The Burger Chef Tray

Though they are almost 38-years-old, it isn't too hard to find 1977 Burger Chef trays in their original form.  Most will come like this...

This is how they would have been shipped to the restaurants, a box that has been flattened out.  You can see that there are five discs on the top and four more on the bottom.

As a collector, you have two choices:  keep the discs attached to the tray or punch them out.  I punched mine out.

But before I did that, I put the tray together the way it would have looked in the restaurant, with a fun meal inside.  I couldn't find a single picture on Ebay or through a Google search that showed what an assembled tray looks like.  I did my best to follow the directions.

It's hard to tell, but there are some punch outs on the green top of the tray, which is where the hamburger, drink cup, and fries would have gone.  The burger goes in the front left, the drink in the back left, and the fries get placed in the back right.

But the tray is more than a tray..it's also a baseball game. That is what I have set up.

The game works like this...

• You punch out one of the baseballs on the far right and then place it on home plate.
• A drinking straw is slid into the hole you see above the letter "M" of "Funmeal"
• You blow through the straw and see where the ball ends up. As you move away from home plate there are spaces for single, double, triple, out, and home run.  If the ball ends up touching any of the black space that divides the squares, it is a strike.  If it lands beyond the last space, its an out.  
• Runners advance as they are forced to the next base.  The diamond picture has spots at each base to move the cards as the runners.

I couldn't find a straw around the house, so I didn't play the game.  I can imagine it wouldn't be the easiest game to play.  I can also picture some drool coming out of the end of the straw and messing up the board.  

Game called on account of wet grounds?  Gross!!!