X-Entertainment's Christmas Season & Advent Calendar, 2008.

06/22/2007: Summer Megaparty: ’80s Commercials!

A bunch of new reviews of old commercials for you today, with the products ranging from funny diet pills to invisible bear-shaped fruit snacks. If you’re new to the site and want to see more old commercials, I suggest clicking here and here and here. Awayyyyy we gooooo…

Consumers Catalog Showrooms: Oh God, how I loved Consumers. There weren’t a ton of Consumers stores across the world, but I was lucky enough to live ten minutes away from one. I was really young and the memories might be a bit rusty, but it worked like this: You’d go into this “store” that looked more like a Department of Motor Vehicles with a bunch of casino arcade prize shelves, and stand at a little podium filling out order forms from Consumers catalogs. Then you’d give the slips to one of the workers, and they’d reappear from the giant warehouse in the back with whatever you ordered.

The idea was that they could keep their prices down by doing away with extravagant store displays, but in practice, the whole thing kind of sucked. You’d spend twenty minutes filling out order forms and another hour waiting on lines, and half the time, most of what you wanted ended up being out of stock. This led to the entire Consumers business having a terrible stigma, but at heart, it was the company’s fault. The catalogs used to have these wild clearance sales with truly absurd low prices, and obviously, that’s why people were going to the stores. When everyone’s ordering the same shit, a single store can’t meet the demand.

Example? Okay. For three years in a row in the mid ’80s, the Consumers holiday catalog promoted Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos figures for forty-nine cents a pop. Each year, I’d make my mother take me there, and each year, there were no Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos in stock. I was too young to really understand the concept of misleading advertising and things being sold out, so I just assumed my mother was at fault and gave her shit for it.

Despite it constantly providing the retail equivalent of blue balls, I was totally fascinated by the stores. Click here to watch one of their old commercials, starring Shirley Jones as the odd celebrity spokesperson. The commercial’s boring as hell, but I can’t change that.

Berry Bears Fruit Snacks: In retrospect, the Berry Bears fruit snack brand was far more interesting than it seemed. In the beginning, it was just another everyday fruit snack based on another group of everyday generic characters. A family of bears, in this case. You had Ma Bear and Pa Bear, and Kid Bear and other Kid Bear.

Somewhere along the way, the people behind Berry Bears went completely insane and refused to allow a family of friendly bears to sell the product by themselves. Instead, they constantly implemented wacky “special edition fruit snacks.” In one commercial, they had the cartoon bears stumble upon some kind of holy flying horse to serve as an introduction to new “holy flying horse” fruit snacks. Picture that — you’d open a pack of Berry Bears, and it’d be 90% Humanoid Bear and 10% Flying Pegasus.

In the commercial featured here, the special edition snack was even weirder. Bobby Bear finds a jar of vanishing cream and makes himself invisible. Thus, packages of Berry Bears fruit snacks included random “Invisible Bobby” pieces, which were more translucent than actually invisible, but whatever.

I like to pretend that the Berry Bears production panel consisted of five old ladies and a California surfer with a can of Coca-Cola constantly in hand. Everyone had a say. The old ladies liked their nuclear family of fruity bears, but Surfer Dude was always around to spice things up with flying horses and invisibility creams, just because he was stoned and thought it’d be funny. Click here to see Bobby Bear go byebye!

Dexatrim: I have no idea if they still make Dexatrim, and I’ve never actually seen it in person. Still, I couldn’t have been the only kid who was enamored by the pills seen in commercials like this one. What were all of those little balls visible within the clear end of the pills? What did they do? I had no idea what an “appetite suppressant” was. I just figured that those little balls swam around stomachs attacking whatever food people ate, shrinking pot roasts down like salt on snow.

You might need some Dexatrim after tomorrow’s Megaparty entry. It’s a recipe. A greasy one. Stay tuned.

Awesome, first post, I think. Sorry Matt, didn’t read the article but I will after the first post glory wears off.

