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Fangoria February - Hocus Pocus!

2012-02-17T12:36:00.000-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

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Every now and then you'll run into articles that don't quite seem to fit the Fangoria mold. 'Hocus Pocus', for example, doesn't really seem like the kind of film you would find coverage for in a book that routinely shows graphic photographs of zombies eating brains and things of that nature. Then again this specific issue is from 1993 and you can tell that Fangoria was having a bit of an identity crisis.

The horror genera, like anything else, tends to go in cycles. The 70s and 80s were a really big boom period for horror films, but by the late 80s and early 90s even the most hardcore Freddy and Jason fans were starting to grow tired of seeing the same old same stuff being presented up on the silver screen. By 1993 the genera had sort of crashed and in order to stay with the times you can see a shift in Fangoria's presentation. Pages became a little more colorful, stories were a little less serious, and you seen much more coverage for films in other genres. Such as one issue that was almost entirely dedicated to 'Jurassic Park'.

Hocus Pocus is a great film and one of the many that I try to catch at least once every Halloween season but I really have to wonder if the Fangoria from the early 1980's would even think about running a story for a Disney film. Of course whoever wrote the article seems to realize this and spends a good portion of it reminding everyone just how dark some of the earlier Disney stories (such as Snow White) really are and how 'Hocus Pocus' is attempting to bring that darker tone back to film. They also have to make mention that this flick is being produced by one of the guys who did the original 'Child's Play' films.

As I said I quite enjoy the film and I like the way Fangoria has always sort of been able to look at what they do, look at what is popular and somehow create a blend of each... all the while staying true to what makes Fangoria so good in the first place. Coverage of 'Hocus Pocus' is a prime example of that.

Fangoria February -- Poster Magazines!

2012-02-15T11:41:00.001-06:00

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Fangoria wasn't much for special edition magazines. They tended to stick to what they did best and that was detailed coverage for every kind of horror film. I liked this. They very could have easily done single issues that covered nothing but the latest 'Friday the 13th' or 'Nightmare on Elm Street' flick but that would have went against what Fangoria was trying to accomplish.

However on occasion they would release a special magazine that was nothing but posters. These issues are fantastic. Each filled with gigantic high quality posters to decorate your room with. I am astonished that the guy who I purchased all these old magazines from managed to keep most of them in tact, instead of ripping them all out and hanging them up. Key word here is most... over the years a couple of them have fallen out. Let's take a look at what came loose:

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The first is a really cool looking poster for the first 'Hellraiser' film. I have to give Fangoria a lot of credit, time and time again they managed to latch onto all the really neat films before they became the cult classic hits we view them as today. 'Hellraiser' is no exception. There was all kinds of coverage about this flick long before it hit theaters, everything from interviews with Clive Barker to neat looks at the films visual effects. I always viewed 'Hellraiser' as sort of the bastard stepchild of 80s horror icons. Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers got all the love but Pinhead and his gang are truly the badass awesome ones in the group. Its a shame that he doesn't always get mentioned with the other three. Its nice to see Fangoria paying proper respect to Clive Barkers hellish creations.

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I wasn't quite able to identify what film this poster is from. My initial thought was something from 'They Live' but that movie was more robotic skull like people. It could just be some generic bloody skull poster but that doesn't quite seem like something that Fangoria would have done. It has to go to some movie, I am just not sure what one. If you recognize it, feel free to let me know down in the comment section. Otherwise this poster goes a long way to showing just how mature these early Fangoria books really were. While still being bloody and disgusting they have sort of reeled back the gore in recent years. Not in the 80s. You could flip open any page and almost be guaranteed to see some bloody limb, severed head or vomiting corpse. It really makes the older issues of Fangoria feel like something special!

Fangoria February - Freddy's Domination!

2012-02-13T11:05:00.000-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

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Part of the reason why I love these old Fangoria books so much is because flipping through the pages is sort of like opening up a time capsule and seeing what films everyone was interested in twenty five years ago. Fangoria is filled with plenty of stuff that we now consider to be classics but also has lots of little lost gems that nobody talks about anymore. And then there was that not-so-brief period of time that Fangoria became completely obsessed with Freddy Kruger. So much so that when you look at these old issues you can see a definite split in the times. Pre-Nightmare on Elm Street and Post-Nightmare on Elm Street.

Freddy Kruger dominated the pages of Fangoria for quite a long stretch of time. Most of the time they found a way to make him the cover story... if that didn't work at the very least you could expect to find his imagine on some smaller thumbnail image located on the front of the book. And when all else failed, just stick Freddy Kruger on there regardless of whatever else the issue was about. The Bloody Best of Fangoria just sort of sticks him on there front and center. Why? Because they can and because Freddy sold.

Believe you me, Freddy Kruger sold. Never has there been a character that has crossed over from horror into mainstream pop culture quite like Freddy. Considering this is a character who killed children and haunted people in there dreams, it was sort of strange how he got mass marketed. Robert Englund (as Kruger) would appear on talk shows, radio, magazine covers, he had his own rap album, and if memory serves me correctly I believe there was even a cartoon series and a spin-off TV show.

Everyone cashed in on the Kruger craze of the late 80s and Fangoria was no different. And honestly out of all the products that Freddy got whored out to over the years... him appearing on the cover of a horror movie magazine a bunch of times was one of the few that made the most sense.

Spring Oreo's!

2012-02-10T20:00:00.000-06:00

As we near the middle part of February I am not afraid to admit that I would love nothing more than to be sitting here drinking a big cup of hot chocolate, with a package of Christmas Tree Cakes, and 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' playing quietly off in the background. What can I say, I love the holidays and letting to of them after watching this last season fly by hasn't been fun. It all felt fabricated and rushed. Like going through the motions but never truly being the real holiday season. But even I know that its time to pack those thoughts away and come back to them at a much later date.

And there is no better way to pack away visions of late December holiday nights than with Spring Oreo's! For me February is a month all about change. Halloween is the furthest thing from my mind and Christmas has finally (almost) slipped its way out as well. Its getting closer to the time in which everyone's focus shifts to spring and summer weather. As a matter of fact today when I went to the store the very same isle that housed XMAS decorations a little more than two weeks ago had been completely transformed into the gardening section. Its sort of nice to know that if I wanted to buy peat moss in February I sure as shit can. Now if only I knew what people do with peat moss we would be in business.

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More proof that spring is close to springing into action is the fact that Spring Oreo's are now available on store shelves. Oreo's have sort of turned into the unofficial thing that I use to start talking about the beginning of most seasons. What can I say, Nabisco is really on top of things and somehow always manages to be among the first to get their seasonal products out for sale before anyone else does. Even when there is not really a season to go along with it. I mean who here sits around and actually waits for spring to come? Summer... I can understand that one but spring, I call foul on anyone who waits in anticipation for it to be slightly warmer, really rainy and extremely muddy outside.

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I am sure you guys know the routine for seasonal Oreo's by now. The formula has not changed in years, though it does seem like they have applied to just about anything that qualifies as a season these days. What we have here is Oreo cookies in some sort of festive package with neon colored filling (that still tastes the same as the original white colored filling) and five different shapes stamped on top of the cookies. To motivate us all into thinking that spring is fun we can now eat cookies with a buzzing bee, a smiling sun, what appears to be a flower, a frog, and a bee landing on a flower with the text "Happy Spring" beside it. Its no Jack-O-Lantern and its surely no Santa Claus but at least it is something. Spring Oreo's serve as tangible proof that the seasons are changing and soon the cold winter winds will be replaced with a nice summer breeze.

... and then we can start counting down the days until Halloween and Christmas again. =)

Fangoria February - Video Horrorama!

2012-02-09T13:50:00.000-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

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Thanks to the internet it is relatively easy to track down even some of the most obscure horror movies ever created. Mainstream websites like amazon and e-bay are the easiest way to get almost anything you could ever imagine delivered directly to your door. And if you are looking for something a little bit tougher to track down, even the most illusive of un-released films (such as the producers cut of Halloween 6) are no more than a couple mouse clicks away from being apart of your DVD collection.

However this didn't use to be the case. You either had to drive to a store that specialized in these obscure horror films or thanks to the Video Horrorama section in Fangoria you could simply order VHS copies of these tapes and get them sent directly to your house. Think of this as the original Amazon "we recommend" list. It's fun to go back and look at some of these flicks. For every Creepshow or Demons that pops up there is ten other Alien Prey or Blood Link films that time has sort of forgotten about.

Check out the prices for some of these movies. The advent of the DVD and the ease of the internet means at most you shouldn't pay any more than $25 for a hard to find film. Here you can see VHS copies of Creepers and Bloody Birthday that cost $79.95! Video Horrorama is another great example of how Fangoria went above and beyond simply writing cool articles. They also provided unique services and access to things that you simply could not walk into the store and purchase.

Fangoria February - Michael Myers Lives!

2012-02-08T20:38:00.002-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

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Old advertisements are the best. Any time I get an older magazine or comic book the first thing I do is flip through the pages and see what products had everyone's attention twenty five years ago (or however old the book may be). Fangoria is basically void of any real "advertisement" advertisements... things like cars, now defunct flavors of soda, and the ever illusive early cigarette promos. But they more than make up for it by having full page spreads dedicated to whatever that years biggest horror films were.

Little mini teaser posters, if you will. Its easy to take for granted how much access we have to the movie industry these days. We get announcements for coming films often times years before they will ever hit theaters, up to the minute casting news comes at us via official twitter streams, entire plots and scripts sometimes leak out onto the internet, and it is very easy to find set photos of your favorite up and coming film. There was a period of time where none of this existed and the only way you learned about the latest films was from coverage by magazines like Fangoria. Point in case, this awesome 'MICHAEL MYERS LIVES!' spread for Halloween 5.

Its sort of a no-brainier that the Halloween franchise would continue on past the fourth installment... but then again you never quite know. I can imagine lots of Halloween fans flipping through this magazine and being ecstatic upon seeing this text. Halloween has long been my favorite of the 70's / 80's horror movie franchises and I am not afraid to admit that I really loved the way part 4 and 5 created there own story and attempted to develop there own mythology for Michael Myers. Had production values been kept higher and had the studio not insisted on mucking up part 6, I actually think the franchise was headed in a very cool direction.

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The other half of the page fulfills the books monthly quota of finding stuff to sell you. Here we have some official Halloween 5 collectors items. Take a look at those prices, only $5.00 for a hat! The one that has me really interested is the official Halloween 5 Satin Jacket. Keeping in mind that not a single person has ever looked presentable while wearing a satin jacket, I would totally love to own an official Halloween 5 one.

Halloween 5 was just one of the many films that got the full page treatments throughout the years. You'll find spreads for everything from Hellraiser to the latest Friday the 13th flick and even some lesser known films managed to get this sort of treatment. I always enjoyed pages like these, they provided quick ways to see what was right around the corner and were a great way to get excited about the latest horror films.

Fangoria February - Night of the Living Dead!

2012-02-07T11:48:00.000-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

A bit of sad news to report before we get to today's Fangoria February post. Bill Hinzman, the actor who famously portrayed the cemetery zombie during the opening scene of George Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' has passed away. Bill has forever cemented his legacy as being one of the very first actors to portray a zombie in a major motion picture. This post is dedicated to the memory of Bill Hinzman, may one day he rise from the grave and reek havoc on us all! Your body may be gone but your image will live on forever.

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Much has been wrote about George Romero's landmark film 'Night of the Living Dead' throughout the years. So when the films 20th anniversary came crawling up, Fangoria jumped at the opportunity to pay homage to the film. What follows is a really interesting look back at the flick. The photograph I chose for this article was from a small section, smack dab in the middle of a much larger spread, about the colorization of the film. But it goes much deeper than simply hyping up a colorized re-release of the film, which reportedly cost a quarter of a million dollars to make.

As per usual Fangoria charm, they don't spend as much time as you would think trying to sell you any merchandise related to 'Night of the Living Dead' ... although they do make mention of the fact that you can purchase 'The Complete NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD Filmbook by John Russo' for only $9.95 (plus $2.50 postage!). Instead they take the time to track down almost all of the films cast for retrospective interviews. I say most because according to this piece Keith Wayne, who played "Tom" (the younger male character) was apparently nowhere to be found. As a matter of fact as of the time of this article, nobody had heard from him in many years. (sadly Keith committed suicide in September of 1995)

All of the actors that did partake in this interview give very heartfelt responses and all generally seem to have fond memories of the film. Interestingly enough the actor who gives by far the largest interview is none other than the late Bill Hinzman. Who talks in great detail about his time on the film, working with Romero on other projects, and his dreams of directing his own feature length film. Hinzman would fulfill this dream with 1986's 'The Majorettes' and 1988's 'Flesheater'. Although he teases a project that he has in mind which "is horror but with a religious setting. It takes place in a convent." that I do not believe he ever made.

It is article like these that really make Fangoria so much fun to read. It is nothing but pure fan service with very little persuasion towards getting you to purchase any 'Night of the Living Dead' merchandise. It is nice to see them treat the film with so much respect, even when talking about the colorized re-release they spend plenty of time talking about why it might be a bad thing. 'Night of the Living Dead' was and is a classic film and it is nice to see Fangoria treat it as such.

Fangoria February - Win an 8 Foot Predator!

2012-02-06T12:48:00.001-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

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Fangoria has ran some interesting promotions and sold some questionable products over the years. Most of the time you'll see full or half page spreads for stuff like Freddy Krueger masks and generic horror movie t-shirts. Occasionally there would be a contest to win a free makeup FX kit or something along those lines. And then we have this Predator Contest, which seems like 100% Grade-A Bullshit.

What is the Predator Contest you ask? Well it is a chance to win an authentic 8-foot Predator that supposedly retails for over $5,000. Of course they never specific exactly what they mean when they say "authentic 8-foot Predator". Could it be a Predator statue? Maybe. How about a Predator costume? Possibly. It could even be interpreted that you are entering to win an actual living breathing Predator. My money is on none of the above, I actually don't think anybody ever won anything. We'll get into that here in a minute.

Let's instead focus on the actual advertisement. You can see how open ended the contest is worded to begin with. There is also no real photograph of the item you are trying to win present anyplace on this page. Instead they appear to have photoshopped some guy standing in an actual Predator costume from the film smack dab into the middle of the page. Somehow I highly doubt they where giving away a guy in a costume.

The car in the background? Ignore it. That doesn't have anything to do with anything. Wondering how you enter the contest? Well call that 900 number (note to readers: please don't actually call that 900 number) and then you will be given a "hot Halloween tip" to listen to.... then you have to answer a Halloween trivia question... then if you answer that correctly you will be entered to win this non-existent 8 foot Predator item that isn't really clearly identified what it even is. Sound like fun yet?

Did I mention it costs $1.95 a minute? That explains the hot tip and the trivia question. The whole point of this thing is to keep you on the line for as long as possible thus racking up as high of charge as possible on your phone bill. You want to know what the sad thing is, Fangoria probably pulled in a small fortune selling people on the idea of winning an 8-foot Predator something-or-other. And you know what... I really don't blame them one bit. Lots of magazines run lots of contests that when you spend more than fifteen seconds looking at, aren't really possible to win. Sometimes a magazine has to do what a magazine has to do and if selling advertisement space for a slightly dishonest Predator contest is part of what has kept Fangoria alive for all these years. I am totally alright with it.

Fangoria February - Nightmare Before Christmas!

2012-02-03T15:47:00.000-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

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Here we have two very cool advertisements for Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas. Up first is a full page spread featuring Jack Skellington being accompanied by the text "Coming to Theaters This Fall". I really like the look of this page. It is simple in both its color scheme and design, keeping both to a bare minimum. The only thing I would have liked to have seen was just a little bit more of a Christmas influence thrown into it, to really drive home the point of the film. Otherwise its a very cool advertisement whose simple design really stuck out when doing a quick flip through the magazine.

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The second full page advertisement is for Lock, Shock, and Barrel. An interesting choice of characters to follow up Jack Skellington. Personally, and considering that this is running in the middle of a Fangoria book, I would have went with Oggie Boogie and tried to make him look as disgusting as possible. But that's just me. There is nothing wrong with choosing these three characters to highlight. They translate really well to a simplistic black and white drawing and do provide an interesting contrast to Jack (whose advertisement came placed two pages before this one).

I really dig these Nightmare Before Christmas full page advertisements. Its easy to look back at the film now that it has become a cult classic and sort of expect to see these here. However when you put it into perspective, Fangoria was taking a bit of a risk by promoting this flick. After-all its a musical stop motion animation film about a skeleton who dressed up as Santa Claus. Not exactly the same thing as Freddy or Jason hacking and slashing helpless teenagers to bits. But here they are and I am glad that Fangoria took a chance and promoted this film!

Fangoria February -- Freddy Krueger Mask!

2012-02-02T13:20:00.000-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

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As you will soon see later on this month, Freddy Krueger practically owned the late 1980s. I don't think there has ever been a horror movie character that has crossed over into mainstream pop culture quite like Fred Krueger did. Seriously this guy was all over everything. So it is not really surprising that Fangoria took it upon themselves to plaster The Kruege all over their magazines whenever they got a chance. After-all if it was Robert Englund's makeup engulfed face that people wanted to look at than Fangoria was more than happy to oblige.

You can also bet that Fangoria found plenty of ways to sell Freddy Krueger merchandise. Freddy was a merchandising machine. I could write from now until 2017 and probably not cover all the unique and often times strange items that had Freddy Krueger on (or in) them. This hat and mask combo was pretty early on in Freddy's merchandising stage and therefore isn't really all that odd of an item. It makes sense that Fangoria would cater to the Halloween crowd and sell a replica mask of everyone's favorite horror icon. Which sold for a surprisingly low $29.99. I am sort of impressed, actually. In today's market that mask alone would retail for probably double this listed price and the hat would be an extra $20. Plus it would probably fall apart three hours after you put it on.

As for this vintage Freddy mask, I have this really strong feeling that the picture of the item is probably not the same mask that you would get in the mail if you ordered one. I don't have any way of knowing this for sure, but I have had plenty of experience with Halloween masks and I can tell you that it is a rare occasion when what you get actually looks like what you ordered.

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Its hard to say what this exact Freddy Krueger mask would look like. Here is a fairly cheap representation being sold on today's market. It gives you an idea of sorts as to what the product probably looked like. Of course who knows, maybe this was the highest quality Freddy mask ever produced and Fangoria was so awesome that they sold it for the lowest price imaginable. I doubt it but you never know.

The vintage Freddy hat and mask combo is just a small sampling of the many Freddy Krueger related items that can be found within the pages of Fangoria. A little bit later on this month I have a couple more Freddy related pieces that I will be posting but I don't want to spend to much time with this one character. After-all Fangoria February is a celebration of all the awesome things this magazine provided and while Freddy was a big part of there success he wasn't the only thing. But he was most definitely one of the magazines more prominent figures!

Fangoria February - Zombies: Undead or Alive!

2012-01-31T21:14:00.000-06:00

Fangoria February is a month long celebration dedicated to the grooviest horror movie magazine ever created... FANGORIA!

Welcome everyone to FANGORIA FEBRUARY! This is a month long event in which I will be sifting through a gigantic stack of these awesome old magazines. Pulling out all the interesting parts and posting them online for everyone to see. Sometimes these articles will be long sometimes they will be sort but they will always be true to the source material. Please keep in mind that the point here is not to replicate and post entire original Fangoria articles, but to instead celebrate what made this magazine so great, and look at some of the odd advertisements, contests, and other things that showed up throughout its long history. To kick off FANGORIA FEBRUARY we are going to take a look at the PC only video game ZOMBIES: UNDEAD OR ALIVE! Enjoy and be sure to check back every day throughout the month of February for more great Fangoria content!

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So you think that zombies in video game started with Resident Evil? Think that the current trend of sticking them into everything came about because of that extra zombie mode in Call of Duty? You have much to learn, my young Jedi. Zombies have been in video games for almost as long as there have been video games. Beast Busters was an arcade rail shooter in 1989, years before the Sega's popular 'House of the Dead' series. The Evil Dead was turned into a horror adventure game for the Commodore 64 in 1984, long before the subsequent Evil Dead games on the Dreamcast and Playstation 2. Even the original Nintendo Entertainment System had games featuring zombies, such as 1990s Zombie Nation. So to say that zombie related video games is a current trend of only the past couple of years is pretty much flat out wrong.

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And then we have Zombies: Undead or Alive!, a 1989 video game developed for the PC. A game so obscure that it does not have a Wikipedia page dedicated to it. In fact, I was only able to find it two other times while doing a Google search for it. The first is a very brief mention of it being ported to the Commodore 64, but apparently that version of the game never even got into production and only a PC version of Zombies: Undead or Alive! was ever released. The only other place the game shows up is on this old magazine advertisement, a full page advertisement by PSI showcasing Zombies: Undead or Alive! and a game called Cyber Cop.

