Welcome to another entry to the summer survival guide! It's my day off, it's early, I have no plans.... everything’s good except.... the janky ass weather is keeping me held indoors! It's bad enough slaving the whole way through the work week, now the weather gives the ol' proverbial "fuck you" to my free time? So today, I will be exploring a few options for some fulfilling rainy day activities.

Personally, I don't mind a rainy day once in a while; I welcome them, especially when there is yard work that my brain knows needs to be done, but my body and soul flaked out the moment the plans were made. While it's completely acceptable to seize the day and go shopping, head to museums and art galleries, eat at your favorite restaurants or hit the movie theaters.... a rainy day also gives you an excuse to lounge around as you please. Lets face it, most of the time (with a busy work schedule) its necessary to have days like this every so often to recharge the batteries. We'll do exactly that!

First of all, I'm not going anywhere... so I carefully chose only the best and most comfortable attire among the floordrobe. A pair of basketball shorts and a loose fitting tee; a look that says "cozy" and also "I'm sort of a slob and should probably do laundry soon." I won this awesome Team Eastman shirt a while ago from the Kevin Eastman fan page. It's a bit bigger than I typically care for my tee shirts to be, but it makes for the perfect "stay at home all day" outfit.

    I'll start my day with a decent breakfast; eggs and hipster toast. As a millennial, I'm suppose to thrive on this shit. I've enjoyed avocado and toast separately for quite some time now and only recently slapped them together. I suppose it's a good replacement for butter had I not already used butter underneath that... I added chia seeds for bonus hipster points. For extra flavor, I threw some chopped up greens from some leeks I picked a while back that were still in the fridge and looking kinda like they had a couple more days before they turned into bottom shelf refrigerator juice.

My reading pile, before the virus hit, stacked up decently. So, I'm taking this down time to knock out a few titles I've neglected from my pull list. We got a little everything in the pile ranging from Spawn, TMNT, Venom, Ice Cream Man, Redneck, Elvira, Jughead: The Hunger, Vampironica, and Secrets of the Sinister House. They say a rainy day is a gift to people who read. I assume that refers to people who read books without colorful pictures but comics and graphic novels are literally the only books I read. My 5 year old brain has never been able to keep focused on pages of black and white words. I need the pictures.

Board games, another prime stay at home staple, can elevate any simple rainy day to a party. I have a few including Monopoly, Sorry!, Yahtzee, Cranium, Candy Land, etc. It wasn't until the coronavirus hit that I played one of the best board games yet, "Can You Name 5." I've never even heard of it before until cruising through the lesser known board games at Wal-Mart. It seemed necessary to give it a try. So basically, you roll the dice and move your piece to the corresponding spot. If you land on a specific color, your opponent picks up a card from the pile and reads you the color on the card. If the card says child actors, infomercials or movies with Johnny Depp, you name 5 of them from whatever category you receive with your time limited by a small hour glass. I know way more than 5 titles that Johnny Depp starred in. For some reason, the moment that fucking hour glass is flipped, not even one comes to mind. Another note, for the categories that you don't happen to have any knowledge of such as natural fibers, inventors and countries south of the Equator, it can also be a learning experience. I personally enjoy Google searching the categories I find myself stumped on. However, if it isn't useless knowledge of things from my childhood, I usually forget them by the next game but it's always worth a shot trying to remember.

It's been an insanely long time since I've ventured into the old home VHS tapes and a rainy day is the perfect time to revisit them. For instance, take this shot from June 22nd in 1994. I was 5 years old, I had a bike with training wheels for maybe a week or so prior. One early morning, before everyone got up, I took my sisters pink bike (complete with a pink basket) and hit the road. I didn't care that it was a girls bike; it didn't have annoying training wheels. I felt like Marty McFly when he took that little girls pink hoverboard in Back to the Future II. Later that day, I smashed my knee up pretty good as well as my forehead from a decent spill but I remember quickly getting back to it. Now days, I bend to plug my phone charger in and end up bedridden from back pain for a couple days.

Hunger is striking again between all these activities. Contrary to belief, for someone who reviews junk food, I do eat relatively healthy. However, I'm not going to change any minds with this next one. I'm sticking with the theme, being a lazy little shit and ordering pizza. Fox's Pizza Den is what I went with. My gram use to live down the road from one back in the day. I remember walking there a handful of warm summer days to get ice cream. They had Flintstones ice cream push ups which are still as irresistible to me today as they were 26 years ago. Anyways, pizza delivery nowadays has been pretty excellent! Order online, delivery with no contact, a simple knock on the door and the delivery guy is gone before you open your door to your food; if we could keep this antisocial delivery service once the apocalypse ends, that'd be great!

Towards the end of the day, we were greeted by one hell of a sight once the clouds all disappeared. The images speak for themselves, really. It was the perfect ending to a relaxing, lazy, rainy day! After taking hundreds of photos I settled indoors with a bag of fresh popped popcorn and some Fresh Prince on HBO Max until I pass out. With little to no effort, I had an enjoyable rainy day and I'll hopefully feel energized enough to do yard work in 80-90° temperatures the next day.

    That's all she wrote, folks! I hope you enjoyed it. In the comments below, feel free to share some of your favorite rainy day activities. Thanks for reading!

The summer survival guide continues! Welcome to summer memories part II where I share a few of my favorite personal memories of summers past and, hopefully, you enjoy them (otherwise, I'm just some crazy dude writing a public diary about childish shit). Last year, we talked about some TMNT figures, super soakers, and Kool-aid. This year we will be looking at a certain cartoon character who was all over a dairy franchise, an annual hometown carnival and a local playground!

