That’s Right Casper – Halloween Happy Meal Buckets Are Coming Back in October

You remember. It's the late '80s or early '90s. School has been a session for a month or so, but that's okay because Halloween is just right around the corner.

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You start planning for your costume early - do you want to be Batman or a Power Ranger? Or maybe a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. You can't decide. No matter. It's October; your favorite month of the year.

It's the commercials that come first. They're your first indicator that the season was almost upon you.

There were the cereal commercials; Count Chocula and his crew greeted you like they were old friends. Then, there were the toy commercials. All of the things that you already usually coveted were made all the better because now they had a spooky twist to them. There were the soda commercials and the pizza commercials and all sorts of other commercials that, while usually mundane, entertained you endlessly simply because they invoked the spirit of the season.

But it was the McDonald's commercials that really put you in the mood for All Hallows Eve. There was just something about the fast food chain that captured the excitement of the season and bottled it up into 30 second mini movies that left you begging for more.

Maybe it was the food. Nothing looks better to a kid than a Big Mac or chicken McNuggies. Maybe it was Ronald. For a terrifying clown demon, he was pretty charming. But maybe, probably, it was the Happy Meals.

These weren't just normal Happy Meals, however. No, these were special Halloween-themed Happy Meals. That meant that they didn't simply come in the usual cool box. During this season, Happy Meals came in Halloween-themed buckets. There was a witch, a ghost, and a pumpkin and you had to have them all.

McDonald's Halloween Happy Meal buckets were a highlight of your childhood and now, for the first time in years, they're coming back for the Halloween season!

That's right, Casper. Halloween Happy Meal buckets are coming back and we made sure that our town would receive them as well.

"All of the Happy Meal pales will be coming back and it's nationwide, so that includes Casper," said Tim Deho, the manager of a Casper McDonalds. "We'll be getting them at the beginning of October."

Deho said that, as a manager he's excited because he's sure it will result in more customers. But he's even more excited as a father.

"I like [that they're doing this] because I remember these pails," Deho said. "And now me, being in my mid-thirties, it's something that I can share with my kids."

And that's why things like this are so magical. Nostalgia is a powerful tool. It's something that, sometimes, feels so good it hurts.

“Nostalgia – its delicate, but potent," Don Draper once said in an episode of Mad Men. "In Greek, nostalgia literally means ‘the pain from an old wound.’ It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.”

And if ever there was a place that we were known and loved, it was McDonalds.

It wasn't just the food. It wasn't the play place. It wasn't even the toys. It was the entire experience. It was being with your family, and your friends, in one of your favorite places, eating bad for you but delicious food out of a Halloween-themed bucket. And then, you took your bucket home and used it to trick or treat. It even glowed in the dark!

It was a memory, that's all. And now, thanks to McDonalds bringing their Halloween Happy Meal buckets back, you can create all new memories.