Wow, it seems unfair that Dexatrim gets to take up all of the “Appetite Control Center” in the store

You know, I had totally forgotten all about Berry Bears until now! Wow. That’s why I love this place, Matt– brings back lots of long-lost memories.

Also, I believe they still make Dexatrim and I think it’s got like 500 different varieties now. I always thought those capsules looked cool too.

Dexatrim can be found at your local Long’s or Walgreen’s here in SoCal. I’ve seen it under the ‘As Seen on TV’ section at Walgreen’s, although it’s been a long time since I’ve seen those commercials.
I wish everybody a wonderful weekend! I’ll be back on Monday to check out Matt’s awesome posts and the amazing comments that they inspire.
Until then, stay healthy, happy, horny and hysterical.

The Consumers Catalog Showroom description reminded me of the JC Penny Outlet Store that was a few minutes away from my house when I was little. I can remember getting a few G.I. Joe figures there that were packaged in plastic bags instead of on their display cards. The file cards were there, along with all of the weapons and accessories, just no blister or backing. Was this common practice back then? I think it must have been wave 1 or 2, since I distinctly remember getting Snow Job and Blowtorch in this fashion. Can anyone else verify this, or were my parent just cheaping out on me?

Also, I have noticed Matt’s use of “waiting on line” and “standing on line,” where I’m more accustomed to saying “waiting in line.” Is this exclusively a New York thing?

In that second pic of Shirley, is she gonna leap the counter and chomp on the clerk?

“Next time on The VamPartidge Family, Shirley’s Christmas shopping is cut short. Again.”

Thorzul: I can’t speak on those Joe figures specifically, but department stores very often sold “exclusive” packs of toys that came in far different packaging than you’d see in Toys ‘R’ Us. This was usually to save on shipping costs. In many cases, the figures would come in little white boxes. (Example: Instead of getting four carded Star Wars figures, you’d get ‘em all in a white box with SW graphics printed on it.) It makes sense that the Joe figures would still come with their file cards, because that was one of the things you were really “buying” when you got ‘em.

Lori has won the prize. She could theoretically find and kill me and the Colonel.

In Canada it was called Consumers Distrubting and the concept was the same. I can remember spending hours obsessing over the toy section of the catalog, saving up my allowance money, eventually talking my mother into driving me to consumers, only to find that the toys I really wanted weren’t in stock. In the end we would always go to a department store and get what I wanted. On the plus side, it was the only catalog I can remember reading that sold sex toys and called them “personal massagers”.

I remember my mother buying Dexatrim, and finding it in the trash a month later. I guess it didin’t work. Also I remember being mystified at those little colored balls. We never had Consumers Cataloge down here, but we had Service Merchandise, which was similar. But closed down years ago. I don’t know about you Matt, but I loved those old 80’s type commercials that were plain and to the point. No splashy graphics, monotone voice overs and z-list actors. I would watch all those commercials down here in san antonio on the WOR? I think, New York tv station. Until or stupid cable outlet stop carrying the channel.

We had a Service Merchandise, and another one before that, can’t remember the name.

Dexatrim Max 20. That’s Dexatrim Max “2-Oh”. I don’t even know what Dexatrim is…

I had invisible bobby stickers but I can swear I’ve never had berry bear snacks.

Pretty sure I had those fruit snacks, but I totally forgot about them until now.
We had a Service Merchandise, and from what I remember it was pretty terrible.

holy shite!!
for the first time ever ive actuallyt had / shopped at something thats been in X-E commercials!!
i fucking loved consumers too matt, i remember the chuck norris figures too, i got my at k-mart though.
and the berry bears, mmmmm now that brings me back.
l’d like to say thank you for doingth summer megaparty dude, it more than makes up for the lack of posting there for awhile, but hey, you were busy, so whaddayagonnado..

I think I remember getting my ass handed to me because I brought Berry Bears to lunch one day. From then on it was Fruit Wrinkles and Fruit Bars only. If I was in over-supply in cool points I brought Garfield snacks on Friday.

