The Story Of McDonald's Iconic Collab With Beanie Babies

Beanie Babies have been a staple of kid culture since their introduction in the early 1990s. Taking the form of cuddly cats to dinosaurs and every creature in between, Beanie Babies are made from synthetic plush material and filled with hard, plastic pellets — popularly known as "beans" — that give them more maneuverability than standard stuffed toys. With unique nicknames, distinctive tags, and their overall cute appearance, talking about, shopping for, and collecting Beanie Babies couldn't have been easier — at least until a fast food giant stepped in.

Today, you probably can't hear the name "Beanie Babies" without thinking of McDonald's, and for good reason. The 1997 campaign that offered the plush animals — affectionately renamed "Teenie Beanies and miniaturized for the promotion — as included Happy Meal toys was a match made in consumer heaven. Sparking lawsuits, fierce competition between parents (as well as adult fans of the toys), and marketing messages geared towards vulnerable young buyers, this marriage both leaned into existing trends within the toy and fast food industries while simultaneously accelerating them forward. This is the story of how these toys made an outsized cultural and commercial impact that continues to reverberate into the present.

By the 1970s, McDonald's had been aggressively transforming its brand into the quintessential American fast food restaurant since the mid-1950s. In the intervening two decades, however, burgeoning competition that promoted yummy and convenient downhome American cooking threatened McDonald's dominance within the quickly evolving industry.

A big question mark for many fast food franchises involved the creation of children's meals that made the process of selecting, ordering, and consuming as easy as possible for frazzled parents. Although there are several possible origin stories for how the Happy Meal was born, the fact remains that, by the '70s, McDonald's — and its competitors — was actively brainstorming ways to package up the perfect family-friendly lunch. During the summer of 1979, the Happy Meal hit Golden Arches' menus in the United States for the first time. And, unsurprisingly to today's consumers, they included toys.

Themed as a circus train, McDonald's first Happy Meals gave guests an array of toy options, including a puzzle lock, wallet, stencil, and McDonaldland character erasers among others. Clearly branded as McDonald's merchandise, the included toys both advertised the fast food giant while giving kids (and their parents) an incentive to return. Little did children of the 1970s know an even bigger (or, more appropriately, teenier) incentive was on the horizon.

Created by Ty Warner from Ty, Inc., Beanie Babies exploded into toy stores everywhere in the mid-1990s. In 1993, the company released nine characters that comprised the first generation of Beanies. Roughly big enough to fit comfortably within the palms of children, these dolls debuted to modest success until Ty Warner developed a slew of marketing strategies to literally and figuratively up the value of his product.

Only about two years after their initial release, Warner intentionally retired certain Beanie Babies as a deliberate move to create marketplace scarcity and the sense of product exclusivity. The announcement of impending retirement promoted sales as adult and children collectors alike hurried to purchase stock before they disappeared for good.

Similarly, Warner introduced new characters in a wave-like approach, a strategy that created buzz around retirements and new merchandise. Over the next few years, collectors knew that Beanie Babies only held their full value if they had an intact and unbent Ty tag on their ears. At the same time, tags with misprints — Pinchers the Lobster, who was initially labeled "Punchers" upon release, is a notable example — soared in monetary value since there were only a few, limited toys with that specific error on their tag.

The Beanie Babies' strategy of exclusivity combined with McDonald's free Happy Meal toy made a rather strange pair — at least, on paper. Beanie Babies were not at all like the plastic toys typically offered in the folded, cardboard Happy Meal boxes. Their soft texture could be ruined with a single dropped ketchup packet, which did not necessarily make them a logical choice for a joint promotional campaign.

Regardless, the McDonald's marketing team approached Ty, Inc about integrating Beanie Babies into a Happy Meal promotion around 1996. McDonald's was not shy about taking popular characters, movies, or brands and miniaturizing them into Happy Meal form. For the fast food giant, though, generating more traffic into McDonald's establishments meant tapping into the cultural zeitgeist and elevating their toys to the status of collector items.

