Bucketful of Boos

There's been a lot of buzz in the Halloween community for the past few weeks about the re-release of the McDonald's Halloween Boo Buckets, particularly among millelenials who remember these from their childhood.

I previously posted about the earlier 1980's version of these buckets.  Since then, I've acquired some of the later series from the late 80's, early 90's and even up to the early 2000's.  Again, these don't do much for me as they were past my Halloween prime, but the kids like them.  "The Kids" being in their late 30's and early 40's now.

The Tears (and Blood) of a Clown

Bridging off of yesterday's post, I present this Collegville/Imagineering Vampire Blood from 1995.  This also answers the question, whatever happened to Imagineering.

Now Just About the Time Those Duke Boys Were Headed Past a Garage Sale...

Driving home from a friend's house a few weeks ago, I came across a late-day garage sale and stopped.  I found a few vintage 80's items and among them were these McDonald's collectors cups from 1982 featuring The Dukes of Hazzard.

"The Dukes of Hazzard" had one of the best tv intros of the late 70's/early 80's with great music by Waylon Jennings.

Would You Like Another Plate with That?

As told here, a few months back I came across a couple of McDonald's collectors plates.  At today's estate sale, I made an addition to the set.  Along with a duplicate of the Summer Day plate, I found this one for 50 cents:

"Ronald McDonald likes to have great fall fun...but wait till poor Grimace sees what he's done."

I'd like to see the follow up plate to this where Grimace goes medieval on Ronald with the leaf rake for messing up his leaf pile.

Would You Like a Plate with That?

Frankly, I always found Ronald and the gang to be a little creepy.  Their Sid and Marty Krofft-esque features were a little too much for me and apparently for Sid and Marty as well as they sued McDonald's in the 1970's for copyright infringement.  The lawsuit forced McDonald's to retire Big Mac the cop and Mayor McCheese and soften the features of Captain Crook, the Hamburgler and the remaining characters.

These plates must have been offered prior to the settlement as they feature the earlier incarnations.

I bought this plate at the same sale.  It's not McDonald's, but equally creepy.  This plate is from Schnuck's, a local Missori grocery store and dates from 1980 which is about 4 years late for the Spirit of '76 vibe.

The plate is also a tie in with Six Flags over Mid-America and features non-descript characters from the theme park.  I vaguely recall these.  The one with the goggles went with the antique car ride.  The other two look like muppet knockoffs.

I paid 50 cents a piece for the plates.  They're not worth much, so they've been added to the rotation of kids plates in our house.