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07/25/2007: Summer Megaparty: Summer, 1992!

Remembering my foolproof loophole of not needing to add new content to the blog when I post a regular X-E article, I’m here to tell you that I’m only here to tell you something.

I came across a collage I drew and colored in 1992, evidently encapsulating all that was holy about that year’s summer vacation. In this article, I break down the contents of said collage and figure out why each element meant enough to me to be worth drawing.

After spending over a month writing about whatever, the Summer Megaparty finally gets summery. Only, I guess it’s not the Summer Megaparty getting summery, since this is a “regular” article. Ah…well, something’s getting summery.

Yay for collages! Yay for the summer of ‘92! Yay for this new article, which I am now reading as a reward for coming home from work and doing….work. (I tutor tomorrow)Thanks, Matt.

Funny, I’m the oldest but there aren’t many me-centric snaps lying around either. I even wondering if I might have been adopted as a package deal with my little sister, who there were plenty of baby pics of.

The Summer of 1992! That may have been the best summer ever. I can’t tell you exactly why it looms so large in my memory, but I do know that spent large chunks at Rye Playland, went to the movies more than my parents should have let me, and was allowed to start collecting music in earnest. How did I start? The Sister Act soundtrack, and the Spin Doctors. I was a weird kid.

On a totally different note, I’ve got a question and this seems like the right group to ask. What are the greatest action figure playsets of all time? I’m looking for ones that were just completely awesome, and hopefully large enough to be filmed without it looking like it was shot on a tabletop. (And hopefully ones that don’t run a bajillion dollars on eBay, but that’s just asking too much.)

I don’t remember what I did the summer of 92. I guess I would have been 9 years old, though, so I probably played a lot of video games, ran around outside with friends, etc.

Nicely done, I love these little time machine type articles, keep up the excellent work!!

That’s the problem with being a younger child. They take fewer pics the later the kid. You can find half a dozen headshots of your oldest brother/sister at the top of the family photo bin, but only a handful of yourself in the whole thing.

Declan- If you’re trying for some kind of stopmotion movie,you might consider the Ewok Village. Later on it was rereleased as a Robin Hood playset. I doubt the Robin Hood version is too expensive.

In the summer of ‘92, my mom took my brother, 2 cousins and myself to see “Wayne’s World” at the drive-in, bless her heart. While we laughed and laughed at the hilarious characters and witty dialogue, my mom HATED it.
She hated it so much that she started the engine and started to drive away when they were still doing the many endings! We were screaming “NO MOM- Its not done yet!” and she really didn’t care.

As I recall, we jumped out of the slow moving car to make her stay for until the REAL ending played…then for the funny stuff during the credits. Poor Mom.

Another home run Matt. I stayed up an extra hour for this and it was worth it. I think these are my favorite type of articles.

All I got for Confirmation was three of the same green GI Joe boats and a lot of religious paraphernalia. Or wait….I think that was first Communion.

Wow. Very Cool. I think there’s something about mothers who are in their 50s and 60s and getting rid of the things their kids left beind. My mother does the same thing. Each month she mails a box to me and my two sisters and the boxes are filled with random things from our childhood. The old school papers from elementary school are cute and all, but the things I had stashed away from jr high and high school are the best.
I was between 7th and 8th grade that summer, I think I spent the majority of it at The Wave pool, which was the only public pool in our area. And we rollerbladed in our neon rollerblades everywhere listening to cassettes in our walkmans.

Awesome! These are always my favorite types of articles. As cool as it is to get Kool-Aid reviews and other retro stuff, the best part is always just hearing what was going on in your life at that time. It’s usually awkward and funny.

Man, you were such a cool kid. I had to bust out the Google Maps on this one so I could really get a feel for your summer locales.
Are you talking about those naked afro lady paintings?
I would KILL to hear your Godfather impression. It would be so awesome if those recordings turned out not to be lost to time.
My grandparents live right by the Liberace museum. I haven’t been. None of my obsessions help me bang hot chicks, either.

Muppet Baby — Your comment totally reawakened an old movie memory from way back. I remember going to a movie near Christmas of ‘91–I think it was Hook, but it may well have been something else my parents took me to because I couldn’t convince them to see Bis Ans Ende Der Weldt–at The Greatest Theater Ever. Walking out of the movie, we had to pass by this gigantic standee of Wayne and Garth’s heads, both wagging back and forth on a mechanical piston.

The first thing I thought was that they were married, and that Garth was one weird-looking girl. Then we got Comedy Central that summer, and I became completely addicted to SNL. I insisted we go see the movie, and get the soundtrack, and let me listen to “Sicamicadico” over and over again until my parents went nuts. Of course, they didn’t realize it at the time, but they had just turned me into a rocker, comedian, and royal pain-in-the-ass.

Actually, most of my personal and professional choices could be traced back to that one giant cardboard ad, so it’s weird that I hadn’t thought about it in probably a decade.

