My Favorite Nostalgic Food

As of right now, I am coming near the end of my 5th pregnancy, and during these past 35 weeks I have only been craving chicken cheese steaks and Resse Peanut Butter Cups. Usually when I crave something, now or before I was pregnant, I just get off my lazy ass and go get it. Somedays I don't have that option though. It's during those times when I have just remembered a product or something I ate long ago and all I can do is hold that empty craving since a lot these snacks are long gone.


"Doritos Cheetos Flavor"
Okay, so this wasn't from my childhood, more so my teenage years when I thought that LSD was fun. But, I had to add these because they were so good, even though I only ate them one time. One time, but I have never forgotten it. I was at my friend's house back in 1996 when I found a yellow bag of Doritos in his pantry closet after raiding it. I could remember all these years was the yellow bag and the Cheesy Cheetos flavor. That and that they were good as all hell. I kept telling people about the Doritos in the yellow bag which I swore had Chester Cheetah on it some where. I couldn't find any info or pictures of them at all. All I found was this forum showing some of the discontinued Doritos Flavors, in which they describe them as tasting "odd." http://www.brunchma.com/archives/Forum2/HTML/000299.html  I liked them though. They were kind of like cheddar Doritos.

For the most part, I prefer chocolate over vanilla. Not chocolate and vanilla twist... just chocolate ice cream. But in this case, it was allowed. Some thing about this popsicles made them so friggin' good. I would bite off the hard chocolate part around the ears and would eventually make Mickey's head look like a white and brown round ball on a stick. They even had these little games on the back of the box that you could do. It was only connect the dots or drawing disney characters but still, it was something that took up 15 seconds of my childhood.

From what I understand, these were no longer available unless you went to DisneyWorld where you could buy one. I've seen videos and pictures of people eating a very similar Mickey like these, (That so didn't sound right), though recently it looks like they may have updated the Mickey bars to look like this:

Now renamed "Mickey's Preminum", the ice cream has been changed from hard chocolate coated ears to the whole face being coated. I will never know if they taste the same as the old ones, unless I go back to Disney World anytime soon. Only time will tell.

What else can I say about Jell-o Pudding Pops except that they were great! I actually found them not to long in my local Shoprite but then they suddenly vanished? They weren't the same as they used to be but at least it was something! The original Pudding Pops were way bigger.

Original Pudding Pops

New Pudding Pops

EEven though they pops were skinnier, they still satified the Bill Cosby in me. Once again, Vanilla out shined the beloved chocolate that I always prefer. I always ate the vanilla ones first, then the swirls, then lastly the chocolate. I could eat a whole box of these so easily. Last time I looked in Shoprite, they were no where to be found. It's still unknown to me if they were discontinued a 2nd time after 2004. Hopefully not.

Chocolate puffs. Vanilla puffs. Chocolate covered marshmallows. As the commercial slogan went, this cereal made "Your breakfast sing." The mascots consisted of three little edible cartoon characters that made up their own rock band: Choco was the guitar playing chocolate puff.

Van was another guitar playing puff but a vanilla one.

Marsha was the chocolate covered marshmallow singer. (Who doesn't enjoy eating their food after it just sang to you?) The best part of this cereal was of course the chocolate covered marshmallows. To my recollection the marshmallows weren't soft and chewy, they were more like hard and crunchy. Still the marshmallows is what made this cereal. I'm betting an instinst instense sugar rush to kids everywhere was the blame for this cereal to be discontinued. A sad ending to a great one thousand calories a bowl cereal.

