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The Trojan Happy Meal


avatartoy.JPGSo I’m in the checkout line at Safeway the other day with my almost 4-year-old son, Henry. This is always a touchy moment, because he’s usually ready to be anywhere else by the time we get done grocery shopping.

This particular day, however, something caught his attention. “Daddy, it’s Jake!” he chirped. Looking around, I took a second to realize what he was talking about. And it was Jake. No, Jake Gyllenhall wasn’t doing his grocery shopping in Colorado Springs that day. It was Jake Sully, the 10-foot-tall blue Na’vi hero from the movie Avatar. Specifically, it was a life-sized cardboard cutout of his character, a display for the just-released DVD of James Cameron’s movie.

It was a moment that, quite frankly, took my breath away.

My son hasn’t seen Avatar, of course. And it took me a moment to realize how he could possibly recognize the big blue alien in front of us. So what’s the answer, you ask?

Two words: Happy Meal.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but McDonald’s is a brand Henry knows about. Why? Because they package their cheeseburgers with toys. Once upon a time, we purchased a Happy Meal for him that included, you guessed it, a Jake Sully action figure. I probably told him what the character’s name was. And Henry remembered that when we ran into Jake at Safeway.

Henry doesn’t know about Wendy’s or Burger King or Carl’s Junior. But he does know about McDonald’s, because the Happy Meals come with cool “special treats.”

Using hamburgers to push movies. Using movies to push hamburgers. And pushing both of those things at 4-year-olds everywhere who have put two and two together and realized that the Golden Arches equals a fun new toy.

Call it the Trojan Happy Meal.

Obviously, Daddy and Mommy bear responsibility here, too, for purchasing the Happy Meal in the first place. That said, Henry’s ability to recognize a movie character because of a Happy Meal toy he’d gotten is sobering evidence of how powerful and ubiquitous entertainment and fast-food marketing have become today.