DENNIS THE MENACE DAIRY QUEEN TAKEOVER

    Where I'm from, DQ is only open seasonally starting in March and ending in October. So, it's sort of an event around here when the news breaks that it's back in business. It is always a cardinal sign that summer is very close and also brings back one specific memory I hold onto very much.

    It was a hot summer day back in probably 92 or 93; a bunch of us kids (cousins, siblings and neighborhood kids) running around the trailer court. We all settled in my living room floor to watch Alice in Wonderland on VHS and were surprised with, at the time, what seemed like a monstrous cardboard box full of DQ goodies that the adults all went in on ranging from milkshakes, Banana Splits, Dilly Bars, Buster Bars, Peanut Buster Parfaits and even a few small Blizzards. It was absolute fucking heaven.

    I went straight for the cherry dipped Dilly bars but always stole a few bites of banana split or whatever else my mom would get (thanks, mom!!!). One thing that always stuck with me through my early DQ experiences is their Dennis the Menace artwork. He was plastered everywhere on cups, napkins and those papers around the bottom of ice cream cones. Just fucking everywhere and I enjoyed every moment of it.

    I'm not really sure when they decided it was time to do away with Dennis being their mascot but he's for sure not anywhere in sight now days. Every time I get a taste of that fresh soft serve from DQ I can still see Dennis in his cowboy getup, I'm still sitting in my living room floor with a bunch of other rambunctious kids and Alice in Wonderland is still playing on the TV.

FIREMAN’S CARNIVAL

    Another eventful festivity in my hometown that comes around once a year for a week in June, the Fireman’s Carnival. In a small area like this, the Carnival is something that brings the community together. As a kid, people you weren't normally friends with in school became friends with you at the carnival grounds.

    I admit, it more than likely has a lot to do with me being older now but, this carnival was amazing when I was a kid! And plus, carnies seemed a lot less sketchy when I was a kid. Being taken for all your money by a haggard full grown adult at one shitty game seems a lot less glamorous now days.

    I never was a carnival ride kind of kid and, to tell you the truth, that hasn't changed in even the slightest bit. I wont apologize for not riding something that is put up by a dude named "Bubba" in less than 2 days and comes back down just as fast after 7 days. I was the game kid... and also the "here, I'll hold all your bullshit while you ride this ride" kid.

    You have your normal games like balloon pop, water gun races, and the ever so popular knife ring toss. But, what I dug most back then, they use to get this tented area set up where they'd have a mini arcade underneath with a bunch of arcade cabinets, claw games, and things of that nature. The one specific game every kid played was The House of the Dead 2. It was two players, you used a gun, you shot zombies.... allowances were drained in a few minutes playing this machine! 

    Unfortunately, they only did that mini arcade twice back then and it was never seen again. Now days, if I don't completely avoid it, I more or less just enjoy the food that comes with the carnival. Mainly the pizza, funnel cakes, deep fried Oreos and the lemonade.

THE PLAYGROUND

    I had full intentions of taking my own photos of this childhood mammoth but, unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to take photos of a playground without looking 100% like a pedo. So I borrowed this one here from a miss Gretchen Rokosky.

    I feel like every area has at least one of these completely wooden playgrounds nearby. I didnt realize that when I was a kid but when a meme goes around and you see how many people are commenting on it with their own memories of such child death traps made for fun, you take notice.

    I've had a lot of great memories at the specific one in town. But that's not where I'm going with this one. The memory that stuck with me the most was when I started realizing that I wasn't a kid anymore. Well, still a kid but not a "little" kid.

    It had been a few years that I had the opportunity to visit said playground at that time. I swear, when I was 6 and 7, this place was like a wooden Death Star! It practically was it's own little world where I felt like I could get lost and never find my way back. I'll never forget being excited to see it after years of not seeing it just to find out how huge it didn't seem to me anymore. I was a teenager and the magic I use to feel was gone. Through the years, I've managed to stumble there late at night once or twice drunk with a friend and eat a few remember berries. Now days, I recently  moved a few blocks away from it. On a nice day, you can hear baseballs being pelted in the distance and the subtle sounds of children playing; a little bit of that magic can be felt again.

Well, that's all the time we have for now! I hope you enjoyed my nostalgic summery brain stew! I'd like to Invite you to reconnect with your favorite summer memories to share in the comments below! Thanks for reading!

Whether you're sitting in front of your rickety old air conditioner, slapping gratuitous amounts of sun screen all over your sweaty face or having a property line war with your pesky neighbors while mowing grass, you've probably gathered by now that summer is here. While for kids this usually means a three month span of boundless freedom (minus a pandemic), for us adults it typically means doing everything we normally do with an abnormal amount of ass sweat... and also hornets... fuck hornets. Anyways, in an effort to brighten everyone's season, without the threat of sunburns, I welcome you to the 2020 Summer Survival Guide. Hopefully, these few paragraphs will inspire you, even as a totally normal boring adult, and show you that, regardless of the demands of everyday adult life, we can still enjoy the simple things that come with summer.

STOCK UP ON COLD GOODIES!

    A freezer full of different colored sugar water is a happy freezer. Even if you scar your face up worse than the Joker from the Dark Knight trying to bite them all open instead of using scissors, the temporary brain freeze should help at least a little to cool you down while you're doing yard work or frantically throwing rocks at hornets nests (I'm dead serious about those hornets, fuck ‘em!). You could go a step further and make your own popsicles and fill them with practically anything you wish to. You can find popsicle trays pretty cheap at your nearest Goodwill, or just buy them brand new. 

    If frozen sugar water isn’t your thing, stock the fridge full with stuff like 99 cent Arizona cans, Hi-C juice boxes, Capri Sun pouches, Kool Aid Jammers and of course those little Hug barrel drinks. Don’t get me wrong, drink water too but a little juice goes a long way. Out on the go? Hit the local Taco Bell and snag the new Pineapple Whip Freeze! They're delicious (trust me, I've had at least a dozen of them in the first week because I have absolutely no control).

