Six Snacks I Want Back, Volume 3!
Continuing the series, here are yet another six snacks that I want back.
You’ll notice in this edition that I’m really stretching the definition of “snack.” Please do not continue reading if you’re unable to accept two pound pitas and alcoholic beverages as “snacks.”
Giggles Cookies!
Resembling Oreos but with a flavor closer to E.L. Fudge, Nabisco’s Giggles were absolutely blessed. Available during the last half of the ‘80s, this was one of the defining snacks of my childhood.
With two cookies hiding a layer of double-flavored, double-colored cream, the top of each Giggle was made to look like a smiling face. I cannot overstate the entertainment value of cream-filled smiling cookies to six-year-olds of the ‘80s. Holy shit.
Nearly as unforgettable as the cookies are its old TV commercials, which usually featured small children submitting to uncontrollable fits of laughter in response to their preferred snack. It was as if the Joker passed on Axis Chemicals in favor of Nabisco HQ. Read More…
Six Snacks I Want Back, Volume 2!
I had so much fun writing Volume 1, I thought I’d dive right back in. Here are another six snacks that I want back, from chocolate-stuffed cookies to fries in juice boxes:
Cheetos Paws!
Chee-tos Paws (they didn’t drop the hyphen until later) was perhaps the snack of the early ‘9os. Meant to represent Chester Cheetah’s paws, something about their shape allowed for the kind of cheese dust attraction seen in no other Chee-to before or since. In effect, they were the cheesiest of all Chee-tos.
But that was only part of it. Paw shaped Chee-tos were just fun to eat. My favorite way was to chomp the individual fingers first, saving the hideously mutilated cheetah hands as a sort of main course. Alternatively, I’d start by sucking all of the cheese dust off, and eat the paws only after they were entirely robbed of flavor. I might delete that confession when I proofread this.
Much of our affinity had to do with the marketing, too. Chee-tos Paws were pitched as being extraordinarily hip and not-at-all for adults, packed in blazingly lime green bags that only a minor could feel comfortable eating from. After all, this was the era of anti-adult kiddy advertising, where every new snack came with a disclaimer that you had to be 11 or under to truly understand it.
Even so, people of all ages loved Chee-tos Paws, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Frito-Lay gave ‘em another try someday. Read More…
Six Snacks I Want Back, Volume 1!
Tonight is the first chapter in what I guess we could call my personal pantheon of shitty food. From the ‘80s and ‘90s, here are six snacks I want back:
Pop Quiz Popcorn!
Made in 1992, Pop Qwiz was my jam. Believing that kids would love popcorn even more if it came in ridiculous colors, this was Pop Secret’s attempt to turn junk food into SUPER junk food.
Each bag was filled with popcorn in a neon mystery color, and until you ripped ‘em open and narrowly avoided the killer steam, you didn’t know if you’d be eating something blue, red or purple. What fun!
The coloring didn’t affect the buttery taste — it was just in play to make us feel circussy. As I recall, Pop Qwiz’s only negative was that the small bags were very easy to overcook, leaving you with popcorn that was half blue and half unforgiving coal. Of course, since black, smoldering popcorn is one of life’s most covert delicacies, that never bothered me too much. Read More…
Five Random Action Figures, Part 15!
I wouldn’t normally go back to the “Five Random Action Figures” well so soon, but I’m tired and I have a headache and my car is broken, and this is the only series I can handle when I’m completely oblivious to what I’m writing. My favorite blog about raising a chimp in a screen house hasn’t updated in a while, and I’m starting to fear the worst.
Here’s the fifteenth edition of Five Random Action Figures, typed on a stormy night in a room that has no reason to smell like oranges, but does.
Captain Planet
Captain Planet and the Planeteers, 1991
With sky blue skin and a grass green mullet, Captain Planet was a superhero with an ecological slant. Summoned by magical rings worn by multicultural children, he’d fly in like Superman and never stop smiling, no matter how many bad guys threw fiery, poison-soaked logs at his face.
Positive anti-pollution messages aside, the cartoon existed to sell toys, and Captain Planet had a great line. In general, the villain figures outclassed the heroes, as it was pretty hard to pick some noodnik teenager over a snarling rock man with lumpy, glow-in-the-dark skin.
99 out of every 100 people remember the first verse of the Captain Planet theme song, which according to legend was written by Phil Collins. That’s untrue, but let’s roll with it, because if there’s anything weirder than a theme song about an environmentally conscious flying blue man, it’s that plus Phil Collins. Read More…