Mickey was born in the '70s, grew up in the '80s, and came of age in the '90s. He is the co-founder of TheRetroNetwork.com, runs ComicBookAdArchive.com, and is the host here at Retro Ramblings, a blog filled with nostalgia. When not writing about old stuff, he's out fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. He also makes damn good chili.
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.
It’s been a long time since I dropped some links for you to enjoy on the weekend. I’ve continued to do them as part of the This Nostalgic Life newsletter every week, but I wanted to share some fun stuff with you faithful readers here at Retro Ramblings. Check them out and kick back and enjoy some fine nostalgia.
I miss the “glory days” of Pizza Hut. That magical time in the ’80s and early 90’s when it was a destination, and not just somewhere to eat. I’ve found recently that those days of yore are long gone, and what is left is what seems like a company struggling to hang on.
A while back, we took our daughters to Pizza Hut for lunch, and as I sat there with them enjoying lunch, I looked around the place and just shook my head at how much it has changed through the years. To me, it no longer feels special. It just feels like another fast food joint with nothing to make it stand out.
As you’ve learned by now, my Father traveled quite a bit when I was growing up, and to kind of take the sting out of being gone so much, when he would get back in town on the weekends, he would always take the family out to eat on Friday or Saturday night. This usually meant a trip to Western Steer, Bonanza, or Wendy’s back when they had the Superbar. But a couple of times a year, we would be treated to my favorite place to go in that time frame, Pizza Hut. We only got to go a few times a year because, for the time, Pizza Hut was expensive. But that was part of the appeal. It was a step above other places to eat back then. You weren’t just paying for the food, you were buying an experience.
From the moment you walked into the place, you knew it was something special. You knew this was going to be something you’d remember, and it all started with the decor. The interior didn’t look like a fast-food place with its huge, sprawling windows, cheap-looking walls, or tiled floors. When you walked in, you were greeted by brick walls, with smaller windows, that had thick red fabric curtains pulled back, and a carpeted floor. It just felt higher-class than walking into McDonald’s or Burger King.
The booths were high-backed, with thickly padded vinyl seats and backrests. The high backs were also different from your usual eating-out experience. These high backs gave you a sense of privacy, which was great for a date night. Also great for a date night were the candles on the tables. Those little red glass candles were on every table and were lit when you got to your seat. It was a little thing, but when added to everything else, it was quite the contribution. Your silverware was wrapped in a thick, cloth napkin that beat the heck out of the paper napkins everyone else was using at the time. And you could always count on the table being covered by a nice, red and white, checkered tablecloth.
The lighting at Pizza Hut back then was lower than what you were used to at other places. This was due to the lower wattage bulbs they used, along with their gorgeous, Pizza Hut log emblazoned, stained glass light shades they used to have. Seeing one of those things now instantly takes me back to another place in time! They still look classy and bring old memories flooding back every time I see or think of one. The private feeling booth, the low lighting, the candle on the table, and the brick wall beside you gave a unique feel to the table you were dining at. It greatly enhanced the overall experience.
The Punisher is a movie that I first watched way back in 1989 at my cousin’s house while visiting on a road trip one summer. Later, I recorded it off HBO or some other pay TV channel and probably watched it another dozen times in the early ’90s. That was the last time I can remember watching it. I bought the DVD when it was first offered years ago, but never cracked it open until this viewing. After my friend Adam recently wrote an article about the original Marvel Cinematic Universe and included this, I got the itch to watch it again, so here we are.
Keeping with the traditional origin story of the Marvel Comics character, Frank Castle’s family is killed in a mob car bombing. Most believed he had perished as well, but he didn’t. So he took to the sewers and spent the next five years “punishing” everyone in the mob.
The Yakuza lands in town and takes out the mob proper, and eventually kidnaps all of the boss’s kids to ensure their cooperation. Finally, The Punisher has to rescue the kids, and team up with the boss responsible for his family’s death to help rescue his son in an all-out assault on the Yakuza headquarters.
This version of The Punisher works on a couple of levels. First, it works as a fine late-80s-era action movie. Even if it didn’t have The Punisher branding, the story would still make complete sense in and of itself. Secondly, the story told in this movie could absolutely be a 6-8 issue story arc in The Punisher comic. So whether you are into superhero movies or not, this movie is going to work for you.
