Happy Toys Means Happy Trouble!

I remember once as a kid wanting to go to McDonalds and get fries and burgers and soda and all the fun stuff a six-year old thrills for, and my mother saying "nope, it's unhealthy, and I have milk and fruit and bland crap at home for you to eat." How did this impasse get resolved? Well of course I got my fast food Happy Meal, right? Wrong! I was six! I had about as much leverage as Luxembourg did when Nazi Germany wanted to get all Hitlery on them.

So this lawsuit definitely falls in the assinine column. A mother suing McDonalds for including toys in Happy Meals, because that makes the kids want unhealthy Happy Meals more? Unless these little rapscallions have part time jobs and go into McDonalds by themselves and buy their own meals, it's immaterial whether the Happy Toy appeals to them. THE PARENT STILL IS THE ONE DECIDING TO BUY THE DAMN MEAL. How on earth is it easier to file suit against McDonalds to force them to stop including the toy in their meals compared to just telling your little monster they cant' have the damn thing???

They might have had a case if we were talking about deceptive marketing to adults, or if the Happy Toys contained heroin or something like that. But I just don't see the situation where a parent has their little crotchfruit screaming that they want the damn toy so they have to go to McDonalds and the parent says "ok, you win this round, kid! After all, you do so much to make my own life easier." It's more likely the case that the parent says "I'm going to start counting. If I reach 'four' you're going to end up just like your brother Timmy." and the kid says "but Mom, I don't have a brother Timmy." and the parent says "Exactly."

Fortunately, the suit was dismissed, but what's not so fortunate is that time and money had to be wasted on such crap. We're really making a mockery of our legal system with stuff like this.