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

10/29/2007: Eddie Chewger?

Was away for work most of the weekend, followed by a quick stop at a friend’s house in Pennsylvania. It was pretty close to Amish country, and Amish country doubles as the antique shop center of the universe. There were gigantic, warehouse-sized antique shops all over the place, and I’m fortunate that I only had time to visit one of ‘em. They’re full of cool stuff, but ridiculously expensive. In the one store I went in, I recognized tons of crap from my time spent as a full-time eBay seller, on sale for 10, 20 or 30 times their actual “worth.”

This particular store’s idea of what served as an “antique” was fairly vague. I saw a few Star Wars toys from the late ’90s on sale for up to a hundred bucks, among many other items that are just as easily and much more cheaply found at any random dude’s garage sale.

In fact, the best stuff wasn’t even in the place, but rather at the few tables placed outside. That’s where I found the choice item hiding somewhere in the photo above. Look close. It’s Freddy!

This thing is soooo bad. I’m assuming they were riffing on A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3, as the goof title is Gum In The Hair On Elm’s Treat 33. I don’t know if it’s possible to come up with a play-on-words more convoluted than that, but I guess, if you’re going to be awful, you may as well be the most awful. This isn’t a licensed Freddy product, but rather a novelty item from “Zeebs” that skirts copyright jussst enough to get away with it.

From the package: “Eddie Chewger finally bites off more than he can chew!” Notably, the back of the package calls him “Eddy Chewger.” Then, just to make things even more confusing, the box contains a plastic videocassette-shaped box filled with videocassette-shaped gum! Is that a double-negative? And what does it have to do with Freddy Krueger?

It’s amazing that they went through so much trouble to make such a senseless product, but I think I like it. The crude image of Freddy (or Eddie, or Eddy) on the front of the box looks like it’d be a great 30×30″ velvet painting.

oh man that Freddy portrait brings back memories. Look how awesome that depiction is!

Spent the weekend watching Animaniacs, That 70s Show, Roseanne, South Park and Garfield Halloween episodes.

Now that I have gone back and read it…wow! My bet is that you were at an Antiques & Collectibles type place. That is how they get away with people selling just plain crap and it not having to be an actual antique of any sort (i.e. Beanie Babies). Occasionally you can score something sweet but usually it is just crap. I did get a really cool Penguin shaped Martini shaker once for $10 that turned out to be worth $350. I sold it, never take a chance! You just never know when the martini shaker market is going to fall out from underneath you and then you are stuck sitting on a hundred Beanie Babies…err I mean martini shakers.

WOW! I’ve seen something that was probably made by the same company: Gum CDs. The one I got was “Gums ‘N Roses.” Bet chew can’t guess who that’s imitating.

I was at an Amish buffet not long ago and was looking to buy some Americana stuff. say what you will, but my wife loves it. I pick up a nice piece and look at the back of it for the price. Made in China. I have no issue buying all the made in china stuff at walmart, but if the amish are selling out to them we have issues. I bought another piece I liked better. god I love their apple butter.

I’ve seen a few of those “antiques and collectibles” stores around here, too. I did net me some pretty sweet stuff from one (no pun intended with the “Eddy Chewger”), including a mint “Star Wars” record-and-book for $6.

I love the picture of poor Freddy trying to separate his claws from his face. Is that what he’s doing? It seems like he’s MADE of gum in the cover art.

Keeping with the Gum theme here, Matt, Have you seen the Booberry and Frankenberry froot by the Foot?

I’ve been going to lancaster antique shops since I was a little kid. The big warehouse ones that you are refering to must either be “Reneger’s” or “Black Angus”. Black Angus has a large outdoors section. Or was it Schweps Grove. Do you remember which one?

Fantastic! Now all you need to find is Pleather Face taffy or Jay Boorhees Pizza Gum.

Growing up they were always coming out with the dumbest gum-related products. I had gum in the shape of a CD that actually came in a jewell case. What’s the point?

Great stuff as always Matt. I hate that the Halloween spirit has not hit you yet. Maybe if you sit in a sincere pumpkin patch something magical will happen! I am basking in the halloween season complete with my own haunted yard complete with zombies, tombstones and various other creepy things. Keep up the good work and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next few months. Christmas is coming!!