Don’t go into this looking for any deeper meaning or looking to critique the filmmaking or cinematography. This is a popcorn flick in the truest sense of the term, and you shouldn’t feel you’ve wasted your 90 minutes on it when you’re through watching.
Oh, and in fine Marvel style, Stan Lee has a cameo. It may be one of my favorites of his actually.
As I’m sitting here writing this, it’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, and it’s raining. It’s not a hard rain, but it’s not a light rain either. I would call it a rain shower, but those typically don’t last very long, this has been going for over an hour, and the radar indicates that it’s going to continue for several more.
I’m sitting on my covered deck at my outdoor desk watching the rain fall, listening to the sound of distant thunder, and enjoying a glass of homemade hard watermelon cider. To me, it’s a beautiful day.
For most people, a rainy day in the summer is a bummer. But for me, there is an aspect of it that I enjoy on occasion. That’s because a warm, yet rainy, summer day takes me back in time.
When I was a kid, let’s say between the ages of 7 and 10, we lived on a farm, and in the summer I had to spend a lot of the day helping out with the never-ending chores that go along with that life. They were simple tasks since I was young, but watering the horses, putting out hay for the horses, helping in the garden, and working in the tobacco field could certainly cut into a fine summer day. But when it would rain my brother and I got to skip the chores. We would pile up on a couch we had on the carport, and read comic books all day. My brother had a hodge-podge collection, but I enjoyed reading random issues of The Incredible Hulk, THe Unknown Soldier, and Justice League America.
Fast forward a few years to after we had moved from the farm, and my dad had his business next to our home. I worked for him every day in the summer except on rainy days. On those days, my brother and I would crash in the family living room and watch movies.
We had a cable descrambler, so we had access to Viewer’s Choice PPV movies, HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and The Movie Channel. I can’t remember the exact years, but judging from the movies I’m about to mention, it was between 1989 and 1991 when we did this the most.
We’d watch all the new releases on PPV. Movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and JFK. Mixed in with the PPV movies we would hit the other pay channels and I can remember watching The Addams Family, The Body Guard, Dick Tracy, Batman, Teen Witch, Backdraft, Days of Thunder, and countless others many times over. Those were great days as we just spent the day being lazy. It didn’t matter that we had seen the movies countless times already, we still relished the opportunity to chill out and just lay around.
So as I sit here writing this, I look back on those lazy rainy summer days with fondness. While nothing really beats a sunny summer day when you can go out and do whatever you want, remember to take advantage of the rainy days sometimes as well. You may look back on them as some of the better days of your summers.
As I stroll through the internet every day, I’m constantly coming across images that remind me of things, and I download a lot of those images to revisit later on. Every image I download reminds me of something specific. Not all of them are things I write about, so I thought I would do an image dump post and share a lot of the images that are loaded with summer nostalgia with me. If any of the images spark any memories or nostalgia within you, hit me up in the comments and we’ll discuss. Let’s get to it!
Freezer pops always hit the spot on hot summer days.
Icee’s and Slush Puppies were always a welcome treat when going to the local convenience store.
Berenstain Bears Go To Camp was one of my favorite books as a kid, and was a summer staple for me.
On rainy summer days, my brother and I would kick back and read old comic books on the carport.
At the end of the day, the sound of the ice cream tr
While taking a break at work yesterday morning, I was thumbing through X and started seeing a headline crawl across my screen…”Kevin Sullivan Has Died”. I kept thumbing through and continued to see the headline over and over. I turned my morning from a happy one to a bit of a somber one.
I never knew Kevin Sullivan personally, so I’m not even going to pretend that his death affects me in some profound way. But what I will say is that as more and more of my childhood “idols” continue to pass away, it makes me think more and more about my own mortality, and how I truly am getting older.
I first discovered pro wrestling back in 1985 when I was 7 years old. I was instantly hooked and immediately began to soak up everything I could about wrestling. I watched every wrestling TV show I had access to, bought every wrestling magazine I could afford, and the one I couldn’t afford I flipped through at the grocery store magazine rack while Mom did her shopping. Being that deep into anything leads you to learn a lot about everything and everyone connected to it.
