30 Strangest Ways That Food Companies Tried Appealing to Kids

‘This random hunk of plastic should get the kids riled up, right?’
30 Strangest Ways That Food Companies Tried Appealing to Kids

If we’ve learned one thing today, it’s that fast-food and cereal companies should focus a little more on the food itself, and a little less on the “toy” that goes with it. 

Let the toy companies worry about children’s entertainment while you worry about the tummy-fillers they’ll need after a long day of play. That way the kids could have the best of both worlds instead of, well, whatever this is.

Monster Mitts

Monster Mitts Post HONEY COMB ONE INSIDE THIS BOX PLASTIC MONSTER = win MAN MITT I CRACKED.COM Year-round Halloween! In 1974, Honecomb offered plastic gloves with ghoulish designs like blue veins and eyeballs, red veins and spiders, a scaly sea monster, and one that looked like your skin was unzipping to expose your bones.

Steve Urkel for President Campaign Buttons

Steve Urkel For President Campaign Buttons Urkelos Urkelos Ralston SWEETENED SEREAL NEW! - URKEL me PRESIDENT FREE INSIDE BUTTOR WASHINGTON, WIN FOR b TRIP - . D.C. TO NET WT 02 gm CRACKED.COM Not enough 90s nostalgia out there for ya? Love him or barely tolerate him, Steve Urkel had his own cereal in 1991, and Urkel-Os promoted itself with some nifty campaign buttons and a sweepstakes for a trip to Washington D.C.

Taco Bell’s Plush Chihuahua Toys

Speak ad slogans, boy! Say yo quiero TACO BELL CRACKED.COM This version of the Yo Quiero chihuahua toy portrayed him as a revolutionary, complete with Che Guevara beret, leading to newspaper headlines like Latino Leader Calls For Taco Bell Boycott. Viva Gorditas!

Dairy Queen’s Green-Skinned Demon With Detachable Ponytails

Mommy, there's a creature in my DAIRY QUEEN End CC Series f DQ COLLECT I Them ALL! e س JEON BLIZZARD WARNING: NAMA - - - Sympo CRACKED.COM Like most people, we've imagined what might be living inside our Raspberry Fudge Bliss Blizzards. Turns out it's a green-skinned demon with detachable ponytails. Collect 'em all!

McDonald’s TreasureLand Adventure Sega Genesis Game

16-bit Ronald makes the world safe for MCDONALDS SEGA Treasure McDonalds Treasure Land Adventure GENESIS McDonalds GENESIS - MasterLand Adventing GENESIS SEGA - GA SEGA GENESIS SEGA il SEGA - SEGA CRACKED.COM From the folks who brought you Sonic, Treasure Land Adventures gets surprisingly good reviews. Ronald beats up anthropomorphic food to gather pieces of a treasure map, which ultimately sends the clown back to McDonaldland for a heapin' helping of cholesterol.

Subway’s Rubber Sandwiches

This playset is almost as tasty as the real SUBWAY SUBWAY CRACKED.COM Slapping rubbery slices of faux meat and almost-cheese onto hard slabs of bread isn't that far off from actually working at Subway. Congratulations, son - - you're a Sandwich Artist™!

Plastic Dunkin’ Donuts

Kid noses run on DUNKIN' DUNKIN' DONUTS N DONUTS DUNKIN® DUNKIN' DONUTS MILK CRACKED.COM - de MAKE THE DONUTS - There's nothing that crazy about plastic versions of your favorite foods. It's the built-in donut smell that makes these beauties special, guaranteed to make your dog chew them to bits.

Poppin’ Ships

Poppin'Ships CRACKED.COM Real life Battleship, anyone? In the 1960's Cap'n Crunch offered 3 handheld galleon ships with a little button that, if hit with a flicked marble, would explode into pieces.

Star Wars Droid Viewers

Star Wars Droid Viewers reveal an IMAGE From STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS EACH WITH oroid viewer STAR STAR WARS YARS a & orold viewers TO collect STAR WARS CRACKED.COM You could see an image from the movie before it premiered! In 2015, Cinnamon Toast Crunch got us all pumped for The Force Awakens with С-ЗРО, R2-D2 and BB-8 Droid Viewers that revealed a never-before seen frame from the movie.

