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10/03/2006: McMonopoly, Bat Organs and MLP.


Someone bought-and-brought McDonald’s in for lunch at work today, and her cup marked a special day: The return of the McDonald’s Monopoly game, which I will never ever win but will continue to play anyway, for all of time! I’m pretty sure everyone in the country knows someone who knows someone who swears they found “Boardwalk” and lost it under suspicious circumstances; me, I’m happy just putting little avenue piece stickers on a paper Monopoly board and hoping for an instant win free sundae piece that I will never actually cash in.

There are forty-thousand McDonald’s restaurants within walking distance from my office, and another two or three at home. People shouldn’t eat Big Macs every night, but there’s nothing stopping me from making sure every ounce of soda I drink for the next few weeks comes from a Monopoly-laden McDonald’s cup.


I’ve talked about the constant dread I experience in regard to the woman asking me to take her to…the craft store. It’s a little easier around the holidays, because craft stores know the holidays. I’m actually finding a lot of cool stuff at ‘em this year. Previously, it was all about stupid scarecrow door wreaths and pumpkin-themed scrapbook kits, but this year, I’m finding stuff like “Bat Organs” party favors. BAT ORGANS!


The packaging is kind of boring and kind of sucks, but since it includes the term “BAT ORGANS” in large text, I’m not sure I need anything else. The set consists of four gooey “bat brains,” which are such unbelievably perfect little gooey brains that I am now 100% positive that my destiny is to create a homemade Krang and write up a DIY guide afterwards. These things are just awesome, and CHEAP! Even more amazing is that the so-called “bat brains” are clearly too large to be the brains of any existing bat. They’re bigger than most bat heads. I love them!

New on the Halloween Countdown: My Little Pony.

PS, think I can sue McD’s if they give me two Baltic Avenues on one Coke?


Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

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Discussion Thread: 103 comments

No pictures of the tiny ears?

Agreed. I had the same thought as I read the article.

Ghosted by Pippin (bad karma) @ 10/04/2006 11:36 AM EDT

I actually didn’t notice the tiny ears until I was writing the article, and in the factoid went.

Ghosted by Matt @ 10/04/2006 11:48 AM EDT

When I was younger, some of my Ponys were made of a furry, velvet like material. Now they all seem to be plastic. Also, I think some of mine had fragrances- do they still have smells today? Like lavender and vanilla…

Ghosted by Muppet Baby @ 10/04/2006 12:26 PM EDT

I horse-laughed when I saw the ponies on the refrigerator. I about these for my little girl until I realized that they would soon be at the bottom of her toy chest, just like every other new toy I’ve bought her in the past 6 months. As for the Monopoly, screw the big item stuff. Like I have a chance. Instead, give me those freakin’ Best Buy bucks. A friend collected $100 in those a few years ago, he had his family eat McDonalds daily for that. I’d be happy with a couple bucks, it would give me a good excuse to buy DVD.

Ghosted by freudguy @ 10/04/2006 12:42 PM EDT

SJ – You have a good point there… But someone has to be doing it. The fact that we can’t figure out who it is just means they’re doing a very good job at being discreet. =)

Matt, I think you need to add a picture of the tiny ears just for the two people who are actually curious. Maybe three; I bet tiny pony ears would be pretty cute!

Your mentioning of frangranced ponies reminded me of something, Muppet Baby. I don’t think I ever had a scented pony, but I had something that was a doll and turned into a cupcake and was scented.. Maybe you’re familiar with them? I think they’re simply called cupcake dolls, but wow, they are so scary looking. I just looked them up & I don’t remember them ever looking that creepy with a giant frosting-hat..

Ghosted by Christine @ 10/04/2006 12:52 PM EDT

I would say that I need a picture of the tiny ears, but I’m going to go buy that Pony and see them for myself. I’ve wanted to get a Pony since the line came back but I don’t like the way they look now. Compared to the originals, they look anorexic. Which I guess is their updating. But I can put up with that for the Halloween theme. And so I can stick them on my fridge. It’s a good thing my car has no exterior metal parts. Or maybe it’s not. Having a herd of My Little Ponies on the roof would be much cheaper than getting the thing painted.

