A few weekends ago I took my kids to our local Toys R Us for a FREE Mega Construx build! We had time to kill, so we looked at all the awesome toys at the store. I was surprised to see so many toy lines from my childhood still available on the shelves. Here's part 2 of a few of the cool things I found:
Ninja Turtles Mega Bloks sets ($1.99 - $99.99)
These kind of caught me by surprise. Yes, I had known that Mega Bloks was making these sets but I didn't know they were being put on clearance at such great prices. You can pick up the individual mini-figs for under $2 each and the Krang set was only $16.95! I bought a few for future gift giving holidays and birthdays. Also, that Raph in human disguise is amazing!
This past weekend I took my kids to our local Toys R Us for a FREE Mega Construx build! These free events happen about twice a month at Toys R Us and allow kids to come in and get stuff for free! In the past we have done free builds for Lego Nexo Knights, Lego Batman Movie, Pokémon cards, Pokémon Figures and a birthday party with Geoffrey himself!
I absolutely LOVE THESE! So much nostalgia is rushing through my head. I have picked up the original 4 Turtles, Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang and April in this line. I never had Super Mikey or Super Donatello as a kid. I will be adding these to my birthday wish list!
This week I have the privilege of selecting the Round Robin Social Media Challenge topic! There have been some great topics covered over the last few weeks and I wanted to choose something different, then I began to search for some of my favorite childhood memories. A lot of these memories came back to riding our bikes to the local corner store to grab snacks, drinks and other fun items so me and my friends could get energized before we hit the blacktop. So this weeks topic is...
When you were a kid, what would you use your hard earned allowance money to buy at the corner store? To get this thing started I'll let you know what my top picks were and why!
Trading Cards!
This was back in the day when every movie or character that was even remotely appealing to kids had it's own trading card set. I do remember grabbing packs of the above properties, but I also remember picking up Adams Family, Dinosaurs Attack and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cards.
Gatorade
In the early 90s we were all under the grip of the cultural icon known as Michael Jordan. He was the spokesperson for everything from Wheaties to Nike to his own SNES game! We all wanted to be "Like Mike". So for us streetball hoopers drinking Gatorade was a must! My favorite flavor was Citrus Cooler. Not only because it was labeled as "Mike's Favorite Flavor", but because it was delicious! The flavor has been in and out of the rotation over the years, so whenever I see it on shelves it's time to stock up! Why don't they produce Gatorade in glass bottles anymore?
Gatorgum
Sticking with the Gatorade family, we move on to Gatorgum. This product only came in 2 flavors that I remember being Lemon/Lime and Orange. I favored the orange as my gum of choice. According to my research Gatorgum was discontinued in the early 2000s. I'm surprised to hear that it was around that long! The closest thing available to Gator Gum today is Quench Gum.
Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream chips
I remember when these came out and thinking they would be nasty. After first bite, they became a staple in my corner store trips. These are so amazing! It's like a creamy cheddar taste wrapping all the goodness of a salty Ruffles chip. They are still available today in any grocery store. If you haven't tried these, I suggest picking some up today!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Comics
Every time I went into the corner store, I had to peruse the comic/magazine rack. They were always littered with any new X-Men comics that were out and the Archie produced Ninja Turtles Adventures comics. These were my introduction to the world of Turtles comics. Kind of a gateway to the more adult Mirage produced comics. I still love reading these today. For the most part the art was great and the stories were well written. IDW has been collecting these stories in TPB form over the last few years for those who missed them in the 90s.
Well, that's it for my early 90s trip to the corner store. What were your favorite items to pick up? Write your own blog entry on this topic and don't forget to leave a link to your page in my comments section! I hope we get a lot of entries. Have fun, I can't wait to see what other goodies are out there!
The Toy Box takes us on a trip to the corner stores of Allentown & Oregon!
The Toy Break drinkin quarter water. Gotta be the best!
This week 2 Minute Toy Break has challenged us to take a look at our nearest and weirdest and post a pic or multiple pics of the most eccentric action figure in our collection. This would be a museum worthy action figure. One that would draw a lot of ooohs and aaaahs from an art show crowd. Here's what I decided to feature....
A 2009 vacuum metalized limited edition Fugitoid action figure by Playmates Toys. This is not just any Fugitoid action figure though. This figure hung on the Christmas tree of TMNT co-creator Peter Laird! Here's the story.
In 2009 Mr. Laird's daughter Emily decided it would be fun to decorate the family tree with a bunch of these shiny, metallic Fugitoid figures. Peter Laird had a case of 100 of these figures and he himself opened 50 of the figures and attached an ornament hook to each figure.
On December 21st the tree was decorated by the Laird family and the 2009 mighty "Fugitree" was born.
