If you’ve landed here at Retro Ramblings (which you obviously have if you’re reading this) you’ll notice that things look quite a bit different than what you’ve been used to for the last several years.
In several posts in the past both here on this blog and on social media, I’ve bemoaned the loss of great retro blogs. I’ve also bemoaned the loss of traditional blog formats. All the while, I was perpetuating the sleek look and style of more contemporary sites. That’s a little hypocritical I guess, so I’ve decided to be the change I want to see. I’m taking Retro Ramblings back in time with a presentation just like all of my favorite blogs back in the day. Gone now is the slick formatting, and I’ve stripped Retro Ramblings of all it’s bells and whistles and am focusing on the just the content again.
This style may turn some off, but I hope not, and this style may help encourage others out there to dust off the old-school blogging templates and give things a go at it again. I kind of doubt that will happen, but instead of just wishing it, I’ve decided to go with it myself just hoping to reach someone.
And hey, since this blog is all about old-school things, It’s kind of appropriate to have an old-school blog feel to it as well. Some may see this as a step backward, which I guess it technically is, but I see it as a step forward. A step towards making me happy with it again, which is something I’ve struggled with through the last few years.
I tended to “present” things instead of writing about them. Things that I may or may not have had a connection with simply to please segments of the audience. But with the return to an old-school blog comes an old-school approach. I’m not just presenting things, but will be talking about my memories of them and connection to them from the past.
Again, this may not be your cup of tea, but I hope you stick around and see where it goes. It should be a fun ride.
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.
I’m a lifelong fan of pro wrestling, so naturally, I have a lot of memories from years gone by that jump out at me. One of the memories that came flooding back to me recently was the night that Hulk Hogan fought Paul Orndorff in a cage on NBC’s Saturday Night’s Main Event. Thanks to the guys of TRN’s House Show Podcast reviewing the show, I felt like a kid again.
Saturday Night’s Main Event was at one time THE biggest wrestling show on television. Pay-per-view was in its infancy for most of the series run, the NWA had yet to launch their Clash of the Champions series and the regular wrestling shows on television were still filled with non-competitive matches for the most part. Yeah, they’d throw us a bone every now and then and give us a decent main event match, but even that usually was just to set up something for later, and would often end in a non-finish.
So when a Saturday Night’s Main Event show would roll around on NBC about once a month, it was must-see TV for young wrestling fans. Or must-record-TV in my case. Even being the weekend, my mom wouldn’t let me stay up to watch it as it happened. Instead, I would set the timer on the VCR, record it, and then watch it the next morning as soon as I got up.
The match I’m going to be talking about here took place on the January 3rd, 1987 Saturday Night’s Main Event. The “main event” of the show pitted World Wrestling Federation champion Hulk Hogan against his one-time friend turned bitter rival, “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff. And this wouldn’t be just another match. No sir. This match was going to take place inside the walls of a 15-foot-high steel cage! The only way to win one of these cage matches was to put your opponent down to the point that you could leave through the door, or climb over the top. The important thing is that your feet must touch the floor.
So I’m watching the tape the following morning after the live event, and the Hogan-Orndorff match was up first. It was a good back-and-forth affair, but nine-year-old me really had no reason to think that Orndorff would actually beat Hogan. But it got to a point in the match when both men were a little groggy, and they started to climb out on opposite sides of the ring. Jesse “The Body” Ventura on commentary exclaimed that it was a race! I kinda got on the edge of my seat. It was neck and neck as they both started down the outside. Vince McMahon was yelling for Hogan to drop down! Then it happened. Both men hit the floor at the same time! The theme song “Real American” started playing, which after the bout a winner’s music is played, but in this case, it didn’t really tell you who won since both men used the same theme song!
Wait…who just won the match? There was confusion at ringside as both men were claiming victory. McMahon and Ventura were each arguing the case for a different competitor. Referees Joey Marella and Danny Davis were each declaring a different winner. Multiple replays of the finish were shown, but no official announcement had been made. It was Saturday night suspense at its finest! The show went to a commercial break, leaving everyone pondering what the outcome was! When the show returned, an announcement was made that this match had been declared a tie. But since a tie is like kissing your sister (my words, not theirs), the referee ordered the match to be restarted!
So after we had just witnessed an incredible battle, with an incredible ending, we were about to get even more! Unfortunately, the rest of the bout was not as exciting as the first half. Hogan went on to soundly defeat Orndorff once they were back in the cage. He even gave Bobby Heenan a good thrashing for good measure after the match was over.
Hogan would go on to an even bigger moment just a month later that I’m sure I’ll be covering at some point soon, while Orndorff would start to fall off in his importance as the rest of 1987 rolled on. But none of that could take away from the flat-out excitement of their cage match on that Saturday night so long ago. I still get goosebumps re-watching it today. You can watch the full match below and re-live the excitement, or live it for the first time.
It’s funny how some things can just pop into your head that you haven’t thought about in many years. This is one of those things.
Peanut butter is a staple in most American homes. You can find it in cabinets, in lunch boxes, and in lunch pails all across this great country. It’s patriotic….right behind apple pie. And you know what else is patriotic? Superman by gosh! If you slap Superman’s name and image on a jar of peanut butter, you have the ultimate weapon against communism.
