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08/10/2007: Fruit Roll-Ups: Renaissance.

Sorry for the lack of updates the past few days — as one might surmise from the tone of the two previous entries, it's been a week from hell. I can't even enjoy the fact that it's Friday night, because we're pretty close to Sunday night, which starts off another work week, which could spell DOOOOM.

But, I'll try. After several days of Tatooine-like heat, the gods have finally smiled upon my fair town with what's essentially perfect Halloween weather: It's cold and wet, with a barely illuminating purplish gray sky signaling a night best spent watching Halloween: H20 and laughing at the part where Michael Myers holds that Andy Garcia lookalike up in the air by a knife.

That's a little gloomy, and since I spent most of my X-E time this week being gloomy, let's mix things up with the boisterous good times of Betty Crocker's Fruit Roll-Ups.

We went grocery shopping the other night, which is another way of saying "beer and popcorn run." I couldn't believe how many different types of Fruit Roll-Ups were on sale. There's always been a ton of flavors and even a ton of specialized gimmicks, but I'm referring to wholly different "species" of Roll-Ups. Different box shapes, different Roll-Up shapes, different everything. I think the two shown above best represent this renaissance period of the Fruit Roll-Up, but even if they don't, I'm eighteen Fruit Roll-Ups richer for trying to portray them as such. Go me.

First up, it's "Crazy Pix: Wild Ones" Fruit Roll-Ups, with each snack featuring one of a number of multicolored patterns, ranging from tiger stripes to gator skin to army fatigues. Printing weird shit on Fruit Roll-Ups is nothing new, but these take it to a five star level. There isn't really much point in the effort since the snacks as most often seen rolled up or crunched into little fruity boulders, but I can at least appreciate my newfound ability to fantasize about a bedroom fully wallpapered with Fruit Roll-Ups.

There's a girlier variety out, too — "Crazy Pix: Cool Chix." It's not really that girly, but it's indeed the cooler of the two varieties, featuring plaid patterns, bejeweled patterns and another pattern which is hard to decipher but looks something like the trail of superpowered idiocy left behind by fallen Marvel Comics icon, "Speedball."

Even more outside the box are new Fruit Roll-Ups "Stackerz," which may have been partly inspired by those old school candy buttons. Instead of getting a sheet, the fruit snacks are divided by color and flavor into neat little rolls of stackable discs. While I dig the effort in reinventing of the Fruit Roll-Up, I'm not sure I understand the point of these. Maybe it's because I'm trying to view them through the eyes of a fifth grader, when I really should be viewing them through the eyes of a preschooler. Fifth graders aren't going to sit around making little sandwiches out of fruit discs, but preschoolers might.

Then again, the discs are quite sticky and, if you gather up enough red ones, you can poorly fake the measles just like every dumb sitcom kid in television history did. That's fun for all ages. Also of note: The revised texture and thickness has done wonders for Fruit Roll-Ups — the Stackerz are by far the best tasting I've ever had. They're as close to Slush Puppie fruit snacks as we've ever been.

That about covers it for the Fruit Roll-Ups. I'm off to build some kind of super mutant freeze ray with which I will end the world's rotation and let it remain Friday night forevermore. If I'm unsuccessful, see you in the SNT.

i used to stack up my starburst like that, never ate fruit rollups much.. playing with candy is fun tho

A bit of news to cheer you up: The Bloom County Christmas special "A Wish for Wings That Work" will be released on DVD on November 6.

Speaking of Halloween Matt, have you notice that some stores have all ready begun there X-mas push. And in some stores they use to have aisles upon aisles of Halloween stuff, now the once wonder holiday now ocupies a few shelves…one aisle if we're lucky. Halloween my fave holiday….kinda sad.

I have seen a lot of Halloween stuff, though. Wow, September is creeping up on us.

rob zombie is doing a halloween remake i heard, has anyone else gotten wind of this or did it come to me in a bad clam induced sleep?

vwarb I have indeed gotten a big wind of it and I'm super duper jazzed. I like the fact that I'll get to see it in 3 weeks, but I still don't understand the logic of releasing it now as opposed to much closer to the holiday.

I haven't seen any Halloween stuff anywhere yet but know that it could be any day now. I'm getting giddy already. This is the best part of the holiday for me, the anticipation…especially that first day of seeing decorations and things. Halloween is the only thing that could get me genuinely excited to walk into a Wal-Mart.

