On the night of Wednesday 26 June 2013, hundreds of Singaporeans began lining up outside McDonald’s outlets. They wanted a Hello Kitty plush dressed as a skeleton. By Thursday 27 June, tempers had flared and police had been called in.
The toy was the final one in a series of six limited-edition Hello Kitty characters in outfits from popular fairy tales. This one drew on the German tale “The Singing Bone”.
A midnight launch and a scramble
Singapore’s National Library Board records that the toys were released over the counter one a week, from 30 May to 3 July 2013. The Singing Bone toy was the last. It was a black Kitty with a white skeleton and a pink bow, and its launch at midnight on 27 June brought long queues to outlets islandwide.
In some outlets, chaos broke out amid rampant queue-jumping, and supplies ran out soon after the doors opened on Thursday. Videos shared online showed the tension. In one, police officers mediated between two customers at a counter. In another, an angry man asked a restless crowd whether a person who had obtained a queue ticket ahead of others was “Singaporean” and “educated”.
Malay Mail reported that stocks ran out within a day. Hundreds had lined up for the midnight launch, and police were called in to control shouting and queue-jumping.
Prices, resale and anger
Each plush cost S$4.60 in 2013 with a set meal, or S$10 on its own. Some buyers put their toys up for sale online straight away at far higher prices. The National Library Board notes that more than 600 listings for the toy appeared on eBay.
Many customers who went home empty-handed vented on Facebook. One commenter on McDonald’s Singapore’s page said the scenes were ruining the country’s reputation and blamed poor management. Others directed their annoyance at fellow Singaporeans whose Kitty mania had run out of control.
The appeal lay partly in completing the set. Some collectors were determined to own all six, which is why the last release produced the biggest rush.
Not the first time
Singapore had been through this before. In 2000, McDonald’s sold Hello Kitty toys in wedding outfits to usher in the new millennium. The National Library Board says the chain was caught unprepared then, needing logistics and security support for the crowds. At the Boon Keng outlet, the weight of the queue shattered a glass door and injured at least seven people.
Hello Kitty began in 1974 in Japan as a moon-faced cartoon cat on a coin purse. It has since grown into a global phenomenon. As of 2013, Sanrio, the Tokyo-based company behind the character, said it had around 50,000 different products on sale in 109 nations and territories. Fans in Hong Kong were also known to line up for hours outside McDonald’s during promotions. In 2008, Japan appointed the character as its goodwill tourism ambassador to China and Hong Kong.
What followed
The craze came back within a year. In April 2014, McDonald’s Singapore launched the Hello Kitty Bubbly World Collector’s Set to mark the character’s 40th anniversary. It was a set of six Kitty dolls dressed as different animals, making its global debut in Singapore. The chain sold it online, but heavy traffic crashed the servers. Sales were suspended 80 minutes after launch and resumed only hours later.
A full set cost S$80 in 2014, with meal vouchers and a commemorative certificate. Bids for a set reached as high as S$180 on eBay Singapore. Fans took to Facebook to complain, and Malay Mail noted that the online chaos came less than a year after the skeleton Kitty queues.
The 2013 rush is still counted among Singapore’s best-known toy crazes, 13 years on.