HallowBuckets 2025

I hereby declare 2025 to be the year of the bucket! Am I unique in this proclamation? Likely not, but I will, nevertheless. We’ve got a few of the usual suspects and then some outliers… or rather one outlier… that I could find. Some were from chains I thought had long since been out of business, either because of E. coli outbreaks or locality. So what had been attainable, I will outline below.

Dunkin'

I was joking a few posts back in the micros section that this site would soon be a bucket blog. Well, I’m never joking! We’re onto the fourth Munchkin bucket, and I’m still holding strong in grabbing each and every one. We’ve even gone full circle back to Halloween themes, and the best news is that I don’t have to buy $13 worth of donut holes to get it, saving money AND my life! It’s a win/win.

I have to admit, though, it’s a step down from last year’s. Bonus points for the Spider Donut lid, but minus much more for the borderline corporate Memphis artwork. It’s simple, since we all have to reduce things to the simplest mobile phone representation, but there’s no excuse for this grid of clipart. This isn’t my vast array of unorganized icons on my 10-year-old desktop. I want scenery. I want soul. I want your soul.

The spider donut ‘keychain’ is back, and it’s purple. It’s also $8, which was something I didn’t bother checking before I pulled out my credit card. Good thing I had that, since I certainly don’t have more than a few singles in cash. I also noticed that the spider is getting onto a lot of merch, but I haven’t actually seen the donut proper in ages. I guess it’s too good for its roots. Poor form.

Home Depot

If you had told me that the home furnishing stores would be getting in on the bucket craze, I’d call you craze…y. But am I complaining? Certainly not. Initial worries about stock levels running out without hope for replenishment were unfounded when my local chain had a stack on the floor and several more hanging from the greedy grips of a nearby skeleton.

I was expecting a premium, but I think each was only about $4. I can live with that. They are on the small side for construction buckets and a bit large for the usual decorations and/or food. I think they might be best to do with the outdoor props, but then I feel like I’m advertising on their behalf. I suppose that explains the price, though. They bamboozled me again.

McDonalds

Ol’ McDonald had a win but never followed up properly. The OG of the bucket game has never returned to its glory and reclaimed the throne. I think they were called pails back then anyway, but where is the lid?! This handle thing is one step worse since you can’t stack them. I suppose the tray of stickers counts as some sort of barrier against the outside world, and at the very least it isn’t Angry Birds, but it’s far from acceptable. I will award some extra credit for the McBoo stickers, even if they still represent the worst they’ve had to offer.

I mean, look at what lengths I’ve had to go to in order to get some facsimile of the originals. No, not finding them on eBay—printing them from scratch on a device that overdrafted my bank account and cost me much more than the purchase price. Yeah, I know they’re small, but they have the right faces AND they have lids.

Burger King

King’s in the name, and they’ve been crushing Halloween for a few years now. Haunted Ghost Spooky Whoppers? Yeah, not even breaking a sweat by now, so why not just casually throw in a bucket for good measure? They’re not even associated with a product; it’s just a flex at this point. But as with all promises, they have to let you down at some point. You see, they copied McDonald's, but they copied their offerings… right now… not the way they should be. See that terrible handle? Yeah, it was so easy to make this work.

But I’m not dismissing it completely. The parade of characters wins my dead heart over several times. They aren’t even ones I’m familiar with, and they could have been invented on the spot for all I know. But there’s some effort in creating a world where fried foods come right to your door. They’ll still kill you, but only indirectly via a fatty liver.

The Jack-o-lantern Whopper is this year’s food option, and I can’t recall if it’s a new name for a similar burger. The neon orange bun is the only thing that’s unique, so I’m guessing it’s more than likely that we’re treading old ground. The $11 price tag is certainly a familiar sting. For $20, you could get everything Halloween-related on the menu, but I didn’t need the deep purple food-dyed shake and some vampire-teeth-shaped nuggets. Gotta save some for the rest of you.

Oh yeah. I talked about the Fanta drinks earlier and mentioned a few characters that didn’t make the retail cut. Turns out Megan and Black Phone are fountain drink exclusives. It’s not without precedent, but I don’t quite get how they can get away with branding on something that doesn’t have any packaging. I had to snap even this picture within a few microseconds before it disappeared. Strange world we live in.