This isn't Goodbye.

Many of you have noticed that my posts here on 20 Years Before 2000 have not been as frequent as they used to be. It's not that I've lost my love for retro goodness or that I've lost my passion to write about the good ole days, it's just that life has been getting busier as my family grows and I find less and less time to give to this site. I can't believe it's been about 7 years, over 1,000 posts and hundreds of thousands of views since I started this! I've met some great people and I will continue to add more, but it will just be sporadic or if something truly amazing happens to me or the retro community. I thank you all for your support and as the title of this post states, This isn't goodbye...

Discontinued Candy I Want Back: Part II!

I don't know about you but there are just certain things in life that can bring back strong nostalgia and make those memories of the good old days flood back to you. Certain smells, beats & lyrics from a favorite song or tastes of a favorite food or drink can make those good times come back if not only for a quick minute. For me certain candies can transport me back to my childhood in the 80's & 90's. Fortunately for us, a lot of those candies are still around, but in some instances they have been discontinued and we will never experience them again! If I owned my own candy company, these are even more of the sugary treats I would like to revive...

Sparkle Laffy Taffy

I remember discovering Sparkle Cherry Laffy Taffy back in the 90's. The flavor was typical cherry flavor, but inside the taffy were these small crunchy sparkle candies. I like Laffy Taffy, but the little crunch added so much to the experience. After doing a little searching, I found out that this unique form of Laffy Taffy can still be had! Places like Walmart & Kmart have the product listed on their sites, but are currently out of stock, but I did find a candy website where it is still for sale! If you want to try this off shoot of the beloved Laffy Taffy brand by Wonka, you can buy one for $1.99 at CandyDistrict.com.

Topps Character Candy Heads

What kid growing up in the 80's/90's didn't have one of these? It seemed like any movie or cartoon that was even remotely of interest to kids had a Topps Candy Head container on the impulse buy shelves at grocery stores, toy stores or corner markets. They were filled with small fruit flavored hard candies and ranged from Ninja Turtles to Alf to Star Wars! I remember playing down by the creek that ran through my old neighborhood with my sister's Gizmo candy head. I accidentally dropped it into the water and immediately panicked because I knew my sister would be crazy angry with me! I jumped into the flowing water as Gizmo was being dragged away by the current, shoes and all. I was able to rescue Gizmo. I was soaked from head to toe, but I avoided the wrath of my older sister!

Neon Bandits

Does anyone remember these candies from the early/mid 90's? They came out around the time Warheads were the hottest candies on the market. I remember they had a sour taste and came in a variety of flavors. It has been decades since I had one of these, but I remember part of the gimmick was that they would turn your mouth the same color of the candy. Each package had a different cartoon character on the front to coincide with the flavor of candy. I liked them, but nothing could take my loyalty away from Warheads. Speaking of Warheads...does anyone else remember the hot Warheads flavors that came out in the early 90's? 

Topps Juice Bar Bubble Gum

If you had this gum on the schoolyards of the 80's, you were the man! Everyone wanted just a single pellet of this delicious gum. Each box opened like a real carton of juice and poured out small nuggets of fruit flavored gum. The gum was delicious, but just like Fruit Stripe Gum, the flavor lasted all of 30 seconds. That fact never detracted kids from picking these tiny boxes of wonderful from the candy store though. My favorite was the Grape Juice flavor followed closely by Pink Lemonade! They really need to bring this gum back!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutagen Candy Chew

That title is a mouthful, but these things were delicious! These Mutagen bars were neon green colored and had the consistency of taffy with a lime flavor to it. These were once again released around the same time as the TMNT movies were hitting theaters during the height of Turtlemania! I believe this was another KB Toys front register impulse buy. Why haven't more candy companies taken advantage of the TMNT Ooze connection. I would buy those like crazy!

