I predict that you will listen to the 67th episode of the Nerd Lunch podcast and nearly crap yourself when you hear us talk about pop culture predictions. That’s right, in this episode, for the new year, we are making predictions. Predictions about movies, TV shows, fast food and soda. We even try to predict who’s going to die.
To help us with these predictions we are joined again by Doug Frye from the Schlock Treatment podcast. So download the episode to your listening device and hear us make completely unfounded predictions about pop culture. And fully expect that at the end of 2013, we will revisit this topic to see how we did. Right now, I can tell you that one of my predictions is already untrue. That’s just how this whole game is played.
Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.
Brian’s new assignment for the League of Extraordinary Bloggers this week is to photograph something green. Well, I have a Flickr stream chock full of green items. So, instead of showing you just one, I’m going to showcase an entire collection of green from my Flickr stream. Soda, candy, milk. It’s all represented. Enjoy.
You can click any of these images to see them on my Flickr stream.
This summer is the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Olympic Men’s basketball team. The original NBA “Dream Team”. To commemorate this anniversary, 7-up products have a set of 7 collector cans featuring 5 of the legendary team’s members.
Here is the lineup of cans available.
The five players chosen to represent the “Dream Team” for this set are Magic Johnson (Sunkist), Larry Bird (7-Up), Patrick Ewing (A&W), Scottie Pippen (Sun Drop) and David Robinson (Canada Dry Ginger Ale). As I said, there are only 5 of the 12 players represented, but there are 7 different cans. Consequently, Magic Johnson is also on Diet Sunkist and David Robinson is also on Welch’s Grape. I’m surprised they didn’t go for the full player roster and have 12 collectible player cans. When I found out about this I was actually concerned that I would have to hunt down 12 more collector cans so soon after my last hunt for cans (see Avengers cans) just ended. I need not worry now. I’d like to get all of these cans but I think I’m only getting the Bird and Magic cans. And I’ll probably get only the Diet Sunkist Magic can.
Honestly, I’m not surprised about Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley being absent from this set. They have separate likeness deals that have always made including them in NBA deals dicey. Jordan rarely showed up as a playable character in NBA Live games in the 90s. However, why not include cans of Stockton and Malone, Chris Mullin, Clyde “The Glide” Drexler or Christian Laettner (not really missed, btw)? I’m very saddened by the absence of Stockton and Malone especially. I was a big fan of the Jazz in the late 80s – early 90s. I’ve even seen them play at The Delta Center in Salt Lake City. Next to Larry Bird, John Stockton is my favorite NBA player of all time. I had planned on just getting the Stockton, Bird and Magic cans, but now, like I said, I’ll have to settle for only the Bird and Magic cans. Which is fine by me, but I would have really liked to have a Stockton can.
So, the actual anniversary of the selection of the initial 10 Dream Team players is September 21. I’ll be back then with a small retrospective on the team. I had planned on doing this retrospective anyway, but it’s nice to see 7-Up, ESPN and the NBA have also remembered the anniversary of this most historic basketball team.
Oh, and NBATV has also been running an hour and a half documentary called The Dream Team. It covers the selection, practices and tournament play of the team with footage and interviews. It’s been running several times a day every few days. Check it out if you get the chance. Here’s the trailer.
Countdown to Avengers is a blog crossover between Nerd Lunch, To The Escape Hatch and the Cavalcade of Awesome. Together we are reviewing all of the solo Avengers movies as well as some of the comics and cartoons. It’s all leading up to the release of The Avengers on May 4 where we will all review the new movie.
So, by this point we have talked about our thoughts on most, if not all, of the movies that lead up to The Avengers. Now, I want to look at some of the ancillary promotions for The Avengers. I’m “the soda guy” of the group so I’m a complete sucker for any big pop culture movie/soda promotion (see my write ups on Star Wars soda promotions here, here and here). So today, I’m going to discuss the big Marvel soda promotions that have happened from all of the Marvel movies including Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America and the upcoming The Avengers. Unfortunately, there were no soda promotions for the original Iron Man or The Incredible Hulk in 2008. So, let’s start with the current Avengers promotion going on with Dr Pepper.
Currently, Dr Pepper has a promotion called “Assemble the Team”. The promotional packaging is starting to show up en mass at retail locations everywhere. The promotion consists of 8 collector cans featuring the principles of The Avengers (Nick Fury, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Hulk) as well as one can featuring the film’s villain (Loki). Here’s an official picture of the set.
The promotion is spread among the four main Dr Pepper brands. The character/brand breakdown (as shown in the right image above, click to make bigger) looks like this:
Dr Pepper – Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor
Diet Dr Pepper – Hawkeye, Black Widow
Dr Pepper Cherry – Nick Fury
Diet Dr Pepper Cherry – Loki
Brian has released this week’s assignment for The League. This week he wants us to talk about, as collectors, our Holy Grail items. He also mentions our white whales. I see these two concepts as different. Our Holy Grails are something we’d love to own, but we realize that, for whatever reason, we will never own it. ”If I had all the money in the world I’d……”
White whales are something we are always on the lookout for. Something that, if we found it, we would be able to bring it home. There is hope with a white whale, but with Holy Grails, there usually is very little.
I’ve been a collector for many years. I don’t really do it as much as I used to, but I still manage to “collect stuff” without meaning to. Action figures, books, DVDs, soda cans, etc.
So, let’s start with my Holy Grail. What do I think would be awesome to own, but I’m 99% confident that I’ll never own? I’d have to say the Holiest of my Holy Grails would be:
Showcase #4 – Published by DC in 1955. Features the first appearance of the Barry Allen Flash. Also considered the beginning of the Silver Age of comics. I’ve been a huge fan of The Flash since I started collecting comics. I have several reprints of this issue, I just think it would be cool to own the actual issue. However, unless I win the lottery, I just can’t fathom ever owning an actual copy of this. And since we are dreaming that I won the lottery, I would also like the other three Showcase issues that feature The Flash as well as the entire run of the Barry Allen Flash series (#105 – 350). However, I have a lot of the Barry Allen series, so I’d just need to complete it.