Warner, however, was insistent that the partnership with McDonald's not dilute his brand's value. Keeping the toys' premium reputation intact involved maintaining distinct ties to core Beanie Babies characters. For his part, Warner coveted the massive advertising and distribution power of McDonald's. Beanie Babies could reach massive and new audiences unfamiliar with the toys while creating a whole new, highly exclusive line of dolls only available through one, specific outlet. Thus, Teenie Beanies were born and, with them, a new era of fast food collectibles.

Promotion of Teenie Beanies came when audiences were primed to collect — and, in many ways, compete — for the stuffed animals. The original Teenie Beanies collection was made up of 10 characters, including Chops the Lamb, Splash the Orca Whale, and Chocolate the Moose. The initial inventory for this set of Teenie Beanies sold out 25 days ahead of schedule because of their popularity. Resellers collected the toys and scalped them for outrageous prices. Adults intentionally purchased multiple Happy Meals just to heighten their chances of receiving certain characters. Customers argued with each other and McDonald's staff about characters that were hard to find, and a 1997 CNN report on Teenie Beanies described how a delivery man with cases of them was tackled by customers.

Drive-through lines stretched for blocks at McDonald's establishments across the country. Television commercials encouraged kids and their parents to buy Happy Meals and in-store posters and displays highlighted each available Teenie Beanie next to a checkbox so guests could visualize the characters they hadn't yet received. Children and adults visited McDonald's for the sole purpose of determining which Teenie Beanie was available on that day and at that location.

As the frenzy increased, McDonald's began implementing rules like ensuring that each customer only received one toy. In some locations, staff allowed guests to purchase the Teenie Beanie without a Happy Meal to cut down on food waste. Swapping events allowed guests with multiples of the same character to trade with other collectors for the ones they had left to collect. In short, Teenie Beanies were everywhere, and, by extension, so was McDonald's.

At the end of the original campaign, a 1998 Washington Post article reported that Happy Meal sales had doubled. With about 100 million Happy Meals sold in the first week and a half of April, it's estimated that McDonald's earned a gross revenue of $250 million — just in that 10-day period alone. The jaw-dropping success of Teenie Beanies greatly contributed to McDonald's toy strategy, particularly for the next decade or so. Just two years later, McDonald's promoted a piecemeal Inspector Gadget character whose body only became "whole" once consumers bought Happy Meals with all the requisite limbs.

When it came to Ty, Inc., exact numbers from the partnership are varied, but Forbes reported that Ty Warner — the man behind the brand and sole owner of Ty, Inc. at the time — had an adjusted gross income of $662 million in 1999. This number surpassed the combined earnings of both Hasbro and Mattel. The high visibility of the Teenie Beanies due to McDonald's advertising undoubtedly improved general awareness of the toys and inspired new consumers to join what was already a booming community of Beanie Baby collectors.

After the 1997 promotion, repeats of the Teenie Beanie offer in Happy Meals occurred sporadically for the next several years. Even as recently as 2019, McDonald's released Teeny Tys to celebrate the Happy Meal's 40th anniversary. Although the craze has never again reached the frantic pitch of 1997's Teenie Beanies release, the consistent return of the toys speaks to their continued popularity.

Although countless toy pairings have been attempted throughout the intervening decades, no fast food establishment, including McDonald's, has ever managed to replicate the success of the 1997 Teenie Beanie campaign. A standout moment during arguably the peak of the fast food industry's zenith, the Teenie Beanie craze tapped into a pre-existing cultural fad that transformed it into a marketing phenomenon.

Adhering to similar tactics as Warner himself, McDonald's capitalized on the message of product scarcity to generate urgency and the desire to buy. This combination led to an epic pairing between a fast food giant and a megalith built of stuffed toys.

Today, the children of the '90s are nearing middle age, and many have kids of their own. Even with the negative messages surrounding the unhealthiness of fast food, McDonald's remains a cornerstone within nearly every U.S. community. Indoor play places are filled with the screams of children hopped up on sugar and french fries. And yes, Happy Meal toys still abound — for better or worse. None of them, though, are nearly as cool as Chocolate the Moose or the original Teenie Beanies.