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.
The latest issue of This Nostalgic Life newsletter is now out and available to view. If you don’t subscribe, you can still view the newsletter by clicking on the image below.
In this latest issue, I tell the tale of the non-traditional summer vacation we took for several years in the ’80s. We would go on a “wagon train” and travel around our local area in a caravan of wagons and camp out every night for almost two weeks.
Also in this issue, my co-collaborator Eric debuts a new ongoing weekly feature where he looks back at the music charts of 1983 and 1990. He reviews the current week’s timeframe but in those years. It’s a fascinating look and listen at the music that made us.
And as always, we’ve included a batch of recommended reading links pointing the way to some of the best and most fun nostalgia and retro-related content from around the web.
If you’ve not signed up for the newsletter yet, I urge you to consider it. We publish the latest issue every Wednesday and it’s delivered straight to your email inbox so you never have to go searching for it. It’s absolutely free, it’s ad-free, there’s no spam, and you can always cancel at anytime. Every issue features a main feature, the weekly recommended reading links, the new ongoing We Got the Beat section, and a smaller feature that rotates between Do You Remember, Nostalgia Nuggets, and other mini-features. Just click on the image below to be taken to this week’s issue where you can subscribe if you’d like.
The USS Flagg was and still is my Holy Grail. Never was there another toy that came before GI Joe in my eyes. It was the granddaddy of ’em all. I had most of the figures, the vehicles, the playsets, the action packs, and nearly anything else tied to the GI Joe toy line. But the one thing that always eluded me was this aircraft carrier.
When fully assembled, this toy was a whopping six feet in length! That goes beyond the realm of a toy, and into the realm of something more like a coffee table. It was released in 1986 with a hefty retail price of $89.95, so it was definitely not to be found in my house. My dad would have had an easier time giving birth to one than actually paying that much for a toy.
But for years I would sit and think about all the cool battles that could have been had featuring the Flagg at the center of the action. It was so big, that you could have incorporated many planes and helicopters on its deck. You could have loaded it with fifty or more figures without cramping things too much. Even while typing this, my mind is drifting away to endless assaults on Cobra Island with this thing as the centerpiece.
As an adult in the early 2000s, I tried again to acquire one. Searching on eBay, I found dozens of them, but none were complete. The incomplete ones there were going for several hundred dollars. I actually did see one in a comic book shop one time, still sealed in its original box, but with a price tag of $1500. If I could have ever decided which child to sell, I may have ended up with it.
But who knows, maybe one day I’ll run across a good deal on a complete one and be able to purchase it. Then my friends, the battle for the superiority of the bedroom will resume once more.
These American Defense figures are the first G.I. Joe “bootleg” figures I recall seeing on store shelves. I had 3 3/4″ figures from other lines that I tried to mix into my G.I. Joe play, but it just never felt right. Like mixing in a Stormtrooper from Star Wars…it just didn’t fit.
So these were the first bootlegs of decent quality that actually matched the vibe of G.I. Joe and could mix in almost seamlessly. For the most part, they were constructed the same way as our beloved Joes, but with cheaper materials. And while they may not have made for a good figure line on their own, they were certainly great at filling the role of figures who could take the bullet or jump on the grenade instead of your favorite Joe characters. And let’s be honest, we all needed figures like that. You can’t just have Gung-Ho or Quick Kick taking an early exit from playtime, No, you need some fodder in the lineup so the real stars can continue with the mission.
A lot of times I used them as “new recruits” who were trying to make the team. That would usually end horribly for a few of them though. The small playsets that are shown in the ad were actually pretty fun. They were cheaper than Joe sets and still provided good fun.
I want to mention that my favorite figure from the line is pictured in this ad. At the bottom, second from the left, that soldier in the karate gear always made the cut and I would pair him up with Quick Kick as a stealth special unit. That figure has always been an honorary Joe figure in my mind.
After a long hot week at work, my body has been craving fresh fruit. So I got up and went to the local grocery store this morning to pick up some various fruits to satisfy my cravings.