Believe it or not, I think I am the only person on the entire internet who has taken the time to write more than a brief sentence about Zombies: Undead or Alive! ... it is kind of unfortunate that I do not have any more details to go on than this single advertisement. Well here is what I know about the title, it was developed by PSI (Pedersen Systems) for the PC as a way to push the 'next generation' of graphics cards for computers. Zombies: Undead or Alive! along with Cyber Cop were both planned for, but never released on the Commodore 64.

"The Emergency Broadcast System reports that North City is in a state of siege. Reports are surfacing that secret military experiments with bio-chemical toxins near the North City Cemetery have created Zombie-like creatures. These creatures thrive on human flesh. North City is in chaos. You must survive for 12 hours and reach the North City Army Base Safety Zone before relief arrives, or... be eaten!" This is the informational blurb that, I assume, sums up the games plot. As for technical specs, it has 128 different residential and military screens, 3-D Spritable Characters, and features fast paced arcade horror action.

That is about all the information I can dig up (pun intended) on Zombies: Undead or Alive! If anyone happens to have a copy of this game laying around or remembers playing it way back in the day please leave something down in the comments section. I am really interested in hearing more about this old PSI title.

Rold Gold Peppermint Snowflakes!

2012-01-24T15:07:00.000-06:00

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Nearing the end of January means a lot of things. Lots of snow, lots of ice, and lots of hot pink Valentines Day crap. Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike Valentines Day? It is just a dumb holiday created by retail stores to sell you a bunch of junk that you'll throw in the garbage can on February 15th. It is everything that Charlie Brown was talking about during his big speech towards the end of Charlie Brown Christmas. Over commercialized and with no true meaning.

To counter this neon nightmare I always like to look for those last few remaining signs of the holiday season. The beauty of Christmas is just how long most places are willing to dedicate precious real estate to it. Even with the threat of Valentines Day pushing its way in, Christmas will still find a way to survive. The larger sections are all but gone by now but look hard enough and you'll still be able to find its presence for at least another month.

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So I know what your probably thinking, that I have found a way to make another Christmas post in what is now becoming insanely past the 25th of December. Well... not really. It only kind of resembles Christmas. I consider this more of a winter item than a Holiday one. After all there is no mention of the holly jolly xmas man on it, the package does not have any "to" or "from" sections and it is not overly red or green. Therefore I cannot classify this as a Christmas item, its a winter themed product. Technicality is on my side. It always is.

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Peppermint Flavored White Fudge Coated Pretzels shaped like snowflakes? Yea this is exactly the kind of pick-me-up that I love finding in late January. It was during this same trip that I realized that Holiday Egg Nogg and Siera Mist Cranberry Splash have both been pulled from the shelves and are gently tucked away until the following season. Its nice to know that little winter themed items such as these still exist and will exist for a while longer.

Besides, they are absolutely delicious. I don't care what holiday you want to classify these under I hate the entire bag about half way through writing this article. And I really do enjoy things such as these. Its kind of Christmas-ish without being downright obvious. Its easy to pop open a bag and get a little bit of holiday enjoyment without everyone else thinking your nuts. And it is also not a horrible Valentines Day product. Yea... these Rold Gold Peppermint Snowflakes are a perfect late January ~~Christmas~~ .... winter themed product to help get through the transition into the non-holiday season. They pretty much rule.

Eight (almost) Forgotten 1990s Cartoons!

2012-01-20T16:20:00.000-06:00

The 1990's were an awesome time for cartoons. We had most of the older 80s stuff still showing up in re-runs, so you could get your fill of Transformers, GI Joe, and He-Man while also catching all the cool new shows that were just hitting TV. We had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, and Rocko's Modern Life just to name a few. It was a great time to be a kid.

Of course with so many high profile big name shows its easy to forget about some of the equally as entertaining smaller cartoons. These are the ones that we all enjoyed but for one reason or another don't get quite as much love as their bigger brothers. Here are eight awesome cartoons from the 1990s that time has (almost) forgotten about!

SWAT KATS: THE RADICAL SQUADRON -- This cartoon only lasted two seasons running from 1993 to 1994 and spanned a total of 24 episodes with three unfinished cartoons that never aired on television. Despite the relatively small number of episodes, Swat Kats was and still is one of my favorite cartoons of all time. I love everything about this show. From the theme song, to the shows in your face attitude and great concept. It is an all around awesome show that I will never understand why the networks pulled the plug on so quickly.

Swat Kats is the story of two rogue special forces officers, T-Bone and Razor, who basically kick ass, fight crime, and fly an awesome jet that shoots like four hundred different types of missiles at any given time. Did I mention the shows fantastic musical score. If you have not watched the included opening title sequence, you really should check it out. On top of all of this the show was really quite dark and pretty violent for a kids cartoon. If I may drop a sort of obscure comic book reference, it reminds me a tad of the Blacksad series. In the way that the characters are animals but they still act like people, the animal nature is more of a reflection of the individual's personality. Like I said, I love this cartoon. If there has ever been an intellectual property prime for a big budget live action film it is definitely Swat Kats!

PIRATES OF THE DARK WATER -- Lasting for 21 episodes, Pirates of the Dark Water hit TV stations in 1991. Pirates of the Dark Water suffered the same unfortunate fate as a lot of cartoons. While being successful and popular among fans, never quite managed to take off as well as the network had hoped.

Pirates of the Dark Water had a pretty cool story behind it. Taking place on a strange planet called Mer, which is being destroyed by a mysterious substance known as Dark Water. The shows main character, a young prince Ren, and his band of misfit pirates can stop it but only if they collect all thirteen pieces of lost treasure of Rule. The series was never completed before being abruptly canceled. With the recent success of films like 'Pirates of the Caribbean' I could totally see someone snagging up the cinematic rights to Pirates of the Dark Water and doing a live action adaptation

TOXIC CRUSADERS -- Toxic Crusaders was a very short lived cartoon series, debuting in 1991 on Fox. A total of thirteen episodes were produced but only five ever aired on television. Crusaders was of course based off the string of Toxic Avenger films from the 80s. If your wondering why exactly an R-Rated feature film was chosen to be turned into a children's cartoon well... that is a pretty good question.

Chances are Fox was looking to quickly cash in on the mega success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... and the Toxic Avenger, well hes sort of like a mutated turtle right? Plus the overall theme of the series sort of fit in with that brief period of time when a lot of cartoons featured "environmentally friendly" characters... such as Captain Planet and Swamp Thing. Needless to say the Toxic Crusaders did not catch fire. However thanks to Troma Entertainment the full series of Toxic Crusaders cartoons have been released on DVD and if you consider yourself a fan of all things Troma, are a requirement to have in your collection!

SKELETON WARRIORS -- Lasting for 13 episodes from 1993 - 1994 Skeleton Warriors is one of those really great concepts that came out just a little bit to late in the game. Sadly by 1993 this style of cartoon animation was fading away. Looking back on Skeleton Warriors I can really appreciate what they were trying to do with this series. It has the same look, style, and feel of all the great 80s cartoons. Reminding me of almost a strange blend of Thundercats, He-Man, and GI Joe. I really feel like Skeleton Warriors would have been huge if it came out in 1986 or something. However in 1993/1994 ... it just felt a little dated.

Which is a shame because a concept as cool as undead fighting skeletons in warrior outfits who can shoot bursts of light through there hands is a concept that should never go out of style. For a short lived cartoon series, Skeleton Warriors got a full toy line (which I still think I own some of my Skeleton Warrior figures, actually), a comic book series done by Marvel, and a main stream video game released for the Sony Playstation / Sega Saturn. Clearly someone believed that Skeleton Warriors was going to be huge. The series has been released in its entirety on DVD and is well worth your time!

WILD C.A.T.S. -- Another one of the many single season, thirteen episode cartoons from 1994 - 1995. WILD C.A.T.S. was clearly inspired by (ie: completely ripped off) the popular X-Man cartoon from 1992. With that in mind... it wasn't all that bad. WILD C.A.T.S. was also based off a fairly popular comic book series of the same name so the cartoon had plenty of source material to pull from. What what it was, it was a fairly enjoyable cartoon series. Those interested will be pleased to know that the series was released in its entirety on DVD in 2005.

GARGOYLES -- What happens when you take a kids cartoon and basically write it for adults? You end up with something like Gargoyles, which lasted from October of 1994 to February of 1997. Three seasons and 78 episodes in total, Gargoyles often times featured a complex plot involving story arcs that would span multiple episodes, involving a generally dark overtone and often influenced by Shakespearean themes. It is amazing that Gargoyles lasted as long as it did.

With that said those of us who remember Gargoyles pretty much freaking love it. The show was amazing and you have to keep this into perspective, Gargoyles ran all the way up to 1997... I was just reaching that phase where I didn't want to watch cartoons anymore yet Gargoyles still maintained my full interest. Unfortunately only part of the series has even been released on DVD, with the second half getting canceled due to 'low sales' ... which is a shame because I would love to own the fully restored, completed series.

CREEPY CRAWLERS -- Here is a perfect example of a toy line that shouldn't have been turned into cartoon series, that got turned into a cartoon series. Creepy Crawlers lasted for two seasons from October of 1994 to March of 1996 and spanned 23 episodes total. But Creepy Crawlers goes back much further then that, all the way 1964 when Mattel released a toy maker called "Thingmaker".

The concept behind the Thingmaker was a series of metal die-cast molds in which you pour a colored liquid like substance into them and then placed over the included small electric plate. Wait a couple minutes and pop out your newly formed rubber toy. The dies typically came in a bunch of generic bug shapes such as flies and spiders, though everything from Creeple Peeple (1965) to Mini-Dragons (1967) could be made. Creepy Crawlers are an excellent classic toy line and the cartoon series... well, hey its an accomplishment that it even exists. And as strange as this show looks and sounds... I completely remember watching it on Saturday mornings. I totally had one of those Creepy Crawler machines and loved making little rubber neon spiders. So I guess... I am thankful for this short lived, kind of crazy cartoon concept.

MUMMIES ALIVE -- A short lived cartoon series from 1997, Mummies Alive fell into the trap of originally being wrote for an older audience before being cut back and turned into more of a traditional children's show. Mummies Alive was actually wrote by the same two guys who wrote the cult classic Gargoyles series and was supposed to feature most of the same overlapping themes that show did. However unlike Gargoyles, Mummies Alive never quite picked up with audiences and only lasted for one season and 42 episodes. For those interested, I believe the entire series was released on DVD in 2007.

So there you have it. Eight old cartoons from the 1990s that time has almost forgotten. And you know what we learned here today, that there was a lot of really great concepts (Gargoyles, Swat Kats, and Skeleton Warriors) that for whatever reason just never quite managed to make a large enough impression with audiences. I look at a lot of these shows and the only fault that I see in them is the fact that they are not the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. All that we really wanted was more Turtle cartoons... and I think that is the reason why stuff like the Toxic Crusaders and Creepy Crawlers came about. But you know what, even though they didn't last as long most of these shows still made an impression with those of us who watched them. For that, I thank these great alternative cartoons from my childhood. I am interested to see what other, lesser known stuff you guys grew up watching. So feel free to leave your favorite lesser known shows down in the comments below!

Star Wars Go-Gurt!

2012-01-17T20:43:00.000-06:00

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And so it begins. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is being re-released to theaters in 3D on February 10th. Among other things this means a whole slew of new promotional Star Wars items that are going to start hitting stores very shortly. Remembering back to when the new trilogy first hit theaters in 1999, I am going to guess that we are in for a literal shit storm of Star Wars merchandise in the forthcoming weeks.

You know what I am actually fine with that. I don't get obsessive over the franchise but I do consider myself a fan of all the flicks. Yes even Episodes 1-3. For what they are, I enjoy them. Besides no film(s) were ever going to live up to the original three Star Wars films. That is a tough set of standards to be stacked up against and I think the only real fault of Episode 1-3 was George Lucas thinking that anybody would ever give a shit about Darth Vader as an annoying little kid. Nobody wanted to see that. Honestly, some things are better left a mystery and Darth Vader is one of them. I still love that pod racing scene, though.

Anyhow we got Go-Gurt to talk about. I have to make an admission, I am almost twenty five years old and I have never once had yogurt. Never. Don't really have anything against it, although I do think it is kind of creepy looking, but our paths have never crossed until now. Yogurt is just not something that I have ever been interested in trying. I've always sort of walked by the yogurt section in the grocery store and stood staring in mystery at these strange flavors. New York Cheesecake? Watermelon Tart? Butter Pecan? I am a traditionalist and I like things that I can easily understand. Yogurt is not one of them. Now thanks to George Lucas and Star Wars I can end my twenty five year yogurt drought and finally give this strange substance a try...

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Having never eaten yogurt before the obvious thing to do was to spring the extra money for the 16 tube value pack. If I am going to do something I am going to go all out. Also, this was the only box I could find that had Yoda on the front of it. Yoda is my go to prerequisite for trying things for the first time. No Yoda, no chance in hell that I am buying 16 tubes of strawberry watermelon fuckin'-yogurt.

Also, there is this: "Glow in the Dark Slurp Sabers Inside!" Now we are speaking my language. Yoda is an obvious bonus but only an aesthetic one. The promise of glow in the dark light sabers. Yea, that was what got me excited about this box. Screw the yogurt, I want the glow in the dark light sabers. I dare anyone to defy that logic.

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The back of the box is everything I hate about modern day cartoons. I do not know what these two goofy looking characters are from and quite frankly don't want to know. They just look stupid. I miss the old days when cartoons were awesome and not complete garbage like this. Blah. An entire generation or two of kids are completely getting screwed over with crappy cartoons. We really need stuff like the Ninja Turtles to make a comeback, in the biggest way possible.

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Here is the actual yogurt. It was at this point that I realized I had foolishly purchased an entire box of a product I have never even tried. Upon closer inspection this does not include a glow in the dark light saber, as in one singular bonus item, but each stupid package doubles as a stupid glow in the dark light saber. Well shit. I wanted something physical, something tangible, something to hold onto and umm... probably toss in a box and forget about a couple weeks after writing this entry. What I did with it beyond writing this entry is beside the point, I still want one.

For some reason I was expecting an actual glowstick with a light saber handle stuck to its ass. When I dream, I tend to dream big and once the initial shock of cheap throw away packages went away... I actually stopped to think about it and realized that it made perfect sense. This is yogurt we are talking about here. Yogurt is not going to give away awesome light saber glow sticks. I should have expected this going in and therefore cannot fault Go-Gurt for not living up to my own expectations. As a matter of fact I do sort of like the front of each yogurt tube. They feature all kinds of different characters from the Star Wars universe and little trivia facts to accompany them with. The back of the tube, that is where the glowing saber trick comes into play.

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Attempting to make them glow, a trick I learned while running the 2011 Halloween Countdown, is turning out to be a fairly viable trait for running this website. Glow is not exactly the word i would use to describe the act you are seeing here, though. It is more along the lines of fifteen dozen off camera black lights tricking you into thinking they are glowing. They really are not. Assuming you don't have a fort night's worth of black lights laying around your best bet is going to be to hold them up to a light bulb. This seems stupid and you'll look stupid holding yogurt tubes next to a random light source but at least your not the one who just spent 45 minutes dragging out black lights and extension cords to take fake glowing photographs of yogurt tubes.

As for my first yogurt experience. It tastes about as strange as it looks. Maybe it is just the flavor that I picked out but I am not impressed. Thus far I have went close to twenty five years without eating any and I think I can go close to another twenty five without touching the stuff ever again. I guess this also means that among other things, I can blame George Lucas for making me eat yogurt. And now I have 15 tubes of Star Wars yogurt that, chances are, will sit in my fridge from now until the end of time.

BONUS STAR WARS YOUTUBE VIDEO:
Since we are talking about Star Wars I figure the time is as good as any to bring up one of my favorite user edited Star Wars YouTube videos. Chances are if you are a fan of the franchise, you have already seen this video of Darth Vader being a complete dick towards one of his offices. Even if you have, it never gets old and is worth watching over and over again.

... and if you are really bored you could check out this old article I wrote on Star Wars breakfast cereal.

E3 2012 and Fangoria February!

2012-01-14T14:27:00.000-06:00

I got two announcements that I would like make. First I would like to thank everyone once again for making 2011 such an awesome year here at the Astro Lounge. I had a blast running the Christmas and Halloween Countdowns. You can expect each to return and be bigger than ever for 2012. So keeping in the spirit of running "themed" months around here, I have a couple announcements that I want to make for what to look forward to here in the next couple months.

For starters you can expect the return of E3 coverage on the website. E3 is the largest video game trade show of the year and each year I do what I like to call a "live blog" during each of the big three (Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo) press conferences. Where I pull up the live conference on one monitor and open up this blog on another and basically write about everything as it is unfolding. It is a different and unique way to read about the important announcements. E3 coverage will begin June 5th through June 7th so until then expect to see more posts detailing the event we get closer to that date.

Next month, I have something extra special in store. We are going to be doing a little something called Fangoria February! What is Fangoria February? An entire month long dedication to the greatest horror movie magazine ever created! I have an entire stack of old Fangoria books, pretty much everything from the first issue clear on up until the middle to late 1990s. All original and all filled with great old advertisements, articles, photos, and much more. These books are a fantastic window into the past. I am confident that you guys will enjoy Fangoria February!

As always be sure to stop back for plenty of none-themed related content that I will be working in year round.

Its Friday the 13th!

2012-01-13T22:36:00.000-06:00

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Blast! I cannot believe I went almost the entire day before finally realizing that today was Friday the 13th! Save for the couple of months out of the year that we celebrate Halloween there are not many other times in the year in which horror movies and other things of this nature are alright to celebrate. Friday the 13th is one of the few time of the year that everybody is free to openly share there love for all things related to Jason.

Last year we looked at some of my favorite kills from the Friday the 13th films. That is because I planned ahead for that post. This year I am writing it on the fly and at 8:30 at night. Instead I will just offer up a simple suggestion, to go to your local video store and rent a handful of the Friday flicks and a big tub of popcorn and kickback and relax and watch some old school 80s slasher horror!

If your looking for a little more Friday the 13th action check out this post from the 2011 Halloween Countdown, in which I wrote about an awesome Jason Voorhees Doll from a couple years back!

Kemps Winter Ice Cream!

2012-01-13T00:47:00.000-06:00

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You know I still cannot get over how strange the 2011 Christmas season felt. The whole thing was just off. I hate to continue to harp on this subject as I have promised to move on but... well I cannot help it. You see I was just at the store needing to pick up a light bulb for my room and ended up wander through what was left of the Christmas section on my way out the door.

I always get sort of bummed out looking through that section this time of year. I really love the holidays and seeing one little leftover isle that has been completely ravished and ransacked. All the good decorations either purchased or packed away until next year. The remainder reduced to a gigantic 70% off sale. Its sad. Knowing that it is going to be another eleven months until we start seeing this stuff again.

I've been on both sides of the fence on what I want to do. A big part of me was ready to move on and I pretty much did. All my decorations are down, the website has been converted back to its none holiday theme and I no longer want to listen to any music. Yet at the same time seeing all those poor leftover Christmas decorations that nobody wants anymore... I kind of still want to write about the holiday. So let's write about the holiday. Screw the rules. Screw the calender. Its snowing outside and I've got 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' pulled up on my second computer monitor as I type this post. So let's do this for either the first time in 2012 or the last time for 2011 ... depending on how you want to spin it. Let's do one more Christmas post!

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See I really was not kidding when I said that I was watching 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' on my second computer monitor. I picked this up at the store today as well. I had planned on snagging a copy of it in early November but for some reason never got around to it. Its very nice having it playing off in the background. Somehow, I really have managed to create the momentary illusion of the holidays. As a matter of fact I almost want to string up some XMAS lights around my desk to complete the effect. Almost. I'm not that in love with bringing back the season.

I would like to briefly point out that me taking a photo of an unfinished article as I am typing it... and then posting it in the completed article is some really weird 'breaking the 4th wall' META shit that hopefully does not crash the universe. Also, you like my computer desk? I cleaned it just the other day.

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Now let's get on with what we are here to actually do. Write about Kemps Winter Ice Cream. As you can see from the photo we have two different variates of seasonal cream. The Frosty Tree kind, who is accompanied by the proverbial Winter Snowman. I do not know if that is the correct usage of the word "proverbial" but it sounds more interesting with that word in than when I attempted to take it out. So its staying. Besides like 1% of my readers will probably end up reading a belated Christmas entry this late in January. I could spend the remainder of this post talking about pineapples and nobody would probably notice.

The snowman is my favorite but then again most things with snowmen on them tend to be labeled "my favorite". He is also the one that seems alright to own past December 25th. The tree on the other hand, and this is coming from someone watching currently watching 'A Charlie Brown Christmas', does seem a little out of place this late in January. I sort of want to hide the fact that I am eating one this late in the game. To the point of shutting the blinds and hoping that the neighbors do not catch a glimpse of this holiday madness. This is January, Christmas Trees and anything vaguely shaped like them should be used as firewood or firewood substitute. Even minty flavored ice cream bars.

