I've been doing X-Entertainment for nearly six years. In that time, the old junk I've written about has become incredibly more accessible. Old toys, old video games, old television shows -- there are few memories you can dig up and not find a climax for. The Internet's been almost too good for that. We can recreate the materialistic portions of our pasts with an uneasy ease; if you're halfway sure you remember what the "Stinkor" action figure smelled like back in `85, you could prove yourself right or wrong in less than a week for little more than a song. I admit to a certain addiction to this, to whatever you'd call it, to recapturing small parts of larger parts through eBay purchases and online retailers that specialize in all the shit I grew up with. It's a harmless, ever-growing fad that I've learned much about in my time running the site. In its most genuine form, people who seek the trinkets of their youth see more in them than parts and plastic. Many of us do not find it easy to piece together that whats and whys of who we are. If these things help, I'll gladly pay for overpriced shipping. And if they don't? It's no thing. Stinkor's going to look cool on my bookshelf with or without the psychological crap.
Naturally, after you get lucky hunting down your youth a few times, you increase the scope of your hunts. In this I've found the one crevice few hoarders were savvy enough to bother with. Food. In my searches for Ninja Turtles Pudding Pies, old Kool-Aid and the like, I've realized that the stuff we ate is worth just as much as the stuff we played with. This is turning out to be a really stupid article.
It's really, really hard to find old food. It's just as really, really hard to even find old food's packaging. Once you set yourself up with the web-given knowledge that absolutely nothing you've ever known isn't for sale somewhere, these can be frustrating hunts. It's for this reason that I buy so much garbage whenever we go grocery shopping. I'm inclined to pick up every food item that ties in with a movie, or every what-are-they-thinking flavor addition to a popular brand that is obviously going to be doomed to a weeks-long life. I've written about tons of this stuff on the site; good examples can be found here and here. But I'm one man, barely, and much of the fine quality items fall through the cracks and never receive their immortalization in my poorly chosen words. They remain in our fridge for so long that I don't even consider their presence when I open the magnetic door.
I'm currently in the process of moving to a new apartment, leaving my current home of three-or-four-oh-so years. I collect a lot of stuff. Even if I'm not consciously collecting something, I manage to end up with forty-seven of that something. When you're moving, there are casualties. Some furniture will go, some clothes will go, some crappy Christmas presents left unopened at the bottom of the closet will go. If I'm going to throw away furniture, there is little justification in holding onto expired Kid Cuisine dinners. We're cleaning the place out, and the predominant spot of tearful goodbyes has been our faithful freezer, which we will soon bid farewell to before saying HELL-O to a new freezer that hopefully works better than the one we will have just kissed goodbye. There lived at least a dozen once-edibles that I pluckily picked up and fuckily forgot about for anywhere between one day ago and four years ago. In this article, we clean house, or as the case may be, freezer. Break out the Louis Armstrong record.
Purdue's Dinosaur-Shaped Chicken Nuggets:
This isn't a fresh observation, but it bears repeating: There's something really wrong with "fun-shaping" chicken meat. As an omnivore, I cannot claim to have any special relationship with chickens that makes this as appalling to me as it might be to vegetarians, but on the other hand, if there's anything that might make me feel bad enough about eating meat to take the tofu challenge, it's the idea that we're not only killing our feathered friends, but also shaping their flesh into the vague shape of brontosaurs.
Yes, it's Purdue's dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, seeking to circumvent our collective knowledge that fast food nuggets will always beat homemade varieties because we as people will always prefer to eat shitty nuggets after two minutes of microwaving than goody nuggets after ten minutes of deep frying. These wouldn't have lit kids' fire like a package of please-let-them-be-anthropomorphic McNuggets, but they're healthier, and they look like fucking dinosaurs. The package expired in March of 2005, and I haven't actually seen dinosaur nuggets at the supermarket since then. They're probably still around in other areas; at least, this is what the official Purdue Farms website tells me, along with the naughty notion that there's other chicken nuggets out there shaped like footballs and basketballs. My chickensauruses are going to have their own Field Day.
Wolverine & Spider-Man Ice Pops:
I saved these after a short blog post in 2003, for reasons that were assumedly clear at the time. In the midst of the blitz and during a red hot period for Marvel Comics properties, Wolverine and Spider-Man found themselves immortalized as Good Humor-level popsicles, gumball-eyed, cherried and lemoned. They meant no harm and did not deserve the fate pictured above, forever proving that the invention of the polybag is something to be cherished and not forgotten about when and if the time ever comes to try to save opened-and-licked popsicles.
