If you’ve not checked out the awesome podcast Retro Resurgence yet, then you should remedy that with the latest episode. Chad and Ken from Geekster and The Retro Network launched the Retro Resurgence podcast several weeks ago and blew it out of the water with the very first episode where they reminisced about old Nintendo games. In the latest episode, they go back in time and discuss their favorite horror movies by decade from the ’70s through today. Here is their synopsis…
Episode 3 of The Retro Resurgence Podcast is here. Ken and Chad have recently watched the Mr. McMahon Netflix documentary and offer their thoughts on the 6 episode series. Then, it’s onto the main topic.
Favorite Horror Movies by Decade
Ken and Chad discuss their picks, starting with the 1970’s and going all the way through the 2010’s.
Also in the episode, we feature our recurring segments: Ken’s Toy Retrospective, Chad’s Pop Culture Moment going back to 1975, Chad’s RRR Interview (Retro Resurgence Resume) and our In Memoriam – A Toast to Dikembe Mutombo.
If you like what you hear, then be sure to subscribe in your podcast app of choice so you don’t miss future episodes. You can also follow them on their social media channels:
We all need to support creators in the retroverse, and Ken and Chad are good dues so check them out and show your appreciation for their efforts by giving them a follow, giving them a 5-star review on their podcast, and/or drop them a comment!
You’ve probably heard me talk about this Halloween special from 1976, but it’s worth repeating if you’ve still not watched it. The Paul Lynde Halloween Special is such a zany feature, and it’s full of surprise guests, and has such a great Halloween vibe, that I still watch it every year. And if that isn’t enough to get you to give it a try, it features the first TV performance by KISS, which was a huge deal back then, and is so cool to see now. So carve out a little time and watch this classic special. It just may be the best decision you make this Halloween season.
With it being the Halloween season, it’s the perfect time to talk about a toy I never had…the Mad Scientist Monster Lab.
The Mad Scientist Monster Lab from Mattel, Inc. in 1986, allowed users to “make disgusting, gross monsters…then sizzle the flesh off their bones!” The set included a plastic Monster Vat, plastic monster “Bones”, Green Monster Flesh, and a Secret Froth formula for Dissolving Monsters.
It was a unique toy to be sure, but I can’t tell you just how unique. I got to be in its presence once at my grandmother’s house. Stevie the Tyrant was there and had brought the Monster Lab with him, but as usual, I wasn’t allowed to actually play with his toys, just watch him play with his toys.
But it did appear to be really cool to put the skeleton together, mix up the crap that would become the monster’s skin, and then dunk it in the stuff that would make it fall off the bones.
Now with a toy like this, I can’t really blame Stevie the Tyrant for not letting me play with it. I mean, he only had so many packs of all the stuff it took to make this magic with, and letting me have a turn would have robbed him of a turn later on. It’s not like this was a G.I. Joe figure or something that he could get many more hours of play with later. The fun of this thing was kind of finite. But regardless, I still would have loved to try my hand with it.
Even though I desperately wanted it, it was a no-go with my mom. Any kind of toy she thought could make a mess was a very tough sell, and when she examined this one in the store, she said absolutely not., and thus ended my chances of owing a monster lab of my own.
So after offering it in other countries around the world, McDonald’s is finally bringing the chicken Big Mac to the US. On October 10, the wait is finally over if you’ve been wanting to try it.
Personally, I’m intrigued by it and plan on trying it at least once. Even though McDonald’s chicken patties are probably my least favorite in all of the fast-food world, the thought of a new twist on the classic Big Mac is enough to pique my interest.
The classic Big Mac may very well be my favorite fast-food menu item in the land, so even if it turns out I’m not crazy about the chicken version, I can always console myself with the iconic beef version.
The Chicken Big Mac drops on October 10 for a limited time or while supplies last, so if it intrigues you as well, I wouldn’t hesitate in picking one up. It’s going to be a busy fast-food week for me as two days earlier on the 8th, Wendy’s drops it’s Spongebob SquarePants collab meal featuring the Krabby Patty with secret sauce and a new pineapple Frosty that I’m excited to try.
While we’re on the subject, let me share with you a couple of links to check out. The first is to a post I did for Geekster a year or so ago looking at Five Fun Facts About McDonald’s Big Mac.
The other is to a new piece from Retroist where he explores the possibilies of Remaking and Simplifying the McDonald’s Menu. The idea is interesting, and the conversations in the comments section are great too.
Congratulations, you’ve made it to another weekend. To celebrate, here are some more great retro and nostalgia-themed articles and things for you to kick back and relax with. Enjoy!
