McDonald's Batman Collector Cups

The early-'90s Batman films arrived with a McDonald's blitz. For 1992's Batman Returns, McDonald's converted 9,000 outlets into "Gotham City" restaurants, wrapping the promotion in Batman-themed packaging — including a cup lid that doubled as a flying disc. It was exactly the kind of all-in movie tie-in that made the cups a fixture of the season.

That promotion also became a lightning rod. Tim Burton's Batman Returns was a dark, PG-13 film, and McDonald's drew criticism for its child-centered promotion and toy tie-ins; Warner Bros. received thousands of complaint letters from parents objecting to the movie's violent and sexualized content. The fallout was real: McDonald's subsequently changed its practices, requiring extended previews of films before agreeing to promotional partnerships, and the merchandise underperformed relative to the 1989 Batman.

The most fondly remembered cups came a few years later. For 1995's Batman Forever, McDonald's skipped the usual plastic and issued a set of four embossed, 3-D glass mugs — Batman, Robin, The Riddler, and Two-Face — sold as a purchase-with-purchase add-on for around a dollar. Those glasses ended up in kitchen cabinets for the rest of the decade, becoming for many households the everyday water glass and, in hindsight, the definitive McDonald's Batman collectible.