The Softer Side of My Childhood

Now, I’ve already mentioned my love of Trolls & Cabbage Patch dolls so you should know by now that when you’re 5, 6, or 7 years old it can’t ALWAYS be about G.I. Joe, He-Man, Thundercats, M.U.S.C.L.E., and Transformers. Or at least for me, it wasn’t.

Yessir, I remember quite a few childhood toys that weren’t specifically for boys and they weren’t specifically for girls… They were unisex, baby!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I remember wanting ALL of these toys oh-so-very-badly. The great thing about it though was that I was lucky enough to have a sister, so I didn’t have to feel all awkward asking my parents to buy me a yellow & Pink Popple because they were a nice gift for my sister and I to get simultaneously on Easter or Christmas.

Many times, I was able to put the blame on the toy being  “a gift to both of us” and it saved my neighborhood reputation: “That Cabbage Patch Doll? Oh, my grandparents got me and my sister one each. I didn’t ask for it. Yeah…. Yeah, that’s the ticket!”

The future’s so bright…

The 1980s. The era of the incredibly long-winded print ad.

All this text… for just a pair of sunglasses? Who could even be bothered to read all of this? I guess America had a longer attention back then, but even as a child flipping through magazines and comic books, whenever I came across an ad that read like a phonebook, it was an easy skip. If you’ve got PARAGRAPHS in your ad, there’s something wrong and you’re probably a very boring company.

That’s Showbiz (Pizza Place)!

During my youth, I spent many a saturday at a little place I liked to call Showbiz Pizza (it helps that the company that owned it also called it that too). It was kinda tucked away and isolated, just off one of the main roads in my hometown of Lynchburg, VA, but boy was it ever popular.

Cereals From Beyond 2

…Sometimes They Come Back for Second Bowls

I love a good sequel almost as much as Connie loves another bowl of cereal! So here I am, to shed the light, once again, on those golden cereals (not Grahams) of yesteryear. I have seen I am not the only one to harbors strong feelings for the cereals of the past. Why is this? Why are there so many people and websites that catalog their retro-cereal habits?

Is it because the nectar of time and childhoods long ago have only made those crunchy, sugary cereals even sweeter? Is it the cute little cartoon mascots and the bright colorful boxes art that captured our imagination? Could it be fond remembrances of the thrill of the chase to get a few glow-in-the-dark stickers or a sticky wall-crawling toy that has kept us longing for what we can no longer have? Or do we just refuse to accept change and step aside for a younger generation of cereals to rise to prominence?

Debate amongst yourselves. But, I do know this–a decade where there was a purple, blue, orange, and green colored smiley-face cereal with pink marshmallow stars is a decade I am proud to have been a part of.

Cereals From Beyond

So in continuing my venture into the realm of pop culture, I’ve decided to talk about cereal. Why cereal? Why not? IT’S DELICIOUS! Some people like to eat it the old boring way… with milk. Not me! Although I occasionally get the urge to splurge with milk, any good cereal should be able to stand on its own as a dry snack. Kix, Cheerios, Crispix… These are the kings of cereal & serial snacking!

But I’m not here to talk about those classic breakfast cereals. No, today I will be showing you The Forgotten Ones. Those flash-in-the-pans, those licensed character driven cereals whose time was cut short due to the fact that they were based on a fad, those sweet crunchy gimmick cereals… Yes, these types can all be found to this very day, but being a child of the 1980s, I have a special spot in my heart for all those that came and went rather quickly nearly 20 years ago. This is their story.