Damn something is definitely wrong with me I can barely remember the summer of 2002 let alone 92. I do remember going fishing at one point but who knows if it was jersey or someplace around where I live…I should probably get my head examined…

oh and great article something about 4th of July in the neighborhood brings back memories like nothing else can.

Great article. Every time you write something like this I am reminded of just why I feel compelled to read this site, near daily. There were at least four or five moments during this entry where I literally shook my head in disbelief because I could not understand how someone else could have had the exact same thoughts I did when I was a kid.

I know we aren’t the only ones to think this way, but I haven’t found anyone (on the internet) that can put it into words better than you.

Honestly, thanks for reminding what it was to be a kid. All of those silly things we did then that now seem pointless… but at the same time we feel a little sad that we don’t feel the same magic any longer.

Jesus, now I am feeling like I really want to have kids of my own soon. Please lord, don’t let my girlfriend read this. She has been begging for a ring/kids for two years now.

Ahh, who am I kidding? My lady has been wanting to get hitched/have kids since 2003. I just thought writing that earlier sounded pathetic (on my part). But I guess this is a place for being honest, right?

Ahh, video editing without the editing, one of childhood’s greatest delights. I would buy Matt a Squishee if he could find one of the lost Ron Tracy tapes and post a video.

The summer of ‘92 was the first summer I spent almost completely without parental supervision. My mother was pregnant with my little brother and spent the summer working as a hostess at a local restaurant or off her feet when she was at home; my stepfather, a commercial fisherman, spent it at sea, earning money to feed the new member of the family and the three already existing. This left my two sisters and I on our own for practically two months.

The most memorable incident that summer was when my sister got a hankering for barbecue. Stepdad was out on the ocean again and he’s the main grill person in our family, so she decided to do it herself. How hard could it be? In the end, she almost set the house on fire, thanks to forgetting to pull the damn barbecue away from the side near the porch. I don’t remember if our folks ever found out about that one; I’m hoping for her sake they didn’t.

That was also the summer our diets went to hell. With Mom and Dad gone every day, we were free to eat whatever we pleased, which means whatever pleased 13, 12, and almost 8-year-olds. We got really intimate with the Domino’s Pizza across the street from the house we lived in then, and we declared by the end of the summer we never wanted to see another hot dog as long as we lived.

Then there was the day my parents went “up the road” (in South Jersey speak) to Point Pleasant and took our littlest sister with them, leaving my other sister, our pals, and me to eat pizza, watch “R” rated movies, and mess around with the furniture.

Haven’t read the article yet, but I do congratulate you on going over a month without missing an update… Unless the software ate the 24th’s entry.

On the humorous side,I’ll say I appreciate your choice in arcade video games.

On the serious side,you have become one hell of an author. As much as I enjoy your f-bomb littered reviews of Masters of the Universe episodes,this summer 92 article deserves to be published in a book,and I do think you should write one someday.

Yeah, the fine art of filming high quality movies with a VHS camcorder in the early ’90s. What can I say? I’ve been there.

At first I dabbled in stop motion animation. I was first inspired by an episode of Muppet Babies where the, ummm, muppet babies decide to film their own cartoons. I recall the fastened their camera to the extended ladder of a firetruck toy, and used that to snap their images.

My first movie was a battle between He-Man figures Skeletor and Zodac. It was filmed to be somewhat of a “showdown at high noon”, even though I wasn’t crazy about westerns growing up. (Thanks Dad!) They each took three paces towards each other and then drew the weapons and fired. Of course the weapons were forged from Play-doh since the actual accessories had been lost long before. The first figure fired, complete with a red play-doh muzzle-blast, but missed. The second figured returned fire and scored a direct hit. The face of the second figure was wrapped in a burst of red play-doh, which I can only assume was meant to represent blood and brain matter. They fell lifeless to the coffee table battlefield. How insulting to lay dead next to a copy of COUNTRY LIVING magazine. Take that you evil bastard.

Another “movie” I can remember filming was a horror offering. I can recall being disappointed early in the production due to our limited budget. In the opening scene the main character, played by my friend Chris, walked towards an oven to cook a frozen pizza. In the first shot he unwraps the pizza from its wrapper and places it on the cookie sheet. Quickly I realized I didn’t like the shot because he had looked at the camera. Damn. How can I be expected to work like this? Soon after I realized he had already unwrapped our only frozen pizza and there was no way to repeat the shot. The pizza was now thawing rapidly and no longer in its factory “seal”. I’ll be damned if I had another three dollars to buy another or the motivation to bike a half mile to the store to get a replacement pie.

Picture me freaking out as a twelve year old, ala Billy Walsh from Entourage, in my parent’s kitchen on a random afternoon in mid-July.

The film was shut down soon thereafter. I wasn’t willing to work under those CONDITIONS!

