The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has taken issue with a new Happy Meal Campaign. Apparently the new Marvel Super Heroes promotion is objectionable to them, because they’re giving out action figures featuring a “man engulfed in flames” (the Human Torch,) and one that bellows “It’s clobbering time” at the touch of a button (that’d be The Thing.)
(In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a big fan of the Fantastic Four, the comic, not the movies, particularly in my adult years, but my family will attest to the fact that the ranting they’ve had to endure for the past half hour is not biased by this at all.)
Hey, you wanna know what else? The McDonald’s promotion features the mutilated corpses of multiple animals. I’ve personally reached a point where they could put live ammunition in a Happy Meal and it wouldn’t offend me less.
But oh, wait, yes it can. Because now I’m a parent, and I read things. Things like how children are much more likely to eat like their parents eat. It’s interesting, not having been to a McDonald’s for anything other than the use of their washroom for many years now, I hadn’t realized that they now serve Happy Meals with apple slices instead of french fries and apple juice instead of soda (details as PDF here.) None of that matters though, because the kids are watching their parents eat the fries and drink the pop, and guess what they want to mimic?
Seriously, even if it’s not the parents, it’s going to be the people they see in line. And with obesity rates being what they are, I think they’re going to see a lot of stuff, and it’s going to be a lot scarier than anything you can put in a box as the “prize inside.”
There was a time where I might (thought I doubt I’d go this far) reach a little to find something to complain about McDonald’s about. But really, the appropriateness of the toys? I’d rather hope for a world where eating dead animals requires as much imagination as the idea of the Human Torch.
Oh, and I found this picture at one point in my research for this. It’d be a shame to waste it:
(Story via BleegindCool.com, Image via McDonaldsPeople.com)
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I think I first saw this picture around the time “Supersize Me” came out, so it’s been circulating for a while.
That kid on the right. His arms don’t look real. Disturbing.
He looks like a human-sized plastic action figure… (you are what you eat?)
i feel sorry for the parents of these kids, no one who loves their children wants to harm them. They suffer from a lack of food awareness and education. Just because you have a low income and a lack of time doesn’t mean you have to eat unhealthy food. I probably couldn’t afford to feed my kids junk food all the time it is too expensive!
Scary sh*t!!
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