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In 1998, McDonald’s came out with the first Snoopy World Tour Happy Meal Toy series. It was a hit! It was followed by a second set in 1999. Snoopy is dressed in traditional and representative outfits for countries across the world. Though the World Tour included figures for the United States, this series was not available in the U.S. The only option was to import for the hard-core fans in the land of Snoopy’s birth.
eBay was new and was certainly spurring on the collectible market for many items. Snoopy’s World Tour was no exception. Suddenly, you could get items shipped from around the globe to add to your treasure trove. I believe that’s how my Mom tracked down our in-the-package sets of World Tour Figures.
World Tour Series 2 – Statue of Liberty – Toy from McDonald’s
What I know – Both series have 28 figures, though I think some had 30 for Series 1. The toys from McDonald’s have articulated heads and arms. They are all multiple, hard-plastic pieces that are put together to create the toy figure. Some of the hats are separate pieces, like the Cowboy, and the hat plastic is different from the figure and is more malleable.
However, I have accumulated a variety of look-a-likes for those original McDonald’s toys. The featured image in this post is just one of them.
Then we have this one:
This small keychain version. Not sure if it was originally a keychain, or just a small figure like the one just above.
And I have a full set of these based on Series 1, which may be licensed based on the stickers on the bottom of them. You often find these in a display box/case. The cases tend to not look licensed.
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All of these look-a-likes are smaller than the original. Someday, I hope to have them all out at once so the scale and colors can be compared side-by-side. If you have any variations that aren’t the original McDonald’s Toys, please put your photos in the comments.
What do I want to know? What are all these? Are they all licensed? I suspect they aren’t. Any information on any of the series is welcome. I would especially like to know the history of the figures in the photo just above (with the five figures.) If it is licensed, I’d love to know where and when it was released. It seems to be the most available of the non-original toys.
What’s my Guess? Being popular across the world meant getting sets may have been difficult in some countries. To fill the gap for some collectors that weren’t as picky, some factory churned out some knock-offs on the cheap. This may have fulfilled local demand and crept into the secondary market on eBay.
However, my quick search on eBay shows plenty of the real toys, some of the figures from the box above, and that’s about it. I really don’t see the knock-offs much. They’re much more rare. Either no one bothers selling them because they do come across as cheap, or they just didn’t last. It’s the real thing people want and there’s plenty out there!
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