My first exposure to Kevin Sullivan came via wrestling magazines. He was such a popular/hated character and unique individual that he seemed to get coverage in the mags every month. So I was familiar with the name, and his antics when I first saw him on television. He came into Continental Wrestling in 1986 and I got my first week-to-week experience with him, getting to follow along with his storylines and see him wrestle.
And when he hit the “big time” when he landed in NWA/WCW in 1988, I was already familiar with him, and had a backstory to know who he was, and could now follow his latest exploits in a promotion that I had a lot more access to.
To begin with, I followed along intently through his feud with “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin that involved Garvin’s wife Precious. It was an angle that was more “intense” than what they usually presented, and I was into it. Moving on from there he would engage in a short feud with Dusty Rhodes, and then would move on to form the Varsity Club. The Varsity Club was a lengthy angle with a lot of twists and turns and made for fun television every week for quite a long time.
Sullivan would continue to float along in WCW for several more years, but he would eventually land in Smoky Mountain Wrestling in 1992/1993. This is where some of my fondest memories of following his career would come from.
Playing off of his past history in wrestling where he was cast as a maniacal character who often skirted the line of being considered a devil worshiper, or cult-like leader, Sullivan came into Smoky Mountain Wrestling as deranged. His feud with Commissioner Bob Armstrong made for compelling TV as Sullivan managed The Nightstalker and he himself engaged in battles with Brian Lee over the Smoky Mountain title and would square off with The Mongolian Stomper in several classic brawls that went all over the building every time they met. Sullivan was also responsible at this time for one of the goriest things I had ever seen in wrestling when he “butchered” a Japanese opponent WING Kanemura on television. There was so much blood that it was censored on television. You can watch it on YouTube if you want to, but viewer discretion is advised.
After this era though, he returned to WCW, and while he was still portrayed as somewhat of a cult-like leader, it was more toned-down, and more presentable for the major television networks carrying WCW. He would go on to form and lead the Dungeon of Doom, a fearsome group of “monsters” on a mission to end Hulkamania. While sen as corny at the time, looking back on it now I’m kind of nostalgic for the era.
After the Dungeon had mostly ran it’s course, he would face off in a feud with Chris Benoit that produced some of my favorite matches of all-time. Especially their battle at Great American Bash 1996 where they fought all over the building, including in the men’s bathroom at the Baltimore Arena. It was a sight to behold.
After that, I’m not sure where Sullivan spent most of his time. He dropped out of vision as far as what wrestling I was watching. I know he went on to work with a lot of younger talent, helping them to become the stars they are today.
The wrestling world has lost one of its greatest minds, and from what I hear, one of its most liked and well-regarded members. For me, his death signifies another of my childhood heroes leaving this world and leaves me wondering when the next will go. Rest in Peace Kevin Sullivan, and thank you for the memories.
The other morning while looking for a quick breakfast on my way out the door for work, I saw a box of Little Debbie snack cakes on the table and decided that would make for a fine and nutritious breakfast. While getting the cake from the box, I noticed an ad on the back for Little Debbie’s online store. I made a mental note and headed off to work.
While taking a break, I pulled the site up on my phone, and was greeted by what I consider to possibly be the perfect Christmas decoration…a Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake inflatable!
I’m shocked that I didn’t even know this existed until now. Here’s the description from their site:
Deck the Lawns with Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake Inflatables!
Elevate the festive spirit of your outdoor décor with the iconic Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake Inflatables. A delightful twist to the holiday classics, these inflatables capture the joy and nostalgia of the season, offering an enchanting glow to your Yuletide celebrations.
Flavorful Choices: Dive into our flavor options and choose between the Original Vanilla and the mouth-watering Chocolate Christmas Tree Cake Inflatables. Why not grab both and make your yard the ultimate Little Debbie wonderland?
Features:
Whimsical Design: Standing proudly at 7 ft tall, each inflatable mirrors the deliciously delightful details of Little Debbie’s iconic treats.
Limited Edition: Exclusively available for the holiday season, and only while stocks last. These inflatables are the collector’s item every Little Debbie enthusiast should own.
Neighbor’s Envy: A perfect centerpiece for your holiday light display, it’s bound to have the neighborhood buzzing with admiration and festive cheer.
Whether you’re a die-hard Little Debbie fan or simply looking to add some unique charm to your holiday decorations, these inflatables are a must-have. Don’t wait, flavors may run out faster than the cakes do during the holidays!
