Get in the Car, Kids—McDonald’s is Bringing Back Collector’s Cups

If you’re anywhere around the age of 40 today, you remember the unparalleled joy a McDonald’s Happy Meal brought to your childhood.

It was a treat to eat at the Golden Arches with your family. You got your food in a cool cardboard box with a yellow “M’ handle. You filled a kid-size cup all by yourself with orange Hi-C from the fountain machine. You fought with your siblings over who got to sit on the Hamburgler stool. You opened your bag of Grimace-shaped crunchy cookies before you ate your actual food and secretly gloated about what a rebel you were.

And then, there were the Happy Meal toys. We got the good stuff: a hamburger with eyes that transformed into another thing with eyes. The California Raisins. Real Hot Wheels cars. Those tiny little video camera-looking things you could see images from The Rescuers inside when you peered through its one-centimeter viewfinder. Beanie Babies. Chicken McNugget guys. Actual VHS tapes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

And, of course, the crème de la crème: collectible glass cups.

My neighbor had the Smurfs AND Garfield sets (yes, I was appropriately jealous). There were Flinstones, the Muppets, Snoopy. I still let out a little squeal when I see one at a thrift store or garage sale. The shape, the feel, that instant nostalgia—it goes straight to that tiny, permanent corner of our ’80s and ’90s kid brains.

McDonald’s, naturally, realizes this (not to mention its chief marketers and execs are probably all our age). So it will come as no surprise that the fast food giant is about to tap into that vintage vibe and release a brand new set of collector’s cups.

Beginning August 13th, customers can get one of the six limited edition cups with a Collector’s Meal—during breakfast hours that’s a sausage and egg sandwich, hash browns, and coffee; for lunch and beyond it’s a 10-piece nugget or Big Mac, fries, and a drink.

There is one notable difference: the 2024 cups are “shatter-resistant BPA-free plastic.” Reboots never can quite capture the original magic completely, after all.

Here are the six designs:

My teenager just walked by, saw the cups on the screen, and said, “That’s at McDonald’s? Can we go to McDonald’s?”

Yes, my child, yes we can. Hurry up, August 13th!

in 20 years ur gonna be happy u collected all 6 limited edition cups. Collector’s Meal 8.13. pic.twitter.com/IMhOBhydwL

— McDonald's (@McDonalds) August 7, 2024

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Articles by Carolyn Moore

Carolyn Moore

Carolyn has served as Editor-in-Chief of Her View From Home since 2017. A long time ago, she worked in local TV news and fell in love with telling stories—something she feels grateful to help women do every day at HVFH. She lives in flyover country with her husband and five kids but is really meant to be by the ocean with a good book and a McDonald's fountain Coke. 

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