Tag Archives: 80s

KFC’s Chicken Littles Sandwiches of the ’80s

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Here I am featuring some old junk food in another edition of Retro Ramblings. I just can’t help it. Old junk food really tickles my nostalgia bone. And today’s topic is one of my all-time favorites from the past.

A couple of years ago, in the background, the TV was on and my daughters were watching some show that I usually care nothing about. The show went to commercial and I carried on with what I was doing. All of a sudden I was hit by a bolt of delicious lightning! For on the tv behind me, I was hearing a commercial for KFC’s return of the Chicken Little sandwiches!!! I bolted to the tv just to see and hear the end of that commercial that advertised the return of the greatest hand-held chicken sandwich in history. I immediately started making plans to visit my local KFC to once again dine on this fine treat. 

I was horribly disappointed when I unwrapped the precious sandwich that I had longed for many years. What is this? This isn’t a Chicken Little. What kind of sick joke are these people trying to pull here? 

You see, in the ’80s, when they were known as Kentucky Fried Chicken and not the metro-sounding KFC, they had the perfect sandwich. The original Chicken Little was the size of a common White Castle Slider or Krystal Burger. In fact, it featured the same kind of bun. It had a simple, thin chicken patty on it along with a pickle and a thin spread of mayo. It was simple. It was perfect. 

As I’ve stated before, my mother and I ate out a lot when my dad traveled. At the time these were in stores, I want to say you could pick up Chicken Littles for 3 / $1.00 or something like that, which made it a simple choice to say yes to for my mother. 

I had these little squares from heaven every couple of weeks. If she mentioned in the morning that we would be stopping by there in the evening, I would count down the minutes until I held them in my hand. But much like my disappointment with McDonald’s McPasta, I was saddened one day when I ordered my Chicken Littles and was told they were no longer available. I didn’t dwell on it though and figured they would be back one day. 

That day came several years ago, and led to the story I started this tale off with. Today’s chicken little is on a different bun, features a different cut of chicken, and is nowhere near the super cheap price you could once obtain them at. Actually, the thick piece of chicken tender on the modern version throws the taste completely off. And throw in the fact that the lettuce is usually wilted due to the heat of the chicken, it’s really not a good sandwich at all anymore. 

Just add it to the long list of junk foods we lost well before their time.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Coverage of Super Cards ’87

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Growing up in the mid-late ’80s, one of my greatest joys would come when I would go to the grocery store with my Mom and be able to pick up a new wrestling magazine.  It never mattered to me which one I got as long as I got one.  If you know anything at all about the glory days of the Apter magazines, you know that the Cadillac of wrestling magazines was Pro Wrestling Illustrated.  One reason it was considered the best was because of its full-color coverage of various events.  One of the things I really looked forward to each year was their coverage of the spring super cards like Wrestlemania. 

Well, I recently picked up some old wrestling magazines from eBay, and one of them was the Pro Wrestling Illustrated with coverage of the super cards of 1987!  After salivating over the 19 pages of greatness multiple times, I thought I would share them with the world so others who used to enjoy this stuff could relive how great it was.  So what follows is all 19 pages of PWI’s coverage of Wrestlemania 3, Crockett Cup ’87, Parade of Champions ’87, and UWF Super Blast.  Enjoy! 

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Masters of the Universe Model Kits (1984)

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I was flipping through some old comics books the other day, and came across some random title from 1984.  As I was flipping through it, I came across a bevy of kick-ass old advertisements.  These are too cool not to share, so here is the first one. 

We’re starting things off with my favorite one of the batch.  Up until I saw this, I never had any idea that Monogram made model kits of the MOTU vehicles.  I was big into model kits back in the day, and He-Man was my hero, so how this escaped me for all this time is mind-boggling.  This Talon FIghter and Attak Trak just look bad-ass, and I wonder if any of these kits could still be found on eBay? 

Yep.  A quick search pulled up an Attack Trak kit still sealed in its box for $225. 

Digging a little deeper, I also find a Roton still in its box for $92!  That seems like a steal.  The box looks a little beat up, but I’d personally be looking to pick one up to put together, not leave in the box. 

And with even more digging, I just found the Talon Fighter!  It says it’s complete and the only thing I see missing is the plastic wrap from around the box is missing.  It’s currently listed for $95.  You can click on any of the links I added to go right to the auction listings for each. 

