Back in the day, I loved building toys. LEGO was certainly a favorite of mine, but there was another building toy that I probably got a lot more play out of…Construx.
In 1983, Fisher-Price rolled out its newest toy creation. It was called Construx and was possibly the most versatile building/construction toy since the Erector Set. It featured plastic beams in various lengths, multi-directional connectors, plates, axles, wheels, pulleys, and much more. What you could make with Construx was really only limited to your imagination.
Besides Lego, Construx was the greatest building toy that I ever laid hands-on, and in some ways, it surpassed Lego. The size of the pieces and the way they were designed allowed for larger projects than Lego could handle, which allowed for such projects as bridges, buildings, and any other thing you could dream up. These were awesome if you had a fertile imagination…which my brother and I did, and we used our Construx to build gooseneck trailers for our Tonka trucks to pull along, forklifts to load those trailers, and a host of other equipment to be used with them.
The first set that I had was the Bridges and Tower set that came out in 1983. I remember it not being exactly easy to follow the directions and complete the build, but not so hard that I had to have help with them either. I just had to take a little longer than my older brother did to complete it. But when it was done, oh my was it ever a fun thing to play with. He and I ended up using those Construx bridges to enhance the fun in our G.I. Joe adventures. As a matter of fact, just about everything we built with the Construx was to play with some other toy line we had. Rarely did we build anything just for the sake of playing with the Construx. I would put together swords and ninja stars when I would watch a martial arts movie and then let my imagination run wild. I would use them to construct obstacle courses and run my G.I. Joe men through their paces trying to re-enact the latest episode of American Gladiators. We used them to build tunnels and other things to go along with our Hotwheels fun.
My cousin and I would have frequent sleepovers, and Construx was usually at the center of our play. We’d make armor and weapons and battle it out, usually as He-Man vs. Skeletor. We’d use them to make swords, daggers, and ninja stars and stalk each other through the dark house late at night. We’d each spend time making a rolling vehicle of some kind loaded with “weapons”, and then battle it out.
But my fondest memory of them would be the time I used them to build a scaffold. It was 1986, and The Road Warriors and The Midnight Express had just wrestled in a scaffold match at Starrcade 86, and I just had to re-create that. Years earlier, my father made me a wrestling ring, and I spent hours pitting my G.I. Joe men against one another in combat, pro-wrestling style. I even gave them cool wrestling names and all. So I used the Construx to build a scaffold over my toy ring and used it from then on to settle the most intense feuds to ever take place in my room. In the photo below is a scale model of the scaffold I used to build. I put this one together just for this article. It’s not as long, nor as tall as the one I used to build. But I don’t have enough pieces these days to make an exact replica.
In later years, the Construx line produced some Space themed sets with glow-in-the-dark pieces. We had those as well but mainly used them for what they were intended in the Space theme. But it was cool to take some of the glow-in-the-dark pieces and use them to make flashlights to use on sleepovers. Construx were so versatile a toy, I think they could hit the market today and be a hit all over again. Of course, Mattel took over the line in 1997 and tried to re-establish the line without much success. I think they were fairly popular in their own right during their original run, but Lego had the market cornered, and Construx just didn’t make it. Sad. It was one fine construction-based toy line, and I’m grateful I had the opportunity to enjoy it. It was a role-player. A solid backup. It enhanced the play of so many other toys in my collection, I would put Construx in the Toy Hall of Fame just for that.
Ever since I was young, I’ve enjoyed comic books. Although I’ve never been a hardcore comics buyer or reader, I have dabbled in them from time to time, and my collection has expanded and retracted a lot through the years.
In the beginning, my older brother had a large collection of comic books that were kept under a table on our carport in the house I grew up in. During the summer months, I would pull out random issues and read through them. In his large pile of comics, there were superhero comics like Justice League America, Superfriends, Unknown Soldier, Sgt. Rock, Fantastic Four, Batman, and Incredible Hulk. There were the more kid-friendly books too like Richie Rich and Uncle Scrooge comics. And then there was also a nice little selection of Cracked and Mad Magazines to enjoy as well.
Rainy days were whiled away kicked back on a sofa we had on the carport, watching and listening to it rain and reading issue after issue. Since they were kept in the carport, they ended up drawing moisture, and thus any monetary value they had vanished. But that didn’t matter to me. What mattered was the content inside.
We eventually let my Uncle come and take them all away when we were moving to a new house. I never saw any of those old issues again, and when we arrived at the new house, I no longer had any comic books to read.
