TriCon Foods - Fast Food Toys Promo Cards (1999)

When initial rumors about the kid meal toys in the U.S. began to circulate, it was reported that at KFC at least, kid meal toys would come with a separate trading card. My very first visit to KFC proved that this rumor was not quite true.

The Australian Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants are providing trading cards with a kid's meal purchase. In the U.S. a variety of trading card is found with each toy, but I highly doubt many people even realize they are receiving one.

In the U.S., each kid's meal toy comes packaged in a very nice card board box. This box, when stacked together with all of the other kid's meal toy boxes, helps form a mural scene for Episode One. It's a very clever and well made promotion, and one that makes getting each and every toy a near necessity if you want to see the mural.

These American boxes aren't just good for making murals though. The inside of each box is also a small backdrop scene for the toy inside. If your toy is a Gungan sub, the scene inside is something appropriately watery. Receive a toy of Darth Maul's Sith Speeder, and expect the inside of the box to provide a nice Tatooine backdrop. These boxes are truly wonderful little collectible's in their own right. Even this was not enough however for the clever designers who went one step further and made one flap on each box into a small trading card for the character the toy is associated with. The card shows a picture of the character, their name, and is outlined slightly. A nice perforated edge helps make it possible to neatly tear off the flap card for separate collecting.

Personally, all of my cards will remain as box flaps, mostly because the card backs help continue the inside scene for each box. I like them better as part of the box, than I do removed. It is possible however, that at some future point a collector will discover one of the box flap cards and wonder what it is they have! While the cards, separated from the box have minimal novelty value as a collectible, they are a great secret prize as part of the box itself.