Or maybe it was just because the ‘80s were more boring, a time when kids could be reasonably entertained by a drinking glass. Maybe it was because, as kids, we pined for a cool drinking vessel of our own. I don’t know what it is about these glasses, but looking back on them all these years later, they inspired the same sense of joy I felt when I pulled one out of the cabinet long after the Happy Meals that accompanied them had been eaten. There were other glasses, including a set from Hardee’s my husband owned as a child featuring Alvin and the Chipmunks. Released by McDonald’s in 1981 to promote the The Great Muppet Caper, it was a steal at just $5. Of those on offer in this dusty antique mall, my favorite glass was emblazoned with Miss Piggy riding a motorcycle. If you were a kid during these decades, one of these glasses is likely still sitting in a cupboard at your parents’ house. They were typically free with the purchase of a meal and collected in sets, with different characters from Care Bears, the Peanuts cartoons, The Smurfs, and others. And sure, you can still find collectible plastic cups - like this Post Malone collection from fried chicken chain Raising Cane’s - but the glasses that preceded them had a lot more gravitas. It’s a thought I had over the weekend while browsing an antique store in Oklahoma City, where one vendor had a staggering collection of vintage juice glasses from fast-food chains in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But brands are missing out on an opportunity to tap into a particularly deep well of millennial sentimentality: adorable drinking glasses adorned with our favorite pop culture characters. It’s a phenomenon we’ve seen a lot of in recent months, most pointedly with the blockbuster release of Barbie, which has spawned pink fro-yo, pasta, even a Pepto-pink-sauced Burger King burger in Brazil. In an era where seemingly any scrap of intellectual property can be turned into a film, so too can anything be turned into a food merch opportunity.
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