In early November, Disney was featured in a 100th Anniversary Happy Meal box. The toys featured around 60 characters from Disney's last 100 years. Ultimately, it was a bit of a letdown.
The character toys rolled out over the course of the month ending in early December. Like the month of March, it came in like a lion and out like a lamb. By the time the word got out that the toys were available, many McDonald's restaurants had already sailed past the first four to six in the series and opened the floodgates on the seventh and eighth characters.
I spoke with three different managers from three different McDonalds in my area and all three said they were never given the first three sets of characters in the series.
I also spoke with several Disney fans who were hoping to collect them. Many of them simply gave up a couple of weeks in. They found it frustrating to ask the counter clerks to see the toy containers to read the numbers on the back. They also found it frustrating that within the span of a day, the characters could jump more than three series.
Eventually, they stopped trying to collect them. My family attempted this as well but we gave up much earlier than most. To put it simply, as we sat and looked at the ones we did collect, we couldn't help but ask why we were doing it. In the end, we simply decided that the little plastic figures were cute but too much work to find them.
McDonalds may have done better by offering one series a day and each day having the next sequential number in line. This would bring people back without the stress of trying to find them. They could simply remove the opportunity to buy them individually and actually make guests buy a Happy Meal.
In the end, for many it simply ended without so much as a whimper. It just ended. Frankly, I'm glad I ended my pursuit after the first week.