So what say you?  Do you even remember these things?  The prices sound reasonable in today’s market?  I’m going to have to think on this for a bit. 

Excitebike for Nintendo

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ExciteBike was one of the Nintendo console’s most beloved games, and a favorite of mine too. I killed many hours with this bad boy, and for good reason….it was full of great features!  Racing on a motorcycle! Design your own tracks! Put 100 jumps in a row! This was one awesome game for those three reasons, and why it’s so fondly remembered. That and the fact that you could wreck others by coming down the track with your rear wheel in their front wheel and watch them tumble over and over down the track. With the possibility of using any combination of 19 different obstacles to design your track with, it had great replay value just in designing new courses to race. 

I was introduced to this game at my cousin’s house shortly after I got my Nintendo. I was instantly hooked and we spent several hours that night playing it.  I never actually owned the game, but several of my friends did, and a copy of it was at my house more often than not through the magic of swapping games with a friend for a period of time. This game still holds its own in the “fun factor” today against such newer and more complicated games. 

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Those Cups that Used to Come in Oatmeal

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In this edition of Retro Rambling, I want to take you back to a small slice of nostalgia for me, and that’s back when I used to drink out of those cups that used to come in oatmeal. Maybe you remember them too.

Do you remember those plastic cups that came in boxes of oatmeal?  For years upon years, I never knew this was a thing.  Mainly because I was never around when my Mom opened the new boxes of oatmeal, and also probably because we didn’t buy the brands of oatmeal that were still doing this in the ’80s. 

But even though I was totally unaware of this being a thing, I knew all about the cups, and they were favorites of mine.  How is this possible you may be asking, but sit tight and I’ll tell you how I could be at both ends of the spectrum at the same time. 

My grandmother on my Mom’s side had a lot of grandkids.  18 of us to be exact, and more times than not, there would be at least 5 or 6 at her house at any given time.  As kids do, one would get thirsty, and so that meant all of us were thirsty because Lord forbids if one of us was getting something the others weren’t.  So off to the kitchen we would go, and we all knew which glasses were for us grandkids to use.  The plastic tumblers in shades of blue, green, yellow, pink, and clear. 

I loved those little tumblers.  The design on the sides were simply little etched blocks, with each row slightly offset from the rows above and below it.  To me, they looked like little trees.  As a matter of fact, we called them tree cups.  Maybe I started that trend among my cousins, I don’t know. 

But anyway, Granny always had a lot of these tumblers around.  Partly, I believe, because she had a lot of grandkids, and partly because my Granddad ate a lot of oatmeal.  It’s the only thing I ever recall hearing of him eating for breakfast.  Ever.  Biscuits and gravy?  Nope.  Bacon and eggs?  No sir!  Just oatmeal.  So when a man eats oatmeal 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, that means you have to buy a lot of the stuff. 

That “stuff” that my grandmother bought was Crystal Wedding Oats.  Why they’re called that I have no idea, but it’s not important at the moment.  What IS important, is that every box of this oatmeal came with one of those little tumblers packed inside…in the oatmeal.  You never knew what color you were getting, so completing some kind of set could be hard if you didn’t buy much of the stuff, but that wasn’t a problem for my Grandmother.  She could have had sets of 16 in every color if it weren’t for us kids losing them. 

So I went years without knowing where those tumblers even came from.  A few years ago, one of my cousins and I were reminiscing about old days at my grandmother’s, and I brought up those little cups, and how fondly I remembered them.  Somehow I came around to asking something like, “I wonder where she got all those?”, and he proceeded to fill me in on the oatmeal box story.  I was kind of blown away actually.  Somehow I had gone my whole life and never heard of such a thing.  Then I went on to find out that some of the dishes I had eaten off of most of my childhood probably came out of boxes of powdered dish detergent, but that’s a story for another day. 

So not long after the conversation with my cousin, I was talking to a friend and related the story to him.  He knew that those tumblers came in boxes of oatmeal too, and said that his grandmother kept them out for all of her grandkids as well.  He also said that he STILL drank out of those things when he went to her house!  I kind of forgot about our conversation after that, but when I saw him a week or so later, he brought me a couple of those very same tumblers from her house!  He had related my tale to her, and she got such a kick out of it, she gave him a couple of them to bring to me, which I now proudly display in a place of honor in my own personal retro museum. 

So that’s how I could be totally unaware, and yet totally aware of their existence at the same time.  What about you?  Did you know these were a thing?