McDonald’s 2022 resurrection of its Happy Meal Halloween pails, better known as Boo Buckets, was a long-awaited and highly celebrated appeal to Gen X and millennial nostalgia, one so successful that Burger King is trying to steal some of the glory this year by releasing a bucket of its own. This year, the buckets are back at McDonald’s with an expanded lineup and new design—but fans will have to put in some work if they want to get the full set.
McDonald’s officially announced the return of the spooky pails earlier this month via its Menu Spotter page. The announcement notes the buckets are back nationwide starting October 17, and this time around, they will feature four updated designs: Monster, Skeleton, Mummy, and Vampire. The vampire is the newest addition to the lineup, and its purple color and design calls back to a previous iteration of the Boo Buckets not seen last year.
In 2022, the chain released its Halloween pails on the heels of the McDonald’s x Cactus Plant Flea Market Box, aka the Adult Happy Meal. And though this collaboration was a roaring success for the company, it did create some headaches for employees, who had to deal with the swarms of customers trying to get their hands on the limited-edition toys that came with each meal. Now with four different Boo Buckets available, locations might be bracing for that same level of mayhem as customers try to collect them all.
It seems the company has learned some lessons from last year’s rollout, however. Representatives for McDonald’s told The Takeout that the company is prepared to handle any Boo Bucket madness that might ensue.
“We have a feeling Halloween Pails will be popular with our fans, and we’ve prepared accordingly in close partnership with our suppliers, distributors and franchisees,” McDonald’s told The Takeout via email in 2022.
How to get all of the McDonald’s Halloween buckets
If the 2022 release is any indication, it is unlikely customers will be able to get their hands on all four bucket designs by visiting just one location. On the McDonald’s employee subreddit last year, users claimed that each restaurant location would receive only one of the three pail designs per week. McDonald’s confirmed this to The Takeout at the time.
Some customers have already come to realize that each McDonald’s restaurant will not have all four designs on hand at once and are strategically seeking out the rest. “The unhinged madness that is my work friends and I driving around to different McDonald’s to collect the boo buckets on release day,” wrote one X user this week.
As for this year’s promotion, the public’s response to the new designs has already been a mixed bag. As mentioned in this author’s review of the nostalgic pails from last year, some people are not a fan of the fact that the buckets have a two-dimensional silhouette of a lid clipped into the handle instead of an actual lid.
“Is it a thing attached to the handle that’s supposed to look like a lid?” wrote one Reddit user. “I don’t even get that honestly.” Another user agreed, adding, “No lid no interest.”
Lid or no lid, others are seeking to complete their Boo Bucket collection by obtaining all four designs. “Remember, the Boo Buckets are back at McDonald’s today!” writes popular user Dinosaur Dracula on X. “I got the mummy on my first try, but I won’t stop until I’ve found all four. I love spooky scavenger hunts that double as excuses to eat lots of McNuggets.”