Eventually, I was turned on to the joys of reading Archie Comics. During the summers, the family would travel with my old man on his business trips, and on one trip somewhere, my mom picked up an Archie Comics digest to kill time while riding. Once she was done with it, she passed it back and I settled into the back seat and blew through the whole thing and loved it.
The characters of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, and Reggie populated a fun world that was filled with great supporting characters like Moose, Midge, Dilton, Josie, Big Ethel, and others. I soon found myself spending allowance money on new issues of the Digests and Double Digests of the Archie world, but it wasn’t long before a superhero comic once again caught my eye.
While at the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store on a weekly shopping trip with Mom, an issue of Green Lantern caught my eye. Now there was nothing really grabbing about this book, but the local grocery store was never known for its variety of comic books on the rack. In most cases, there were usually only 4 or 5 titles to choose from each week. I had been a fan of Green Lantern since the Superfriends cartoons, so I picked up this issue of Emerald Dawn #5. Unfortunately, I had no point of reference to the story since I picked up the 5th issue from a 6-issue mini-series.
Even though I had no clue what was going on in the story, I went back and picked up the 6th issue the following month. To this day, I’m a fan of Green Lantern and have picked up a lot of GL comics through the years when I’ve been back on the collecting wagon or was intrigued by different storylines. But again, nothing about this particular story or issue begged me to buy it. It was just there among the few other titles available, and it was the best pick of the bunch I guess.
I didn’t really pick up many more comics from that point on for a while. FOr a long time, I had spent my weekly allowance on wrestling magazines, and I went back to ready those. That is unntil the hype surrounding the Death of Superman storyline came out.
The Death of Superman was one of the biggest storyline events in the history of comic books. The hype surrounding it was unreal, and thus, the first print copies of Superman #75 sold out in record time. My brother had an interest in picking up the issue as a collector’s issue, and I had an interest in reading it.
He took me to a local comic book and card store to pick up a copy, but they were already sold out. The dealer told us he would be getting more copies in and we should keep checking back. We went back every few days to see if he had gotten any in. My brother kept getting disappointed, but I just kept seeing more and more cool comics to pick up that I hadn’t seen before.
While he nor I was able to get a copy of Superman #75, I did get a chance to read a copy at school. I was hooked. Then I started actively seeking out the follow-up issues that DC Comics labeled collectively as “Funeral For a Friend”, and the follow-up to that, “Reign of the Supermen”. I wasn’t picking those issues up from a collector’s perspective, but rather I was really into the story. I eventually continued on with the Superman family of books beyond the whole saga for quite a while and really enjoyed being immersed in the world of all things Metropolis through the various titles.
Before the whole Death of Superman saga was complete, it was Batman’s turn to be put through the wringer, as the Knighfall storyline was starting up. You remember the story right? When Batman got his back broken, someone else had to take over, and when Bruce Wayne was eventually healthy enough again he returned and had to reclaim the mantle of Batman. It was another huge storyline, and another one I was all in on. Between this and the Superman storyline, I was a comic book fiend.
Another contributing factor to my fandom at the time was a title I saw while visiting that little comic and card shop trying to get a copy of Superman #75. That title was Wizard Magazine.
The issue that was out at that time was #17. There was really nothing special about the issue, but I was hooked on the contents of this magazine from the beginning. I could see all of the comics that were currently on the market and the ones set to come out. I could read details on various comic events, and also learn the histories of various characters and stories through the years. It was also where I first learned about Valiant Comics and Image comics. Neither of which I ever picked up issues from, but it was fun to keep up with the goings-on in the offerings from those companies. From then on, I picked up every new issue and would read it from cover to cover within a week of getting it.
I was turned on to several characters and storylines that I liked, and my friend Geoffrey and I would get on the phone and discuss the cool-looking issues that were coming out, and just talk about comic books in general that we were learning about from reading Wizard every month.
This seems like a good time for a little sidebar in here. If you were a fan of Wizard magazine back in the day, or just comic books in the ’90s in general, you owe it to yourself to check out the podcast, Wizards: The Podcast Guide to Comics. It’s hosted by my good friend Adam and is part of The Retro Network’s universe of nostalgia-themed podcasts. In each episode, Adam and his co-hosts go through an issue of Wizard magazine and talk about everything between its covers. There’s tons of great discussion on comic books of that era, the regular features found each month in the magazine. In addition to that, Adam also does special issues where he interviews various writers and editors that worked on the magazine through the years. You can even hear me on a special episode discussing the Death of Superman storyline!