At least that’s what a lot of us kids growing up in the ’80s in the rural area I lived in thought anyway. We’d spend a lot of our time at recess after lunch playing Superman vs The Russians on the school playground. No joke. We had our bellies full of Superman peanut butter and were battling the red menace to keep our playgrounds safe…just like in Red Dawn. It was serious business. I even started a super-secret spy club in school to help combat the threat that we were exposed to on the news every night. But I digress.
Anyway, I’m not sure Superman peanut butter tasted any better than Skippy, Peter Pan, or Jif. Actually, from what I’ve read online, Superman may have even been a cheaper variety than those others listed. No matter the cost, that brand of peanut butter with Superman on the label is what I still identify as the epitome of peanut butter from my childhood.
As a sidebar, I can explicitly remember one distinct point in time when I was eating Superman peanut butter. It was January 28, 1986. We were out of school that day due to snow. I was sitting on the floor of our basement where I usually played, with a Superman peanut butter sandwich in front of me as I watched the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was one of those moments where you always remember where you were and what you were doing….and I had Superman peanut butter to make me feel a little better as I watched those events unfold.
They made their fans sweat it out, but the Buffalo Bills are in the playoffs again this year with the Jacksonville Jaguars loss this weekend. Their season hasn’t been pretty, but they’re in pretty good form right now and can make a run at the Super Bowl with a little luck.
Whether they achieve that goal or not, just seeing the Bills back in contention for a Superbowl berth takes me straight back to the ’90s. Back then, the Bills being in the playoffs and having exciting moments went together like peanut butter and jelly. Like back in 1993 when they were a wildcard team and had to face the offensive powerhouse Houston Oilers. And they had to do it without their starting quarterback Jim Kelly, their starting tailback Thurman Thomas, and one of their best linebackers, Cornelius Bennett. At least they were getting to play in their home stadium if nothing else.
My old man and I decided to watch the game that afternoon. My Dad was just a casual football fan and rarely watched a game unless it was the Superbowl, and even then I think it was just because it was a national event, and not because he personally enjoyed it so much. As for me, I was really getting into football at that point, and watched full games every week, and was excited about all the playoff matchups. What we thought was going to be just an enjoyable playoff game, turned out to be one of the most exciting NFL games ever played, and featured the greatest comeback in NFL playoff history.
At halftime, with the score being 35 – 3 in favor of the Houston Oilers, my Dad decided he had seen enough, and changed the channel to some western movie most likely. Even though the game was a blowout, I decided I wanted to keep watching it and headed off to my bedroom to see the rest of it.
As the Bills started their comeback and continued to rack up points, I tried to keep my Dad informed by yelling from the bedroom to the living room, “THE BILLS JUST GOT A TOUCHDOWN! IT’S 35 – 10!”. “THE BILLS GOT AN ONSIDE KICK!”. “THE BILLS JUST GOT ANOTHER TOUCHDOWN!!! IT’S 35- 17!!!”. It wasn’t until they had come all the way back and took the lead that he became interested once again and changed the channel back to the game. I rejoined him and we watched the closing moments of regulation where the Oilers tied the game with a field goal with just a few seconds left.
But that was just a formality, as destiny was clearly on the side of the Buffalo Bills. The defense picked off a Warren Moon pass that set up the winning field goal from Scott Christie to set the Bills on a course to the Superbowl and left the Houston Oilers on the wrong side of history.
Now if you’re relatively new to the world of football, you may read that and think that maybe destiny will shine on the Bills again this year, but as Lee Corso would say, “NOT SO FAST”. Because the Bills have also been on the wrong side of history in the playoffs before, and matter of fact, it was such a moment in NFL history that it earned a nickname..the Music City Miracle.
Back in 1999, on a cold and snowy Saturday here in the Appalachian mountains, I took a ride with my brother to look for some carpeting for his house instead of just laying on the couch watching football all afternoon. At the carpet outlet, they had a television set up and were watching the wildcard match-up between the Buffalo Bills and the Tennessee Titans. The game was a low scoring affair, but I had a seat and focused on the game while my brother was doing his browsing and haggling with the salesman. When he was ready to leave, the game was half-way through the 3rd quarter.
We got back home, and I turned on the game, and he decided to sit and watch the end of it with me since it was a close game. After just a few minutes, we watched the same Steve Christie kick what was thought to be the game-winner with just 18 seconds left to play, but this time, the Bills WERE NOT the Cinderella team. The Tennessee Titans were as you’ll see in the clip below.
So as the Bills enter the playoffs once again, I have to wonder if Lady Luck will shine on them this time, or will she be riding shotgun with their opponents? One thing is for sure, with their history of dramatic playoff games, I’ll be tuning in, and I’m sure all those nostalgic memories of their games from the past will come flooding back again, and take me back to the ’90s once more. I’ll try to forget the one where Scott Norwood went wide right though. That was a heartbreaker right there.
Maybe I should call up my Dad and brother and see if they are up for watching one more Bills playoff game together.