The Wolverine pop was an X2 promotion, and X2 promotions were notorious for royally fucking around with the Marlboro Man-esque cool coyness of Logan, a warrior who could heal from anything but a broken heart. In this case, his popsicle brand was eXXXXtremely sour, almost in an outdoorsy, "do not eat this, it will kill you" sort of way. Beyond this, Wolverine also enjoyed his own Baskin Robbins ice cream sundae, called "Berry Rampage" and topped with a handful of gummy worms. Berries and bugs...not the two things that spring to mind quickest when attentions drift to Wolverine.
Superhero Popsicle Something Or Another:
I bought these Marvel Superheroes Firecracker Pops in a past life, realizing that they were worth a second glance but not realizing that they weren't necessarily worth writing about. The "themed" pops were in color only: Hulk had green/purple pops, Spidey had red/blue, and Captain America didn't matter because everyone liked Hulk and Spidey more. Losing archival interest immediately after buying the box, the treats ended up serving their intended purpose: Being eaten whenever I wanted an ice pop. The box instead became a depository for all of the loose frozen treats I couldn't bring myself to trash, including everything from Halloween Go-Gurt to Incredible Hulk Fla-Vor-Ice. Lots of pink Fla-Vor-Ices in there. Never did like the pink Fla-Vor-Ices.
Speaking of Hulk, it's worth noting that we cleaned out the regular fridge too, stocked with even more ridiculously expired items, including what's become one of my favorite edible movie promotions of all time -- Hulk's Hershey's Syrup, lean, green and gooey. The gunk first appeared in this article, and all told, cleaning out my kitchen was almost as good as having a working archive for all past X-E articles. Found everything from the original Mountain Dew Pitch Black (first covered on the site in 2004) to a big pile of Wonder Bread buns picked up at the Hostess Bakery while prepping for the Choco-Diles article. Absurdly, this is my life.
WWE Ice Cream Bars & Choco-Tacos:
Behold! Two of the greatest ice cream bars the world has ever known. I've already written at length about WWF/WWE Ice Cream Bars here, but to reiterate, they've long been the ultimate dessert for wrestling fans, having existed since the mid `80s without ever once changing the formula. Sure, the wrestlers etched onto the cookie top have been swapped out over the years, but there's always been cookie tops. And vanilla ice cream, and a chocolate shell so crisp, you could use it to slice your enemies across the face like a fatter Catwoman. Back when I was buying these regularly, I'd always end up with schmos like Hillbilly Jim on my cookie tops. It's not that I hated Hillbilly Jim. Everybody else hated Hillbilly Jim, but I always found his unpretentious, uncouth nature refreshing. I wouldn't go so far to say that I wanted Hillbilly Jim on my ice cream more than Randy Savage, because I was for the most part a sane individual who knew where to draw the line. At that point in time, each bar came with a WWF Superstars trading card that had neat yellow star graphics and a patriotic color motif. The bar pictured above is from more recent times, but it's still way too old to eat. They weren't giving away trading cards by that point, but they were giving away cutout wrestler standees, which were cool, but kind of made you look like a pauper if you actually went through the trouble of cutting them out and placing them on your trophy shelf.
Oh, looks like I've already written about Choco-Tacos too, but I'm not sure if I'll ever get tired of writing about Choco-Tacos, so here goes: I love Choco-Tacos. Everything about them. I love the silver foil wrapper. I love the fact that they're based on tacos, and that this trait took the treats as far as Taco Bell's dessert menu for a years-long stretch. I picked this baby up at an old video store I wrote about in early 2003, and even then it was probably a year too old to sell with a good conscience. Choco-Tacos are still around to the best of my knowledge, but they're not easy to find. Tacos love to hide.
While there's really no difference from one Choco-Taco to the next, WWE Ice Cream Bars can feature one of several top tier pro-wrestlers. I got the Undertaker, meaning that if the ice cream wasn't too old to eat, I'd be just a few calories away from inheriting the power to shoot lightning at anyone who forced me into a handicap blindfold match. If I eat the Choco-Taco, all I'd get to do are some frog splashes.
Matrix-Related Soda & Squid-related Fish Food:
I've never seen The Matrix Reloaded or Matrix Revolutions. Not on purpose or anything...I just haven't seen them. I don't mind this at all. Since I usually have to feign a lack of knowledge when a particularly geeky topic comes up in a group of normal, balanced human beings, it's nice to be able to say "I've never seen those fuggin movies" whenever Matrix sequels find their way into a conversation. Then I scratch my balls and put up sheetrock like drywall king Dan Conner. This didn't keep me from buying The Matrix Reloaded's very own Powerade drink, because nothing could keep a person from something like that. I prefer to live my life not knowing if the liquid inside is actually green or if the bottle was simply formulated to make it look that way, and to date, I still haven't opened that bottle. Also note that in its many years inside the freezer, the liquid never turned to ice. Because it is powerful.
