Five Retro TV Commercials, Part 21!
Today is my birthday. I thought I’d celebrate by writing about Regis Philbin’s old Harvest Crisps commercial. You do you, I do me.
Burger King’s Burger Bundles! (1987)
I’ve never been wild about Burger King. As a kid, I’d only eat there out of geographical convenience or because they were giving away Ninja Turtles garbage. “Gloppy” is the first word I think of when Burger King is mentioned, and gloppy is close to my least favorite word.
There were exceptions, of course. Back in ‘87, I became singularly focused on trying Burger King’s Burger Bundles, which were these adorable three-packs of slightly-conjoined mini-burgers served in tiny cardboard pans. They were like edible play food. Holding them was Priority One.
Each burger was around the size of a small donut. The fun part was taking extremely small bites, like Tom Hanks with his baby corn. Read More…
1980s Junk Food Spotted in INTRUDER!
If you’re into ‘80s slasher flicks and you’ve never seen Intruder, stop it! It’s so good. Set in a supermarket for what ends up being a literal graveyard shift, it’s gory and tense, but more surprisingly smart and funny.
It’s also a chance to see oodles of legit 1980s groceries in their natural habitat!
From what I can gather, Intruder was shot in a California grocery store that had closed down before filming began. To stock the shelves, the crew worked with a company that specialized in expired foodstuffs.
(Expired food was doubtlessly cheaper, and probably the only hope for such a low-budget production to effectively stock an entire supermarket.)
Intruder was filmed in early 1988, and the food sure proves it. Some of the snacks are such deep cuts that even I’d forgotten about them, and I’m the guy who spends six hours a day obsessing over dead cookies.
Below are five ‘80s junk foods seen in Intruder:
Fruit Brute!
Intruder is loaded with ‘80s cereals, to the point where I could easily do a whole separate article just about those. Maybe we’ll cross that bridge next week.
If I had to pick just one to feature, it’s gotta be Fruit Brute, which was kind of the Big Dick Dudley of the Monster Cereal family.
What’s interesting is that Fruit Brute’s original run ended in 1982, many years before this film was shot. Those shelves were stocked with expired groceries, yes, but not that expired.
….which leads me to believe that someone involved with the production deliberately brought a “collectible” box of Fruit Brute to the set, simply out of werewolf respect. (Keep in mind, this was years before Tarantino orchestrated Fruit Brute cameos in his movies!) Read More…
Purple Stuff: The Best Super Bowl Commercials!
I’m not a big football guy — shocker, I know — but I always look forward to the Super Bowl. Hey, it’s an excuse to waste a day eating garbage food while snarking on social media. What’s not to love?
Course, I’m really in it for the commercials… which just happen to be the topic of the latest Purple Stuff Podcast!
This week, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit list off ten of our all-time favorite Super Bowl ads, covering everything from Crystal Pepsi to the Bud Bowl to, uh, PuppyMonkeyBaby.
Give us a listen by clicking here!
What are some of your fave Super Bowl commercials? Discuss, in the comments!
PS: Just writing “Super Bowl” a couple of times made me want pizza.
Tiny Tributes to Minor Monsters, #2!
Welcome to the second edition of Tiny Tributes to Minor Monsters, starring creatures of all sorts and from all walks.
Picking which five monsters to feature is always the hardest part. Am I in the mood for giant spiders, or is it a techno-organic robot hitman kind of day? If I take both, will there still be room for that Cenobite with the two heads? Gah!
Little Face!
Dick Tracy (1990)
Dick Tracy was a covert horror movie, where most of the mobsters doubled as monsters. Some of them were so deformed that they looked less like comic villains and more like the demons from Jacob’s Ladder.
Case in point: Little Face, whose facial features were disquietingly scrunched together. He was the spookiest character in the whole film, even if he was only in it for like ten seconds — mostly as a wink to old school comic strip fans.
I’m still ticked that Playmates didn’t include Little Face as part of their Dick Tracy action figure line. You can’t even argue that he wasn’t important enough, since three of his similarly-shortchanged poker buddies got the nod.
Maybe he was just considered too grotesque? Even among dudes who had snakelike lips and fat rolls for foreheads, Little Face was a lot to handle. Read More…