Fast-Food Pokémon Promos

KFC in the United States sold four Applause beanbag plush — Vulpix, Dratini, Seel, and Zubat — for $4.99 with a meal, alongside a run of seven promo cards: Ivysaur, Charizard, Pikachu, Onix, Scyther, Snorlax, and Dragonite. The campaign ran from November 1998 into January 1999.

The cards went on sale weeks before Base Set launched on 9 January 1999, making them some of the first English Pokémon cards the public could get.

The biggest fast-food Pokémon push ever, running 8 November to 31 December 1999 for Pokémon: The First Movie. 59 Kids Meal toys (marketed as 57), each with a PokéTrivia card covering all 151 Pokémon plus Mew — and when toys ran short, nine-card “Master Sheets” were handed out instead. From 15 November, six 23-karat gold-plated cards — Charizard, Jigglypuff, Mewtwo, Pikachu, Poliwhirl, and Togepi — sold for $1.99 with a meal, each in a Poké Ball case with a certificate of authenticity. The toy line was rerun in March 2000 for the VHS release.

The Poké Ball containers were recalled in December 1999 after two infants suffocated on the ball halves. Later Poké Ball toys added air holes.

24 interactive plastic card toys for Pokémon the Movie 2000, distributed with Kids Meals from 24 July to 30 August 2000 — light-up cards, glow-in-the-dark cards, squirting cards, and talking cards.

McDonald’s ran regional Pokémon campaigns: six spinning-top toys in France in spring 2001, and eight air-pump action toys in Japan over the 2001–02 New Year period, with plush available for an extra fee.

Five toys distributed with Wendy’s Kids’ Meals in the United States from 19 May 2003, each packed with one of fifteen cards.

Four toys in Subway Kids’ Pak meals in the United States, 29 March to 8 May 2005, each with a $3 coupon toward the Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys home video.

A further McDonald’s Pokémon toy promotion ran in 2006, ahead of the chain becoming the franchise’s regular fast-food partner.

Burger King ran two further Pokémon Kids Meal toy lines in 2008 and 2009.

The first proper McDonald’s TCG set: 12 holographic cards in English markets (following a 9-card Japanese “collection sheets” run in late 2010), bundled with eight Happy Meal toys. It launched in North America in June 2011 and set the template McDonald’s still uses: a small all-holo set, new almost every year.

Six posable figures for the live-action POKÉMON Detective Pikachu film — Arcanine, Loudred, Bulbasaur, Psyduck, Pikachu, and Mewtwo — in US King Jr. meals from 1 April to 26 May 2019.

The most talked-about McDonald’s set: 25 cards for the franchise’s 25th anniversary, featuring the first partner Pokémon from Generations I–VIII plus Pikachu. Every card exists in non-holo and “confetti” holo versions, with one holo per four-card pack. It launched in the US on 9 February 2021 and rolled out worldwide across the year.

McDonald’s Collections continued with the 2022, 2023, and 2024 sets — small holo sets in four-card Happy Meal packs, released across staggered international windows.

McDonald’s Japan is running a Pokémon campaign this summer — full details in our McDonald’s Japan Summer 2026 coverage.