Back in 1998 or 1999, Rush Hour was the third DVD my brother purchased. At the time, he had just moved out and had bought a DVD player for his home. I would go over on a weekly basis and watch whatever his latest pickup was. That was the first time I watched Rush Hour, and this viewing was only the second time. I had recently watched “Air” and Chris Tucker had a role in it and it was good to see him again, so I was in the mood for some of his classic work.
It’s a fun popcorn flick that sees a Chinese Consulate’s daughter get kidnapped when he arrives in LA. He calls in his best man from Hong Kong (Jackie Chan) to find her, but the FBI saddles him with what they think is an inept LAPD officer (Chris Tucker). The two of them team up to solve the case and attempt to get the girl back alive.
Along the way, there is plenty of action, stunts, and laughs from Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. Chris Tucker was on fire at this point and Rush Hour is probably his best movie outing outside of the iconic Friday. Jackie Chan had enjoyed a little success in the US up until this point, but Rush Hour was his real coming out party, and he played the role to the hilt.
Rush Hour is an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes, and it breezes by without wearing out its welcome. Recommended for a lightweight and fun movie night.
News came out last week that singing and songwriting legend Kris Kristopherson had passed away. A lot of folks from the last couple of generations may not recognize the name right off, but they have certainly heard the songs he’s written. Songs like “Me and Bobby McGee”, “Sunday Morning Coming Down”, and “Help Me Make it Through the Night” are classics that numerous artists have performed through the years.
I grew up with music as I traveled with my dad and he was a big fan of all of The Highwaymen, so their various 8-tracks and cassettes were the soundtrack of those travels. As a small tribute to the country legend, I’m sharing a video from the famous “Highwaymen” tour of 1988, with Kris performing his favorite song of mine, “Loving Her Was Easier”. It’s a great song, performed by Kristopherson with help from Willie Nelson. Kristopherson will be missed by many, but his work and influence will live on forever.
When it comes to pro wrestling, I’ve always been a fan of the little guy. Not in size necessarily, but in stature. You know the ones I’m talking about…the ones who everyone else’s favorite was beating up on every Saturday afternoon on television. The guys that later became known as job guys, or “jobbers”.
My granddaddy was always a fan of the good guy losers. He would cheer just as hard for them to give it to the likes of Ric Flair or The Midnight Express just as much as he would when Dusty Rhodes or The Rock and Roll Express were in the ring. And on the flip side, he would laugh at the bad guy losers as his favorite heroes were controlling the action.
Maybe that’s where I got it from. As I would sit alongside him watching wrestling on television, I usually cheered for who he cheered for and booed who he booed. Regardless of where my love for the losers came from, in the mid-’80s there was no denying that the wimpiest of the wimps were the brother duo of Bill and Randy Mulkey.
Every weekend on one of the several pro wrestling shows aired by Jim Crockett Promotions and Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, you would see Randy, Bill, or both, take some of the worst beatings imaginable. For several minutes at a time, their opponents would throw everything at them but the kitchen sink and really make you feel sorry for the poor guys.
It wasn’t just the beatings that they would take that made you sympathetic towards them either…their pale thin bodies with no muscles just made you feel sorry for them on top of everything else. While I certainly miss fat pro wrestlers, I also miss the paper-thin guys with no chance. There was just never any chance that either of these guys was ever going to win a match. Except for the one time they did.
Back in 1987, the promotion was gearing up for the second annual Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup Tag Team Tournament. The field was set with 23 of the best tag teams the area had to offer, and one team from the west coast known as “The Gladiators”, who were billed as the “West Coast” Tag Team Champions. They were hyped up on television for a couple of weeks before making their debut in what was supposed to have been a “showcase” match. Their opponents for that tune-up match were scheduled to be the lowly Mulkey Brothers.
When the Gladiators hit the ring, they went right to work on Randy and Bill, just having their way with them. In a very surprising twist of fate, one of the Gladiators lifted one of the Mulkeys for a body slam, but fell backwards over the other Mulkey brother, and was pinned in the most shocking upset I or anyone else had ever seen in pro wrestling!
The little studio crowd went wild, and the Muleky Brothers were more shocked than anyone that they had pulled off a win…their first ever! It was the birth of Mulkey Mania…a wave that would sweep the pro wrestling world for a couple of weeks.
The following day on the next program, the elated brother duo were informed that due to their win, the Gladiators had been pulled from the tournament, and Bill and Randy were going to get their spot, and their shot at tag-team glory.
