Wishing everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS from all of us at 20 Years Before 2000! Hope it's full of great food, cups of cheer, awesome gifts from Santa and tolerable family appearances! Can't wait to see what 2023 brings to the table. Whatever it is...we'll be ready! As a gift to you, please enjoy some shots of Christmas' past below! Ho-Ho-Ho!!!!
A few weeks ago I met up with a friend as we went on the hunt for retro treasure at one of our local antique malls. I enjoy going to these kinds of stores, because you'll never know what you're going to find. Most of the time the cool stuff that I like is way over priced, but it's cool to know it's out there if I really want it. There were a ton of booths to go through. Some of them did have some great stuff, but nothing that I really collected. Below are some of the items we found this time around.
Ms. Pac-Man Coleco Tabletop Arcade Game: $175
I love these tabletop games! When I was younger I always admired the collection that my cousin had. He would rarely let us play them, but when he did, it was an amazing experience. My favorite of the tabletop games that he had was Mario's Cement Factory. I'm still on the lookout for one of those machines for an affordable price. Speaking of price $175 for this Ms. Pac-Man with the box and paperwork is actually a fair deal. I've seen these go for twice that price in worse condition. If I were a richer man, this would have come home with me!
Dave Stevens Autographed Art: $75
Dave Stevens is most well known as the creator of The Rocketeer. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 52 after a battle with leukemia. He had such a distinct style that is immediately recognizable. At $75, this autographed piece of comic art titled "Hot Cargo" is a steal! I should go back and grab it before someone else comes to their senses and adds it to their collection!
Nestle Crunch/Upper Deck Slam Dunk Bar: $5
I was an avid collector of basketball cards in my youth, but I don't ever recall seeing these sold in stores. If I had, I know I would have bought them in bulk. Each pack contains a special "Slam Dunk" Nestle Crunch Bar and 4 Upper Deck basketball cards. The cards highlight some of the best dunkers of the era like Michael Jordan, Shawn Kemp and Isaiah Rider. This is an item that I did pick up and I'll show you what was inside in a future post.
Vintage Lunchboxes: $15 - $50
I love old lunchboxes and these ones especially. I had those Real Ghostbusters and Super Mario Bros. lunchboxes when I was in grade school and they were well used and well loved. I may still have them somewhere at my Mom's house, but they are nowhere near as clean as these ones are and I'm pretty sure the Thermos are long gone! For $30, I will go back and pick these up to add to my Ghostbusters and Nintendo collections. The She-Ra and Golden Girl boxes were a nice surprise to see in the display case.
X-Men #25 (Blue Hologram Error): $2
This X-Men issue was released in 1993 during the peak of X-Men mania! The cartoon was on FOX, the comics were selling like crazy and Wolverine was the hottest comic book character around. Of course I collected the X-Men books around this time and I do have the regular green/yellow hologram version of this book, but when I saw this for $2 at the antique mall, I couldn't pass it up. Allegedly, these blue holograms were a printing error and are fairly rare. I just think it's a cool looking book from an era of X-Men that had me hooked!
My Pal 2: $30
My Pal 2 was released by Toybiz in the early 90's. I never owned one, but I vividly remember the commercials for this little robot companion. He could talk, his nose glowed, he played games like Simon says & ring toss, he could throw and he had a basketball hoop on his chest for impromptu games of HORSE on a rainy day! This example of My Pal 2 is missing his sweet hat and hoop, but man did this bring back some memories. I've attached the commercial from 1993 below. Take 30 seconds to watch it and bask in all that My Pal 2 could do. If that's not your thing, at least give it a watch to see one of the kids truly magnificent mullets!
This year Christmas is returning to a little bit of normalcy after last year's restrictions. Either way, nothing has stood in the way of my family taking part in some of our favorite Christmas traditions like watching Christmas Specials, decorating the tree and just enjoying the season together. Below may seem like a random dump of photos, but it is a peek into what the season is like in my household. I hope you and yours have an amazing holiday season. No matter how you celebrate or what you celebrate, appreciate those around you and just remember the good times. Feel free to let me know about your family's favorite traditions in the comment section below and have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
You can always find cool wrapping paper at the Dollar Tree! This year they had these Super Mario Bros. Snowman papers. Love it!
My son added his own personal touch to the Nativity scene this year. I know how the shepherds passed the time while waiting for our savior to be born!
The annual busting out of the VCR to watch Home Alone on VHS is always a welcomed treat in our house. This is the same VHS tape that my Dad bought for us kids back in the early 90's!
Whoever was in charge of the Christmas Crunch box art this year really knocked it out of the park and should be allowed to design the next 100 boxes. Who knew the Cap'N and Ugly Sweaters were such a natural pairing?
Mountain Dew Gingerbread Snap'd was a fantastic discovery this year. It really tasted like someone drained the essence of a ginger snap cookie and bottled it up for us to enjoy. I hope this comes back next year...and the year after that...and so on.
Disney's "Prep & Landing" Christmas Specials are some of those rare recent specials that really are great! It has become tradition for us to watch these at the beginning of the holiday season each year. With Kids In The Hall alum Dave Foley as the main elf, Wayne, you know this is a winner!
Bought this ornament for our Christmas tree this year. We have a few other of these penguin ornaments in our collection since each one of these cheerful critters represents one of our 3 kids.