I remember Service Merchandise. Sounds just like consumers. It’s funny because, like Matt, I remember being fascinated by the store, but always disappointed with the reality. It took FOREVER to actually get anything there. Line after line. And whether you’re waiting “on” them or “in” them they still suck.

We had Consumers in Philly, I remember exactly what Matt’s talking about: you’d see something in the catalog, run to the store, and fill out the form only to wait 20 minutes to find out they didn’t have it. And those 20 minutes were torture when you wanted a He-man or Transformers figure. We also had BEST, which was basically the same thing. They had most of their stuff on display, so you could touch everything. Like a walk through catalog or something.

I remember Berry Bear commericals, but I don’t think I’ve had them, I wasn’t into the fruit snack thing. I was more of a Fruit Rollup gal.

The Berry Bears Pegasus! Being one of those horse loving little girls I had to buy those while they were out. I’d forgotten until this moment but I remember them as this great blue and pink swirl color.

I cant wait until 20 years from now when I read your ” Head On” commercial post. Those sons of bitches need to cut that shit out

Happy Friday all! I don’t think I ever had the chance to head to one of those Consumers Catalog Showrooms as a kid. Maybe we had some equivalent to them in IL, but I can’t recall.

I swear to God though that I used to be mesmerized by those Dexatrim capsules because you could see through them. It is weird how our brains all remember the same little details. For some reason that made it appealing to us, and now it sticks out in our memory.

Just enjoying a casual Friday night, hanging out with my nephew. It is amazing how much of a difference 12 years can make in video game playing ability. He is kicking my ass. Must be my vision going and my reflexes slowing. That or maybe he just plays a hell of a lot more than me. However, give me some Contra (circa NES 1988) and we’ll see whats what.

We didn’t have Consumers here in SoCal, but we did have a BEST store here in the Valley. The funny thing is, the place has been closed for well over ten years but the BEST sign is still up, and no stores have occupied the space since then. They wanted to turn it into a Wal-Mart Supercenter but the people in the neighborhood fought it; it would have sat near what is already a very busy intersection and would have been right across the street from one the Valley’s biggest and most popular malls.

Yeah, our Best sign stayed up forever too. It’s a parking lot now, across from a convocation center type-dealie and one of our oldest and iconic entertainment venues (which has HORREDOUS acoustics).

This is the first time I’m reading X-E while not being at work. Think I’ll crack open a bottle of wine to celebrate

Recipe tomorrow, hooray. Actually, I spent most of the day cooking because it’s my wife’s birthday. Baked a carrot cake and surprised her at work, and made some other random bread and dip thing. I think I need to go eat some meat…haven’t had any the last couple days.

I never heard of Service Merchandise or Consumers Catalog until several friends, including my best friend and Matt, mentioned living near them. The concept isn’t even familiar. The only catalogues I ever remember getting down in Southern New Jersey were the usual ones, Sears and the like.

Very vague memories of the Berry Bears and the horse, though I don’t remember invisibility…

Reading about the berry bear commerical I thought to myself “hmm I seen a commercical on youtube similar to that. This is a commerical break the last commerical has the Pegasus berry bear commerical. That’s a lot of the word commerical in one sentence. And when I was watching the berry bear commerical a few weeks ago I thought the horse was a weird random thing and it didn’t make any sense at the time but now it does. I remember thinking how did they get two colors of gummy into one? How is that scientifically possible? But I remember the transparent bears somehow and wondering how they would taste.

I also wondered about pills I wondered about the two colors and what would happen if they blended together before you swallowed. I worry too much. We didn’t have anything like the Consumer store over here in oregon that i remember, but that sounds like my grandma would have a love-hate relationship with because she is cheap, she loves saving money, but she’s very impatient. She would probably do something like that every once in a while but hate the whole experience.
anyway here’s the link for the commerical break that one commerical is in enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6yKJg3gsjs

I’m dying here. I get the old commercials I was craving and I’m away from home on a computer with no sound. AHHH!

