Wendy's

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WendysPin.jpg

Wendy's is an American fast food chain, founded in 1969. Like most fast food chains it uses the pester power associated with cheap toys to boost sales to children and families, and in 1986 the chain linked up with Tonka to a GoBots promotion. The promotion was advertised by a television commercial.

The result was surprising - not only did Tonka create six new characters for the promotion rather than issuing cheap versions of extant characters but they made the figures in-house and gave each one a brief bio, which was more than most of the rest of the line got. However, contrary to popular belief the figures were not free with the kids' meals, but instead were sold in the American branches of Wendy's, and cost 99¢ with any purchase in the restaurants.

Toys[edit | edit source]

Prizes[edit | edit source]

While the toys might have cost money, other parts of the promotion didn't.

Books[edit | edit source]

As part of the same promotion two exclusive A5 activity books were created by Golden Books, an imprint of Western Publishing Company.

WendysMiniBook3.jpg

Mini-Comics[edit | edit source]

A trio of mini-comics were made, telling a super-super compressed version of the original cartoon mini-series.

  • Book One: The Challenge
  • Book Two: Target Earth
  • Book Three: The Final Conflict


WendysPatchTurbo.jpg

Patches[edit | edit source]

A trio of sew-on patches were also among the prizes.


Rulers[edit | edit source]

Holographic rulers were also given away; these had a lenticular image that allowed each to 'transform' and die-cut outlines of both modes to use as drawing templates. And the back told you how many centimetres were in an inch, because you might not have a calculator on you at all times but you could be damn sure you'd have your official Wendy's GoBots Beamer ruler. Six were produced, one for each of the new characters.

Kids' Meals Packaging[edit | edit source]

Finally, cardboard containers for Kids' Meals during the promotion featured a comic strip: -

Notes[edit | edit source]

  • Guide Star was intended for children under 3, hence his single-stage transformation and complete lack of any protruding parts.
  • There is some evidence that the figures were not exclusive to Wendy's, at least not in the literal sense of the word. Carded versions bearing the Wendy's logo are dated 1986 but some versions not bearing the logo bear the date 1985, though these may have been made for Wendy's and not featured the branding. However, at least Breez, Beamer and Pow Wow were offered in a Kool Aid promotion into 1987.

External Links[edit | edit source]