KFC Frying Station

Stick your hand in the fry bin at KFC PEPSI CRACKED.COM Now you can earn play-mininum- wage for serving up fake chicken legs. Complete with oodles of imitation KFC food, numerous spoken words, and frying sound, but only when you press your palm on the faux-grill.

Chick-Fil-A’s Plush Cow Toys

Cows say kill the chickens at CHICK-FIL-A SMALL FRY EAT MOR CHINING CRACKED.COM Dress your toddler in waffle-fry gear, then give him the cow toy that says Dear god, don't kill me. Take the fowl. I'm begging you, please eat another living creature that is not me.

Baskin Robbins Knock-off LEGOs

Knock-off Legos make for cool fun at BASKIN ROBBINS baskiN BR robbins 842534 baski, BR robbins - BR baskin - BR en TUAT baskin fooding CRACKED.COM This made-in-Korea beauty is 100% Official, Genuine Product. Featuring the famous Baskin Robbins truck (wut?) and 50-ish fully compatible building bricks, it's a bargain at only $129.99.

The Noid

Would it kill you to avoid THE NOID N CRACKED.COM Are we that desperate for nostalgia that we're paying good Funko Pop money for third-tier, last-century pizza mascots? We don't need to memorialize every bit of pop culture ephemera - that's what Family Guy is for.

McDonald's Playsets

Eat your friends at MCDONALDS Fisher-Price Little People - M D'S RESTAURANT LG . PLAYSET - McDonald's McDonald's files Agencia CRACKED.COM The playset features both an anthropomorphic hamburger pal and a play restaurant where you can order and eat... hamburgers. Hopefully, the burgers you buy inside don't have huge googly eyes.

Ghost Detectors

Ghost Detector APPLE JACKS CRACKED.COM Apple Jacks went dark with this one. In 1989, you knew that if this Ghost Detector you found in a cereal box moved around in your hand, there was definitely a ghost in your room!

Digital Watches

Digital Watches Honey- COMB CEREAL GRACKED.COM You didn't have to send away for these... They were right there in the box. Honeycomb cereal had as many as 8 styles of digital watches that also displayed the date, which isn't thrilling by today's standards, but in 1988 it was pretty exciting.

Atomic Sub Models

Atomic Submarines FREE Atomic'Sub MODEL CRACKED.COM Plutonium not included. In the early 60s, Kellogg's cereals offered small plastic submarines that, when fueled by baking powder, would actually submerge themselves and race around the bathtub.

A Real Deed to 1 Square Inch of Land in Gold Rush Country

1 Inch Of Land In The Yukon FREE GOLD RUSH LAND Get Real Deed to 1 sq. inch of Land in Yukon Gold Rush Country! It's Free! Mall order blank below with just bestop FACTS ABOUT Deed makes you owner from any one of these delicious Quaker beeakfast cereals of here YOUR YUKON LAND OF Park-O-Ten's your favorite, and Quaker Guarantee Seal instruct of bostop) The - - - Semova Kindlee Case Kind Country Tukos - Cannilla Her One Rush doing - - Reight rimale with - I - Sweeting - - Puffed Mark Muffets adidas ... - - - your

Terrariums

Terrariums Past MARSHMALLOW ALPHA- BITS Date CRACKED.COM I know my love of gardening started in a box of Alpha-bits. Okay... That was a lie, but Alpha-bits cereal enticing kids to grow your own garden with one of three terrariums-Sweet Basil, Garden Cress, or Violet Queen Alyssum-back in 1980 was very odd but so very real.

Pedometers

CRACKED MCDONALD'S PEDOMETERS. STEP-iT STEP-IT STEP-iT STEP-iT STEP-iT STEP-iT These Step It pedometers found in Happy Meals were a feeble attempt to prove McDonald's cares about health. Maybe they just needed proof that kids don't care about their step or calorie count.

MP3 Players

CRACKED MCDONALD'S MP3 PLAYERS. GULANNA CRAZY FROS 1 Momb - McDonald's got in on the MP3 craze of the early 2000s with MP3 players in Happy Meals. It was basically cheap plastic shells that played one low quality popular song from Britney Spears and others.