My film career was rekindled a few years later, as a freshman in high school, when I played the lead in our CEREAL KILLER movie. I was a psycho who slept in a dog cage, ate cereal (obviously), and picked random victims out of the phone book. Strangely enough I always turned the page to the actual name of another kid we knew.

Okay, now that I’ve read the article, I’m fully willing to tell about MY summer of ‘92. I’m pretty certain I spent most of it playing SNES games and betting with my dad on the World Series… If I won, I would’ve gotten a Megazord(the original one). If I lost, my allowance got cut in half. I won

I also remember heading up north to visit some relatives or other… I think it was my half-brother and his kids. I DO remember that it was the last time I saw them… ah well.

Matt!
Have I told you lately that I love you? This article was wonderful- easily top ten for me. Articles/blogs about things you did as a kid are always my favorites because I can really relate to them. (This one was really hilarious, too- always a plus.) I echo (most of) Magic Toy’s sentiments above. (Now I’ve got the warm fuzzies.) You must have been an awesome kid.

Great idea to draw a collage, too, past Matt- I wish that thought entered my mind at some time. All the summer collages probably would have looked the same for me- I did the same stuff every year.

I also echo everyone elses sentiments about their favorite articles being the ones that peer into your life. Whether it’s about vacations, Wildwood,or something like this article.

Great article Matt! I remember I took my first trip to Las Vegas in 1992. Maybe I saw you there! I was 13 and it was also my first plane trip. We stayed at the Excalibur also. That trip was pretty memorable, for the above mentioned items, and because I had the whole hotel on lock down when my mom thought I was missing. My mom and grandma were gambling in the casino and I got bored sitting on the steps waiting for them, so I went down to the arcade. I didn’t think I was gone for very long, but when I came up the stairs the was security and police all over the place and they’re talking to my mom. When she saw me, she starts freaking out and hugging me for what seemed like an eternity. Then I had to go up to the room for a talking to. The next morning people were asking my grandma if they found her grandson. No wonder they had a hard time finding me, they were looking for a boy! I didn’t hear the pages over the PA system, who can hear those things with all the noise? Sorry, for the long post.

I told Matt to publish a book awhile ago, and not only that, I offered to compile and edit it for him, and pointed him to websites that publish for free. He told me an X-E book is one of his plans for the future, but also of the distant future. In short, we may get it yet, but not tomorrow.

Okay, now that I’ve read the article, I’m fully willing to tell about MY summer of ‘92. I’m pretty certain I spent most of it playing SNES games and betting with my dad on the World Seriesâ€¦ If I won, I would’ve gotten a Megazord(the original one). If I lost, my allowance got cut in half. I won.

DocDragon: you really couldn’t get a Megazord in 1992. Not even in the summer of 1993, unless you count late August, as they rushed the MMPR toys out before the show began.

During my summer of ‘92, I remember doing a lot of camping, and there’s probably more too, which is why I need my own 1992 crudely-drawn art mural.

I was 5 then. so I don’t really remember any specific details. Good chance I went to Ustate NY that year.

I also think that he should take a note from the Fark book and add our comments to each section he writes.

Reminds me of a big notebook full of drawings I have in my sock drawer. Probably since 92. I was five, and the best thing in there is a sword I drew after playing The Legend of Zelda for too much. Funny thing is, I kept updating it for years and years to come. There’s all sorts of crap drawn in there, like Sonic with a red circle where his feet should be.

That was probably also when I first learned how to swim. The neighborhood pool’s “parking lot” was made out of razor sharp rocks. I never wore water socks because they’re uncomfortable (my feet are really wide) and I thought they looked goofy and it wasn’t until about a year ago that I started to wear sandals because of how bad they made my feet smell. Good times.

Summer of ‘92 was a great summer -at the time- for reasons too many to list. Plus, it most likely wouldn’t be as big of a deal to anyone but me.

Matt I rarely say this…but this is one of, if not the, favorite post of the summer so far. Thanks for sharing yourself to help us all connect through sharing ourselves….

Oh, and in case no one noticed it previously, we just saw the legendary genesis of the Tah-Mahat here.

Stupid me for being distracted by watching Jaws II, soon to be followed by Jaws III.

I hate to post too many messages in one comment section, but I had to post this for those of you who may not have seen it yet.

Imagine the the G1 Transformer Soundwave trying to deal with a regular life after the success he would have had during the 1980s, the brief flirtation of what could be with the news that a new TF film was being made, and the inevitable disappointment he must have felt when the producer’s decided to cast different… err… robots.

I was laughing out loud at this video. I hope some of you will get a kick out of it.

I was at the Taj Mahal this weekend first time since I was like 12. it still looked the same for the most part except the whole second floor is now looking like a fancy mall food court.