I was just in PA for a Tattoo convention on the 27th and 28th, and stopped at the PCM (Parkway Center Mall, I believe.) It was pretty much an old mall where half of the store spaces were vaccant, but the whole half of the first floor was a flea market, as well as the whole third floor. They had everything from old McDonalds toys/collectable glasses, hot wheels cars, action figures and more. I managed to snag a madballs lunchbox for 25 cents, and a Bizzaro t-shirt at this comic book store there called Ghosts in the Attic.

I have a base line respect for those that try to pull of the play on words to skirt the licensing… however i deduct points when they spell the name wrong on their own play. Thats just priceless…

ok… the site isn’t loading again.. at least on IE7. Firefox came up right away HOWEVER at the bottom it still says “Transferring data from content.yieldmanager.edgesuite.net…” which may be what is holding up IE7 on displaying the Wordpress contents where Firefox displays them first. Just a heads up Matt.

Though I’m now wondering what happens to Eddie at the end? Did the Chew Warriors defeat him in a battle of life and gum? Actually it’s really difficult to come (gum?) up with many good chewy puns. Damn, they must’ve had Havard graduates making that package

It just gets better if you actually say it out loud…”Gum In The Hair On Elm’s Treat 33″…LOL.
Wasn’t there a Freddy-possessed TV in 3? Maybe the Elm’s Treat equivalent is an Eddie-possessed BHS tape. Too much of a stretch?

Holy crap, seeing that GTA London game brought back a memory of my dad buying me that one day. Wow haha. Would have probably lost that memory forever if you hadn’t included it.

Police Quest SWAT! That reminds me of the King’s Quest and Space Quest games I played as a child. Those were the best games back then.

I was so convinced Freddy was going to jump out of the closet and eat me because I faced the closet while I slept. I was also 9. I’m a Freddy girl, through and through, no one else do it like he do. This is such a faBOOlous item! Freddy swag is so hard to come by! Even whispering that creepy poem use to give me goosebumbs.

Every Elm’s Treat ends the same way: with Eddy stuck to the bottom of somebody’s shoe.

Great post! I might reuse my Chuck Norris Halloween costume from last year.(not kidding!) I’ll try to post some pics. In the meantime, here’s my own personal slice of Halloween goodness: an assortment of Chuck Halloween-related Chuck Norris facts!

The reason Dracula only comes out at night is because he’s afraid of running into Chuck Norris.

When Freddy Kreuger goes to sleep, he has nightmares about Chuck Norris/The reason Freddy Kreuger lives in people’s nightmares is that it’s the only place he’s safe from Chuck Norris.

Frankenstein’s monster was put together from the bodies of Chuck Norris’s victims. When he heard about this, Chuck Norris promptly killed the monster with his beard.

Jason Voorhees wears a hockey mask to protect himself from roundhouse kicks to the face by Chuck Norris. It never works.

“What do Kuse and Knacks do for Halloween?”, you ask, tigerfan? I’m fairly sure they put on white sheets and perform little skits on lined paper.

Yo, I totally remember that Pokemon card game from my days working at a KB Toy Works in college. We couldn’t GIVE those damn things away!

Noticed the Bob Hope DVD, too … I guess Matt’s a fan. Anyone ever see Dave Thomas’ impression of Hope on “SCTV”? SPOT ON, man. It’s almost scary.

Well, guess I’ll bust out the Halloween specials and try for a Hallo-buzz. Watched some haunted specials the other day but only starting to build. PLus I’m spending like a drunken sailor on leave on new electronics. New surround system, new phones, new entertainment center, blah blah. Looking for a flatscreen so all those Xmas movies will rock hardcore. Well, screw Halloween. bring on Christmas, it’s just inevitable.

Thay candy was pretty terrific! Here’s something on some pretty old Pac-Man candy that’s just as nifty!

Matt- Sometimes I wonder if there is a group of people working full time placing awesome crap in your path.

The only thing that would be more awesome (and disgusting) than would be if someone made a “face” pizza like the one Freddy ate in part 5.

So, I get this random phone call today from the manager of Taco Bell in my town. I wrote this letter to planet feedback in september about how i liked that particular store and their staff…so this guy wants me to come in whenever and they will comp me a free meal. woo!