And my god the heat here is unbearable. I'm in SC and it was 104 outside today. We're sweating like a bunch of whores in church down here.

Oh, one slightly stupid question….what is SNT? I've seen in mentioned a few times on the site in the last couple of days. Maybe I'm coming late to the party or something. I'm assuming it stands for something.

dude, at the hallmark in my town, they already have full halloween stuff, including TALKING DEAD TREES THAT SING ABOUT BEING DEAD! also, SNT stands for super duper night

Oh, and maybe something just went wrong in my childhood or something but I've never been able to get into any kind of fruity roll up. Just not my bag. But then again, I also hate Mac n' Cheese (actually just cheese in general), milk, eggs, and mayo–a whole bunch of stuff everyone else seems to just love. So, maybe that's just one more way I'm kind of weird.

If you have the IFC channel, they're showing the original "Halloween" tonite during as part of their Friday Night Grindhouse.

If they made yellow stackers instead of orange and made them less sticky, you could probably ue them to play an interesting game of Trouble.
Or Checkers.
Or Pogs.
Or Tiddlywinks
Or just toss them at somebody.

DJ: SNT stands for Saturday Night Thread. It's basically just another blog entry, but we basically talk about whatever we want during it. Anything goes and it can go into some interesting and wild places.

I wanted to post this on the previous entry last night, but was unable. Hopefully it'll go through this time.
Someone mentioned a blurb about a Lego man washing up on a beach in the Netherlands. The story was true; here's a link.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUKL078701142...

I was in this town about a month ago on vacation. Yep, the land of windmills, guys sticking their fingers in dikes (there's another dirty word on XE!), and…other fun stuff.

There is indeed a Rob Zombie remake of Halloween; my dad works at the Veterans Hospital here in the San Fernando Valley, and it is used for tons of filming. All of the buildings on the hospital have that old-style institutional look, and one was used as the exterior of the mental hospital in the new movie. Incidentally, the hospital was also used to film the bogus college in the movie Accepted.

Sorry to double-post, but the VA hospital is also used to shoot the hospital exteriors on Grey's Anatomy, for whomever might be interested.

To further spread the Geekiness.. has anyone else played either Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross or both? I highly recomend them both.. as an RPG fan and a BTTF fan!

well, despite its randomness in this conversation, i must say i did play chrono trigger, never played chrono cross though

GRRRR… it's a FNT.. I've been corrected.. but then again.. I've been drinking.

VWARB I had a job interview today and I'm pretty sure I nailed it.. but I won't know until Monday.. plus WWE was on tonight (SMACKDOWN!) and wrestling is fun to drink to.. I don't know why.. but it is!

Thanks to this Fruit Roll-Ups article, I've had the overwhelming urge to look up the 3-D Bloody Words article, which in turn gave me the overwhelming urge to read the rest of Halloween Countdown 2004 and I'm sure all the rest. Thanks a lot, Matt. No, really, thanks a lot. Summer is about to kill me.

Knegative and Nigel Chaos: I swear I'm so late to this party it's not even funny. This is Week 2 of joining the chat thread community after reading and lurking on this site for about 2 years or so. I guess I'm still pretty much a newbie. Maybe I need some sort of X-E Chat crash course…an X-E 101, if you will. This SNT business sounds interesting. So, I'm assuming that makes this FNT then.

Oh, Nigel, even though your last post wasn't directed at me I hope you don't mind me evesdropping and saying good luck on your interview there.

Am I the only one who never truly has enjoyed fruit snacks? I mean if Mom put them in the lunch I'd eat it, cause it was next to a sandwich and an apple, but I never picked one up for myself.

I was in target today and saw Halloween shirts in the infant section. yay. I wish the weather would follow here soon.

Special K Not that I'm bragging.. it sucks, actually.. but I've always loved summer since we got it off for summer…

DJ D Thanks … I'm pretty sure I got the job… but I'm not sure.. waiting to hear about a job is kinda crappy.

Nigel: No, I absolutely despise summer. I live in Oklahoma and I don't do heat well, so summers are miserable. Some of the X-E regulars might remember that last year I decorated for Halloween on August 15th just because I was so depressed from the heat–that's about the only thing that would cheer me up. lol

kb I swear, you people are getting me even more and more excited about Halloween than I usually am, and that's saying something. I haven't seen jack around here in the ways of Halloween decorations or…well, Halloween anything, really. I'm not one to rush holidays cuase I HATE the way you start seeing Christmas stuff before Halloween's even hit, but seeing as Halloween's my all time fave anyway, I guess I'm a little hypocritical with it. Can't start early enough as far as I'm concerned.

