That was ~50 years ago - I know I did have at least one lunchbox, but haven’t the faintest idea what was on it/them. Probably some sort of cartoon characters…
I had a Barbie lunch box, then Donny & Marie. Both had thermos’ with them. Our parochial elementary school had no cafeteria, so everybody brought their lunch.
Once we began (public) high school, we bought lunch on campus or went across the street to the pizza place, the ice cream stand, a Chinese restaurant or the convernience market.
I know I had more than these two but the only two I remember were a Peanuts lunch box. It was Metal and had strips running around the edges.
I also had one with NFL helmets. Specifically this one.
When I read this, I got a mental image of E.T. playing the drums in an 80’s hair band. 
Strange. As I stated in my previous post above, I had a Partridge Family lunchbox. I would have sworn that Mr. Kinkaid was one of the characters on the side of my lunchbox. However, Googling it, none of the photos of the lunchbox in the results had the Mr. Kinkaid character at all. Am I simply misremembering this, or was there more than one version of that lunchbox?
That was the cool lunchbox at my school! I was so proud when my mom bought me the very same one.
I congratulate you on your great taste in lunch box selection! 
I got a new lunch box every year–it was one of the highlights of school shopping. 
I had:
Partridge Family
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Hot Wheels (I was asserting my tomboyness)
The red plaid one (that was the last year I had a lunch box and I wanted to be more “grown up”)
Always metal–I didn’t like the plastic ones. I always wanted the dome-shaped yellow “Peanuts” one but I never got it.
I had this one around the time of the Bicentennial: Front Back Side 1 Side 2
Later I had this Star Wars one.
The Empire Strikes Back is the only one I can remember. And it wasn’t until I googled it that I could remember the Luke and Yoda side. And right now, I’m flashing back to that early 80’s cafeteria with the salmon-colored, fold-away-in-the-wall-tables.
You can’t give a young kid a lunch box. It will be left behind and never seen again.
Do middle school kids still use lunch boxes? My high schooler had (a series of) navy, black, or maroon insulated nylon bags with an insert for an ice pak.
Davy Crockett and Spin and Marty.
And when I was in high school in the late 90s, they locked us in the cafeteria. There weren’t even hall passes–if you had to be in the hall during a class or lunch, you had to be with a staff member. Led to a lot of kids throwing up in classrooms. Most teachers began to keep water coolers in their rooms.
They installed metal detectors and began to require visitor badges the year after I graduated.
When I was very young, I had a metal Peanuts lunchbox (I want to say it was this one but I’m not sure).
Then I graduated to a blue plastic Smurfs lunchbox (this exact one). After that I had another one that may have been either Muppet Babies or Fraggle Rock – all I remember about it was that it was dark pink, and GIS doesn’t show me any dark pink lunchboxes from those shows. I’m pretty sure muppets were involved somehow, though.
Now I carry this one. 
I had a bunch. Some that come to mind:
Beatles Yellow Submarine
Six Million Dollar Man
Evel Knievel
Peanuts
All nice metal with raised colorful artwork. Wish I still had them, I think they got discarded in a move during the mid 80’s.
Illya looks positively demonic.
Cool.
Absolutely. They’ve all used them since preschool (those that bring a lunch, which is about 60% of the kids). I don’t know if other parents have had loss issues, but it’s never been a problem for us. They have cubbies with hooks to keep their stuff in, which seem to work a lot better than the hooks and a single long shelf for lunches that we had when I was a kid.
I think my daughter’s preschool was Disney Princesses. Kindergarten lunch box was a soft sided Hello Kitty. First grade I can’t recall. Her current one is this catfrom a design series that’s all the rage at her school.
My mother buys her a lunch “box” (they’ve all the soft sided insulated bags, really) every year. Any one she wants. Money’s no object. Grandmas are so much nicer than moms, even when they’re the same person! 
I remember having the coolest metal lunchbox: It had Daniel Boone, as portrayed by Fess Parker.
What a wonderful childhood memory! Thanks for starting this thread OP!