I finally got to watch Nightmare 2:Freddy’s Revenge this weekend…it would have sufficiently put me in the Halloween mood, except for my quadmates blasting Spice Girls through the walls. Oh, well. Seeing Freddy in gum form has (almost) made up for it, though.

Friday the 13th pt 3 is on AMC right now (central time), gonna be on again later tonight. No 3d, though

PS Has anyone seen Night of the Living Dead 3D yet?

This thing is priceless. I second Emtu’s question: Did you/are you going to chew it?

It reminds me of a previous Halloween article from a few years ago I found at work one day when there was nothing to do about some “Thriller” dolls. They were all basically cast from the same mold but one managed to look more like Micheal Jackson than the rest. I think he was actually called Mike or something like that, while the others just looked like green, tranny zombies. Anyone else remember that one? I’m assuming Matt does, what with him having written it and all. I love how the companies that make these things just skate all around the copyright infringement.

There’s a shop like that near my old house. The place is just piled from floor to ceiling with all kinds of crap and none of it has any price tags and most of it isn’t in the original boxes or packaging. The next time I’m there I’m going to swing by for some shopping and see if I can find anything that might be donation worthy to the X-E cause.

Wow, today was the first day of real Halloween weather around here! It was actually cold in and outside of the house. Feels great! I’m prolly not going to be around the big night cause I’ll end up at the bar that my friends and I frequent for their “Scary Karaoke” night. But, if for some reason I end up at home it’ll be great weather to hang out outside and jump out and scare the trick ‘r treaters. Can’t believe I haven’t carved up a punkin yet. I gotta get on it.

It’s waaay too old/hard to chew. Picture a stick of gum from a really, really old baseball card pack, but increase its thickness ten times over.

oh dood, totally chew that stuff. I be it tastes like that old-ass Paradise Punch you got some years ago.
*sorry, been reading the archives…*
I’ve done a few things to get in the mood- carving pumpkins- I did one that’s rotten now, have to do it AGAIN!- went to a pumpkin patch, and my BF got 7th place in a costume contest with an Oderus mask
I can’t wait for Wednesday!
candycandycandy!
not that I trick-or-treat or anything.
I just like candy.

P.S.
Who’s totally waking up too early Thursday Morning and Raiding the Halloween Depts?!

MATT OK so it is not just me? I have been having a hell of a time getting the site to load today. It was so bad that I was not even sure if my second post made it up because I couldn’t get the site to load again. It came up for me tonight after I went back out to the front page and came into the blog from there. It just won’t work for me at the moment if I come in from my bookmark. My damn work PC is on IE6 and they won’t let me change it. Hope that helps some.

Hey, I’ve got a fun idea. Let’s all pool our resources to that we can track down the guy who came up with the name “Gum In The Hair On Elm’s Treat 33″ and then cripple him with a thesaurus.

Cricket: Yeah, I was kind of having the same problem. This page seems to refresh just fine, but I was trying to click on the Clamato beer article again a second ago and the page just wouldn’t load. I had the same problem last night. I thought it was just my PC. Nice to know it’s not just me. On the plus side, the problem I was having with everything showing up in bold print seems be totally fixed now.

Hi guys, I’m a Firefox user so I don’t see the problems you’re experiencing, but I’ll try to troubleshoot them. If they’re still happening tomorrow, please e-mail me?

Jedoc: I wonder if we could just find out what company made it and see what else they’ve come up with. That reminds me of my favorite joke of all time. It’s really corny and it’s just a question: What’s another word for thesaurus?

Eddie Lightening Frog: I think I’ve got Night of the Living Dead 3D on my Netflix list. Can’t wait to see it. I actually really liked the 1989 remake that Tom Savini did. Maybe this will be in the same vein. Seeing Sid Haig yelling about zombies might make it worth the rent alone. George Romero set up a booth at a horror convention not too long ago and he was selling t-shirts that had something written on them that sums up my feelings about the current zombie craze (I really want one of these shirts btw): Running Zombies Suck.

Is it just me, or does the picture on the “blog” link look like a zombified F.D.R.?

I was really disappointed that the gum wasn’t a giant reel of tape like bubbletape gum. Because that would have been so awesome.