Every weekday throughout the summers of the 1980's until the early 90's, I would be found sitting in a grass field trying to quicky eat a Jack & Jill's Twin popsicle before it turned into a sugary puddle in my hands. You see, during my childhood my mother sent me and my brother to a daytime summer camp, which I will always have fond memories of. At the end of each camp day, a councilor would excort us to the front lawn, (which was huge) to wait for our parents to get us. In the meantime, they would break out the coolers and would hand out the Jack & Jill's Twin pops. Some times they would run low and only the normal "crappy" flavors would be left, like cherry, orange, or grape. Soon enough though, we would see the back of the Jack & Jill's delivery truck leaving the camp and we would know that our stash was up again. One of the favorite flavors in my circle of friends was vanilla. It wasn't vanilla like vanilla ice cream, but like a water ice flavored vanilla. For whatever reason, we all thought those vanilla popsicles were magical, almost like the lollipops from "Santa Claus: The Movie" that made the kids fly. Second best from vanilla, was Bubblegum flavor, then Rasberry. They also had Root Beer flavors, which I wasn't too crazy about but I would eat them if nothing else was left. After age 12, camp was done for me and saw the Jack & Jill Twin Pops a few other times. I would spot them at gas station stores once in a while and when my oldest daughter went to camp I would hear stories of the new generations eating the popsicles. Now that all my girls are in camp, I've been told they switched to Fla-vor Ice because they were cheaper. However, when I searched for the pops online, including Jack & Jill's offical website, they seem to be nonexistent. I emailed them but have received no response. I guess the twin pops were left behind in the days of when I was in camp.

Comparing Retro Ads to Todays Commercials (Part 1)

Growing up in the 80's, T.V played a big part of my childhood. As I've mentioned before, I was weird, (was?), and I would tape the commercials I liked on blank Vhs tapes. They ended up getting erased later on as at the time I thought it was more important to re-record over them with my homemade porn movies. (Opps. Did I just say that?) However, thank God for the internet where I have found almost all of those old classic ads again. Commercials aren't a big deal but after seeing how many views a lot of these older commercial breaks get on youtube, I thought it would be interesting to compare the ones from now to what they used to be. So, here are just a few I randomly picked.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Old Jell-o Pudding Commercial

 2011 New Jell-O Commercial

 And Here's the new Commercial

for  Jell-O Pudding. As you can see, Bill Cosby is no where to be found. I could live without Bill Cosby and the magical aspects of the ad, but this is just creepy. It's not just creepy to me but also very annoying. I just want to punch the father's ugly face in. Why? Just because... that face is just too stupid for me. I mean, those faces worked on Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" music video.. but not so much with a Jell-o ad.

    OLD kEEBLER COMMERCIAL

Here's a commercial for Keebler Cookies from the mid or early 80's. I knew from an early age that the Keebler Elves lived inside a tree & that they had really cool ways of making cookies. They used a scale to measure Chips Deluxe Cookies to make sure there was enough chocolate chips on it. They had a magic spoon to pour chocolate into the magic middles cookies.   I just thought that they were really neat, hard working elves. I wonder if they ever got paid for their work?

New Keebler Commercial

Here's the newier commercial for Keebler and as you can see, they decided to blend cartoons with a more family oriented based realism. And maybe it's just me, but the older blond kid seems more like an eighteen year old. She kind of reminds me of Rachael Taylor from the movie "Shutter." Maybe this kid makes similar faces that she does on that movie.

Later, we see the Keebler Elf leader, Ernie, hiding on the kitchen counter, which is weird since I'm used to seeing him inside the tree. I guess they decided to take the Keebler Elves out of the box, or in this case, out of the tree. The end is a pretty close remake to the original elves, working inside the tree. Still, I liked the simple old cartoony state they were in. Their remakes are a little too computer graphic for me.

The Toys R Us commercials were one of my favorites growing up. This is exactly why:

OLD Toys R Us Commercial

I think if you were a kid in the 80's you had to love these commercials. How could you not? It was a commercial for Toys R Us & all us kids of the 80's should remember how awesome Toys R Us was back in the day. It was just a awesome place. Grant it, I loved going to Kaybee or any other toy stores back then, but Toys R Us seemed to be the mother of all toy stores. Even the "boys aisles" seemed cool to me then. Toys R Us had just about everything a kid could dream of, which made this ad more believeable.