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Upon closer inspection you'll see just how great each of these items really are. I know I cannot be the only person out there secretly wishing to roll back the clock by a couple of weeks so we can celebrate the holidays all over again. And with these Winter Ice Cream bars, you sort of can. I mean just look at that snowman. He has absolutely no idea that it is the middle of January. For all he knows its December 20th and there is five feet of snow on the ground outside. That snowman is happy to pretend that it is still Christmas and tonight, I am content with doing the exact same thing.

Kemps Winter Ice Cream would have made a fantastic edition to the 2011 Christmas Countdown and since I am pretty sure these exact same ice cream bars have been sold in stores since roughly 1955... I probably could have waited until the 2012 Christmas Countdown to write about them. Probably would have turned into a better entry if I did it then. But you know what, I am happy to have them right here and right now. The middle of January. They stand as sort of a way to say goodbye to the season and to slowly ease out of the holiday spirit. For that I thank Kemps. I thank their minty flavored trees and wonderfully cheery snowman. I'm not so sure how much Charlie Brown would approve of such a commercial item sparking such late interest into the season but you know what... fuck Charlie Brown. His opinion about the over commercialization of the holiday season is right 99% of the time, but right now we are in that 1% margin that makes worshiping ice cream acceptable. Also. Pineapples.

Topps Wacky Packages!

2012-01-04T22:58:00.000-06:00

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Have you guys ever heard of "Wacky Packages" ? Chances are if the name does not ring a bell as soon as you see photographs of these cards you will instantly recognize them. Wacky Packages are a series of trading cards that originally began production by Topps in 1967. The concept behind them was to basically mock known name brand products. While they began life as simple baseball cards then soon morphed into a series of stickers sold in baseball card style packages. Wacky Packages were an instantly successful line that has been produced on and off since there inception. Today we are going to take a look at a few of the modern cards!

Wacky Packages are one of those items that nobody ever really asks for yet most kids end up with at one point or another. Maybe one day you are sick and your dad brings you home a couple from the store or you buy some with the leftover change you got out of your weekly allowance. Nobody sets out to collect these things but once you get your first taste of them, they are hard to put down. The two packages we are going to be taking a look at came from 2005 but the concept has really not changed since 1967. Enjoy and please forgive the occasionally blurry photo =)

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VERMINA RAT CHOW! -- Is an interesting way to start out this series. Be warned I did not sort these cards one bit. Whatever order they came in is the order that we are going to review them in. Therefore we are starting off with Rat Chow, which is not one of my favorite cards in the bunch and one of the few photographs that turned out sort of blurry. Live and learn, I guess. This card is mocking some brand of cat food that I cannot seem to quite remember the name of. You'll see a strange trend in the cards that has to do with cat killing. I don't know what is up with that. Really don't.

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OLD FASHIONED QUACKER OATS! -- Strictly for the birds! I like the generic Donald Duck face that Topps imposed over top of the Oatmeal guy's head. Not one of the strongest cards in the set but still a pretty good parody. I should note that this card is one of the "rare" magnets instead of a flat out sticker. Meaning that you are free to stick this on your refrigerator and not have to make a commitment to looking at it for the rest of your life. I wish more of these were magnetic. Magnetic things rule.

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LICEOL! -- One of the stupider cards in the set, Liceol could have been much better the this. Though I do enjoy the goofy looking guy on the front of the bottle. Personally I think they should have added more bugs crawling around on the inside of the container and shooting out of the front of the nozzle.

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AQUAFINAL! -- I really don't know what it is about this card but I enjoy it quite a bit. "Meet your maker water for mortals and morticians" ... its Aquafinal water! In my opinion its stupid little gags like these that make Wacky Packages so much fun to open and sort through. Is it dumb? Yes. But I think that is kind of the point of these things. Aquafinal gets bonus points for the little RIP gravestone and the fact that they changed part of the label to read "6ft under"

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FINAL STEP! --This one is funny. A little twisted but still funny. Final Step is some EXPLOSIVE LANDMINE Cat Litter. What I enjoy about this particular card is the background images of cats exploding up into the air via landmines. Good stuff. See I really wasn't kidding when I said that we would be seeing some cat killing cards here shortly. This Final Step card is great, I mean just look at the goofy looking expression on that cats face. It makes it alright that you know it is moments away from exploding into a million chunks. And speaking of exploding cat chunks, take a look at this next card.

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HOUNZ TOMCAT CAT-CHUNKS! -- This one has a lot of information going on, not a good thing for Wacky Packages. These spoofs should be easily recognizable and straight to the point. I really had to look at this card to see what the gag is, which is ketchup that is made out of bits and pieces of cats. More dead cat jokes too, see I told you someone has a thing for disliking cats at Topps. Thus far we have killed rats, cats, and presumably people with the Aquafinal water. I wonder what PETA thinks of Wacky Packages. Ehh, you know what scratch that last thought. I actually don't.

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MRS. RASH! -- Dirt Free Poison Ivy Blend Mrs. Rash! Its quick, its simple, its to the point and you know what... I like it! So it turns out there are a couple of these cards that, while I enjoy them, are so straight to the point that they don't leave much room for discussion. Mrs. Rash is one of them. I feel the need to at least hit an actual paragraph for every photo, though. Its a weird thing I have. If your looking for any more actual information about Mrs. Rash, I already told you there isn't anything else left to say. We should probably move onto the next card. Sticker. Wacky Package. Whatever.

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CHOKIN' IN THE SEA: GUNK LIGHT TUNA! -- I am not really sure how I feel about this one. I get that it is a joke and no I am not offended by the "dolphin unsafe" logo or the "canned in Alaska" bit but things like oil spills and the environmental repercussions of them are not something that should be taken lightly. I am a big of an animal rights activist outside of this website... and stuff like this I think we can just do without. I'll pass on this card.

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TIRED! -- The washday liquid for the lazy bums. I honestly could have done without this laundry detergent spoof. One of the weaker cards in the set. But you know what we are going to more than make up for it here in just a second. Wait until you guys see Headhunter Helper...

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HEADHUNTER HELPER! -- Another strong entry into the series, Betty Chopper Headhunter Helper is a great parody in and upon itself. Get a HEAD START in the kitchen with Betty Chopper. This one is just fantastic, my second favorite card in the set. I particularly enjoy the evil looking cannibal take on the Hamburger Helper glove mascot. Everything about this one is just awesome. From the bleeding spoon Betty Chopper logo to the pile of bones down in the lower left hand corner. A lot of attention to detail was put into this one and it shows.

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COUNT FUNKULA! -- I flat out love this card. Easily the best Wacky Packages card that I own and that is saying something, as we just seen how great Headhunter Helper is. Count Funkula is a parody of the Count Chocula breakfast cereals, which I have wrote about in great detail before. Everything about this card is great, from the included "bits of bling bling" to the General Mills parody logo "Gangsta Shizzle" up in the top left hand corner. I mean what is not to love about Count Chocula dressed as a pimp? His two front teeth have even been turned told! Holy crap this is amazing. I love Wacky Packages!

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CHEAPOS GRUNGY! -- At first glace this one doesn't seem that interesting. Upon closer inspection you will see that this Cheetos parody are actually "cheese flavored packing peanuts" and come with the tag-line "Dangerously Sleazy". I love this card! Between this, Count Funkula and the Headhunter Helper cards somehow the three best cards in the set all ended up right next to one another. The rest of these cards, including the magnet are going to be donated to my friends little son but I plan on keeping Funkula, Grungy, and Headhunter all to myself. It might come as a shock to some of the readers but I cannot keep everything that I write about. And I really don't have any use for a stack of novelty stickers. Besides between writing about them, photographing them, researching them, and writing about them some more I have probably officially spent more time with Topps Wacky Packages than the people who designed Topps Wacky Packages. It will be OK if I let most of them go when I finish this piece.

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DURASMELL! -- Cruddytop batteries that reVOLTS anyone who dares to use them. Durasmell is one of the many Wacky Packages that doesn't really make much sense when you stop and think about it. But then again if your taking the time to think that hard about these cards then you are clearly missing the point. I like this one, if nothing else for the slimy looking green stuff that is coming off from the batteries. That. Is just cool.

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BLISTER! -- The game that breaks you out in spots. Blister is an obvious play on the game Twister. This wins because of how sickly kids are on the front of the package as well as the little box that says "MD get to one... FAST!!!" I also have this identical card that appears to be a temporary tattoo. I didn't bother to take a photo of it because, well its just this photo only in reverse and kind of harder to look at because its a tattoo and whatnot. Just know that it is here and let's move on with our day.

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NUTTY FOOL! -- Iced Tea for Morons. Another one that gave me a brief chuckle, mostly because of the snowman whose tongue is stuck to a can of Nutty Fool. Classic stuff, indeed. It reminds me of that scene from A Christmas Story. The one in which Ralphie gets his tongue stuck to a poll. You know I just realized that I went an entire Christmas season (2010) without once watching that movie. Just goes to show you how strange of a year this last holiday season was. Kind of a bummer when you think about it.

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HAIRY COMBS! -- I have to admit that "Pest Hairy Combs" made me laugh quite a bit. From the nutritional information of 1000 hairs, 50 combs, 0 taste. To the little bit of dialog that says "enlarged to show dandruff" these Hairy Combs are a winner for sure!

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NOTIN'S INVISIBLE BEEF FRANKS! -- Ehh, I could live without this specific card. The gag here is that the hogdogs are invisible. Alright, yea I get it its a play on Nathans world famous hotdogs. I just don't like the way things are worded on this card, not that you can read them as go figure it was one of the blurry photos. You'll notice the top sticker that says 50% Bigger Nothin's and the very bottom text which reads "You ain't seen nothing's yet..." actually, I have seen plenty yet. A combination of Headhunter Helper and Count Funkula make ending on this crappy card kind of a bummer.

But you know what, I am still really glad that I took the time to write about these. It kind of gave me a new appreciation for Wacky Packages. That tends to happen about most of the things I write about, even if I like them already sometimes its not until you spend a couple days and a few thousand words with them that you really figure out what it is you enjoy about them. I have had these cards laying around in the package since 2005. When I was still in High School. I picked them up someplace, on a trip to Minnesota I think and never got around to opening them until just a couple days ago.

That tends to happen with me quite a bit to. I have a thing for leaving items in the package and then forgetting that I have them. Purchased in 2005, forgot about until 2011... it was there destiny to end up on this website. Hope you all enjoyed this quick look at Topps Wacky Packages!

Ultimate Warrior's Crazy Comic Book!

2011-12-29T11:49:00.000-06:00

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Vince McMahon and the (then) World Wrestling Federation have had a long history of trying to branch out the company into things other than wrestling. We have seen everything from bodybuilding leagues, restaurants, TV shows, movies, football leagues, and even one ill-fated attempt at crossing over into the comic book industry. Today we are going to focus on the WWF's attempt at creating a brand of comic book characters, in particular one based around The Ultimate Warrior.

On the surface a line of WWF Comic Books is actually not the craziest thing they could have attempted. It makes far more since to take these already over the top and nuts characters and make them even more insane in a comic book than say attempting to stick them into feature length films. So the guys at Chaos Comics were contacted and soon enough we had special edition comic books featuring the likes of Mankind, The Undertaker, and Stone Cold Steve Austin.

I cannot really speak for the quality of the Chaos Comics as other than a free preview of them I got a long time ago, I never actually read any of them. While I am sure they were never anything spectacular, they at least had to be readable and enjoyable to a couple of kids as they lasted until about 2000 or 2001.

The complete opposite end of the spectrum is the Ultimate Warrior's self titled comic book "Warrior". This book is hands down the strangest thing I have ever read and I read Ted Kaczynski's "Unabomber Manifesto" once. Part of what makes this comic so strange is the fact that it was wrote by none other than the Ultimate Warrior himself. I don't even know if a normal human brain is capable of understanding the things that Warrior outputs. Take a look at this old Warrior wrestling promo, this guy is certifiably nuts and someone let him write this book.

I have read this comic numerous times and while there are indeed many letters that string together to form words and words that form sentences none of them ever really seem to fit together or make any kind of since. I don't know what Warriors self titled comic book is about. I don't know what happens or what was supposed to happen. Honestly I don't think anybody other than the Ultimate Warrior understands this comic book. That my friends is what makes it so great, its like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Prepare yourself for the most fascinating and confusing journey you have ever been on. Get read for... Warrior!

Before we get to the comic itself I feel like there is something that I have to point out before we go any further. The man behind the face paint and bizarre (yet awesome) wrestling promos is a man named Jim Hellwig or at least there was... at one point. You see Jim Hellwig legally changed his name to Warrior. I bring this up for two reasons, for starters it goes a long way into showing just how out-there this guy really is. Secondly, it explains why I have to keep constantly referring to him by his "ring name" of Warrior throughout this article. I would like to call him Jim Hellwig, author as I don't really believe he sat around in full on face paint and ring tights penning this comic book but... well I guess you never know with Warrior. He very well may have and just blamed it on the cosmos or something. Let's move on with the book shall we.

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The book starts with a massive page of nothing but text explaining the term "Destruncity". I've tried to understand this oddball concept before and umm... I still don't know what it is. Allow the Warrior to explain it for you: "In its design, Destruncity represents a constellation existing in the heavens which symbolizes the "Eight Disciplines" by which Warriors chose to live their lives. Brought to existence by the destinies of those willing to die for their Beliefs, brought to exist as a place where people live by Belief in the evolution of their Higher Selves -- constantly evolving toward a completion of their chosen destiny -- all with strength in the denial of "System Beliefs" -- the very Beliefs that amplify differences in and create rights, wrongs, judgements, and opinions in people, places, and things."

So we have Destrucity, which is a umm... a thing that is prevalent throughout this comic book. After all these years I still really do not know just what the hell Warrior is talking about but it does sort of add to the mystique that is Warrior. You have ten different people read that same paragraph and all ten of them will likely draw different conclusions as to what it means. Remember this term, Destrucity, as we will be coming back to it a little bit later on. And now that we know everything we need to know about Warrior and Destrucity it is time to begin the comic book!

Graphically the book does not look half bad. The artists who worked on it did a pretty good job of making it look and feel like a real comic book. As you will soon see the layouts on all the pages are constantly changing and usually pretty visually pleasing to look it. As a matter of fact, I even kind of like the setup. Opening with what looks to be a meteor crash on some strange planet only to revel that it is actually Warrior (who is very Thor like in appearance, albeit it naked) who has fallen from the heavens.

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Clearly someone tried to make this book visually pleasing and at some point there probably was a far more interesting story in place. I really do believe that under proper supervision that Warrior could have made for an interesting short lived comic book series. Treat him sort of like Thor by making him some type of strange god like figure, combined with the face paint and super strength sort of like the Incredible Hulk. I would buy into that for a period of time. However, this book was wrote by the Ultimate Warrior so we will get none of that. Instead we get bits of dialog like this: "The womb of evolution... explosive in its deliverance... a destiny's labor... conception of a higher self's birthright."

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Wait? What was that again? I thought we were looking at pages of Warrior falling asteroid style down from the heavens. What does a womb of evolution have to do with anything? "As quickly as a wound opens, it begins to heal... blood seeping from it hardened... exposed within self... pure in its distinction." You know what on second thought, I am not so sure I want to hear any more about this evolutionary womb and its opening and errr hardening places.

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The next page continues the trend of being visually pleasing and interesting to look at but lord almighty the text that accompanies each image doesn't have a single thing to do with any of it. Just looking at the photos you can tell that Warrior woke up and passed out (apparently long enough for the seasons to change?) which... alright whatever that shouldn't be to hard to convey with a small text box. Apparently, it is. Warrior chose to fill this space with the following: "The strength of ones beliefs cannot be subject to the cruelties brought on by the change of seasons..." From here a near naked Warrior decides to trudge off into distance taking himself towards "that which he is set to destroy"

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Naked Warrior runs (or 'jack a track' as the book describes the process of running) through what appear to be a desert, mountain top, jungle, swamp, and grassy field all the while spewing complete lines of nonsense until he reaches a lake and suddenly spies something off in the distance.

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Why it is the Warrior Signal! Just like the Bat Signal that Commissioner Gordon uses when he needs to get ahold of Batman. I wonder what this Warrior Signal could mean. Have we finally reached some semblance of a plot?

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Ahhhh, no actually. Warrior just takes this opportunity to remind us all of Destrucity. You know, the thing that not a single person other than Warrior understands. Looking at the image above never has a single word followed by a question mark ever looked more appropriate than it does right now. Destrucity? Yea... I don't know what it is either.

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Continuing on with the trend of being as confusing as possible some strange combination of Destruncity and "liquid memories" leads Warrior to see the spirit of his father rise from a lake. Well at least now we might finally be getting someplace. Right?

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Wrong. Warriors lake-father proceeds to simultaneously bore and confuse the reader by saying things such as this: "... from a time and place not yet complete in its memory. As it has been in many lifetimes... shall it be now. Your conception challenged in the living of your life as a warrior. Balanced in the definition of disciplines... destruncity. I come only as a vision wise in and of knowledge... sorrowfull I cannot express my emotion." Those holding out hope that we would get a coherent plot should probably stop. If you cannot tell by now not a goddamn thing in this book makes any sense. Not a lick of it. Proof is by what happens next.

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After seeing some sort of strange lake spirit vision of his father Warrior decides to dive head first into the water...

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...only to jump right-the-fuck-back-out and proclaim that "THE STUDENT IS READY..." You know for some strange reason I am sort of starting to like this comic book. Not in the traditional way but in the "so bad its kind of good" way that I find enjoyment out of b-grade horror films. Warrior's comic is so awful and so confusing that you just sort of sit back in astonishment that someone thought this up.

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Not being one to kid around, immediately after Warrior proclamations that he is ready the very next page has him beating up a bunch of unnamed demon guys in hooded robes, who up until this point have not even been mentioned in the book. Ehhh what the hell why not. I'm surprised it took them this long to get Warrior fighting things. If I would have wrote it I would have made him a combination of Thor and the Incredible Hulk and had Warrior smashing shit from page one. Then again I also would not have let Warrior anyplace near the books story.

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Warrior continues to decimate these unnamed bad guys, who sort of look like a less interesting version of Mum-Ra from the Thundercats cartoon combined with the Ewoks from Star Wars. If this comic book has anything positive going for it, definitely has to be these couple of pages right here. For starters they lack all of Warrior's over-inflated bits of dialog and instead feature little tidbits that read somewhat like an actual comic book. "A warrior placed within battle becomes forcefully fierce. Concrete in connection Precision in decision. Devastating in destruction" Its no Frank Miller dialog or anything but it gets the job done and I actually understand what it is saying. Even though I have no idea who or better yet why Warrior is fighting these people, this is by far the highlight of the book.

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The next page proves my earlier theory that originally Warrior was originally supposed to be a Thor inspired character in this book. Just glancing at the illustrations and forgoing the fact that Warrior is still naked you do have to admit that the general design of the character does resemble the Norse God of Thunder quite a bit. "... created for reaction. Relief within the violence. Tranquility in the sacrifices that surrender for him. Intuition always a priority. At times his only ally. Always a truth within it." Well you know what that sort of makes sense in a really strange sort of Warrior way.

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For those wondering what has been going on during these last two or three pages. Well... nothing really. Hes just been continuing to beat up the nameless Ewok / Mum-Ra guys until we reach a point where Warrior shouts at all of us to feel his power...

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...and then apparently explodes into a pit of lava. You know I could not make this stuff up even if I tried. Why would he explode into a lava pit? Because this book was wrote by the Ultimate Warrior! "Reason Enough" indeed.

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On the next page Warrior emerges from said lava pit, still naked as ever, though apparently we are supposed to believe that during this moment is when Warrior transformed into the super hero he was destined to be. Astute readers will notice he the gold trimmed boots and gloves along with the red mask and tassels that now complete Warriors hero look. As a matter of fact they dedicate a full page to it next.

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I sort of like what they did with his costume. The wildly flowing tassels sort of have a Spawn like look to them. His trademark face-paint translates almost perfectly to a comic book hero and the logos on his boots are pretty neat as well. I like his jacked up Thor / Hulk look too. But with all of that said, I don't understand why they continually chose to make Warrior appear naked. I mean seriously, he is wearing very little clothing and unless you look really hard at the photo, its tough to even see that he is wearing gold trimmed gloves and boots. They probably should have given him dark purple boots and gloves, along with some sort of colored tights. And for all we know they very well may have tried but Warrior just insisted that his comic book character appeared naked at all times. Don't question the logic of the Warrior.

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The story on the other hand decides to give us a plot twist, because if there is one thing this book needs at this point it is more of those. So we suddenly cut from our first full look of costumed Warrior to a modern day skyscraper and the inside of a hospital. "A synchronous moment... held close yet so far away." As a man wrapped in heavy bandages lays on.

