The Pokemon 25th anniversary festivities have been going strong for a couple of months now, and fans have been given a lot of reasons to celebrate. Years worth of rumors and speculation were finally put to rest in late February when remakes for Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl were announced, and immediately after there was the surprise announcement of a new, seemingly open-world Pokemon game, Pokemon Legends: Arceus. The celebration hasn’t just been for the video game world either, as fans of the Pokemon Trading Card Game have had the opportunity to collect special 25th anniversary cards from McDonald’s Happy Meals.
These cards have been taking the fanbase by storm since the promotion launched earlier this year, with many collectors grabbing up as many rare Pokemon McDonald’s cards as possible in order to sell them for a profit. Longtime fans of the series are no stranger to these fast food collaborations, as The Pokemon Company has run numerous other promotions since the 90s. Not all of these limited-time offers have been created equal, with lackluster toys and unexciting cards making up a decent portion of them, but there have been others that caused almost as much noise as the current McDonald’s one.
The very first Pokemon fast food collaboration put less of a focus on the card game and more of a focus on toys associated with the property. The promotion that KFC ran in 1998 gave out an assortment of different playthings with its kids meals, each of them pretty unique from the rest. One of the standout toys featured in this promotion was an Ivysaur water squirter that, in retrospect, seems like an odd choice for a Grass-type Pokemon. There were five other toys included in this promotion, and they ranged from puzzle blocks to temporary tattoos.
In addition to this variety of toys, KFC also offered a set of Pokemon beanbags that featured various Gen 1 Pokemon like Dratini, Vulpix, Seel, and Zubat. These beanbags were sold separately from any meals at the restaurant, each of them having a $5 price tag. It’s likely that they were meant to cash in on the Beanie Babies craze that took the world by storm in the 90s, but the beanbags would prove to be much less popular than the Pokemon toys that were available at no additional cost.
Also, much like actual Beanie Babies, the beanbags from this promotion aren’t nearly as valuable as fans thought they would be. This was also the one and only time that the chicken-centric fast food restaurant ran a Pokemon promotion, and it really hasn’t been associated with fantastic kids meal toys ever since.
One of the most popular Pokemon fast food promotions took place at Burger King around the same time that Pokemon: The First Movie was coming to theaters. In anticipation for the film, Burger King offered a huge variety of toys that dwarfed the amount KFC had just a year before. There were fifty-nine Pokemon toys in total and seven different categories that ranged from spinners to key chains, and Burger King even had their own beanbags.
The most alluring part of this promotion that cemented it in Pokemon history was the selection of 23 karat gold plated Pokemon cards that Burger King sold separately from kids meals. These cards were the first time that any Pokemon cards were offered at a fast food restaurant, but they weren’t meant to be used with the Pokemon Training Card Game. Nevertheless, they became huge collector’s items when the promotion started, with a lot of people believing they would shoot up in value in the future.
Unfortunately for those collectors, the cards haven’t exactly shot up in price in the twenty-two years since Burger King ran the promotion, with most cards failing to sell for more than one hundred dollars online.
Although Burger King has had a history of exciting Pokemon promotions, fast food juggernaut McDonald’s has proven to be the dominant force in Pokemon collaborations. There have been a total of fifteen different Pokemon promotions at McDonald’s over the years, including the one that is currently going on. The primary focus across for all of these events has been on the Pokemon Trading Card Game, with some toys thrown in for some added variety.
One of the more exciting McDonald’s promotions occurred in 2012, in conjunction with the release of Pokemon White 2 and Pokemon Black 2. This promotion had the usual Pokemon related toys that people would expect from a Happy Meal, but the most exciting part came from the cards that accompanied the toys. Each of the twelve cards that were in the promotion were holographic, and for the first time ever, the cards also bore a distinctive “M” logo indicating they were a part of the McDonald’s set. As many collectors have shown with the most recent 25th anniversary promotion, special pictures and images on cards are enough to make them highly sought after.
The 25th anniversary promotion that is currently going on at McDonald’s celebrates the very best of the Pokemon franchise, but in a way it celebrates the history of Pokemon fast food promotions as well. For some fans, the many toys and cards given out in kids meals over the years might have been their first introduction to the series. With how popular the current promotion has become, it would be no surprise if there was a sudden influx in new Pokemon fans as a result. And now that Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl are on the way, with Pokemon Legends: Arceus following, now has never been a better time to be a Pokemon fan.
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