I get the strangest care packages!

My good pal Jerrod K. accurately predicted that I’d be so into this. A pile of Sunday newspaper ads from July 11th, 1993! They were all in gem mint condition, and though I suppose I could just ask, it’s more fun to simply wonder why he had a newspaper from 1993 just laying around.

Though nothing in the pile carried the nostalgic weight of, say, an old Kay-Bee Toys circular, it still brought back many swell memories. Below are scans of some of the highlights.

Nabisco Crackups!

Talk about obscure! I haven’t thought about these since… well, 1993, probably. Apparently I’m not alone, because on an internet that has around 40,000 pages dedicated exclusively to the sesame cake scene from Congo, I can only find a handful of references to Nabisco Crackups.

If I’m remembering them right, Crackups were like the perfect midpoint between Cheez-Its and Doritos. A bit thicker than chips, but still thin enough to make firecracker noises when you ate them. They were like Better Cheddars with attitude. Read More…

Even with its 80 trailers and 500 TV spots, excitement for the Ghostbusters reboot is being fueled as much by junk food.

From Ecto Cooler to misshapen marshmallows to Key Lime Slime Twinkies, I can only hope that I have half as much fun watching the movie as I’ve had eating it.

…and the hits just keep on coming!

In a shocking twist, Hostess has now doubled-down on the new movie, following up their Key Lime Slime flavor with the all-new White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkies — with, of course, a wink and a nod to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Word of this promotion only spread a few days ago, and even then through leaky circumstances. It’s unusual for something like this to be played so close to the vest. I love how Hostess was all “naw nothing’s going on we swear” when they had a secret battalion of soldier elephants beyond their front line. This is big motherfuckin’ marshmallow news.

The Twinkies are exclusive to Walmart, and are only now trickling into stores. Me and Jay had to drive for over an hour to track them down, passing the time with such road trip topics as “What if they DON’T have the Twinkies?” and “No really, what if they DON’T have the Twinkies?” Macabre pacts were formed.

Fortunately, they had the Twinkies. Read More…

While tidying up my office, I came across a stash of old cereal boxes, sandwiched between far less interesting things. Below are five of them. (This is what we in the biz call a utilitarian intro.)

Spider-Man Cereal! (1995)

At least partially inspired by the 1994 cartoon, Ralston’s Spider-Man Cereal was kind of like the sequel to their discontinued TMNT Cereal. (More on that one later.)

Whereas Ralston had once positioned phony Chex as “ninja nets,” here we had phony Crispix as spider webs, along with a full complement of Spidey-themed marshmallows.

The marshmallows were… interesting. Spider symbols and even Hobgoblin’s Pumpkin Bombs were natural enough, but then there were these little nondescript blue ones that were somehow supposed to represent Peter Parker’s camera, plus even stranger white ones meant to resemble Kingpin.

…and I mean like, full body Kingpins. They ended up looking more like bloated crossing sign guys, but I admire Ralston for trying such impossible marshmallow shapes. An A for effort! Read More…