The Discontinued McDonald's Meal That Came With Money In Every Box

If you had a choice between plastic Happy Meal toys and cold, hard cash, is it even a question which one you would choose? In the late '80s, McDonald's gave away real money with certain boxes of McNuggets. Okay, so the fast food chain didn't exactly hand out stacks of dollar bills but there was a brief promotion of a special McNugget box where customers did receive real money... just not money that could be used in the United States.

One of the 1980s-era McDonald's items you may have forgotten about was the Chicken McNuggets Fiesta promotion. This campaign promised fans a real collectible coin from one of six different Latin American countries. Not all fast food promotions work out well for the company or the customers. However, those who remember the Chicken McNugget Fiesta recall it with fondness thanks to its unique offering of spicy dipping sauces and collectible coins. While you may not have been able to spend the coin on much without checking its conversion rates, the giveaway still technically put a little extra change in your pocket.

In a TV commercial from 1988 via YouTube, McDonald's showed off their newest collection of "fiesta-inspired" sauces: Mesquite BBQ, Green Chili Salsa with Jalapeño Peppers, Mild Salsa with Chunks of Tomato and Onions. This was the fast food chain's way of hopping on the chips and salsa trend, hoping customers would opt for a spicy salsa rather than the typical ketchup or creamy ranch. As another incentive, each Fiesta nuggets meal would come with one of six real coins from various Latin American countries. The commercial features a mariachi band and two spokesmen who claim the chain "now does parties and fiestas." Sadly for fans of the zesty sauces and shiny coins, they were discontinued after the promotion ended just four weeks later.

In this day and age, the language of the promotion seems a bit out of touch from a cultural sensitivity standpoint — the chain restaurant was promoting the collectible items as "real south of the border coins," a phrase which is a bit diminishing to the various Latin American countries. According to PCGS, the coins came from Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela. While it may not have been directly stated in commercials, the meals came with collectible coin cards with a slot for each country, with their respective flag and facts about the coin's unique origins. So... I guess it wasn't all bad.

The Fiesta Chicken McNuggets promotion isn't the only time McDonald's has promised their customers a chunk of change. Kids from the '90s most likely remember the popular Monopoly game that gave customers a chance to win up to $1 million, if they happened to snag the winning game piece. The promotion started in 1987, one year before the fast food chain rolled out its Fiesta campaign. Unlike the fiesta promotions that offered customers a handful of collectible coins, the McDonald's Monopoly game gave customers a chance to win anything from a free cheeseburger to a new car. Suddenly, spending a few dollars on a Happy Meal didn't seem that unreasonable, and McDonald's quickly saw a large spike in sales and customer loyalty.

Unfortunately for customers who had been collecting game pieces for years, the McDonald's Monopoly game turned out to be a million-dollar scam. In the HBO documentary, "McMillions," FBI Special Agent Doug Mathews shared that, "From 1989 to 2001, there were almost no legitimate winners of the high-value game pieces in the McDonald's Monopoly game. I mean, how crazy [...] is that?" (Via Vulture). It turns out that a security guard who worked for the building that distributed the prize-winning Monopoly tiles had been stealing them for years. Business Insider reported that McDonald's came under fire for some of the false promises the game made because of the fraud case, and ended up giving a total of $25 million in various class action lawsuits.