X-Entertainment | New Article: The Amazing Bag O’ Crap!

New Article: The Amazing Bag O’ Crap!

Well, this one is different. The latest article reviews one of my recent finds, the infamous Bag O' Crap. Found at a thrift store a few weeks back, it's a giant Ziploc bag filled to the top with cereal premiums, toys, candies, and other novelties from the 70s and 80s. A lot of the stuff was cool enough to be worth mentioning, but still too small for their own reviews. This article lumps it all together -- 49 different mini-reviews and pics, all trapped in one giant picture. You'll see what I mean, enjoy! I will never try this again! Enjoy! The next article hopes you're hungry.

Posted by Matt on 01/07/2004. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 147 comments

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That tiger thing found on this page http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0856/junk/27.html

came in boxes of frosted flakes…it’s a diving tony the tiger. Take an empty 2 liter bottle and fill it with water. Toss Tony in , put the cap on and squeeze the top of the bottle and watch him dive to the bottom. Release and he goes back to the top…hours of entertainment for me as a kid.

-Jon
jm4782@yahoo.com

Chestnuts roasted by Jon Maurer @ 01/07/2004 2:11 AM

Kickass.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/07/2004 2:12 AM

According to the US Patent Office, the Capt’ Crunch thing is some kind of ‘Propelled disk copter toy’. I think you’re supposed to flick the disc with that other piece, somehow getting it airborne. You could probably just throw it though.

Click here for the patent info.

Chestnuts roasted by MG @ 01/07/2004 2:56 AM

I remember having that Weird Cap’n Crunch Thing, but I cannot remember what the hell it does. I think the paddle-shaped thing goes into the notch on the top of the round thing. I’m pretty sure it glows in the dark, too. I think I remember thinking it was pretty dumb to begin with.

Chestnuts roasted by Will E. @ 01/07/2004 2:57 AM

Brilliant.
Yet another reason why this site rules- Matt will eat 15 year old gum. And we all know you would have shook that Chewbacca head empty down your gullet if it had been full.

Chestnuts roasted by Killer Duck @ 01/07/2004 2:59 AM

Isn’t there a scene in Douglas Adams’ "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" in which Arthur eats some old tea biscuits and manages inadvertently to kill a virulent strain of virus that would otherwise have wiped out humanity?

Anyway, Matt’s adventures with Christmas Crunch and fifteen-year-old gum remind me of just such a scene. It’s like Special Forces training for his white blood cells.

Chestnuts roasted by Monster Dog @ 01/07/2004 3:20 AM

i had one of those aladdin spinner things…

I still have some of those matchbox cereal trucks, but they are the early 90′s ones not from the 70′s.

Chestnuts roasted by heeloyd @ 01/07/2004 3:59 AM

Combine MG and Will E.’s comments, and you have your answer. Hold the wide end of the flat piece between one thumb and forefinger. Using the other hand, slide the smaller end into the notch on the disc. Pull the disc back, bending the flat piece, and release. In theory, the disc will then whiz frisbee-like across the room. In theory.

Chestnuts roasted by Fox-o-Nine @ 01/07/2004 4:02 AM

Now I’m baffled about the Felix comic. Too funy nonetheless.

Chestnuts roasted by Steve @ 01/07/2004 4:13 AM

I have one of those Webby figures. I alwaya pronounced the word spearmint "spearament" because that’s the way they do in ads and stuff.

Chestnuts roasted by pikachulover @ 01/07/2004 4:20 AM

The rice krispies thing is a "popper", i think. The litte suction cup on the bottom can be bent inside-out to make it bounce in the air. I gad one as a kid and would play with it for hours…Damn i was retarted as a kid.

Chestnuts roasted by monkeyboy @ 01/07/2004 5:10 AM

Matt — You’re right about the Garfield pencil topper. It may have been manufactured in 1981, and it may even have been offered in cereal boxes from that year, but it was definitely offered at some point in subsequent years also, because I definitely remember having one of those things, and I was definitely born in 1981 and definitely don’t remember my infancy. Given my spotty memory, I’d say it made a comeback around 1988 or perhaps even later…

Chestnuts roasted by Wes @ 01/07/2004 5:31 AM

Dude, the rice crispy thing isn’t missing anything. It’s a popper! just turn the base umm… inside out? I guess that’s how you’d describe it… and then set it down. Then eventually the base will *pop* and fly into the air. Good, clean, well-balanced fun.