The other thing in that picture up there right there upwards, that's another story. We have a fish tank. A kind of nice, 55 gallon fish tank that isn't cleaned as often as it should be but is nonetheless cared for on more than a superficial level. I like the fish in there, and I want them to be well. Thus, we don't buy crap fish food that's just as likely to be purchasable at Uncle Mig's 99 Cent Castle as Petland -- no, we get them the good stuff. Stuff that I will not mention here, because while my fish love it, the description would repel and revolt you to ends that are usually footnoted by head explosions. They're frozen cubes of this and that, and when I noticed a variety made of squid meat, I couldn't resist. Partly because it would've been an excellent source of protein for my fish, and partly because squids and I have had a secret and long-standing rivalry. Take that you creepy fucks.
I failed to realize that the squid cubes were only intended for saltwater fish. This didn't stop me from trying to get my freshwaters to eat it, but they weren't taking the bait even though it really wasn't bait. Used but unusable, I couldn't take the squid food back for a refund, but I also couldn't bring myself to throw it away. It's annoying to pull a tray out for ice cubes knowing that said cubes were resting under a leaky box of squid ass meat, but I will never throw this junk out. And the next time I open my freezer while watching The Silence Of The Lambs, I will let loose with the loudest "SQUID PRO QUO" you fuckers have ever heard.
Happy French Fries, Blue French Fries:
I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I wrote From 1 Fry 2 Anotha. Probably something along the lines of, "I don't feel like making an effort today." For those who don't recall and do not wish to click, the article features the two bags of fries above having a debate over who was more impressive. After that, they remained in my freezer, complete with their made-of-paper eyes and sloppily cut mouth-holes. I didn't keep them for any article-related nostalgia reasons, but because these were some fucked up french fries that were absolutely going to be worth talking about years later since there was no way in Hell they'd last in the supermarkets longer than a few weeks. Food this cool is lost on the general public. Before I bid farewell to these fantastic bags of fucked up french fries, let's revisit their majesty as we forgive those who trespass against us...
On the left, McCain's "Smiles," which were like any other "regular" brand of fries found in the freezer section save for the fact that they were shaped like cute little smiley faces. Awesome. I haven't seen them around in years, and if I was a seven-year-old who'd grown accustomed to being served these on meatloaf night every Thursday, I think the world would've became a dark and scary place after the fries took a powder. McCain found out the hard way that frozen food shaped like happy heads rarely catches on, but for however brief the "Smiles" reign may have been, they were worthy contenders to the best-frozen-fry-ever throne. Don't think they've toppled those neat boxes of Micro-Magic fries for me, but they're close. Edit: It appears these may still be in production, so don't stop believing in God just yet.
Much more remarkable are Ore-Ida's "Funky Fries," which arrived in 2003 and quickly vanished. These are an incredible study in marketing, as depending on your view, they were either an obviously poor idea or a really good one that absolutely should've caught on. The "Kool Blue" fries seen above were just one of the many varieties that fell under the Funky Fries banner. There were "Cinna-Stiks" fries, "Cocoa Crisper" fries and other alien potatoes that collectively challenged kids to forget everything they thought they knew about fries and dive headfirst into a bold new universe of oily side dishes.
Though other Funky Fries flavors were much odder than the normal-tasting "Kool Blue" variety, there's a level of psychosomatics involved with eating blue potatoes. They don't need to taste any different from regular potatoes; being blue is enough. When I think back to things like Pop Qwiz, the bags of multicolored microwave popcorn that rocked my world in the early `90s, I find it difficult to throw these Funky Fries away. The world may never know another blue french fry, and this sort of thing deserves to live on in more than just pictorial ad spreads in back issues of Nick Magazine.
I'm not supposed to capitalize "french" when I'm referring to fries, right?
Cartoon-Encrusted Eggo Waffles:
In a slight way, this article was inspired by my most recent trip to the supermarket. I was checking out the Eggo portion of the freezer section, and my mind was blown. I could not believe the sheer amount of variations on the classic Eggo waffle, nor could I believe just how freaky Eggo waffles can get when you're up to Variation #672. Most interesting were probably the boxes of mulatto Eggo waffles, which is to say, waffles that were 50% normal and 50% chocolate, with the divisions being made in a straight line right down the middle like so many Two-Face action figures left unsold after Batman Forever stopped being interesting.
