Courtesy of McDonald’s
Audio By Carbonatix
The celebrity meal trend continues, and this time it’s bringing back a long-lost food mascot that we thought we’d never see again.
McDonald’s is teaming up with DJ and Spaghetti Boys founder Kerwin Frost to create another grown-up Happy Meal concept. As if that weren’t cool enough, McDonald’s is bringing back the McNugget Buddies as part of the box design and promotional campaign. The box will go on sale at participating McDonald’s across North Texas starting Monday, Dec. 11.
The new Kerwin Frost Box features the Harlem native in McNugget Buddy form as the new “Mayor of Frost Way,” and the box is wider than the average Happy Meal container.
No Happy Meal of any size or marketing age bracket can be called such without food and a special surprise toy inside. The new Kerwin Frost Box comes with the fan-favorite 10-piece Chicken McNugget meal or a Big Mac meal also known as the “number one” to McDonald’s heavy users.
The toy also brings back the long-lost McNugget Buddies for the first time in 25 years. Each meal comes with one of six McNugget Buddy characters: Mayor Frost, the “Wise Stylist” Don Bernice, the “Neighborhood Hero” Uptown Moe, the “Curious Optimist” Waffutu, the “Cool Guy” BRRRICK and the “Dreamer” Darla.
Frost is responsible for bringing back the McNugget Buddies, who were once one of McDonald’s most popular commercial spokes-nuggets and Happy Meal toys. He said in a statement that “it was my dream to collect all the McNugget Buddies.”
“Now coming up with my own special set of Buddies – each one representing different aspects of self-expression – it’s unreal, a dream come true,” Frost added. “McDonald’s has been a great partner from day one and they’ve truly allowed me to create without limits.”
The Kerwin Frost Box is the second adult Happy Meal concept to come out of Hamburger University. McDonald’s introduced the concept last year with the fashion brand Cactus Plant Flea Market. This is also the latest contribution to the celebrity meal brand trend that’s permeated pretty much every restaurant that operates on a two-way speaker system and a drive-through window. Dallas and North Texas are often the guinea pigs for these meal marketing experiments.
McDonald’s has introduced concepts like the Saweetie meal and the Travis Scott meal. Other places like Invasion offer the Cardi B buttermilk-fried chicken sandwich, and KFC once offered the awful Jack Harlow meal. Starbucks didn’t make an official endorsement deal with its “Taylor Swift latte,” the name that fans gave it back in 2021 when the coffee chain announced its new holiday cups as the start of “Red Season” on social media.