Best was awesome! I miss it in the worst way! I looked forward to getting the catalog in the mail every year. I anxiously ran to the mailbox every day in August until it showed up. I think of them so fondly that I have a small collection of catalogs now. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to actually order stuff and have it sent to the house. Of course that was almost exactly the time it went out of business. Cruel fate.

Its true…all I remember about Consumers was that I was always really bored..and I wondered what other people were buying because i couldn’t SEE..i just liked to wonder what people were buying…perhaps something exciting…but it was always something like a hand held vaccuum

My mom did the dexatrim diet as well in the 80s. Not sure if it worked, but if she wasn’t looking those things were mighty fun to play around with!

Bill and Shaunfu- from the previous post, the Hell’s Kitchen I work at has no affiliation to the show, it was actually around before the show ever started. Dress code (aside from pajama weekends) is actually head to toe black, so now I guess I get to see what I look like as a goth. I hope I can pull it off.

The handsome mysterious gentleman going by “Anonymous” right above me is, well, also me.

Weeeeeeeeeee!!!!! Poltergeist 2 is on AMC. Say what you will about the movie but that old guy is the creepiest.

Hello everyone, I’m sorry I didn’t post last thread. I’m working the overnight shift at McDonald’s tonight, so I wanted to make sure to post before I have to go to work. I love hearing about the Konami code; I read about it on wikipedia recently, and I use it for Batman Returns on my SNES. It’s too bad that game has no invincibility cheat; that’s an important criteria for those of us in the market for old video games. It’s funny, most good games have cheat codes, but one of the best video game franchises of all, Super Mario Bros., has no such codes, although some of them did have level warps. For those of you who have played Super Turrican, was it the NES or SNES version?(I have it for SNES). In a weak effort to start something resembling a survey, I’ll ask you X-E-ers out there, what is your favorite video game cheat?

I don’t remember exactly what you had to do, but my favorite cheat was in John Elway’s quarterback. On a certain play, you threw the ball to a receiver who could then run around like a lunatic 10 times faster than anyone else. Anyone else remember that? The Baseball Stars “When Isn’t It?” cheat was pretty damn cool too.

Damn, Consumers! The only memory I have of it is that I bought my G2 Inferno there. And then I don’t remember the layout of the store and the space itself became a Petco not long after my visit.

Speaking of Dexatrim, any Colbert Report fans? This week’s “Cheating Death” segment was fantasic. I could go for a box of Vaxa-Smacks right now. They’re guaranteed to actually shrink your prostate…or if you’re a lady, it’ll grow you one!

I have Super Turrican on SNES. My mom bought it on major discount and I thought it was going to suck. To my surprise, it was loads of fun.

I usually play RPGs and while we have some nice glitches (the Blitzball glitch in FFX comes to mind) we don’t often have cheats in the usual sense. I’ll list a favorite secret and a favorite sneaky strategy to compensate:

Playing as Magus in Chrono Trigger. Frog just has to accept that he will always be a frog. No way I’m forgoeing Magus just to see him as a doofy human. They’re always in my party together, though. I’m a unifyer.

Leveling the forms in Kingdom Hearts II. It would take FOREVER to do this if you just waited til you filled your drive gauge everytime. So, find yourself a good spot next to a save point (the mountain in Land of Dragons, and the area outside the Proof of Existance are the best) and fire up your desired form. Have at the enemies and jump to the world map before your drive gauge empties. Return and you’ll have a full drive gauge and all the exp you gained. Rinse and repeat.

I remember going to Consumers for Darkwing Duck actions figures, and being totally pissed when the only characters they had in stock were Steelbeak and Bushroot.

I always feel weird when I see stores sitting empty for years. It makes me feel like I’ve just entered the world of a zombie plague. Creepy, but also, I have to say, kinda cool. The Service Merchandise at the mall near my aunt’s house has been empty for going on 10 years now. Goblin music plays in my head whenever I see it.