The first thing that greeted me in the produce section was a display of fresh-cut watermelon. All of it had a nice deep red color and looked like it would be full of flavor, so I picked up a quarter of one to enjoy this afternoon along with some other tasty choices.
But once I chunked it up and started to eat it, I quickly realized that looks had been deceiving. While it looked really ripe, it had a mostly bland taste and was devoid of the sweetness of the watermelons of years ago. This seems to be a trend over the last decade or two, and I guess it’s because most watermelons you can get these days are the hybrid ones, and the ones engineered to be seedless. With each of these iterations, the watermelon loses something.
I can remember as a kid getting a watermelon was a big deal. They were super sweet and everyone wanted a piece. I can remember numerous times, someone in my mom’s family would pick one up, and then call the rest of the family to meet at the grandparents and have some. There were many Sunday afternoons that my grandparent’s front porch would be full of my aunts and uncles, and their front yard was full of us grandkids all chowing down on juicy watermelon and spitting seeds everywhere.
And as you’ll read later this week in the latest issue of the This Nostalgic Life newsletter, the nightly watermelon races were a big part of wagon train every year. I can’t imagine anyone running as hard as they can to try and win one of today’s watermelons. That really speaks to the loss of sweetness through the years.
Or maybe all of this equates to me finally turning into an old fogey who just complains about how things aren’t as good as they used to be. Maybe I’m just one step away from yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
This week’s issue has a tremendously fun tale of Eric’s music piracy ways back when he was in school, as well as me being nostalgic for my favorite meal of the day. This issue is also filled a pile of my traditional recommended reading links pointing you in the direction of some really fun nostalgic and retro content around the web.
Click on the image above to check out the latest issue and if you like, go ahead and subscribe. It’s free, and each issue is delivered straight to your inbox every Wednesday morning.
The Hot Wheels Freight Yard was one of the several Sto and Go playsets that were so popular in the ’80s. It was also the largest of the bunch as it not only opened up vertically into a playest but had train tracks that folded out horizontally as well.
And unlike Hot Wheel’s other Sto and Go sets, the Freight Yard came with vehicles in the form of a locomotive, 2 freight cars, and a caboose. Item B pictured in the shot with the Freight Yard was an additional Freight Master Train Set that could be added to your Freight Yard fun.
Notice that the ad states that no electricity or batteries are needed. Since this was 1984, electric train sets were still sort of en-vogue, and no one wanted market confusion with this playset.
The 1984 price tag of $34.99 on this Freight Yard translates to $101.65 in 2023 dollars, making it quite an expensive playset. Other Sto and Go playsets of the time retailed for $23.99, or $69.69 in today’s dollars. Back when I had a couple of Sto and Go playsets in the mid-’80s, I never knew how expensive of a toy I was playing with.
But as I’ve documented before, I loved train toys when I was young. The trains that Matchbox produced, the Micro Machines train sets, and even an old series of Happy Meal boxes that were train cars in vacuum form. I loved them all, and I pined over this Sto and Go for years. Heck I still pine for it today.
Oh, how I wish I still had all of my original MOTU figures. One of the great crimes I’ve committed in my life is letting all the toys from my childhood go by the wayside in various ways. But I’m slowly working to rectify that situation, and am tracking them all down again. This Jitsu figure is an example of this, as this is not my original figure, but one I got from eBay.
I had more than my fair share of MOTU figures back in the day, and I’d put Jitsu in my top ten at least. He may actually be high on the list, but I’d have to sit and think about what order they would actually go in. That may have to be a post sometime in the future. But anyway, what I liked about this figure was the big golden judo chop hand he had. That thing was just so cool, and in my world, that hand could destroy just about anything with two exceptions. It could hurt He-Man, but not put him out, and it couldn’t destroy the iron fist that Fisto had. As a matter of fact, when Jitsu’s hand met Fistos fist, it was like what happened in The Avengers when Thor’s hammer struck Captain America’s shield. Yeah, they waged some hellacious battles in my bedroom through the years.
