Look, I can't help it.  There's lots of McDonald's everywhere, and if I swing by there around lunch and get a Happy Meal, I get a free Transformers toy I can photograph for the Transformers Wiki.  I don't even want these things.  But they come free with food.  And nobody else is photographing these things for the wiki.

And they come free with food.

(Now, if I may go off on a tangent about the food, I have to say I'm pleased that Happy Meals now come with both fries AND sliced apples in addition to your entree.  You don't have to choose, you automatically get apples.  And the fries now come in this adorably small cardboard container.  It's a very small portion.  Adorably small.   Like, hit by a shrink ray.  Very welcome for a dude who should really be maintaining his diet better.)

I have four of these guys by now, just by luck of the draw, and thankfully getting a different dude every time, but today I'm only going to talk about Ratchet.  I just like Ratchet.  Plus Ratchet comes with stickers!  You know, like the TakaraTomy version of the normal retail version.  ...does this mean I can start derisively comparing the TakaraTomy version to HappyMeal toys?  I won't.  It's just, well, "like a Happy Meal toy" is a common epithet.

Putting on stickers is fun!  ...though less fun when the sticker placement directions are printed on the back of the sticker sheet itself.  I'm probably old enough and smart enough to figure out where these stickers go  unaided, but my paranoid self kept on flipping the sheet around obsessively just to make sure I was getting things right.

The toy's gimmick is probably the least awesome of the ones I've gotten so far.  Bumblebee shoots a missile.  Knock Out has flip-out hood cannons.  Bulkhead shoots discs.  Ratchet has a variation of Knockout's flip-out weaponry, in that it's spring-loaded but doesn't fire anything, but it feels more anticlimactic.  You reveal the base of the cannon by pushing down on the back of the lever that comprises the roof.  Then you press the Autobot symbol on that same roof to make a cannon pop out.  The problem is, it's a very small cannon.  It's not impressive.  At first I thought it must be a tiny LED or something because why else would it be so small.

But it's something to do.  And I got to put stickers on it.  And it's Ratchet.  And it came with McNuggets.

Hi, this is Maggie!

So for the first time in my life, I went to McDonald's to buy toys at 10:00am on the Friday they came out. My first trip to the nearest McDonald's was a hit; they had two of the McYoung Justice toys I craved.

Unfortunately (?), they were Superboy and Superman. I mean, that's cool: I'm totally getting them all, but those who know me understand who really makes my clock tick. Oh well. The search continues!

So, while toting my husband to the Urgent Care center for his bronchitis, I interrupted our trip twice to check other McDonalds near the doctor's office, as all good wives should. Sadly, either they only had more Superpeople, or they hadn't gotten the toys in at all.

Anyway, I am whelmed by the toys! Maybe I had really low expectations (and I did, in fact), but the molds are relatively show accurate and detailed. Superman's head's a wee small, but he can't seem to brain in the show anyway.

Superboy's red symbol on his chest lights up red and so do his eyes. This is a little weird because it's a plot point that he doesn't have all of Superman's powers, including the ability to fly and heat vision. Superman's head tilts down a little so that he can condescend to Superboy.

They each have a nifty button on the back that makes them punch things. Superman raises two arms, and Superboy punches with just one. If Superboy didn't feel inferior before now his only dream is to one day to punch with both arms instead of one. POOR SB WE STILL LOVE YOU.

Overall excited for the rest!

Hey, I bet you thought you were getting Generations Scourge or RtS Grapple today, didn't ya?  Tough noogies, yer gettin' ponies!  Some things are just that important.

McDonald's Happy Meals are doing one of their usual split boy/girl sets, this time between My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and some boring Tonka trucks or something.   Man, fuck that Tonka shit.  I want my fuckin' ponies.  There's a McDonald's within three blocks walking distance of our house, much to the consternation of my health, but this particular location was being amazingly stubborn in getting this wave of Happy Meal toys in.  There was a period last week where I was checking in on every lunch just in case, but no, there were just the remainders of whatever lame stuff was in the previous promotion.  Maggie and I visited this McDonald's again today, and finally I had found my fuckin' ponies.

Maggie suggested also getting a Happy Meal just so we could double up on pony goodness.  (I know you can buy them separately from the food, but I always feel like a schmuck for doing so, for some reason.)  She asked which ponies they had, and the helpful lady at the register grabbed three baggies from the bin.  Maggie immediately picked out Applejack, who is one of the few ponies she tolerates.  But me, I had to choose between Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy.  This was a really rough choice, and I was on the spot.  I mean, Pinkie Pie is awesome.  She's basically Robin (which is why Maggie hates her).  And Fluttershy is adorkable.  She's basically Dina (which is why Maggie hates her).  No grown man should have to choose between his favorite ponies!

I was about to suggest, fuck it all, just give me three Happy Meals, but the register lady reminded us that we could buy the the third toy separately from the meal.  I reluctantly agreed, despite my usual reservations.  At least this would prevent me from having to make a real decision.  We took our ponies home.

The Happy Meal ponies are inarticulated, of course.  They're solid plastic other than their "real" pony tail hair.  Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy are sculpted to be seen from one side; the other side's face is sculpted over in their mane.  I assume this is to preserve character model accuracy from the one side.  The characters as seen on the television show are not designed strictly for three-dimensional depiction.  They're Flash-animated (or facsimile thereof), and as such are designed for maximum abstracted cuteness, not hyper realism.  The main being sculpted over one eye seems to work for the introverted Fluttershy, but it's disappointing that I can't witness the full insane fury of both of Pinkie Pie's eyes.  Applejack retains both her eyes.  Her mane is done up in a pony tail (so to speak), so it can be sculpted out of the way.  I do wish Applejack had her cowboy hat.  I think it's an important part of her appearance.

Each pony comes with their own unique display stand that is shaped like their individual Cutie Mark.  Fluttershy's stand is a butterfly, Applejack's is an apple, and Pinkie Pie... I decided hers is a whoopie cushion.  Maggie tells me, no, it's a balloon,  you dimwit, but a whoopie cushion is way cooler.  Each display stand comes apart in the middle to form two combs.  You know, for brushing.  This is pretty cool.  Well, it'd be cooler if the teeth of the combs were, well, thinner, because it's not particularly conducive to combing hair if your comb's teeth are half a centimeter thick and fairly blunt at the ends.  Still, it's a nice thought.

I need more.

What has happened to me.