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 Vending #4: Wacky Goulies!

    If you thought the Vintage Vending series was taking a break during the Countdown, you have no future as a psychic. Some of those old prizes absolutely scream “Halloween,” and if you think I’m reaching, just take a look at this one: A macabre mix of Madballs and Ghoulies! Meet the Wa

  • Matchbox Con-Nec-Tors from 1990!

    If you were reading X-E last November, you might remember my tribute to Matchbox’s Con-Nect-Ables, a line of plastic cars which broke into pieces that could be mixed-and-matched to create bizarre vehicles that were part truck, part helicopter. If I had to guess, nobody came here expectin

  • Cadbury Screme Eggs!

    If my hunts so far have been any indication, we’re in for one hell of a season on the Halloween candy front. So many new goodies for 2012! I’m actually frightened by how many I’ve located so far. I mean, it’s only September 4th. As much as I love giving Halloween two full months to

  • Halloween Bread?

    Pepperidge Farm may have peaked with their Goldfish crackers, but this comes close. Keep an eye out for a new pair of autumn “Swirl” breads, in the style of raisin bread, but with fruity bits that are far more appropriate for a season filled with death and monsters. Yes! On the

  • Dino Drac’s 1st Ever Halloween Countdown!

    A balloon. A blurry picture of an orange balloon, with crude jack o’ lantern features drawn on. This could only mean one thing. And it probably explains why the site is all orange and purple. It must be Dinosaur Dracula’s… The Halloween Countdown began on X-E, back in 2003. As much

  • Vintage Vending #3: Button-Button!

    I know you were expecting a full tour of Iguana’s house, but I haven’t had a chance to complete it yet. My printer isn’t being cooperative, and without going into detail on why I need a printer to build a house for a paper lizard, I assure you that I absolutely do. So that will

  • Make your own Toucan Sam!

    Before today, it’d been a long time since my last box of Froot Loops. Don’t get me wrong. Froot Loops is great, but for me, it was always a rebound. If one of the cereals I really liked did something to piss me off, I’d slide back to Froot Loops for a bit, and then,

    Blue Cheese.

    Here’s Dino Drac, written out in Nickelodeon Floam:  And here’s Dino Drac, written out in Cheez-It Scrabble Junior crackers: And here’s a new feature about random Nintendo memories, because if you only keep up with Dino Drac via RSS, you definitely did not see it. I hope you’re ha

  • Vintage Vending #2: Sticky Stuff!

    Today we recall a true old faithful of the twenty-five cent prize arena: Sticky toys that stuck to things with their stickiness. It’s Sticky Stuff! A collection of gooey doodads that will, quote, discolor paint! Yessss! The photo looks bad, but rest assured, it’s just as blurry and cru

  • Vintage Vending #1: Random Toys!

    Welcome to Dinosaur Dracula’s latest ongoing blog series: Vintage Vending! As kids, there wasn’t one among us who didn’t get butterflies at the sight of those stupid red vending machines — the kinds with tiny toys and trinkets as prizes, hidden inside neat little egg-like capsu

  • Chillin’ with Chilla.

    One reason I needed to take a powder back in June was the opportunity to do some promo work with Chiller. If you don’t know, Chiller is an all-horror channel, and I’d already fallen in love with it – mainly because it was the only place to see Tales from the Darkside on television. I

  • Vlog: TMNT Sewer Exploration Belt, from 1990.

    One of the less-referenced reasons why Playmates’ old Ninja Turtles toys were so great was that they were so strange, and nothing proves it quite like the Sewer Exploration Belt, from 1990. A kid-sized arsenal of goofy crap in the vein of Batman’s utility belt, it covered every base. A

  • Mad Mascots: Bigg Mixx!

    Through crooked senses, “Bigg Mixx” rhymes with “brilliance.” And it should. The cereal was named after its mascot, a beast that was part chicken, part wolf, part moose and part pig. Think Foghorn Leghorn, after a mishap with Seth Brundle’s telepods. I could try to come up wi

  • The Trash Pack Schoolbag!

    I feel I’ve committed a grave sin in having waited this long to say anything about The Trash Pack, a line of wonderful little monster figures made by Moose Toys. On the scale of M.U.S.C.L.E. but with the sensibility of Madballs, this is the exact kind of thing that someone like me should

  • Dinosaur Dracula at the Beach Fair!

    There was some kind of weird beach fair thing in Staten Island this past weekend. I’m never one to turn down weird beach fair things. The event exceeded expectations. It was like a tiny-sized, bootleg version of Wildwood out there. There weren’t any roller coasters, but they did have a

  • SPOTTED: Starscream in Top Gun!

    Remember that “X-E Dissects” series on the old site, where we visited fictitious locales like Fred Savage’s bedroom and the wacky store from The Facts of Life, searching for real life retail goodies? It was one of the last things I was totally into doing on X-E, and I have every i

  • Ten things I wanted to buy at Monster-Mania.

    We dropped by the Monster-Mania horror convention in Cherry Hill last night, pretty much on a whim. Wasn’t planning to stay over, and with the last remaining rooms being $179 a night, I’m glad we didn’t. I haven’t been to the New Jersey version of the con in years. This visit was c

  • Marshmallows From Outer Space!

    I wanted to create something out of marshmallows, so I asked the folks on Dino Drac’s Facebook page for suggestions.  There were plenty of good ideas, but this one stood out: “A fluffy spaceship, obviously. With super interesting aliens who have a unique, snack-based culture.” T

  • Come home to me, brainy.

    Okay, technically, I found “Kraang,” not “Krang.” But still. I got some e-mails asking if I was gonna cover the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures, spun from the fast approaching Nickelodeon show. Well, of course. But it wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t start with Krang. S

  • Vlog: My New Robot!

    At one of those random discount stores, there he was. Buried deep in a pile a Nissin Cup Noodles in flavors that haven’t existed since 1998, there he was. I’ve named him Kid Galaxy. He is a wonderful wadio-controlled wobot. Presented as an easy-to-operate doodad for only the youngest o