I haven’t been to Lancaster in years. Whenver I went to Hershey Park, my fam stayed at this hotel smack dab in the middle of Amish Country in a town called Bird-In-Hand (I kid you not, this is the name of the town). Next door to the hotel is a Farmer’s Market that has a flea market open every few days a week.

One time when I went down there, there was one table that claimed to be selling the Wooden Amish Toy seen in “The Witness.” I think they meant that it was the same type of toy, but I remember other copies of the same toy lying on that table, so I was wondering why no one would’ve bought a movie prop from 20+ years ago and that it’s in some forgotten Farmer’s Market.

Is anyone else waiting for the new H*R Halloween Toon?! I love all of them and I can’t wait for the reveal of the costumes. There’s a small preview toon up now that shows silhouettes of the characters in their new costumes, with Pom Pom as a Cacodemon from Doom, and what is definately a Xenomorph from Alien assumed to be Strong Bad, but it’s shaped exactly like a real one and seems like a Red Herring.

Sorry for the double post, but I just checked and the new HSR Halloween Toon is up!

All the costumes this year are freaking awesome! Not to spoil anyone, but I’ll mention these 3 things:

1) At least 5 characters wore costumes that came from shows that were all on Nickelodeon at one point

2) Click on Poopsmith’s head during the toon to see Homsar’s very nostalgia-inducing costume.

3) Strong Bad is not the Xenomorph, but it’s covered at the end when you click on him. The final cotume is much, much, much more awesome.

i was just about to ask the same thing DJ D. who knows….anyways, i love this post, and i wish i had that gum, and the picture of the gum itself is very deceptive because it looks very soft and chewy and pliable. but whateva.

i just attempted to ask lisa if she had gum in the hair on elm’s treat 33 and she said “It’s here! Pepsi Lime is the great taste of Pepsi-Cola with a splash of unique lime flavor for a refreshing, crisp, taste. Visit your local stores to pick up some Pepsi Lime and experience this great new flavor!” what an insane bitch. pepsi lime sounds like it would taste like open anus anyway.

i also just asked lisa if she watched porn and she said “Of course! Do you have a question regarding Pepsi?”

Leigha: Yeah, that gum does look like it might be pretty good. But, look at the size of it! It looks like it really is almost the size of an actual video cassette. That’s one big ass piece of gum. Oh, and Lisa’s a whore. I asked her once if she was into beastiality and she said something along the lines of, “I’m up for anything!”

kittymao: I will definitely be hitting Target first thing Thursday morning! There’s a ton of stuff I want that I just thought was too expensive, like the bar sets. Those lab set shot glasses are awesome, but I want them all and I just can’t afford that at $5-$12 a piece. And I want the Edgar and Ellen DVD for some reason. Hopefully everything will get marked down and I can spend tons of money on stuff for next year since it looks like the fiance and I will be too busy with wedding stuff to go shopping for Halloween stuff…

That’s right, Mandi, I agreed to a week-of-Halloween wedding for next year. I’m not committing to Halloween Day just yet, though. But I absolutely want to know how yours goes!!

Special K: Ha! I’m watching it too! I always cheer when Shelly gets it. I kind of like the hippies though for some reason. Oh well, whatcha gonna do? That’s what you get for being a dirty treehugger–electrocuted and stabbed with a hot poker.

And yeah, I’m really looking forward to all the on sale stuff too. Can’t wait to hit up Target and Wallyworld. I get paid on Wed. so I might treat myself. Tomorrow night a friend and I are going to see the double feature of Halloween 4 and 5. Did anyone else know about this? They’re playing a double bill at like 350 theatres across the country, and there’s one here in town that’s supposidly showing it. For $10 you can see both movies. If for some reason it’s not showing there we’re just going to see the Rob Zombie’s Halloween (even though I’ve already seen it once), or The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D deal.

Oop, it just came back on. Hah, Rick’s 3D eye pop was the best. Aaaand, there he is. I don’t think Rick’s going to be helping her.

If anyone’s interested, my non-horrory Halloween comic is up. Not without tears shed, tho.

Somehow it seems wrong that the first thing I thought about the gum was ‘Hey, that’s a darned good Freddy picture’.

