From the Virtual World of Neopia® to McDonald's®, Happy Meals to Feature Neopets®

Neopets characters will travel from the virtual world of Neopia®, the hottest youth entertainment network on the Internet ( www.neopets.com ®), to McDonald's as part of the 25 Years of Happiness Happy Birthday Happy Meal® celebration. Beginning May 28, 2004 -- June 24, 2004, McDonald's Happy Meal will feature one of 15 different plush Neopets characters in seven different colors and one of four ultra-collectible plush Neopian® Items in rare color patterns to create the largest Happy Meal collection of all time -- 109 different designs. Increasing the collectibility and fun, each Neopets Happy Meal will also include one of 15 game cards from Neopets Trading Card Game. This dual premium will be available at participating McDonald's restaurants nationwide, while supplies last.

Neopets is the online interactive worldwide youth community where members explore new worlds, play games, enter contests, and communicate with other members in an ever-expanding entertainment environment filled with literally millions of pages of content.

"In recognition of the 25th birthday of the Happy Meal, McDonald's is thrilled to provide our young guests with today's hottest toys and cards from Neopets.com ®, a favorite online entertainment destination," said Kathy Pyle, director kids and family marketing, McDonald's. "The Internet inspired McDonald's Happy Meal event is an amazing opportunity to connect our guests to this incredibly popular online community through an exciting collecting experience."

"The worlds of McDonald's and Neopia share a common environment of pleasure and fun," commented Stephanie Yost Cameron, senior vice president, Neopets. "We are proud to be partnered with McDonald's in this imaginative promotion that we are confident will delight McDonald's guests and fans of Neopets everywhere."

The 15 plushie Neopets species included in the promotion are Scorchio™, Lupe™, Aisha™, Chomby™, JubJub™, Blumaroo™, Moehog™, lxi™, Techo™, Wocky™, Quiggle™, Shoyru™, Grundo™, Uni™, and a new Neopets species, yet to be announced, being introduced in the McDonald's Happy Birthday Happy Meal, as well as a few special Neopian Items, Speckled Neggs™, Magical Novas™, Starry Paint Brushes™, and Ultranovas™.

Each of the different Neopets plushies with game card will be packaged in an opaque bag to surprise guests with this McDonald's Happy Birthday Happy Meal event.

McDonald's

McDonald's (NYSE: MCD) is the world's leading food service retailer with more than 30,000 McDonald's restaurants serving 46 million customers each day in more than 100 countries. More than 80 percent of McDonald's restaurants around the world are owned and operated by independent, local businessmen and women. Please visit our newly designed website at www.mcdonalds.com to learn more about the Company.

Neopets

The privately owned NeoPets, Inc., a global media and entertainment company, owns and operates Neopets.com, the world's leading online youth community. Neopets.com , consistently ranked among the top-10 "stickiest" sites on the Web by Nielsen//NetRatings, currently has over 20 million members and generates more than 7 billion pageviews per month worldwide. The company is headquartered in Glendale, California. For additional information, visit the Neopets® Web site at http://info.neopets.com/presskit/ .

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SOURCE: McDonald's

CONTACT: Laura Dihel of JSH&A Public Relations, +1-630-932-9347; Paul
Nichols, +1-323-965-1990, pnichols@lippingroup.com , or Don Ciaramella,
+1-212-986-7080, don@lippingroup.com , both of The Lippin Group for Neopets

Web site: http://www.mcdonalds.com/
http://www.neopets.com/
http://info.neopets.com/presskit