Light up your festive nights with the taste of joy, your own Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake Inflatable.
And all of this joy can be yours for the low, low price of just $99.99! I’m placing my order tomorrow, and I’m sure it’s going to make me the envy of every one of those families who drive around during the Christmas season to look at decorations.
In lieu of a normal post today, I thought I would do a recap of sorts of several things from the past week.
We’ll start with a couple of things that I’ve put out in places other than here at Retro Ramblings…
Over at Geekster, a feature I put together called When Ralston Ruled the Cereal Aisle went live last week. In it, I run down all of the various cereals that Ralston produced in the ’80s and ’90s. While we all probably had some or at least one of their cereals, it’s hard to fathom just how many licensed cereals they put out back then. Click the link above and check it out if you want a fun trip back to the cereal aisle.
In the latest issue of This Nostalgic Life Newsletter, I provided the special feature this week as I looked back at Green Stamps and my memories of how big of a deal they were in my family back in the ’80s. Again, you can click the link above to go read that feature.
In the same issue, Eric gives a rundown of some great retro podcasts that you should check out and maybe find some new listening favorites.
If you haven’t signed up for This Nostalgic Life yet, I urge you to do so. It’s free, delivers straight to your email inbox every Wednesday, and features great nostalgic memories in every issue from myself and other retro-loving folks.
I also wanted to share a couple of pieces of junk food news I came across in the last couple of days…
This is one of the first new additions to the Frisco Burger line in a very long time. I’m going to be sure to try it, as the very first addition to the line in 1993, the New York Patty Melt, was so good, I still miss it to this day. If this new BLT version turns out to be good, I don’t want to miss out on it.
I’m all about trying anything that features the taste of Kentucky Fried Chicken, so these new chips will be on my shopping list to look for when I’m at the grocery store.
While browsing the Max streaming app some time ago, I came across what looked like a gem of a movie called Flashpoint. While I didn’t remember ever hearing of it before, the fact that it was from the ’80s and starred Kris Kristofferson was all the reason I needed to give it a shot.
The description on Max read “Texas border patrolmen (Kris Kristofferson, Treat Williams) find a jeep, a skeleton, and $800,000 in cash dating from 1963.” Even though I was already going to watch it anyway, the synopsis was enough to get me further intrigued. All things considered, this is a movie I’m surprised my dad had never turned me on to.
Flashpoint felt like a movie trying to go in several different directions to start with, but as the film wound on, those various directions started to weave together and the pace quickened to what felt like a race to the finish. With a unique and somewhat surprising ending (at least to me), I was left with a feeling of great satisfaction with the time I had devoted to watching this film.
Kris Kristofferson turned in an excellent starring performance and Kurtwood Smith brought the goods as usual. Treat Williams also did a fine job in his role as the young and full-of-spirit border patrol agent hell-bent on doing the right thing. The cinematography was great too. Since most of the setting of the film was the southwestern desert, the film is full of breathtaking shots.
I had never even heard of this film before stumbling across it on Max, but am so glad I discovered this lost gem of an action suspense thriller.
3.5 stars.
If movies from the ’80s are your thing, check out Gary’s ongoing project over at Geekster where he is currently reviewing 84 movies from 1984.
For this second entry into the Action Figure Appreciation files, I’ve chosen to highlight a figure from the G.I. Joe: A Real American hero line. G.I. Joe always was, and probably always will be my favorite action figure line. Hell, not just action figures…probably of any toy line. My older brother had a few Joes, but wouldn’t let me play with them. All I could do was sit and watch him play with them and drool with envy. But once I got my own Joe and Cobra figures, the battle started raging and has never stopped.
I was one of the lucky kids who had a LOT of G.I. Joe stuff through the years. Not as much as my friend Aaron, but still more than most kids I knew. While I loved them all, the Cobra side of things seems to contain more of my favorite figures than the Joe side. And within the ranks of Cobra, the Dreadnoks were my favorites.
Their antics on the cartoon was always one of the highlights of any episode they were in. Besides the “Dreadnok” aspect, Zaartan was a figure I really wanted due to the color-change and costume features. And while having Zartan was pretty cool, I instantly wanted his Dreadnok lackeys as part of my collection. For some reason, while off on a trip with my Dad, my brother brought me home Torch, Ripper, and Buzzer to go along with the Zartan that I already had. I’m sure my Dad was actually behind it, but it was a cool gesture on my brother’s part anyway.
