Random Stuff

Dino Drac’s February Funpack has landed! Most of you know the drill by now, but here’s the quick-and-dirty version: Every month, I mail out boxes filled with old & new treasures to all subscribers. It’s $25 a month (that price includes shipping to anywhere in the United States) a

The apocalyptic snowstorm never arrived, but we still got enough to slow life to a crawl. And to make the process of shoveling feel like it should’ve ended with an awards ceremony. It seemed like a good day to get organized, so I attacked my eighteen bins full of old videocassettes, sepa

Back in junior high, I spent a lot of my free time alone. I don’t mean that to sound maudlin; I had friends, and we’d hang out often enough. Thing was, we had few common interests, and whenever they ran off to do whatever normal boys did, I hid at home. This was during the early ‘9

(AVAILABLE IN THE UNITED STATES ONLY!) I’m officially ready to shill the hell out of Dinosaur Dracula’s first Funpack of the new year. It’s the January 2015 edition, stuffed with 10+ items! As this is now the sixth Funpack in the monthly series, it’s safe to assume that most of

I’ve been keeping an eye on a few eBay auctions despite having no plans to actually bid, out of sheer amazement that people have such rare stuff to sell. Like, how the hell do you end up with 59 Fireball Island board games? Most of these treasures will ultimately make quiet exits, reme

Happy 209th anniversary to the Treaty of Pressburg! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I hope you had great Chinese food. Mine was the usual two-day marathon of TOO MUCH EVERYTHING. The holiday season was a little rough around the edges, but it ended

Guys, we need to talk about this Mother’s Day card. I made it for my mother in 1986. 1987 at the absolute latest. Considering the card’s enormous size and use of strange paper, I can only assume it was an art project from grade school. The cover looks innocent enough, or at least as i

Welcome to what could be this year’s last batch of Classic Christmas Commercials, donated by our pal Larry. Tonight, you’ll see everything from a super capitalistic Santa to a giant apple pitching cheap underwear. Are you excited? Call Santa’s Hotline! (1987) I’ve seen at least

Back in March, I paid tribute to eBay’s action figure mixed lots — those being auctions for “bunches” of toys that sellers have neither the time nor interest to list individually. Even with the bazillion eyes perpetually scanning eBay, there are some great deals hiding in those

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

(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

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

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

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

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

NOTE: The deadline has passed for the November Funpack. To see what I’ve cooked up for December, click here! I know we’re still in Halloween mode, and thank God for that, but if you’ll pardon me this one exception, it’s time to debut Dino Drac’s NOVEMBER 2014 Funpack! (Availa

Welcome to Classic Creepy Commercials, Volume 7! (It was either this or another edition of Five Spooky Action Figures. The folks on Twitter voted for more commercials. If you would’ve preferred to read about plastic Draculas, blame them. #notmyfault) Larry P. generously provided the firs

TELL ME. When you went trick-or-treating, what did you use to hold the candy? A McBoo pail? A pillowcase? A Radio Flyer wagon? Most often, I’m guessing you used a plastic bag made specifically for that purpose. The “trick-or-treat sack” has historically been just as integral a part

Who wants to win a set of Dinosaur Dracula trading cards? Yes, Dinosaur Dracula trading cards! After teasing them for over a year, it’s finally time to give them away! Between now and Halloween, there will be at least fifteen winners of the full 30-card set! The cards feature gorgeous ar

Remember last month, when I went into tremendously long detail about some total stranger’s ancient Halloween photo? Let’s do that again! This photo was another eBay find. I don’t know who that house belongs to, nor even what part of the country it’s from. I suppose some of you ar

It’s time for Volume 6 of Classic Creepy Commercials, and wowza, what a great batch this is! Just a perfect mix of Halloween nostalgia and absurd spookiness, along with at least one instance of Troll dolls shooting missiles at each other. Maybe two. I’m giving you six ads this ti

October is here, and you know what that means. MOOD TABLE TIME. This is a yearly tradition that many of you are aware of, but for the few that aren’t, I’ll explain. I’ve been running the Halloween Countdown since 2003. The only Countdown that I fouled up was in 2007, owing to real l

It’s time for our fifth batch of Classic Creepy Commercials, provided once again by my friend Larry. (Not that Larry. The other one.) If you’ve found your Halloween spirit weakening under the weight of the real world, these grainy old commercials will fix everything. And if

As you can guess, running a site with this much content and on-hand reviews takes a ridiculous amount of time and a ridiculous amount of money. I wouldn’t be able to do it at this level without the help of readers willing to buy stupid things from me! So, welcome to Dino Drac’s tiny-si

This one means a lot to me. Weeks after it became a regular series, Unsolved Mysteries aired a special Halloween episode. They’d only cop to it being an “all ghosts” special, but given its debut date — October 26th, 1988 — I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider it a