ET Christmas

This is totally not creepy, and who doesn't love Xfinity?

I really want to make some Reese's Pieces cupcakes now for the holidays.  Maybe I can catch an ET?

Happy Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day

All My Pumpkins

Over the years I have been collecting plug-in plastic and plaster Jack o' Lanterns.  There is just something very satisfying seeing a window full of these spooky guys!  I paid $1 each for these!  All found at the DI.  Let's have a look see.

1. M&Ms Red Mascot, East Corp Toys Co, 2001
2. Blow-mold with no markings.  Who knows when this was made?  It's very flat.  I can send more pictures if you need to ID this Jack.
3. Trendmaster, 1993
4. Jakks Pacific Inc, 2003
5. Square Teeth, The Paper Magic Group, 1998
6. 4-in-a-row, Trendmaster, 1995
7. Sharp TeethThe Paper Magic Group, 1998
8. Stack o' Jacks, Gemmy Industries Corp, no date stamp

Was this a light-up blow-mold?  Does anyone have info on this one?

Do you have some of these at home?  Which ones are your favorite?

Squirmy Wormy Donuts

These are amazingly good, I was surprised!  They are the October donut of the month this year at my local Smith's Food & Drug (Kroger) grocery stores.  If there is a Smith's in your area check and see if your bakery has these!

They're just chocolate donuts, topped with Oreo crumbles, and apple flavored gummy worms.  10/10 must try this month!

Do you have a Smith's nearby?  Have you tried these?  Are there any junk foods you gotta have this time of year?

Arctic Circle's Square Pumpkin 2019

They're back again this year!  Not sure how many years they have done the Square Pumpkin, but we're talking 35+ years now!  I really wish they would run a new local commercial.  TV is all but dead these days.  Arctic Circle has ditched the "Square Pumpkin" title it seems, and now just offers a spooky Halloween themed kids meal box.  It's not as cool as in years past, but I'll take it.  The food is the same, the only difference is the box, and the annual Halloween "flashlights".  Gotta keep them safe for Tricks and Treats! 

This boy is also obsessed with cheese burgers right now! 

Milen got the Franky, and Ava got the Eyeball.  The flashlights don't change much from year to year, but they are a fun little tradition.  One year they had robot flashlights, which was stranger than aliens for Halloween.  Like I said, I'll take it.  (They're better than the flashlights featured in the above commercial .  I wish I knew when that commercial aired.  I wanna say late 90's, early 2000's?)  McDonald's is lame now and doesn't offer Halloween Happy Meals, and BK is totally out to lunch when it comes to their kid's meals.  The Burger King Kid's Club is dead.

Milen got creative with the lights and used them to light up the ghost shelf

Anyways, I got my usual Pumpkin Pie shake.  This time I added chocolate, which made it kind of taste like pumpkin chocolate chip cookie ice cream.  And for some reason they topped it off with a Nilla Waffer.

Any other Utahns out there?  What do you think of the Square Pumpkin meals?  If you're not from Utah, do you have any local eateries that offer Halloween themed kids meals?  If you do know of any other fast food joints with halloween offerings this year then please let me know!  and show me pictures!


Past Square Pumpkins:

1981 Square Pumpkin!!! <--AWESOME 80's Halloween commercial!!!
2009 Square Pumpkin
2012 Square Pumpkin?
2013 Square Pumpkin
2015 Square Pumpkin

Ream's: Halloween Time Machine 2019

If you live in Utah and love Halloween, then you need to check out Ream's!  For the past few years I have found some awesome stuff.  Incredible selection for a grocery store, and super cheap!  If you are not familiar with Ream's, it is a local grocery store chain here in the beehive state.  There is a scotish mascot, and the stores are pretty run down.  I still have fond memories roller balding to reams to see what tapes and video games they had for rent.

Between two Ream's location, checkout what I found this year.  It's like stepping into a time machine!

Look at this!  You ever see a full page of Halloween in the newspaper mailer, for a grocery store!? Beautiful.

