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The Grocery Aisle of long forgotten breakfast cereals Pt II

Posted in advertising, Batman, breakfast cereal, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags advertising, Batman, breakfast cereal, commercials, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on April 3, 2009 by Paxton

Allrighty, here’s Part II of the discontinued cereals article. If you missed Part I, click here, my friends, otherwise, let’s walk back down Aisle 7c (Nostalgia) and take a look at some more forgotten cereals from our childhood.

Burgen, flurgen, murgen…BORK BORK BORK!! The cereal with the nonsense name. Swedish Chef was one of the more popular Muppets, so it’s not surprising he got his own cereal. This was released in the late ’80s and the commercials for it were produced by Jim Henson, right before he died. Here is one of the commercials.

What if you want a breakfast food that looks like other food? I mean, why eat donuts for breakfast when you can have cereal…shaped like donuts? Or waffles? Or ice cream? These cereals remind me of that Jim Belushi skit on SNL where he’s an Olympic athlete that eats “Little Chocolate Donuts” for breakfast. See that skit here. Here are cereals based on donuts, including a Dunkin Donuts branded cereal. I actually remember each of these.

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The Grocery Aisle of long forgotten breakfast cereals Pt I

Posted in breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, cartoons, food, nostalgia, Pac-Man, pop culture, TV shows with tags Batman, breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, Ghostbusters, nostalgia, Pac-Man, pop culture, TV shows, video games on March 31, 2009 by Paxton

My good friend Steve emailed me a few weeks ago and asked me to write an article on a subject he and his wife had recently been discussing. He wanted me to talk about breakfast cereal. More specifically, he wanted me to talk about some of his favorite breakfast cereals he remembers when he was a kid. Now, Steve and I have known each other since first grade, but I won’t know all of his favorite breakfast cereals. So, I thought I’d take the general topic of cereal, and look at it from the nostalgia perspective.

There is a surprising amount of cereal box enthusiasts out there. If you go to Flickr, there are two main groups dedicated to cereal from the ’50s up through the ’90s. There are more groups than these two, but the two I’m talking about contain the majority of the images. So, scanning these groups, I thought I’d discuss some forgotten and long discontinued cereals that we may all remember. So, let’s head on over to your local Western Supermarket or Safeway, and walk down the Nostalgia aisle (Aisle 7c) and see what we all used to eat when we were kids. FYI…There were so many awesome, awesome cereals that I found that I decided to split this article into two parts. Come back later this week to see Part II. For any of the pictures below, click them to go to a bigger version (most likely on Flickr).

All set, then let’s begin with the first batch…

No talk about breakfast cereals is complete without talking about Capt. Horatio Magellan Crunch (aka Cap’n Crunch for the noobs). And if we are talking about the Cap’n, I’m going to have to talk about the elephant in the room. It is a harsh truth that all cereal enthusiasts are aware of. Cap’n Crunch is an incurable media whore. Currently, there’s like five versions of Cap’n Crunch on the shelves. That alone is enough, but if you look into the past, and include special editions, we are looking at a number north of 17 versions of Cap’n Crunch. Seriously. He will pimp his image/cereal out to any idea that comes across the table. Here are 9 versions of Cap”n Crunch you may have never seen.

Deep Sea Crunch? Vanilly Crunch? Seriously? And that’s not all of the images. How about Treasure Hunt Crunch? Or maybe you would prefer Choco-Donuts Crunch? This never ending parade of Crunch madness has got to end. The Cap’n is sick, he needs help.

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Twilight: The Art of making vampires lame

Posted in books, movies, pop culture, reviews, Twilight, vampires with tags movie review, movies, pop culture, vampires on March 24, 2009 by Paxton

So, Twilight came out on DVD this past Saturday. I’ve had people ask me to read the book or see the movie because they want to know what I think. I’m told I would love the books and/or movie because I love fantasy/sci-fi books. Well, as a litmus test, I decided to watch Twilight the movie to decide whether I will continue on with reading the books (I got the first book for Xmas). I admit, I do love vampires (they are, appropriately, AWESOME) and I do enjoy teen fiction, so this should be a good fit.

So I be-bopped on over to Blockbuster on Saturday afternoon and was able to pick up a copy (one of many left on the shelf) of Twilight on Blu-Ray. Interesting, because I would think that more copies would be gone from the shelves based on the popularity of this movie. Conversely, the movies Role Models and Sex Drive were gone completely from the Blu-Ray stacks. I had to pick up these last two in Standard Def (disappointment already). Anyway, the wife and I ordered pizza and popped Twilight into the DVD player.