God, I love Target.

Ghosted by Devi @ 10/04/2006 12:56 PM EDT

Who wants My Little Pony Brains?

Ghosted by kingklash @ 10/04/2006 1:03 PM EDT

me me, i do.

Ghosted by drbong @ 10/04/2006 1:15 PM EDT

My sisters and I had tons and tons of My Little Ponies when we were little, including fuzzy ones and a few of the male ones. Mine was Barnacles; he was bright blue with an orange-red mane and tail and usually had to be rescued by the girl ponies. Boy dolls and action figures, whether Ponies, Luke Skywalker, Ken, or Lion-O, always had to be rescued by the girls. It was was mandatory. We were a mostly female family (even Dad wasn’t around much) and didn’t even have many male action figures.

I have really, REALLY got to get to Target before the end of the Halloween season and buy myself a Pumpkin Tart. She’s too awesome. I love her mane; always did like the Ponies with multi-colored manes. I’m highly disappointed with both the Rainbow Brite and Holly Hobbie revivals, especially considering that the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake revivals aren’t horrible. (I’ve actually seen a couple of the recent Strawberry Shortcake cartoons, and while not classics or much like the originals, they’re still fun if you like very girly stuff.)

Ghosted by starwenn @ 10/04/2006 1:48 PM EDT

The 2 Baltic Ave. thing is not that uncommon. I work at McDonalds so naturally I eat there alot. (50% discount!) Anyway, I got 2 large fries 2 days in a row and they both were double-Baltics. Also, I once had both Board Walk and Park Place but they were from different years. I had a current Park Place and I found a feral Boardwalk from 2 years earlier living in the bottom of the safe.

Ghosted by AdamBomb @ 10/04/2006 1:56 PM EDT

I just bought Mc D’s breakfast this morning. My drink gave me a free medium fry, and my has brown gave me a free sundae. I love this game.

On the subject of My Little Pony, I absolutely hate those things. My sister had like a million of them circa 1986-ish. The damned things EACH came with an unusually hard comb of some sort. The million combs were strewn throughout our house and became feet magnets. The IS NO PAIN like stepping barefooted directly onto a My Little Pony comb. I hate you ponies. You made my feet throb.

Ghosted by Old E @ 10/04/2006 2:18 PM EDT

I used to play the McDonald’s Monopoly game a lot, but then I gave up. “Stupid ass railroad” and “twenty duplicates of two out of three of the same colour” were the reasons. I was lucky to even get Park Place. I believe I knew somebody who actually got Boardwalk (unless I’m dreaming, I saw him actually peel it away from the drink cup), but he just kept it instead of, you know, trying to win stuff. I prefer the Disney Trivia McDonald’s game from many years ago myself, because at least I won free food almost every time.

I have no shame in admitting I’d probably get those My Little Ponies… if only there was Target in Canada.

Ghosted by Dr. Acula @ 10/04/2006 2:20 PM EDT

Just to further disagree, my PB ICEE cup has been cleaned out and is not sticky at all. There’s a tiny purple ring of dried dye-product-stuff-whatever, but that’s about it.

Though, it does indeed make my Cabinet of Awesomeness look even more awesome, if that is in fact possible. Hard to top my custom FF and Xenogears stickers. Ooh, I need to make a KH one now. Sweeeet.

Ghosted by K- @ 10/04/2006 2:34 PM EDT

I got 2 Baltic Ave’s on my drink today too!!!!
I went on the website to punch in the code thingys & I won free photos on Snapfish or something….Im awaiting my confirmation email.

Ghosted by m1928mouse @ 10/04/2006 2:34 PM EDT

Matt, we were OBSESSED with the McDonald’s Monopoly game in college. The on campus humor magazine I did artwork for got the gameboard, put it up in our office and we would add the properties we gained each time one of us trekked to McD’s. And like you said we had EVERY OTHER thing on the board EXCEPT Boardwalk. we were seriously discussing splitting the money so many ways too if we won..of course it never happened though.

Ghosted by Melissa Y. @ 10/04/2006 2:45 PM EDT

Just wait until McD’s unveils the new “Mononucleosis” game.

