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.

If you have a wee Minion maniac in your house like we do, pick up some Chiquita bananas - they have several different Minion stickers on them. (Holy cow, they used half a billion of those banana stickers. I hope Chiquita owns their own printing company for those stickers...)

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 Despicable Me 2 toys in their Happy Meals, with The Smurfs 2 shown as the next promotion. Heavy commercial bombardment from television influenced the boy to ask us to take him to McDonald's to get the Minion toys, but after looking at the toys on the web site, we decided to skip the food and just order a set off eBay. If you go the eBay route, look around and don't just bid on the first auction you see - the high bids seem to vary quite a bit, so open multiple tabs, check the completed auctions, and take your time before you bid.

- Wendy's has revamped their web site, and I still can't find the toys on the new version. However, the boy and his grandparents went to Wendy's the first weekend in July and came back with the Seaworld toy shown at the top of the page. The Wendy's site shows a new bacon cheeseburger on a pretzel bun, that seems worth a trip to investigate.

- Sonic has SuperSonic Spoons in their Wacky Pack meals. I absolutely forgot to go there and pick up some of the DC Comics/Justice League toys last month, so I'll be stalking them on eBay eventually.

- Carl's Jr. and Hardee's have Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters toys, with Funbrain toys coming in mid-August.

No changes from last month at these restaurants:

- 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.

- Subway Kids Meals have Monsters University drawstring backpacks.

- The Arby's web site has been redesigned and doesn't seem to show the toy anymore.

- Taco Bell lists surprise toys as their current item, so it looks like they are cleaning out their stockrooms. Their honesty is nice - they say that the toys are "previously featured and favorite toys."