Here’s what I thought: Awful. Terrible. Horrible. I realize I’m about to piss off the collective throngs of Team Edward, but it’s got to be said. This movie is terrible.

Even my wife didn’t enjoy it. She didn’t hate it like I did, but she said she preferred the movie Watchmen to Twilight, and to me, that speaks VOLUMES about the enjoyment level of this movie. Acting, script, the portrayal of the vampires in general. Just plain God-awful. Stephanie Meyer takes what’s awesome about vampires, rolls it up into a tiny ball and wipes her ass with it. Then she sets it on fire and pisses all over the ashes. Everything I love about vampires is stripped away and made into the Harlequin Romance version of vampires. And Edward Cullen, is the Fabio of this fable. They may as well have cast Fabio as Edward.

harlequin twilight

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Rockin’ Around the Clock with Happy Days trivia

Posted in Americana, cartoons, Happy Days, pop culture, TV shows with tags Happy Days, pop culture, TV shows on March 3, 2009 by Paxton

Happy Days logo Sunday, Monday, Happy Days! Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days! Man, I used to love watching the show Happy Days when I was growing up. I loved Fonzi and his catchphrase, “Heeeeeeeeeeeeey!” I loved the show’s catchphrase, “Sit on it!” I loved the theme song, I loved the setting and the sets, I loved the other characters. It was just a lot of fun to watch. I still enjoy it. I DVR it every once in a while to see some of my favorite episodes.

Just a few weeks ago I got an email from Ticketmaster letting me know that tickets for Happy Days the Musical, showing in Jacksonville, were only 20 bucks during the week. I didn’t realize there was a musical based on the TV show, but it’s not surprising considering the Broadway shows based on Saturday Night Fever, Xanadu, Road House and other movies from the ’70s and ’80s. I thought it would be fun to see how they managed to translate the show to the stage so I bought Steph and I tickets and we went this past Saturday. Happy Days The Musical

The show was very good. The guy who played Fonzie was spot on. He had the mannerisms and voice inflection down cold. The guy who played Ritchie was familiar to me because he was in the cast of Avenue Q which I happened to see on Broadway in 2004 right before it won the Tony for Best Musical. Overall, the musical was like watching an episode of the TV show, cheesy and cute. The songs were fun, too. Steph and I really enjoyed watching it. If it comes to your town, and you loved the TV show, then give the musical a chance. I think you’ll like it.

Anywho, after watching the musical, I started Googling Happy Days. I was surprised how much info and trivia was out there. I was reading for like 3 hours about behind the scenes information and background info on the show and characters. I enjoyed it so much that I thought I would pass along some of my favorite tidbits.

So, without further adieu, here’s everything cool about the show Happy Days that you never knew.

* Originally there were three Cunningham children. Ritchie, Joanie and the eldest, Chuck. Chuck Cunningham was phased out of the show in Season 2 (off to college for basketball).

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What our favorite fast food joints looked like back in the day Part II

Posted in advertising, Americana, Burger King, fast food, food, Pizza Hut, pop culture with tags advertising, Burger King, Dairy Queen, fast food, Pizza Hut, pop culture on February 4, 2009 by Paxton

Last week I introduced you to the early incarnations of some of our favorite fast food restaurants. You got to see McDonald’s, Arby’s and KFC the way they looked when they were opened in the ’50s and ’60s. If you missed this trip down vintage fast food lane just click here to be transported back to a simpler time. Back to a time when people knew that a bacon double cheeseburger and a side of chili-cheese waffle fries was a gift handed down by God himself unto the people of Earth. That a triple thick strawberry milkshake was made from happiness and love, mixed together by a benevolent soda jerk who only wanted to stop the pain of the real world…if only for a little while. But I digress…

If you’ve already read Part I of this article, and you are ready to see a few more vintage fast food eateries, then continue on, intrepid reader, for looks at yesteryear Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and Burger King.

Burger King

The founders of BK visited one of the original McDonalds Brothers burger stands in California and thought they had a good system going. So they returned to Miami, devised their own production line burger system and opened up the first restaurant in 1954. The restaurant was named InstaBurger King (yes, that is a horrible name). When deciding to franchise, they changed the name to Burger King and the rest is history. Above you can see a magazine ad for one of the original Burger Kings in the ’50s – ’60s. On the right is a picture of that same building architecture as it stands in Naperville, IL. Amazing that this building is still intact. Until this picture I had no idea that a Burger King ever looked like this. Very similar to the original McDonald’s architecture, don’t you think?