McDonald's releases a new adult Happy Meal

A McDonald's Happy Meal for adults

McDonald’s announced it is teaming up with Cactus Plant Flea Market for the introduction of the new Cactus Plant Flea Market Box for adults, starting on October 3, 2022.

The history of the McDonald's Happy Meal

The McDonald's Happy Meal is the quintessential fast food kids meal, serving up child-appropriate portions and prizes all within a portable, fun container. So where did this pop culture icon begin? Watch this quirky 13-minute history of the Happy...

Malaysia is home to a massive McDonald's museum

Top Fast-Food Toy Collections Museum in the city of Alor Setar houses over 80,000 McDonald's items, including Happy Meal toys, employee uniforms, and ketchup packets.

McDonald’s 1990 opening in Moscow symbolized the USSR’s fading isolation

When McDonald’s arrived in Moscow in 1990—an icon of Western capitalism—it became a cultural shock. NPR’s Invisibilia recounts how the chain asked new Russian employees to greet customers with American-style smiles, exploring the clash between Soviet norms and Western service culture (segment starts around 42 minutes in).

Tasting a lab-grown chicken nugget

Taste testing the first clean meat chicken nugget from a San Francisco company developing cultured meat. It’s chicken, but not as you know it.

See some of the weirdest Advent calendars you can buy

Modern Advent calendars span nearly every niche imaginable. Shoppers can now buy versions filled with cheese, dog treats, hot sauce, and even sexual-wellness products, reflecting how far the tradition has expanded beyond simple chocolate countdowns.

The rare 1970s Ken Doll with facial hair

In 1973, Mattel released the Mod Hair Ken Doll. The toy was the first Ken since 1961 to possess "real" rooted hair, plus it came with sideburns, a beard, and two mustaches. For clothes, he wore a brown and white checked jacket, white turtle neck, light brown pants, and brown shoes. Take a look at images of the doll decked out in 1970s fashion for insight into life in another era.

McDonald's intentionally avoids using the word 'milkshake'

The restaurant's US menus use an abbreviated term: the simple "shake." Conspiracy theorists suggest this means the chain doesn't use actual milk, but the truth is a bit more complicated and—much to their displeasure—mostly related to dairy regulations.

Eating KFC is a Christmas tradition in Japan

Since a 1974 marketing campaign, eating KFC on Christmas has become a nationwide custom in Japan. Families place orders weeks in advance, and the holiday accounts for nearly a third of KFC Japan's total yearly sales.

Why there's a snack recession

Inflation and economic uncertainty have driven many Americans to make cuts to their snack budgets, according to reports from major food manufacturers like General Mills, JM Smucker, and Campbell's. Major retailers have also observed lower-income consumers cutting back on nonessentials due to the macroeconomic environment.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Why TikTok loves fast-casual restaurant Chili's

The company noticed TikTokers posting enthusiastically about its food and began partnering with creators on the platform. The videos include mukbangs, a South Korean trend in which users eat a massive amount of food, and #cheesepulls, where Chili's mozzarella sticks are stretched to their limits.

The legend of Pittsburgh’s fake Burger King

Years ago, a Burger King in Pittsburgh lost its franchise due to repeated customer complaints about food quality. However, the franchise-holders continued to operate the restaurant, switching to generic packaging but keeping the signage and uniforms. Customers eventually caught on and raised suspicions, leading to Burger King's corporate leaders' involvement. Learn more about the bizarre establishment and how it managed to continue operations for months.

Imagining the memoirs of aging Disney princesses

This resource shares a collection of drawings that humorously imagine the books Disney princesses would write as middle-aged women. See Cinderella’s guide to passive income or Sleeping Beauty’s story of becoming sober in this creative collection of comics.

Adults are developing food allergies that they didn’t have as children

Research published in 2019 found that almost half of 40,000 surveyed adults with food allergies developed a new food allergy as adults, underscoring that our immune systems may newly misclassify substances later in life.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

How Tencent's QQ penguin became a national mascot

Created when Tencent launched the first version of its internet messaging platform, the company's winking penguin has become a ubiquitous cultural presence in China. The mascot has become a revenue generator, with Tencent licensing the character for cross-promotion with KFC, Midea Group, and more.

Pennsylvania's traditions of dropping foods for New Year's

Pennsylvania towns celebrate New Year's Eve with unique, food-themed drop (or raise) events that showcase local culinary pride. The town of Lebanon drops 250 pounds of bologna attached to a disco ball, with a crane, in a celebration of their local smoked sausage tradition. Find out several more wild traditions in this quick article.

Chicken vendors are an integral part of Oktoberfest

Ever since the first roasted chicken stall appeared at Oktoberfest in 1885, this rich, satisfying dish has been a crowd favorite for soaking up all that beer. Some estimates put the number of Wiesenhendl, or Wiesn chickens, served each year at 700,000.

Siblings surprise their parents with a recreation of a 1980s childhood photo

The three sisters and one brother recreated a professional photo taken of them in classic 1980s garb. They captured a TikTok of their parents' hilarious reactions that went viral.

Illinois man finds 46-year-old Christmas present addressed to him while remodeling his parents' home

In 2025, a 53-year-old man found a gift addressed to him from around 1978 when he was about 6 years old. He located the gift, a box of Matchbox model airplanes, behind a wall, and opened it in front of his parents.

In the 1920s, Rockwell worked as a commercial illustrator

After getting his start at Boys’ Life, Rockwell began illustrating advertisements for products like Jell-O and Orange Crush. Below is one of Rockwell’s advertisements for Jell-O, from 1923.

Meet Maddie, the 2023 Gerber Baby

The Gerber Spokesbaby Contest has chosen a new representative company baby since 2011, regularly picking a baby to reflect the company's embrace of its customers' diversity. In 2023, Gerber chose Maddie Mendoza, the daughter of Filipino-descended US...

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Juvenile Oscars were handed out from 1935 to 1961

The Academy Juvenile Award recognized the best child actors in a given year, with luminaries like Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, and Mickey Rooney taking home the prestigious trophies. Fittingly, they were 7 inches tall, about half the size of a regular Oscar.

Use the MyPlate widget to create your own meal plan

Enter your gender, age, weight, height, and activity level into the USDA's MyPlate widget for a personalized meal plan designed to be easy to understand. After viewing about how many calories are recommended to maintain your current weight, users...

UNICEF collects donations for children at Halloween

For generations, Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF has been one of the main ways American children are introduced to the work of the United Nations. The Halloween campaign encourages them to collect donations for children in need—instead of just candy.

Pizzagate alleged a neighborhood pizza joint was hosting a sex trafficking scheme

During the 2016 presidential elections, Comet Ping Pong Pizza became the subject of a conspiracy theory that the Clinton family used the space as a front for kidnapping and trafficking children. The hoax began on the message board 4chan after the public became aware that the shop's owner was a Democratic donor.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

When caught in the mouths of cardinal fish, seed shrimp release glowing, bioluminescent chemicals, which alert predators of the cardinal fish, prompting the shrimp's ejection.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.