After the 2009 holiday season, the Fugitoids were boxed back up and sold through the Mirage Studios website for $25. There were only 50 of these items available, and I got one!
This guy holds a prominent spot on my shelf of fame in the basement. Each Fugitoid came in a custom box made by Peter Laird with the story of the Fugitree printed on a sticker on the front of the box.
The coolest thing was that the boxes were personally signed by Peter Laird. I am so glad to own this piece of TMNT history. It is a rare item that was used in the home of one of my comic book heroes. I feel this piece would fit into any museum of pop culture and would make any Ninja Turtles fan oooh and ahhh at it's appearance. And yes, my Fugitoid still has the ornament hanger on him that Peter Laird twisted around his neck for future tree hanging experiences.
If you would like to read more about the Fugitree, the history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the thoughts of Peter Laird, please visit his TMNT blog by clicking HERE! The Laird family photos in the above post were from his website.
Check out Toy Break's post. He has a pretty interesting mash-up to show off!
A few months back I uncovered a copy of Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue at a local thrift shop. This was a video put out in 1990 by Buena Vista Home Video that taught kids about the negative effects of drugs. It featured almost all of the top cartoon stars at the time including Pooh Bear, The Smurfs, The Chipmunks, Alf and many more.
For $0.25, I could not pass this up. I remember watching this video in school during our D.A.R.E program with the local police. It was always great to be able to watch TV in school, but this was amazing! All of these cartoon characters together in one video! That sound you just heard was my 9 year old mind being blown! Like I said the video included so many classic characters, here are my top 5 favorites from Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!
1. Michelangelo
Just like Slimer, Mikey doesn't have a huge part in this video, but when he shows up on screen the excitement ramps up big time! Just the fact that the Ninja Turtles were in this movie for 2 minutes was enough to lure me in as a kid. Anything with the Turtles in it was worth watching, educational or not!
Those are my top 5 characters from Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. Who was your favorite? I would like to see them do a remake of this video with characters from the most popular cartoons of 2017. Maybe the would include Sponge Bob, Finn & Jake, Batman, Skylanders and a return of the Ninja Turtles! I would watch that with my kids! You can watch the original in all it's anti-drug glory at the link below. ENJOY!!!!
Today I'll be taking you back to the days of cardboard cards, stale chunks of pink chewing gum and wax wrappers...again. We will be taking a look at 5 old trading cards! I loved collecting cards as a kid. Baseball, Ninja Turtles, Superheroes it didn't matter. I just loved opening a pack and smelling the gum and seeing if you had opened a pack with new cards or more doubles! The stickers were always the premium pieces, but having a few extras to trade never hurt. Let's open this pack of awesomeness and take a look at 5 random cards from the 80s & 90s:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 (Topps, 1992)
The most despised of all the Ninja Turtles movies, until Michael Bay came along. Ninja Turtles 3 suffered from a lot of problems. Poor story, bad costumes and rushed production. It was still Turtles, so I bought into it and tried really hard to like this movie, but I just can't. After the greatness of the first 2 Turtles flicks this was a huge disappointment. I have a few of these cards in my collection and really do like these art cards, but it's not enough to redeem TMNT 3 from how bad it was.
On January 30th I entered a contest on the AWESOME website TMNT. Readers of the website were asked to write about when they became a fan of the turtles for a chance to win one of these adorable Ninja Turtles Kawaii Cubes from Wish Holdings. Here's what I posted:
"I knew I loved the turtles when my Mom bought me and my brother the original Playmates toys! I got Leo & Don and my brother got Raph & Mikey. We played with those toys for hours and our infatuation with the boys in green led our friends to get their own figures. Pretty soon we all had them and were having epic backyard battles between the Turtles and the minions of the Shredder! My favorite Turtle is Donny. Attached is a pic from the time me and my brothers met Mikey at a local department store. TURTLE POWER!!!"
A few days later I was announced as one of the 8 winners of the TMNT Kawaii Cube contest!!! About a week after that, this bag arrived at my job! I was so excited to rip it open. Of course all my coworkers were intrigued by the Ninja Turtles bag and had to see what was inside.
I got a Donatello (my fave Turtle) small size Kawaii Cube! These things are great! They are soft, they stack on top of each other, the design is unique and they only cost around $5 each. So, if you are a fan of the Turtles I would recommend picking these guys up! I think I'll have to head out and complete my Turtle foursome.
They also list Bebop & Rocksteady Kawaii Cubes, but I have been unable to track these down online yet. The Ren & Stimpy cubes are pretty sweet too.
Needless to say, but little Kawaii Cube Donnie has now taken a spot atop Bo Jackson on my shelf of Greatness! Thanks again to the folks at TMNT! You guys rock and so does little Donnie!