I love reading my kids Christmas books and one of their favorites is Olive The Other Reindeer. Of course we had to follow up that read with a watch of the Matt Groening produced "Olive The Other Reindeer" Christmas cartoon special!
Watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles any day is a must in my household. The fact that this DVD has an episode titled "The Christmas Aliens" which is an animated version of the Mirage Michelangelo special comic makes it a staple in our rotation. The episode even features a cameo appearance by Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo! You can watch the episode at the Youtube link below, but be quick, who knows how long it will be available!
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!
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?
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!
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 get to looking...shall we?
The first and last pages in this album were dedicated to this old NBC Saturday morning lineup advertisement. There are some great things going on here from Mr. Miyagi teaching Daniel how to karate chop wood to Smurfs sharing a campfire with John Candy, but the main reason I taped this into my album was the appearance of Captain N! Coming up on the next few pages, you will see that I tried to keep these stickers in some kind of order. Each page has it's own theme. On to page 1!
The World of Nintendo featuring the Super Mario Bros. & Legend of Zelda
Back in the late 80s & early 90s Nintendo was everything! It was that one common bond that all kids had (except the ones who owned a Sega Master System). We would talk about high scores, what level we made it to and the latest cheat codes. Sure we all bragged about what we accomplished and some of us made up a bunch of crap about our victories. These stickers and their early art design really take me back to those days of the new and outstanding NES system.
Hockey Stickers I am by no means a hockey fan. I've been to 1 New Jersey Devils game in my entire life and I never collected hockey cards outside of Pro Stars alum Wayne Gretzky. I was given these stickers by one of my grade school teachers for achieving some kind of high score on a test and I turned them into the wacky game of shoot the puck that you see above.
Garfield Stickers Let me start off by saying Garfield and Friends was tha shiznit. We loved that cartoon in my house and watched it every weekend. That is probably what led me to buy these stickers.
Ninja Turtles Stickers from TMNT Magazine and TMNT Pies Yes, I had a subscription to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Magazine. That is why I have these awesome stickers in my collection. It really bugged me that they all had red bandanas when I was a kid. I wasn't aware until a few years after getting these stickers that in the original Mirage comic all the Turtles wore red bandanas. It wasn't until the cartoon came out in 1988 that the different colors were introduced for each Turtle. Not much to say about the TMNT Pie stickers except they were AWESOME and I thank my Dad for packing them in my lunch all those years ago!
Mello Smello Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Stickers Not too much to say about the TMNT stickers. Me and my brother were huge fans of the Mean, Green Machine and I bought these at the local Hackettstown, NJ Mall with my allowance money. I doremember it being quite a hard decision picking which sticker sheets would come home with me though. Those are were true real world problems!
Vending Machine Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Stickers
We tried so hard to collect the whole set of these and begged my Mom for quarters when she took us shopping at our local A&P grocery store.. Me and my brother came close, but alas the machine was changed out before we could complete it!
Stay tuned for My Old Sticker Book: Part 2, coming soon!
Santa was really good to me as a kid. Most of the time I got what I asked for and loved it! Some of those gifts though, bring back more nostalgia than others. Not too say those other toys were complete bombs, but some just hold a really special place in my heart. Like I said Santa was good to me and even the year he kinda screwed me over (Read all about that here) he gave me one of my most favorite toys of all time. That toy was...
Real Ghostbusters Slimer (Kenner, 1984)
I loved this toy! I was a huge Ghostbusters fan, so anything Ghostbusters would have been a winner, but Slimer was super cool. I would always have him flying around sliming my brother's Ghostbusters team and eating anything and everything he could. Am I the only one who still remembers the smell of the plastic food Slimer came with? That smell alone is Christmas to me!
M.U.S.C.L.E. Thug Busters Set (Mattel, 1985)
This was a fun gift! This big box of M.U.S.C.L.E. characters was a combo gift for me and my brother. We tried to split them up equally. Usually my older brother would take advantage of this situation, but I feel like I made out pretty good. After this Christmas we always had a pocket full of these little, rubber pink guys to keep us entertained on any trip our Mom took us on!
Thundercats Cat's Lair (LJN, 1986)
1986 was another year of disappointment for me as you may have read already. This amazing play set didn't show up under the Christmas tree, but came a few weeks later. When it did though, the battle for Third Earth was on! The Cat's Lair was incredible and stands as one of my fave places to play of all-time!
Super Mario 2 & Adventure of Link (Nintendo, 1988)
This was a big one. We usually got our big console gifts at Christmas. Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Playstation, but the biggest joy came from getting these games in 1988. Every kid wanted these games in their collections, but the rumors of a chip shortage causing delays to The Adventure of Link led many kids to believe they would never see this game at Christmas. I was one of those kids. That year during mine and my brothers annual snooping we discovered these in my parent's closet. We couldn't wait til Christmas. When it came we were full of joy and elation!
Nolan Ryan Limited Edition Kit (Mennen, 1994)
This one is kind of an odd ball. Who really likes getting these bathroom sets at Christmas? I didn't really want it, but I used it and the smell of Skin Bracer takes me back to the holidays of the early 90's. Isn't it crazy how certain smells or certain songs can instantly take you back to the good ol days? I still have that Nolan Ryan ball in my sports collection to this day.
