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The movie-promo cups and glass mugs that turned a McDonald's run into a Batman artifact. When the Caped Crusader came back to theaters in the '90s, McDonald's turned itself into Gotham City — and a generation kept the glasses in the cupboard for years.
Peel the game piece off the fries carton, hold your breath: Park Place. Again. Everyone had a drawer full of Park Places — because the Boardwalks were the whole game. What nobody knew was where the Boardwalks were actually going.
When McDonald's put tiny Beanie Babies in Happy Meals in spring 1997, the craze jumped from collector shops to the drive-thru window—100 million toys, gone in two weeks, and a national apology campaign for running out.
McDonald's 1996 gamble: a quarter-pound burger on a potato-flour bun with peppered bacon, Dijonnaise, and a mandate to drag the golden arches upmarket. The ads showed kids recoiling from its sophistication — "kids hate it" was the actual pitch. It's remembered as one of the most expensive flops in fast-food history.