Now back to the story…that little old comic book shop went out of business at the tail end of the speculator market, but I had the opportunity to pick up a good many books there, some of which I still have in my collection. I’ve never stopped reading comics since picking them up all those years ago. I still read the occasional Superman title, but Batman took over the spot as my favorite years ago. Today, I like to go back to that era and read these issues over again, and also finally check out books I missed back then through the DC Universe Infinite and Marvel Universe apps.
So that’s how fell into comic books, and why now I’m a huge fan of superheroes in all mediums. But what about you? Do you enjoy comics? If so, how did you get into them? What was the first comic you read? Tell me about it in the comments section below and we’ll reminisce together.
You know how I am when it comes to old junk food…it’s something I’m always willing to talk about! I may miss more old foods than most of you, but I can’t help it. I grew up eating some of the worst stuff you can put into your body, and I loved every bit of it. Today, I’m going to spend a little time talking about a place that was near and dear to my heart in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Wendys…and some of the things I miss most about it.
As I’ve mentioned many times before, when my old man would come home each weekend from working out of town, he would always take the family out to eat on Friday or Saturday night. Places like Western Steer and Bonanza were frequent favorites, Pizza Hut was a stop we’d make on occasion, and when we weren’t going to one of those places, the destination was Wendy’s. My Dad liked Wendy’s hamburgers more than other fast food places, and when they introduced the Super Bar, Wendy’s shot up his list even more. So it’s fair to say that I visited Wendy’s a lot in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the major differences between now and then.
I Miss Dave Thomas Doing the Commercials
So first up, let’s take a look at what brings an establishment to people’s attention, and makes them want to visit in the first place…the television commercials advertising the place or products. For years, Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas was a fixture in commercials for his chain. He looked like he could be your own grandpa, and put forth a welcoming personality that didn’t feel like he was starring in an over-produced commercial, but rather inviting you to dinner at his place.
Whether Dave had any hand in the new products that were created, he certainly made each and every one of them he pitched in a commercial feel like it was his own creation. The conviction with which he talked about the new product certainly made it seem like everything unfolded just like the commercial showed…with Dave in a kitchen somewhere whipping up something new and delicious.
Wendy’s commercials over the last 10-20 years have been lacking that “personal” touch that Dave just seemed able to bring. I can tell you that as a kid when a Wendy’s commercial came on with Dave pitching a new product, I was paying attention. And more times than not, I would give them a try.
Most of the time, we get someone trying to come across as hip and modern, but the commercials focus more on trying to be funny (and failing), than getting the vibe across to the viewer what the core values of the restaurant are. That core value back in Dave Thomas’ day was his philosophy of making good, old-fashioned hamburgers and chicken sandwiches. We just need more of that in this world.
I Miss Their Old Tables
One of the coolest features in the old school Wendy’s locations were the tables that featured printed pages from old Sear’s catalogs from the early 1900s. While dining there as a kid, I would marvel at the antique products featured on the table while I chowed down on my burger and fries. I guess you could say I was into retro and nostalgia long before I was old enough to even understand the concept.
These days, they’ve joined the rest of the fast-food profiteers by using plain-looking, boring tables. The next time you’re in a Wendy’s, try to look at the table for more than five seconds without looking away. You can’t. Of course these days, everyone is so busy staring at their phone screens, that even if they still had those old tables, I doubt anyone would even notice. But back in the days before cell phones, those tables gave you something to enjoy while waiting on your parents to bring the food to the table, and while enjoying their many fine offerings.
I Miss Their Old French Fries
This one saddens me a great deal. I was a huge fan of their original french fries for years. They were thicker than the fries at McDonald’s or Burger King, a little less crispy, but fluffier in the middle, and so good. They tasted like french fries we used to make at home. Being that they tasted homemade, they fit perfectly alongside their old-fashioned hamburgers and chicken sandwiches.
Sometime in the early 2000s, they switched to Natural-Cut Fries with Sea Salt. They made the change around the time that sea salt was the new hot thing, and never reverted back. Their fries of today always taste a little burnt to me. They are thinner, the ends are crisper, and they just aren’t a great-tasting french fry in my opinion. The loss of the thicker french fry meant less surface area for the Frosty to stick to when dipping.
I Miss The Biggie Size
Now I’m all for health-conscious eating, but if you’re going to Wendy’s, you know what you’re in for. So why take away the iconic “Biggie” size? Those who don’t want it, don’t have to order it. But for those of us who do, it’s no longer available. Their Biggie Sweet Tea was awesome, and being able to upgrade your large fries to Biggie size should be protected under the “Freedom of Choice” provision in the United States Constitution.
