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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Back in the summer of 1996, I was working full-time at the grocery store that I would go on to work at for a decade. I had just graduated high school and was fortunate to be in the position of having friends from school and friends from work to hang out and do stuff with.
When the ads for Independence Day started dropping, several of those friends and I were getting excited to see this latest summer blockbuster. The little two-screen theater in the town where I worked was a weekly stop for us as we took in at least one movie every week. When Independence Day weekend rolled around, there was no question as to what movie we were going to be watching.
Independence Day is the story of an alien race coming to Earth to take it over for its resources. After a first strike that wipes a lot of major world cities off the map, the US stages a counter attack that is ineffective. Fortunately, the world has an ace up it’s leave in genius Jeff Goldblum. He figures out a way to weaken the aliens, and a rag-tag group of former combat pilots led by the President show the way to bring down the hostile invaders, and the world lives to see another day. One of the hooks of the movie is that the events take place across July 2, 3, and 4 in the movie, leading to the United States declaring it’s freedom on the 4th of July once again.
Independence Day was the major summer blockbuster of 1996, and all of the hyp leading up to it had me very excited to see it. Watching it in the theater there was an electric mood as the packed house loved every minute of the spectacle.
It was also a breakout performance for Will Smith. Up until this point, he had starred in the movie Bad Boys and was still a sensation on the hit TV show Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, but this was his coming out party as a major leading man in Hollywood.
With it’s massive scope, incredible effects, and all-star cast, Independence Day became one of the biggest movies of the ’90s, and one I still go back and watch every Independence Day weekend.
