I wasn’t planning to go back to this well so soon, but I found a *really great* Gremlins 2 commercial, and that shit just can’t wait. Every ad featured in this edition of Five Retro TV Commercials premiered in 1990. Most of ’em aired during the same blocks of weekday afternoon s
The Mostly-Complete Dino Drac Archives.
You have some reading to do!
Below are most of the Dino Drac blog archives. Certain categories may be excluded to keep things tidier. If you notice any typos, pretend you didn’t.
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Five Retro TV Commercials, Part 14!
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Five Retro TV Commercials, Part 13!
It’s been months since the last edition of Five Retro TV Commercials, but have no fear: Thanks to some generous donations, I’m now armed with enough old commercials to write about nothing but old commercials from now through 2021. Let’s get this party started, and yes this is how I p
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1993 Good Humor Ice Cream Truck Menu!
My newest acquisition: A genuine Good Humor ice cream truck menu from 1993! It doesn’t photograph so well, but it’s beautiful in person. 1993 would’ve been my last year to chase down ice cream trucks without secretly wondering if I was too old to do that, so I’m super familiar with
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Video Store Adventure #6: Pepe’s Video!
After our successful trip to Heights-Terrace Video in Hazleton, we drove another 40 minutes into the bowels of Pennsylvania, looking for more old video stores. That led us to the city of Wyoming. If the little we saw was indicative of its totality, Wyoming is a mix of a sleepy college town
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Video Store Adventure #5: Heights-Terrace!
We took a trip to Pennsylvania on Saturday, hunting for more old video stores. My heavy foot shaved an hour from what should’ve been a 3+ hour drive, but it was still a long day on the road. The itinerary led us through parts of Pennsylvania that were only suburban in a borderline way. A
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Five Random Action Figures, Part 39!
Welcome to the 39th edition of Five Random Action Figures. Just one more to go before I’ll have reviewed 200 different figures in this series, which I’ll of course use as an excuse to buy fancy old toys that aren’t already collecting dust in the unsightly bins stacked exactly four fe
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Five Dead Stores.
Apologies in advance for what promises to be a screwball article with narrow appeal. Sometimes I do these just for me. Over the last few months, several of my favorite local stores went out of business. Before their sad remains are forever lost, I thought I’d pay tribute to them with thi
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2017 Flea Market Finds, Part 1!
It’s flea market season, baby. An excuse to spend every weekend with grimy hands and a pocketful of also-grimy singles. We had gorgeous weather on Sunday, so it was off to Englishtown, home of one of New Jersey’s biggest and longest-running flea markets. (…which you may remember
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Dino Drac’s April 2017 Funpack!
Go on, treat yourself. You deserve it. You deserve old gum and Addams Family trading cards. Dino Drac’s April Funpack is here! Obligatory spiel: I create and sell monthly Funpacks, stuffed with old and new nonsense. Without the profits from these boxes, I wouldn’t be able to run D
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Freddy Krueger’s Bubble Gum?!
By the late ‘80s, Freddy Krueger had become so popular and so accepted that it was hard to continue looking at him through a “horror” lens. As I mentioned on the Elm Street edition of the Purple Stuff Podcast, Freddy started to seem like an edgier version of Pee-wee Herman — no
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Eight Great Nintendo Bosses!
Relive the glory days of the Nintendo Entertainment System with this look at eight great enemy bosses, from Queen Medusa to the Great Puma!
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Highlights from TRU’s 1995 Spring Catalog!
Welcome to spring, worst of the seasons. May it charm you by being full of pollen and hot enough for bugs. But the season isn’t all bad. If nothing else, it gave me an excuse to scan several pages from this 1995 Toys “R” Us Spring Catalog, which was so generously donated by my pal,
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12 Awesome WWE Entrance Themes!
In the latest Purple Stuff Podcast, we're naming 12 of our favorite WWE entrance themes from the past and present. And talking way too much about Doink the Clown.
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Video Store Adventure #4: 112 Video!
In Dino Drac's latest Video Store Adventure, we're heading to 112 Video in Long Island, NY for a look at their incredibly huge and rare VHS collection!
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Spooky Unsolved Mysteries Segments II!
Let's pick out the 5 spookiest segments from the 2nd and 3rd seasons of Unsolved Mysteries. (Yes, including that awful one about the satanic arsonist. "Look at it, Omar!")
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Surfin’ Berry Punch Kool-Aid, from 1987!
I’m back with another review of old Kool-Aid. Just smile and nod and pretend that this is something you care about. I said nod. For the longest time, Surfin’ Berry Punch was my white whale. My bright red white whale. It’s one of the hardest Kool-Aid flavors to find on the collectors
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L’eggs Eggs = Best Toys Ever?
From baker’s twine to pizza box tents, some of the best toys were never meant to be toys. My all-time favorite example? L’eggs pantyhose eggs, baby. Back in the ’80s, L’eggs stuffed bargain-priced pantyhose into plastic eggs. Some were clear, others white or black, and some eve
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Grocery Shopping in Married with Children!
During Married with Children’s fifth season two-parter, You Better Shop Around, the Bundys battled the D’Arcys in a bootleg version of Supermarket Sweep. It’s easy to see why these episodes are so beloved by fans: The cast had perhaps never been more willing to get physical and
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Purple Stuff: A Nightmare on Elm Street!
Since we had so much fun recording our Friday the 13th show, this week’s topic seemed only natural: Yes, the latest Purple Stuff Podcast is all about FREDDY KRUEGER. This week, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit run through a dozen of our favorite things about the entire Nightmare on E
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Dino Drac’s March 2017 Funpack!
Hooray! I’m finally ready to reveal the goods! (AVAILABLE IN THE UNITED STATES ONLY!) Dino Drac’s March Funpack is here! Obligatory spiel: I create and sell monthly Funpacks, stuffed with old and new nonsense. Without the profits from these boxes, I wouldn’t be able to run Di