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The man is obviously meant to be the Warrior and it is at this point that we the reader are to understand that all the crazy shit we have read up until this point actually didn't happen and was just some sort of dream that Warrior was having while in a coma or whatever.

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The final page of the book has this guy "in and of another moment" telling us all to "believe this" and on that cliffhanger we have reached the end of the first issue of the Warrior comic book. And you know what something strange happened about half way through writing this article. I had previously though this had been one of the worst comic books I have ever read. By all rights it is a completely incoherent piece of shit excuse for a comic book... but I am somehow sort of interested in seeing what happens next. It literally took me forcing myself to sit down and read this book line by line and write what basically amounts to my own synopsis of its events. But I do kind of like this thing.

This series only lasted for four issues and one very strange Christmas edition and I somehow doubt that any of these Warrior books have very many people collecting them. No guarantees that I will be able to track down all five (including the special edition book) but I will see what I can do. Hopefully we get to continue on with this strange story sometime here in the near future. In the mean time I can think of no better way to end this post than with some Warrior words of wisdom!

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"The world is full of those who do not wish to believe and label such thought nonsense. For them, there are always will be the 'system' to do their thinking. Therefore, the 'system' creates their 'thoughts'. These individuals deny the voice of their Higher Self and follow whatever is popular opinion at any given time. It's an energy giving and draining existence that eventually leaves one without the strength to resist" Well said Ultimate Warrior, whatever it is you are talking about. Destrucity.

Christmas Town Archives!

2011-12-26T11:22:00.000-06:00

Well guys and ghouls I am officially on a week of vacation from work! Among other things this will give me a chance to get started on some of the none-holiday themed articles for 2012. I have already started working on two or three of them and I cannot wait to share what those are with everybody.

But first we have one last thing we need to take care of for the 2011 Christmas Countdown before we can officially close the curtains on that holiday season. Its time to open up the Christmas Town Archives section of the website! Just like Halloween Town, this area will be dedicated to everything that I have ever wrote (and ever will write) that pertains to the holiday season. I know right now we are all sort of sick and tired of hearing about Santa Clause's holly jolly fat ass but come July it will be kind of nice to revisit these older holiday articles.

That's all for today folks. Be sure to check back for lots of great none-holiday related content that will hit within the next couple of days!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T00:19:00.003-06:00

I just wanted to take a brief minute to wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas! Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this blog, it really does mean a lot to me and I hope it brings enjoyment to you all as well. Please be sure to stop back as sometime within the next couple of days I have a couple last minute gifts that I would like to share with everyone as per the 2011 Christmas Countdown! You guys made 2011 a fantastic year and I cannot wait to get 2012 under way!

Quick Update 12/26: Sorry for anyone who was hoping the Christmas theme was going to stick around for a while longer. I've started working on my first batch of none-seasonal material and honestly did not realize just how tried I was of looking at that Christmas Tree background and pretty much everything else that relates to the holiday. I have one final post that I will put up here shortly and then we are going to call it a wrap on the 2011 Christmas Countdown. There will be no extension into January this year, lol. But don't worry the article I am working on... you guys are going to get a BIG TIME kick out of. Once again thanks for all the support!

Holiday Pop Rocks ... Rock!

2011-12-23T14:38:00.000-06:00

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We finally got some snow on the ground here in Iowa yesterday. For only the second time so far this year. Its really kind of strange that all of November and most of December have been in the middle 40s and 50s with even a few rouge 60 degree days sprinkled in. I think part of my Christmas burnout comes from the fact that it just hasn't really felt like the holiday season this year. Being able to look out the window and see actual snow on the ground goes a long way in rejuvenating ones Christmas spirit. So let's cover some Holiday Pop Rocks before I never feel like writing about them ever again.

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Holiday Pop Rocks are a relatively cheap way to get some last minute enjoyment out of the Christmas season. A package of three comes bundled together for right around one dollar or if you are like me you'll somehow end up with a mysterious fourth package. Best not to question.

The flavor in question is candy cane and the rocks have been color coordinated to sort of resemble crushed candy canes. I would have preferred they went with a red and green theme for the rocks in order to look a little more festive but honestly the outside of the package more than makes up for it.

As for the taste, yea its sort of candy cane like. I have never been that big of fan of the way Pop Rocks taste to begin with so its not really surprising that I am not head over heals in love this flavor. Besides nobody eats Pop Rocks for the taste, you eat them for the experience of fizzing popping rock candy in your mouth. This time your allowed to do it with the guise of Christmas underneath.

I really do enjoy is the overall theme accomplished with these. They just look nice and festive and I feel like even if you don't really like the candy, that they would still make for great stocking stuffers. As a matter of fact if you look closely at the bag they came in you will see the ever illusive "to" and "from" sections on the top and bottom of the bag respectively. If you need some last minute cheap gifts to pad out that special someones Christmas stocking, you should give Holiday Pop Rocks a look.

Limited Edition Gingerbread Pop Tarts!

2011-12-21T18:21:00.000-06:00

After yesterdays sort of failed attempt at writing about The Abominable Snow Monster, I decided to take a good long look at the pile of Christmas items that I have left to cover. I wanted to see if there was really anything left that struck me as something I absolutely had to write about. As it turns out there is still just a little gas left in my Christmas tank. Just enough to make it through these Limited Edition Gingerbread Pop Tarts and not completely sound bored out of my mind while writing about them.

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I guess I never never really realized until now just how many different types of Pop Tarts get released seasonally. I wrote about Spookylicious Pop Tarts during the 2011 Halloween Countdown and here we have some Gingerbread kind for the Christmas Countdown. I guess that is only two holiday variations of Pop Tarts but still it feels like more.

Back in early November I decided I wanted to write a full fledged article about gingerbread cookies. As you can see by the fact that we only have four days left until Christmas that is not going to happen. I assure you. The point of it though was that gingerbread is synonymous with the Christmas season and something that you are really only allowed to eat two months out of the year. I always look for as many different ways as possible to eat gingerbread during the holiday season and these Limited Edition Pop Tarts are yet another clever way to ingest the stuff.

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However just simply tasting like gingerbread is not enough for these awesome holiday Pop Tarts. Nope Kellogg's goes the extra mile by printing these awesome images of gingerbread men snowboarding and preforming other various outdoors winter tasks. According to the top of the package there are up to fifty different variations of said images. Well hell, now I sort of want to start a collection of opened Pop Tarts just to see if I can find all fifty or if they are blatantly lying to us in order to sell more Pop Tarts.

If you are wondering how they taste, then that would be considerably better than their Halloween counterpart did. For starters, gingerbread is the main ingredient. From there they do absolutely nothing other than a hint of cinnamon and some white frosting that kind of looks like toothpaste on the inside. I've yet to decide what exactly that frosting tastes like but I do know that it is actually pretty good.

This late in the holiday game I feel like it is tough to get excited about anything that is holiday themed. Somehow and against all odds these Gingerbread Pop Tarts manage to invigorate my slowly dying holiday spirit. Kellogg's you have managed to keep Christmas around for a couple more days and for that, I thank you!

Deluxe Abominable Snow Monster!

2011-12-20T20:49:00.000-06:00

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While the "Charlie Brown Christmas Special" may be my favorite holiday special it is not without some stiff competition from some other classic cartoons. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "The Year Without A Santa Clause" are true holiday classics in ever respect of the word, I think I like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" just a little bit more. Though quite frankly it is a little like picking a favorite child, sort of impossible to do.

Rudolph has many classic characters from Yukon Cornelius, Sam the Snowman, and the Charlie in the Box. None of these manage to be quite as awesome as Bumble, the Abominable Snow Monster!

Hes kind of cute, kind of frightening and an all around great character. Easily my favorite character in the show. Today we are going to take a look at a Deluxe Abominable Snow Monster from a couple of years ago. Impossible to resist, even with a hefty $10.00 price tag. What can I say, he looks great hanging on my wall with all my other packaged figures!

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I like this figure, I really do. I should have wrote about him earlier in the year. I hate to admit it but I am starting to run on Christmas fumes at the moment. Its a strange feeling as just the other week I was thinking about extending the countdown all the way into the middle of January. Now... I don't know. I'm sort of struggling to find words for any of the items that I have left to cover. It's no fault of the Abominable Snow Monster, though. This is a really nice looking figure. Dare I say it is even a better quality than the original that was used in the 1960's stop motion cartoon. Let's take a closer look and see.

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Obviously he lacks the ability to be fully expressive like the one in the cartoon, but otherwise he probably is an all around better figure than the one they used way back when. I am a big fan of his fur, it reminds me of an old Masters of the Universe toy that I used to own back in the day, Grizzlor. My parents made me throw away Grizzlor because he got left outside in the sandbox a bunch of times and a deadly combination of rain, sand, and cat shit eventually matted all his fur together into something that looked like it housed about fourteen different STDs. That is part of the reason why I have chosen to leave Bumble here in the package. I don't want that white fur to blemish and turn yellow. Or become matted with cat shit.

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Here are the rest of the figures in the set. Yada, yada, yada. I do not own any of them other than this one but I would really like a Charlie in the Box. Look my heart is still very clearly in this Christmas game but my mind is just drawing a blank on this stuff at the moment. I will keep it up through December 25th but as soon as the clock strikes midnight I am officially pulling off the restraints and calling it OK to move on with other topics around here again.

As for closing thoughts on the Deluxe Abominable Snow Monster, despite the half assed effort put forth into writing this article I do really like this figure. He is a great packaged edition to my collection and one that sort of stands out from everything else that I collect. I would also have loved to own him back in my "toy playing" days. He would not have been a leader figure (one put in charge of all the other figures) like Dracula Don but I could totally see Bumble being the right hand man for one of the leader figures. That is a pretty big deal. I feel bad for not giving full effort in this article. Therefore I am going to make it up by ending with an old Fruity Pebbles Christmas Commercial!

Now this is something that I can spend the next fifteen minutes typing about. These old Fruity Pebbles Christmas Commercials are a big, big part of my holiday memories as a child. It seems like there was only ever a handful of them that got produced and they aired on almost a constant loop from Thanksgiving through New Years. And you know what that was alright. I remember sitting around just waiting for these commercials to come on. It was exciting for some reason. And you know what even though they are trying to sell you breakfast cereal they somehow manage to fit in a message about sharing with others. Pretty impressive for a thirty second TV advertisement.

Hopefully you guys are equally as nostalgic for Fruity Pebbles as I. Maybe then you'll forgive me for clearly cheating this Abominable Snow Monster out of his fifteen minutes of fame. =) Merry Christmas everyone. Just eat your fuckin' cereal, Barney.

Gingerbread Cookies!

2011-12-16T13:41:00.000-06:00

I am still in absolute shock that we have nine days left until Christmas. I don't know what happened to the month of December. Legitimately do not know what happened to that month. Maybe its because I have been busy with work, maybe its because there has been a decidedly lack of snow this season. Whatever the case may be something has happened to speed up this Holiday Season. Therefore, if we want to enjoy things like Gingerbread Cookies we had best do so right-the-fuck-now.

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I am not ready to give up any of this stuff. I hope you guys like Christmas because I have a feeling that the 2011 Christmas Countdown is going to extend though the first half of January. I mean just take a look at this festive looking box. We are technically nearing the two month mark on things like this being out on store shelves and by this point I should be ready to kick Santa in his holly jolly balls and move on with something else. Not the case at all. I am actually quite sad that in nine short days things like this are going to be on the way out.

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I love gingerbread cookies. I was planning on baking a whole batch of them and then writing an article about that process but from the looks of things I am simply not going to have the time to get around to it. I've still got five or six big articles that I need to finish up and only nine days to get them done in. Time is no longer on my side for the remainder of this holiday season. I feel like I keep saying this but I cannot put enough emphasis on it. The time is now to enjoy the little things that make up the Christmas Season. If you have not had the time to drink some hot chocolate, eat a gingerbread cookie, or drive around and check out some Christmas lights you really should make time. Nine days folks! That's all we have left!

The 1995 Holiday Gift Guide!

2011-12-15T13:01:00.000-06:00

Last year I wrote one of my favoritepieces for the website, the 1994 Holiday Gift Guide. Some genuinepages taken from an old stack of Nickelodeon Magazines that I hadlaying around. It was a fun piece to write as I absolutely love oldtoys from the 1990s. Out of a stack of probably around 50 of theseold Nick Magazines, only two years had Holiday Gift Guides in them. 1994 and 1995.Last year we ranked everything on a scale of one to five based on how“1990's Awesome” each item is. One meaning the item is ChristmasCrap and five being something you absolutely could not live without.This year we I am going to follow suit and continue on with therankings. Today we are going to once again take a trip down memorylane and take a look at The 1995 Holiday Gift Guide!

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“It's thattime of year again. This holiday gift guide will tell you about thelatest games, toys and software, just in time for you to update yourgift wish list. So turn the pages and see what's new!”– This is the opening words as seen on the fantastic opening pageof the 1995 Holiday GiftGuide. I am really a bigfan of whoever designed this title page, it's simple andminimalistic style really manages to capture the spirit of theholiday season. At least as well as a mid-90s advertisement in akids magazine possibly could.

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DISCOVERYZONE FUNCENTERS: Thevery first thing pictured in the 1995Holiday Gift Guideis not a toy, it's not a book, it's not a video game, it's not even apiece of music... it's an advertisement for an 800 number from whichyou can purchase gift certificates for the now defunct DiscoveryZonefun facilities. Not a very good start. For those of you who havenever head of the DiscoveryZone(or DZ for short) it was basically a poor mans Chuck E. Cheese's. Itended up going bankrupt in March of 1996, so if any of you arereading this from a time machine in the year 1995 donot buy stock into the Discovery Zone Funcenters!One out of Five1990's Points!

NFLMATH:It's math. It's the NFL. It's only $39.95 and it comes on CD-ROM orFloppy Disc Drive. It's a horribleChristmas present for children of all ages. Nobody wants junk likethis, not in the year 1995, not now... not ever. Oneout of Five 1990's Points!

CLUBLISA FRANK MEMBERSHIP: Thefinal item on the first is a membership to ClubLisa Frank, youknow the company that made wacky novelty school supply items thatwere mostly covered in glitter and unicorns. Girlsstuffto be precise. I do remember LisaFrankbeing crazy popular in the mid 90s so it's no real surprise to seeNickelodeon trying to cash in on her popularity here. To join Lisa'sCult you must first enclose $10.00 plus $3.50 shipping and handlingand you get yourself a LisaFrankclub membership certificate, membership card, stationery, an “awesomepen”,official logo stickers, terrific jumbo stickers, and a subscriptionto her “Clubbin'Magazine”… while I was never into LisaFrankfor obvious reason, I know the stuff was wildly popular and veryrooted in 1990's culture. Therefore, I think we have to give this onea Four out of Five1990's Points!Besides, you get an awesomepenwith your subscription! AwesomePen!

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GIBSONELECTRIC GUITAR:The last entry might have been for the girls but this one is clearlyfor the guys! It's a GibsonElectric Guitar!Totally radical. Plus the advertisement gives you an 800 number andpretty much encourages kids to call without parental permission.“Call1-800-4-GIBSON, extension 288, for a free brochure to give yourparents called “How to Buy an Electric Guitar.”See... Nickelodeon is pretty much telling you that it's alright touse the phone to call 800 numbers if its for a free brochure. Goahead. Do it. Call. You know you want to. Fourout of Five 1990's Points!

ARCADEAMERICA: It'sthe most radical CD-ROM platform game in the country and apparentlyall hedgehogs, earthworms, and donkeys need to step aside to makeroom for ArcadeAmericaand its 60 outrageous levels. At least that is what the payedadvertisement would have us all believe. In actuality, I've neverheard of the game and neither anyone on Wikipedia for that matter,for Arcade Americais the only thing in existence which lacks it's own Wikipedia page. Idid manage to find oneperson who uploaded some gameplay video over on YouTube but it hassuch horribly distorted sound that I could not sit through more thana couple minutes of footage. Basically, the game looks like it sucks.A note to the “creatorsof Battle Beast”if your going to call out classic franchises like Sonic, Donkey Kong,and Eathworm Jim you should at least make sure the game your callingthem out with is at least good.One out of Five1990's Points!

SCHOLASTIC'STHE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS CD-ROM INTERACTIVE SCIENCE ADVENTURES:That is one long title for a video game based on the old PBS cartoonshow “The MagicSchool Bus”.And is it just me or has the first couple of pages for the 1995Holiday Gift Guidekind of sucked compared to last years version? The sucking trendcontinues with yet another video game which tries to double as alearning device. I have nothing against “TheMagic School Bus”but this is supposed to be a Christmas gift guide! No kid wantsanything that requires much thinking, let alone learningcome XMAS morning. Besides this is 1995, shouldn't we be flooded withTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Nickelodeon GACK by this point? Oneout of Five 1990's Points!

IZZYTHE OFFICIAL CHARACTER OF THE 1996 OLYMPIC GAMES, ATLANTA:Once again that is a hell of a name for a product that is a cheappink or blue child’s watch. But of course these are not just youraverage run of the mill cheap plastic watches, these ones featureIZZY...probably the must unliked and unloved Olympic mascot ever created.IZZY is this horribly weird creation that is blue in color and kindof looks like a cross between a sneaker, a smurf, and the old 7Up Dotlogo. I doubt many kids were making last minute changes to theirChristmas Wish List to include officially licensed IZZY watches. Twoout of Five 1990's Points!Because it's from the makers of the “Swatch”

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RISEAND SLIME! : We must be nearing the “meat and potatoes” portion of this giftguide because the TimeBlaster:Rise and Slimealarm clock is by farthecoolest thing we have seen yet. What your looking at here is an alarmclock, but not just any alarm clock this is an officially licensedNickelodeon alarm clock so you just knowit does all kinds of wacky things. How wacky? Well for starters ithas an officially licensed NASA countdown followed by either a bugle,a cuckoo, a boing, or an original “Nick Noise”. I miss the old days when Nickelodeon used to make all these really crazy stupid products. They just seemed like more of a fun kids company. Maybe they still make products like these, I really don't know. If they do they sure aren't advertised like this anymore. Five out of Five Nick Noises!

NORDSTORM KIDS WEAR QUIKSILVER WALLET / WATCH SET! : Owch. This one hurts quite a bit. There is not a kid alive who wants to shred open a present on Christmas morning and find a wallet and watch set staring back at you. I am a firm believer that when you are a kid you should get kids things for Christmas. Look, there is only so many years that you are allowed to play with Transformers or Ninja Turtles. You can only have alarm clocks that make bugle noises for so long before your friends start to look at you funny. Christmas time should be about enjoying and embracing your childhood. Don't give your kids things like this. You will have plenty of time to purchase them these things when they are an adult. Zero out of Five Ruined Christmas Mornings!

MILKCAP MAZES! : Hey! You guys remember mazes right? You used to draw them out on paper and such. Well now you can play mazes on your PC with Milkcap Mazes! Apparently the Slammin' Muck Monster has captured Cool Kap's pals and you need to save them! Via a series of mazes! ... yea, what a load of horse shit. Nobody wants to play this crap, not even in 1995. However this game does include free limited edition authentic Pog brand Milkcaps! Now we are on to something, I was a huge collector of Pogs back in the day and I am pretty sure if I look hard enough I could still find a box of them laying around someplace. Chances are half my audience has no idea what the hell a "Pog" even is. I cannot decide if I want to ruin the fun now or save it for a future article. I'm thinking Pogs will make great mid-July fodder for the website, so lets save it for then. As for the stupid maze game, Two out of Five!

NICKELODEON COMPUTER ACCESSORIES by BRAINWORKS! : I am pretty sure we seen this exact same thing last year in the 1994 Holiday Gift Guide. I'm not checking because I hate reading articles that old for fear that I will want to update and change everything I had wrote prior, but I am pretty sure they are there. Anyhow what we have here is a bunch of cheap plastic shit that you stick on your PC monitor and a crappy multicolored neon keyboard that probably doesn't function properly. I hate this junk. Because that's exactly what it is, junk. I know I gushed all over the alarm clock up there but that is different. That clock was functional. It was awesome and it served a purpose at the same time. This is just crap, no kid had there own personal computer in 1995 to decorate like this. And if they did, chances are they are old enough to not want their keyboard to have handles on the side of it. One out of Five Neon Orange Computer Mouses!

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CONNECTSOFT KID WEB! : Well isn't this something. I think, at least if I am interpreting the product description correctly, that this is basically a web browser for your computer. "Discover the Wold Wide Web with Johnny Web and his cyberdog, Browser. Explore sports, music, news fun and games -- whatever you want! Johnny and Browser guide you on your journey into the future." I wonder if you can watch porn with it. Seriously, that is the only question I have for Connectsoft is if Johnny Web and his cyberdog will track down pornography over the internet for me. After-all it does say whatever I want. One out of Five Cyberdogs Named Browser!