When the fries were as good as they used to be back in their glory days, a large order of them sometimes just wasn’t enough. Especially if you were dipping them in a Frosty. Which, if you never tried that, you’ve not been living your best life. Of all the things on this list, being able to order a Biggie size order of fries and dip every single one of them into a chocolate frosty ranks with all of them.
I Miss the Original Taco Salad
On the weekends when my Dad wasn’t able to come home, my Mom and I would go out on Saturday afternoon and eat at either McDonald’s or Wendy’s. When it was Wendy’s, that meant it was Taco Salad for lunch. It’s what she liked, so it’s what I got as well so we could enjoy the same thing.
The Taco Salad was unique but quite simple. You got a platter of lettuce with some diced tomatoes, a cup of their chili to pour over that, some shredded cheddar cheese and some taco sauce for topping, and a small bag of taco chips to enjoy with it. We would mix them up and talk as we ate, and I have a lot of fond memories attached to the classic Taco Salad.
About 15 years ago, they decided to change it. No longer were there taco chips…they were replaced with tortilla strips. The pack of taco sauce was replaced with salsa. The diced tomatoes went away. Their sales of the Taco Salad also went away. Once again, they tried to “modernize” one of their menu offerings and appeal to a small segment of the market with what they considered a “fancier” version. There was never anything wrong with the original version, but they gave it the ax anyway.
Just a couple of years ago, they reversed course and redesigned the Taco Salad once again. It’s closer to what it was back in the old days, but still not quite there. The taco chips are back, but you still get salsa instead of taco sauce. And the main dish is smaller. That’s probably more a result of modern finance than anything, but to me, it still keeps it from being like it was.
I Miss The SuperBar
Of all the things Wendy’s tried through the years, the Superbar was the idea that I liked the most. It was a set of three food bars that expanded their dine-in options several times over and was a big hit. One bar was a salad bar, with normal salad bar options, as well as some jello and pudding for dessert. The next bar was the Mexican Fiesta bar, which had all the things you needed to make tacos and burritos like chili, seasoned beef, shredded cheese, melted nacho cheese, taco shells, and soft tortillas. The third bar was the Pasta Bar which featured spaghetti noodles, fettuccine noodles, spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce, and garlic bread that was made by flattening and grilling their hamburger buns with garlic salt and butter. It was delicious.
While the SuperBar as it was presented was just fine like it was, 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’m not sure 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 consumed 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 order while they had it in their stores. A lot of Friday or Saturday nights were spent eating from it while talking and laughing as a family before we would hit the department stores in town where Mom would do her shopping for the week. To me, 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 the 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 stop me from sorely missing it.
So there you have several things I miss about Wendy’s from “the old days”. While I do miss the things above, I know it’s more the nostalgia of it all…enjoying the times with my family, and how those Friday and Saturday nights were just so much fun for me at that age. It’s a period of time that can’t be recaptured, much the same as everything else I reminisce about here on the blog.
If you’ve got fond memories of any of this old Wendy’s stuff, or are nostalgic for other things I didn’t bring up, I’d love to hear your memories and stories in the comments. Hit me up and we’ll grieve together.
The other day, I was reading through the great book, Wrestling at the Chase: The Inside Story of Sam Muchnick and the Legends of Professional Wrestling, and I realized something. I realized I miss the gold old days of pro wrestling. I miss when guys like Dusty Rhodes were at the top of the sport. The bygone era when guys who didn’t look like your typical star could still get a chance to shine. Guys like Terry Gordy, Big Bubba Rogers, “Playboy” Buddy Rose, and numerous others were on top because they were the best at what they did. Days when having a great muscled-up physique didn’t automatically make you a star. In short, I miss fat pro wrestlers.
Back in the days when wrestlers earned their checks by how many tickets they sold, the emphasis wasn’t so much on looks. It was a combination of their actual skill in the ring, along with their charisma out of it. If they could use their words to rile the fans up to the point that they would buy a ticket to see him get his butt kicked, that was enough. If he was good enough in the ring to make the fans believe what they were seeing, that was enough. Looks were just a bonus. Some of my favorite wrestlers would never be offered a cover spot on a men’s magazine, but they sure could make you believe they would whip the ass of whoever DID appear on the cover.