Knegative Giant Ape Juice?? Photog?? I'm going to have to start taking notes. Who knew it took so much research to be and X-E'er. I thought all you had to do was log on, make a few sarcastic and witty comments while doing some severe reminicing about back in the day. Turns out there's all kinds of abbreviations and crap you gotta keep up with. Lordy!

Oh, and this is kind of funny. I've noticed a few people apologizing when they double post. Is this considered rude? I'm actually being serious here for once. Maybe I'm just not up on my chat room etiquite, but I don't have a problem with it and probably do it all the time. Maybe I've been kind of rude and didn't know it. Does it really warrant an apology? Am I completely over-analyzing this at 12:43 on a Friday night?….I'm going to go with that last one.

Generally speaking, it's good to wait for a few others to post before posting again.

Special K I hear ya! I've always hated summers. It was 104 today in SC and this crap's for the birds. I can't wait till I can get out of the south for good and see some snow. I literally haven't seen snow in 6 years. At this point, I'll settle for a good solid breeze.

A bit of news to cheer you up: The Bloom County Christmas special "A Wish for Wings That Work" will be released on DVD on November 6.

I could have had a post in the top 10 this time, but the comments section was out of order the last time I was here. Bah humbug.

This is what I typed then:
Congratulations on finding a piece of processed food in the supermarket that didn't have the "High School Musical" logo on it. I was there today, looking for something that DIDN'T have a small photo of Efron jumping on it, but no…Disney cross-promoted every single thing you can buy. It's now like trying to avoid Rachael Ray. It simply can't be done.

That smiley was not meant to look so happy. I should use the "preview" button more.

Ah, Photog. That's so Bitner. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on that one, DJ D!

I just got back from my business trip to New Jersey. As soon as we completed our training, we went to Atlantic City! It was my first time there, and I was doubly (doubely?) excited about going because of all the articles Matt's written about it. We stayed at Resorts (one of the people I was with had a comp room), and also went to Borgata for a few hours. So much fun!

Mars: God, how right you are. And I just hate musicals with a passion. Oh, and you can't deny the power of the all smiling all perky li'l Italian powerhouse that is the Ray. Don't even try it.

I've been lurking for a long time around here and decided it was finally time to join in, especially with all of the Halloween talk. I am very glad to know I am not the only one waiting with bated breath for fall and Halloween. Time to go back and read the older Halloween countdowns again while listening to Matt's Halloween jukebox

You might also want to research about chicken and doritos and how we cannot think about one when consuming the other.

I think the final will be a written essay question. Fitting since we have some many English majors here (or did at one time, anyway!)

I flirted with being an English major for a while, but ended up settling with film instead. You know, cause majoring in film is so much more practical…Hope you can sense the sarcasm there.

Oh, and I meant to say welcome to Nick Aconite. Nice to have another newbie. Going back and reading the old Halloween Countdowns sounds like a good idea. I might get on that myself.

All this talk of Halloween stuff showing up already just makes it more likely that the Summer Megaparty and the Halloween Countdown ill be combined somehow… Summeroween Partydown!

I recall getting officially licensed Slush Puppie Gum from a Family Dollar store when I was a kid. All I remember about it is the blue raspberry flavor tasted identical to the syrup from the drink, so it was amazing.

I tried to find information about it online, but couldn’t uncover much; although, I did get affirmation that it did exist, via this website. I know you’re good at finding obscure stuff, maybe one day you’ll be able to score a pack.

Sorry you had one of those weeks, Matt. There's no worse feeling than knowing that you're as far from the new work week as conceivable possible, but you can still feeling the Monday looming over you.
I couldn't believe the Wikipedia page didn't say anything about Giant Ape Juice, so I had to dig up some info and throw it on there. It's my first try wikipeedeeing so hopefully it's not awful. I did manage to wipe out my previously typed post in the process, so assume this was heartbreaking in it's eloquency before that all happened

I enjoy the odd Fruit Roll-Up now and again. Orange was my preference, but I have learned to love more kinds. Although, I can't eat it the same way I once did; I tend to eat it in a mature way in the modern day. I roll the Roll-Up into a pipe and smoke it while wearing a robe and two monocles.