I.M. MEEN DOS CD-ROM! : We have an MS-DOS based game here folks. I repeat an MS-DOS based game. How many of you are old enough to have used DOS? I have plenty of memories, though I am not so sure if I would call them fond, of spending long hours configuring setups and installing drivers via DOS prompts. Using commands like CHKDSK or DIR. It was an entire language of short hand computer speak that you basically had to know in order to get stuff to function properly but nobody ever spent the time to teach you any of the stuff. You kind of learned things on an "as needed" basis and eventually had enough bits and pieces stored up to work your way through most problems. It was a frustrating process to say the least. You should try spending four hours configuring a Soundblaster audio card and still not have it work correctly. As for the game here, it is full of all kinds of great mid-90s marketing terms. Such as the ability to have 3D levels and such. The games probably stupid as hell but since I got to rant about MS-DOS we'll give it Two Broken DOS Commands out of Five!

NICK PUZZLERS AND BRAIN BENDER! : Finally a break from all the educational PC games, we have what appears to be a series of electronic games that come in the form of brain teaser puzzles. Each unit has four different games built in or you can test your knowledge with the trivia games that apparently have hundreds of questions on them. I remember a sudden surge in little electronics like these in the early to mid 90s so it is no real surprise to see them in this catalog. Of course with the advent of smart phones, apps, and the wide spread availability of the internet nobody has a need to carry around devices like this anymore that only provide one single means of distraction. Back in 1995 though, this stuff was a big deal. Everyone always seemed to end up with two or three of these things, each doing something different and everyone always managed to get them taken away in school because we would always play them instead of reading or whatever. These Nick Puzzlers and Brain Benders are probably nothing special on there own but I am giving the concept as a whole a 4 out of 5 No Longer Practical To Own Electronic Devices! Because we all had junk like this laying around in the 1990s.

YIKES FOR THE HOLIDAYS! : Yikes could not possibly be any more rooted in 1990s pop culture trends than what they are. Or were... as I don't think Yikes is even around as a company anymore. Anyyhow for my younger readers out there allow me to explain something to you. In the 1990s we were utterly obsessed as a culture with being as cool as possible. Now I know what your thinking, every generation thinks they are hip and cool. No, you do not understand we tried really, really, really hard to be ultra hip and mega in your face cool and we did so by attempting to be the most extreme generation as possible. Hence the need for stuff like Yikes school supplies. Yes you read that correctly, school supplies. It was just pens and pencils, notebooks and paper. But it was extreme pens and pencils, with neon paint jobs and multicolored eraser heads. Looking back on Yikes, I don't understand it at all. You don't need a pencil that is seventeen shades of yellow, orange, blue, and pink. But... what the hell it was cool so we bought as much Yikes stuff as we possibly could. Therefore its a Five out of Five Overpriced Neon School Supplies!

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BOOKS FROM BEYOND! : I have a story that I would like to tell. When I was in elementary school there was a certain section of books that could only be rented out once you were in 4th grade. It was a small section of "horror" (though I use that word only in the broadest possible definition, this was elementary school after all) books that mostly consisted of Goosebumps novels and a couple others that I don't exactly remember anymore. Everyone was always ubber jealous of the 4th grade class because they were the only ones allowed to read them. It was some sort of strange right of passage when you graduated from third to fourth grade, finally being able to check out books from this once forbidden section. You just felt older and more mature for being able to do so. In my days elementary school was K-4 and middle school ran 5-8 with high school kicking in at 9-12. There was a certain satisfaction from being the oldest class of kids in school, knowing that you got to check out books like these. I loved it. Everyone loved it. I'm not sure if these Books from Beyond are anything special, they probably aren't. And while we are ranking things on how well they would make Christmas presents my own personal preference has to intervene. If I had gotten these when I was in 3rd grade I would have proudly brought them to school and showed off to all my friends. Saying that I didn't have to rent from the forbidden library shelf, I owned this sit already. It would have been great! Five out of Five "Horror" Related Children's Books!

SUMMERFIELD SUITS HOTELS! : Pardon my language but what the fuck is this doing in here. "Hey kids! Tell mom and dad to book you a vacation..." Uhhh, no. I think I'll pass on that one. One out of Five Confused Marketing Strategies!

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HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! : The Grinch is one of those defining Christmas movies that I think everyone should see at least half a dozen times in their life. It is one of my many holiday traditions to watch it at least once every XMAS season. What we have here is the audio book version of the... book. Alright yea, I would much rather own the physical book than the narration kind but I am going to have to give this specific one a pass because it is narrated by Boris Karloff! Yes that's right, Frankenstein's Monster is going to be reading you the story of how the Grinch Stole Christmas. If that's not awesome then I don't know what is. Three out of Five Karloff Points!

BIG FUN FOR SMALL FRIES! : Is a really stupid name for a set of magic markets. Let's not beat around the bush here, it is quite dumb. Even if they are some type of McDonalds branded markets and especially because there is a much more interesting name towards the end of the product description. McMarkers! Did you read that one correctly? McMarkers! McMarkers. It does not get much better then that folks. Four out of Five McPoints!

HYPERMAN CD-ROM GAME! : The bottom half of two separate pages are dedicated this Hyperman game. I'm really kind of angry with that decision. It makes me feel cheated out of what should have been four additional products. Instead all we get is Hyperman, a game that I have never heard of and chances are you have never heard of either. It is yet another puzzle solving title. Alright, I get that this is a kids magazine and a certain percentage of this stuff should promotion learning and education but every game in this Holiday Gift Guide has been one. In the 1994 version we had all kinds of Ren and Stimpy titles mixed in with the occasional puzzle title. There is no reason why Hyperman needs a two page spread all to himself. One out of Five Crappy PC Games!

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LEVI'S SHIRTS AND JEANS! : Blah! Speaking of full page advertisements that suck, the entire half of this page is dedicated to Levi's clothing. Brand name, top of the line, K-Mart special clothing. No kid wants clothing for Christmas. No matter how hip or cool Levi's try's to appear, it doesn't matter. Nobody wants them. One out of Five Crappy Christmas Presents!

MATH MUNCHERS DELUXE! : Look, this is 1995. The year of the Sony Playstation. Kids are wanting to play things like Crash Bandicoot or Twisted Metal not Math Munchers Deluxe. It is almost sort of insulting that the games that have been advertised in this magazine have been nothing but pure throw away garbage. One out of Five How Many Shitty PC Games Can We Fit in One Article!

AMERICAN CHILLS! : ... and the final item of the 1995 Holiday Gift Guide is none other than, a novel by Elizabeth Massie. Humph. To say that this catalog has been a disappointment is sort of an understatement. We have a serious lack of interesting, noteworthy items on these pages. I probably should have glanced over everything a little bit better before I committed into writing this full piece. Truth be told once you spend the time to scan in, rotate, crop, and upload all the photos. Write an introduction (which takes longer than you could imagine) and start on the piece... there is no going back.

I lived through the 1995 Holiday Season and I can tell you that the real items we wanted and wished for were much better and far cooler than anything seen in this catalog. I don't know why there was such a severe dip in quality products from 1994 to 1995. If I had to bet there was some bitchy parent out there who got together with some other equally bitchy parents and complained to Nickelodeon about the amount of toys they had in last years guide. Therefore, Nick felt obligated to stick in a bunch of educational software and wrist watches to make up for it the following season.

Yuck. Well, it was still an interesting look at a prior decade. It does give an interesting glimpse into the culture and how things were worded and how magazines were styled. So for that I am glad that I covered the 1995 Holiday Gift Guide. Sadly, there will be no 1996 version as these were the only two I could find. But you never know, I do have almost a full year to prepare for the 2012 Christmas Countdown!

2011 Coca Cola Holiday Can!

2011-12-14T00:25:00.000-06:00

Out of the many things that I collect soda cans are probably my favorite. I have everything from Star Wars to old WCW Surge cans. Old cans. New cans. Ones that tie into various promotions and others of ill conceived flavors that were destined to fail. However the ones that I enjoy collecting the most are the Coca Cola Holiday cans.

Every holiday season the fine folks at Coke release a new limited edition Coca Cola can. It is never anything major, but they are fun to collect. Some years it features Santa Clause other times its Polar Bears. This year Coke decided to do the Polar Bear thing and even went so far as to team up with the World Wildlife Fund to help spread the word about protecting these animals.

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Taking a quick look at this years cans I can say that I both love and hate them at the same time. I absolutely adore just how out there this design is. The entire color scheme has been flipped around. The pieces that should be red on a standard coke can are now white while the formally white "Coca Cola" text is now red. The actual bears are a sort of reflective silver. It is a very eye popping can and one that stands out from anything else that Coke has done in the past.

Unfortunately, I wasn't even aware that these were the true holiday cans. I thought they were some sort of side promotion that Coke was doing on top of the normal holiday stuff. My main concern is the complete lack of text that says "Holiday 2011" on them. From a collection standpoint that is kind of a big deal. When you have an entire shelf full of holiday cans, having one that lacks the date makes it stand out and not in a good way. It would have been very easy to fit this text under the main logo and it wouldn't have ruined the overall design. Its sort of confusing as to why Coke decided to omit it this season.

And then there is the weird "controversy" that is surrounding this years can. For as well designed and awesome looking as it is, Coke made a mistake. They forgot just how stupid the general public can be. Everyone is used to regular Coca Cola being sold in red cans and Diet Coke being sold in silver cans. Apparently enough people picked up these white cans and thought they were getting Diet Coke. To the point that people complained to the company and managed to get these pulled from the shelves.

Seriously. For like point five seconds I thought these could have been Diet Coke cans. That is until I picked one up and, you know, read the label. But since reading things is not one of my countries strong points, Coke caved in and cut the shelf life on these short and is releasing a re-designed can with flipped colors. You can still find the white cans in stores and don't go buying them thinking you'll make a fortune selling them on e-bay. You will not. They are still selling the millions upon millions that have already been shipped. Its just the red ones are going to slowly take their place.

Overall, I like the can. Its well designed, if not a slightly lacking. It has a strange story attached to it and will probably be the last time we ever see Coke make this drastic of a departure from the classic red and white Coke color scheme. Its not quite the holiday can I had in mind for 2011, but I am thankful for the one we got anyway!

Nobody Likes Holiday Fruit Cake!

2011-12-10T00:03:00.000-06:00

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When it comes to Christmas I am a bit of a traditionalist. Not so much in the classic since, I don't refuse to put certain or ornaments on the tree because they are not a billion years old. I don't have any issues with selecting a fake Christmas tree over a real one, as a matter of fact I prefer the fake ones. Point is here I don't feel the need to celebrate the holiday any other way than my own.

You see when I say Christmas traditionalist I am instead talking about my own personal set of things that I do every season. I have to watch the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, I have to have at least one cup of Hot Chocolate, I have to see A Christmas Story on TNT and for some reason I have to purchase at least one Holiday Fruit Cake.

Now I operate under the theory that there is not a single person alive who likes these fruit cakes. There cannot be. I've never seen one. Yet, everyone always ends up with one of these stupid things every year. Some of us even purchase them on our own free will. Why? No reason other than tradition. Christmas just does not feel like Christmas until you've tried to eat one a piece of these.

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And try will be about the only thing you will accomplish. I for one can never manage more than a couple bites of this stuff. Especially the god awful cheap kind like the one I am covering today. For starters, look at it. Can you identify anything in that cake as being fruit. I cannot. In a strange way, fruit cake has always reminded me of pickle loaf bologna. That is not a good thing. I've never been able to figure out why they are so heavy and greasy either. It is a mystery. One gigantic Christmas mystery that nobody understands. Yet here we are. Another holiday season and yet another Holiday Fruit Cake that is going to get thrown into the garbage. Now I'm gonna go listen to the Twisted Sister holiday album.

Hot Chocolate & Holiday Mallows!

2011-12-07T15:24:00.000-06:00

18 days. I cannot believe that there is only 18 days left until Christmas. It feels like there should still be another four or five weeks left until we even begin to start thinking about running out of time. I realized this while I was standing in the store today, looking around at all the seasonal holiday goods. Listing to the Christmas music playing throughout the store. Realizing that we only have 18 days left to enjoy all of this before it vanishes from sight.

I sort of regret the slow start that I took with the 2011 Christmas Countdown. I wanted to ease into the winter months, for fear of an early Holiday overload. Realizing now that I only have 18 days left to do this, I probably should have just jumped into the river with both feet forward so to speak. So no more saving articles and topics for later. The time is now to get the ball rolling. And we are rolling it with... generic hot chocolate and holiday marshmallows.

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Well that was probably to much buildup for this simple little post. Kraft Jet-Puffed Holiday Mallows have been around for ages. Seriously, I think this concept is as old as I am. Of course I am not complaining, as I have mentioned in the past I like Christmas items that you can count on seeing ever year. Holiday Mallows are a shoe in for being there this Christmas season and every Christmas season from now until the end of time.

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They don't taste any different than normal marshmallows but that is not the point. The idea here is that they are themed like Christmas. Red stars and green Christmas trees are the included shapes. I think. Truth be told they don't really look like anything but they are at least colored to be nice and festive. That has to count for something. The hot chocolate that I picked up is some generic Peppermint Candycane Cocoa. All types of hot chocolate more or less end up tasting the same to me and I have zero brand loyalty when it comes to them. I bought this one because A.) it was cheap and B.) it seemed like the one that would photograph the best.

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Finished product should look a little something like this. Bonus points if you can make one of your red stars appear to have eyes like I did. Kind of looks like a starfish. A Christmas Starfish. I'm stalling because this piece is really starting to lack substance. I love hot chocolate as much as I love holiday marshmallows but writing about them doesn't exactly make for the most thrilling of subjects. So let's talk about the cup I'm using instead.

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This is my Christmas time snowman mug, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I used it all year round. While I cannot quite convince myself to drink Kool-Aid out of, an activity that is decisively reserved for the summer months, it is on par with the norm to see this thing laying around in mid July. Everything seems to taste better when you are drinking it from the innards of a snowman.

The point of this post, for anyone still reading it, was to encourage everyone to go out there and make yourself a nice big cup of hot chocolate. Most importantly to slow down and enjoy the little things that make Christmas such a fun time of year. It is easy to get caught up in the holiday rush and miss out on things such as hot chocolate and holiday marshmallows. Enjoy it while you can because Christmas is gone sooner than you think!

25th Anniversary TMNT Figures!

2011-12-04T19:45:00.000-06:00

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Back in 2009 the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles celebrated their 25th Anniversary and they did so in the most spectacular way possible. Playmattes, the long time makers of all things Turtle related, re-released the entire lineup of original Ninja Turtle figures. Complete with original packaging, artwork, and figure designs. This set looks straight out of 1984 because they basically are. Thus making these 25th Anniversary figures one of the coolest re-issues I have seen in a long time. Today we are going to cover Leonardo as part of the 2011 Christmas Countdown! I have mentioned prior I was a huge Ninja Turtles fan growing up. I have lots of fond memories of opening up these exact figures during many Christmas's of past. Technically you could argue that this isn't really a holiday article but I know an entire generation of people my age will be able to make the same connection with these and Christmas mornings that I currently am. So sit back and enjoy this nostalgic trip down memory lane!

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I have a few of these Anniversary figures but today we are going to start off with Leonardo, the leader of the turtles. While not my personal choice for favorite, I am more of a Donatello kind of guy, this Leonardo figure seems like the most logical place to start. As you can see these are the figures that we all remember from the late 80s and early 90s. The same slightly crappy build quality, with the same inability to stand because of bizarre feet designs, the same general lack of articulation. And you know what I would not have it any other way. When I covered the re-issue Scare Glow figure during the Halloween Countdown I gave it high praises because it was an improvement in every possible way over the original He-Man figures. Maybe it is because I am not quite as "emotionally attached" to the Masters of the Universe line as I am the Playmates Turtles Figures, but I am really thankful that they didn't re-imagine or re-interpret this set. I am fine with these things being exact duplicates of the originals. Even if that means looking at them by today's standards and seeing all the inherent flaws with the original designs.

I feel like it would defeat the purpose of a 25th Anniversary re-release if they updated and fixed everything. At that point, they would become just like any other new TMNT toys being made. These manage to feel like something special because of the flaws that have been kept in them. Like the crappy weapons that are included with every toy. Using modern casting and coloring techniques they could have very easily updated Leonardo's weapons to make them colored correctly, added in more detail, and not have them included on that weird plastic "rack" thing. But that would have ruined half the fun of owning these figures if they did that. The weapons still suck, they still probably don't fit in the figures hands, and you still have to spend twenty minutes trying to bend them off that plastic rack of doom. But you know what, it is all part of the charm of owning exact duplicates of these figures of old.

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The boxes original artwork has also thankfully been kept in tact. When I write these articles I sometimes feel like I spent to much time writing about what packages look like and sometimes not enough about the actual item itself. But in this case how can I not? I really do have to sit here and gush over how fantastic the artwork is on these toys. In my opinion it is the nicest toy package that has ever been done. If you know nothing at all about Turtles not only will the back of the box give you there entire back-story (which we will get to here in a second) but the front of the box just looks so damn cool that it is impossible to resist. I think a lot of these figures early success was because of how the package looked and not so much because of the toy inside it.

When I first spotted these on store shelves back in 2009, it was amazing how much they stood out. Next time you take a trip down the toy isle spend a couple extra seconds to truly digest the way everything looks. You'll notice that most packages are toned down, with darker colors in the background and lighter colors chosen for the text. This puts a much greater emphasis on the toys brand names. They do this so you can tell from a mile away if it is a Ben 10 display or some of the new Transformers toys. Toy companies would much rather you notice an entire rack of something and not each individual item that makes it up.

These Turtles toys call back to a time when stuff was made to look cool and to hell with how it looked setting next to everything else on the shelf. There are roughly five trillion different still images going on all over the front and back of this package. Everything from Splinter clawing his way through a brick wall to Shredder scaling the side of a building. We got turtles swinging weapons wildly and with zero disregard for whats going on around them. There are Foot Soldiers just sort of chilling out and a gigantic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles logo slapped on the front and back of the box. It is simply fantastic! There is a reason why I refuse to open this stuff, not because I think they are going to be worth something at a later date, I am honestly not worried about that one bit. No I would absolutely hate to tear open and throw away that piece of cardboard. It is a piece of art. Something that should be studied and admired, not tossed away and forgotten.

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Here is the top half of the back of the box. I never realized it until now but it is basically a four strip comic panel. Makes since considering the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started life out as a comic book first before later mutating into a toy line subsequent cartoon series. Anyhow this spot is going to teach you everything you need to know about the Turtles in a brief couple of seconds. You guys know the routine, some pet turtles get lost in the sewer and are found by Master Splinter, a powerful ninja masters. At this point Shredder, being the dick that he is, dumps some green ooze down the sewer and over Splinter which in turn mutants him and the four pet turtles into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Splinter into a giant rat. At this point the rest they say, is history. Its nice that they included this little bit of information on the back of the box, it really is. As technically the toys came out about a year prior to the cartoon series hitting airwaves the only way anyone would have known about the Ninja Turtles then was to have read the comic books.

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Below that we have the "business end" of the package, as I like to call it. This area has been faithfully re-created almost to a dime. It is only missing a couple minor things, such as the formally included "Pizza Points" which I am not even sure how I remember at this stage in my life. Somehow I do, but not including them doesn't really feel like that big of a deal. I don't think there was a single kid alive who had the time or patience to collect and save those Pizza Points to ever redeem them for anything. I was a big time Turtles fan and I'm not even sure if I ever seen a catalog that said exactly what you could get with them. So not including them is pretty much only a minor detail missed.

Moving on what is important is that all eleven of the original first series of TMNT toys have been faithfully re-created. They even went so far as to include the original "Naked Shredder" who is sort of notorious for being one of the worst designed and least articulate figures in Turtle history. Which I always thought was kind of strange that Playmates would muck up Shredder, who other than Leonardo, had to have been one of the top figures that every kid would want. This specific version is the one of him not wearing any pants. It was odd as hell, even to an eight year old, as to why they would do something like that. Shredder was always very clearly wearing them in the shows. And as soon as you lost the included cape that came with his figure (which inevitably would happen about a week after you got it) you were left with a near naked, strangely posed Shredder. Playmates would later go on to design a version of him in full tights, though I am not sure if they ever released one that had better articulation in the original line.

The artwork and the figures have been re-created so faithfully that I almost wonder if Playmates has kept the original dyes that these were cast from all those years ago. It is the only possible way I can think that they could get this perfect of a representation all these years later. Be it I have not taken any of mine out of the box but I am fairly certain that if you lined up an original series one Leonardo along side a re-print 25th Anniversary Leonardo that they would be exactly the same. Of course I refuse to open any of mine but it would be interesting to see if anyone out there has just how close they physically feel to the original toys.