Reminds me of a place in southern Raleigh (closer to Sanford) that sell adult videos and stuff. There’s some big paint on the exterior of the building that says “Arcade - all games 25 cents!” I have not been in the building because I can only assume that what’s inside is completely different.

FyarlGirl, I know what you mean about abandoned stores. I’m kinda obsessed with the “dead mall” phenomenon, myself.

Man, I remember Service Merchandise having some cool shit. I was pretty sad when it left; the mall just wasn’t the same without it. My dad bought me this little Power Wheels-ish police motorcycle there on clearance when I was about four years old. I loved that thing to death until it finally quit working for whatever reason.

Wow… a website where the members mention zombies and Goblin music and no one questions exactly what that is.

Yeah, Gene, I remember Consumer Distributors. One birthday when I was like 6, I had a choice of Megaman Soccer or Super Mario All-Stars from them. Took Mario-definately the better choice.

Matt, your description of how the Berry Bears people “went completely insane…and “implemented wacky “special edition fruit snacks.”", reminds me of how an artist starts out fairly normal and basic, and then just loses it. Like how Pink Floyd was originally a blues band, or how Louis Wain went from drawing cats to drawing fragmented psychadelic non-cats. Both cases are actually a bit tragic though. Still.

Okay, Hoverbored, I don’t know if it counts as a cheat, but theres this Game Genie thing you can do with Megaman X, where you can combine your powers. Its wicked. For normal cheats, maybe one for Bubble Boble where you can skip levels. I swear some of those later ones are not meant to be beaten.

We had a service merchandise, except they mainly had stuff on the floor. I don’t remember ever having to wait. I bought my first portable CD player there–it was the first thing I bought when I opened a checking account in the 4th grade. (My parents wanted to teach me about money).

I also vaguely recall the berry bears fruit snacks with the flying horse. Didn’t remember those until the blog post…

We had Consumers here in Newfoundland except it’s full title was “Consumers Distributing”, maybe the Canadian version or something???

It lasted for a solid 6 years or so..closing probably around 1994 or something…although the sign was there in front of the mall until the late nineties… the only thing I ever remember getting from there was that yellow walking forklift thing from the end of one of the Alien movies…maybe the first? Anyway, it was a sweet toy but Consumers was a confusing store, as a young lad I had no idea what was going on there, but the anticipation of waiting for the toy to appear RIGHT after you pick it from the catalog was sort of a cool experience I guess…almost forgot about that place, thx again Matt.

Yep, I got Sky Lynx from BEST. Oh yeah. Might have gotten Vehicle Voltron there too.

I so remember those berry bear fruit snacks, and I remember eating the wings off the horse all the time. I have no idea what Consumers is though. And I didn’t play video games as a youngster so I have no favorite cheat codes…lol.

Does anyone remember the instant oatmeal that had fruit snacks shaped like bears or other things that didn’t appear until you poured the hot water on the oatmeal?

Cookiemonstr,
Do a search on X-E about oatmeal; I seem to recall that Matt wrote an article about a brand of oatmeal that had “Dinosaur Eggs” that “hatched” when you poured the hot water on.

That Super Turrican game is supposed to be on virtual console very soon according to GoNintendo…in case anyone cares….

Random thought: I guess tonight I officially became old. We went to a movie tonight and the crowd was full of loudly talking and continuously moving teenagers and the entire row to my right spent the entire trailers doing a MST3K thing, but in a very un-fun way. I wanted to enjoy the movie dammit. By the time the trailers were over, I was so high strung my very understanding friend was like “you wanna go” and I said I could make it. Then the MGM lion roared, and the idiot next to me make some LOUD stupid ass comment and I said “yep that’s it”, so we left.

We went to the manager, who took us to the ticket counter to get a pass to come another time. While there, the high school age (no offense to anyone here, btw ;)) cashier said, “What was the problem? The kids?! Come on a weekday then…”

I wanted to say “actually I should be able to go whenever I please. It’s your age group that, by and large, that has not been taught or just don’t care what ‘audience etiquette’ is…ass”, but I didn’t.

