While tidying up my office, I came across a stash of old cereal boxes, sandwiched between far less interesting things. Below are five of them. (This is what we in the biz call a utilitarian intro.)

Spider-Man Cereal! (1995)

At least partially inspired by the 1994 cartoon, Ralston’s Spider-Man Cereal was kind of like the sequel to their discontinued TMNT Cereal. (More on that one later.)

Whereas Ralston had once positioned phony Chex as “ninja nets,” here we had phony Crispix as spider webs, along with a full complement of Spidey-themed marshmallows.

The marshmallows were… interesting. Spider symbols and even Hobgoblin’s Pumpkin Bombs were natural enough, but then there were these little nondescript blue ones that were somehow supposed to represent Peter Parker’s camera, plus even stranger white ones meant to resemble Kingpin.

…and I mean like, full body Kingpins. They ended up looking more like bloated crossing sign guys, but I admire Ralston for trying such impossible marshmallow shapes. An A for effort! Read More…

Summer is here! Sure, it’s only my third favorite season, and sure, it comes in dead last if we’re only talking about the weather, but still… yay!

It’s a season full of roller coasters and yard sales and cotton candy and tiki mugs, so no matter how humid, sticky and bug-filled the days may become, I’ll always be 35% excited about this time of year.

When you’re all grown up, the shift to summer doesn’t mean so much. But man, remember when we were kids? Over two full months off from school, with the total freedom to wallow in whatever silly passions we had. If the rest of the year helped shape how we interacted with the world, summer was when we figured out who we were inside. It was pretty awesome, guys.

…and that’s the subject of the latest Purple Stuff Podcast, wherein me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit tackle ten of our childhood summer memories. We’re covering everything from Super Soakers to MTV’s old “Top 100” video countdowns. There’s even a whole bit about imaginary sharks.

If you’re anywhere near my age, I think you’ll relate to so much of this one. Give us a listen by clicking the giant, ugly play button down below!

You can also download this week’s episode by right-clicking here.

Thanks as always for supporting the show! Remember to pass it around, too!

Side note: Sorry about the lateness on this week’s episode… and also sorry for the severe dearth of Dino Drac updates over these past few weeks. I will diplomatically state that it’s been a tricky few months, but I now appear to be over the hump, and I’m amped to do the sort of site content that can only happen at this time of year. Stay tuned!

PS: I wrote a few new pieces for DealNews. First, in honor of Independence Day: Resurgence — which I’m seeing tomorrow — I’m naming ten of the best and weirdest ID4 collectibles currently on eBay. I also did a little piece on ThinkGeek’s top sellers, which was probably a bad idea, because it inspired me to spend way more than I made writing the article.

Enjoy the show!

Welcome to the tenth edition of Five Retro TV Commercials. Since I’m just now noticing that milestone, I can’t say that I have anything special planned. Just more old commercials.

Crest Toothpaste! (1980s)

As crazy as this one is, every kid-targeted toothpaste commercial was just as boisterous back then.

I guess they had to be. It was hard to get kids excited about toothpaste when they were being inundated with ads for video games and fruit snacks at the exact same time. You had to be over the top. You had to include hot pink yetis.

In any event, the commercial is a nice reminder of a time when I picked my toothpaste simply based on which one tasted the most like bubblegum. Nowadays I’m just like, “Which one of you fuckers is the most akin to corrosive bleach?” Getting old sucks, but at least I get to shout bizarre things in the dental care aisle. Read More…