Let's Get Rowdy!!

Look out, Joes. Cobra has a new secret weapon:



Rowdy Roddy Piper!!




This bad boy will shoot you in the face and then bodyslam you to the mat. Not since the days of Sergeant Slaughter has there been such a steroids induced action figure!

Happy New Year!!

Your friends at Nerdlander wish you a Happy New Year by showing you the scariest baby to ever grace the small screen:

The Ants Come Marching...

What better gift is there, than the gift of bugs!!



It's Uncle Milton's Fascinating Ant Farm!!



What kid didn't want to watch some industrious little creatures dig tunnels, build bridges, or move mountains? I mean, that sounds almost supernatural. And the best part, an Ant Farm is fun for the whole family!!



And while this spectacle of nature is fascinating, it did have a downside. No ants. I remember opening the bright yellow box and expecting to see a bunch of ants ready to greet me. Lo and behold, though, I had to mail in the special certificate and wait what seemed like 2 years for the critters to arrive.

But when they did show...boo-ya!!

A Paramount of Pizza

Back in the day, I knew kids that got big bucks as a reward for A's on their report card. I, however, was never one to lust for cold, hard cash. So, MY reward was a trip to Paramount Pizza Palace in Indianapolis, Indiana.




And this is just the lobby!!

Here's the deal:

Order Pizza...Buy Candy at the Gift Shop...Listen to Organ Music.



If that last part leaves you scratching your head on bemusement, well let me tell you something. This organ wasn't some fuddy-duddy church organ. It was a monstrous behemouth of pipes and sound. It even had drums, trumpets, and fake birds.



And, get this, it ROSE FROM OUT OF THE FEAKING GROUND. This magical appearance never ceased in getting an ooh and aah out of me.



And you could give them requests. Now the geezers would always request something from Bach or Sousa. I, on the other hand, had only two requests: Star Wars and the Original Phantom of the Opera. You ain't heard John Williams until you've heard him blasted with hundreds of pipes from an organ that levitated out of the ground!!

Paramount's closed now, but you can still hear this kicking organ in Florida!!

It's Smurfing Cold...

On a cold, blistery winter's day, nothing gets me up and at 'em faster than a colorful bowl of cereal made by Smurfs.



Ah, cereal based on Saturday morning television. Plopping down in front of the television at the crack of dawn, just knowing you had 5 hourse of non-stop cartoons to watch. Getting a big bowl of sugar, milk, and neon coloring. Could anything be any tastier?



Let's just see Gargamel try to whip up some of this goodness. And to top it off, the cereal had its own siren's song to lure in the children. To this day, I can sing it:

I Double Dare You!

In some board room in the 80's a plan was hatched: A game show who's prime purpose was to dump massive amounts of sticky crap all over children.



That game show: Double Dare



Every evening at 5:00 could find my sister and myself tuning into Nickelodeon for this apex of children's knowledge. Didn't know that Bon Jovi released Slippery When Wet? Well then it's time to get dirty!



With bright red/blue uniforms, knee/elbow pads, goggles, and a helmet, contestants on Double Dare where the luckiest kids on the face of the earth.

Like special forces ninjas, we spent hours developing key strategies on how we would win that free trip to Space Camp!! At the very least, we might win a couple of Huffys. And when a home version was released, children over the globe united in world peace.



Even Nintendo jumped on the bandwagon...




Alas, the days of wasting food are gone. And children are resigned to watch Quiz Bowls and Spelling Bees for their educational entertainment. So, God Bless You, Mark Summers!!