So we came home to beer and Wii…realizing I’ve become a grumpy old man. But I’m okay with that.

Also, tried the mudslide….it was okay. Not exiting, but my fear of Kaluha -or however you spell it- has been wiped clean…

Hah. Glad to know your night was fun, Shuanfu. Just a few weeks ago, my friend and I left due to annoying people in the theater as well; we asked for our money, but didn’t get it. I think this proves that cinemas are that of pure evil. Just out of curiosity, what movie were you trying to see?

Nowadays we just have Stacker and Stacker II. Mafia guys apparently work better than the average woman to convince people to lost weight.

We didn’t have a Consumers in New Mexico, but we did have a Service Merchandise and a Best store. I remember looking at the catalogs that came out. Never ordered anything though.

My favorite Cheat code? Legit one…getting Ivan Ooze in Power Rangers: Fighting Edition. Press & Hold X&Y while choosing any character. He was an uncompleted character with only 2 attacks, but they had long range and he was the only one who could float, making him extremely tough to hit.

Gameshark…I gamesharked the hell out of my Pokemon Silver game, getting shiny legendaries and unlimited masterballs. I’m trying to aquire one for the DS to just get unlimited master balls plus the (or perhaps 4) Event Legendaries: Shaymin (the Mew, Celebi, Jircahi of D/P), Darkrai, and Arceus (the GOD of Pokemon). There’s also Manaphy, which you can breed with Ditto to get Phione.

Speaking of which…I finally caught that bastard Azelf. I had to use Uxie’s Yawn move to get it.

Lol Thomas…not exactly what I remember, but very close and Matt’s article was SO funny. I remember that the bear shaped fruit snacks were covered in this powdery substance the exact shade of the oatmeal and when the hot water hit them they immediately appeared. I think the only color the bears came in was red and they were also gummy just like fruit snacks. Now I miss the old days when my mom would make me breakfast every morning. ~sighs~

OK, now I remember the bear fruit snacks. The only thing that triggered my mind was the horse part. And the mention of the fruit snack bar brought back memories too. Ugh. What a weird strange food to give kids.

This is the best summer ever. Megaparty, carnivals, swimming, lightening bugs, all kinds of summer activities in the near future and coming weeks. One of the chicks my friends and I know from karaoke gave us free tickets to a male revue today (Saturday) and Sunday we’re hopping the bus to NYC. Gonna be a fuck of a weekend, I hope I’ll still remember it all when I sober up. I guess that’s what cameras are for, though, RIGHT? Yee haw!

I see several people have mentioned having Service Merchandise stores in their area. I also remember SM and I hated that place as a child. I think it stems from the time me, my mamaw, and some old man was in the crystal aisle and he knocked a shelf over and tried to blame it on me. I was probably 5 or 6 years old. Mamaw was irate, she was cussing the old man and the SM employees. I always hated that store afterwards. 150+ dollars for a small microwave!? That’s insane. 10 years ago I got one the same size for 60 bucks. Thank you Wal-Mart.

I just remembered something I wanted to post about; has anyone out there heard of the Transformers tribute band named Megatron? I heard them perform on the radio this morning, after their lead singer(?) called in on Wednesday to score tickets to an advanced screening of the movie. Apparently, they are one of at least two Transformers bands in the L.A. area; the other band is named Optimus Prime.
They have a MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/megatronbp
Also, you can hear their radio performance here:
http://www.kroq.com Click the “Kevin and Bean” link on the left of the page, then click the “Sounds” link; the file will be marked by an accompanying picture of Megatron (the Decepticon).

They do indeed still sell Dexatrim, in the “max two oh” variety.
Invader, you beat me to it. In fact, I’ve noticed an odd sychronicity between the Colbert Report and X-E sometimes. He actually busted out with a jar of Marshmallow Fluff the other week.
Shuanfu, you just outlined the reasons I only go the the movies late at night or in the unfashionable theater in town if I can absolutely help it. Maybe it does mean I’m getting old, but I have no patience for putting up with teenagers who won’t shut up.

