10 Times They Were Worried What Movies Would Do To You

1. Penguin's Batman Returns Death Would Impact Happy Meal Sales

Batman Returns Penguin
Warner Bros.

Taking a quick look at the McDonald's website, the current Happy Meal toys of choice are a collection of various Paddington Bear soft teddies. For Paddington, the beloved bear is a wholesome, humourous, hilarious character who has put a smile on the face of generation after generation.

Back in 1992, though, Maccies had a slightly darker inspiration for their Happy Meals when they utilised Tim Burton's Batman Returns as the selling point for their child-targeted box meal. Y'know, the one and the same Batman Returns that saw Selina Kyle thrown from a building to her 'death', Max Schreck electrocuted, a politician's nose bloodily bitten off, and the ooey gooey death of Danny DeVito's Penguin.

Speaking in a Yahoo! interview earlier this year, director Burton pinpointed how McDonald's were particularly worried about the demise of Penguin in terms of how that might derail Happy Meal sales. From Ronald McDonald's perspective, seeing DeVito spewing out black liquid wasn't the most appealing way to encourage kids to come and eat one of your burgers.

As Burton explained:

"I think I upset McDonald's. [They asked] ‘What’s that black stuff coming out of the Penguin’s mouth. We can’t sell Happy Meals with that!’"

While McDonald's did indeed still include Batman toys with their Happy Meals, they tried their best to claim that they were general Batman toys rather than specific Batman Returns toys - despite featuring the Batmobile driven by Michael Keaton's Caped Crusader in that sequel, plus a Michelle Pfeiffer-esque Catwoman.

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Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.