1970s Golden Grahams Holiday Party Mix!
There I was, on our weird couch, lazily paging through the December 1978 issue of Family Circle. (Shut up. It’s how I decompress.)
I love those old holiday magazines. Many are technically before my time, but not really, because my mother kept a stack of them in our old kitchen cabinets. Even well into the ‘90s, I busted ‘em out during every Christmas season. Wheat Thins just tasted better when I ate them while reading recipes for, I dunno, sweet-and-sour chicken drumettes or whatever the fuck.
Anyway, something in that issue of Family Circle made me leap up from the couch and almost directly into the supermarket:
Behold! Gold’n Nut Crunch! This was essentially a way for Golden Grahams to break into the Chex Mix market, which made sense, because I’ve yet to find an issue of any magazine from the late ‘70s that didn’t reference Chex Mix at least 30 times.
But could it really be good? Golden Grahams and cheesy nuts? I needed to know. It was going to cost me 30 bucks, because of course we didn’t have celery salt or parmesan cheese or Golden Grahams or even goddamned butter, but I needed to know.
The answer? Yes. It’s VERY good. Good enough to give you a step-by-step guide! Read More…
Montgomery Ward 1985 Christmas Toy Catalog!
It’s that time of year again, when I spend a fortune on old toy catalogs just to tear out the pages, all for your benefit. Let’s look at some of the highlights from Montgomery Ward’s 1985 Christmas catalog!
I didn’t grow up near any Montgomery Ward stores, but their catalogs were basically the same as what Sears and JCPenney published. (So much so, in fact, that I had to be careful not to pick the same toys I covered when reviewing JCPenney’s 1985 catalog.)
I was six years old when this book hit mailboxes, so the toys in these pages were absolutely my shit. Several were things I myself received for Christmas that year, or at least during a surrounding year. I could write about the stuff in this one catalog forever, but I know you have your limits. Let’s settle on 1800 words:
Sectaurs Power Cycle!
($26.99)
Wait, what? There was a SECTAURS POWER CYCLE?! How is it possible that I’d never heard of this, even during my internet years?
For you youngins, Sectaurs was a line of large insectoid action figures that rode even larger battery-operated bugs. I adored those toys. They were the perfect mix of “elegant” and “disturbing.”
Though Sectaurs had all of the accompaniments that ‘80s toy lines needed to survive — a cartoon, a comic book, a giant ass playset — it hardly set the world on fire. Usually, brands didn’t get the “tricycle treatment” until they’d achieved a certain status. Someone made a biiiig bet on Sectaurs, here.
Even more incredible is that this was at least as good as any other Power Cycle, and possibly even cooler. The idea, I guess, was that you were supposed to ignore the wheels and just pretend you were riding a bug. The cycle even had giant, flapping wings! That look of euphoria on the kid’s face? He wasn’t acting. Read More…
Purple Stuff: 10 Awesome Xmas Commercials!
We’re kicking off the Purple Stuff Podcast’s 2019 holiday season with one of our most-requested episodes: CHRISTMAS COMMERCIALS.
It’s one of my favorite subjects! This week, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit celebrate 10 of our favorite Christmassy TV ads, covering everything from the time Scrooge gave out Chicken McNuggets to the time a different Scrooge ate Honey Nut Cheerios.
We’re featuring ads you’ll definitely remember and ads you definitely won’t, so whether you’re in the mood to learn something new or just get hit in the face with a nostalgia hammer, this is the ep for you:
Click here to listen to this week’s show!
If you wanna support the podcast, we’re also on Patreon, where you can get access to exclusive bonus shows, every month.
If you’d like to watch all of the commercials we’re tackling in the new episode, I put together a little YouTube playlist:
Enjoy the show — hopefully under the warmth of a red throw blanket with a cup of cocoa in your free hand. I’m lame, I know.
McDonald’s 40th Anniversary Happy Meal!
Y’all know the scoop by now. To celebrate the Happy Meal’s 40th anniversary, McDonald’s just released A TON of old school Happy Meal toys. I mean a legit ton. Check out their promo vid:
People like me had been on McDonald’s case for years, wondering why they weren’t tapping into our nostalgia for vintage Happy Meal junk. Well, we can all shut up now. This especially short promotion features everything from McNugget Buddies to Beanie Babies, so if you grew up on a steady diet of McDonald’s cheeseburgers, there’s gotta be something in this set that stabs your heart. Read More…