The Humour Club discussion

We used to get these big animal cookies slathered with pink icing. (Yeah, I know - it's always about food with me! PLUS, I probably wouldn't like them anymore.) Those things rocked my kid world.

And there was a soft drink company called "Drink Me" Pop. They came in returnable bottles and featured unusual flavors with weird, day-glo colors. Yum.

I have a Sky Spy Kite, too. - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomedler...

Apparently, they're still being made. Do your kids have a Sit 'N Spin, Kyle?

I used to have a sit-on-bouncy-ball that I LOVED, but when I got one for my boys, they were pretty "Meh" on the whole idea.

Get out your credit card! - available at Walmart and Target.

Okay. You got me there. I never had a Lone Ranger outfit.

Actually, I vaguely remember a Batman costume. I was crazy about the Adam West TV show.

Fizzies. Shasta Cream Soda. Space sticks.

I think they still make those disgusting frosted animal crackers, Melki.

Kyle - My kids love silly putty...sadly, the only place I can find it is the dollar store.

I don't love silly putty. It get stuck in hair and carpets.

What I miss is the violence based toys. All of my toys as a youngster were such things as GI Joes, WWF wrestlers, pretend guns, pirate swords...now, geez my kids don't even know what a gun does. They do have a general idea of what a lightsaver (aka Jedi Light Sabre) is, but, they don't try to take heads off or anything fun like that.

Rebecca, what were "Space Sticks"?

They make small disgusting, icing-coated animal cookies, but they're not they same. These were big - maybe 3" - 4", and were packaged about 8 - 10 in a box. There are other people online who remember them, but no one seems to remember who made them.

Real Silly Putty is still available, but after killing zombies in video games, my kids found sticking putty to the newspaper comics page, then stretching Dagwood's face to be pretty lackluster entertainment.

Space sticks were disgusting forerunners to PowerBars. Supposedly they were what the astronauts ate (and washed down with Tang, of course). We would take them on hikes. This would have been late 60s/early 70s.

I don't remember the large iced animal cookies. Maybe because my Mom never bought cookies. She made them :)

Oh, you are so lucky! My mom was a noncook. Everything we ate came out of a box or a can.

And cooks breed cooks. I do all our baking now. I really can't stand packaged sweets, and store bread is only good if it's expensive.

It saves a lot of money, too. I always feel sorry for people who are broke but don't know how to cook. They don't have many options, and none are either healthy or tasty.

On food, where have all the neighborhood greasy spoons gone? The mom and pop 'restaurant' with the cheap Coke/Pepsi signs, that only ever served hot dogs, hamburgers, and fries...I'm sure most have been shut down by some public sanitation committee, but, didn't they always have the best tasting food?
My father in law claims it was the smoke from cigarettes that added that extra flavour. It could have been the high trans fat laden three day old grease they used to fry up the onion rings with as well?

My town still has one - The Texas!
The grease sort of hangs in the air like a fog bank, and yes, I'm sure you could cut it with a knife.

The one from my childhood is also still in existence. I ate there the last time I visited. They are known for something called a "Hachidog" - which I assume is some sort of code for "Hot Chili Dog."

We have a place here that hasn't changed in twenty years, same sign with the missing letters and all, but it just doesn't taste the same. Either my tastebuds are changing as I get older, or they are not using lard to deep fry the fries anymore (probably changed to some other 'healthy' oil - oxymoron in itself - with no trans fats or something).

Oh, and did you hear that lard is apparently healthy for you...
http://www.rodale.com/research-feed/h...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyl...
http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/l...

The things I really miss from when I was a kid were the TV shows. Gumby, Captain Planet, Babar....

I loved Gumby! It's one of the few show I watched as a kid that I can still stand.

The other day my daughter ran across the tv station 'retrotoon' and started watching all the 'old' cartoons like He-Man and Bugs Bunny. Now she is going around hitting people and blaming it on tv.

Melki wrote: "I loved Gumby! It's one of the few show I watched as a kid that I can still stand."

I re-tried watching The Last Unicorn again the other week. Still a classic!

Bookworm wrote: "The other day my daughter ran across the tv station 'retrotoon' and started watching all the 'old' cartoons like He-Man and Bugs Bunny. Now she is going around hitting people and blaming it on tv."

Is that what we use to do? lol

Well, my brothers always got real rowdy after watching Star Trek or The Six Million Dollar Man.

I miss pacers - those green and white striped mint chews.

I remember the playland they used to have at McDonald's. They had an actual mini merry-go-round, a giant tree and a slide. And you could only enter through the restaurant and could exit to the parking lot through an amusement park style turnstile. Then they replaced them with the cheaper to maintain ball pits/obstacle courses. There was something special about walking into a mini amusement park as a kid.

Wow! That sounds amazing. I've only ever seen the ball pits/hamster tubes. I personally do not see the attraction either of those things, but my kids seemed to love them.

I don't know about the ball pits, but I like the hamster tubes, and used to use "my kid is stuck" as an excuse to go play in them myself :)

R. wrote: "I remember the playland they used to have at McDonald's. They had an actual mini merry-go-round, a giant tree and a slide. And you could only enter through the restaurant and could exit to the park..."

Replaced by Barrett Home developments unfortunately.

Animated Cold War propaganda gems like He-Man.

Melki wrote: "Wow! That sounds amazing. I've only ever seen the ball pits/hamster tubes. I personally do not see the attraction either of those things, but my kids seemed to love them."

