Weekend Reading 09/05/21

Welcome to another Weekend Edition here on Retro Ramblings. It’s where I share with you fine folks all of the fun retro and nostalgia-themed news, stories, and posts I’ve found in my travels around the web over the week. Let’s hit it!

  • Unfortunately, we start this Weekend Edition off with some very sad news. America’s weatherman, Willard Scott sadly passed away at the age of 87 on Saturday. Scott was a fixture on NBC’s Today show from 1980 to 1996, and thus was a fixture of my mornings before school. While sitting at the breakfast table eating a big bowl of Morning Funnies cereal or a steaming hot bowl of Oatmeal Swrilers, I would watch Willard Scott giving out the weather or handing out birthday wishes to 100-year-olds on a 13-inch black and white television. He was also one of the best parts of the yearly Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, as he played sort of a color commentator for the event each year. He will be missed by fans nationwide.
  • Now that we’re into the month of September, the Halloween and Fall junk food game has really started ramping up. I’ve already found several cool things that I’ve highlighted in Junk Food Finds posts here on Retro Ramblings. You can check them out here and here to see what’s already hit store shelves. The one I’m most happy about is the new Monster Mash cereal, which will undoubtably be the biggest hitter of the season.
  • Also with the coming of September comes Dinosaur Dracula’s annual “Countdown to Halloween”. For those of you living under a rock, Matt dedicates September and October to the Halloween season on his blog and celebrates it with an awesome assortment of posts, videos, and podcasts that always hit all the right notes and entertains like nothing else on the web. His first entry to the series has already dropped, so head over there and watch his first video of the season, Mad Matt’s Latest Bag of Halloween Junk.
  • You know I love reminiscing about old foods that are no longer with us, and most of them you all enjoyed too. But there have been several items through the years that deserved their early demises. Now while I fondly remember several items on this list of Top 10 Bizarre Cancelled Food Products, some got what was coming to them.
  • Since you’re here reading this, you probably have a love of old toys. If that’s true, then you need to listen to last week’s episode of the TRN Time Machine Podcast with Jason and myself, because we go over more old toys we always wanted but never had. Give it a listen here and hear us talk about old toys like American Gladiator action figures, The Animal!, Battle Ball, Big Trak, and more.
  • I’d like to point you in the direction of a great follow on Twitter…@oldschool80s…or Old School TIm as we like to call him. Everyday he’s filling your timeline with great tidbits and anniversaries from the ’80s, and he writes fantasctic articles over at The Retro Network too! So besides giving him a follow on Twitter, also be sure to check out his archives over at TRN. I like to use space in The Weekend Edition to highlight great work by creative people, and Tim is one of the absoulte best.

In the News

More Nostalgia

Video of the Week

I had something else in mind for the Video of the Week, but in light of Willard Scott’s passing, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight his career a little. So this week’s video was taken from an episode of The Today Show from several years ago as a special tribute was paid to him and highlight clips were included. So enjoy this look back at the remarkable career of a remarkable man, Willard Scott.

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