LaVie Fruit Drops

These candies were delicious! They were never my main pick when my family would hit up the store, but my Mom always seemed to have a tin of these in her purse. They came in various flavors like Orange, Cherry, Strawberry & Lemon. Since I always had that connection to my Mom, these candies were more of a grown up way to enjoy candy. They came in different shapes based on the flavor you chose and had a sort of powdered sugar outer coating that added to the flavor. It seems these have been discontinued in the US, but may be available in other countries to this day!

Butterfinger BBs

These mini "popable" versions of Nestle's Butterfinger Bars actually lasted for a long time on market shelves. They were introduced in 1992 with an amazing marketing campaign that featured the uber popular Simpsons characters and they were discontinued in 2006. That's actually a pretty long life span for a spin off candy! I liked these because you got all the flavor of a Butterfinger Bar, but you didn't have to deal with the melting. You could pop a few in your mouth and throw the rest back into your back pack for future snacking. Of course the addition of Bart & Homer didn't hurt at all. In 2009 Nestle introduced the Butterfinger Mini Bites that were supposed to be an update of the BBs brand, but they just don't taste the same. Below you can find some examples of this marketing wonder...ENJOY!!!

Kool-Aid & Mutants!

 
A few weeks ago I was placing an online order at the Midtown Comics website and decided to search for some Kool-Aid Man comics. The search came up empty for Kool-Aid Man, but something did pop up. It was an X-Men comic that had the subtitle "w/ Kool-Aid". At first I wasn't sure what that meant, but then I remembered that back in the 90's Marvel comics did a promotion with Kool-Aid where packets of the flavorful sugary drink were included in select Marvel titles. This must have been one of them! I put it in my shopping cart and about a week later the comics arrived!

Inside the X-Men book was this Kool-Aid ad for their new Island Twists drinks. Flavors in this new line-up included Kickin' Kiwi Lime, Man-O-Mango Berry, Oh Yeah! Orange Pineapple and Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade.

The flavor I received was Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi! I can honestly say that I don't ever remember tasting this twisted flavor back in the 90's, but the packaging alone takes me back to those hot summer days riding bikes with a water bottle full of Kool-Aid! Great stuff that I stumbled upon by chance. There were some other great ads included in this X-Men issue that I would like to share with you below. Scroll down and take a quick trip back to 1995!

Cereal ads, candy craziness, a Marvel house ad featuring Domino and of course The Simpsons. This truly is a time capsule of the era. Even the cover of the X-Men book includes an M.C. Hammer "Can't Touch This" pun! I hope you enjoyed checking out some old ads, below you can view the vintage commercial promoting Kool-Aid's new Island Twist flavors. ENJOY!

More Holiday Christmas Comic Covers!

I still love collecting comic books and I will always love the holiday season. So when it comes to comic books with special holiday stories or variant covers, you can almost bet that I will pick those up. I was going through some of my long boxes of books again this past weekend and pulled out these issues just to show you some of the cheer that can be found inside the pages of these heart warming graphic novels. Can't wait to read some new stories this year! So let's visit with the Ghost of Christmas past and take a look at some of these classic holiday covers from the days of yore! ENJOY!

It Came From The Closet! PART II

Jedi Mickey Windu

While stuck home during quarantine, one of the things my wife asked me to do is to clean out the back basement closet. When we had our kids a lot of my things were packed up and stored in this closet to make room for their stuff. I gotta say, even though cleaning sucks, it was fun to uncover some of these items that I haven't seen in years. One such item was this sketch of Mickey Mouse as a Jedi that I bought in a store at Downtown Disney in Orlando Florida. I chose this drawing because Mickey is wielding the bad-ass light saber of Mace Windu. This amazing art was done by Disney artist Monica Willis in 2006. I would love to have it framed and put on my wall.

 Kazaam on VHS

Not too much to say about this one. I bought it for a quarter at a thrift store and I've heard nothing but terrible things about the movie, but I can't see how a movie about a 7 foot rapping genie could be all that bad. Soon I will have to watch it with the kids and find out for myself. The movie almost made back it's 20 million dollar budget and features an appearance from Efren Ramirez aka Pedro, so it has that going for it!

