo essay of these kitschy gems. It was discovering her web page a few years ago that inspired me to fill out my collection. Check out her page. 'Tis awesome.

The first two photos are my entire collection:


The first plastic Happy Meal buckets were issued on a trial basis in 1985. They were all orange pumpkin recreations. The same set was reissued in 1986 with slightly smaller faces. The 1985 versions had some regional name variations. In some places, McPunk'n was named McPunky, McGoblin was aka McJack but McBoo was McBoo everywhere, as far as I know. The 1986 versions were reissued in 1987.

There were no Happy Meal buckets for 1988, but in 1989, the buckets got away from the "pumpkin only" theme, keeping McBoo and adding McGhost and McWitch. These versions still had the handle incorporated in the pail and had plastic lids. McWitch's pointy hat lid make stacking the pails for storage a bit more difficult, but no matter. The following year used similar pail designs, but in BRIGHT day-glo plastic except McBoo which did the glow-in-the-dark thing.

On eBay this year, I found a variation of the day-glo McWitch with an "M-shaped" handle. I have to say, I think McDonald's missed a cool marketing opportunity by not issuing all the pails with this kind of handle. Genius.

McDonald's stopped issuing pails every year. The 1992, 1994 and 1999 pails incorporate cookie cutters in the lids. The handles were now part of the lids, rather than the pails. Again, this made the lids difficult to stack. With the 1999 set, they abandoned pails with faces, and had wrap-around scenes instead. They also scaled the offering from three variations to two.

The twentieth century witnessed another major change to the Happy Meal pails. McDonald's stayed with two designs, but scaled the pails to a slightly smaller size, saved some plastic by putting the handle back on the pail, turning it into a cool "bat-wing" design and using a cardboard circle instead of a lid. Both designs used the wrap-around graphic.

The two most recent Halloween Happy Meal pail designs use stickers to complete the wrap-around graphic. Both are the smaller size, use snazzy handle designs and stiff-paper lids which carry the stickers. The 2010 versions were based on Mr. Potato Head with two different creepy skull- or Jack O'Lantern-shaped handles. This year's versions are essentially blank canvases, needing the stickers to be anything other than orange or green plastic. Bummer. But they have nifty cat-shaped handles. So, there's that.

And there you have it -- my complete collection of McDonald's Happy Meal Halloween buckets or pails or containers, choose your own term. It's been a fun project to collect and document. I sure hope the next time they issue a set, they rethink the sticker thing and give the "toys" a re-infusion of personality. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate their attempt to incite creativity and individuality, but stickers don't last. And one of the real benefits of these kinds of toys are that you can pick them up again as an adult and display them proudly. And remember Halloweens past.