More Humdrum Highlights from the Summer of ’93!
Last June, I showed you some of the highlights from my 1993 diary, mostly written during summer vacation between the 8th and 9th grades.
Let’s do that again!
As a refresher, I was at that point as awkward and isolated as I hope I’ll ever be. I hated the loneliness, yet only felt comfortable when I was by myself. That made summer vacation — my last before high school — bittersweet. Having so much “me time” and so little social interaction was the best/worst thing.
That vibe pulsed through the diary more often than these highlights indicate, but it’s important to have that context. It explains why I lavished so much attention on minor details, like what was on television and what I ate for dinner. Each day was only as good as its distractions.
It sounds depressing and it was, but I have no regrets. I think we all try to make our damage work for us, and I’ve had over 25 years’ worth of practice. There’d be no me-of-now without the me-of-then, and while I am curious about any alternate universe versions of me, I feel like they wouldn’t have anywhere near as impressive a collection of promotional bumper stickers. I’d never trade those.
June 12th, 1993:
Given that this was my last summer vacation before high school, it was also my last summer vacation to guiltlessly enjoy Saturday morning cartoons. I had no idea what the popular kids did on Saturday mornings once I got to high school, but it for damn sure had nothing to do with Garfield.
When I was younger, I watched Saturday morning cartoons because I loved them. By 1993, I think it had more to do with the pure activity of it. From the crack of dawn through the early afternoon, I was supposed to be watching television, and had no reason to feel like that was somehow underachieving.
This entry also mentions a certain “Frosty,” who slept in a barrel next to me. Frosty was one of my many hamsters. I can’t explain why I chose that name for him, as Frosty’s fur was bluish gray, and I got him in April.
Frosty died before this journal was finished. On the entry marking his date of death, 3/4ths of the page was just a frowny face. His wake wasn’t well-attended, so I got to eat all of the complimentary Doritos. Read More…
Vincent Price’s Supper Casserole!
This was a good day. The weather was nice, I won a cheap eBay auction, and oh yeah, I made VINCENT PRICE’S SUPPER CASSEROLE.
Back in 1977, Vincent Price shared this wonderfully weird recipe on behalf of Creamettes Macaroni. Price never shied away from paid endorsements, but since he was a noted gourmand with his own cookbooks, this one wasn’t exactly out of left field.
You may have seen an alt version of this ad floating around social media. I was tipped off by my pal Dan, but I believe the source pic came from RetroNewsNow.
The glorious image of sliced Spam over creamy macaroni compelled me to track down the vintage Family Circle issue that the ad appeared in, which in of itself was a treat. Aside from the wackadoo recipe, the mag also came with a King Kong iron-on!
Now armed with legible directions, I considered it my duty to prepare Vincent Price’s Supper Casserole. Aside from the salt, I had none of the ingredients on-hand. Twenty bucks and a trip to the supermarket later, and I had all of the elbow pasta, ground mustard and sharp cheddar that Vincent demanded of me. (It’s neither here nor there, but I also bought Jell-O.) Read More…
Five Random Action Figures, Part 45!
I haven’t published a new edition of Five Random Action Figures since last June, because the remaining bits of my collection are stuffed into storage bins so extremely buried that I’d have to tear this whole place apart to get at ‘em. Luckily, life threw me a bone:
As part of our pre-Endgame festivities on Thursday, we dropped by a Jersey comic shop. There I discovered this insane bin filled with still-packaged ‘90s action figures, each for the low price of $2.99.
I easily found enough for another edition of Five Random Action Figures, though in retrospect, I should’ve cleaned the guy out and gotten enough for the next three editions. Guess I gotta go back. There was a pizza parlor across the street that looked like it hadn’t been renovated since 1985, so that’s hardly a cross to bear.
Below: Five action figures from the 1990s, freshly freed from their cardboard prisons.
The Conqueror!
Total Chaos (1996)
I know as much about this “Conqueror” guy as I do the Total Chaos line at large, which is to say… nothing. He’s from McFarlane Toys and in the same roundabout scale as that company’s Spawn figures, which by their era’s standards were pretty damn high-end.
I bought him because he looks like Green Arrow mixed with Pumpkinhead, and especially because his monster face resembles a chunk of fake jade.
The appeal of action figures you knew nothing about was that YOU could make up their origins, powers and allegiances. I see this Conqueror as an interstellar bounty hunter who only takes contracts to retrieve supernatural fugitives. Like Boba Fett if Boba Fett was also a Ghostbuster. Without knowing anything about Conqueror’s true motives, I stand confident that my version is better. Read More…
5 Ridiculous Movie-Themed Junk Foods!
Below are five ridiculous movie-themed junk foods that I’ve collected over the years. They were pulled from storage bins that I wish were airtight, but definitely aren’t.
Hostess Snoballimus and Chocwave Cakes!
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
I still rate these as the weirdest snacks Hostess has ever produced, and also the most beautiful. They’re out there by today’s standards, but they were impossibly strange in 2011. I’d say they were some of the first junk foods that seemed designed for hyperbolic reactions on social media.
The “Chocwave” cupcakes were severe, but nothing beat those “Snoballimus” monsters, with their blue coconut capes and blood red filling. They were admittedly more fun to look at than eat, because while many artificial food dyes are technically flavorless, using THAT MUCH DYE was gonna impart something. As I recall, the flavors seemed chalkier than usual, while the texture was oddly mealy.
Even so, they were gorgeous, and I will never knock an attempt to transform a Hostess Sno Ball into Optimus Prime. Even if said Sno Ball looked more like Man-At-Arms chewing Bubblicious.
Nabisco Royal Ooze!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (1991)
It was no big leap to go from mutagen ooze to Jell-O, or even Nabisco’s underachieving version of Jell-O. A tie-in with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II, Nabisco’s Royal Ooze came in an assortment of colors and flavors.
The lime green and strawberry red versions were canonical enough, but once you got up to the orange ooze, you had to start thinking about offshoot mutagens with alternative properties. Like maybe orange was the antidote? Mikey could help transform Splinter back into Hamato, and follow it up with some “orange ya glad” joke? No?
The best thing about Royal Ooze was the packaging. Each box featured a different Ninja Turtle, and none of them wore expressions that were in any way suitable for product shots. In particular, Leonardo seemed to suggest that Royal Ooze was loaded with tryptophan. Read More…