BURN, BABY, BURN

    I suppose, if you're not in a dumb place that has fire restrictions, you've more than likely had a backyard fire before. It's a great summer pastime hanging out at the end of the night in front of self constructed heat... you know, as if the heat during the day wasn't already enough to make you hate life. Lets be real, you're not really enjoying summer if you're not burning a bunch of shit in your backyard. 

    Add some s'mores, hot dogs, or some mountain pie fixin's and you have yourself a relatively cheap and enjoyable night. I like to get real funky with my s'mores and swap out the Hershey bar with a Reese's cup. Pure gold. There is nothing quite like an old fashioned pizza mountain pie but I think, at my next backyard endeavor, I'm going to try a mountain pie with either Lotus Cookie Butter or Nutella guts. 

DIG THROUGH "JUNK"

    Unfortunately, with all this coronavirus mess, it doesn't seem like many flea markets will be happening. The nearest one to me actually canceled the first one in May. Complete bummer.... but, that doesn't mean all hope is lost. The rest of this year's schedule seems to be happening yet so, hopefully, it goes that way for the rest. You could also keep an eye open for those town wide garage sales. It gives you a reason to leave your house for a little while and you get to route through other people's shit. What could be more exciting? 

    You're not always going to "strike gold" but focus on the hunt; it's the best part in my opinion. You might have awesome luck and find old spooky Halloween records, Super Nintendo games or old action figures. You might also have not so great luck and find haggard Barbie dolls that even Goodwill would have thrown away, and they don’t throw Barbies away no matter how haggard they are.... trust me.

    Speaking of which, Goodwills are always an option now that they are open again. If flea markets and goodwill trips aren't your thing, head to your local dollar stores, dollar generals and Walmart’s for an insane amount of cool summer themed junk like these awesome yard flamingos I found for a dollar a piece at dollar tree. I love walking into dollar tree when they roll all the colorful summer bullshit out. And everything is a fucking dollar!

SUMMER SPOOKIES

    I like to keep things spooky all year long. I suggest a horror/thriller movie marathon. While titles such as Sleepaway Camp, Friday the 13th, Jaws, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, I Know what you did Last Summer and Summer of 84 would be fitting with the season, I don't like to limit myself from the rest. 

    Make it interesting this year and produce a small home theater with a cheap projector. Add a little popcorn, a few snacks, load up the cooler, invite a few guests and throw a small drive through style summer horror fest. Maybe carve a watermelon or a pineapple like a jack-o-lantern for display... Pine-o-lantern?

EXPLORE THE GREAT INDOORS

    Maybe I stole this one from some lyrics in a John Mayer song, but for real, you'll eventually run into a day where it's either way too hot or it's raining you out. These are good days for staying indoors. Order a pizza, play some video games or some board games, throw in a movie, sit in front of the air conditioner, eat a pint of Ben and Jerrys, make a sweet blanket fort in your living room or even pop up a small tent.

    If a living room tent and pizza isn't the most appropriate setting for late night flashlight comic book reading then I don't know what is. Come to think of it, this is also a perfect pastime for those days with power outages. You could even take out the old dusty photo albums and reminisce over summers past.

GET OUTTA THE HOUSE

    I find as I age, I struggle with this quite a bit. I do enjoy a nice bike ride, though. Fresh air can really do a lot of good, as can that extra bit of exercise and sometimes something as simple as washing your car or mowing the grass on a sunny day can make all the difference. 

    Maybe take a walk to that one park you always use to visit as a kid. Go a step further and take sidewalk chalk with you and create a momentary chalky masterpiece. 

    If you're feeling lazy, just chill in your yard. Grab a lawn chair and set up in a nice shady spot and veg out and perhaps read a book, listen to some music. Check out the Dem Boys summer 2020 Playlist. You won't be disappointed!

BONUS!

    I decided Jonelys wardrobe was in desperate need of updating to fit in the current season. With the help of Dollar Tree and Goodwill, decorating anything at a moments notice is extremely possible. The beachy backdrop, inflatable floatie, leis and goggles came from Dollar Tree. At a dollar a piece, pretty inexpensive for some bullshit that will serve absolutely no useful purpose. 

    The super soaker, from last years summer memories entry, and the fake Ray Bans are from Goodwill. I can't remember what I spent on them but it couldn't have been more than like $5. The hat doesn't fit me, so it's his now. And VOILA! A little Goosebumps like; unintentional but I'll take it!

CONCLUSION

    If you haven't felt inspired at all this far (I know how it is), stay tuned. There will be a few summery articles for your viewing pleasure touching on pretty much all of these subjects in one form or another and we'd love to have you along for the ride! We hope you enjoy what's to come! Thanks for reading!

This is an article I wrote and originally published for trulydisturbing.com. You can head there for plenty of horror related content from myself and others.

Just a warning to everyone, while I will try my best to avoid them through most of this, there may be spoilers in this review. Although I’m of the opinion that if a movie has been out for 35 years and you haven’t seen it yet, you shouldn’t get mad at someone for spoiling it for you.

It’s been a long while since we’ve done anything horror related, but becoming writers over at trulydisturbing.com should give us a good reason to write more! More than that, seeing as how it’s the middle of summer and all I think I know the perfect film. I’m talking, of course, about the 1985 classic Return of the Living Dead! What? You thought I was going somewhere else with that? You had an entirely different movie in mind? Oh well, maybe some other time, although we’ve already mentioned how we feel about it.