2005 Toys R Us Commercial

Then there's the newer Toys R Us Commercial which, thank God, is ridiculously short. You can see some shots of Jeffery the Giraffe, but oh dear Lord, what have they done to him? The "I wanna be a Toys R Us kid" has now been replaced with "Toys R Us, where kids are a big deal." That jingle/slogan was classic and they did away with it. That's just so wrong.

Old Cinnamon Toast Crunch Commercial

To be fair, I picked an old commercial that I was never really crazy about. To me whenever I think of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, I will always think of the three bakers. The three bakers were known as Bob, Quello, and of course the white haired one Wendell. I never liked them. The only reason I can give as to why is that they creeped me out. Certain cartoons back in the day just did that to me. I wasn't really scared of them, I just got a creepy feeling from them. The movie "A Mouse and His Child" gave me this creepy feeling, especially during a particular scene where it shows reoccuring can of dog food over and over again. (Unless you have seen this movie, you will have no idea what I'm talking about and it's easier to just google the movie.) Another good example is a scene from the movie "The Brave Little Toaster." There is some freaky nightmare scene on there also but what got me creeped out was a scene where some appliance is dismantled or killed in front of the other appliances eyes. Shit liked that creeped me out, as did these bakers. Good thing for me the baker Wendell sold out leaving the other 2 bakers behind and went on to advertise the cereal by himself in the early 90's. They even started to draw him different and gave him more of a cereal mascot personality. Eventually, Wendell got canned also. Which brings us to today.

New Cinnamon Toast Crunch Commercial

I remember the first time seeing this during a commercial break for SpongeBob. (My explanation for watching the show is that I have kids and no life.) I thought this was pretty cute until I seen one of the crazy squares punture a hole into another one's body with it's tongue. After that I was all like, "Holy Shit!" Still though, this doesn't creep me out like the three bakers did, which says a lot about my mental capability now. This is now, but I still think that if this commercial was around back then, that I would still like these squares better then all three of the bakers together.

That concludes my opinions of retro commercials to what they have become today. More for next time.

Boys Of the 80's

Okay, so Im guility. I'm guility of turning my back on this blog. As much as I adore those wonderful years of my childhood, my attention has been turned to something even more important. Not just my three daughter's childhoods, but an upcoming childhood that has a due date of August 1st, 2011. (Which, by the way, happens to be my 2 year wedding anniversary!) Oh yeah, I'm completely a preggo now but the best news of all came to me during my 20 week ultrasound. It's a boy! I have never been so excited to see a penis in all my life. (Although that time alone with my man after a brief jail sentence comes in pretty close. Isn't funny how extreme your homones can get once you're incarcerated? Anyhow... that's a different story entirely.) Well, I'm still in complete all that I will be having a son! For some unknown reason to me, I've always wanted a son. Now that my deepest desire is finally coming true, I'm looking back on some of the male characters during my childhood that I grew up adoring. Maybe the way I grew to idolize them subconsciously contributed to this desire for me to have a boy. Who knows though? My mind is a scary and confusing mess. Nevertheless, here's a tribute to some of the boys/men that I grew up loving.


"Max Headroom"

Max Headroom. What can I say about him? I never understood him in the least bit. I knew nothing of Max until one July day when I was at my town's annual Catholic Festival which was a carnival. What better way to honor a saint with beer gardens & the Carnie's ass cracks that semped out of their pants. For one full week in July, the carnival's home is planted across the street from St. Joesph's Church and people are able to dance to "Pour Some Sugar on Me" that blares through the near by speakers and sinfully shake their flesh right outside of Holy ground. If you were a kid during that time, the carnival was the place to be. Anyhow, I ended up convincing my dad to try to win me a game on one of those carnie games that are impossible to win at. Somehow, he succeeded & I was awarded with two framed pictures: One of Spuds Mackenzie & the other Max Headroom. I didn't know nothing about Max except that I had seen him with a can of coke on T.V. I hung the frame up in my bedroom & grew a crush on that electronic man. I just thought he was the coolest. And then I rented his film, "Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future." After seeing it & a head exploding scene, I was more confused than ever about Max. I'm glad I left him in my memory as the way he looked then & that he didn't grow old like the rest of us. 