I use the term “fat wrestlers” loosely here. I’m not just talking about fat guys, I’m talking about guys who just don’t fit the “fitness” profile that you see with most guys in the ring today. Guys like Arn Anderson may not have gotten a chance in today’s wrestling world because he was not muscled up, and didn’t have six-pack abs, but he could talk, he could express emotion, and he knew how to tie guys up in a pretzel to get his point across.
You turn on WWE programming today, and you’re sure to find plenty of guys that are ripped and look like they’ve stepped straight off the pages of Muscle and Fitness. What you won’t find, however, are guys wrestling who looks like your dad, or the tough guy down the street who works on cars.
The loss of the average looking, but the tough son of a gun, in favor of hiring muscle-bound freaks who sometimes have trouble with the basic concepts of wrestling, has hurt the suspension of disbelief of wrestling to a degree. I want to see a guy who looks like my uncle fighting a guy who looks like your uncle.
A lot of the best wrestlers to ever come along were great examples of what I’m talking about. Mick Foley never looked too imposing physically, but because he knew how to connect with the fans through his interview style, and his brutal style in the ring, you always knew he was a threat. He didn’t have to rely on being muscled up with baby oil dripping off of him to become a star.
Take Phil Hickerson as an example. Phil spent a lot of his career wrestling in the Memphis area. While he certainly didn’t look like a star by today’s standards, he was one tough son of a gun and you had no problem believing what he did was real. Above is a video to help get my point across, and if you’ve never seen many of these guys I’ve mentioned, I urge you to search out footage of them and see just how some of these less than stellar looking athletes were some of the better workers in the business. And as a special bonus in that video, the two muscled-up chumps Phil was beating on here grew up to be Sting and The Ultimate Warrior.
Growing up in the ’80s and early ’90s, Hot Wheels, and Matchbox cars were a big part of my playtime. Both lines produced a lot of really fun cars and playsets, and in this edition of Retro Ramblings, I’m sharing a few of my favorite toys from the Matchbox side of things through the years.
Matchbox Super Spin Car Wash
After a long day of play in the dirt and mud of the hills around our house, a good car wash was just what the cars and trucks needed. This car wash was kind of automatic…as in you had to get the car in the wash and then turn a crank and it would go all the way through. It featured real water jets, a foam roller “scrub” brush, and a spin dry feature. The perfect play set for getting all of your cars clean before packing them away for another day.
Watch the commercial for the Matchbox Super Spin Car Wash HERE
Days of Thunder Cars from Hardees
In 1990, Jerry Bruckheimer’s Days of Thunder movie starring Tom Cruise hit theaters to a great reaction, and merchandise based on the movie started to flow. One of the better pieces of merchandise to come along were the replica cars from Hardees based on the stock cars from the movie. The five main cars featured in the movie were in the set, which allowed us younger viewers of the film to recreate all the action at home.
Matchbox Cars Based on the Code Red Television Show
In 1981, CBS debuted the little-remembered Code Red TV Show. It featured Lorne Green as the Father of a firefighting family in Los Angeles and the Chief of one of the many stations in the city. The show only lasted one season, but Matchbox produced a series of cars featuring the iconic vehicles from the show. There were two fire trucks, the Chief’s car, motorcycle, fireboat, helicopter, ambulance, and police car. As a kid whose Dad was a fireman, this set was one of my absolute favorite toys to play with in the ’80s.
Matchbox Connectables
One of the cooler concepts that came along in the 80’s toy landscape were these Connectables cars from Matchbox. Each car was in at least two pieces and connected in the middle. This allowed you to interchange parts of different vehicles to create all new cars and trucks to play with. There were also packs of other car parts available so you could even extend the new cars into total monstrosities if you wanted to! You could make a big rig limo or a drag car with tank treads! With these cars, you could take your imagination and play to a whole other level.
Check out the commercial for Matchbox Connectables here.
Matchbox Trains
Matchbox released a series of train cars in the early ’80s to go along with all of their already awesome car collection. There were various engines in different colors, along with box cars, passenger cars, flat cars, and cabooses. The really fun aspect of this series was you could hook any of the cars to any of the other cars, meaning you could make many different configurations with varying train cars. They weren’t exactly in scale with the rest of the line, as they were each about the size of one of their normal cars. I used to love these things! My brother and I would hook all of ours together and make an imaginary track all through the house. We could get hours and hours of fun out of these trains.
So what about you? Did you have any of these awesome Matchbox toys? Did I leave out your favorite Matchbox toy? Tell me in the comments!