Either way I am a big, big fan of these toys. Seeing them sold back in stores all these years later was an awesome feeling that is not easily reproduced. The best part of these 25th Anniversary Figures is that while they were a little harder to track down than your normal toys, they were still mass produced in enough volume that you could easily pick up an entire set and not have to sell your house to afford it. Plus the wide availability of them (I was able to walk into Target and just buy them right off the shelf) means that while they hit the collectors market, there was undoubtedly some kids who wanted them to play with. The fact that an entirely new generation of kids got to experience these Turtles toys in the exact same manor that I did growing up. Well, that my friends is what this stuff is all about. It is why we are here reading this and it is why I am here writing about it.

If you guys liked this article. Please be sure to check out these TMNT Universal Studios Horror Figures from the 2011 Halloween Countdown!

Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree!

2011-12-01T12:46:00.000-06:00

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In case you guys cannot tell, I really do adore the Charlie Brown holiday specials. "Its The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" is probably my favorite of the bunch but that is only because I enjoy Halloween slightly more than Christmas. The Charlie Brown Christmas Special is every bit as good and maybe even a little bit better than his Halloween outing. It all depends on which holiday you have a preference towards.

One of Charlie Brown's most iconic holiday images is his "twig tree". For those of you who have never seen this cartoon (and for shame on you if you haven't!) the setup involves Charlie Brown growing tired of how commercial the season has became and sets out to find the true meaning of Christmas. When shopping for a Christmas Tree he runs across a whole assortment of mass produced, multicolored, artificial trees as seen in the image below. These trees represent everything he is trying to avoid, but in the middle of this neon madness he finds one poor little overlooked twig tree and decided that this is the one that will best represent Christmas.

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Initially all the other kids scuff at Charlie Browns tree and rightfully so. I get the whole "true meaning of Christmas" yada yada yada message they were going for but holy crap have you seen these other trees? I am particularly fond of the green and blue striped tree to Charlie Browns immediate left as well as the blue and white spotted tree directly behind it. Somehow though, Charlie Brown is able to resist the neon temptation which surrounds him and instead picks the delightfully scrawny twig tree. Thus a Christmas legend is born.

When I was growing up there was no real sure fire way to re-create the twig tree. About the best you could do was to cut a branch down from a neighbors tree and bend it into shape and decorate it the best you could. I guess technically this would be more so to the point that Charlie Brown was trying to make and it works fairly well when your eight or nine years old. Once you reach a certain age, its kind of tough to get away with something like that. Thankfully though, a couple years back an officially licensed Charlie Brown Twig Tree hit the market and is made readily available every holiday season!

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Behold! Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree. This is the real deal officially licensed Peanuts Gang version. It will set you back around $10 depending on what store you find it in. I would suggest avoiding the Spencer Gifts version of it and instead opt for the Wal-Mart kind. They are they exact same tree, minus the horrible markup that comes with purchasing anything at Spencer's. It is also worth nothing that my particular tree is from a couple years ago and lacks the famous blue blanket that Linus wrapped around it. Newer versions of this set do indeed come with that blanket. Mine does not. Sucks to be an early adapter.

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Turns out Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree is incredibly difficult to photograph. I took eight or nine different photos at all different angles around a bunch of different places and sadly this was the most interesting looking photo. You guys get the just of it, though. It is a fairly accurate representation of the twig tree from the cartoon. It even includes the one red bulb for you to decorate it with. The tree itself is made out of some sort of bendy wire like material covered in some kind of tightly wrapped brown fabric. You can shape the tree however you see fit, I preferred to stick with the droopy dead look but you are more than welcome to shape your twig tree into something happier.

Overall I highly recommend everyone checking out this item. Its one of my favorite Christmas decorations and one of the first things I pull out of the closet come December 1st. Despite how it looks in that photo up above, it really will look awesome sitting in your office, place of work, or on some shelf at home. I would like to end this post with this final photograph that I took but couldn't quite fit into the main post. Tis the season for giving, and all!

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Mills Fleet Farm 2011 Toy Catalog!

2011-11-28T15:42:00.000-06:00

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Believe it or not the 2011 Christmas Countdown is not as random as it may seem. A lot of the times there is some sort of meaning as to why I write about the things I... write... about.

Let me start over again. It is a universal holiday tradition amongst all the children of the world to make a Christmas List to give to there parents. And umm... blahh this isn't coming out right either.

Basically what I am getting at here is every kid gives there parents a list of shit that they want for Christmas. Working under the theory that if mom or dad go out and shop blindly you'll end up with a bunch of retarded junk that ends up on next summers garage sale. Nobody wants that. So you make a list of everything you want in hopes that at least one or two of the items end up under your tree. At the very least it should give them a general understanding that no you do not want the train set and yes you would rather have the replica Castle Grayskull fortress for your He-Man figures.

I don't really know how kids do these here in 2011, I would imagine the little bastards just create an Amazon wishlist. Back in my day, everything was hand written. I would keep a notebook beside me while watching TV and anytime a cool toy commercial would come on it would get added to The List. This was a great way to get things wrote down but also a fairly difficult task. You didn't always have your notebook. And if you did, TV commercials are short and you could easily miss the name of a product. This is why I and every other kid from my generation would wait for those seasonal toy catalogs to come in the mail. That is were the good stuff was at!

Mail, in and upon itself this an awesome yet completely foreign concept. We didn't really know why it came or where it came from. Some days it arrived and our parents hated it yet others they would sit around wanting it to come. Why? It defies all logic to an eight year old. All that we really understood is that we never got any. If we were lucky sometimes your parents would give us a piece they defined as "junk". Junk my ass! This stuff was fantastic. And even better than the occasional piece of hand-me-down junk mail was the catalogs. Especially the toy catalogs.

In the pre-internet days of my youth, other than television commercials this was the only way you seen what cool items were on the market. Catalogs provided visual aids that you could look at for extended amounts of time, text that you could ponder at over and over again. You could really make up your mind with a catalog. My Christmas Liststststststs had plenty of written items and carefully selected catalog selections that I cut out and taped onto the page. Even as a kid, I understood the power of photographs. Today we are going to take a look at ten of the best items from the 2011 Mills Fleet Farm Catalog! Keeping in mind that these are not ten items that I personally would want, but what I think are the ten best toys of the bunch. These are the ones that are undoubtedly making some kids List someplace in the world! That is if kids still make hand written lists. I've already over-used that word and we are just making it past the introduction.

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Doctor Dreadful Zombie Drink Lab! If memory serves me correctly there is an entire line of Doctor Dreadful products that involve making gross out food or drink items. I don't remember precisely when this stuff first hit the market but I do remember it being sort of a "thing" around 1994 or 1995. Doctor Dreadful Zombie Drink Lab is one of those products that kids really want without even fully understanding what it is. All that we see is some awesome looking zombie head with an exposed brain and a bunch of surgical equipment. It's not so much a matter of what it does but a matter of what it could do. Doctor Dreadful would make a great center piece for Scare Glow and Count Don's evil fortress and would give them all something to argue about when not staging full frontal assaults on the "good guy" action figures.

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Smithsonian Kits! Whenever I go to Wal-Mart or Target I always make trips through the toy isles. These days you never know when some throwback TMNT or He-Man figure will be released. Plus I like to check out what all the hot new items are for this year and laugh in comparison as to how crappy those Ben 10 toys look in comparison to the Transformers or Ninja Turtles of my youth. The main toy isles are always fun to check out but not to be underestimated is the "science isle". Usually about three spots away from the main toy area, the science isle is filled with all sorts of awesome kits that I am totally jealous of. We never had anything like this when I was growing up. Oh sure, you could snag the occasional Sea Monkey kit or Pet Rock terrarium but beyond that not much existed. Today these Smithsonian Kits range from a Giant Volcano to Crystal Growing and even an excavation kit whose end results are Tyrannosaurus Rex bones which you ultimately get to assemble into a mini model. I love stuff like this. Its educational but only sort of technically. When your growing crystals or making a replica volcano on your bedroom floor, learning is basically secondary. These kits are great fun and I would not be surprised if I end up writing about them in greater detail sometime in the near future.

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SpyNet Night Vision Infrared Stealth Binoculars! I love the title of this product. Love the way it jams about every awesome "spy" word you could possibly think of into one gigantic run on product description. They are not just night vision goggles, they are night vision infrared stealth binoculars. Never mind the fact that they are $39.89 and probably consist of a cheap pair of binoculars with a flashlight mounted to the top of them. None of that matters. When your eight years old, these fall into the must have category of your list! Your mind will run wild with thoughts of being a James Bond super spy, with the ability to see infrared images just like The Predator. Of course they work nothing like the way they are described and you'll only end up using them twice before they end up at the bottom on a toy box. Destined to be forgotten and unused. But for a very brief moment on Christmas morning SpyNet Night Vision Infrared Stealth Binoculars are one of, if not the coolest things you will open.

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Foam Dart Guns! What impressed me most about this set of guns and the reason why I think most kids would gravitate towards these is because they actually look like functioning guns. In today's overly politically correct environment anything that even remotely resembles something that could be interpreted as a firearm is painted neon orange with bright purple accents. Somehow, these Foam Dart Guns have managed to actually look correct. They are brown where they are supposed to be brown and black in all the correct places. Even at a quick glance the yellow foam darts resemble shotgun shells. They might not be the most powerful foam dart shooters but you'll be guaranteed to at least scare the hell out of the neighbors when your running around the back yard with one of these in each hand. Blindly firing at stray cats and homeless folk alike.

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Nerf Air Blasters! Of course on the complete opposite side of the spectrum we have an entire page of Nerf Air Blasters. While the Foam Dart Guns may more closely resemble the real deal... deep down we all know which item is going to be the more fun of the two. Nothing beats a Nerf gun. Here we have an entire page of your typical Nerf items, its tough to pick a favorite of the bunch but I am going to go with the Turbo 12 Dart Gun. Remembering from experience here most Nerf wars came down to whoever had the most darts and whoever could fire the most without reloading. This is not to discredit the ever illusive Nerf gun that fired those awful round yellow balls of death. Those things hurt like hell and a misplaced indoors shot could easily take out a flower pot or glass vase, sending it crashing to the floor. I can remember a period of time where everyone had Nerf Guns and every Christmas it seemed like Nerf released a newer, better model. It sort of seems like the Nerf market has peaked because I no longer see the gigantic sections dedicated to them in the stores. Seeing them here in this catalog brings back a whole flood of awesome memories, running around as a child shooting at things with my Nerf Gun until it was inevitably taken away by some adult.

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Light Strike Targets, Guns, and Vests! When you reach a certain age, generally around eleven or twelve all your older toys start to feel dated and no longer interest you. No longer wanting to stage massive frontal wars with your mix of Ninja Turtle, He-Man, Transfomer and the sporadic G.I. Joe figure it becomes time to move on to more interactive type things. Unfortunately for today's generation of kids that means begging there parents for an X-Box 360 and the latest version of Call of Duty. Back in my day, this was not the case. We didn't have online multiplayer or X-Box Live. What we had was much, much better. When not shooting ourselves with hard rubber yellow Nerf Balls we had Laser Tag setups such as these Light Strike toys! There was nothing better than spending a warm summer evening outside with a group of five or six of your closest friends, running around the back yard playing a game of Laser Tag. It was great exercise and loads of fun. We used to stay out as late as possible playing rounds of Laser Tag. I can even remember spending entire afternoons modifying our vests and guns in order to make the game more fun and challenging. The vets we all had would beep once every minute or so making it impossible to sneak up on someone from behind and our guns all had flashing lights on the side of them that would flash periodically as well. We spent about a week straight going all Tony Stark on our equipment, taking it apart and carefully cutting off speakers and cutting wires that ran extra lights so that we could have the ultimate Laser Tag experience.

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Creepy Crawlers Bug Maker! I actually had a version of this exact same thing many years ago. Although I am pretty sure mine was apart of the Doctor Dreadful line from up earlier in this post. What we have here seems to be some sort of generic bug maker kit. The just of this item is that you have two or three metal molds and a couple different colors to chose from. You put the color in the mold and via some form of black magic out pops a plastic spider or something. The end result here is not important what is important is the process. Your making fake plastic spiders! Whats not to love about that? Creepy Crawlers made for cool little cheap toys that you could bring to school and show off to all your friends. "You see this half purple and half orange spider? Yea, I made it." But if your teacher ever caught you playing with one and took it from you, no big deal... you could make four hundred more when you got home later in the day. Of course inevitability states that at some point your going to run out of the stuff needed to make the fake plastic bugs and will never get any refill cartridges, thus making the entire kit worthless at that point. But by then chances are you'll be bored with it and it won't really matter much anyhow.

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Ouija Board! I meant to write about the Ouija Board back during the 2011 Halloween Countdown and as a matter of fact still have about half a post saved under my unpublished drafts. I never got around to finishing it because some other article always seemed to pop in front of it that seemed more important at the time. So while we will save the nitty gritty details of the Ouija Board for Halloween 2012, I will say that as a kid this would have been impossible to resist. If you were lucky enough to even know what one was, it was probably because you had seen it in some film or overheard your parents talking about some night long ago that they used one. No kid ever really understood what one was for but it scared the shit out of us all the same. So clearly, when the opportunity presents itself to ask for one for Christmas it turns into one that is impossible to pass.

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Expensive Video Game Systems! When making a Christmas List every child sort of has a build in scale of how likely it is they will receive certain items. Even if you don't fully understand the concept of money, chances are you have already had enough experiences with birthday parties and prior Christmas events to know that certain things probably aren't going to happen. You could fill your entire list full of these things but you'd only be setting yourself up for disappointment later on when you receive one or none of those items. It's better to sprinkle them periodically through a list of slightly cheaper, secondary suggestions. So pick wisely, do you want the Kinect or the Nintendo 3DS. An X-Box or a Playstation? You only get to chose one so you had better pick wisely!

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GI Joe, Transformers, or Star Ways Action Figures! Rounding out our 10th and final item of the evening are these three classic toy lines. Transformers, Star Wars, and GI Joe figures never truly go out of style. Some decades they might not be as popular as others, but each of these three have managed to stand the test of time. They are tired but true toys that while you might not ask for specifically, I can think of very few children who would scuff at the opportunity to own an Optimus Prime or Boba Fett toy. Especially unwrapping one on Christmas morning, where everything seems extra special.

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Bonus Items! It shouldn't really surprise anyone that I collected multiple Christmas Catalogs before writing this article. I picked the one that I felt had the most variety and interesting items. The others, while good in there own respective ways, didn't have a whole lot of material in them. With the exception of this cheap Dollar General catalog that I picked up. Everything was great in that major bargain bin sense. I really wanted to write about everything in that catalog but I seeing as how I have already slacked off more than I wanted to in the month of November, it means I've really got to stack articles in December if I want to cover everything that I have currently laying around.

But this quick little section I thought was just to good to pass up. Ignore the tattoos and the doll down in the bottom right hand corner, we are not here to talk about those. Our points of interest today are the Generic Dinosaurs and Niteglow Critters! I love each of these items but its the Generic Dinosaurs that I find the most interesting. I don't know what it is about these things but they are staple of every Dollar Store across the country this time of year. Nobody ever asks for them, nobody ever really wants them, yet when you get them... you always end up finding some stupid use for them. Generic Dinosaurs always somehow end up being the one thing that your other more important action figures ride around on. Optimus Prime can transform into a Semi but how is Leonardo supposed to keep up with him on long ventures across the house? Easy. Leonardo rides a generic dinosaur. Kinda sounds like the name of a crappy children's novel doesn't it?

Niteglow Critters are another one of those cheap items that nobody ever asks for but if your lucky, you end up owning a bag. They are basically a sack full of brightly colored insects that glow in the dark. Exactly the kind of things that can be used to decorate your evil action figures fortress. My leader figures (such as Dracula Donatello) would always send out minions such as Niteglow Critters to attack the good guys first and then slowly amp up the attack waves to include stronger, more powerful figures.

My point here is that both of these items are things that you never really have the foresight to request. But once you own them, you end up finding a bunch of different ways to use them. Actually, chances are you'll end up having more fun with thing like Generic Dinosaurs and Niteglow Critters than you ever will with some of the more expensive items listed up above!

I hope you guys have enjoyed this quick look at the Mills Fleet Farm 2011 Toy Catalog. Now that December is here, I feel like we can really dive deep into some of the seasonal items that I have lined up for the website. I didn't get a chance to do anything for Thanksgiving this year, but I plan on making it up with some of the bigger articles that I have in store for the moth of December!

Rose Art Color Blank Figures!

2011-11-22T13:57:00.000-06:00

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Craft projects. If there is one re-occuring theme around this place it is that craft projects seem to never quite work out the way they should. When I seen these Rose Art Color Blanks Figures on display at Target for only $9.99, I knew I had to have the set. My mind ran wild with the prospect of an interactive entry for the 2011 Christmas Countdown. Indeed, this was a very spur of the moment decision. It was not until much later when I got the set home and started photographing and unpacking everything in the box that I realized I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew....

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This is the full set. Now can you see why I was so excited when I found these in the store. They just scream to be wrote about and are exactly the kind of material that I like to use to break up the sometimes monotony of the "easier" / "shorter" articles. It was at some point about seventeen photos in when I had all the material spread out in front of me and I was staring at the blank canvas of a miniaturized reindeer that I realized I had to decorate these things. Remembering how this worked out the last time I tackled something like this. I sort of had a mini panic attack. There was no conceivable way that I could use the included twenty two stickers and six magic markers to transform these Color Blanks into anything that resembled presentable.

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This is what the box suggests your Color Blanks could look like. If you had the proper time, the proper supplies, and some sort of natural artistic ability. I had none of those three. I had twenty odd looking goofy stickers, six randomly included markers and all the precision of Michael J. Fox preforming open heart surgery. In other words there was no possible way that I could create anything that even closely resembles those three figures, of which we learn two things from. One, mine will end up looking nothing at all like any of these. And secondly, I got jived by Rose Art for not being able to find the Color Blank of the dude with a box over his head. I want the one with the guy who has a box for a head. Instead we got all of this:

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I am beginning to get a much better understanding of why these only retail for $9.99 ... there isn't a whole hell of a lot included in the box. The stickers are the absolute bare minimum required to decorate either color blank. Very little variety is included here, if you choose to make a female you have one set of eyes and one set of lips to choose from. Some of others, like the scarf, the stripe, and the buttons, only make since to use on the snowman. As for the markers, those are only the most basic colors. Black, green, yellow, red, brown, and blue.

And then there are the instructions. I have a love hate relationship with most instructions, and by love hate... I really don't know what I mean, I hate all instructions. I never read them. At best they get a quick glance. Color Blank figures fall under the category of "things I can figure out on my own at age twenty four without reading instructions" but for the sake of this article, I glanced. They suggested things like waiting for the paint to dry in one area before moving on to the next. As well as purchasing other colors and types of Rose Art paint. I call bullshit on all fronts. These will be made with only the items included and as quickly as possible, drying times be damned. I have some Elder Scrolls Skyrim that needs playing.

So keep that in mind as you look at my figures, that if you buy them and if you spend the adequate amount of time painting them that maybe you can end up with something that more closely resembles the boxes demonstration. Mine... well you will see here in just a minute.

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This is the snowman in his blank format. The possibilities of turning his nose into something that more closely resembles a penis are near endless at this point. I didn't go there because this is Christmas and that sort of behavior is the kind of business that puts you on Santa's Naughty List. Had this been some random entry for some other random holidays countdown, he'd totally have a penis nose.

At this stage in time I would like to point out that snowman here is the second color blank that I... colored. Since snowmen are inherently white he required by far the least amount of coloring and therefore presented the least amount of opportunity for me to completely muck up his design. In retrospect I probably should have dipped my feet into the snowman first and then tackled the much more challenging reindeer secondly. Let's take a look at the results:

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Not bad. For someone who is probably triple the suggested age bracket I would say that snowman turned out alright. Overall I learned a lot of valuable life lessons from the reindeer I colored before this one. Such as not mixing colors as well as generally trying to avoid the whole coloring aspect of Rose Art Color Blank Figures. It seemed to work out for the best that way. I've decided to call this snowman Chip, because he appears to be particularly cheery. Then again, I am not so sure if I have ever meet a snowman who isn't having a wonderful time. Chip the Snowman turned into an alright figure for what little time was given to him. The reindeer on the other hand, well... I am going to have some explaining to do on that one.

