Teenie Beanie Babies Mania Sets In Fast-Food Giant Lures Small Fry With Tiny Version Of Popular Toy

The cheeseburger, fries and soda are beside the point.

McDonald’s on Friday grabbed ahold of the latest kid craze - Beanie Babies - as its latest lure to bring the tiny spenders and their parents into its fast-food outlets.

Word that McDonald’s was going to offer shrunken versions of the bean bags shaped like colorful animals with each Happy Meal set off a series of Big Mac attacks.

Customers at McDonald’s restaurants were buying Happy Meals by the caseload in some instances to get their hands on the Teenie Beanies. Two of the animal-shaped bean bags go on sale each week for the next five weeks Beanie Babies, with names like Squealer the Pig and Kip the Cat, made their debut in 1994, but sales have soared this year.

The giant craze spawned by the tiny toys are good news for McDonald’s, which this month asked its 2,700 U.S. franchisees to drop the price of the Big Mac and other signature sandwiches to 55 cents with the purchase of fries and a drink to stimulate sales.

The maker of Beanie Babies, Ty Inc., is based near McDonald’s corporate headquarters in a Chicago suburb. Ty has limited distribution of the full-size toys so severely that stores have run out nationwide.

Demand is so strong that Ty doesn’t list its telephone number in hopes of avoiding people who would beg, borrow or steal for the toys.