Total blame wasn’t the teenagers…it was made worse by the row of adults next to me.

I’m going back Sunday in the early afternoon…much better time…me and all my other 80 year old friends

Hey, Shuanfu, that doesn’t make you old! I hate having to listen to teenagers, and I’m only 18.

Hmm…favourite cheat code. I don’t remember a whole lot from when I played the older games, so I’d probably have to go with Mortal Kombat’s “blood” cheat. This seems strange to me now, as I recall that I was an 8-year-old girl ripping hearts out of dudes.

Ya know we had a BEST store down here and that sign was up for a long ass time after it closed. And the building is still vacant…hmmmm….

I haven’t thought about them in…years.
We used to get Christmas presents there. Well, my parents and grandmother would order them. My siblings and I would be mesmerized by the toys on display. I can’t remember anything being out of stock (It wasn’t as busy, lucky us)
They closed when I was…8, I think.

Have you guys read about the new program Regal is unleashing for its patrons that are Regal Crown Club members (or whatever the hell it’s called)? Allegedly, they’ll give you a device so that you can report nuisances. I guess it’s like a beeper and you can tell them that people are talking, that the lights haven’t dimmed, that the movie hasn’t started, etc. etc. It sounds badass but I feel that it’s just going to end up getting abused, managers/employees will be running around even more crazy than they are now, and the pheonomenon will end.

I had an interesting night last night. We had a big storm which knocked out all the power around 5:00 pm and didn’t come on until the middle of the night. I spent all night listening to my soundtracks and comedy CD’s on my portable. It was also my younger brothers birthday and we had pizza and pie by candlelight. I missed the last episode of Stargate. I hope Sci-Fi posts those things on their website.

Speaking of video games cheating codes, do you guys remember the Game Genie? My cousin had one and it ruled. You would put your game into the genie, put the genie into the system, and input codes from a codebook. I loved that thing.

hey GWEFF:
dude or dude-ette, you’re from newfoundland too?!?! smallworld, i live in topsail, like 15 minutes away from downtown, where are you located??

Since we’re ranting like senior citizens, I blame the internet in large part. The younger generation is being reared to think that every thought that enters their head should be broadcast to the world and everything they do is important. Look at all the blogs out there by people who chronicle every detail of their stupid lives like it’s Nobel-worthy journalism. Look at all the YouTube videos of high school kids just turning on a camera and acting stupid (and making the conscious decision to post it to the internet, believing that people all across the world are bound to find it as entertaining as they do.) Even legitimate news sites have places on each story where you can comment or, what really bugs me, rate the story, as if we should care one iota what people think of the news. (Rape and murder? Boo! One star! Ooh…a new baby tiger born at the zoo? Five stars! More like this please!) By this logic, if I’m sitting at the movie and have a thought I find humorous, I should share it audibly because I have been taught that the world wants to hear my thoughts on anything at any time. I am special.

Obviously, anyone cool enough to hang around here is probably exempt from this generalization.

I like the fact that we’re more likely to question things and be critical, but you’re right, as with all things we need to know when and where it is appropriate to do so.

Like many of you I avoid movie theaters like a plague now as where I used to love going. The last two films I actually saw in a theater? Grindhouse in April of this year, and before that it was Meet the Fockers in January 2005. What can I say? I’d rather avoid the frustration, wait five months, and own the DVD.

It isn’t the same overall experience, but it keeps the blood pressure in check.

Hmm, never heard of Consumers, pretty cool! Me and the fiance stayed in a cabin in the middle of nowhere the past two nights, and in the pamphlet they gave us it said they weren’t responsible for anything involving “Creatures of Nature.” Awesome

I like going to early morning showings, and late ones. It usually preserves the experience for me. If it is something that benefits from a group experience I will see it at a “prime” time. Snakes on a Plane would not be the same if i hadn’t seen it opening night with the most raucaus crowd imaginable

RE: Stargate. Don’t worry. A) SciFi usually replays these things ad nauseum. and B) You really didn’t miss that much. I won’t spoil anything, but I was disappointed. The title of the episode is fitting, though.

