2021’s Best Holiday Junk Food, Part 1!
Oof, there’s a lot of new holiday junk food out this year. I should’ve started this series weeks ago, because Christmas is like five minutes away and I fear that I’ll never be able to catalog all of this hot new candy before Santa arrives.
But ya gotta start somewhere, so here I am, fueled by sugar and typing with sticky fingers. Below are five of 2021’s hottest holiday junk foods, from soda that tastes like gingerbread to candy canes that taste like cake.
Reese’s Peanut Brittle Cups!
(Found at CVS)
These feel more like a proper dessert than something you’d mindlessly devour, like so many other checkout-line candies. I could see an upscale coffee shop billing these as “gourmet” and charging 3.99 a piece. Instead I got ‘em at CVS along with cough drops and expired cat food.
I don’t know if I would’ve guessed “peanut brittle” on a blind test, but they’re very good, and very peanut buttery. To mimic peanut brittle’s rocky texture, these are filled with crunchy peanut butter, giving them a mouthfeel similar to Hershey’s Krackel bars.
GRADE: A. I predict that these won’t be a one-and-done for 2021. They’re such a home run that I can see Reese’s bringing ‘em back year after year, slowly transforming Peanut Brittle Cups into an all-out holiday tradition. The best part is, if I’m wrong, nobody will remember. Read More…
More Highlights from the 1987 JCPenney Catalog!
Pour some coffee and wrap yourself in a throw blanket, because you’re mine for the next fifteen minutes.
Let’s walk through the highlights from JCPenney’s 1987 Christmas catalog. Yeah, I already mined it for another article, but there are like 500 pages in this thing. I’m allowed!
These old catalogs spark so many memories for me. Not just about the toys I grew up loving, but also the stuff surrounding them. I see an action figure I had as a kid, and suddenly I can remember the color of my old bedroom walls. (Pastel green, like Imodium A-D.)
May the following doodads unlock rusty parts of your brains, too.
Talking ALF & ALF Watch!
($69.99 & $8.95)
These items come from an era when ALF was inarguably The Shit. If you were too young/not alive to catch ALF in his heyday, he was the coolest “person” a kid could name.
Case in point: Coleco’s standard ALF doll, which looked like the Talking ALF shown above, was probably the best Christmas present I ever got. I can’t think of another gift I wanted more as a kid, and that was just a simple plush doll, competing against the likes of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
I never had the Talking ALF shown here, but it was essentially his version of Teddy Ruxpin. On the goofier side was that wristwatch, which bordered close to ALF taxidermy. Read More…
The 1989 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!
It’s here, it’s finally here! Time for our annual review of an old Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!
This year, me and Jay from Sludge Central are tackling the infamous 1989 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is in the running for the best parade they’ve ever done. The Joker! ALF! A Marvel Comics float! A random skeleton dude! WILLARD SCOTT! They’re all here!
Our parade reviews are some of our favorite episodes to do, and if I may Babe Ruth this thing, I think this might be our best one yet. The 1989 parade was just nonstop awesome insanity from start to finish, so we had a lot to work with!
Click here to listen to this month’s show!
As a reminder, the Purple Stuff Podcast is also on Patreon, where you can grab an exclusive bonus show every month. November’s will be dropping soon after Thanksgiving, and of course, it’ll be holiday-themed. Join now and you’ll get instant access to dozens of our previous bonus shows, too!
Oh, and as an extra special bonus, we whipped up this compilation of clips highlighting everything we talked about from the 1989 parade — including some of the original TV commercials that aired with it!
Enjoy the show! Thanks so much for your ears and for your support. Sharing the show around and giving us positive reviews really helps! Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it. We hope this new episode adds to your holiday festivities!
Dino Drac’s November 2021 Funpack!
Guys, it’s time! Dino Drac’s November Funpack is here, and it’s fueled with ho ho hot holiday power!
U.S. ONLY! LIMITED SUPPLY!
I’ll show you the goodies in a sec, but first, here’s the scoop!
Subscriptions are currently maxed out, so if you’re already subscribed, congrats, you’re definitely getting one!
To everyone else, I have a limited number of spares to sell on an individual, non-subscription basis. The cost is $25, shipped anywhere in the United States. Scroll to the bottom for ordering info, or keep reading to learn about everything in this month’s Funpack! Read More…