Dinosaur Beach from Wildwood back in the day is now part of the Steel Pier. They got the dino’s and the bumper cars that still say Dinosaur Beach all over them. It’s like the ghosts of summer past and summer present had a bastard child…yes i am aware I mentioned this previously but hell old ass dinosaur statues migrating up NJ is worth repeating.

Let’s see. In ‘92 I was 10. I remember going to a fleamarket with the Colonel, one that we went to for several years running. That’s it for now.

No, that’s not right. We didn’t meet til we were 12. What’s wrong with my brain today?

Matt, I totally dig what you’re saying about Jaws in the pool. I had the same phobia. Jesus, I wouldn’t take a shit without an escort in 1980, because I thought he pull some Jaws II action and bite my ass off. That, and the episode of Manimal (or was it a commercial), where he turns into a shark in a pool f’d me up. Look, I’m a unitard!

This post is an example of what makes this site so great. Just awesome. Makes one long to be young again to even have the time to make such a collage.

Let’s see…1992. That was about four years before my cousin and I made the transition from children to farm equipment. That was a pretty good summer. Since I grew up on a farm, there was an awesome junkyard of rusting farm equipment just out back of my house, and we were getting old enough to vanish out there all day without anyone getting worried about us. I believe this was the era after our first clubhouse (fashioned of fifty gallon barrels, cinder blocks, and sheet metal) was blown to pieces over the winter, but before we made our third clubhouse inside a junked combine harvester. The combine fortress was named Salamandastron, and since that book came out in hardcover in 1992, we probably didn’t get our hands on it until the following school year.

So we were probably based in one of the old pig shelters, which was basically a twenty-foot steel fertilizer tank cut in half and laid on its side. Not a bad clubhouse when you’re less than four feet tall, but it did retain a rather distressing odor.

Matt, I would buy an X-E book too, and force all my friends to get one as well! One caveat: it’s addictive! I’m starting my second one now, and will probably do more…

I remember making tv shows when I was a kid! My friends and I filmed a 30 minute sketch comedy show for public access, although we only made 10 episodes, and they only played one of them, it was still pretty cool at the time! Man, I hadn’t thought of that in years!!! Thanks Matt!!!

Summer of 92, I was going on 10. It was the summer my family and I took a month long vacation doing a million random things like camping in Missouri, visiting family I’ve never met in northern Indiana, spending time in Chicago, and even more camping.

I also experienced the wonder that is a VHS camcorder. My brothers and our friends would set it up on the tripod, turn off the lights in the room, and using only the light from the camera, we would all play COPS. We thought the dark enviroment that surrounded us, lit up only by a small patch of camera spot light, made it look like headlights of a cop car. After all the perps where cuffed (using tube socks, NES controller cords, belts, etc…) the cops would all stand in a circle and talk about the arrest just like they did on the TV show. We thought we were something.

Fireworks were legal in my city, and my with dad becoming an overgrown kid around the 4th, we always had hundreds of dollars of fireworks, it was heaven for a young boy.

Summers were all just about to same for me back then. 3 months of bike riding with friends, neighborhood baseball games, hunting for turtles, snakes, horny toads, and fighting wild bugs. My friends and I would eat have 30 minutes or an hour or something to go collect a bug we thought would dominate anything the other could’ve put up against it. I always picked these giant yellow and black caterpillars because on my block, they could only be found in one of the trees in my back yard. Though they looked extremely intimidating, nothing EVER happened. We would try to fight all sorts of bugs and they would never go at it, even after we closed the lid on the fighting ring (shoebox) and shook it side to side.

Matt, I agree with you and Richard…the Jaws in the pool thing used to creep me out like crazy. Especially if I was swimming and no one was home.

In ‘92 I was only eleven so my summer was spent obsessing over soccer. For those of you that don’t know, soccer is my favorite sport, and although my days of playing competitively are long over, I still ref from time to time for extra cash.

Now that I think about it, I think ‘92 was the year my best friend called me every morning at like 7am to come over to play basketball. It was really hot, even for NY’s steamy summers, so it was like already 80 when we woke up. We’d play all day. Since I’m (relatively) tall and athletic, I’d school all the neighborhood kids.

Not much to say, but wanted to add my kudos for a great article. Very summery. I’m a bit older than most of you, so my Summer of 1992 was a bit different. But not that different. Instead of spending it like a six year old, I was more like an eight year old.

Man as great as this article was it makes me feel old. I got OUT of the navy is 92. Of course when I was a kid, we could get away with shooting bottle rockets at cars. Ah, the high jinks I did as a stupid kid would land me soundly in jail today.

Matt, the reason why I loved this article so much is because– for some reason –I forgot pretty much all of my own childhood summers. Summer of 1992 is a total blank for me. All I know is that I was nine years old then.

So, reading about your experiences is like…nostalgia by proxy, or something like that. (I hope that doesn’t sound creepy.)