Maybe my Dad saw in the Dreadnoks one of the things I saw in them…that they looked and acted like my uncles…Dad’s brothers. But he wouldn’t have known of their antics or attitudes having not watched the cartoon with me. Ol’ Torch here in particular looks like my uncle Randy. And was crazy like Randy now that I think about it.
But as for the figure itself, it’s hard not to love him since he sports shaggy hair, a bandana, and shades. A look that I myself have been known to sport from time to time. Hell, I even sported the same facial hair for a while back about ten years ago. Maybe this is where my inspiration came from, I don’t know. Add in the fact that he carries a flame thrower and isn’t afraid to use it doesn’t hurt his case either.
I thought everything about the Dreadnok figures was cool, and Torch always ended up playing the role of second-in-command of the Dreadnoks behind Zartan in my world. While the others all had to pile into the Thunder Machine, Torch always had the distinction of riding solo on the Cobra Ferret.
This Torch figure got more playtime than most figures in my collection at the time and has earned his featured spot in this Action Figure Appreciation post.
Of all the things Wendy’s tried through the years, the Superbar was the idea that I liked the most, and is very possibly the fast food item/gimmick that I miss more than all the others. When it first debuted at Wendy’s, my whole family was eager to try it. As you may remember, my dad would be out of town most of the week, and when he would come home on Friday, he would take the family out to eat. Once we tried the SuperBar, we were hooked, and it became our Friday night destination more weeks than not for at least the first year it was available.
The SuperBar was a set of three food bars that expanded Wendy’s dine-in options several times over and was a big hit with a large part of their customer base. The first of the three bars was a salad bar that featured what you see at most salad bars. There was lettuce, tomato, carrots, cucumbers, and various dressings. The salad bar was also where the dessert options could be found. The dessert options weren’t mind-blowing by any means, but for an eleven-year-old like myself at the time, it served its purpose. At least at our local Wendy’s, there was vanilla pudding and chocolate pudding, and on occasion, there would be Ambrosia. I guess you could count the mixed fruit as a dessert as well, but no self-respecting kid would be caught picking that over the pudding options.
The next bar was the Mexican Fiesta bar, which was my personal favorite section of the whole thing. There were all the things you needed to make tacos and burritos like chili, seasoned beef, salsa, taco sauce, shredded cheese, melted nacho cheese, taco shells, and soft tortillas. Of all the bars, this was the one I would make the most trips to on every visit.
The third bar was the Pasta Bar which featured spaghetti noodles, fettuccine noodles, spaghetti sauce, and alfredo sauce as the pasta quotient of the bar. But the best part of this bar was the garlic bread which was made by flattening and grilling their hamburger buns with garlic salt and butter. It was delicious, and on every trip out to Wendy’s to indulge in the SuperBar, I would eat five or six pieces of this bread.
While the SuperBar as it was presented was just fine, there was a little something else that could be done with it. My dad would order a baked potato, and when you ordered a potato, you could take it to the SuperBar to top it. I don’t remember if that was an extra cost or not though. But my dad would go to the Mexican Fiesta bar and load his potato with the chili and melted nacho cheese. I saw him do this a couple of times and decided to try it myself. After I had topped my potato, I sat down and started to devour it just like my old man…and it was delicious! But he stopped me after a couple of bites and told me that I was doing it wrong. I was perplexed at the age of 11 years old and he could see that, so he enlightened me. He explained that to get the most out of the experience, you first consume just the chili and cheese from the potato, and then you go back and refill the potato with more chili and cheese. Then you consume the whole thing as I was previously doing.
The SuperBar was our go-to while they had it in their stores. A lot of those Friday or Saturday nights that Dad would take us out were spent eating at Wendy’s while we talked and laughed as a family before we would hit the department stores in town where Mom would do her shopping for the week.
The SuperBar is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Wendy’s, and it’s a shame they had to get rid of it. As I’ve read in years since, the bar was a loss leader for the stores, and it provided so much extra work for the staff to keep it neat and clean. I understand why it died off as a concept, but that doesn’t mean I miss it any less.
Before I go, here is a video of a news report detailing the Wendy’s SuperBar from around the time of its launch.
