Dino Drac After Dark

More ’90s Commercials!

Here’s another batch of ’90s TV commercials, with over 50 ads total. You won’t remember them all, but hopefully you’ll remember some!

In site news:

1) Another episode of The Purple Stuff Podcast drops tomorrow! (Yes, uncharacteristically soon. We knew that it’d been too long since we posted a new episode, so the “Green Show” was kind of our apology tour. The one dropping tomorrow is our “regularly scheduled” episode.)

2) It looks like next week is my first “all clear” week in way too long. I have a couple of major articles that I can’t wait to tackle. (One is so big that I’m really gonna need to apply a critical eye to myself, otherwise I’ll end up drowning you with info on a topic that you probably won’t care about!)

3) I’ve gleaned from the comments that some of you get worried when DDAD isn’t updated frequently. Don’t be worried! I’m going through a bit of a “marshaling my resources” phase, but once you see me advertise DDAD again, you’ll know that we’re back on a regular sked. FWIW, I’ll make sure this place gets new updates this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (I miss those Free-For-All Friday Threads!)

Mortal Kombat Cartoon!

Here’s the first episode of Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm, from 1996. How have I never seen this? Is that even possible?

Count me in. I may not be much of a gamer, but I’m a junkie for Mortal Kombat lore.

Super Mario Bros. 2!

Here’s a playthrough of Super Mario Bros. 2, which ruled my world back in ’88. (Well, mostly 1989 since I got it for Christmas in ’88. But I guess that’s splitting hairs.)

Couple of things about me and this game:

1) I loved it, but I could never beat it. I sucked at beating video games, and rarely did. Only in the internet age did I realize how uncommon this was, since it seems like most people forced themselves to stick with their games until they’d at least beaten them once.

2) I only ever played as the Princess, as far as I can remember. I loved that gliding jump! (This might explain why I could never beat the game. The Princess certainly wasn’t right for every level.)

3) Right around the time that this game debuted, Fruit Wrinkles fruit snacks switched from their familiar “pill” shapes to actual fruit shapes. I didn’t like them at first, but then I realized that I had the perfect fruit snack replica of the bonus cherries from this game.

Freddy’s Nightmares Promos!

I’m in the middle of putting together the Funpacks and then have a quickie freelance article to get done, but I’m very much looking forward to getting back to a normal routine on the site. Been quietly prepping a few major articles that I can’t wait to attack. Stay tuned!

In semi-related news, I’m also looking into revitalizing this place a bit. A few design tweaks for sure, plus a set schedule with lots of posts in the queue. If you have any ideas re: tweaks you’d make to After Dark, I’ll all ears! (I’m especially curious if any of you come here via mobile devices, and if you find it easy enough to converse when you do.)

For tonight, here are four old promos for Freddy’s Nightmares. These are my uploads. I’m technically saving them for the Halloween Countdown, but I guess you guys won’t blab when I rerun them later.

Note that these episodes all aired on Saturdays at midnight. Too bad it isn’t 1989 now!