A new promotion has started at participating McDonald’s locations, and Nintendo fans should be pretty happy about it. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe toys are now included in Happy Meals, and they feature several racers from the Nintendo Switch game. The following figures will be offered: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Toad, Toadette, Yoshi, Gold Mario, and Rose Gold Peach. Each figure comes with stickers that can be used to decorate the Kart, and there are multiple Kart and wheel designs. For example, Luigi’s Kart is in anti-gravity mode, with the wheels turned in an upward position.
An image of the Happy Meal toys can be found below.
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Nintendo fans might find these designs familiar, and there’s a reason for that: McDonald’s has largely featured this same Happy Meal promotion twice now in the last decade. In summer 2014, McDonald’s had a promotion for Mario Kart 8 on Wii U, which featured mostly the same toy designs. In 2022, that promotion came back under a generic “Mario Kart” banner, with the Mario Kart visor toy from 2014 swapped for a new figure of Toadette. Now the promotion is back for a third time, but McDonald’s has changed things up a little bit.
This time around, all of the toys feature a new mechanic where kids can remove the body of the vehicle and swap the chassis. Some Karts like Luigi’s have the anti-gravity chassis, but if you want Toad to have it, you can swap the figures if you have both. Meanwhile, Donkey Kong and Bowser both have larger wheels and a bigger frame. The figures of Gold Mario and Rose Gold Peach are completely new, and the motorbikes from previous promotions (which came with Yoshi and Peach) have been dropped in favor of standard Karts. This was likely done so that all of the Karts could use the new swap mechanic.
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All in all, this is a pretty cool Mario Kart promotion! These figures have been great since McDonald’s first offered them, so it’s nice that fans young and old have another opportunity to obtain them. The new swap mechanic is also a good way to change things up from past promotions and should add an incentive to seek out multiple figures. There’s something kind of funny about a game this old getting another Happy Meal promotion, as opposed to toys based on a newer game, but it does make sense given the fact that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe continues to sell so well after all these years.
All of this serves as a reminder that we’ve basically been playing the same Mario Kart game for more than a decade now. Fans are starving for a new game in the series, but for now they’ll have to satisfy that hunger with some chicken nuggets, fries, and a toy instead.
Are you planning on picking up one of these new Mario Kart Happy Meal toys? Did you ever get any of the figures from previous promotions? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