You were blessed with Halloween? All we got was a tornado that worsened our already bridge-hindered traffic and tore the bricks from a downtown apartment bedroom.
You get all the fun.

MATT! An entry that doesn't mention poop?! What the hell? For a minute there I thought you were turing this site into excrement-entertainment.com

This weather is so unpredictable - Nineties last week, now it's 68 in August in New Jersey! And no "how's the toxic waste?" or "What exit do you live at?" jokes, either!

MUFU: I was at the Dollar Store yesterday and was shocked to see Christmas wreaths, ornaments, snow globes and wrapping paper. I know the Christmas season is a huge rush - but this is getting ridiculous. I think there needs to be some unwritten rule about no Christmas stuff before Labor Day!

Been in the 70's here finally. I hope it doesn't mean early and long winter…we literally get 2 feet of snow on average.

Regarding Fruit Rollups - I've gotten into the habit of not eating stuff with clearly many possibly radioactive chemicals coloring and flavoring it.

Not that I ever ate them regularly when they looked like actual fruit mush, either…

I also recommend the Spoiler Thread, and the time Matt asked us to tell him a story. Great ways to really get the general vibe of the typical X-E poster.
We also subsist on old commercials, ChocoDiles, defunct soda flavors, and foot-long Broodwiches.

I've been feasting on stackers for about a week, and they certainly are the best tasting fruit roll up product out there today.

However, there is no real renaissance without the old school plain, no frills flavors like grape, cherry, and the rare apple which always seemed to harden and crack into little pieces.

I hate High School Musical…The fact that they pimped it out so very much that the upcoming sequel seems to be a fresh sigh of relief…until that starts getting pimped out to the point where everyone gets tired of it.

HOW many DVD versions of HSM have been put out so far? I counted 4. There's also a stage show, and a parade at Disney MGM.

The fact that it's not even good bothers me even more. I wouldn't mind it if it was slightly good, but it's simply terrible.

Why it didn't sink into obscurity like the other Disney Channel movies is beyond me…

As for X-E 101, I also suggest looking up the Spoiler Thread (we need another one of those) and the 2 Friday The 13th riffing threads from last month.

Clearly I haven't bought Fruit Roll-Ups in a while. When I was a kid, there were all sorts of flavors, but then it seemed they scaled back. I'm thinking by the last years of high school, I had to choose between strawberry and some fruit mix flavor. Am I to understand that there are still multiple flavors of Roll-Ups? If I find out I can still get a grape Fruit Roll-Up, I may just start crying.

I found the Stackers packaging misleading. The picture made me think they were going to be the love child of Roll-Ups and Pringles. I could get excited about that.

Considering they couldn't even come up with an actual *title* for a title, it wouldn't surprise me at all that its terrible.

We also subsist on old commercials, ChocoDiles, defunct soda flavors, and foot-long Broodwiches.

I would have sold my soul for grape fruit roll-ups when I was a kid. Does memory serve me right or did the strawberry ones have little seeds?

Tonight are auditions at the House of Torment, our sweet, sweet, Austin commercial haunt. I'm crazy pumped. Halloween is upon us.

Those stackers make me think you are getting less fruit roll up because of the empty space on the paper between the dots. I bet if you were to melt them and spread it around you would probably come out about even.

You think it is hot in your neck of the woods? It was still 110 last night at 9:00. Arizona is known for being a little warm though so I really can't and don't complain. It is just a little rough when it is still 80-90 in December and you are trying to get into the Christmas spirit. It was like that last year so I found myself fighting to be merry about the holidays. My only saving grace was the Advent Calendar so Thanks Matt!

I think I am going to have to head over to Walmart or Toys R Us to see if we have anything Halloweeny going on yet. It is all about back to school shopping right now so I am not sure if the transition has happened yet. Oh Jebus I hope so!

Invader Norbert,
you don't know the pain, the fervent annoyance of High School Musical until you have a nine year old daughter who constantly croons the soundtrack, wallpapers her bedroom in HSM posters, and passes out at the mere mention of a sequel. My daughter used to be cool. I don't know when this crap stole her brain, but make no mistakes. It's stronger than everyone

Bill: I'm pretty sure you're right about the seeds in the old rollups, unless it was from anoher brand that did it.

