California to ban McDonald's Toys!

[Shoggoth2588]

I'm watching the morning news and, while I can't remember the county, they are talking about banning the toys given with the Happy Meal. Not just in McDonald's but also in the Wendy's and everything else in that particular county. Something about the food nazi's saying it's the toy selling the unhealthy meal to children or something.

So my question to you, Escapist: When you were a larva, did you make a big deal over the toys given away in kid meals at your local fast-food hole of choice? I remember being kinda bratty about it actually. I have always been a materialist. I got pissed at my sister once for messing with one of my Mc-Toy-Cars xD

Part B to the toy question! On a scale from green-bananas to Jeffrey Dahmer in a tutu, how crazy is this law? I can understand a ban on heroine but on McDonald toys? I don't think it's going to fly...

EDIT: This has become a hot topic! Thanks for the badge Californian Humans!

 

[ProfessorLayton]

I used to buy those for the toys a lot of the time. Especially if they were for a movie I had never seen...

And for the state that's trying to legalize marijuana, this is pretty crazy. So, marijuana is good, but Happy Meal toys are bad? Logic!

 

[syndicated44]

Ha I lived in a small town and when Macdons moved in it was a HUGE deal. EVERYONE had to go eat there. In the end the toys werent that great nor was the food however it was pretty neat to finally have one.


I can see where their coming from but at the same time its just kind of dumb. The toys were never much of an incentive (at least for me) they were more an added bonus.

On a side note can you still get a burger and fries with a happy meal or do you have to have those chicken mcnuggets and apple slice bullshit?

 

[Crowghast]

Honestly? I barely even went to McDonalds as a kid, and as an adult I only go if I happen to be within close proximity to the restuarant, and sufficiently hungry to divert my original course to make a short stop.

The toys have never been of interest to me.

So how about I go past Jeffrey's tutu and into Rasputin staring with murderous intent to look at your naked soul with his wiry beard framing his maniacal face, on terms of how crazy that law is?

Seriously, why even bother? Will they [i\]enforce[/i] this law? What would be the procedure for braking said law? [i\]How would you even break it?[/i] By smuggling contraband Happy Meal toys into [i\]McDonald's Underground[/i]?

I hate living here so much. It's a burnt-out, bankrupt, Golden State alright.

 

[luckshot]

the toy never really sold me the food, they were neat and all but just not all that important

part B: Jeffrey in a tutu crazy

 

[awesomeClaw]

Those toys suck ass anyway, so why should you care?

 

[TheGreatDirectorWatanbe]

You know I've always had a problem with Government getting into personal affairs of businesses. If a business wants to advertise that if you buy their meals you get a toy with it. Well that's advertisement to the kids. The kids beg to go to Mcdonalds or Wendy's. It's the parentsjob to decide whether to take the kid to the place or to say, "No" and make them eat their broccoli. This really gets under my skin when the government has to make sure that the business has makes standers for these lazy people. [/rant]

 

[Doctragon]

I used to love those toys. I still have a lot of them never throws them out. Some of them were great, usually the pokemon ones, but some were really bad. Either way, it wasn't always the toys, I still had pizza as a kid and the pizza place didn't have toys. It's a silly law and wouldn't stop anything.

I'm now tempted to sort out my old McDonalds toys to find the really good ones. I still collect the really good ones, I have a Muchlax one from a few years ago that is still with my Pokemon figurine collection. So good!

 

[Mechsoap]

that whas how i started to get fat and just got off with my fat these years

 

[ShadowKatt]

I don't understand exactly what they expect this law to change. I just heard about this whole, what do they call it, "Food Desert", recently, and the only thing I can think of is global warming and all the other bullshit that the government tries so hard to make us believe. I don't eat eat at McDonalds, BK, Wendys, or ANY of them, and haven't for the last year or so. By choice. If I'm hungry and I want to eat something, I get something at the market. I don't need politics to tell me to do it. On the other hand, I also don't believe that passing a law is going to make people STOP going, no matter if you make it illegal to eat a double cheeseburger unless it's in your bedroom, with the lights off, under the covers. People are still going to do it.

And where are the fast food lobbyists on this one anyway?

 

[Outright Villainy]

You know I've always had a problem with Government getting into personal affairs of businesses. If a business wants to advertise that if you buy their meals you get a toy with it. Well that's advertisement to the kids. The kids beg to go to Mcdonalds or Wendy's. It's the parentsjob to decide whether to take the kid to the place or to say, "No" and make them eat their broccoli. This really gets under my skin when the government has to make sure that the business has makes standers for these lazy people. [/rant]

Exactly right. "Parent state" laws really piss me off, parents should be accountable for what their kids get their hands on. Same goes for violent media naturally, but no, outright censoring seems to be a better idea to many a government. Idiots.

 

[The Lawn]

I only ever got the toys with batteries so I could take them apart and use the batteries in my Digimon.
Because I wasn't going to spend $6 on batteries I could get out of a 75 cent toy.

Never got the food....

OT:
WHY DOESN'T MCDONALDS LET YOU GET HONEY WITH YOUR CHICKEN NUGGETS ANY MORE?!
That was such an awesome combo....

 

[Dastardly]

I agree that the toys are a shameless ploy at cross-selling the food. I disagree that a law is the answer.

Of course, what do you do in a society where parents won't (or don't know how) to step in against the negative impacts of the entertainment/merchandising industry? The parents were brought up on it, they're neck-deep in it, and there kids will be, too.

To a child, toys are currency. It's how they measure value, by default. Watch a kid with his/her toys, and you'll see how they'll probably handle money some day. I was always really careful, because my parents taught me if I broke it (or left it out in the way) it would be gone and there wouldn't be another. I learned to take care of my stuff--the toys were a teaching aid for all kinds of life skills.

Other parents, toys are a substitute for time and supervision. Here, you have this toy car and eat your damn food while I work on something more important. And the kid learns that toys are more valuable than time. The kid then learns that Happy Meals are better because they come WITH toys. But notice that the problem here isn't the meal, or the toy, but rather it's the PARENT.

Taking away the misused tools of bad parents doesn't make them good parents. It just means they'll have to find other ways to continue being bad parents. And, supply and demand, someone will sell them something to do that.

(Oh, and incidentally, people--children included--ARE animals. We're very complex animals, but we're animals. We still learn by the same mechanisms. We just do it faster, for good or ill.)

 

[ssgt splatter]

*facepalm* This makes no sense at all. It's like being arrested for having a can of pringles in your house because it's unhealthy.

 

[fletch_talon]

So now instead of having the small sized fries and drink with a puny burger, little timmy will have a full blown Big Mac as there's no toy incentive to make him go for the smaller meal.
Of course really stupid parents with really fat arse kids would probably just buy both.

 

[Audio]

I enjoyed the toys but liked the nuggets better :d
Back when i was a 'gamer in training', i never really had the choice of where to eat anyway.

 

[Beardly]

OT:
WHY DOESN'T MCDONALDS LET YOU GET HONEY WITH YOUR CHICKEN NUGGETS ANY MORE?!
That was such an awesome combo....

Wendy's gives out fake honey for their nuggets. I read the packet one time. It's pretty much just high fructose corn syrup.

 

[Marter]

I don't see a problem with this. McDonalds toys typically just end up in a landfill or being recycled anyways. Those toys can't hold the attention span of children for any large amounts of time.