 Tiny "Zeus" Lister Autograph

I had the chance to meet Mr. Lister (hey, that rhymes!) at the Chiller Theater convention in NJ around 2005. He was very cool and took the time to take photos, sign pictures and chat with each person who stopped by his table...all for a price, but still a nice guy from one of my favorite 90s movies "Friday"! Gotta get this back on the wall in the basement!

Whiz-Kid

I loved this toy as a kid. It came out in the early 80s and was, if I remember correctly, my first real exposure to anything that resembled a computer. The Whiz-Kid came with cartridges that you would insert into the toy and each cartridge contained around 50 games that could be unlocked by using the corresponding cards that came with the cartridge. Most of these were educational games that included math, spelling and shape & color recognition. I found this Whiz-Kid at a second hand store for around $5 and believe me it was well worth it. The sound this machine makes when you get a correct answer took me back decades and my kids also had fun plating with it too. Love this thing!

Bart Simpson from Burger King

These dolls were released in 1990 as a special premium at Burger King restaurants. For a mere $3.49 you could own either Homer, Bart, Lisa, Maggie or Marge...of course with the purchase of fries or the new BK mini-muffins. When I was a kid we owned the Bart & Homer dolls, so when I found this in package specimen at a local Goodwill for $2, I grabbed it! That's less than what it cost in 1990! Love the early 90s Simpsons stuff, brings back great memories of Simpson-mania! Below is a commercial from this legendary fast food promotion, ENJOY!

If you would like to see what was found in "It Came From The Closet! Part I" click HERE.

My Old Sticker Book: Part 3

While visiting my family back in New Jersey this past October, I took it upon myself to wander into my Mom's attic to see if some of my old stuff was still up there. To my surprise, she had not thrown anything out! So away I went, searching through bins and boxes looking for things that I could take back with me or at least get pictures of to share with you guys. One of the things that was uncovered was my old sticker album. Let's stop this chit-chat and continue with part 3, which will be the final look at these old stickers...shall we?

 Nintendo Puffy Stickers

Puffy stickers were AWESOME and these are no exception. I really dig the old school Mario, Zelda and Punch Out artwork. Look at King Koopa from the early days of Nintendo. One could argue he is even more cool looking than the version we have today!

 Random Holiday Stickers

The vast majority of the stickers on this page were compiled from stickers that were placed on worksheets or tests that I did well on. Teachers used to spoil us with neat stickers when we did well back in the day. Now when my kids come home with good grades they get drawn on smiley faces or stars. Appreciated, but not as exciting as stickers!

 Ghostbusters II and Skateboard Candy Stickers

The top Ghostbusters II logo sticker came from a Troll book order. It was rare that we got to order from these school issued order forms, but I'm sure I convinced my Mom to get something, just so I could get the free Ghostbusters II sticker. I am trying to remember, but I think the smaller stickers on this page came from a candy in the 90s that had a skateboard shaped container? I believe it came with these stickers so you could customize it your way. I may be totally wrong on this one, so please feel free to correct me in the comments below!

Simpsons Stickers

Here are more Simpsons stickers from the same trip to Showbiz Pizza with our Aunt. They are fantastic and remind me of a time when the Simpsons was still fresh, funny and new.

 Ninja Turtles Prism Stickers

Speaking of that epic trip to Showbiz Pizza...here are the real winners from the sticker machine. Yes me and my brother got rolls of quarters to play games and remember I told you in the last post that we spent the majority of that money on a single game? Well that game was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Game! We plunked down quarters while kids watched over our shoulders until we defeated the Shredder and became local legends! Then the remaining quarters went to stickers, glorious prismatic TMNT stickers!

