Dino Drac’s February Funpack is available now!
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) and you can cancel whenever you want. The Funpacks are absolutely what allows me to keep producing Dino Drac content at a high frequency, so on top of getting neat boxes of STUFF, you’re also helping to keep the site afloat!
…and as for the February Funpacks? Since your boxes will be arriving around Valentine’s Day, this month’s theme is LOVE & MONSTERS.
There are over ten items in this month’s box! Loads of nostalgia with a hint of Valentine’s goodness — and plenty of monsters! Read More…
Dino Drac’s Video Store.
You are being proactive.
It’s a gloomy afternoon. One that will reportedly lead into a stormy night. Better prepare some evening entertainment while you still have the chance!
You drive over to DD’s Video Store. Founded in 1985, it’s now the last rental store in town. You remember worrying about it being killed by Blockbuster, only to see it outlive the chain.
You aren’t sure how it stays in business — rumors persist that it’s a front for something less legal — but you’re so glad it does.
With only the barest modifications to hide its bygone role as a smalltime cab depot, the place is loaded with shelves in every conceivable style.
The owner still deals chiefly in videocassettes, with only one spinning “new releases” rack to hold DVDs. Keep in mind, the newest movie on that rack is There’s Something About Mary.
You can rent video games, too. They’re exclusively for systems that haven’t been produced since the mid ‘90s. The owner will also let you buy them outright, but somehow expects the original retail prices for used SNES games with xeroxed instructions. Read More…
Nintendo games spotted in Beethoven!
After the Nintendo Power Glove came up in the previous article, someone pointed out that it made a cameo appearance in Beethoven. Yes, the 1992 movie about a sloppy St. Bernard and the man who grows to love him. Somehow, the Power Glove was in that.
Actually, yesterday’s anonymous commenter undersold the scene. It wasn’t just a Power Glove — it was an absolute smorgasbord of vintage Nintendo goodies. Obviously, my destiny was to dissect this madness.
The scene takes place in young Ted Newton’s bedroom, and only exists to convey that the kids are too distracted to notice the bad guy messing with their dog in the backyard.
Lasting mere seconds, they could’ve easily gotten away with just suggesting Nintendo games, with obscured controllers and untraceable music. Instead, everything’s shown onscreen, and it’s all so visible that I have to wonder if some promotional partnership wasn’t in play. (Beethoven did end up getting his own games under the Nintendo umbrella, after all.) Read More…
Five old videocassettes. No reason.
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, separating everything into “keep” and “trash” piles. The Lost World in a lenticular box? KEEP. Four episodes of Swans Crossing taped off of WPIX in 1992? KEEP.
The “trash” pile was tiny, I admit.
In the process, I rediscovered a bunch of videos that mean a lot to me, for reasons as varied as their subject matter. Below are five of them. So I guess tonight’s challenge is to make an article about five old videocassettes interesting.
Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue!
(1990)
A notorious television special, Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue definitely earned its reputation. Whether from me or elsewhere, I’m assuming that most of you have at least heard of it.
Starring oodles of the time’s hottest cartoon characters, this 27 minute anti-drug PSA was about a teenage boy overcoming the lure of drugs with the help of Garfield, Slimer and Winnie the Fucking Pooh.
An animated special that starred everyone from the Ninja Turtles to the Muppet Babies was bound to be weird, but hearing those characters speak out against drugs was downright bizarre. Ironically, with its frenetic pace and unstoppable parade of unrelated characters, the effects of watching Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue aren’t entirely dissimilar from the effects of everything it preaches against.
It’s absolutely worth seeing once, and lucky you, the whole thing’s on YouTube. Read More…