So, we had a “fun day” of training on Friday, which involved team building and getting to know each other, along with a few video clips and some teachings on advanced personalization techniques. But the most interesting part for me was the trivia.
I’ll pause here for a bit of a tangent (what a surprise, right?) Trivia nights are a big thing here in Charleston. Don’t know if they are big in other cities, but I know we really didn’t have this sort of thing up in Reading. It might be a nationwide trend for all I know, but I’ll describe it in brief in case it’s not. People go into bars and play team trivia. No use of iPhones or technology, just brain power (?) or not, of the team members. A coordinator of events announces the trivia question and starts a song (they also act as a DJ of sorts) and after a song the teams have to submit answers and a number of points they are betting. At the end of the night there is a winning team and they get a gift certificate to the bar for like ten dollars or a free meal or some such prize. It’s free to play and sort of fun, so there you go. An alternative to karaoke, is how I see it. I’d rather sing, since trivia is not my strong suit.
So back to the story, our team does mediocre. Whatever, it’s just for fun, but I am somewhat competitive. A question is We all know Count Chokula, the breakfast cereal. What other characters have cereal in this series, and as a bonus, two characters are no longer in production. What were those character’s cereals? Answer is at the end…
But there were all kinds of weird cereals I remember. I liked Freakies. I still remember the theme song
we are the Freakies, we are the freakies
and this is our freaky tree.
You’ll never miss a meal
Cause you’ll love our cereal.
But what other weird shit went on back in the 70′s and 80′s when I was growing up?
Barby’s gay boyfriend Ken got an earring. Then that went away…
GoBots went away to be replaced by Transformers. (There is no GoBot Movie, now is there?)
Wacky Packages mocked marketing material.
We never wore bike helmets and didn’t even know anyone who had one. (and survived)
I made Creepy Crawlers with molten plastic and a baking surface that would easily give you third degree burns.
We made “Cat’s Eyes” with yarn and Popsicle sticks and then gave them to our Moms, like they needed some new piece of crap to hang on the wall.
We had Clackers, until stories starting circulating about them “exploding” and killing some kid. Then they were gone…
Does anyone remember a tie dyed looking goop that you used to blow up like a balloon using a thin red straw that looked like a coffee stir stick? The “balloon” you would blow up like a glass blower sort of, but it was sort of sticky and once it was blown up it always would develop leaks that expanded until your work was a sticky deflated mess?
Why were people obsessed with Evel Knievel so much so that we had an entire toy line, even of his rocket bike that never jumped the Snake River Canyon, let alone the Grand Canyon?
Why did GI Joe ever get Kung Fu Grip? and more importantly, why did he shrink to half the original size?
Does anyone remember the Hair Bear Bunch? And how did they get away with having an invisible motorcycle? was a motorcycle too tough to draw, so the animators said “fuck it, we’re just making it invisible”?
Does Gnip Gnop really need to make a come back?
Who else had a Sizzler race track?
A switchblade comb? Really? This was a must have for the cool kid who aspired to be Fonzie. (not to be confused with Fozzie Bear)
We played with lawn darts and no one was stabbed ever….
Corn hole had a whole other meaning altogether. It wasn’t some lawn game (at least not in our neighborhood)
In the summer we left home early in the morning and didn’t come home until dinner time, and I doubt Mom gave a crap where we were and I know she never worried about strangers abducting us..
I know there were other odd things going on. Do you have any to contribute? leave a comment and share them. Thanks!
Contributed to the list – Pet Rocks. There was good use of a few dollars…
So it’s Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy. See photo —>
But our instructor, the entertaining and knowlegable Rebecca google image searches yummy mummy, but somewhat pornographic images come up on the search results. She quickly closes the window. Ha. Fun stuff.
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remember pet rocks?
Ha. Pet Rocks. Sorta forgot about that one. fun time. Well, not really, but sort of funny. How silly was that to actually spend money. Another one that reminded me of was the Invisible Dog.