You see, this is a film that’s been near and dear to me since I first saw it as a young teenage punk rocker, and even though I’ve never counted, I’ve probably watched it more times than any other horror movie ever made. Also it’s set on the 3rd and 4th of July, which is when I’m writing this.

First, A History Lesson

While it’s easy to just write this film off as an attempt to cash in on both 80s punk culture and the Night of the Living Dead franchise George A. Romero was building at the time. The actual history of this film is a bit more interesting. Made by John Russo aka The Other Guy That Wrote Night of the Living Dead,  this film (and its 4 sequels) actually has a legitimate claim as a sequel series to Night of the Living Dead. You see, Russo and Romero parted ways after Night of the Living Dead due to creative differences over which direction the series should be taken in, with Russo retaining the rights to the “Living Dead” title. That’s why Romero started using “of the Dead” for his movies. The series even establishes itself as a sequel by explaining that Night of the Living Dead was a movie based off of true events, but all of the real details were changed in an attempt by the government to cover things up, which explains why the zombies are so different in these movies. I’ll get into that more later.

Now That That’s Out Of The Way

So as for the review. I figure I’ll break this down into a few subcategories. Plot, Visuals, Soundtrack, Acting, and Overall Enjoyment. If you don’t like doing a lot of reading and are just looking for a general suggestion I’d say skip down to the Overall Enjoyment section. Let me just say though, this film is sort of all over the place quality-wise, which brings me to…

The Plot… Here’s Be The “Spoilers”

Depending on who you ask, the plot of this film is either nothing special, or a revolutionary take on the zombie genre. On the surface level it’s a meat and potatoes story about some teenage punks who happen to get caught in the middle of a graveyard during a zombie apocalypse caused by bungling warehouse workers. If you look a bit deeper though, it takes this basic plot to some interesting places. Mainly it establishes a zombie lore that is far removed from what everyone else was doing at the time.

Before ROTLD zombie films were very much about either people being mind controlled, or mindless re-animated corpses that would slowly and aimlessly amble around looking for some human flesh to munch on. The zombies here, though, are one of, if not the first examples of fast moving zombies in film. Also they’re a lot sturdier than the zombies in other films, nothing short of total incineration will stop them. Not only that, but they still retain much of their human intelligence. In fact, two of the newly-made zombies in the film don’t even know they’re dead until some paramedics tell them. Even the zombies made from older corpses can speak in full sentences, plan out traps, figure out how to get into locked and barricaded places… they even operate a police radio to call in more backup for them to eat. They’re also the first zombies I can think of that exclusively eat brains (as opposed to just any old human flesh like most other zombies) and on top of that they even have an established motive: Apparently they can feel their bodies rotting away and eating brains is the only way to temporarily relieve the excruciating pain. Another slight difference (although it has been used many times since then) is that it’s not just humans that are coming back from the dead, but any and all other animals. In the film we specifically get some zombie half-dogs and zombie butterflies… yeah, you heard me.

Another interesting aspect of this film is that it very delicately skirts the line of being self aware, without actually acknowledging it. They knew they weren’t making an art film, so you can tell they really tried to have fun with it. From the cheesy dialogue of some of the characters, to the way the zombies talk, to having a skeleton just hilariously erupt out of the ground as 45 Grave’s song Partytime starts playing (at my house we refer to that skeleton as The Party Skull) this film embodies the philosophy of entertainment over art.

NSFW warning on this as one of the characters is basically nude through the whole film.

Visuals

Honestly the visuals of this film are another strange mix. While the film has a distinctive style that it’s going for, the special effects don’t try too hard to go above and beyond. This proves to be more of a strength than a weakness though, it’s more like the effects crew knew their limits and worked within them, rather than trying too hard and ending up with anything that looks cheesy and half-baked, as many other 80s horror films did. So while there’s nothing special in the effects department, there’s nothing heinous about the film’s looks either. There’s some pretty good gory bits, the zombies look pretty cool, and everything looks like it fits in with the film’s overall punk-influenced style. No complaints here.

Soundtrack

This may be one of my favorite things about the film. The soundtrack features a slew of 80s hardcore punk and death rock bands, which compliments the film’s visual style and subject matter perfectly. There are a slew of bands most punk fans would recognize. We’re talking T.S.O.L., The Flesh Eaters, The Damned, The Cramps, and more! Even better, the tracks are all pretty well placed within the film. The soundtrack gets a 10/10 from me personally.

Acting

What a mixed bag the acting in this film is! The performances range from hammy, such as Linnea Quigley as the perpetually nude “Trash” and Mark Venturini as the overly edgy “Suicide” (then again their dialogue works against them a lot), to work-rate performances like the ones we see from most of the rest of the cast, to actually good performances from Thomas Matthews (aka Tommy Jarvis from Friday the 13th Part 6) and Miguel A. Nuñez Jr. (another Friday the 13th alumni who’s had an extensive career both in and out of horror since then).

As I mentioned I do think much of the bad acting stemmed from the poor dialogue written for some of these characters, but it kind of works if you’ve known the types. Trash and Suicide are the overly-edgy members of the group, and while at first you might write it off as the writers not knowing how to write good dialogue for “alternative teens” you can tell from the way the rest of the group treats these two that it’s more like “No, these are just who these two are supposed to be. We think they’re nuts too, but we hang out to them because we pretty much have to.”

The characters themselves are an interesting and eclectic bunch, which I really like because it always seems like punks in 80s movies would only get lumped in with bikers and other sorts of unsavory characters. Here we see them depicted more the way my crew always was, a mismatched group of misfits that seem to only hang out together because nobody else would hang out with them. It was one of the only times I actually saw teens in one of these films and thought “Hey I could hang out with these guys!” Personally I think Spider, Freddy, Scuz, and Casey were pretty close to the types of people I always hung out with, Trash was one of the nutjobs we’d be forced to hang out with because they just always seemed to turn up, Suicide was the edgy asshole we’d mainly hang out with because he had a car. We even had a nerdy guy like Chuck who hung out with us even though he didn’t fit in at all because he thought it would get him some action. So it gets points for accuracy.

