Spare the McCane...

The famously disciplined (or else!) Singaporeans, are ready to rumble for pussy cats;

"Brace yourself!" read a message posted by a user named Hans Chen on McDonald's local Facebook page. "The Hello Kitty are coming!"

This year, the fast-food chain is selling six new versions of the mascot cat, each designed after famous characters created by Sanrio. The toys, which McDonald's is offering under a license agreement, include one that lives in a big house "on the edge of Donut Pond."

Pledging to prevent a repeat of ugly scenes that plagued past promotions, McDonald's says it has engaged private-security firms to provide crowd control and prepared line-management plans for its staff. It is also boosting its toy supplies by roughly 50% compared with last year.

These are the adults, not the kids.

Experts struggled to explain the phenomenon. In an academic study titled "The Hello Kitty Craze in Singapore: A Cultural and Comparative Analysis," Benjamin Ng Wai-Ming, an associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, described the frenzy as a "fever" and noted that many Singaporeans believed the dolls had investment value.

'Past performance is no guarantee....', but;

Last year, things got heated again when McDonald's rolled out a so-called "Fairy Tales" Hello Kitty set, featuring six versions designed after popular folklore. The last one—a black kitten sporting a skeletal motif—sparked mayhem as security personnel were called in to deal with heated squabbles caused by widespread line-jumping. McDonald's wrote a letter to a local newspaper apologizing for the chaos and promised to do better next time.

Let the punishment fit the crime.