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This is the reindeer in his uncolored format. Its cute. Its inviting. It looks like it is going to be fun to color. And if you spent more time with it than I did there is a possibility that it could turn into something special. But not mine. Mine ended up looking like a pile of neon colored Christmas puke. It sort of makes me wonder just how many of these Color Blank figures end up living out these same results. Lets face facts here the number of us non-artists far outweigh the folk who can actually draw. Color Blanks are packaged in a way that make them seem like everyone can enjoy them. Instead they should come with a gigantic warning label that says "yours will look like shit, trust us." Because this... I do not think is what Rose Art had in mind for this reindeer:

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You have all heard of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, am I correct? Well this is Rosa, the rock and roll reindeer. Some sort of distant cousin of Rudolph, twice removed through divorce. Rosa is very clearly a rock and roll reindeer judging by her off shade of neon red parachute pants and neon green tank top. She is wearing a bow tie because hopefully that will draw your attention away from the smeared stains of other colors in spots that they do not belong and the general un-ability of the artist to color within the provided spaces.

Rosa has many, many different issues. I would like to blame these results entirely on Rose Art and while it is worth mentioning that the markers don't exactly do the grandest of job covering the surface and the color selection leaves a little to be desired, this one is mostly on me. I went into this one with no prior planning and the results very clearly show that.

You know that part about waiting for each color to dry before you move on to the next. Yea, you should really wait for one color to dry before you move onto the next. Like, seriously give it twenty minutes dry time otherwise it just clings to your fingers and you'll end up with brown prints all over areas you plan on coloring green... which in turn smears together and everything just sort of escalates and goes downhill from there.

I would like to blame the kit. I really would. So I will. The markers are really pretty cheap and the tips are far to fat to fit into the little nooks and crannies of the blank figures. They don't give you enough colors and the provided stickers really leave you with some limited options. This, coupled with the unachievable expectations set by demonstration photographs on the front of the box make for a kit that would be really hard pressed to live up to expectations.

Of course even though these Color Blanks are popular with people of all ages, lets face the facts here they are mostly meant for kids. So assuming you do not run a website and purchase seasonal items with the intent of photographing and making humorous remakes about. Lets say you are eight years old, wild eyed and full of imagination, then Rose Art Color Blank Figures are probably going to be pretty awesome. Therefore in good faith, I cannot completely slam this set simply because I am retarded with a magic marker and failed to read instructions. If you have kids, chances are they will love this project and all of it short comings really won't matter.

Winter Oreo's !

2011-11-16T15:24:00.000-06:00

Christmas miracles come in many different shapes and sizes. Today I have found a whole bag of little round ones with red frosting lurking on the inside. Winter Oreo's have returned and that Snowman on the front of the package is all the persuasion I need to purchase a box. I am going to spare you guys the time of sitting through a multi-paragraph write up on these. Not because I do not think they are not worthy, they are, but because this is technically the fourth time I have wrote about Oreo's. We covered the Halloween ones here and here some baseball themed ones even snuck up in the middle of this entry. At this point I feel like you guys get it and not much more really needs to be said.

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After-all they are Oreo's. There is not a person alive who has not ate them and conversely there is not a person alive who does not enjoy them. These are the Christmas ones, despite the package trying to convince us that they are "holiday" or winter in nature. It is a lie. Do not listen to them, Mr. Snowman is on the front, the filling is red, and all of the imprinted shapes point towards Christmas. This is a trick that a lot of companies try to pull this time of year, not wanting to outright label something Christmas for fear that they will offend someone of a different religion. I get that. I really do. But it still drives me nuts all the same.

Regardless these Oreo's make for a very seamless transition into the Christmas season. Cookies are already a natural fit this time of year. If you cannot score some homemade ones, well then these are the next best thing on the market. Unless of course you have managed to keep some Girl Scout Cookies in the freezer for this long, in which case you are my new best friend. I love Girl Scout Cookies, they are one of the few products that I really associate with those warm summer months. But enough with that, we are just beginning the 2011 Christmas Countdown and I will have no talk of 80 degree sunny days around here! This is Christmas time and ~~Winter~~ Christmas Oreo's are something that you would be a fool to pass up on!

McRib is McBack!

2011-11-11T15:23:00.001-06:00

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Today, we are going to talk about the McDonalds McRib sandwich. Yes, this has to do with Christmas. Ehh... sort of, technically, but maybe not really? I am actually not really sure but since I took the time to photograph my lunch surrounded with Christmas lights we might as well talk about it. You have no idea how strange of a feeling that was.

McDonalds, despite the fact that I enjoy writing about some of the wacky things they have done over the years, I don't eat McDonalds. I am no health nut or anything I just really do not care all that much for the selection of items they have. If I am in a hurry I can go for one of there cheap cheeseburgers every now and then but beyond that, I will pass. There are really only two items that get me excited and they are both seasonal. Shamrock Shakes are amazing and if you do not know what those are... well just you wait until St. Patricks time, you can bet that those will be getting a full blown entry. The second seasonal McDonalds selection is obviously the one we are talking about today, the McRibb.

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The McRib dates all the way back to 1981 - 1985, where it was removed from the menu due to poor overall sales. Like all good canceled items it came back in 1994 as a promotional item for the live action Flintstones movie. How awesome is that? The sandwich had a second run from '94 until 2005. It was then that McDonalds decided to cancel the McRib sandwich, again, but not before giving it a "farewell tour" across the United States. Basically it was released in limited form at different parts of the country, sort of like how a band tours across country. As it turns out the whole farewell tour thing was just a giant publicity stunt and marketing ploy, because who has ever heard of giving a sandwich a farewell tour. This marketing stunt continued from 2005 all the way through 2011 ... only they stopped calling it a farewell tour a couple years ago and just started releasing it "for a limited time".

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While the McRib has never been packaged or sold as such, many of us define it as a seasonal Christmas item. Since 2005 its limited releases have all been in early November and lasted until the first couple of weeks of December. This is enough to make it feel like a Christmas related item, even though it was never meant to be. Christmas has the power to take over things that were never meant to be related to it and suddenly make them seem oh so Christmas-asy. A word I just made up that sounded better when I said it out loud than how it looks typed up on the screen. As for the McRib, you probably should go out and purchase one. McDonalds is actually surprisingly strict with how limited they release these suckers. If you don't snag one within the next couple of weeks you are libel to have to wait until next year to taste the McRib's saucy goodness.

Russell Stover 1,000,000,000 Chocolate Bar!

2011-11-09T13:35:00.002-06:00

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The beauty of running this Christmas Countdown is that there are literally thousands of items that get released every year that somehow, someway tie into the season. Lots of them are small little "one off" items such as these. I like this junk, I don't have to spend fifty thousand words explaining why its awesome to you. I feel like everyone can look at it and just sort of get it. Here we have a chocolate bar whose package is made up to look like a one billion dollar bill, with none other than Santa himself in the middle of the frame.

This bar, made by Russell Stover for those keeping score at home, is one of those perfect stocking stuffer items that nobody asks for yet when you get it goes a long way in making the holiday all the more special. You ask for things like video games and toys but nobody complains when they end up with video games, toys, and billion dollar Santa Clause candy bars. Christmas simply would not be Christmas without items like these and that is why I think they are important enough to get a little mini-entry during the 2011 Christmas Countdown!

The Ultimate Christmas Vacation Boxed Set!

2011-11-08T22:47:00.000-06:00

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Christmas has a ton of classic holiday movies. My favorite holiday movie of all time is easily National Lampoons: Christmas Vacation. No matter how many times I see this film, I always laugh at all the appropriate times. Usually finding some new way to interpret a joke or delivery of a line. Besides, I can see Cousin Eddie say "shitters full" time and time again and it will still crack me up.

So when I seen a massive Christmas Vacation Blu-Ray boxed set, there was no way I could pass it up. And unlike most other boxed sets who promise lots of cool little trinkets and extras this one actually delivers on every front. For starters check out the metal tin that everything comes in. This is home to the sets four hundred included items and makes a great place to store everything when your not playing with it. On top of all of that, the tin manages to look really cool sitting out amongst the rest of your DVD collection. Usually these gigantic collectors editions are a double edged sword, they tend to look interesting but often times the allotted space needed for one far outweighs the contents of the box. As you will soon see, this is not the case here. The included items really are worthy of that much realastate and the metal tin is totally worthy of display in and upon itself. Now, just you guys wait and see what is lurking inside...

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I bet you thought I was exaggerating with the amount of included items didn't you? Nope, I really wasn't. You get a lot of Christmas Vacation related stuff here. Things that you didn't even know you needed but once you own, never plan on giving up. Starting from left to right we have the Blu-Ray film, a set of coasters, a Santa Clause hat, mini moose mug, snow powder, a button, and the case that tin that houses everything. Holy shit and halleluiah. Let's take a look at everything one by one.

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I am going to start with the Snow Powder first, which is clearly the most random item included in the box. Everything else ties into the movie or at least feature the movie on it, this Snow Powder is just here for the hell of it. But now that I own it, I am not sure how I lived all these years without it. Just look at it! Look at that ziplock baggie of white stuff. I want to try to take it through airport security just to see what would happen. The stuff looks fantastic in its powder form. But herein lays the problem, I have a thing for never using included items like these. When I purchase these big boxed sets I will refuse to use anything that is a one time, one use item. I simply cannot use this Snow Powder. Believe it or not I get more joy out of owning a completed Christmas Vacation boxed set than owning a Christmas Vacation boxed set sans the snow powder. Maybe we will cover normal fake snow at a later date?

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Next up is this pin on button with the phrase "I survived a Griswold Family Christmas!" on it. This is my second favorite bonus item included in the set. I plan on wearing this all month long in December and especially to the family Christmas celebrations. I am positive that everyone who has seen Christmas Vacation says this, but my family is exactly like the ones in the film. Exactly. It seems like we go through most of the same issues brought up in the film every year and every year act just as surprised as before when they come up.

I believe that this is because secretly nobody really likes anyone else in there family. The only reason you put up with them is because they are family. If you weren't related to these assholes, you'd want nothing to do with them! Especially around the holidays. I wrote that last sentence with Stan Lee's voice in my mind and if you read it back for a second time, only imagining Stan Lee saying it out loud I think you will get some extra enjoyment out of it. Anyhow, the button is fantastic and unlike the Snow Powder I am free to use this item. And use it I will!

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Coasters a fairly random thing to include in this boxed set. I am guessing that the only reason they are here is because they are relatively cheap to manufacture. This set manages to pull it off by picking a bunch of iconic images and phrases from the film and stamping them on the top of said coasters. I really do like these and plan on setting them out for decoration. Of course I will immediately have to yell at anyone who even thinks of using them as actual coasters. These are not. They are for display only. I would be far to sad if someone was to spoil that wonderful image of Eddie with a gigantic, wet ring mark. This is my house and these are my coasters and these are my weird rules. If you ever visit, I hope you can figure out the difference between the actual coasters and the display coasters.

Ahhh the Mose Mug. Its only in the film for a brief couple of seconds but I think everyone remembers the damn thing. I know that I have always wanted to own one and when I was reading about the included items in this set my heart skipped a beat when I read that it was included. Instantly, I had flashes of full sized Mose Mugs that I could drink hot chocolate from. I probably should have known better. What is included is this mini replica Mose Mug that more closely resembles a decoration you would use on your tree than something you could drink out of. Well shit. I really wanted the full sized one. Because of that, this is my least favorite item of the group. I guess the search will have to continue for the full sized one.

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It is not to often that I have to photograph myself for the website. Personally, try to stay behind the other side of the camera lens but every now and then there is just no way around it. I feel like I probably could have photographed the included Santa Clause hat just laying on the ground but it is just so much fun to wear I simply could not resist. I love this hat and I cannot wait to wear it to work all month long in December. And from this point forward anytime you are reading a new Christmas Countdown entry, just assume that I am wearing this hat. I am especially fond of the hats overall quality. I expected it to be cheap and not something that anyone would ever wear. Not only does it manage to fit over top of my head but it is pretty comfortable to boot.

So if you guys are looking for some great Holiday movies to add to your collection and you do not already own a copy of Christmas Vacation this boxed set is the way to go. Heck, even if you do already own a copy on DVD I would still say that it is worth your while to track this Blu-Ray set. Now... I am going to go see if I can find me some of that fake snow over on amazon.com ... I have a $10.00 gift card to use.

Nightmare Before Christmas Hallmark Ornament!

2011-11-07T13:17:00.000-06:00

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I wanted to get this entry out of the way early. Writing about The Nightmare Before Christmas always seems more appropriate fodder for late October and early November. During those strange couple of weeks were Halloween and Christmas collide and do a little strange dance on the floor of retail chains around the world.

And while this is indeed a Christmas decoration the time to give it its proper dues is now, with Halloween still fresh in all of our minds. For those of you who choose not to step foot in a Hallmark store, I understand. For most of us this place is not "our thing". Most of the year it is the kind of place your grandmother shops, purchasing little ceramic birds and picture frames. Cut little trinkets that serve no purpose. This is what Hallmark is most of the time.

During the winter months, the store does a little Optimus Prime transformation and turns into Christmas central. I love Hallmarks selection of Christmas ornaments, because unlike the cheap and often times generic ones sold at most other locations, Hallmark specializes in characters. Characters that you will recognize from popular TV shows, movies, games, even sports athletes. They all make some slightly overpriced appearance.

Hallmark has an ongoing trend of releasing a new Nightmare Before Christmas decoration every year. I am a late comer to this whole ornament game, but what I have seen so far I enjoy. Here we have Jack Skellington dressed as a snowman. You may remember this from the .5 seconds of screen time he spent looking like this in the film and may question why they decided to release this specific version of him. To this I say you are missing the point. Snowman Jack makes for a fine decoration and while this may not be the iconic pose of Mr. Skellington as soon as you see it, you recognize it from the film. In the end, isn't that all that matters?

Christmas Tree Cakes Return!

2011-11-04T19:56:00.001-05:00

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Folks, we have arrived. Take a look around the website and you will notice that Halloween is gone and there will be nary a mention of it for the next couple of months. In place of ghosts and goblins we have snowflakes and gingerbread men. I am excited. Welcome to the 2011 Christmas Countdown! For the next two months we are going to take a look at some of the biggest and brightest things that relate to the season. Toys, Games, Food and Drink will all be covered and someplace in the middle of this holiday mayhem lies Thanksgiving. I want to do something for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade but I do not quite know what. But I figure since most tend to lump November and December into one gigantic holiday season, it will be alright to cover Thanksgiving during the Christmas Countdown.

Now, on with the show as they say. I could not think of a more fitting first entry into the 2011 Christmas Countdown than the smashing return of Christmas Tree Cakes! I write about a lot of seasonal food products but Christmas Tree Cakes are hands down my favorite of the bunch, with Halloween Oreo's coming in a close second place. They have that rare hard to define quality were there is just something about them that makes them feel special. Over the course of a year we see lots of attempts to create products that taste the same, look the same, and heck realistically aren't most of these Little Debbie snacks basically the same? Yet for some reason these Christmas Tree's stand head and shoulders above the rest.

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Here are the cakes. The holy grail of seasonal snack food. I love them, love to look at them, love to touch them, love to smell them, love to eat them, love to digest them. Everything is just perfect. Christmas Tree Cakes manage to encapsulate everything that is great about the holidays and package it in a perfectly edible form. Christmas Tree Cakes are delicious and I suggest that if you are one of the few people who have not tried them that you head out to the store and purchase a box for yourself. Also, they photograph really well. Its been interesting switching from trying to make things look spooky to attempting to make things look cheerful but when your taking photographs for an item as beloved as Christmas Tree Cakes it is fairly hard to muck up that process. Lets take a quick look at the front of the box:

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Nothing has changed packaging wise. But then again I am not so sure I would want anything to be different. There are times when I hate seeing recycled packages every year, I like the Count Chocula's of the world to feature a new design every single year. Other items, such as these, I am perfectly complacent with them looking identical year in and year out. I am not sure why, exactly. I think it is simply because the two holidays are so drastically different from one another. Halloween is all about embracing the chaos of a dying, changing season while Christmas resonates more on that warm feeling you get on the inside from celebrating the same traditions every year. I guess it comes down to wanting Halloween to be different and enjoying Christmas because it is the same. Pretty deep thoughts for a simple box of snack food cakes, isn't it.

Believe it or not I really do not have a whole lot more to say about Christmas Tree Cakes. Oh sure, I could probably force another couple paragraphs out of the front of the box and yet another on how it includes bonus tags on the back of the package and because of them I have not had to purchase any for like eight years straight. But honestly, I think we have covered everything we need to cover and said everything we need to say. Christmas Tree Cakes are always one of the first XMAS related products to hit store shelves and purchasing a box early is always one of my favorite holiday traditions!

Christmas Jukebox's 2011 Debut!

2011-11-02T14:05:00.001-05:00

I planned on waiting at least one week before I converted everything into its holiday theme. But... well, its rainy with a little bit of snow mixed in outside. I've purchased and wrapped my first Christmas present. And I have gotten a bunch of cool items to cover for the 2011 Christmas Countdown. Even though it is only the 2nd day in November, I cannot really deny it any longer... Christmas has arrived! And with that comes the holiday theme to the site!

One of my favorite aspects of this website that I am not even really sure if anyone actually uses are the jukeboxes that I have posted down at the bottom of the page. Thus far we have a Summer Jukebox and a Halloween Jukebox. The summer one exists only as some sort of strange concept that even to my own admission, needs a little work (but I have to save something for 2012 and those long, boring summer months). But it was the Halloween one that I became especially proud of. I spent quite a bit of time coming up with that track listing and I would put it up against just about any other Halloween playlist out there on the internet. I love that Halloween Jukebox and listen to it all the time.

So it is only fitting that a Christmas Jukebox comes up next. I really like this Christmas playlist as well. It was a much easier task to create this one. Halloween doesn't really have "music" created for it. Outside of the two or three obvious choices, you really have to put on your thinking cap and do some research to get a proper list of stuff. Christmas on the other hand, this was almost to easy. Doing a Google search for "Christmas Music" will give you thousands upon thousands of results. Really only becoming limited to how many different versions of Jingle Bells you want to have on there.

Hopefully at least a couple of you will take the time to float through this list. I have included all of my favorite holiday tracks and tried to sprinkle in a couple that you might not have heard. If you are still stuck in the swing of all things Halloween, one listen to this playlist is almost guaranteed to get you into the Christmas spirit!

2011 Halloween Recap!

2011-11-01T13:10:00.001-05:00

Every year I always like to sit down and type up a little reflection piece the day after Halloween. For me it is a fun way to wrap everything up and a great way to bring a conclusion to the holiday. I have plenty to say about the 2011 Halloween Season and I will get to all of that here in just a minute but first I have one last surprise in store for everyone!

If you look up towards the front of the page you will see a new tab entitled "Halloween Town!" I put a lot of work into this countdown and the very nature of running a blog / website hybrid like this is that newer articles push older articles down the page and eventually end up buried in internet obscurity. Unless you where sort of here periodically checking the blog throughout September and October there is a good chance you will miss these older articles. I decided to change that. Halloween Town is an archive of sorts that will be active year round and will feature every article that I covered. That way new readers can easily locate everything Halloween related in one quick and convenient location. Next year I will update it with all the 2012 Halloween Season articles and so on and so fourth. So no matter what time of year it is, you will always have something spooky to read about! Now onto the rest of the 2011 Halloween Recap post.

Halloween is one of those holidays that is either really good or really poor, I've never been able to pinpoint exactly why but at the end of some seasons you can just feel that it wasn't really worth the effort. 2010 was exactly like that and it sort of left a sour taste in my mouth coming into the 2011 season. Oh sure I was excited but I am always excited, after all it is my favorite time of the year, but I felt much more content to just sort of let things play out and see where I ended up at the end of it all. I am pleased to report that 2011 was a fantastic upswing from previous years. All of the little pieces of the puzzle fell in place. Little things that are tough to pinpoint until you can take a step back and view the entire picture.

In recent years I have gotten used to the idea that retail wise, Halloween starts in early September and generally gets ushered out by mid October. No matter how much we love the season Christmas will always be there to overshadow it. Since this early September retail trend has started I to have began celebrating "Two Months of Halloween" as a way to sort of counter the seemingly earlier and earlier push towards Christmas. The 2011 Halloween Season started right on track but I am pleasantly surprised to report that for the most part Christmas has managed to stay out the way. This is a big deal. Usually we have full blown sprawling sections with lighted trees and decorated displays playing endless loops of "Jingle Bells" by the third week of October. Halloween typically gets pushed off to the side as quickly as possible. But this year, it seemed to stick around for just as long as it was needed. Oh sure, Christmas decorations have been in stores for weeks now but they have not completely infested everything like they typically do late October.

Of course just simply sticking around longer doesn't do anyone much good if it hasn't been fun to partake in. 2011 has brought us all kinds of great items that I have wrote about. I'll save you a rundown of everything (for that check out the new section at the top of the website!) but I will say that a lot of the little items making returns or first appearances have gone a long way into making 2011 a memorable year. Old favorites like Count Chocula and Halloween Oreo's combined with the return of Ghoul-Aid all provided lots of interesting ways to either eat or drink the season.