Overall Enjoyment

Overall I think this movie is great. It’s very entertaining, the visuals are decent, the acting is more or less fine, and even the cheesiest bits of it are more endearing than annoying. It provides a very unique take on everyone’s favorite shambling, half decayed movie monsters… and does it with style! As I mentioned earlier, nobody’s gonna call this film a work of high art or terrifying horror, but it’ll put a smile on your face the entire time you’re watching it.

This is evident from the fact that unlike most horror films at the time, Return of the Living Dead was actually met with favorable reviews from critics at the time of its release, and achieved moderate success at the box office. It made over $14 million domestically on a $4 million budget, it holds a 91% approval rating on RottenTomatoes, and it was nominated for numerous awards… all in a time when most folks would look down their noses at horror films. Although most critics agree, it’s more of a comedy satire than an outright horror film.

Well that about does it for this review, I hope those of you looking for a new-old film to watch will check this one out, and for those of you who have seen it, I hope you might have learned something new! I’ll leave you guys with the film’s trailer to watch.

Let me start by saying that this article needs to be taken with a grain of salt since no official announcements have been made, we’re just going off of data leaks at this point so treat this as conjecture.

The Mass Effect Trilogy has been getting a lot of buzz lately with rumors of a Remaster  finally gaining some substance. Since these are some of my favorite games of all time, I’ve been watching the information like a hawk as it comes out. While the Remasters haven’t been officially announced yet, many other sources have already determined that they’re a sure thing and should be releasing some time this fall. Although there is also evidence to the contrary as the biggest leak thus far is claiming that the release date won’t be announced until N7 Day (that’s 11/7 for any normies out there) and that the games have secretly been in development since 2017. Speaking of that biggest leak, the most solid evidence we have to go on right now comes from reddit where someone claiming to be an EA QA tester basically cracked a big old egg of wisdom on us, although they could be lying so once again, bring a few grains of salt to sprinkle on these eggs. Before any of this I was already in the middle of replaying every game in the series for a few articles I wanted to write, so I figured these announcements would make a great starting point for those. So let’s get to the juicy details!

Changes Present in All 3 Games

Graphics - The games will all be receiving updates to graphics and character models, apparently similar to Dragon Age: Inquisition in quality, the first game in the series has the most noticeable improvements, while the 3rd is really only noticeable in side by side comparisons.

Combat - The combat will be more streamlined and consistent across the three games. They say to expect ME: Andromeda levels of combat fluidity (quit your bitching, the combat in that game rocks harder than any other game in the series… when it works anyway) with an equipment and inventory system similar to ME3. There is no mention of which version of the class/skill system we’ll be getting.

Exploration - Planetary Exploration for all three games is more in line with the planet scanning system from ME3. Part 1 still has a few planets you can land on to explore, however they are still small compared to what you would get in ME: Andromeda.

DLC - All DLC will be included as base game content for all three games.

Previously Cut Content - Previously cut content will be added to each game, adding several hours of gameplay.

Changes in Mass Effect 1

Level Designs - Some of the levels and a few of the boss battles have been changed to work better with the new combat gameplay. Notably the Benezia fight no longer occurs in the Rachni Queen room, and the Saren fight occurs in a more expanded environment.

Hubs - Shepard’s Cabin has been added to the Normandy, and the Citadel has been “livened up”. This includes more NPC interactions, ambient conversations, and the clubs/c-sec and certain areas of the presidium are also completely redesigned.

Added Scenes - The "Sacrifice" scene has new cutscenes added to show the fates of the squad member from their perspective. You are also able to start romances earlier and if you are romancing the one who was not left behind there is an added moment after with that particular love interest.

Changes in Mass Effect 2

Hubs - They have added more to the hub worlds instead of giving planets to explore. The Presidium and Wards from ME1 have been added with obvious environmental changes from the aftermath of ME1. Parts of Omega that were  cut from the base game have been added to the remaster.

Relationships - they have made the game "more adult" as in certain romance scenes/environments are no longer strategically "non nude".

Added Scenes - After you complete "Arrival" which only activates after you beat the main quests. They have added extra content Where Shepard turns him/herself in to the Alliance. During this "epilogue" you can interact with Kaiden or Ashley briefly.

Changes in Mass Effect 3

Asset System - The War Asset System returns but is easier to manage and you cannot unlock Asset Quests until you reach certain points in the game.

Relationships - If you play as Female Shepard you can also sleep with Aria after the Omega Mission as long as you are not currently in a relationship with anyone else. Apparently Aria doesn't like that. Like the ME2 Remaster they have made the game "more adult", but who cares about that, just show us Tali’s face already!

Added Scenes - You get to play an extremely brief "Prologue" as Admiral Anderson prior to the Reaper Invasion. This allows players to see a little bit of Earth prior to its destruction which was a major complaint from the original release. They have also added a bit more to the ending of the game. Any romance interest you have assuming they are still alive will be able to have a physical in person goodbye with Shepard before the final mission.

Ending - The ending has not been changed in any capacity. However some of the cut content is more towards the end of the game. Fuck you too, Bioware, fuck you too.