Other than going to camp and being forced to play little league baseball (I’m unathletic and hate sports in general) I can honestly say I don’t really have big summer memories. I’m sure I went to the movies and stuff, but nothing special.

I prefer to live the lie that I was always as hip as I am now. Fuck, I was one cool kid.

Hehe … fun stuff - Although I caught a couple of errors in the article. The 4th paragraph, and the 10th paragraph have small grammar mistakes.

I definitely dig your little Star Co. toy company dude! Complete with roller skates! xD I remember in the fifth grade my friends and i got on this kick where we invented GI JOE file cards of our own characters. I remember it being my idea, and for those 2 or 3 days, everyone else was really into it. Once we realized they were never going to actually make these guys for us to play with, the fun wore off … I wonder if I still have any of those old drawings in a box somewhere? It’s funny how vauluable that stuff is once you get a little older. = )

James, I conked out after posting the article, but I hope I caught all the typos this morning. E-mail me if not, because I hate them.

Ah, that was my 21st year on this planet. Spent most of it dodging the question of “aren’t you glad to be drinking age?” by people who should have known better. One cousin bugged me about going out to drink with him until I told him, “You’re doing enough for both of us, and I’ll remember to thank you at your funeral.” He didn’t talk to me for weeks. A person can only be civil about their personal beliefs for so long, before the offender has to be snapped cleanly in half like a carrot stick.

Summer of ‘92? That was the year I got my first guitar, so it was a good one. My summers at that time were spent playing a LOT of SNES. My family had moved to an isolated house out in the country, so hanging out with other kids was difficult (all my friends lived 10+ miles away, and of course, none of us could drive yet). I had one friend who lived within a reasonable bike ride away (and even he was a couple miles away), so I generally latched on to him like a facehugger all summer.

I also did the camcorder movie thing that same summer. I don’t remember all the details, but it involved my sister being some sort of time traveller from midevil times…and I can’t remember the middle…and the ending is the Statue of Liberty biting the head off of the narrator (me, represented by a doll for the head-biting part). And I as the narrator (since I was closet to the mic on the camera) narrated the whole thing in a really terrible British accent. Genius!

I remember the Bristol - it was right near the Waikiki where we stayed for years. On the rare occasion we stayed at the Crusader. But NOTHING compared to the Waikiki with its turf covered sundeck. We’d spend nights out there watching storms over the ocean (and by this I mean me crying while my mother telling me to get over it). I drove passed there a few years ago and the place was closed, I don’t know if permanently or for repairs.

When we’d go to Disney we’d always stay at the Polynesian. We will forever have attachments to Hawaiian-esqe places.

Matt What a great freakin’ article!! I too have a serious adoration for Wildwood. I still have my Wildwood ‘86 mesh t-shirt at my parents house (Yup, the same year they killed everyone’s hero, well every boys hero of that era). It doesn’t fit me, not by a longshot, but it still has the letters in awesome 80’s pink. We used to go there every summer for which seemed like forever before my parents apparently won the lottery and took us to Disney World for nearly 10 years in a row. Not that we minded, but Wildwood will always have a special place in my memories.

I also remember being able to buy fireworks. My friends and I would go to this little Bodega (the only one in my area that was actually a Bodega) on Hook Creek and buy all sorts of stuff there. Roman Candles, Jumping Jacks, Butterflies, Bottle Rockets, all sorts of shit to potentially maim ourselves with. I miss being able to do that.

Man, ‘92. I was 16 years old. I miss those days. Spending the summers just swimming in my pool or playing SNES during the day and hanging out until 1 AM playing Man Hunt or Kick the Can at night.

I’m not even going to start thinking back to my parents video camera and all the great “action” adventures my friends and I made.

I have to say, this Summer Mega Party has been pretty freakin’ fantastic!! Hats off to you Matt!!!

Sorry for the double post, but I hadn’t read any the comments before I posted the first one. I’m at work, and they pay me to actually do something. Pains in the ass.

I agree everyone who says Matt should definately do a book. I believe this has come up before.

I find it mind numbingly awesome how most of us have the same memories of our youth summers, especially around that time (early 90’s)Playing SNES, being home alone with siblings, playing sports in 80 degree weather at 8 am (I’m from NY also, so I know), making movies with the camcorder. I think that articles like this is what makes this site what it is, and attracts the posters that are here. There are so many things you guys mentioned that I had to leave out for the sake of brevity in my original post. Once again, great article Matt.

Declan Dempsey Two of the greatest playsets I’ve had experience with are the GI Joe Aircraft Carrier and The GI Joe Space Shuttle: The Defiant. Ridiculously large toys, but I’m not sure what they for on E-Bay. If you can get your hands on them, they would make great movie props. I know, trust me.

Magic Toy I often want kids of my own, just to live vicarously through them, so I know the feeling. BTW, how’s that Soundwave? Japan is releasing an Encore line which is just the Japanese re-issues they did a few years ago with Prime, Megs, Screamer, and Soundwave. TFW2005 should have the info, if you already didn’t know about them.