Didn't Fruit-Rollup use to do a fruit bar too? I distinctly remember one of fruit snacks companies doing something like that. It was basically what it sounded like, a fruit-rollup in bar form that was thicker than usual. I got a vhs tape somewhere that has a commercial for something like that.

JLAJRC, I'm down with the Fruit Corner's Fruit Bars. I think dentists knew if you ate one because no amount of flossing could help you.

I saw chacolate Honeycombs in the grocery this morning. I'm not sure what to think about that.

My Diamond Update (if anyone cares): I'm supposed to be heading to Jubilife City, but instead I'm grinding for levels, because it's what I do

I've caught everything around, but my main party is Chimchar (lvl 10), Starly (8), and Shinx (8). I was so excited when Chimchar learned a Dark move

Bill: Thanks. I knew it was from somewhere. I even found a commercial for them on Youtube.

I think Sunkist currently makes something similar, only they call them Fruit Gems.

The Spoiler Thread was one of the greats. Now that HP7 has been out long enough for anyone who cares we should definitely have another one.
LOL, bloodybrilliantme, that sounds rough. I can't judge the kiddies and their HSM/Drake and Josh-y obsessions too harshly in light of some of my own preteen and not-so-preteen obsessions, but I don't have to deal with any on a daily basis either

Speaking of silly high school movies, damn Comedy Central for showing Drive Me Crazy (hosted by the Superbad guys, no less) when I have shit I need to be doing. I can never resist the combined draw of Clarissa Darling and Vinnie Chase together in one movie.

Mars: www.digitalbits.com Scroll down. It's mentioned after the Blade Runner DVD blurb.

I firmly believe that Halloween IS slowly being wiped out by X-mas… I mean look at Thanksgiving…it pretty much doesn't EXIST, well, in the eyes of the retail stores. I pretty sure Hobby Lobby pettles a bunch of TG crap. But being that Halloween is my favorite Holoday, Please…PLEASE…Matt, don't give in to the massacre of a great holoday and continue the fight with your annual Halo Feast. Don't give in to that Fat Jolly Chump.

I see I'm not the only one annoyed by the entertainment industry's focus on tweens. American Idol seems like a good idea in theory (giving anyone who wants to sing a chance to do so), but then, so was Communism. (I've had this quote floating around in my head for a few weeks now, and have been waiting to use it.)

As for High School Musical, I'm glad I don't know anything about it. If we're talking lesser Disney movies, why not The Journey of Natty Gann?

Yet another reason I love this website and its faithful readers. Finally I am not alone in firmly placing Halloween in my top-two when it comes to my favorite holidays.

In my opinion Christmas does have to claim the number one spot. It is that excuse we need to get together with our family and for whatever reason (magic of the season?) we all have a great time. I guess I can't really explain it. A part of it is the memories you have from childhood, another part of it is time off work, and, perhaps my favorite now, the idea that I can create those great memories for my kids (when I actually have a few).

Halloween on the other hand has candy (and checking for the razor blades within), costumes, horror movies, and doing your best to gross out little kids with ghastly displays on Oct. 31st.

My favorite live-action Disney movies have to be the Kurt Russell (Dexter Riley) movies of the late sixties (Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Invisible Kid, etc.) I'm sure the adults of the time found them a little annoying… And I am one of the only people I know who actually liked Parent Trap III. (I think it was the only movie to actually star teenage triplets, the Kreel triplets - though for some reason only Monica Kreel ever went on to do any further acting - as a replacement character on Saved By The Bell.)

First of all, I have yet to see Halloween stuff anywhere, which makes me very happy. Though it's much cooler here than it was earlier in the week (thank god, no more humidity!), it's still fairly warm. It'll be another month before I start feeling "Halloween-y."

Like DJ D, I've never been a fan of Fruit Roll-Ups. I ate them occasionally as a kid, but they always get stuck between my teeth. Working at a grocery store, I'm familiar with most of the 15,000 versions they have out now. I've seen (and sold) the Crazy Pixs, but the Stackers are either unavailable in this area, or I've just never paid attention to them before.

I've never seen "High School Musical," but I love musicals, so anything that gets teens into them gets a hall pass from me.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and all the displays-but not until at least mid-November. The stores have every right to push toys and greeting cards and red and green, but don't candy and orange and black bring in enough cash?

And yeah, I'd just as well wait another month to get into the evil Halloween spirit.

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