ABSTRACT
Along with the Ty Beanie Babies, the McDonald's 'Happy Meal' toys are one of the biggest attractions in contemporary collecting. Originally given away with children's meals, to encourage families to eat in McDonald's, the little plastic toys have become an adult favourite to collect. As the article states, 3,000 people enquired about the UK McDonald's Collectors' Club, after seeing a previous article in Collect It!. As I have written elsewhere (Martin, 1999: 45-6), an aspect of adult collecting of such objects can be read as an act of subversion. The ubiquitous nature of McDonald's outlets, 19,000 in aIl, means no High Street is without one. When the Happy Meal toys (or 'premiums' as they're known in the trade) were first made, it was arguably subversive for adults to collect them: it was like breaking a taboo, to indulge the child in the adult. It was also about reversing the accepted logic and knowledge of 'worth' by valuing the valueless, and thus sabotaging establishment norms of desirability. Of course once such items become popular, prices rise, and they become effectively collectables in their own right, on the same basis as other more conventional items, and thus their subversive aspect is lost. The other side of this is that once these items become more popular, they attract the attention of other collectors, such as those who find them attractive as symbols ofreassurance and affection. Adult collectors can see them as symbolic of a familiar and safe institution, one which perhaps helps reify sentiment for their children as weIl as their own childhoods.