- I finally got my SNES that I had been whining about for the last year.
- My cousin from Baltimore came to stay with us for a couple of weeks and we went to Six Flags.
- Saw Wayne’s World, and for the rest of the summer we wore out my friend’s Queen compilation tape by plaing Bohemian Rhapsody 15 times a day.
- Visited pretty much every arcade in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. My favorite was TILT in Vista Ridge Mall in Lewisville.
- Our drug store started selling Apogee shareware discs for $3 a pop. That’s how I fell in love with PC gaming.

Soundwave arrived last Saturday and he is adjusting to his new surroundings just fine. He is currently taking a nap in cassette deck form. Ravage is still acting a little shy. He hides behind the chair mostly and hasn’t eaten much. Must be his nerves. Laserbeak, on the other hand, is flying around like he owns the place.

Seriously though, it is great. It arrived in very good condition and it was awesome to actually have this thing in my hands again. I hadn’t seen one in probably twenty years. It was definitely worth the little bit of money it cost. Thanks for the info. on the site, I’ll check it out later.

Well, I am off to the store to see if I can scrounge up a copy of Monster Squad. I also got Zodiac in the mail from Netflix today, so this looks to be a great movie night for me.

Oh my gosh, this is seriously one of the cutest things EVER. Right up there with Hat Day. I have to agree that these are my favorite types of articles.

God, I was that kid that had to draw on every piece of paper, every notebook and every book cover. It was mostly ROTJ shit mixed in with Halloween or Christmas junk. It was not a rarity to see stormtroopers looking at jack-o-lanterns. I’m surprised I managed to escape merciless beatings from my peers. I specifically remember this conversation with some kid.

Kid-”Why did you draw a boat on your book cover?”
me- “It’s the Orca from Jaws.”
Kid- Why is there a Christmas tree on it?”
me-”Holy shit! Look out behind you!”
Kid- “What?”
(Bill runs out of the room.)

Hi, I’ve just been watching the Simpsons Movie. Great!!! Watch it!
Sorry that it’s totally off topic, but imagine the excitement of watching Simpsons in cinema. Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig…

I spent much more time with my camcorder during the summer of ‘93 when my best friend and I became obsessed with E! and made all these audition tapes that we knew we’d never send. We adored that network then (mostly because of Talk Soup), but I can’t even abide it now. So sad.

The summer of ‘92 was the first summer my mother worked outside of the house. She’d done child care up to that point. Even though I turned 13 that year, she didn’t feel comfortable leaving my sister and me at home alone, so if my grandparents didn’t come by we had to spend all day at work with her. The good news was that she worked at Kings Dominion. The bad news was that she was an usher in the theatre and made us stay in there with her all day because she didn’t want us roaming the park without supervision. I watched that show so many times…

Aw, Lori, you should give The Soup a try, it’s really a great show. And they rag on E! so much that sometimes I’m surprised they’re still on the air.
I’m impressed by everyone’s great memories. I guess I had a little too much Summer 2001 because I sure don’t remember any specifics from Summer 1992.

For the life of me I can’t remember any specifics of that summer. Grrrr. So, you aren’t alone, Squee.

Summer of ‘92 sucked for me but I thought I was hot shit. I went on some church camp, then immediately after left for my first boy scout camp. They were both horrible weeks, but I thought I was living it up when I went on them. One thing I remember from boy scout camp was when my bony, whiter-than-white friend told three six foot tall black kids that he was going to beat them up. Wow, he was scaaaaaared.
Summer of ‘93 was better for me, but maybe that’s because I was 13 then, not the year before.
Great article though.

Back from my self-imposed Harry Potter exile. I finished the book yesterday.
Now, do I go back and really catch up on all of the X-E I missed or just let it go???

Nice post Matt… have to give kudos since I was 16 in 92 and don’t remember it. I’m with the group that doesn’t remember 2 summers ago.

Squee… finished the book.. posted on your site.. my life can now move on from HP mania… NEXT!

Hey, I saw that one too when I was exploring last night. That vid is also hilarious. The only detracting factor was that Soundwave was so short. I can’t take him seriously when it looks like Tom Cruise in a Halloween costume. Thanks though.

I was in a Harry Potter daze until just today, really. The daze lasts for 2 days after the ending of the book…slowly you find other people to talk to, and this helps. I can’t wait for all my friends to be done.

Summer of ‘92 was also one I spent at CAMP. Every kids should go to camp, even if its a shitty charity camp located 30 minutes from home and only a half-kilometer away from the highway! Camp is fundamental to a complete childhood.

Come to think of it, Muppet Baby, I probably went to camp that year to. Except mine was in New Mexico (near Ruidoso, actually), so it was several hours away from home. Place was called Fort Lone Tree. It was a Christian based camp, but we still did all the cool stuff like horseback riding, archery, and riflery.