Chestnuts roasted by ODD @ 01/07/2004 6:43 AM

Seriously, If you want tons of crap like this, let me know. I’m getting ready to finally move out of my folks house at the chipper young age of 22 and I have a closet filled with usesless crap that I refuse to take with me because it will probably ruin any chance I ever have of getting laid.

Chestnuts roasted by Frank @ 01/07/2004 7:45 AM

Let me holla atcha Playa.
Well here I is. Up on X-E afta my first successful night as da GM on Monday Night Long. Beelee dat playa. Oh it aint called Monday Night Long yet, but just wait until day see the ratings that the black man puts in this biotch. Beelee dat playa.
Right now I’m listenin to tha brotha Triumph Tha Insult Comic Dog and he’s giving that whitey Eminem a good stern talkin too. Beelee dat playa. Anyway, I think it’s time to get down to da bidness. Everytime I come up on da X-E I think my main man Matt has gotten those Racist bones out his body. But then he leaves the color out of da Playmobile story. Beelee dat playa. And then you played the homegirl Mare Wingingham. Ya know that’s a sista. Hey Mare, if you managed to harness da power of dat beast and are readin this, holla at ya boy, I should be replacing the Mack Attack at some point and could use a ho… er young lady like yaself. Beelee dat playa.
Now on to today articlea. First of all, on item numba one, you know damn well that it’s an item of cracka propaganda. Beelee dat playa. Blig eyes, big head, you know what they haterizin about man. And what’s wit the 49 items brotha Matt? Ya see, I happen to know for a fact that Mr. Whitey Matty is hidin somethin. Because lets be honest brothas and sistas, how hard would it have been to make one extra page for one more caucsialicious item? Brotha Darth was lucky just to be included. But he don’t count. Dark side indee, beelee dat playa.
So it only leads me to beelee you got something you hidin, I think you need to spill ya guts to the black man about what you got that could very well change the universe right on it’s toes. I bet you it’s some sorta artifac that proves that the first human was a balck man. Holla!!!

Chestnuts roasted by Theodore R. Long @ 01/07/2004 9:04 AM

I love this set up. each click was like opening a present. A 49 day advent calender. Woo!

That bird thing looks strangely familiar to me, but I can’t place it. Is it from The Wiz?

Chestnuts roasted by trajeal @ 01/07/2004 9:17 AM

I have the willow magic trick, only I got it from burger king and it wasn’t a willow magic trick. Basically it was some stupid thing with the burger king kids club. I am david blain.

Chestnuts roasted by Chad @ 01/07/2004 9:18 AM

first off, BRILLIANT article!!!

second, am i the only one that noticed matt kept calling the $50 monopoly gum a 20 ?

Chestnuts roasted by saint matthew @ 01/07/2004 9:41 AM

A Few Random Comments:

A lot of the items in the bag are old food, as are the subjects of many of your other articles. You may or may not know of Louis Pasteur’s famous spontaneous generation experiment. In this experiment, he poured some soup in a flask and boiled it, thus killing of any bacteria already in the soup. Then he bent the neck of the flask to a "swan neck" shape. After waiting for some period of time, he found that the soup had not rotted, but that there was some gunk at the bottom of the swan neck, which turned out to be bacteria that were trying to eat the soup but couldn’t make it through the tube. I’m told that these flasks of soup are still around in a museum or something, and that the soup still has yet to rot. If you want to review some really old food, you should try that.

That "Who’s the Real Cap’n?" thing was evil. The commercials made it seem like the challenge in this contest was the actual task of figuring out who the real Cap’n was, and that once you figured it out, you were guaranteed to get a prize of your choice. I sent in a note saying it was ‘B’ and that I wanted a Gameboy. I eventually got a letter congratulating me for finding the real Cap’n, but my only reward was the satisfaction of a job well done.

The Count Chocula card would appear to have come with the Booberry card and the Crazy Cow card. Is there any particular reason why you chose to separate them. If you were going to separate them, why not also separate the Booberry card and the Crazy Cow card? Then you could say that you were showing us fifty things rather than forty-nine, making a nice round number.

