McDonald's Disney Villains Boo Buckets Happy Meal started October 20, 2026, with five collectible bucket designs: Jafar, Ursula, Scar, Cruella and Maleficent. McDonald's announced no price and, unlike its 2022 run, stated no last day — only that the buckets are available for a limited time while supplies last.
- Status
- ReturningConfirmed by the company
- Brand
- McDonald's
- Launch
- October 20 (Oct 20, 2026)
- Where
- US — participating restaurants, while supplies last
- Run
- Limited time
- Started October 20, 2026, as the Disney Villains Boo Buckets Happy Meal.
- Five designs: Jafar, Ursula, Scar, Cruella and Maleficent.
- Each bucket comes with a villain-inspired lid and a sticker sheet.
- No price was announced, and McDonald's has published no chain-wide figure.
- No end date was announced — only 'a limited time' and 'while supplies last'.
- When McDonald's last ran the pails in 2022, it published an explicit window of October 18 through 31.
- McDonald's set the details out on its USA Menu Spotter page, not in a press release.
- The pails date to 1986, when the original trio was McBoo, McPunk'n and McGoblin.
What’s coming back
McDonald's Boo Buckets, the lidded collectible Halloween buckets that replace the Happy Meal box, returned on October 20, 2026 as a Disney Villains collaboration. There are five designs for 2026 — Jafar, Ursula, Scar, Cruella and Maleficent — and McDonald's says each bucket includes a villain-inspired lid and a sheet of stickers. The company describes the run as limited, at participating restaurants while supplies last, and announced neither a price nor a last day.
When it was last around
The pails are a recurring Halloween item that McDonald's dates to 1986, when the original three were McBoo, McPunk'n and McGoblin. They lapsed for years before McDonald's brought them back, and the company's 2022 announcement is the most recent one to state a full run: October 18 through 31 at participating restaurants nationwide, while supplies last. The 2026 return keeps the format and replaces the house characters with Disney villains, but drops the stated window.
Why people care
The bucket, not the meal, is the reason for the visit, and the questions that follow a Boo Buckets launch are almost entirely lifecycle questions: which designs exist, whether a given restaurant still has them, and when they stop. McDonald's answered the first this year and neither of the others. The gap is sharper than usual because the company did publish an explicit end date the last time it ran the promotion, so the absence of one for 2026 is a change rather than a convention.
What came back, and where McDonald's said so
McDonald's is running the Boo Buckets as a Disney Villains collaboration for 2026. The company lists five collectible designs — Jafar, Ursula, Scar, Cruella and Maleficent — and says each bucket includes a villain-inspired lid and stickers featuring characters and details it says fans will recognise. McDonald's calls them wickedly collectible and describes the Happy Meal as starting October 20 at participating restaurants, while supplies last.
Where that information lives is worth noting, because it changes how reliably it can be checked. McDonald's did not issue a press release. The details sit on the company's USA Menu Spotter page — McDonald's own running index of new menu items, returning favourites and limited-time offers — which was dated October 15, 2026 and carries the Boo Buckets entry stamped 10.20.2026. McDonald's press release index, checked the same day, held only corporate and financial announcements, the most recent from September 23, 2026.
Both of those McDonald's pages return an error to a plain fetch and need a browser to read, which is recorded against them in this site's source registry so later checks do not read an empty response as 'nothing changed'.
The thing the 2026 announcement does not say
There is no last day. McDonald's language for 2026 is that the buckets are back for only a limited time, and that guests should head to their local McDonald's while supplies last. No end date appears anywhere in the announcement.
That is a change from how McDonald's handled the same promotion in 2022, the last time it published a full announcement for the pails. That release stated the window outright: the Happy Meal would run at participating restaurants nationwide from October 18 through 31, while supplies last. A reader searching for when the 2026 buckets stop is looking for a date McDonald's has not given, and the honest answer is that Halloween is the natural end of a Halloween promotion but McDonald's has not committed to it.
In practice 'while supplies last' is the operative constraint for a collectible: individual restaurants run out of bucket designs at different times, which is why availability questions about Boo Buckets are usually answered restaurant by restaurant rather than nationally. This page carries no end date because none has been announced, and will be updated if one is.
No price, and why there is unlikely to be one
McDonald's announced no price for the Disney Villains Boo Buckets Happy Meal, and this page prints none. In its 2022 pails announcement McDonald's said that 95 percent of its roughly 13,500 U.S. restaurants are owned and operated by independent business owners, which is the usual reason no chain-wide Happy Meal price appears in an announcement. Any national figure would have to come from McDonald's itself, and it has not published one, so prices quoted elsewhere describe one market rather than the chain.
Where the buckets come from
The pails are one of McDonald's oldest recurring Halloween items. In its 2022 announcement the company dated them to 1986 and named the original trio as McBoo, McPunk'n and McGoblin, describing the pails as having vanished for a while before returning. The 2026 run keeps the format — a lidded, reusable bucket in place of a Happy Meal box — and swaps the house characters for Disney's.
Common questions
- When did the 2026 Boo Buckets come out?
- October 20, 2026. McDonald's listed the date on its USA Menu Spotter page, which is dated October 15, 2026.
- How many Boo Buckets are there in 2026, and which ones?
- Five: Jafar, Ursula, Scar, Cruella and Maleficent. Each has a villain-inspired lid and comes with stickers.
- When do the 2026 Boo Buckets end?
- McDonald's has not announced an end date. It says only that they are available for a limited time, while supplies last. For comparison, its 2022 pails run was stated as October 18 through 31.
- How much is a Boo Bucket Happy Meal?
- McDonald's announced no price, and has published no chain-wide figure. It says most of its U.S. restaurants are owned and operated by independent business owners, so prices quoted elsewhere describe one market rather than the chain.
- When did McDonald's Halloween pails start?
- 1986, according to McDonald's, with an original trio named McBoo, McPunk'n and McGoblin.
Sources
- McDonald's USA Menu SpotterOfficial
McDonald's · Product page · checked Oct 21, 2026
- The Disney Villains Boo Buckets Happy Meal starts October 20, 2026
- There are five collectible designs: Jafar, Ursula, Scar, Cruella and Maleficent
- Each bucket includes a villain-inspired lid and stickers
- McDonald's describes the run as 'only a limited time' and 'while supplies last'
- McDonald's announced no price and no end date
- The Menu Spotter page is dated October 15, 2026
McDonald's USA · Press release · checked Oct 21, 2026
- The Halloween pails first appeared in 1986 as McBoo, McPunk'n and McGoblin
- In 2022 McDonald's stated a run of October 18 through 31, while supplies last
- McDonald's stated that 95 percent of its approximately 13,500 U.S. restaurants are owned and operated by independent business owners
McDonald's · Product page · checked Oct 21, 2026
- McDonald's press release index carried no release for the Disney Villains Boo Buckets; its newest entries are corporate and financial announcements