Oh my fucking God! The the o in the “Y0, from 1 fry 2 anotha.” title in the articles section on the front page is a zero. 0 1 2.

JoshC I thought I was the only one! I’m from Corner Brook but I’m living in downtown St. John’s now…

I think its funny that people are complaining about going to the movies…my mom is one of those people, once we went to the theater and we had to move 3 freaking time because people sat right behind us! I, on the other hand, have never had any problems…crying babies, talking people, people getting up in the middle…it never distracts me from the movie, I think ’cause the movie is played so loud I can tune everything else out. The only thing I don’t like is if my seat is kicked or pushed, that is physical and will make me miss something in the movie.

Hey Thorzul, I remember JC Penney Outlet! We have one that’s still open in Merriam, KS. Back in the day they sold all sorts of special editions of popular toys, my favorite was the HUGE Estes Rockets we’d dig up in the catalog returns department for cheap.

These days catalog returns is more organized but back in the 70’s and 80’s it was chock full of plain brown boxes stacked row upon row through the whole department like the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, good times!

There used to be a Consumers Distributing up around where I live… I remember that we got the catalogue often, but we only ever got 1 item out of it… I rememer it mostly because it was the ONLY place I saw an item that I really wanted, some 9-in-1 toy weapon… I saw the commercial once, and the item itself in the Consumer’s Distributing catalogue, and never again…

On the topic of theatres, I think they and certain other public places should be allowed to jam cell phone signals. For God’s sake, it’s not hard to turn your damn phone off for two hours, and if you’re expecting a really super important call, then don’t go to a damn movie!

The one that really gets me is when teenagers are sitting there texting each other or playing a game the whole time. Why did they even go in the first place?

In case you hadn’t noticed, I really hate cell phones. And teenagers. They are a deadly combination.

I have lots of other rants about going to the movies, but I’ll save it for my LiveJournal or something.

Can I just say I went to the SAME movie today. The theater was still full. And there were movie talkers, but movie talkers that were into the movie and whose comments -more sounds really- added to the experience. There were teenagers still (the after church crowd) but there was more of a sense of “We’re here to see a movie” instead of “we’re here to have social hour”…I think that was the problem with the crowd -both teens AND adults- at the Friday night showing.

AHH! I was just thinking about berry bears the other day! That’s actually how I found this article. I used to be completely obsessed with berry bears as a kid and I really wish they hadn’t been discontinued (I’m assuming so because I haven’t seen a box in years). Anyway, that was a pretty hilarious bit you wrote on them. I was completely unaware at the time how incredibly weird their marketing schemes were.

I was a big fan of Consumers… I live(d) right near the one you are speaking of Matt, and your description is pretty on target- except you’re forgeting one important thing… everything you ordered came out on steel rollers… You’d wait, and wait, and then finally your action figure or Ninendo game would come rolling out from the back.

The catalog style store near me growing up was called BEST. We didn’t shop there much because they never had anything, but I do remember picking up some cool toys there over the years including Wheeled Warriors and some figures that when you pulled their legs down at the waist, their rubbery skin on their face and chest would deflate and make them look very monstrous and wrinkled

“On the plus side, it was the only catalog I can remember reading that sold sex toys and called them “personal massagers”

I remember those! Consumers Distributing (same company) was in the Bay Area of CA when I was growing up. I remember getting the CD catalog when I was a kid and circling what I wanted for Christmas. I distinctly remember thinking the very cool Millenium Falcon toy was too expensive. I ended up with the Death Star Space Station instead (which i had in pristine condition until I was 20 years old, when my three year old nephew got ahold of it and tore the cardboard pieces, lost the foam from the trash compactor. he also tore the wings off my battle-scarred (soot stickers) X-Wing).

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