It wasn’t to be however as they were quickly and soundly defeated in the first round of the tournament, sliding back down to the lowest of ranks with the other wimpy losers. But for one shining weekend, Mulkey Mania was running wild and the Mulkey Brothers were the hottest thing in pro wrestling. It left such a mark on me that here I am 37 years later writing about the memory of that weekend. I guess as long as someone is still telling the story, Mulkey Mania will never die.
If you’ve never seen any of this before, watch the short video below to get swept up in the magic of it all.
For people who are my age, Nintendo was probably a pretty big part of their childhood. I’m sure we had all spent our fair share of time in arcades pumping quarters into machines, and probably even took a few turns playing Atari, ColecoVision, or other earlier home video game systems. But when Nintendo came along, it turned the video gaming world on its head and changed the business forever. We probably have it to thank for the continued video game obsession that persists even to this day. But for every one of us who loved Nintendo, there was a singular point in time when we first got to experience playing a game on one. This is the story of my first time.
I was nine years old in the early fall of 1987. During that time of year, I would spend a lot of time at my grandparent’s house helping with things like picking up chestnuts from their four chestnut trees that reached to the sky back in the days before the chestnut blight took them away, canning the last of the bounty from that year’s garden, and picking apples in preparation for the yearly tradition of making apple butter. The real old-fashioned apple butter that cooks down all day in a huge copper pot over an open fire. That was always one of my favorite days of the year. The whole family would gather at Granny’s house and take their turn stirring the huge vat of apple butter, as it had to be constantly stirred over the eight or so hours it took to make it.
On one of these particular days, my uncle Ernest stopped by while I was there. After a while of talking to my grandparents, Ernest turned his attention to me and said, “Tims got something new you need to come see.” Ernest was a little excited as he started describing to me this new thing that Tim had. Ernest was not an easily excitable man. He was a gruff man. He was drafted to Vietnam when he was eighteen and did two tours of duty there. Even to this day in 2024, he has never talked about his time there. He was a farmer who worked all morning with his cows and pigs and then worked second shift at a factory job on top of it. Ernest didn’t have time for the trivial things in life, nor did he have patience for anything that he didn’t see as productive. So when he was semi-excitedly giving me the details about Tim’s latest acquisition, I was on the edge of my seat, listening as intently as I could.
He went on to explain that it was a video game that plugged into your television. And it had games that you put in it and played them on the TV. It had hand controllers that you used to play the game. And the best part he said, “It don’t even take quarters to play it.” As I described earlier, Ernest was not a man to waste time on trivial things, and I guess he must have missed the Atari era altogether because he described these features as if they had never been seen before. He ended his hype speech with a line that I can still hear in his voice in my head, “it’s called Nintendo.”
I spent the rest of my day with Nintendo on my mind. Partly because it sounded like the coolest invention of all time, and partly because I was confused as to how I hadn’t heard of this “wonder box” before now. I couldn’t remember hearing about it at school while talking with friends in home room, at lunch, or at recess. I watched cartoons every weekday after school and all day on Saturday’s yet could not picture any commercials describing it. I even read a few comic books back then and wracked my brain to remember if I had seen any ads for it there. Even Stevie the Tyrant hadn’t mentioned it that I knew of, and he was one of those kids who usually got the hot new things before anyone else we knew. I was coming up blank. Somehow I had been completely oblivious to its existence. But one thing I absolutely would not forget was the invite from Ernest to come over and check it out.
We find ourselves making it to another Sunday, and that means it’s time for more Weekend Reading links. Grab yourself a hot mug of coffee, settle in, and immerse yourself in the nostalgia.
It’s been all over the news recently that Taco Bell is about to roll out a nostalgia menu for a limited time, where they will be bringing back menu favorites…one “favorite” from each decade. The list includes:
The Tostada representing the 1960s
The Green Burrito from the 1970s
The Meximelt of the 1980s
The Beef Gordita Supreme representing the 1990s
The Caramel Apple Empanada of the 2000s
While this is a pretty good list and a pretty neat concept, it’s missing a lot of my personal favorites. I really wish they would bring back pricing that is more closely aligned with the old days as well. And even though they are bringing back some old menu items, the part that is extremely hard to recapture is the feeling one used to get from the whole Taco Bell experience. Well, at least for me it is.
In my rural area, we didn’t get our first Taco Bell until the late 1980s. I grew up loving Old El Paso taco nights at home, so when the local Taco Bell opened, my mom and I were very excited and went to try it the first week. We made several trips over the next several weeks and sampled much of their menu. We enjoyed everything and it became a regular stop for us when we were out shopping on Saturday afternoons.