Conclusions

All in all I’d be incredibly happy with this list of changes. It delivers about 90% of what I’d be looking for, plus some stuff other people care about that I don’t, and doesn’t seem interested in screwing anything up. My only disappointment is that the somewhat anti climactic ending is being left in tact… though I hope they update the last mission a bit so that you can see how some of your different choices play out. Honestly though, I’m skeptical. As I mentioned in the beginning there has been no official announcement or anything, and maybe I’m being a bit pessimistic, but I’ve found that when it comes to EA and big franchise games “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” definitely applies. I’ll love it if they prove me wrong though. Also it’s probably not in the cards, but a Switch version would be killer. I have way more time for handheld gaming these days. Either way, if/when this drops I might end up blowing through all my banked up vacation and sick time… and then just no-call no-showing, depends how long it takes.

To a kid, there was nothing more disappointing than begging your parents for an Ice Cream Bar from the Ice Cream Truck, only to be hit with the absolutely devastating “we’ve got ice cream at home”…

Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but that’s how it felt most times. I think that’s because while we had good popsicles back in the day, the take home Ice Cream bars were a bit lacking. Fast forward 25 years, and that’s no longer the case. Just take a look at some of these!

Twix Cookies and Cream Ice Cream Bar

    After having previously enjoyed the Cookies and Cream Twix candy bars, I knew the ice cream would be a no brainer. Think "Snickers Ice Cream Bar" minus peanuts, add crunchy chocolate cookies and you have a Twix Cookies and Cream ice cream bar.

These things are loaded with vanilla ice cream with little cookie pieces topped with caramel and even bigger pieces of crunchy chocolate cookies and covered in chocolate. These were found at Dollar Tree for... you guessed it... $1.

Sour Patch Kids Redberry Ice Cream Bar

    I love Sour Patch Kids... which means this ice cream bar should be relatively enjoyable. The Sour Patch Kids ice cream bar consists of a Redberry flavored shell with a vanilla ice cream center and Sour Patch Kids candy "bitz." Redberry shell? Check! Vanilla center? Check! Candy bitz.....? Not one candy bit in this one.

I'm not even sure whether I'm really upset with this or not. I've sampled the DQ Sour Patch Kids Blizzard a while back and, as wonderful as frozen bits of gummy candy are, the hardened gummy candies really makes for some awful texture differences. I can only assume that eoukd be the exact same case in this situation. To top it all off, there wasn't a sour note found. Its a "Sour Patch Kids" item and it isn't sour. Need I say more?

Mickey Mouse Ice Cream Sandwiches

My first trip to Walt Disney World was when I was in the fourth grade. There was a lot of great memories made during that trip, but one that sticks out particularly in my mind for whatever reason, was my whole family (grandparents included) stopping to have an Ice Cream break. I think it was so memorable because it was a moment of true relaxation during an otherwise, incredibly busy vacation. Everyone sat down on a bench, and ate one of these EXACT Ice Cream sandwiches together. In that moment, everything was right in the world.

I know that sounds all mushy, but imagine my shock when I saw the EXACT Ice Cream sandwiches we ate that day, just sitting in a freezer in my local grocery store. I was floored. I will admit, these are a bit pricier than your average Ice Cream sandwich, but it IS a Disney product after all so I guess it’s to be expected. I will say, if you don’t mind forking over a little extra dough, these things are absolutely delicious. There’s nothing crazy or super innovative about them, but they are overall a really solid Ice Cream sandwich.

Well that’s going to do it for Ice Cream week 2020! We’ve had a blast talking everything and anything frozen, but now we’re back to regularly scheduled programming. We hope you enjoyed reading, now get out there with a frozen treat in hand and enjoy your Summer!

What started out as just "unique cookies" in 1932 has become a force to be reckoned with. I'm late to the cookie butter craze having only tried it for the first time about 2 years ago. No one told me back when that it was legitimately crack in a jar. For me, the cookies are like sophisticated Teddy Grams for adults. Imagine that in a spreadable butter. That’s cookie butter. Nutella and peanut butter basically sit forgotten behind the beauty that is Biscoff cookie butter in the home pantry.

  As if it couldn't get any better, the good people at Lotus decided to prove us all wrong. "When a unique cookie meets delicious ice cream." I like to think that's the PG version. What really happened, ice cream took cookie butter out, said all the right things and scored which resulted in the birth of a life changing relationship, and delicious desert. Not just a simple Netflix and chill scenario. Oh no, Cookie Butter and Ice Cream are happily married and have 3 beautiful kids now.

 Immediately after opening, there's an unexpected amount of crumbled cookies on the top. Legit, heaven at first scoop. This stuff is extra smooth and creamy, like silk. I am very impressed with the amount of cookie crunch in each bite. You get a little bit of crunch from the cookie pieces, the perfect amount of sweetness from the cookie butter and a nice soft velvety texture from the ice cream. They know its good; the packaging mentions that it is a masterpiece and I absolutely have to agree. If you don't, you're wrong and we're not friends.

All in all, nothing about this ice cream is disappointing in any way, shape or form. I give this a solid 12 out of 10 sophisticated Teddy Grams. You need this. I need more of this. It's at Walmart right now along with 2 other flavors and, if you're lucky, ice cream bars are also available. Stay tuned, I'll be reviewing the other two ice creams very soon! Thanks for reading!

A bowl of cereal is still a bowl of cereal if you swap the milk with ice cream, right? Maybe I'm trying to justify an unhealthy habit of eating ice cream first thing in the morning instead of a balanced breakfast. I can't help but feel like it's partly General Mills, Nestle's and Dryer's fault this time.

While out for essentials at Dollar General, I managed to find a few non essentials; one of them being the new Cinnamon Toast Crunch ice cream. They come in 14 ounce (which is what I found) and 48 ounce containers. Another note, this is "light" ice cream. At 170 calories per 2/3 cup (84g) and 450 calories per container, it's not as light as say... Halo Top or Enlightened, but still a bit more caloric friendly than some other pints.

