I previously covered the 1983 release of McDonald’s Astrosniks, so I thought I’d better cover the 1984 release as well.
This time around there were fewer figures with only six available to collect. Much like the previous series, these were mostly the same molds as Sniks that were available at retail, just with the Golden Arches branding to tie them to McDonald’s.
Aside from the collectible figures, there was also a special mail-away offer for the Astrosnik Spacemobile, a rocket that measured about 9″ tall that could be used to display your Snik collection. The Spacemobile was available at retail for around $8.00, but with four Cosmic Coupons from Happy Meals, you could get it for $3.99!
Here’s a copy of the Spacemobile offer, as well as the line-up for the Series II Sniks to collect (I found these images online, so I’m not able to attribute it to anyone, but I do appreciate their efforts):
And here’s a photo of the Spacemobile itself. This is a current day photo, so the yellowing of time has taken it’s toll:
Unfortunately, I don’t have any of the Happy Meal boxes from Series 2, so here they are from the same anonymous collector:
If you look closely at these boxes, you’ll see some Sniks that were not available as part of the Happy Meal promotion…
If you can’t read that text, the green figure is called Pyramido and he was available at retail:
But Pyramido was also part of a limited Series 3 release of Astrosnik Happy Meals that were only available in Oklahoma in 1985. Because they were released in such a small region, narrowing down which Sniks were available as part of this release is difficult. However, it’s believed there were as many as 14 OKey Sniks. For whatever reason, the Okey Sniks were the same as their retail versions, stripped of the McDonald’s Golden Arches branding entirely.
The other little guy on those Happy Meal boxes is called a Humbug. Here’s a better view of just the Humbugs:
As you can see, they come in different colors and are wearing headphones. These were figures that were available at retail, but were never part of the McDonald’s promotion. Between Pyramido and the Humbugs showing up on the McDonald’s boxes, plus the non-branded OKey Sniks, I have a feeling McDonald’s was getting paid to try to help Astrosniks branch out beyond the Happy Meal tie-in.
Whatever the case, I have a couple of Humbugs that I’ve gotten off eBay:
As you can see, mine are different shades of blue, but they came in an entire rainbow of colors, some of which are shown in these various eBay auction screen shots:
You might have noticed that on the carded figures, it says you can stick Humbug anywhere, because he has self-stick adhesive feet! Sadly, my Humbugs don’t stick anymore, but they do look cool. You might also notice that some of the auctions call him “Walkman”. German packaging has him called “Sniky Walkman”, but I have a feeling that Sony might have sent Bully the German equivalent of a Cease & Desist on that name once they came to the States.
So there you have it – a rundown of all things McDonald’s Astrosnik!
I’m working on another post about the retail side of Astrosniks, because it’s kind of fascinating that this entire toy and merchandise line was being produced in the mid-1980s, but most Gen X/Millennial kids were completely unaware it even existed. Stay tuned!