Ghosted by kingklash @ 10/04/2006 3:25 PM EDT

Yup, in the eighties there were a lot more varieties of ponies, but then, this new generation has only been around for three years, they haven’t got to the ‘must make novelty ponies to keep the toy line going’ phase.

The soft ones were called, aptly, ‘So Soft Ponies’, they made around 30-40 ponies like this, so it seems most girls had one or two or ten.

The boys were ‘Big Brother’ ponies that all had a male theme, coming with hats like a pirate hat (Barnacle, my peronal favorite), a contruction worker’s hard hat, etc. I hear they won’t be making any boys with this generation, but we’ll see. I can only assume they didn’t sell too well back in the day!

And they *do* have fragranced ponies right now! Coconut, apple, blah blah blah . . . I never liked the ones that smelled, they give me a headache.

Ghosted by Julie @ 10/04/2006 3:42 PM EDT

Man, I loved me some McDonalds Monopoly as a kid. Now I only wish it were in conjuction with some other fast food place as opposed to disgusting gut-rotting McDonalds. But, it just wouldn’t be the same I guess.

Maybe that should have been McDonalds new campaign for Halloween. Eat at McDonalds! It’s gross and scary and rots your intestines! Maybe not.

I remember my sister playing with the original My Little Ponies. Now her daughters play with the new ones.

Anybody else think the Purple Pie Man toy from Strawberry Shortcake was cool? No? Uhh…yeah, me either.

Ghosted by Justin @ 10/04/2006 3:51 PM EDT

Dr. Acula, I’m never going to see you.

Ghosted by Justin @ 10/04/2006 4:05 PM EDT

Christ, I’m trying so damned hard to ignore the MLP revival and Matt splashes them all over here. I hate MLP. I hated them as a child. I liked horses, and wanted those life-like looking horse models but my mother decided I needed My Little Ponies. In vast quantities. So I started pulling their tails off, thinking that would get the message across. It didn’t. She merely replaced the ponies. She wouldn’t stop buying them. I was still getting them in the 6th grade. There is still a bin of ponies somewhere in the crawl space of my parents’ house, no dout tailless and mouldering.

I used to hate McDonald’s, but have recently gained a new appreciation for them since the closest one is two blocks from the house. I’ve never partaken of the Monopoly game, as I tend to leave things in my pockets and send them through the wash.

Ghosted by LemurCat @ 10/04/2006 4:23 PM EDT

Christine –
Cherry Mary Muffin? My little sister had the one called Chocolatie…I don’t know how you spell it, I have the commercial somwhere. Gotta start digging.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 10/04/2006 4:23 PM EDT

Cherry Mary Muffin lot on eBay.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 10/04/2006 4:27 PM EDT

Any fans of Terry Gilliam? Do you live in or around New York? Well he’s going to be walking around talking with people and handing out flyers for his new movie today. So go hunt him down!

Here is a link, http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30291

Ghosted by Jester @ 10/04/2006 5:24 PM EDT

I just had to drop in and say I got a Mountain Dew Pitch Black freeze today at Target. I think it got accidentally mixed with the LiveWire flavor beside it, because it was an orangy-purply-brown color instead of the anatomically correct purple color. Tasted pretty good anyways, but I’ll have to go back and get an untainted one sometime.

Ghosted by Lilly @ 10/04/2006 5:30 PM EDT

The My Little Ponies are too cute. I have two of the ‘Holiday’ ones but didn’t know they made ones Halloween.

Lemurcat: If you still have those old ponies, sell them on Ebay. You can probably make a nice chunk of change if they’re in decent condition.

I’ve seen the other brought back lines and I agree with the MLPs and Care bears. The Strawberry Shortcake Bandai releases were a huge disappointment to me since I’ve always loved all things vintage Shortcake(hence my name:D). The Playmates ones are a bit of an improvement but still not good. I still stick with ebay for the Vintage ones.

I only saw Rainbow Brite once or twice in stores but since they didn’t bother with any characters other than like 3 of them, I didn’t waste my money on it. If they’d done the full line, I would’ve gotten the ones I never was able to find as a kid.

