I was way too old to be buying a Burger King Kid’s Meal in 1997 (or so I thought), so these 3.75″ Universal Monster figures completely flew under the radar for me. Since then, I’d seen them around online, most notably in a post by online nostalgia pioneer, Dinosaur Dracula, but I never really had any interest in hunting them down since they held zero nostalgia for me.

But, just last week, my wife and I were at an antique mall and I came across the Creature from the Black Lagoon figure in a booth. I wasn’t having a ton of luck finding things that day, so out of a feeling of FOMO, I decided to pick it up for $6.

Having the figure in-hand, I was really impressed with the sculpt. Burger King didn’t have to go so hard on a toy for a kid’s meal. I couldn’t believe the level of detail on this thing!

Well, naturally I had to have the rest of the figures now…

There were four figures in this Kid’s Meal collection – The Creature, Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolf Man. Each came with either some type of accessory or, in the case of the Creature, a special action.

Apparently, if you put the Creature in water, his chest cavity will fill up and then you can press on his abs to squirt water out of his mouth! I won’t be doing that with my figure no matter how cool it might be, because I don’t want mold to grow inside of him, but it is a pretty cool feature.

THE WOLF MAN

The Wolf Man came with a blue crate that broke open to release the beast.

Photo from eBay

As you can see, his feet fit into pegs at the bottom of the crate and there’s a small handle (barely visible in the picture) that you turned to have him rise up and break through. Unfortunately, due to how his feet are sculpted intentionally to fit on these pegs, he doesn’t stand on his own very well. I had to borrow one of my 3D printed action figure stands from a G.I. Joe guy in order to take the picture of him.

FRANKENSTEIN

First of all, let’s just take a moment to admire the sculpt on this guy! That has to be the best-looking Frankenstein figure I’ve ever seen at this scale. And the boots! Seriously, he’s awesome.

Frank came with a mad scientist’s work bench that would light up, making his translucent skin glow green by pulling an electrical switch.

Photo from eBay

I’d just like to remind you this was a toy in a kid’s meal. This is above and beyond, man.

DRACULA

Photo from eBay

Dracula came with a bright red coffin with his name embossed on the front. Like the Wolf Man, Drac’s feet fit into pegs and you could turn the handle at the bottom to make him rise from his daylight slumber.

Unfortunately, this is the only figure I don’t have in my collection yet, and that’s because I’m holding out to find one with the cape. Because these don’t really hold any nostalgic value for me, I’m going the cheaper route and focusing on getting the figures, rather than their accessories. Apparently Dracula’s cape comes off and was therefore easily lost by kids in 1997 who didn’t realize how good they had it to be getting toys this cool at a fast food restaurant.

So far on eBay, I’m either finding Dracs without the cape or they have the cape and the coffin, but the seller wants $15 plus shipping for it. Which, I get it, a complete figure should be worth more, but that’s more than I’m willing to spend considering I’ve paid less than that for the other three figures so far. One could pop up on eBay tomorrow and I’ll be updating this post in a week, but for now, Dracula eludes me.

MODERN MONSTERS

Because we live in the age of reboots, NECA is putting out a collection of 7″ Universal Monster figures based on the Burger King Kid’s Meal figures.

As you can see, the figures maintain their old school designs with Frank and the Creature having translucent green bodies, and Drac even comes with his bright red coffin (Wolfie and Frank don’t get their accessories). However, the sculpts have been improved and scaled for the larger size of the figures and they now have about 11 points of articulation instead of five.

They’re really impressive figures and if you hold a lot of nostalgia for the BK figures, I can absolutely understand wanting to pick these up. Just be prepared to drop $182 (including shipping and taxes) for them!

MY MONSTERS

As a collector, it’s funny how a chance encounter at a thrift store or antique mall can sometimes inspire a new obsession. Like I said, I have zero nostalgia for these toys because I was 22 years old when they were available in a Burger King Kid’s Meal. But I can’t get over how great these little Monsters were. I’m excited to have been able to pick up three of the four for less than $20 total and can’t wait to add Dracula to the group soon. I’ll update this post when I find him on eBay and he rejoins his baddie buddies again.

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