Vintage 1987 McDonald's Super Summer Sandcastle Pail Set 🏖️ Complete NOS Beach Toy

Remember McDonald's Super Summer? 🏖️ Vintage 1987 Sandcastle Pail Set, Complete NOS

Size: 5 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Complete four-piece set, unused.

🏰 Pail, Lid, Shovel and Handle

This is the whole McDonald's "Super Summer" sand castle set, all four pieces together: the pail, its red sifter lid, the red shovel and the red bail handle. The pail's base is molded into a little castle, six turret feet all the way around, so it doubles as a sand mold. The lid is punched full of holes, so it works as a real sifter. Loose pails turn up missing their lids, or with a shovel in some other color, so it's nice to have all four matching. The print is glossy and unrubbed and the sifter holes are clean. These never went to the beach.

📅 © 1987, Summer of '88

The date is printed right on the plastic: "McDonald's® / Super Summer / © 1987 McDonald's Corporation / McD#87-010 / FC#932-555 / Printed in United States of America / SAFETY-TESTED FOR CHILDREN OF ALL AGES. RECOMMENDED FOR CHILDREN AGE 1 AND OVER." So this was a pail made for even the littlest beach crew, one-year-olds included. That © 1987 is the year of the design. McDonald's tried Super Summer first as a regional test around Fresno, California, from May 22 to June 25, 1987, and then ran it nationally from May 20 to June 23, 1988, as a set of five beach toys. The "sand castle pail/mold with sifter lid and red shovel" was one of the five. One list of the 1988 toys calls it the "Professor sand castle pail w/shovel," which suits it, since the old inventor is right there on the side. The yellow piece in that 1988 set was a rake that came with a different pail, which may be why yellow tools turn up with these.

🎪 Who's on It

Going around the pail: Ronald McDonald leans out of his window and waves. The Hamburglar blows a trumpet with a little McDonald's flag on it. Grimace is there in purple, and Birdie the Early Bird in her aviator goggles, pink-bowed pigtails and yellow wings. A pink Fry Kid and a purple-and-blue Fry Kid stand together, and tucked in with them is the Professor, white hair, mustache and little round glasses, playing a horn. They all peek out of windows in a brick castle wall, with pennant bunting strung across the Professor's window and a banner reading "McDonald's Super Summer."

That's a real McDonaldland lineup. The whole land started with a TV commercial in January 1971, from the Needham, Harper & Steers agency. The Professor was one of the originals that year, the McDonaldland inventor. The Fry Kids began in 1972 as the "Gobblins," became the Fry Guys, and turned into Fry Kids once girls joined them. Look close and you'll see the girl Fry Kid with the yellow bows is the only one on the pail marked ™ instead of ®. McDonald's first put the name "Fry Girls" to use on February 14, 1986, Valentine's Day of all days, and registered it in August 1989, so on a 1987 pail she was still the new kid on the wall. Birdie came along in 1980 as the first female character, for the new breakfast menu. Around 1985 McDonald's retired a good part of the old cast, the Professor among them, but here he is still playing his horn on a 1987 pail.