‘VR’ Headsets

CRACKED MCDONALD'S VR HEADSETS. Promoting it as a VR headset, McDonald's in Sweden had kids re-fold their Happy Meal box, put an iPhone inside of it, and view it with the kit's plastic lenses.

Records

60'S - 80'S Playable records Boo Berry the The Frankenberry Count Chocola Monsters 33% RPM FULL Go Disco FIDELITY INSTRUCTIONS 1.SUGAR DADDY L.Pare phonograph - Democrating 103% BMW 2.GOIN BACK TO PUNCH our CENTER HOLE TROBIC - BY before seoh - INDIANA A Part - - - - David HOT CRACKED COM LOVING YOU They actually managed to print music onto the glossy back of a cardboard cereal box, which you could cut out and spin on a record player. And they sounded very much like they were printed on cardboard.

Spoonman

1958 SPOONMAN 7% on NET WT SPOON SIZE FREE INSIDE! SHREDDED WHEAT JUNIORS A PLASTIC NABISCO SPOONMAN from OUTER SPACE THE EIDES ON YOUR SPOON AS TOU SAT CRACKED COM COLLECT ALL 21 These little aliens perched on your spoon and stared directly into your eyes as you shoveled Shredded Wheat Juniors into your maw.

The Rock Grabber

1974 An elaborate rock-yoinking device NEW Post YA88A DABBA DOO! NATURAL ORANGE Larger FLINTSTONE LEMON - TANGLINIZ FLAVORS Size SMIT THE FRUITY ONE ace PLASTIC COREA ROCK GRABBER PEBBLES INSIDE THIS BOX! ACTUAL SIZE Extends a tutt BY inches CRACKED.COM Fruity Pebbles missed a golden opportunity to call this thing a Yabba Dabba Grabba.

Air Cars

Balloon-powered vehicles Mini-Skateboard FORTIFIED WITH FREE 8 ESSENTIAL VITAMINS in HON INSIDE! COOKIE Race them, trade them Available in 4 different colors and 6 different Crisp FREE designs! ACTURN - Collect all six - CRACKED.COM Okay, so they weren't actually rideable. But the names alone make them worth the price of admission: you could collect Cookie Jarvis Skateboards, Freakies Speed Boats, and Sir Grapefellow's Air Car.

One Pocket Printer

1973 A miniature printer RED BLUE GREEN OB-SELLOW ONE PLASTIC ALPHA POCKET PRINTER ALPHA PRINTS NAMES NOTES EITHER SECRET MESSAGES ALPHABET SIMPLY mess EACH TAB BETWEEN EMBOSSER FOREFINGER AND OR THUND SYMBOLS & NUMBERS EMBOSSER CRACKED.COM Printer is doing some heavy lifting here, as it was really just an inkless embossing stamp that clamped down and left the faint mark of a letter on a piece of paper. But how very on brand for Alpha-Bits, the cereal you can barely tell is in your mouth!

Starbots

1984 Knockoff Transformers Provides FREE INSIDE Kellogg's 8 essential vitamins HONEY &iron STARBOT SMACKS COLLECT Have edicivol robot for - asyou change each S trying arong Decorate then with and build comp ONEYSWEETENED one conver ting 100 specialty HONEY EES OF WHEAT SMACKIN' GOOD! GRACKED.COM Kellogg's stepped to the motherfrickin' Transformers franchise with their Starbots. They didn't even turn into characters, just... other vehicles: Have plenty of fun on land and in the air as you change each Starbot from a sleek flying aircraft to a land-roving robot.

U.S. Navy Frogmen

1955 US Navy Frogmen FLAKES FLAKES THE They to fart believ under water BY mum NAVY FROGMAN FREE FREE Dives FROGMAN and IN THIS PACKAGE! adidas IN THIS PACKAGE Swimal see ESEE BACK POR of these threet - adidas - aure is CRACKED.COM Sua directions 20 side These were little cartesian divers that ran on high pressure propellant (AKA baking powder). This was back when you could straight-up lie about toys: WHAM... they dive into action to carry on underwater demolition duties.

Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures

1909 Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Kellogg's FUNNY JUNGLELAND MOVING PICTURES CRACKED.COM This was technically a mail-in offer --- they'd mail you the book with two proofs of purchase or a single dime -- but it was the first cereal box prize, and it kicked off an enduring tradition.

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