Fast forward a little bit to when I started driving, and Taco Bell became even more of a staple for me. It was the fast food place that was deemed the “coolest” by my everyone at school, and if you were hanging out, odds are you would probably find yourself at Taco Bell at some point during that outing. The other reason, we frequented it so much was the cheap prices. With just a little cash in your pocket, you knew you could go to Taco Bell and fill up easier than you could at other chains.
Taco Bell was also the place I knew I couldn’t go wrong with on date night. If it was a first date, and I wasn’t sure what she did or didn’t like to eat, going to Taco Bell was the safest bet. It was also a great late-night stop after going to the movies, or bowling, cruising town, or a Friday night football game. Hell, even a quick trip out to town almost always resulted in a quick trip to the drive-thru to get a quick snack whether I was hungry or not just because everything tasted so good.
It’s hard to describe the atmosphere of the place though. In the ’90s, it had its vibrant purple, pinkish, and teal color scheme that we loved so much, and the tables outside to sit out while we dined and talked about the important events of the day like the newest albums coming out, the latest turns in the Monday Night War, or the big upcoming game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys. It probably wasn’t the atmosphere of the place as much as it was the company of the people I was with and the times we were having that I miss.
But back to the nostalgic menu…I’m certainly ready to have a Meximelt again, as I’ve been craving one since they pulled them from the menu several years ago. And I was almost to the point of riot until they finally brought back the Mexican Pizza recently. It was always my favorite item on the menu, and I no longer take it for granted and pick one up every other week or so just in case it gets pulled again.
I’ll indulge in another Tostado while the nostalgia menu is in place too just for the memories, as well as a Beef Gordita Supreme. But there are several other old Taco Bell favorites I’d like to see make a comeback at some point as well. Let me start off by mentioning The Chilito…or Chili Cheese Burrito.
What was not to love about The Chilito with its chili sauce they had partnered with shredded cheddar cheese and wrapped securely in a warm flour tortilla? That’s a rhetorical question by the way. My friends and I capped numerous of our evenings off by downing bags of these things, regardless of the consequences we were sure to face the next morning because of it.
The Double Decker Taco is another old favorite that I’d gladly welcome back to the menu. Just look at that image, and gaze upon the beauty that was created by melding two different tacos together with some beans. Other than the Mexican Pizza, the Double Decker Taco may have been Taco Bell’s most perfect creation.
No longer did you have to decide between hard or soft tacos…you could have both. And of all the items they’ve removed from their menu over the last several years, this one confuses me the most. They keep all of the ingredients needed to make this on hand, so why not just keep it on the menu? Curious.
The Bacon Cheeseburger Burrito was a short-term offering from the mid-90s and was my obsession until I completely burned myself out on them.
The thing was loaded with beef, lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, and a cheese sauce. It was wonderful.
I ate so many of those things when they were available, I burned myself out on them by the time they were gone. Even though I got burned out on them way back then, I find myself craving them now, and would probably burn myself out on them again if given the opportunity.
And I’ll stop my list with this one…The Texas Taco Sandwich. The Texas Taco Sandwich hit the market in 1995 with a fun commercial starring Jack Palance. Palance was coming off a resurgence thanks to the movies City Slickers and City Slickers II, so he lent credibility to Taco Bell’s latest offering with a Texas flair. I was driving by the time this came out, so as soon as I saw the first commercials, I was making my run for the border to try one.
The Texas Taco Sandwich was a change from the norm due to its thicker and breadier shell. We know now that this was just the forerunner to the Gordita that was to come in 1998, but at the time it was a unique item that captured my attention, as well as my taste buds while it was on the menu. I do seem to remember it being larger than the later Gordita, but it probably had to be since it was marketed as being associated with Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas I hear.
While all of my favorites aren’t returning as part of this nostalgia menu they are rolling out, I’m sure a lot of other people’s favorites are. But just the announcement of such a menu was enough to get me very nostalgic for Taco Bell, and I’m sure that’s the point of it all. So kudos to you Taco Bell for this, and I hope it does very well, as it could lead to more iterations of it in the future. Who knows, maybe the next time they roll this out I’ll find myself able to binge on Chilitos and Double Decker Tacos once again.
If you’ve enjoyed this particular trip down memory lane, then you might enjoy these as well.
Last week’s list of weekend reading links got such a good reaction, it proved that I should go back to doing them more often. So with that, here is another batch of links to retro and nostalgia-related content that I think you should check out this weekend.
In addition to some things to read this week, let me give you a listening recommendation as well. Over at Geekster and The Retro Network, we just launched a new podcast called Retro Resurgence hosted by Ken and Chad.
In the first episode, they countdown their favorite games for the original NES console. Give it a listen this week, and if you like what you hear, subscribe through your podcast player of choice.