In my playtime, Jitsu was right up there in the ranks of Skeletor’s favored minions alongside Beast Man, Trap-Jaw, and Tri-Klops. He was there to take out any weapons that the Masters had on the field. Just get him close enough, and that golden judo chop could take out anything. Probably every time Skeletor was able to breach Castle Grayskull in my world, it was because Jitsu chopped the door down with ease, and not even the magic of Grayskull was strong enough to stop him.
First finding out about this movie was kind of an adventure on it’s own.
I can’t tell you when The Goonies first debuted on HBO. It had to be sometime in 1986 or maybe even as late as 1987. But either way, it was before we had cable at home. My dad and I stopped by his sister’s house one evening, and they lived in a part of town where you could get cable. While Dad was talking with his sister, I wandered into the living room where my younger cousin was watching TV. What I saw when I walked into the room were several kids coming out of what looked like a set of water slides in a cavern, and a huge pirate ship. I was immediately intrigued. I asked my cousin what this was and he replied that it was The Goonies, and he was watching it on HBO. Up until this point in time, I had no knowledge of this movie, but knew it was one that I wanted to watch in full.
This was around the same time we had gotten our first VCR and our first video rental store had just opened in town. The next time we went into that store, I inquired about The Goonies. The lady behind the counter told me it was a popular movie with kids my age, and that it was currently rented out. The story remained the same on the next several visits, but finally one day, the movie was in and I was able to rent it and finally give it a watch. I really enjoyed that first watch, and every subsequent watch through the years after that. Since my last viewing, about 15 years have passed. I remedied that situation this past weekend and watched the 4K UHD version. It’s still great.
The Goonies is a wonderful tale of a group of kids whose parents are all about to lose their houses to developers so they can knock them down and build a golf course in their place. Through some ingenuitive storytelling, the kids come across an old pirate’s map leading to a treasure hidden somewhere along the Astoria Oregon coast where they live. The kids set out on a treasure-seeking adventure hoping to find the loot and save their homes. Along the way, they have to deal with numerous booby traps and the murderous Fratelli family in order to find the treasure.
The Goonies is an absolute thrill ride. The group of kids and teens has a diverse set of personalities that play well with, and off of each other. And while all of the young actors perform their parts very well, it’s the set design of the underground world that they are traversing that I love the most. As they go through the various caves and encounter the various booby traps, I still find myself marveling at the design of it all. The dialogue and interaction between all of the characters in the film is superbly done as well.
I can’t imagine that kids around my age at the time could watch this movie and not be chomping at the bit to go on a similar adventure of their own. My friends and I were designing our own traps and mazes around our properties and going “adventuring” during sleepovers for a long while after this film debuted. And this speaks to how well done this movie was as a whole…when you can make an entire generation of kids want to recreate what was on screen, you’ve done a lot of things right.
Most of you reading this have probably seen it, but it’s definitely worth dusting off a copy and watching it again…especially if you now have kids of your own to share it with. I’m sure they’ll have the same sense of wonder that we did when we first saw it.
This Nostalgic Life issue #3 dropped today. Featured in this issue is Eric telling the story of the longest summer of his life when he was stuck in a town in the middle of nowhere in Texas. In the story, he relates how lonely the time was, and what he did to entertain himself that summer. Mixed in are fun tales of his experience with Live Aid and the theatrical release of The Goonies.
Also in this issue, I provided a Nostalgia Nugget as a backup to Eric’s main feature, and this week’s crop of Recommended Reading links. We also unveil a new feature in this issue, as an audio voice over version of Eric’s feature is available in the post so you can listen to it instead of reading it if you prefer.
I urge you to check it out, and if you like what you find, consider subscribing. We publish a new issue every Wednesday, it gets delivered straight to your email inbox automatically, and it’s free. You can also unsubscribe at any time, but I doubt you will want to. Just click the photo above to be taken to the current issue and see what you think.
