Raving Toy Maniac

July 14, 2013 - The McDonald's Spy Gear toys last month went over so well that we ended up buying two more sets off eBay - the 2006 set and the 2012 set. So we have tons of Spy Gear to play with and a few lost projectiles to find.

Cereal premiums are competing with fast food toys for the boy's attention this month, though: at the moment, General Mills cereals have small Despicable Me 2 Minion toys in them and Kellogg's cereals have codes which can be redeemed for a Monsters University pillowcase. One morning he ate a custom mix of Trix and Apple Jacks.

June 16, 2013 - In May, we took the boy to Wendy's for another Klutz Trip-tivities activity book. We also went to McDonald's for a Spy Gear toy, but by then they had changed over to Epic toys, so we ended up buying a Spy Gear set for him on eBay.

Let's see what's out there in restaurants this month!

A quick check of the web sites for the more popular fast food restaurants reveals the following:

- McDonald's has Hot Wheels and Twinkle Toes by Skecher's toys in their Happy Meals, with Despicable Me 2 shown as the next promotion. Apparently Epic came and went since last month's round-up.

- Burger King has Jungle Book toys in their Kids Meals, with Care Bears and Beyblade toys coming soon.

- The Chick-fil-A site lists Martha Speaks sticker books as the goodies in their Kid's Meals. The "kids under 3" item appears to be a board book.

May 16, 2013 - For April, we made a single trip to Wendy's. We really should have gone more often so the boy could complete the Cranium brain, but it is still a cute container by itself. So far in May, he's only been to Wendy's, and scored a Klutz Trip-tivities activity book.

Let's see what's out there in restaurants this month!

A quick check of the web sites for the more popular fast food restaurants reveals the following:

- McDonald's has Spy Gear and Winx Club toys in their Happy Meals, with Epic shown as the next promotion.

- The Chick-fil-A site lists mini scrapbooks as the goodies in their Kid's Meals. The "kids under 3" item appears to be a board book.

- Sonic has Slush Saucers in their Wacky Pack meals.

April 18, 2013 - For March, the boy had no fast food at all. He did get multiple new toys from other sources, though, so he really only missed out on calories.

Let's see what's out there in restaurants this month!

A quick check of the web sites for the more popular fast food restaurants reveals the following:

- McDonald's has Skylanders Giants and Fijit Friends Shimmies toys in their Happy Meals, with Spy Gear and Winx Club shown as the next promotions.

- The Chick-fil-A site lists Amazing Cow Heroes comic books as the goodies in their Kid's Meals. The "kids under 3" item appears to be a board book.

- Sonic has three different Ripley's Believe It or Not pop-up books in their Wacky Pack meals.

- Burger King has Jurassic Park toys in their Kids Meals, with Jungle Book toys coming soon.

March 20, 2013 - For February, the boy ended up at Wendy's twice, with an annoying buzzer/bell as one of the prizes. It is part of an "I Spy" game, but we've yet to actually play the game. Just endless bell ringing. The other toy was a small set of Smart Links connecting pieces to build various shapes. He still has a set from last year around here somewhere, hopefully they'll turn up and then he can build something larger and less nebulous.

Let's see what's out there in restaurants this month!

A quick check of the web sites for the more popular fast food restaurants reveals the following:

- McDonald's has Hexbug and Barbie in the Pink Shoes toys in their Happy Meals, with The Croods shown as the next promotion. (Also, on the night of the 20th, their web site seemed to only want to work for me on an iPad, and not a regular computer. Your mileage may vary.)

February 13, 2013 - We made exactly zero stops at fast food in January, but we did do a bit of cleaning in the kitchen, and found this gem stashed in one of the drawers. From 2008, it is a Burger King toy from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I was momentarily excited until I turned it over and saw that it was Mutt Williams. The boy didn't care either, so we'll leave it in the drawer until nicer weather arrives and we can play with outside on the sidewalk.

Let's see what's out there in restaurants this month! It looks like we'll be getting several of these toys.

A quick check of the web sites for the more popular fast food restaurants reveals the following:

- McDonald's has Transformers Prime and Hello Kitty toys in their Happy Meals, with Hexbug and Barbie shown as the next promotions.

Once upon a time on a server far far away, we had an email newsletter. Things happened and it stopped. I've finally found a format that is simple and straightforward at delivering our latest updates directly to your inbox, so here it is again, RTMemo!

Subscribe to our FREE email newsletter.

We won't use your email address for anything other than sending the newsletters. We won't be sharing or selling/renting your email address. Sometimes the posts in our news section are sponsor announcements and those will also be included as part of the newsletter.

The newsletter is served up by Google: when we have new content (either in our blogs or in the news section), Google will send you an email the next morning with a batch of links to the new stuff.

If you prefer to see our new posts via RSS instead, please check out the sitemap, as there are a ton of different options for you there. The two most popular are linked in the left-hand column menu of every page.

January 12, 2013 - The boy's sole fast food foray in December was to Wendy's, where he scored an R-Bot Design Kit and we scored a Toys'R'Us coupon. Disclaimer: we let the coupon expire without using it and the boy hasn't played with the robot very often after it came home. At least the food was good.

It wasn't until I had been doing these round-ups for a few months that I realized how seldom we take the boy to fast food restaurants. It felt more often, but I guess it was not. That's not as eye-opening as keeping track of all your toy spending for a year, but still interesting to me.

Let's see what's out there in restaurants this month!

A quick check of the web sites for the more popular fast food restaurants reveals the following:

- McDonald's has Moshi Monsters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys in their Happy Meals, with Transformers Prime and Hello Kitty shown as the next promotions, arriving on January 25th.

December 10, 2012 - We didn't eat out much in November, so the boy ended up with just two fast food toys. Both were from the same visit to Taco Bell - their "Banana Cabana" toys from the "Almost Naked Animals" cartoon. The sticker playscene is on the left, the Dirk Danger Stunt Bike is on the right.

Let's see what's out there in restaurants this month!

A quick check of the web sites for the more popular fast food restaurants reveals the following:

- McDonald's has Rise of the Guardians toys in their Happy Meals, with Moshi Monsters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as the next promotions starting December 14th.

- Burger King has Kidz Bop CDs in their Kids Meals, with Discovery Kids Space coming soon.

November 6, 2012 - The boy collected just one fast food toy this past month, but it's a nice one - a Mario figure from Burger King. The paint job is pretty nice for the size. It has more articulation than I was expecting: simple twists at both shoulders and hips.

Let's see what's out there in restaurants this month!

A quick check of the web sites for the more popular fast food restaurants reveals the following:

- McDonald's has Young Justice and Littlest Pet Shop toys in their Happy Meals, with Rise of the Guardians shown as the next promotion.

- Sonic has Farm Tot Buddies listed.

- Carl's Jr. and Hardee's have Scribblenauts Unlimited toys, with Hotel Transylvania toys coming in late December.