Dinosaur Dracula!

Garfield and Friends Fruit Snacks!

I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday, duh. Got smacked in the face with several new gigs that required immediate attention, and will continue requiring attention over the next few weeks.

I guess this is the part where I remind everyone, but mostly myself, that Dinosaur Dracula is a hobby, and as much as I’d like to spend seven days a week babbling about Easy Cheese, it just isn’t practical. If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to afford Easy Cheese.

But, while I’ll need a day or two to get a handle on those gigs, the site won’t “pull an X-E” and grind to a screeching halt whenever I have other things to do. I’ll just need to budget my time more effectively and steer clear of, I don’t know, Bejeweled XXVIII.

Anyway, I did have a little time today, so I started digging through my Ludicrous Bins of Stuff to see what I might like to cover over the next few weeks. The first thing that grabbed me? Garfield and Friends Fruit Snacks.

You might remember ‘em from this old article, and yes, I still have them. In fact, I have more Garfield and Friends Fruit Snacks than ever. I’m quite positive that I never had this many before, and can only conclude that they’ve somehow multiplied, on their own.

I’m not complaining. The delicious bits of berry Fimo came out in the early ‘90s (the box above is from ’93), and were the absolute 100% best thing a kid could ever stuff in his or her lunchbox. These were unbelievably good.

If you’ve never tried them, I’m sure you’re assuming that they were no different from the thousand other fruit snack brands. WRONG. I can’t really pinpoint an exact reason, but between the flavor, the consistency and the fact that half of them were Odie-shaped, Garfield and Friends Fruit Snacks were narcotics-level addicting.

Thank God these arrived before serving sizes were such a hot-button issue, because nobody ate single pouches of these. You just kept going until you had no more. An hour later, you got the shakes.

Visually, they’re showing their age. Any fruit snack would after twenty years. Collectively, they’re looking a bit like Ursula’s garden of imprisoned polyps.

Also, they kind of reek. They don’t smell bad, really, but the odor is strong. Perhaps it’s a case of fruit snack pheromones, which would go a long way in explaining how mine managed to multiply. Really makes me wonder what else might be happening in those Ludicrous Bins of Stuff. I know I had a full box of Urkel-O’s in there. Do I have two now?

I totally ate some, by the way. Once I got past the mental issues involved with chewing twenty-year-old candy, they honestly weren’t bad at all. Not as good as fresh Garfield Fruit Snacks, but still better than anything I’m going to find in a supermarket today. At least, this is what I have to tell myself, otherwise I’ll feel like a real clown for having eaten food from 1993.

I’ve said it before, but I grew up in a time when kids respected Garfield. Today’s Internet lampoons him to no end, but I can’t do that. Look at what he gave us! Three great holiday specials. That killer Macy’s balloon. An awesome cartoon. Fruit snacks that still taste good after nearly two decades.

I will never, ever hate on that cat.

Ninja Turtles Cracker Topper!

Let’s kick this baby off with a photo of Krang, dressed like a soft serve ice cream cone.

But it isn’t soft serve ice cream. It’s mofuggin’ Easy Cheese.

Side note: Mondo Gecko’s tongue has always bothered me. It looks like he’s biting it.

I admit that diving straight into Krang smothered with cheese might be construed as “too random,” but I had every reason to do this. Read More…

Vlog: “V” Toys – Enemy Visitor Doll + Bop Bag.

It’s been years since I’ve done anything about V, but I finally had a good reason: The official V bop bag.

The vlog covers two V toys: The bop bag, and the official “Enemy Visitor” doll, which I wrote about back in 2005.

You anti-Vimeo people can also watch it on YouTube.

All officially licensed V stuff is expensive, because it’s so damn rare. I feel particularly lucky to have found the bop bag, though, since there must be no more than six of them left on the planet.

I have no real basis for that estimation. I just like the idea that I have one of the six remaining V bop bags.

Pretty cool. Probably should’ve saved it for Halloween, but June 4th was so much sweeter with an inflatable alien to beat the piss out of.

By the way, if you’re only familiar with V through the recent series, change that immediately. The original made-for-TV movies are incredible. Especially the first one, which is like Independence Day wish a dash of Star Wars and a serious mean streak. Total must-see if you’re into aliens or lizards or spaceships or Michael Wright.

“V” looks weird italicized.

New Feature: Eight Great Comic Book Ads!

For reference, whenever a new feature is published, I’ll post a small message on the blog. This is mainly because features don’t appear in the site’s feed. (Speaking of which, finally got the Feedburner deal set up.)

Anyway, yes, there is a new feature up, about Eight Great Comic Book Ads. Go read it.

And since it didn’t really fit the theme of the article, I’m going to use this space to gush about another old ad I found, for Slim Jim:

I love how Dracula is eating Slim Jims like two miles from his castle. I guess gorging on “dead meat” is embarrassing for a vampire. He didn’t want his minions to catch him doing that.

Right, so, new feature. I haven’t decided if I should close comments on these little bloggy mentions of new features, but for now, they’re open. Since I’d prefer that you write about things relating to comic book ads on the actual article page, use this space to talk about the one vegetable you absolutely hate.

(Zucchini.)