Dinosaur Dracula!

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.

  • Vintage Masters of the Universe Figures!

    Since it’s Friday night and I live life to the fullest, I will now write 900 words about old Masters of the Universe figures. In this post: A lobster man, a guy with three faces, another guy with a big hand, an alien rock dude, a pure robot, and finally a naked race car driver.

  • Holiday Food Ads from 1983.

    I scanned several pages from the December 1983 issue of Woman’s Day, and now I’m gonna write about them. I bet you didn’t see that one coming. Eh, you probably did. When I was tiny, my mother had many magazines just like this, filled with holiday recipes and gift guides and craft ide

  • Five Cereals From Beyond The Grave.

    Today, I’ve chosen five old cereal boxes from my worryingly large collection for a closer inspection. Far funnier than anything you’ll read below was the sight of me dragging ancient cereal boxes out into the December chill, and desperately trying to keep them upright against the nea

  • Five Random Action Figures, Part 11!

    After a crazy holiday weekend filled with ups (lots of wine) and downs (too much wine), I come to you with only the barest sense of coherence! Welcome to the eleventh edition of Five Random Action Figures, starring old plastic monsters from my personal collection. As a matter of full discl

  • New feature and a Thanksgiving survey!

    The little-updated Features section has now been… uh, updated. So go read about Twelve Treasures from the 1989 Sears Wish Book! See everything from old Ghostbusters toys to a giant gaudy stereo system! Make a cup of coffee before you do, because this one is LONG. I was going to disal

  • The 1989 Sears Wish Book!

    Here are twelve treasures pulled from the pages of the 1989 Sears Wish Book, from Ghostbusters toys to Nintendo clothes and beyond! Relive your childhood with grainy scans and lots of words!

  • Classic Christmas Commercials, Volume 4!

    I’m back with another edition of Classic Christmas Commercials, once again donated by our friend Larry. This is a particularly great batch, featuring everything from Ghostbusters toys to wacky Chicken McNuggets, and if you’re lucky, extra cheap cologne. Hills “Christmas Toys Laya

  • Dino Drac’s December Funpack!

    (NOTE: Available in the United States only!) Okay folks, I’m ready to plug the hell out of Dino Drac’s Funpacks again! For those who don’t know, for 25 bucks each month, you’ll get a new box of random junk sent straight to your door, every month! (And yes, you can cancel at any tim

  • Old Junk Food, Revisited!

    As you’ve probably surmised, I collect old food. Old food packaging, and actual old food. I don’t know how this became my thing, but that’s the hand I was dealt, and tonight, I’m gonna play it. So behold! Old junk food from my personal collection! You’ve seen a few of these t

  • 7UP’s Countdown to Christmas Posters!

    Just when you thought Dino Drac couldn’t get more obscure, here I am with a tribute to those old 7UP posters that let us glue cotton balls over Santa Claus’s face. During various holiday seasons of the ‘80s and ‘90s, people who bought enough 7UP soda scored free “Countdown to Ch

  • Weird TMNT toys from the late ’90s!

    While scouring ancient and loosely archived versions of Playmates Toys’ website, I found a goldmine of late ‘90s Ninja Turtles crud. What an interesting time for those guys! Many of us stopped collecting TMNT toys years before the line died (if it ever truly did), so if you’re like

  • Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp Cereal!

    Perhaps inspired by their success during the Halloween season, General Mills is finally trying to muscle in on Christmas. And I’m totally good with that. The first of two super seasonal cereals (I’ll cover the second in a future post) is Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp. This is huge ne

  • Classic Christmas Commercials, Volume 3!

    Hooray, I can finally dust off one of my favorite topics: Classic Christmas Commercials! If you missed Volume 1 and Volume 2, this series of posts includes ancient holiday-themed TV ads. Christmas commercials were such a big part of the festivities back then, and if you’ve ever felt tha

  • Cranberry & Sage Triscuit Crackers!

    Judging by what I’ve seen so far, the 2014 holiday season is going to be a great one for junk food lovers. Here’s some early proof! I rarely buy Triscuits anymore, but it’s only because I can’t be trusted around them. Like Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, they were one of my childhood com

  • 1989 Toys “R” Us Treat Box!

    During the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Toys “R” Us ran several promotions where kids received free treat boxes with every purchase. These were essentially paper lunch boxes, filled with product samples, coupons, and if we were lucky, a little toy. They sound like simple freebies, and

  • Identifying Garfield’s Christmas Presents.

    Yeah, I’m really doing this. It’s too late to stop me. A Garfield Christmas is one of my favorite holiday specials. During its run on CBS, I watched it every year. To me, it was every bit as important as Charlie Brown’s thing, and for a time, I liked it even more. The bulk of

  • More Ancient Holiday Appetizers!

    Every holiday season, I’m inspired to dig through my ancient recipe books, searching for meals and appetizers that haven’t been in fashion since before I was born. Why? I DON’T KNOW. No matter how this odd passion took form, it’s been a part of my holiday celebrations for as long

  • The M.U.S.C.L.E. Battlin’ Belt!

    M.U.S.C.L.E. — that’s Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere — is one of my favorite toy lines ever. Imported from Japan where they had a more richly defined story, I prefer the simplified version we got in the States: They were just piles of wacky, nameless

  • 10 things KB Toys sold in 1998!

    I don’t think many of us realized just how wonderful KB Toys was until it went under. In fact, things that once seemed annoying about the chain became somehow charming in its wake. The disorganized clutter! The over-reliance on old stock! The six different price stickers on every single

  • HALLOWEEN, 2014!

    HAPPY HALLOWEEN. For once in my life, I actually have plans tonight, so you’ll forgive me if this post has six more typos than usual. I hope you’ve enjoyed Dinosaur Dracula’s 2014 Halloween Countdown! To tell you the truth, I’m not at all ready for it to end. Even with over 40 revi