 Random Stickers Page

The stickers on this page are represented by a sweepstakes Ace card, Dinosaur stickers, an extra TMNT metallic machine sticker from the A&P supermarket and a freakin' Rude Dog Sticker! This Rude Dog sticker came with some shirts my Mom had bought us and lived on our bed headboards for a while until I decided to rip it off and post it into this book for posterity! So glad I did that so I can share it with you today!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sticker Sheets and Bookmark

Yes, that is my original sticker sheet that came with my Mondo Gecko action figure back in the early 90s. His skateboard already came with the skull sticker on it, so I saw no need to add anymore. The other sticker sheets, I can't really remember where they came from, but there are 3 sheets still in the pack. Finally, the bookmark was actually supposed to be a gift for my brother, but I decided to keep it for myself. I just couldn't give away this great piece of TMNT merchandise!

Well, that's it! We are done taking a look at this sticker book and let me tell you, it was AMAZING to relive all the memories that came from these colorful pieces of my childhood. Thank you for taking this journey with me, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. See you next week with something non sticker related!

My Old Sticker Book: Part 2

While visiting my family back in New Jersey this past October, I took it upon myself to wander into my Mom's attic to see if some of my old stuff was still up there. To my surprise, she had not thrown anything out! So away I went, searching through bins and boxes looking for things that I could take back with me or at least get pictures of to share with you guys. One of the things that was uncovered was my old sticker album. Let's stop this chit-chat and continue with part 2 of this look at old stickers...shall we?

 Vending Machine Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Stickers (Page 2)

Looking back now, I think me and my brother may completed the whole set of the metallic Turtles stickers? We got all the characters available to us, but we wanted to collect both the Silver & Gold versions. Even back then I was a hardcore completist! Also, if you look to the bottom left corner of the page you'll see the sticker that was included with the TMNT movie soundtrack tape that I purchased in 1990 when I was 10!

Simpsons Stickers

I remember getting these stickers while me and my brother were being baby sat by our Aunt. She took us to a Showbiz Pizza in NY and gave each of us several rolls of quarters. Most of the money was spent on one video game and the rest was spent on the shiny Simpsons stickers you see above. The Lisa and Marge stickers at the bottom of the page were taken off of a few sports disks we won at the fair. They were carefully removed and placed lovingly in this book for generations to enjoy.

 Batman Stickers

These stickers, like a majority of the stickers in this book, came from a vending machine at our local A&P grocery store. My Mom would have to take us when she did the shopping and if we were good, we got to chose a machine prize as our reward. I vividly remember spotting that Batman logo sticker on the ground of the parking lot at the A&P and picking it up for myself. It looked like it had been run over a few times, but hey, Batman was huge back then and it had to be mine!

Topps Ghostbusters II and Desert Adventure Stickers

The Ghostbusters II stickers came from packs of Topps Ghostbusters II cards, but the Desert Adventure stickers were given to me by my 4th grade teacher as a reward for helping tutor another student in English. She wanted to give me a Charms Blow Pop, but I wasn't having it, I wanted those stickers!

More Nintendo Stickers

These all came from random places. Some from friends, some from vending machines and some were bought. Those Mario vending stickers are pretty cool though as they included a scratch off Tic-Tac-Toe game. Looks like I won one and lost the other.

Darkwing Duck Sticker Sheet

Included in the sticker album were a few sheets of unstuck stickers. One of those sheets was of Darkwing Duck. I believe these were given out to subscribers of Disney Adventures Magazine as part of a "Thank You" pack that came with your first issue? Not sure on that one, but I am sure that Darkwing Duck was AWESOME!

That's it for Part 2 of a look through my old sticker book. Stay tuned for Part 3, coming next week!

Holiday Christmas Comic Covers!

I love collecting comic books and I love the holiday season. So when it comes to comic books with special holiday stories or variant covers, you can almost bet that I will pick those up. I was going through some of my long boxes of books this past weekend and pulled out these issues just to show you some of the cheer that can be found inside the pages of these heart warming graphic novels. Can't wait to read some new stories this year! So let's visit with the Ghost of Christmas past and take a look at some of these classic holiday covers from the days of yore! ENJOY!