 I had to have one of each of the purple, green, white, and & orange ghosts.  Just 99 cents each!

Sadly, I only found the orange and purple (with eyes) windups.

Where is your secret Halloween honey hole?

Funko Horror Themed Cereal

While I was watching the Netflix documentary, Making Fun: The Story of Funko, I discovered that Funko is releasing several horror themed cereals in Summer 2018! (Not yet released at the time this post was written)

Funko is working on the following themed cereals, to include a mini-Pop figures in each box, for just $7.99!

Freddy Funko

Elvira, Mistress of The Dark

Freddy Krueger

Cuphead

Beetlejuice

Batman

Pennywise

Captain Caveman

Friday The 13th

Gremlins

Cthulu

Harley Quin

Skeletor

Mumm-Ra

and MORE!

Becker said "When you add milk to the Freddy Kruger cereal, it looks blood red.  With the Beetlejuice cereal, when you add milk it looks like slime."

Did you buy some Funko cereal, or do you plan to?  What do you think?  Did you open the box, or leave it sealed?

Ice Scream Halloween Pail

Haunted Raisin Ice Cream (From Invader Zim episode: Mortos der Soulstealer)

Every year I am puzzled that no ones has ever created Halloween themed ice cream.  Why has no one done this yet!?  Is it because no on thinks of ice cream when they think Halloween?  Am I just ice cream obsessed?

Recently a great idea popped into my head, the perfect food product idea.  Ice "Scream" packed in a Halloween themed bucket/pail.  Once you finish the cookie and "scream" flavored ice cream, the plastic Ghost/Pumpkin/Monster bucket can be used for trick or treating.  Ingenious! I need to make this happen!

Would you buy Halloween themed ice cream?  If not for the ice cream, would you buy it just to collect the Halloween buckets?

Peter Piper Pizza - Memories Snowball Effect

I recently found this cute little PPP (Peter Piper Pizza) mascot to add to the food mascot plush collection.  He was 50 cents at the DI, score!

When I was a kid we didn't visit the Sandy City PPP very often, so it was always a special occasion.  A while back PPP closed all stores in Utah, and I thought they were done, but they do still have locations in other states, and even in Mexico. 

I didn't even know PPP had a dino mascot.  I used to own a Little Caesar mascot as a kid.  I would love to complete the pizza trinity with Little Caesar and The Noid.  Or better yet, some Rock-a-Fire Explosion plushies!  I wouldn't pass up Chuck-E-Cheese plush toys either...

Anyhoo, PPP was my earliest memories of playing Mario Brothers on an original arcade machine.  When I couldn't go to PPP, I would challenge my brother to play the 2-player battle mode on SMB3 (Super Mario Brothers 3).  I played that game to death! 

The moral of the story is pizza places were awesome back in the 80s and 90s, and they are pretty lack luster now.  That may be my nostalgia talking, but I think pizza places are a lot less fun now.  We still have a local Jungle Jim's.  That place is falling apart now, and the rides and games are pretty lame.

When I searched for commercials online I found a bunch of weird YouTube videos about Caillou and family misbehaving at PPP... The internet is a strange place.

During my research (Google searches) I found out that PPP bought out the other PPP (Pistol Pete's Pizza).  Check out this awesome commercial!  I really wish I could have tried it before it disappeared. (Pete's also featured the Rock-A-Fire Explosion.  I thought the show was exclusively at Showbiz Pizza.  The More You Know!)

Anyone remember Discovery Zone?  It was a sad day when the Sandy Mall location closed.

October Friday the 13th, 2017

Jack 'o Monkey?

Dollar Tree!

 Whoa, check out those graphics!

Great seasonal sweaters!

My Top 10 Fast Food Toys

Recently I have been thinking about all my favorite fast food toys from the past.  Here are my personal top 10 favorites:

10.  Hardee's Halloween Smooshies

Hardee's had some real winners!  I still have all the Halloween Smooshies, but all the bases the little plushies came in are now all long since lost.  The Surfing Pizza has a nice review HERE.