Ghosted by Angelcake @ 10/04/2006 6:33 PM EDT

An addition:
Justin- I actually thought that Sour Grapes rocked with her boa constrictor Dregs. But Purpey was cool too. Unfortunately his doll was forbidden in my house because he freaked out my youngest sister.

Ghosted by Angelcake @ 10/04/2006 6:36 PM EDT

Jessica Marie, those aren’t them. I guess they’re just called Cupcakes..

Here!

Their skirt is this rubbery, scented, crimped stuff, and you can flip it up inside out around the doll & put their ‘hat’ on top as frosting. I just realized that means they have no legs! Creepy. Now I wish I still had mine. :(

Ghosted by Christine @ 10/04/2006 6:42 PM EDT

Christine – I remember those now, in all of their legless glory. The hat would get lost too easily though, and you’d just have a bunch of immodest little dolls with their skirts up.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 10/04/2006 7:41 PM EDT

Thanks, Christine and Jessica Marie! I forgot all about those cupcake girls. STILL though, I swear my My Little Ponys smelled good…I know Strawberry Shortcake USED to be cool as well- this new one they got going on sucks. She is too kid-ish or something. Oh well- at least they tried. Care Bears, thankfully, are still rocking.

Ghosted by Muppet Baby @ 10/04/2006 8:08 PM EDT

In the early 90s they released perfume ponies. They smelled nice but I was so allergic to them! I had a few anyway.

Ghosted by kittycatgirl2k @ 10/04/2006 8:17 PM EDT

There is a good reason for the My Little Pony ponies to have magnets. All of the playsets that go with them have doors that will open, or things that spin, or play music if the mechanism is tripped by a magnet. Now all My Little Ponies have magnets.

Ghosted by Gemini @ 10/04/2006 8:22 PM EDT

I’m having a vision of a cruel world where ponies with magnets in their feet go around erasing people’s credit cards and hard drives…the horror, the horror!

Ghosted by Cameron T. @ 10/04/2006 8:39 PM EDT

Hey– did anyone else run out and buy ‘The Little Mermaid’ when it came out on Tuesday?? I sure did! Plus, I almost caved and bought a 3 pack of all the TMNT movies for 20 bucks, but I figured the $24 on The Little Mermaid was enough for one day…

Ghosted by Muppet Baby @ 10/04/2006 8:48 PM EDT

Oh yeah, right after work yesterday… Little Mermaid (did you buy a special edition? mine was $15, then X-Men 3, then McOpoly. I already have a free Small McFlurry and a free small drink. What I’m loving the most this year is the online play. I’m so addicted, I just want to buy like a billion Cokes just to enter the codes online, roll the dice, and watch my little car go around.

Ghosted by Mystie @ 10/04/2006 8:59 PM EDT

I almost bit, but I decided not to snag it. I may be obsessed with KH but I’m not quite at the point where I feel the need to own all of the movies represented therein.

I might get Nightmare Before Christmas though. Yes, I admit it, I have never seen it.

Ghosted by K- @ 10/04/2006 10:26 PM EDT

Could that be Canadian dollars perhaps? I’m super eager to pick up the Mermaid DVD…Ariel/Alice/Tinkerbell are probably my biggest girlie weaknesses, though I was also into Ponies and Strawberry and Rainbow B way back.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 10/04/2006 10:26 PM EDT

You know, it’s scary that I know enough about Disney to be pissed out of my mind that they screwed up the Disney Princesses line-up.

Aurora, Snow White, Belle, Jasmin, and Cinderella are correct. Ariel is also correct, as she is the daughter of a King, and was not included in the original line-up only because she was a playable character–and a damn good one to boot.

Alice is not included, and she is one. But what I can’t excuse is not having Kairi. That irks me to no end. Show a little love for the Square created characters outside the bounds of the games.

Please note that this information is based soley on KH and not Chain of Memories or II. Mulan and Pocahontas may very well be in II, I dunno yet, but they make sense. My only point is Kairi is one of them and deserves more love than she is currently getting.

