Anyone catch The Goldbergs last night? Oh boy.

Set in the late ‘80s, I’d been aware of the series, but somehow never bothered to watch it. Then, last night, my email and Twitter accounts blew up with stern demands that I check out the newest episode as soon as humanly possible.

And I’m glad I did, because holy shit. That kid’s bedroom. Oh my God.

Nutshell summary: 7th grader Adam Goldberg misfires on an attempt to woo his crush, Dana. Instead of flowers or a note or whatever, he tries to impress her by showing off his toys.

Hol. Lee. Cow. Adam (based on the series creator of the same name) had to be the luckiest kid on the planet. He had EVERYTHING. I’m only being hyperbolic in the slightest sense. This was UNBELIEVABLE.

If you’re anywhere near my age, there’s no way that you didn’t have a few of the things seen in Adam’s bedroom. No chance, no how. It was like the showroom version of the 1987 Sears Wish Book. I don’t know if they borrowed some super-collector’s stuff or actually hunted everything down on eBay, but whatever the case, kudos to the production team. Every last touch felt incredibly genuine.

Of course, while most of us had several of the things in Adam’s bedroom, I don’t know anyone who had ALL of the things in Adam’s bedroom. If you’re able to catch this episode, the nine-year-old still buried deep inside you is going to SCREAM with envy.

This obviously called for a dissection. Below are most of the toys I spotted, even if I had to cut some loose to avoid writing about this for the next five years. Not since I explored Fred Savage’s bedroom from The Princess Bride have I seen such an impressive and familiar bunch of toys. Enjoy! Read More…

It’s been a long time since Dino Drac’s last Comic Book Ads review, and even longer since I dived into my specific favorite type of them: The tiny-sized ads that were all mashed together on the classifieds pages.

That’s where the real treasures were! Fifty antique coins for a dollar! Legitimate monkey skulls! An Atlas body in seven days!

I’ve collected nine of my favorites. It should have been ten, but I got tired. Enjoy them as I have.

Star Rocks!
(Alpha Flight #26, September 1985)

The fine print indicated that your meteor would look nothing like the illustration, but that wouldn’t have kept me from expecting exactly that. What a perfect little meteor doodle! The rough edges… the chocolatey colors… and my God, the CRATERS!

Still, five bucks does seem high for these, especially in 1985. That’s probably more than museum gift shops were charging, and museum gift shops already existed on the principle that they could charge five times more than was reasonable for everything they sold. Exclusivity begets twenty dollar geodes, or some shit.

I still would’ve bought one. That doodle is too powerful. Read More…

Was there such a thing as Ecto Cooler Twinkies? Well, NO, but bear with me.

Old news: Ecto Cooler was the Slimer-fronted Hi-C flavor, made to capitalize on the popularity of The Real Ghostbusters. The flavor overachieved, and Slimer seemed to remain on those boxes even after his superstar status diminished.

Ecto Cooler would live on even without Slimer on the boxes, and the actual flavor formula would survive for even longer, under another name.

After ten years’ worth of assorted articles about this, I felt like I’d written all I could write about Ecto Cooler.

But then I saw THIS… Read More…