Meet the man living in a "Happy Meal House" that's filled with over 20,000 fast food toys
Aux Features Happy Meal
In 2014, Percival R. Lugue was awarded a Guinness World Record for owning the “largest collection of fast food restaurant toys.” At the time, Lugue had 10,000 plastic tchotchkes—already a frightening number of tiny, faintly greasy-smelling objects to pack into your living space. Now, apparently encouraged by Guinness’s recognition to continue his valiant quest, Lugue has accumulated more than 20,000 fast food toys and built a second home that he’s dubbed the “Happy Meal House.”
To better understand what drives a man to such extremes, Vice interviewed Lugue about his trinket empire. Alongside photos of his crowded house in Pampanga, Philippines, the 50-year-old newspaper cartoonist and artist describes how a hobby that started with him getting a set of Popeye toys from Jolibee as a child has taken him down a long, salty path of non-stop fast food toy collecting.
His hoard has grown so big over the years that Lugue and his family ended up building a “separate house for his toy collection” whose design, in a real legitimacy boost for Rorschach tests, he thought looked like a Happy Meal box. The “Happy Meal House,” as Lugue calls it, is packed with a variety of toys that he says are “basically like a tapestry of my life.”
To keep the Happy Meal House’s insatiable appetite for toys at bay, Lugue regularly visits McDonald’s and Jollibee to get newly released items. He’s also developed tactics to maximize the toy-acquiring value of each restaurant visit, saying he invites friends with him so he can complete toy sets “without me necessarily eating all the fast food.” During the pandemic, Lugue has “made the best out of the situation by getting fast food delivered to his office to enjoy with his colleagues,” who, naturally, are encouraged to “get toys along with their orders.”
We can only imagine that McDonald’s tweeting existential Happy Meals messages has spurred Lugue on to continue his defiance of childhood’s end, one stinky little toy at a time.
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19 Comments
I have a pretty indulgent family, but I can’t see them agreeing to buy my a house for my Happy Meal toys.
Depends. I could maybe see it if you were currently storing it all in their house.
Man fills house with trash, receives accolade.
That’s some enjoyably subtle username/comment synergy.
Cost of Happy Meal is like 3$. That’s $60,000 worth of trash that will be here long after us.
You have to subtract the value of the food, so they’re worth $59800 at most.
Don’t worry. Those stacks of old Auto Traders will one day bring you the kudos you desire.
At least it’s not in the landfill or ocean.
That won’t happen until after he dies.
Yet.
“Lugue and his family”That’s the surprising bit.
“I see the cheap plastic toys as my loved ones!”
But what if, like, in another universe Happy Meal toys collect us?
I could see that as a “In Soviet Union…” joke.
Had far too much sex, let himself go
The house behind me and one over was a foster home when I was growing up, and I would make friends here and there with some of the kids. We were a neighborhood where kids played outside. You eventually met everyone. Anyway, the first time I was invited in, I was shocked to see the whole place was filled with Happy Meal toys on display. I’m not going to say they rivaled this guy, but there were definitely thousands. Even as a small child, it weirded me out that anyone wanted to fill their home with little plastic figurines of Grimace, The Fry Kids, and the gang (and whatever else. You know what Happy Meal toys are.) It struck me as both weird to do by itself and weird that a house full of kids didn’t get to play with them. Not being a little shit, I kept that feeling to myself, and everyone was always really, really nice. It never stopped being weird, though.
He sounds… well-adjusted.
Once the floors are covered, it’s not collecting, it’s hoarding.
Can they send somebody over with a better camera. Those are some low quality jpegs. I’ve seen better pictures of a landfill