Ghosted by K- @ 10/04/2006 10:37 PM EDT

Mystie- I KNEW that you would have bought it too! :)

Yeah, I got the special edition for $23.99 Canadian and it came with an extra DVD of Music videos ‘inspired by the Little Mermaid’- so it’s got all the classic Mermaid songs and some new ones as well, but I haven’t watched it yet.

I ALMOST bought X3 as well- I think I will have to go back for the special edition of it actually. I expected it to just be a normal edition without any features, and then have a bigger edition released just before Xmas to make me regret having bought it now, but I saw that they actually released the Special Edition at the same time as the regular one for once!

Ghosted by Muppet Baby @ 10/04/2006 10:43 PM EDT

Mystie- I KNEW that you would have bought it too! :)

Am I that predictible? *sniffle*

Ghosted by Mystie @ 10/04/2006 10:58 PM EDT

That’s what I thought exactly, Muppetbaby.

And the pets now are too..normal. Vanilla icing the lamb. That says it all. Vanilla.

Lets face it, Vintage Strawberry was all about Souffle the purple skunk and Marzipanda as the pets. Way more imaginative.

I guess you all can tell this new line is a big pet peeve of mine :P

As for the Disney Princesses, as much as I love Disney movies, its getting to be overkill. I’m looking forward to seeing what they’re going to do with Tinkerbell though. Especially since she’s a supporting character normally.

Ghosted by Angelcake @ 10/05/2006 12:46 AM EDT

Ha ha, I love the refridgerator picture, that has to be the only reason for them to have magnets. Are they going to stay on the fridge for the remainder of October?

Ghosted by Ronald MacKinnon @ 10/05/2006 2:50 AM EDT

I always thought it was a stretch to call Belle a princess, but I guess she did marry into it.

Ghosted by Julie @ 10/05/2006 4:18 PM EDT

My Little Ponies walking on the fridge – best thing I have ever seen.

Ghosted by Crizag @ 10/05/2006 8:59 PM EDT

My day sucked cold, slimy onions from a glass of curdled milk until I read the Pony article. Now my world is strawberry-scented and I’m dizzy from twirling and giggling..and twirling and giggling. Thanks Matt.

Ghosted by PerfectPrice @ 10/06/2006 6:09 AM EDT

I love that Halloween My Little Ponies even exist. I Love it…

Ghosted by Pirate Todd @ 10/06/2006 3:31 PM EDT

Everything else has been said above, but let me say word-the-hell-up about the annoying use of “Holidays” instread of Christmas. It’s weird how about 7 years ago every store in the country simultaneuously decided to throw out everything with the dreaded C-word.

I want my Christmas Crunch to stay that way, you bastards. :(

Ghosted by Fatmouse @ 10/06/2006 8:49 PM EDT

i think… i really want those.
(the bat organs).

Ghosted by Hambone @ 10/06/2006 10:53 PM EDT

Reminds me I haven’t watched My Little Transformer in over half a month! http://www.mylittletransformer.com

I used to have about 20 Ponies, mostly rescues, but this summer I sent them to a little girl I know for her birthday. She loved them! :) I kept three for myself, one ’cause she was my first one, and two because they kept managing to jump or fall out of the box as I was trying to seal it up. Figured that was a sign I should keep ‘em. ;) Or maybe they were just possessed. ;)

Ghosted by Moony @ 10/08/2006 12:04 AM EDT

I’ll tell you why the My Little Ponies have magnets on their feet…

It’s so they can ASSAULT YOU WITH SHARP OBJECTS!
I’m not kidding… I had one of these ponies sitting out on my computer desk (don’t ask…) and it was getting in my way so I picked it up. That’s when I noticed the thing was weilding a pair of nail clippers! With the pointy-nail-filing-thing that they don’t allow on planes pointing straight at me! Scary…

Ghosted by Lizzi @ 10/09/2006 3:20 AM EDT

Apparently the kids in this article (http://www.wpxi.com/news/10028989/detail.html?subid=22105244&qs=1;bp=t) didn’t read your blog about how it’s gonna be some little old lady in po-dunk town who’s gonna win… :)

Ghosted by EricaLynne @ 10/10/2006 8:44 AM EDT

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