The cat! do you have any REAL pictures of it? i think it would be neat to see. Have you tried this pepsi max stuff? it has me wired tonight.

I don’t remember my summer of ‘92 but I was 10 then. That was when I got a brand new bike, a black huffy boys bike. 10 gear, pretty good bike. Still have it but it’s beat to shit lol. My best friend was about 8 or 9 and was a boy he lived a house down from me. We went around playing cops and robbers which mostly was just biking around yelling at each other. He let me fondle his boys toys like ninja turtles, and we played NES games. He came over everyday knocking on my door saying “can you come over to play?” it got annoying actually and during the school year I told him I had homework, I was in a more advanced grade so he just had to have the benefit of the doubt. But also when I was 10 my best friend from kindergarten that lived the other way up the street moved away.

Her dad was an abusive alcoholic and her mom finally left him and moved. It didn’t feel as bad as it sounds because she very rudely showed me she didn’t want to be my friend anymore it was mostly because she was moving up the popular ladder and wanted to leave me behind. I remember going over to her house to ask her if she could stay the night, she was having a slumber party with other girls over, her mom informed me she was busy and to come over the next weekend. I did and I think she came over. So I was basically her plan b if she had no plans for the weekend I guess. I have a cassette tape of us talking and screwing around also very 80’s type of music taped off the radio. Michael Bolton anybody?

Anyway a secret between me and you guys I honestly felt now reflecting back I am like 98 percent sure I had a crush on that girl even at 10. Wayyy before I figured out my sexual orientation. I just put her on a pedistol like everything she did was really perfect I loved watching her lip sync to the radio and stuff like that. I loved her handwriting too and I have a diary she wrote in. Sorry to ramble I was just trying to describe everything.

Probably my best summer was ‘89 my grandparents took my sisters and I on a 6 week trip to Europe. I’ll talk about that some other time ok kiddies?

Mars: Oh right… I knew it was a bet over the Blue Jay’s world series victory, and it had to be either 92 or 93…

Your handwriting then was better than my handwriting now, and that depresses me to no end.

…and now to leave the fun behind, and get some sleep for school in a few hours.

i remember trying to make some vhs movies as well, mostly with gi joe toys, and then later some weird stuff when twin peaks came out, i think i ended up mostly just filming my dog tho

summer of 92 i think i mostly remember staying up late nights, and my best friend somehow making his way into my house everyday and waking me up around noon.. we’d record tapes on my boombox playing my casio keyboard to sound like an organ to sound like funeral commercials and such, saying weird things like “coffins, funerals and free puppets for the kids..” then prank calling people & playing the commercials for their answering machines.. dunno, lots of time on our hands

OK, I just finished watching Fincher’s Zodiac and would give it a very solid “thumbs up”. Go grab a copy, if you already haven’t, and give it a look over the weekend.

As long as you know it is based on a true story and due to that the ending may be a bit, well, anticlimactic, I could not recommend it highly enough.

However… a warning… don’t buy the copy on store shelves now. The Director’s Cut, coming in 2008, will be the copy worth owning. Rent it.

Magic Toy: Man, every time you say Zodiac, I think I’ve finally found someone else who has read the Neal Stephenson novel by the same name. Stop playing with my emotions!

I don’t think anyone has mentioned the fact that Matt looks absolutely insane in the drawing of himself recieving the mail! Look at those eyes! And he’s drooling!

Although I do the exact same thing now, and my face actually looks like that 24/7

I actually just got back from the now infamous Bristol Plaza. This place has not changed one bit in 25 years. Well, actually im lying. The arcade is LOOOOOOOONG gone.
We (my friends) try to go to wildwood at least once every summer and party the hell out of our hotel rooms.
Wildwood is still the best, and I feel sorry for everyone who did not grow up on the Supercade, Draculas’s castle, keystone cops and Paul’s Fries.
Going back in a few weeks and staying at the Bal Harbour…..

Nice article Matt. It’d be cool if others documented their summers in drawings the way you did in ‘92….like maybe Lindsay Lohan, OJ, or The president.

Turns out I was 16 years old, working at Hardees, secretly pining after my best friends boyfriend. Ah the memories. So glad I got to dig them up again.

Even though I did end up dating him a few months later, when I won him over the two other girls in our “love square.” It’s a triangle if it’s three people, so it’s a square if it’s four, right? Then we broke up because I wouldnt put out.

MaryJane: Square seems too neat and tidy. “love quadrangle” would probably be best representative, but for the sound of the thing, I’m going to have to vote for “love rhombus.”

