One of Dino Drac’s very first articles was about Fright Flicks trading cards, released by Topps in 1989.

Whereas most of Topps’s trading card sets dealt with only one property, Fright Flicks tackled tons of them. A huge pile of classic horror movies were represented, from A Nightmare on Elm Street to Fright Night to Pumpkinhead to Predator. (Even Ghostbusters was in there, because kids who were apprehensive about Freddy Krueger were still so ready for Slimer.)

These were “movie cards” in the traditional sense, where single frames from various films were immortalized in cardboard. Topps didn’t pull many punches in the ‘80s, so a fair amount of them featured truly frightening images with all sorts of gore and gross-outs. Neutralizing them were the goofy captions, which managed to give even the most upsetting scenes an air of comedy… and make them more digestible to kids who were only beginning to cut their teeth with spooky stuff!

Course, I’ve already written about this. It’s not why I’m here! Read More…

Wow, has it really been nine months since the last installment of Six Snacks I Want Back? Time flies when you don’t feel like making giant GIFs, I guess.

Down below: Six more snacks from the ‘80s and ‘90s that I wouldn’t mind eating again. (Or, in two cases, for the first time. Watch enough internet strangers go bananas over old hot dogs, and eventually you’ll want them, too.)

Jolt Cola! (1980s)

I can’t remember the last time I saw the original Jolt Cola in stores. Rumors persist that it’s still available regionally, so if you have access to it, consider yourself blessed. I have such fond memories of sipping from those cans and bottles, and pretending that my cool-sounding novelty drink was as powerful as cocaine.

Jolt did boast twice the caffeine of most sodas, but kids ran with that ball to the point of farce, acting as if it caused uncontrollable fits of freneticism. Basically, we got to pull a Popeye without touching any spinach. Read More…

Today’s objective: To find the best and weirdest Madballs collectibles currently on eBay.

For an added layer of difficulty, I’m disqualifying any of AmToy’s original Madballs from this list. I want this to be a deeper dig. The goal isn’t just to show you a bunch of cool crud, but a bunch of cool crud that you might not already know about!

Madballs Lunch Box!
Asking Price: $12.99

Madballs scored several lunch boxes back in the ‘80s, but I’m most fond of this one, where a bunch of the monsters invade someone’s lunch and waste little time in turning it toxic. Imagine that as a TV Guide description, and tell me you wouldn’t watch that show.

Strange as it sounds, the grossness of Madballs was rarely presented in such on-the-nose fashion. Check out Swine Sucker in the back, drinking from the very glass of milk that he just finished souring! Read More…