I found one article that showcases the old Playland. Too bad no one took a home movie and posted it online. http://www.retrojunk.com/article/show...

Now THAT was a playland. It seems insane to me to switch from fixtures that so heavily featured McDonald characters (Ka-ching!) to generic tubes and balls.

What a great website. Thanks for posting.

You know what is missing from summers nowadays? Seeds in watermelons. Picture a watermelon. Do you see those black little seeds just the right size to spit at siblings?
Well, take a look at the watermelons you buy today. They are all seedless! No seeds, no spitting, no bothering siblings.

But it does allow you to eat watermelon indoors...something I was never allowed to do as a kid. You can always find plenty of other things to spit at siblings.

One thing that is now around that I didn't have as a kid - the Ice Cream truck.
There is now an ice cream truck in town, that drives around playing really loud tingly-tinkling-good-natured music...someone took the guy to court saying he was playing his music too loud and causing a public disruption!
Court ruled in the ice cream man's favour and he is allowed to play his music while driving around making sundaes and banana splits.
We actually bought a cone from the guy, Mr. Nice Cream is the name (isn't that cute?), and it was ok...but $10! Geez, shoulda just went to the McDonald's at the Wal-mart for a 69 cent cone.

We're six miles out of town, so I'm surprised the truck bothers to make the trip, but it does occasionally. There really aren't a lot of kids in our neighborhood, and they're usually at soccer camp or French horn lessons. (Overscheduled little buggers!)
Our truck plays "Turkey in the Straw." Not sure why, as that song seems to have nothing to do with ice cream OR summer. And yes, I could buy a box of twelve of ice cream sandwiches at the store for what the truck charges for one.

I miss laying on the floor in pajamas, eating a bowl of cereal, and watching Saturday morning cartoons and all the Sid & Marty Krofft shows like Land of the Lost, Sigmund and the Seamonsters, and the Bugaloos. Someone should open a "cereal bar" for adults who grew up in the 70's where they can do that.

Great idea! My kids still don't believe me when I tell them Saturday mornings were the ONLY time cartoons were on when I was growing up.

It made cartoons so special! And afterwards there was nothing on so you would actually go outside.

Exactly! I used to watch cartoons from 7am up to 'American Bandstand' - then I'd head outside until it got dark. What a perfect way to spend the day.

Nowadays, I eat my Lucky Charms while I read online comics. It's okay, but not the same as when I was a kid.

I used to love going to this Hershey Chocolate Factory in a town about an hour down the highway. You could take a tour through and watch them make chocolate bars. Then you'd get a free one at the end. But, as with most factories, it moved down to Mexico.

However, lately there has been talk of starting it back up again...not with chocolate, but, with something a little different
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/former-o...

Wonder if they will have tours and a freebie at the end?

I'm guessing NO.

I grew up about 25 miles from Hershey. When I was a kid, you could tour the actual factory and see all the Oompah Loompahs at work. Then they built a ride at the amusement park where you sit and get a automated tour and watch animated dioramas of how chocolate is made. Kind of like a fun house, only unscary and just barely fun, but for some reason, kids are wild about it.

The ride sits just outside the park and admission is free and you get a tiny complimentary piece of chocolate at the end, just before you are led into THE WORLD'S LARGEST GIFT SHOP where you can buy keychains, trains, t-shirts and chocolate bars as big as doormats.

Ah, smell that chocolate capitalism!

I love the smell of capitalism in the morning?

I read a magazine article about Hershey once, that the town was build specifically to house the factory workers. One of those capitalist 'firsts' that even changed the way cities were formed.

Did you see that Jon and Kate Plus 8 episode when they go to the Hershey Chocolate factory? It was a good one.

Hey, fun fact. Hershey chocolate tastes different up here in Canada. So, if you come for a visit up here and you see the 'classic' plain Hershey bar, it will taste different - sweeter or something.

Bookworm wrote: Hershey chocolate tastes different up here in Canada. So, if you come for a visit up here and you see the 'classic' plain Hershey bar, it will taste different - sweeter or something.

Probably they add essence of beaver butt in Canada.

Shadow wrote: "Bookworm wrote: Hershey chocolate tastes different up here in Canada. So, if you come for a visit up here and you see the 'classic' plain Hershey bar, it will taste different - sweeter or something..."

Yes, anything beaver is very popular up here.

Especially during the long winter nights, no doubt.

Unfortunately beavers hibernate most of the winter, so we don't get to see them much. They gather and eat enough sticks in the summer to hold them through until spring.

I miss the vegetable vendor's truck that came to our neighborhood in Michigan in the fifties. We also had the milkman and the iceman. This was when we had iceboxes and needed blocks of ice to keep food cold.

John wrote: "I miss the vegetable vendor's truck that came to our neighborhood in Michigan in the fifties. We also had the milkman and the iceman. This was when we had iceboxes and needed blocks of ice to keep ..."

I don't remember ever seeing a vegetable truck, though I was raised in the 'burbs. We did have milk delivered when I was a kid. The milkman once saw me in my underwear, though since I was four-years-old at the time, I doubt he was too thrilled.

What I miss are the Hollywood B movies of the 80s and even the early 90s. There's a special kind of charm to those films, low budget yet enjoyable. These days only the indies produce such movies, and while great they're few and far in between.

Hair

A clear view of my toes

Teenage girls that it's okay to find attractive

Han shoots first

I'm pretty sure Han still shot first, as long as you avoid the bloody re-releases.

Fizzies.