I also really enjoyed writing about these TMNT Universal Horror Figures and telling the story of the Masters of the Universe Scare Glow toy. These are two of my favorite entries that I have ever wrote so if you have not already, please give them a look! All in all I ended up writing 33 different entries in the 2011 Halloween Countdown. Even before I started writing about the season as in depth as I do now I always worried that pretty soon companies would quit making themed Halloween products. This year especially, where I was trying to write as many Triple A blog entries as possible, I kept thinking I was going to run out of material. But every time I went to the store I seemed to spot something else that was worthy of a couple thousand words and seventeen photographs. Fact of the matter is there are lots of seasonal items out there... and for as many as I wrote about there are probably dozens that I didn't get a chance to. Sometimes all you have to do is go to the store and look. You don't even have to try that hard but if you put forth a little effort I believe you can have just as much fun as an adult celebrating Halloween that you did as a child.

Another important factor that helps for a great month of October is the weather. In the past two or three years it has been nothing but rain and near freezing cold temperatures. Not only has this combination ruined most of my outdoor decorations, it turned every day into a constant task of fixing things that got blown over by the wind and rain. It also made it really cold outside. So cold that most kids were not even wearing costumes, but basically winter gear with the occasional mask thrown over top of it. Not exactly ideal conditions for Trick or Treating. 2011 couldn't have been more opposite, weather wise it was just about as perfect as you could draw up. Almost all month long it has been in the 70s with some days even reaching upper 80s. Its provided an actual change in the seasons. Typically we just go from really hot to really cold here in Iowa, this year... we had fall weather. Here are some photos I snapped and turned into a quick slideshow for everyone:

I really don't think you could have asked for a better Halloween Season than what we have gotten here in 2011. But with that said, I do have to admit I am sort of ready for it to be over. Don't get me wrong, I love Halloween, I've loved doing this countdown, but after two full months of living and breathing severed this and limited edition that. Staying up until one or two in the morning laying out blacklights and stringing up strands of orange lights for photographs... I'm glad the end is finally here. And I am really excited to be moving on to the 2011 Christmas Countdown. I have not decided exactly when I will be switching the website over to its winter theme, but I am sure the mood will strike here very shortly.

To all my new readers, thank you so very much for checking out these articles! I don't like to get into things like page views but I will say that I set a goal a long time ago that I thought I would never cross page view wise, and you guys surpassed it and then tacked on about another 500+ on top of that. Hopefully some of you guys will stick around for the Christmas coverage, but even if that is not your thing I hope you bookmark the page and visit it periodically. I have all kinds of stuff planned not only for Christmas but throughout 2012. Including the return of the 2012 Halloween Countdown! So thank you all very much and I hope your Halloween was as memorable as mine!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T11:31:00.002-05:00

Happy Halloween everyone! The big day is finally here! It is kind of a bum day for me, my town has already done its Trick or Treating so most of my fun is over. So I plan on spending a good bulk of the day just relaxing and watching some of my favorite horror movies. I look forward to hearing about what everyone else did today so feel free to leave your own personal thoughts down below in the comment section. This is our second to last entry for the 2011 Halloween Countdown and I must say that it has been a smashing success! But just because Halloween will soon be over doesn't mean that we have done everything we need to do. I still have one final surprise in store for the countdown. So be sure to stop back tomorrow to see what that one is and while your here check out the final entry in the 2011 Halloween Countdown. Stay Spooky everyone! ~Kyle

Spookylicious Pop Tarts Will Kill Us All!

2011-10-28T15:03:00.000-05:00

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I love Pop Tarts. I love Halloween. Therefore shouldn't I just absolutely love these Limited Edition Spookylicious Pop Tarts? Well... I do but like most relationships this one is a little bit complex. With a little love and a little hate and no clear cut right or wrong answers Kellog's has clearly tried very hard to create the perfected Halloween themed item and in many ways they have succeeded. Yet for some reason they end up feeling kind of empty on the inside. Either that or I have covered so many different Halloween themed items that I am starting to go just a little crazy. Either way we have Pop Tarts to write about. Halloween ones.

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Spookylicious Pop Tarts have a lot going for them. The amount of awesome that has been plastered all over this package is just bat shit crazy. Make no mistakes about it Kellog's has given us a clear cut Halloween product here. To continue with our dating analogy, or start one depending on how many times I have re-wrote that introductory paragraph, Spookylicious Pop Tarts are like that really cute girl who lives next door. You know the one you are always to shy to talk to for more a couple brief seconds, so you always just kind of admire her from afar. Yet for some reason you just absolutely love her, despite the fact you know nothing about her. In a nut shell, this is Spookylicious Pop Tarts.

Much like the girl next door she is not a perfect ten but hot damn is she ever cute. Spookylicious gives us the ever illusive "Limited Edition" badge in big bold letters, letting us all know that we better enjoy it while we can because come November 1st its going to be gone. She sports cobwebs, a spider, and a ghost as well as a one of those creative product names that could only be given to a seasonal item. Spookylicous Pop Tarts may not be the biggest or the brightest package this Halloween season but she sure manages to pack a pretty mean looking punch.

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The back of Spookylicious's box suggests that we transform some of the included sixteen Pop Tarts into "spooky snacks!". The prep time is only fifteen minutes and they take about two hours to go from start to finish. The just of this process includes crushing four Spookylicious Pop Tarts and adding some peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar. Presumably the end results will kill you as that is one hell of a lethal combination of junk foods and sugar. You can also cut out the six provided monster faces to give your Pop Tart Balls a spooky finishing touch. While I applaud this effort I will not be spending the next two hours making crushed up Pop Tart and peanut butter balls. Though now that I have given you all this recipe for free, you are more than welcome to give it a shot. Just do not let Kellog's know that we are doing this. You may never hear from me again.

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To continue on with whatever strange dating analogy I had started earlier, assuming one day you do talk to that kind of cute girl next door there is a good chance that you will fall in love with her all over again. Spookylicious Pop Tarts are exactly like that. You flirt with them, you toy with them, you almost buy them but then at the last minute something else comes along and they end up back on the shelf. But no matter what you just cannot stop thinking about them. So finally you give in purchase a box and for a good long while everything seems perfect. Then you get to know her a little bit better and realize that something just isn't right.

Spookylicious Pop Tarts just have to much going on to truly be considered good. If it was not for the clever name, in an attractive looking box with a seasonal theme most of us would not give Spookylicious Pop Tarts a second glace. But here they are with that awesome orange frosting and ghost sprinkles. They look so right this time of year but it just does not end up working out. You see I like my Pop Tarts pretty plain. I will take the classic strawberry flavor and call it a day. Spookylicious Pop Tarts start off with a Frosted Chocolate Fudge flavor and combine that with a hint of gingerbread. And those ghost sprinkles? They are crunchy. I am also pretty sure the orange frosting has some sort of flavor to it as well. All in all Spookylicious Pop Tarts end up feeling like they are trying way to damn hard to please. I've wrote Spookylicious Pop Tarts to many times for a single paragraph.

It may just be me. It could be a deadly combination of Halloween fatigue setting in along side the fact that I just do not like these overly rich sweet foods. That might seem strange because I always seem to be writing about some goofy food product but most of the time its because I have fallen in love with the product and not whats actually inside it. Don't get me wrong a little chocolate every now and then is cool but this triple frosted fudge stuff with sprinkles and gingerbread... for my liking it is just to many flavors fighting for superiority. You should probably give Spookylicious Pop Tarts a try for yourself. Just because I do not really care to much for them, doesn't mean that you might not think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread... or cottage cheese. Sliced cottage bread cheese in Pop Tart form. Well its official... Halloween fatigue. Is it Christmas time yet?

Jason Voorhees Doll!

2011-10-26T12:58:00.000-05:00

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What can I say, Jason Voorhees is my little friend. My little animated friend who has three different sayings and requires four AA batteries to operate. I am a sucker for things like this, I really am. There is no specific reason why I need a six inch talking Voorheess Doll but here he is and here we are. Halloween is the perfect time of year to talk about him, but just don't bring up what he looks like under that mask. Jason does not approve of those kinds of discussions.

I have a thing for leaving items like this in the package. I don't know why, really. I never plan on selling him but assuming one day I do... it might go by easier with him still being in the original box. Often times though, it is because I find the artwork on the package to be just as interesting as the item inside of it. No matter where I put this Jason doll he just seems at home due to the fact that he has his own little inclosed space to live in. Besides, in a package as open as this one... what possible reason could anyone have for taking him out? Sure one day the batteries on his inside will die and I might have to theoretically take him out to change them but until that day comes here he sits in his original box.

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You see the price sticker? Yea, I didn't pay that. Nobody ever spends full price for Halloween decorations. You always wait until November 1st and get to the stores right-the-fuck when they open and you can snag everything at massive discounts. I'm talking like 75% off sales. It becomes a frenzy of epic proportions with people fighting over who gets the last package of fake cobwebs. You also have the e-bay crowd to deal with. I fucking hate the e-bay crowd. These people ruin the fun for everyone else. I fist fight for shit that I want to put on my front porch and prefer to argue with folk doing the same thing. Not the guy exploiting sales to buy things cheap and mark up 4000000000% on a 'Buy It Now' e-bay auction. I took my chances with this Jason doll, knowing full well that he was a prime "e-bay crowd" item. Thankfully there was enough of him in back-stock that us porch people were able to play nicely with the e-bay folk and everyone left happy. This time.

I'm sure you've noticed by now that Jason is slightly out of proportion. His arms seem a little short and his feet are sort of round and goofy looking. Not to mention his oversized head and undersized machete None of this matters. Quit nitpicking, this Jason doll is awesome... remember he moves and makes noises. To my YouTube channel:

See. I told you. Awesome. Nevermind the fact that all he really does is just sort of shake his head from side to side and vaguely lift one arm. Awesome. Certain things are open to interpretation... this is not one of them. Let's take a look at the back of the box, since I took the time to photograph it.

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Here you will see my favorite set of instructions for any item covered thus far on the 2011 Halloween Countdown. "Push button to hear the infamous KI KI KI, MA MA MA!" .... oh how I really like the way they took the time to spell that sound effect out for us. "Small in stature but big on evil!" sounds like a tag line Microsoft could use the next time they redesign the Xbox 360. Of course then they would have to replace the startup sound with just Vincent Price laughing from the end of Michael Jackson's Thriller song.

Yea, I don't know what I'm talking about either guys. I think I have covered this Jason doll about as well as it can be covered. For those of you wonder what I do with this thing for the 364 days a year that it is not Halloween. Well he has a spot amongst my DVD collection and just sort of sits out all year long. Does this really surprise anyone? Ohh boy, if there was ever a post that needed to end with a 1990s Halloween Commercial it is this one! So let's see what we can pull out of the non existent vault:

Now we are on to something! Back in the 80's and early 1990's Leslie Nielsen was in just about everything. Due to the success of the "Naked Gun" films Coors Light decided to basically rip the holly hell out of them with a string of commercials staring Nielsen doing basically the exact same thing he did in the film. And you know what, it worked. They are funny as hell and could probably be re-aired today and nobody would be any of the wiser. Well... save for the fact that despite all his talents, Leslie Nielsen has the glaring error of being dead, but that is beside the point.

No massive dissection is needed for this commercial, which was the first in a series called "The Search for Halloween Headquarters". It is just funny. At least I think this brand of humor is funny, results may vary but I've always been a fan of stuff like this over top of someone like Dennis Miller making references that you have to be a High School history teacher to understand. What I'm getting at is the "nice can" bit is flat out hysterical to me.

And once again, look at the level of dedication given to Halloween in the early 1990's. Coors Light had enough faith in the holiday to hire Leslie Nielsen and produce a series of advertisements with him in it. All for the sake of Halloween. I also like the underlying message that you should be drinking on Halloween. Which, who can deny that logic? Its sound and I fail to see any flaws within it.

And by series, I of course mean there are only technically two of them. But for a commercial... that is as close to a series as it gets. How many times have you seen a commercial have a part one and part two to it with re-occurring characters? Don't answer that. I like it better my way, where we pretend these Coors Light commercials are epic 'Lord of the Ring' style productions. Only with Leslie Nielsen staring as Frodo and his epic journey is to get some Coors Light. Along the way there is a door shaped like a mouse trap and a designated driver joke. I'm officially having more fun writing about this than I was the Jason doll. Maybe I should change the formatting of this post and call it the 1990's Coors Light Halloween Special (with bonus Jason Voorhees Doll) ... but that would require a lot of re-formatting on my part. And if there is one thing I hate it is doing things that start with "re". Ahhh well, as long as someone vaguely enjoys something at some point in this post, it is a job well done.

Tick Tock Tick Tick...

2011-10-25T22:18:00.003-05:00

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Coming Soon: 2011 Christmas Countdown!

Halloween Horror Recommendation! - A Nightmare Before Christmas

2011-10-24T23:23:00.000-05:00

'Halloween Horror Recommendation!' is an ongoing series where we take a quick look at some of my favorite horror movies of all time! Sometimes they are big sometimes they are small but every time they are guaranteed to make you shriek with fright! Updated every Friday from now until October 31st!

Day by day we inch closer and closer to Halloween. As these days turn into hours and hours fade into minutes we creep closer to the ever illusive deadline of October 31st. With Halloween now so close you can almost taste it that also means another holiday is looming off in the distance. If you look close one can already see it. That red and green glow of its flashing lights. Accopanied by that cold winter wind. Jack Frost nipping at your toes. I am of course talking about the coming Christmas season! And every year right around late October we start to get this bizare blend of the two holidays. While Halloween is on its way out Christmas is on its way in. The next couple of weeks are a strange time where you can purchase rubber bats and a half gallon of fake blood and then turn right around and snag something else with snowflakes on the pacakge. It is a weird mix of gingerbread and candy corn. Making it the perfect time to cover one of my favorite films of all time A Nightmare Before Christmas!

I have a hard time believing that anyone reading this website has not seen this movie. But considering that it first came out in 1993 it is possible that an entire generation of kids have now grown up not having any clue what this movie is. Lets fix that. A Nightmare Before Christmas is an animated film but not that fancy new CGI style of animation. This is a much older (and much better, in my opinion) style of animation known as claymation. Where a team of animators would physically move clay models of all the characters one frame at a time and snap a photo of each movement. The photos are then strung together one by one forming a gigantic flip book of sorts thus giving the illusion of movement. The animations in A Nightmare Before Christmas are indeed top notch, giving very fluid very realistic movements out of all the characters. It still holds up very well to this day and is quite pleasing to look at, especially to an audience who is only used to the modern CGI techniques of todays animated films.

Although Tim Burton has his name stamped all over the film and he is indeed credited as the films writer (the whole idea for a Halloween/Christmas confrentation was his) as well as thinking up certain characters like the films title character Jack Skellington. The movie itself was directed on a day to day basis by a man named Henry Selick under the supervision of Burton (who was busy working on other films at the time) but ultimately became the brainchild of composer Danny Elfman. Who not only wrote almost all of the films songs but also provided the voice for the films main character, Jack Skellington.

A Nightmare Before Christmas is the story of how two Holidays momentarily became one. The film centers around a character named Jack Skellington who is, you guessed it, a skeleton who refers to himself as 'The Pumpkin King' and is in charge of a place called 'Halloween Town'. Jack and the rest of the residents of Halloween Town (who range from werewolves to mutants, vampires, a mad scientist, and a two faced [literally!] mayor) are in charge of the holiday of Halloween. It is there job to make sure that every year it is as spooky as possible. Only this year Jack is starting to grow bored of doing the same spooky job every year. It is only when he accidentally stumbles upon a place called 'Christmas Town' (that would be where Santa Clause and his elfs live, for those keeping score at home) that Jack realises what he must do. He hatches a plan to take over Christmas and clame it his own, with the help of his friends back in Halloween Town of course. Of course Jack and everyone else sort of miss the point of Christmas and treat it with the same spooky approach that they would use to typically haunt the world on Halloween Eve.

Intertwined amongst all of this is also the story of a girl named Sally who has been brought to life (stitched together like a doll, actually!) by a mad scientist and is basically being kept against her will even though she wishes to explore the world. She ends up falling in love with Jack and is the only resident of Halloween Town who realises that his plan to take over Christmas is wrong and tries to figure out how to stop him before it is too late. Most of this is conveyed through the use of music, brought together by composer Danny Elfman. The music in A Nightmare Before Christmas is something in and entierly of itself. This is one of the films many areas that help to make it shine and stand out from the rest. It is a perfect blend of both holidays thus making it the perfect film to watch during this transitional period from Halloween to Christmas!

Devils Inside

2011-10-21T14:21:00.002-05:00

Dollar Tree Body Parts!

2011-10-21T14:09:00.001-05:00

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Like any department store around this time of year the Dollar Tree is typically hit or miss in terms of what your going to find. We have already hit it big with these 3-D Window Stickers, which I have dubbed the greatest item of the 2011 Halloween Season. But we also struck out hardcore with these Gummy Candy Pieces, which where confusing to look at and tasted like plastic ass. The Dollar Tree clearly wanted to make up for that last entry by providing a whole bunch of awesome severed body parts and packaged organs. Did I mention how well these things photograph? For as cheap as they are, they look incredible under proper lighting. I think you guys are going to enjoy this entry in the 2011 Halloween Countdown!

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I usually try to save what I think is the best item for last but I am feeling especially festive today so here is my favorite item first. Tis the season and all. Before we get to the actual brains, livers, and hearts pictured above I would like to take a minute to remind everyone that the above items only cost me a grand total of $3.00 to buy. That. Is. It. By comparison you can get a brain of only slightly higher quality for $6.99 (plus shipping) through Fright Catalog and even then... it is only slightly larger and not that much more detailed than this one. With the correct lighting these sucks look every bit as good as there more expensive counterparts.

These organs come in three different variates, Bogus Brains, Phony Bologna Liver, and Cheating Heart. As you can see each package is made up to look like something you would purchase at your local meat counter. Complete with Nutritional Information, Suggested Serving, and Fat Content. Bogus Brains suggest that you braise the left lobe with slightly sauteed fava beans. The Cheating Heart is apparently 18% clogged with fat content while Phony Bologna Liver is 28% bile. I love these things! And the best part is they are so cheap that if any kids are brave enough to touch them, I just may be giving these out as extra prizes on Halloween Night!

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The plastic Severed Hands are nothing new, unless of course your definition of the word new includes the phrase "probably dates back to 1930s gag shops across America" then yes, Severed Hand is an entirely new item for the 2011 Halloween Season. I feel like there is not much to say about this item. It is a hand. It is made of plastic. It lacks an arm and someone has drawn Egyptian hieroglyphs in red paint near the stump of mine. I enjoy this particular model of Severed Hand based on how "meaty" the amputated end looks, I've seen plenty that come to just a clear break. Those hands are no-place near as cool as mine. They would be the George Harrison to my Severed Hands John Lennon. Serviceable but not the reason why we are buying the records.


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Up next is George Harrison's Severed Foot, a complementary piece to the Severed Hand. I figure if you are going to own one you might as well own them both. Looking back I probably should have purchased two hands and two feet that way I had a matching set but then again that would have required me digging through the bin of Severed Feet searching for a left and right foot. Even I have my limits and digging through plastic feet is one of them. George Harrison's Severed Foot does have the same awesome bloody stump as the hand, though it does lack in the Egyptian hieroglyph department. Which, much like George Harrison, makes it slightly less cooler than the rest.

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I do not believe these Severed Fingers belong to any members of the Beatles, but if they did it would probably be Paul. The original Paul, not the imposter Paul posing as him today. Either way I like these Severed Fingers, proof by the fact that I purchased two bags of them. Now I am sure we have all owned some type of Severed Fingers before (a statement that will come back to haunt me in the court of law some day) and typically you get a bag of fingers that are all identical shapes and sizes. Not here. Not at the Dollar Tree. These babies are the Cadillac of broken body parts!

Each bag comes with five fingers, each corresponding to the actual amount of digits you have on your hand. So you got an index finger, middle finger, pinky finger, that one which does not have a clever name, and a motherfucking thumb. I am about ready to start misusing analogies in excitement over this thumb. Rome was not built in a day and you should not count your chickens before fall time, McFly because this thumb is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Actually all these fingers are. For only a buck they legit look like someone went on a chopping spree on someone elses hand. I especially approve of the piece of bone sticking out of each.

On an unrelated topic my janitor just walked by my computer screen at work and asked "are those a bunch of dicks?" and I just had to spend the last five minutes explaining why I was typing about Severed Fingers. But I do not care because these fingers are awesome and I cannot wait to put everything in this post together and create a scene that Leatherface would be proud of! I am very proud of all of these body parts, it was a really good "bang for your buck" purchase. I have enough amputated items right here to set up an entire table full and as a matter of fact I think this is going to be the theme around my candy table come Halloween night. The best part about all of this stuff? I spent $7.00 on everything you see pictured here. Dollar Tree rocks!