DJ D: So hang on, you’ve never watched any Homestar Runner cartoons? Click my name, child, and all shall become clear. The sbemails are still the highlight of my every other week or so.

Oh right, Homestar Runner…I had forgotten about that place. Have they updated *at all* before the Halloween cartoon, because I stopped checking about a year ago.

My next thought is how bright would the packaging be when it was first around without the sun damage. Or maybe the Chewgar family powers actually prevented any sun damage, and it was always that off-pink grot?

Oooooh almost halloween now! Only through the combined powers of Rob Zombie and Vincent Price has the feeling slowly starting to grow. Though I can’t believe how many people on imdb really don’t like house on haunted hill - it’s a classic!

The gum kinda looks like the head of “Short Circuits” Johnny 5. I’d like to see another movie with him.

Anyway, there was an article in the business section of our paper today explaining why stores are putting Christmas items out earlier every year. Basically, customers are wanting to Christmas shop earlier every year. Although one of the stores mentioned they started putting Halloween items out during July, so who knows.

Beggars Night is tonite here. I’ll tell you how many trick-or-treaters we get later.

At Toys R Us they have the new Madballs! Besides the classic Madballs, they have Madballs Sicko, which are Madballs with the “squeeze skull” gimmick.

Head’s up to all you horror freaks, the Onion’s AV Club has done a thematic breakdown of all the Friday the 13th movies, and it’s quite good in my opinion.

Haven’t seen the Howling in 20+ years and I totally forgot the chick turns into a shitzu at the end. Got to love AMC! And I’m pretty sure Pet Semetary 2 gave me indigestion.

I wonder if there’s going to be a costume commentary as well on H*R? I like the one where Strong Bad was conflicted with the hot chick dressed as Homestar.

Nice Homestar cartoon. The use of the Horrible Painting was especially interesting.

That other old perennial, “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”, airs tonight at 8:00 Eastern on ABC.

If there are any X-E’ers who are XM subscribers, channel 120 is all Halloween/spooky-themed music until 6AM Thursday. Just thought I’d pass that on.

I love how the gum is blatantly in the shape of an audio cassette (remember those?). This has to be the most confusing/ill-thought-out candy of all time… I’d like to by 2.2 million, please.

the funny thing is ive seen thattape and a few others along with the bubble gum cd’s at party city a bunch of years back. i think i still have a few of the cd cases somewhere. it was a TON of gum for 2 bucks or somethign like that.
i actually live in lancaster area and those warehouses are just the tip of the iceberg so to speak, the best place to find the oddest assortment of tapes and general trinkets, toys etc its the yard sales in these bumpkin-ish towns. i swear to god i once visited a sale where the guy had no less then 4 copies of ice cream man for sale and a gigantic selection of troma vhs..most for under $1

Does anyone else remember Michael Jackson trading cards/stickers back in the 80’s? They came with a white stick of gum that may have been coconut flavored, if I remember correctly. I used to put the stickers on my big Lego bucket.

I remember having, as a youth, another fake video from that very same gum company, except mine had some similarly-hideous Indiana Jones parody on it.

Wow… I haven’t seen those gum VHS things in YEARS… I was starting to think I had dreamt them up.

I think the one I had bought was that same “Eddie Chewger” one, too! Sweet jeebus, those things had a lot of gum in them.

Ah yes,that bizarre cd/vhs gum that I used to see constantly during the mid 90’s! Dollar stores ’round these parts[upstate NY] couldn’t even give them away! I found one that was a ‘CD’ by “U-Chew” not too long ago. It’s good to find some fellow Homestar-ites on here. Jessica Marie:The site’s been updating quite regularly lately,especially as far as Strong Bad Emails go.
I found a Teddy Ruxpin doll at a flea market in PA back in September,and the vendor immediately “informed” me that ‘those go for 90 dollars on Ebay’! Teddy was without a single cassette or book,and wasn’t boxed either,so I just rolled my eyes and moved on. I don’t even think he came with batteries. I subsquently searched ebay and not even a boxed Grubby goes for 90 bucks,let alone Ruxpin…so I hear ya loud & clear when you say that some of these places overcharge you and probably hook in misinformed suckers,Matt.

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