I remember that those plastic baseball caps were extremely popular for a brief period of time. It was either immediately before the slap bracelet craze or immediately after it. You couldn’t actually do anything with them, but they were a collectors item. Since the popularity of a given plastic baseball cap was usually based on the based on the popularity of the teams they represented, the plain red one probably wasn’t very popular. Unless, of course, they said it was Bart Simpson’s lucky red cap. If they did that, it would be the most sought after one out there. Anyway, in addition to coming in boxes of cereal, Dairy Queen used to have miniature sundaes that were served in those plastic baseball caps, which you could then wash and take home.

Finally, that Rice Krispies popper thing reminded me of a similar Mario toy that I got once, I think in a Happy meal. Attached to his feet was a suction cup with a spring coming out, and the other end of the spring was attached to a little plastic circle. You would stick the suction cup to the circle and stand back. Eventually, the spring overpowers the suction cup and Mario jumps into the air, just like in the video game. It works a lot better then the old "turn ruber hemisphere inside-out" thing.

Chestnuts roasted by gmfbrown @ 01/07/2004 9:54 AM

But what was the one item that wasn’t interesting enough to include? 49 out of 50 made the cut, so what was so special about this one?

By labelling it as the least interesting item, Matt has turned it into the most interesting.

Chestnuts roasted by Ubu Rex @ 01/07/2004 10:20 AM

Batman Candy Busts = Quality Nightmare Fuel

Chestnuts roasted by Slacker @ 01/07/2004 10:32 AM

Cool stuff. I still have the "Cap’n Crunch figurine". My neighbors used to have the Soggies and I hated them for that. I received my Cap’n figure straight out of the cereal box tho. I have a similar "lemon grizzly bear", but mine is orange. No idea where it’s from. I really miss the "Rice Krispies Popper". I remember it was very gelatinous and I couldn’t resist sinking my teeth into the thing. I had the "Cap’n Crunch Spinner". I remember I made my very own Legend Of Zelda board game, and incorporated that spinner into the game board. Fun times. I remember the "Aladdin Spinner" being deathly retarded. I was a thorougly disappointed child. I do remember receiving the "Rice Krispies Car" in the mail after sending in several UPCs. I have two of them actually, one for play, one for keepin’ in tha baggie. However, I got mine circa 1989, as opposed to Matt’s 1979 listing. Maybe a re-release? I still have the "Batmobile Candy Dispenser" as well. That was really a lame one compared to the awesome metal toys you could be zooming around. Still have the "Cap’n Crunch Treasure Chest". Very half-assed toy. Again, disappointment in the fact that it could only hold "half" of my entire fortune… (three coins) As for the "Mohawk Dinosaur"… it just might be a poorly represented Corythosaurus, which had the mohawk on top of their heads and a similar body shape as the T-Rex. The "Weird Cap’n Crunch disc" is one of my favorite toys ever. I used to flick that thing all over (especially behind the couch, where I would then go into super spy mode to retrieve the captured toy). And yes, flicking the disc with the accompanying stick was way way more fun than just throwing it. I still see those "Plastic Baseball Caps" all the time. The "??????? Purple Figurine" is a Fringie space alien. The "Honeycomb Frisbee" was kind of lame… nothing to ‘flick’ it with. It might’ve glowed in the dark, I can’t remember.

Chestnuts roasted by Tadashi @ 01/07/2004 10:43 AM

Oh yeah, wasn’t that "Webbigail Duck Tales figurine" from the Duck Tales movie? I still have a couple of the figures, including the boys wearing the safari hats they wore in the movie.

Chestnuts roasted by Tadashi @ 01/07/2004 10:47 AM

I personally chew Winterfresh gum… and was massively saddened to see them change the package a few years back. That’s why I oddly have a "classic" pack of Winterfresh sitting on my shelf. One time, someone asked me if they could have a piece…
Me: "Ummmm… that Winterfresh is special."
Them: "Huh?"
Me: "It’s the uh… old packaging."
Them: "So?"
Me: "I’m saving it."
Them: "You’re a douche."

Chestnuts roasted by Tadashi @ 01/07/2004 10:52 AM

great article! i had a similar garfield toy. it may have came in a box of corn pops, im not sure. but it was a yellow lock (no combination) you just would turn it until it opened. it was worthless but i hung onto it for a few years.

Chestnuts roasted by mikey @ 01/07/2004 11:28 AM

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