Actually, I do enjoy The Soup. It’s hard for me to catch it because I’m never in front of the TV when it originally airs and they seem to stick the reruns wherever there’s a hole in the schedule, so it’s always luck if I ever watch it. When I was 13/14, E! was all I watched. I remember watching E! News when they actually treated it like a news program. That’s hard for me to even fathom now. Actually, it’s not, because with all the Lindsay Lohan/Britney Spears/Paris Hilton coverage, today’s “real” news programs are actually a lot like the old E! News Daily.

I can’t wait to see Kong and Bumble, bigger than huge, and bursting with water. Then Matt can chuck ‘em off a high place, and we can see how big a splat they make. I might have to buy a grow thingy at the dollar store and see what happens if you freeze one after you hydrate it.

Ah … ‘92 … that was the summer between my 8th and 9th grade years. I spent the majority of it running seemingly endless laps around the soccer pitch in an attempt to get in shape for the season, that and strengthening my legs and perfecting my drop kick. And shooting thousands of free throws. I was one of those jock girls who was always playing a sport until I went to college, started drinking and took to smoking a pack of Camel Lights a day. ‘92 was a good summer though — my folks took me to AC to celebrate my 8th grade graduation. Only we didn’t bother with the Steel Pier or any of that. They gave me $20 in nickels and set me loose in the Taj Mahal. My father was so proud when I hit for $90.

Geez. In 1992, you guys were like, 16, 13, in the 9th grade, etc. In ‘92, I was 9.

Oh, don’t worry, Annette; you’ll be my age before you know it. And you’ll probably still feel 24 too. I swear, the older I get, the more I realize that I’m not old yet.

MJhmm same age huh? *slips into joey tribiani mode* ‘how u doin?’ j/k…. didn’t put out? i guess the pic would be a giant red circle with a line through it?

Oh Primus…I do put out now (FIFTEEN YEARS LATER), but tend to stick to my husband. Although after clicking your name and reading your WoW musings, I must say it is TEMPTING.

I feel like I walked in the room and saw - in this case read - something I wasn’t supposed to….

I was younger than that in 1992. Way younger. Years younger in fact. I was like in 1st grade or something (but probably more like 2nd grade.)

92 was a bad year. So much grunge. Had to wait two more years for Green Day to save the world from them coffee swigging lumberjack rejects.

But I loved that pool, and I loved swimming. The problem was that I could never swim alone, because I was so deathly afraid of sharks that I’d be totally convinced that Jaws was behind me every time I put my head underwater. You don’t have to tell me how absurd that is; I already know.

you don’t have to tell man. Every time I had swimming lessons at the Y, when I was swimming from the deep end to the shallow end the instructor could never figure out why my speed tripled. Man I thought Jaws was right on my ass. Everytime.

I just re-read this article. I think it’s funny that the refridgerator makes it as a summer highlight next to vacations. I would have been just as stoked at 13 about that.

I just rented Transformers, the cartoon for my son. Am I imagining things or do they curse in it? Aw, I guess I can let this one slide.

I don’t know what it says about my “upbringing” but I didn’t even notice that they were in there as a kid, and my parents never said a word about it. I’m guessing they just knew better. It was Transformers, and it got to the point where I was threatening physical violence on those who rented it out from under me, so a couple curses I already knew weren’t about to ruffle their feathers

Yeah, on the VHS copy of TF the movie, they edited out the curse. In the DVD they brought it back as it was in the theater.

And for that I am eternally grateful. What’s up with the Full Screen version on disc 2 being the original master? The Constructicons are BROWN.

I totally remember going to The Excalibur in Las Vegas. Oddly enough, I was most likely the summer of 1992 or 1993. Boy was that a fun place. The arcade was a kids dream. My brother got screwed out of an X-Men hat because apparently his dart wasn’t “Completely on the star.” But we took home plenty of novelty plastic Viking hats and Excalibur branded swords.

Hilarious article, Matt. I really don’t have anything to add, I just wanted to say that I loved the article.

if i remember they also said “shit” in the goonies, the 80s were cool like that..

“You don’t mix family with friends god damnit!” Haha, I was the same way. Not because I was embarrased of my family, but because I was always afraid my friends would say something inappropriate or devulge hints towards trouble we had gotten in and my parents didn’t know. There were always those certain friends we were OK to have around family though. Great article!

1992? I don’t recall much about that summer. I think I went to see Freddy’s Dead with a school mate and kept splashing soda on the girl in front of us hoping she would notice me.

Beats my 92 summer. Because I spent it at Navy bootcamp.
Not fun. In fact, it quite sucked.
Though to be honest 91 was the last time I had something like a summer vacation period. Yay for adulthood.

What a fantastic article. Perfectly encapsulates being a kid and the magic of summer.

1992 was a cool summer for alot of us it seems. I was only 8. I clearly remember going to Geauga lake back before it was six Flags and, more recently, Cedar Point’s bastardized Geauga Lake/Seaworld in one.
I also remember trips to Marc’s Pizza and Crazy Town, which was like Chuck E Cheese with better games, better food, and better prizes.

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