Guest Blogger: Nick Maglio

While looking for Disney McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys on eBay recently, I came upon a set of Animal Kingdom Toys. I had no idea these existed until that moment! They were released in 1998, the opening year of Disney’s Animal Kingdom park at Walt Disney World.

There are 12 toys in this set! I found a set at what I thought was a reasonable price, and bought it. Sadly, when they came, I was not at all happy with the condition the bags were in. Worse, upon opening them, I found that water must have gotten into some of the bags somehow, as there were actually rusted screws on a couple!

 

Another interesting thing about these toys, while they all feature some sort of interactive element, there is no indication as to what it is, or how to activate it.

Some activation methods are obvious, like on this zebra. Wind him up, and his front legs propel him forward:

Others are not as obvious, like this lion:

Obviously, his mouth opens, but how to get it open?

You have to lift his front paw!

The next one is a very simple interactive toy. Lift the gorillas arms, and his baby flips around:

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This Toucan makes a tweeting noise when you push in on his chest:

Dinosaurs weren’t left out in this line of toys:

For the life of me, I can’t figure out what this Triceratops is supposed to do, or how to do it. Whatever it is, I’m assuming it’s noise related, because of these openings in his stomach:

 

This Iguanodon has an opening mouth feature, like the lion, but how to get it to work? No clue. It’s constantly in an open position, so perhaps the mechanism to activate it is broken:

 

Be sure to see Part Two where I’ll share the remaining 6 toys from this terrific set.