When I was young, I had to walk ten miles to the school in the snow, and when I was young, the craziest thing that happened to Eggo waffles was the addition of mushy blueberries. The past few years have been nothing short of a renaissance for crappy food, where one frozen breakfast treat looks more like a lost sight gag from Demolition Man than the next. I dig it. The boxes of waffles seen above are a few years old, and represent the world's first notions that the people running Eggo were growing batshit-crazier by the second. Closer look, down below...
The SpongeBob and Scooby-Doo waffles are checkered with weird fruity dots (though it's worth mentioning that there's no discernible taste difference between Bob's "Tiki Berry" and Doo's "Wild Berry"), but kids who begged Maw and Paw for either variety weren't interested in fruity specks. No, the want of children rested more in the fact that the waffles were stamped with the likenessesesesss of their favorite cartoon characters, on the in case of Scooby by that point, CG-rendered characters who made fart noises all the time.
The Kid Cuisine Collection:
Kid Cuisine microwave dinners have evolved quite a bit from their humble beginnings. Once offering only pedestrian meals in kid-packaged boxes, the franchise has taken a turn for the surreal in recent years, teaming up with every kid-loved movie/character/whatever to create some of the strangest edibles possibly cooked in under five minutes. I've written about many Kid Cuisine meals over the years. I've written about Halloween Kid Cuisine meals, more than once. I've written about Christmas Kid Cuisine meals, more than once. I've written about some of the elder statesmen Kid Cuisine meals back in early 2002. I know Kid Cuisine, and knowing Kid Cuisine means appreciating Kid Cuisine. Below are four other special meals I've picked up over the past few years, ready to finally strut their stuff all over the Internet and persuade people to start more Kid Cuisine-related fansites...
Kid Cuisine - Shrek-Shaped Mac & Cheese: (click here for box image)
Never got around to this while reviewing all of the Shrek 2 food promotions, and considering this is way cooler than all of those Shrek fruit snacks I spent the summer of 2003 writing about, that really sucks. The big dish here is macaroni and cheese, with the cheese being its usual gloppy neon orange self while the pasta strikes a pose with its many pieces fashioned to look like "bugs and slugs." Well, those are pleasant creatures to dream about while eating. They didn't bother theming the corn portion, because who cares about corn? The dessert is where the meal truly shines. Called "Ogre Cookies," they're little green wafers that kids got to put together themselves using an included pack of icing. The benefit of eating these was twofold. One, they're cookies, and all cookies taste good. Two, they turned tongues green. You'd be surprised at how strong a selling point that can be.
Kid Cuisine - Scooby-Doo Sandwich Builder: (click here for box image)
I'm not sure what the beef patty is supposed to look like, but rest assured, it's supposed to look like something. Shown above is the most annoying-to-cook Kid Cuisine meal I've ever encountered. It's like, first you've gotta nuke half the shit for 2 minutes, then nuke the other half of shit for 30 seconds, then nuke all the shit together for another minute and a half. And then you've gotta spend another five minutes building a wall out of chocolate bricks and suspiciously colored cake icing. That's a lot of time to spend and effort to expend on a meal that's barely worth eating once you get past the criminally low number of fries. Even speaking conservatively while remembering how expired and freezer-burned the food is, there's no denying that we're looking at one twisted, disgusting cheeseburger up there. Children love Scooby-Doo, but I dare say, not that much.
Kid Cuisine - Shrek-Shaped Fun Nuggets: (click here for box image)
The Shrek fun continues with his second and much more impressive offering, including chicken nuggets shaped like his head. I take back everything I said in the dinosaur nuggets section near the top. These are awesome. I can't believe they nailed his green horn things so perfectly. Just to solidify the idea that this is the kingpin of Kid Cuisine meals, two of the three side dishes are also specially themed. You get a small dose of Shrek-shaped mac & cheese and a tub of "color changing swamp pudding," which does indeed change colors with the help of an included powder packet. Combined and conspiring, this is about as much fun a person could possibly have eating crap.
Kid Cuisine - Robots-Shaped Mac & Cheese: (click here for box image)
Blah blah blah, the only thing I want to mention about this one is the dessert, which really sounded cool on the box but did not deliver as promised. You're supposed to build one of the Robots characters out of various, specially shaped fruit snacks, but they don't actually stick together, and they're not actually at all different from each other, each piece looking like strawberry firewood. This was the best I could come up with. I have never seen Robots, and this Kid Cuisine meal has done nothing to help rectify that.
And now I must decide which of these fine featured foods deserves to be spared and brought to my next freezer. I expect some tearful goodbyes, but I'm keeping the squid meat. Hitherto.