The packaging is beautiful. Its strange seeing an ice cream like this without seeing Perry's, Bryer's or even Good Humor on the packaging. Nonetheless, like some creamy kryptonite, it's a concoction that single handedly weakens all Saturday Morning Cartoon and cereal ritual abiding 80s and 90s kids.

Right away, after opening the lid and removing the plastic film, you get some nice notes of cinnamon. It seems to have a decent bit of cinnamon swirl peeking out on top but no cereal chunks in sight. The first scoop is sweet but not so sweet that it takes away from the cinnamon. The cinnamon and sweetness seem to work hand and hand together to deliver a very satisfying experience with each bite. The ice cream, like most light ice creams, is nice and airy. I love full fat ice cream but also enjoy a nice creamy and airy ice cream as well from time to time. The cereal chunks are in there but they aren't as plentiful as I had hoped. When you do find them, it is heaven. The texture from sitting in the ice cream and thawing slightly has morphed the pieces into an almost waffle cone feel with a burst of warm, sweet cinnamon which compliments the ice cream quite well. For what it lacked in cereal pieces, it made up with cinnamon swirl.

I would absolutely buy this again in the 48 ounce container. I give this an 8.5 cereal boxes out of 10! With more cereal pieces I could see a solid 9 ranking for sure but it has its place among all delicious ice cream in the freezer regardless. Now, if you'd excuse me, I have a bowl of "cereal" and cartoons to get back to. Thanks for reading!

For the first time in a quarter of a century, the world’s most well known video game expo is not taking place. Partially because of a world-wide pandemic, partially because of, well…reasons. A lot of people feared that they’d no longer get huge video game news this Summer because of it. A lot of other people reminded them that the internet existed, and the news would still get released. Case and point? Today this trailer dropped online, and 90’s kids collectively lost their minds…

Crash Bandicoot is back baby!

That may seem like a silly thing to say considering that he never really left (we’ve gotten great remasters of the first three games as well as a new-ish Nitro Kart entry over the past few years alone), but this is the first time Crash & co are back in a new adventure that’s in the vain of the old beloved games!

Activision Blizzard, Inc. and Toys for Bob are bringing us this new adventure, which is set to be a direct follow up to 1998’s Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. This is absolutely fantastic news for fans of the original franchise, not only because the series is getting back to it’s roots, but also because Toys for Bob were responsible for the phenomenal remasters of the original trilogy that came out a few years ago. We know this part four is in great hands!

From today’s press release, Toys for Bob’s Co-Studio Head, Paul Yan says:

“Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time stands on the shoulders of the core precision gameplay we all fell in love with in the ‘90s. This epic new adventure spans space and time, introducing new ways to platform that both long-time fans and new players alike will enjoy mastering. Get ready to fall in love with the mutant marsupials all over again!”

That’s some pretty exciting news!

In my opinion, it looks like Crash 4 is going to give me a reason to put down my Switch and dust off my PS4 one last time before the next generation of consoles arrives. Can’t wait to sink my teeth into this one!

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time will be available for PlayStation® 4, PlayStation® 4 Pro, Xbox One and Xbox One X on October 2, 2020.

Special thanks to trulydisturbing.com for the tip on this new game, check them out for all your horror news, true crime stories and more!

Summer survival continues, and in today's spot light we are observing 5 random ice cream truck moments featured in movies, cartoons and TV series! I was fortunate enough to experience an ice cream truck annually for a very long time in my childhood years. The ice cream truck is the neighborhood hero. On those hot days when there seemed to be no relief in sight, the faint sound of the cheerful truck jingle getting louder in the distance could revive one from their heat coma long enough to snag something cold and sweet. I feel that they deserve to be celebrated... or,  at the least, talked about. Fortunately, all I can do is write about some I've seen on TV.... so here we are!

JOLLY OLLY MAN - HEY ARNOLD!

    In the episode simply titled "Heat," Arnold wakes from his ice cream mountain climbing  dmt trip to a heatwave. Arnold, Gerald and the rest of the neighborhood struggle to enjoy their day due to the scorching 106° temperature. Keep in mind, its 7 o'clock in the AM. So, it's not even peak temperature yet. To put you in the scene, Arnold attempts to carry a bag of ice back to his home but it melts before he arrives, he and Gerald avoid the movie theaters over their high temperature themed movies like "Invasion of the People Melters," Arnolds crazy grandma talks normal and, my personal favorite; the kids resort to dunking their heads under this sludgy pink slush fountain in an effort to keep cool. Side note, both kids are wearing longsleeves... a little counterproductive but okay. That slush fountain shower looks so good. I remember wondering back in the day if that was an acceptable way to beat the heat. I still kinda wonder.

    Eventually, Arnold and Gerald happen upon a mob of pissed off kids surrounding the neighborhood ice cream truck driver, the Jolly Olly Man. Instead of coming to the rescue, that dirty bastard is charging 20 bucks for a scoop of ice cream ($30 for cookie dough, $15 for rum raisin.... eww, by the way. Who the hell eats rum raisin?) and $18 for a snow cone. What a piece of shit. He even laughs in Eugene's sad face when he says he doesn't have enough money.

    Arnold and the neighborhood kids have enough and decide to protest and chant "no ice cream, no peace." While Arnold was only trying to peacefully protest, the rest of the kids say "fuck it" and attempt to flip Jolly Olly Man's truck. Arnold tries to reason with the kids to keep them from flipping the truck over but fails. As the kids continue to push the truck, they're interrupted by gentle thunder and "rain, rain, rain for the rest of the week" and the Jolly Olly Man slips away like the sleezy little shit he is while the kids are distracted.