  

"Mouth" from Goonies

Goonies was and still is one of my favorite movies. I may be agnostic but I still pray randomly that no one will ever come out with a remake of "The Goonies" because they will simply ruin a classic. (I cringe thinking about it because I picture them doing a remake and throwing Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus in there.) I don't think I was the only 80's kid who would search for buried treasure after watching this movie. As for the characters, I liked them all, (except Troy), but Mouth always stood out to me. He was obnixious, funny, cute and taught us all that tongues could be on the menu. He also could fit a mile long pearl necklace in his mouth in addition to a handful of gems!

"John Bender" from "The Breakfast Club"

Another timeless movie classic. As a kid, I didn't have the priviledge to see the uncensored verision of this movie. My mom recorded the T.V verison, which was the first time "The Breakfast Club" was televised. It was hilarious now that I know the "real" verison. The "Eat my Shorts" remark was changed to "Eat My socks." That remark, as most of us 80's children know, was made by John Bender, (Better known as Bender), towards Principle "Dick" Vernon. Bender was totally awesome because he was a rebel. Besides making a popular  goodie two shoes rich girl fall in love with him before the end of the day, he also pissed the principle off to the extend that he would still seek revenge after his teen, school years were over.

"Poindexter"

Who can forget about "Revenge of The Nerds"? We'll never forget how those geeks from Lamanda Lamanda Lamanda "got bush." The only reason that Poindexter got onto this list is because I seemed to be a warped child & would occassionally get crushes on the weirdest men. A good example of this would be when the family & I went to Disney World on vacation & I grew a serious crush on Goofy. Seriously,.. no shit,... Goofy. (No wonder when I grew up I always landed the wackiest guys. I mean, look at my psychodite husband for God Sake.

But, then again... I'm not all that sane either.)

 Revenge of The Nerds brought forth some interesting characters like Gilbert, Wormser, & Bogger though none of them sparked my interests like Poindexter did when he did that little penis thrusting dance. Me being a kid, knew nothing of sex but from the look on Poindexter's date's face I thought it had to be sexy. (I was a very naive child.) The ending to me is what did in the small crush that formed towards Poindexter for me when I saw him playing his cool sounding violin while sporting a mohawk. To this day, I still love that scene of the movie. Who wouldn't love a black gay man rapping & break dancing with a 12 year old preverted kid with an all nerd band?

(By the way, I thought the old Max Headroom was sad, here's what Timothy Busfield, aka "Poindexter", looks like now in his 50's.....

 (Now how sad is that one?)


                 "New Kids on The Block"

I almost ashamed to write this one but then again I am talking about guys I adored in my childhood, not nowadays. Then again though, what girl in the 80's or early 90's didn't love that early version of InSync? You can tell if you were a girl child of the 80's if you still can remember all their names: Jordan, Joey, Jonathan, Donnie, & of course the one that nobody liked, Danny. I had crushes on each & every one of them.... well, except Danny of course. I do remember at one point towards the end of my NKOTB love affair, staring at one of their posters on my wall, focusing on Danny, & asking myself in thought, "Why haven't I had a crush on Danny yet?" I almost felt guility that me being a true NKOTB fan that I at one time had a crush on every band member except Danny. I think I even tried to force myself to like Danny but it never worked. All I could come up with is pity for the poor fool.




So, that's it for my boys of the 80's Tribute. And in closing, only 8 more weeks to go till I get my little boy.... the one that I love the most!

A

"Atticus Archer"... Coming soon...