It’s time for another exciting edition of Regional Differences, the series that examines regional differences between Pokemon TCG releases. For today's edition, we're enlisting the help of French correspondent Vincent Vega to learn about a French exclusive release that may have slipped your radar.
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Oh you know I do Vincent: The Royale with Cheese. And it happens to be...
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"But Vincent," you may be thinking, "I collect pokemon cards, why should I care about French McDonalds and their crazy French products?"
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| Pictured: A crazy french product |
A fair question. But what if I told you that there was a special McDonald's TCG release that America and the rest of the world forgot? Let's examine:
The 2013 French McDonalds Promos
Background:
McDonalds and Pokemon have been partnering for exclusive TCG releases since as early as 2002.
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| http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/McDonald%27s_Pok%C3%A9mon-e_Minimum_Pack_(TCG) |
But in America, it wasn't until 2008 that we received our first TCG promotional cards in a kids meal. That's not to say that Pokemon was left out of America's fast food market. Some of the older Pokemon fans may remember the Burger King promotion of 1999 as the first big Pokemon fast food promotion, but it was actually KFC that first tried to capitalize on the Pokemon craze by including pokemon toys in kids meals and offering to sell separate plush pokemon figures to restaurant goers in the fall of 1998.
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| Plush figures available for purchase at KFC http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/1998_KFC_promotional_Pok%C3%A9mon_toys_(purchasable) |
It was nearly a year later that Burger King released its own series of pokemon toys, trading cards (not compatible with the TCG), and a series of special, limited edition "solid gold" Pokemon cards that you may or may not have lying around somewhere in your parent's basement.
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| http://i.imgur.com/QLyLu.jpg |
Are those "solid gold" cards worth much today? No. But who cares? It's GOLD!
BK had a follow-up pokemon toy promotion in 2000, coinciding with the release of Pokemon the Movie: 2000, but again, the trading cards available in the BK kids meals were incompatible with the Pokemon TCG.
After a series of strange fast food pairings beginning with Carl's Jr. in 2002
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| http://www.carlscoolkids.com/past_promotions/promo_pokemon.html |
Wendy's in 2003
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| Seriously, what is this toy supposed to be? http://percysfastfoodtoys.blogspot.com/2015/03/pokemon-wendys.html |
And Subway in 2005... which, believe it or not, featured a pokemon themed Lacrosse Stick... as a toy... for children....
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| Everyone's Favorite? http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/2005_Subway_promotional_Pok%C3%A9mon_toys |
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Burger King returned to the throne in 2008 and offered, for the first time in the United States, Pokemon TCG promotional cards as a part of its kids meals. A follow-up set was released in 2009 but that, sadly, was the end of the King's reign with the Pokemon TCG. McDonald's took up the mantle in 2011 and released a special McDonald's TCG promotional set in each of the following years: 2011. 2012, 2014 and 2015.
But wait!
What happened to 2013?
As it turns out, 2013 also saw the release of a McDonald's promotional TCG set. However, the cards were only released in one region: Kalos France.
As with the other McDonalds promo sets, 2013 featured a collection of 12 holographic foil reprints from previous releases. I actually do not yet own any of these cards, so the images below come from http://www.pokellector.com/
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Not only did the United States get the shaft for the 2013 McDonald's release, it appears we also got the shaft for the 2016 McDonald's release, which was released in European McDonalds in August of 2016.
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| https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3fRMUcsx9iU/maxresdefault.jpg |
It's not clear whether American TCG fans will get a chance to acquire the latest McDonald's set, but given that it's already December, it seems highly unlikely. I encourage you to check out http://www.pokellector.com/sets/MCD6-McDonalds-Collection-2016 to see each of the 2016 cards in greater detail.
Thanks for reading this week's edition of Regional Differences. You can check out the previous posts in this series by clicking the links below. Let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions for the next regional difference to cover.
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