9. Hardee's California Raisins Series 1-5

My Dad collected a ton of these and I remember playing with them all the time.  Hardee's released 5 sets, including a set of plush raisins!  They were a perfect tie-in with their cinnamon raisin biscuits, and the commercial if perfect!

8. Wendy's Playskool Definitely Dinosaurs

Almost everyone had these kicking around the house, even if you don't remember where they came from. I still have quite a few and they have held up after all these years and my kids play with them today. Check out Katrina's Toy Blog for more info on the definitely Dinosaurs toy line.  I can't believe how many color variants Wendy's released!

7. McDonald's Batman The Animated Series and Batman Returns

Finally, McDonald's  made the list (it's really unavoidable) I'm clumping these 2 batman themes together because the awesome little cars go together so perfectly. 

6. McDonald's Fast Macs & Mickey's Birthday Land Racers

These are just classic!  Like number 7 on the list, these are actually 2 toy lines, but they together perfectly.  I played with these little cars for hours.  Maybe my Dad should've kept them locked up in a case like the dad in the commercial, because us kids eventual wore them out.

5. McDonald's Super Mario 3

Nintendo & McDonald's go together like fries and and a shake!

4. Jack-in-the-Box & Burger King Universal Monsters

These were almost on par with toys you could find at the toy store! I didn't even know about the Jack-in-the-Box Monsters until I saw the fun little video below

3. McDonald's McDino & McRobot Changeables

These are at the top of the list for most fast food toy fans, and I can see why.  I still have some of the Dinos kicking around.  I love that the McRobot commercial used hand-drawn animation, perfectly knocking off the Transformers.

2. SubwayABC's Bump in The Night

Who'd a thunk Subway of all places would make the list!  No offense to anyone that likes Subway's current "toys", but I think it's all pretty lame now.  I loved the claymation Bump in the Night cartoon series, but somehow I missed out on these.  Probably because Subway wasn't really known for kids meal toys.  Maybe some day I will buy these.  Then Bumpy, Squishington, Molly, and Destructo too, can have wonderful adventures while I'm away.

Source

1. Burger King & KFC Micro Machines Z-Bots

It's no secret that I love Z-Bots, and when I found out Burger King had Z-Bots, well, The Burger King Kids Club was the clear winner of the kids meal wars in my eyes.  I found out several years later KFC also had Z-Bots Linkbots, so I thought I'd throw that in.  The KFC Linkbots are pretty ugly, but they're Z-Bots and pretty rare, so I want them too!

What are your favorite fast food toys?  Did they make my personal favorites list?  Am I missing out on an amazing fast food toy premium?  Tell me in the comments below!

Gingerbread (300th Post!)

This year my workplace held its first annual gingerbread contest. Despite starting the night before it was due I think it turned out well! Ava and I had loads of fun putting this together.  The bulk of the candy was leftover Halloween candy, all the "meh" stuff most people just throw away.  I call it

Eversweet National Forest, nestled under Gingerbread Peak.  Everyone at the Christmas lunch threw in their votes.  I overheard a few onlookers saying "this one is super busy!"  Well, of course it is! It's called nature, it's supposed to be messy! Things don't grow all in neat rows, ya know?

UPDATE: The votes have been tallied, I am a winner!
Best Use of Color Category WINNER!

(Check out my Instagram account @spacemason  for more photos)

I drew upon a few sources for inspiration:

A World of Food: Amazing Foodscapes by Carl Warner

Drawlloween 2015

I was a little late to the party on this one, since I had never heard of Drawlloween until October 12th, so I had som catching up to do. Luckily, most of my drawings only take a few minutes.

Drawlloween was created by Kevin Luong, among others. Below are the daily topics/directions for you to base your drawings on:

And here's what I've come up with so far:

As you can see, there's no need to be a professional illustrator to join.  Follow hashtag #Drawlloween2015 and join in on the fun tonight! I can't wait to see what you come up with!