O'BESE BROS - GOOD BURGER

    After escaping the psyche ward (Demented Hills), Ed, Otis and Dexter steal or "borrow" the idle O'Bese Bros ice cream truck to make a quick getaway! Legend has it, to this day, the old driver is still waiting for them to bring it back. But legit, Dexter is already in a bind with the funky version of Sinbad so, have fun waiting.

    It's a relatively quick scene but a good one, nonetheless. While being chased, Ed fiddles with the tunes and digs through the ice cream freezer because... well... he's Ed. Dexter gets the idea to throw ice cream at the car chasing them. After throwing fudgey pops, monster sicles, lemon juice pops, vanilla, chocolate and raspberry sorbet, it blinds the chasing cars view and causes a wreck. The best part is the confused kids waving cash and trying to keep up with the truck.... oh, smashing Sinbads brand new mailbox was kinda of hilarious as well. Dude can never win. But what intrigued me the most, what exactly is a "monster sicle?" I'm fat and I need to know these things.

TERENZI BROS - KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE

    Ah, yes. The 32 year old classic, Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Klowns from outer space land on planet earth to turn its inhabitants into cotton candy cocoons for a means of consumption. They also shoot popcorn bazookas and throw human melting acid pies. Besides coulrophobic individuals, does anyone genuinely dislike this movie? Its just so perfect and one of the best “B-horror” films ever.

    Before Debbie and Mike witness the big top spaceship blasting to earth, they (along with a group of other highschool kids, Im assuming) are interrupted in their make out session (because sex in horror movies or it doesn't count) by the Terenzi Brothers in their clown topped ice cream truck.

    "I'm Jo-Jo the ice cream clown, we'll give you a stick, you'll give it a lick. And it'll tickle you all the way down. Ice cream, ice cream, we brought our goodies here to you! A tasty treat for while you screw! Let's take a break! Cool off those hot lips with our frozen fruity bars! Icy-wicy, fudgy-wudgy bars. And everyone's frozen delight, the lick a stick!" Fun fact, fudgy wudgy bars are a real thing. They're "soft, buttery, creamy fudge that melts in your mouth" says a quick Google search. They look awesome. Unfortunately, they're not ice cream and not at all affiliated with Killer Klowns. I see a huge missed opportunity here.

    Towards the end, the Terenzi bros try to keep the clown invasion at bay with their clown ice cream truck but Klownzilla don't take no shit and picks the truck up and turns it on its side as if he finished what the kids from Hey Arnold started. Leave it to a giant killer klown to show an angry mob of kids how its done.

ICE AGE TRUCK - FLINTSTONES MOVIE

    I can't believe how low of a rating this movie has on IMDB. The Flintstones movie deserves way more than a 4.9 out of 10. The movie really is an extended version of the cartoon in every way shape or form. John Goodman and Rick Moranis killed these roles. I admit, at age 5, I would've watched and loved just about anything aimed at my age group. But, even watching it now, it still holds its own.

    Anyway, Barney Rubble switches his exam with Fred Flintstones at work and he receives the lowest score out of the bunch which renders him without a job. Moral of the story? Don't try to save shitty people. Fred ends up being framed for embezzlement and disguises himself to see what people are saying about him but his fake mustache falls off.... as if we didn't know it was him in the first place. Its like when Superman wears glasses. Is it really that indistinguishable between the two entities?

    After Fred's "disguise" fails, the mob of angry ex coworkers strings him up for a lynching. This is where Barney Rubble comes in driving an ice cream truck - the Ice Age truck. The fucking snow cones looked so damn monstrous and amazing. Where can I get one? The only flavor mentioned is lemon and I'm not even mad. I'd take one of those big prehistoric lemony bastards if it was the only flavor available in a heartbeat any day. Fun fact, did you know that Barney Rubbels ice cream truck plays the Jetsons theme song?

MR TASTEE - THE ADVENTURES OF PETE AND PETE

    In the episode "What We Did on our Summer Vacation" the brothers Pete and friend Ellen (who was working at a photo booth) open the photos of the mysterious ice cream man, Mr. Tastee, in hopes to reveal his identity. With no luck of putting a face to their mystery ice cream man, what they do find is what they believe is a lonely human being who never reveals his identity and probably has no friends. So, the children attempt to befriend Mr. Tastee.

    After the kids confront him, Mr. Tastee leaves town to avoid becoming what no ice cream man should be, friends with his customers. As a kid, this didn't bother me much. As an adult.... I side with Tastee. One minute, you're a kids friend... the next you're seen as the creepy dude that lets little kids wax your ice cream truck and ends up on the Meghans law website. Maybe it's just me. Nonetheless... big Pete, little Pete, and Ellen decide to search for their lost lonely ice cream man.

    Eventually, after the children fail to find him, Mr. Tastee comes back to get his pictures and explains that the job of an ice cream man is suppose to be a lonely job. “I'm an ice cream man. I am what the summer is — fireflies, thunderstorms, butt sweat on the car seat — and when it all goes, I have to go with it.” He then allows big Pete, little Pete and Ellen to help wax his car on the last day of the season (don't do it, Tastee! Thats how they get ya!)

    A little about Mr. Tastee, he likes ice cream, always wears a mask to hide his identity and doesn't want to be around people.... how relatable? Maybe he's me? I use to daydream about Mr. Tastees truck. He has a whopping 49 "flavorrific" flavors including hydrogen pops, boomerang bars, mirangue kabangs, blue tornado bars (there is a lot of emphasison blue tornado bars in the whole episode. So it must be the best), chocolate thunder chunks, lemon licky nubs, orange splurto sticks, blueberry blowtorch and pineapple blurt. The rest of his lineup isn't mentioned but I would love to hear the names of what else he might've had in his arsenal. I'm not sure what Pineapple Blurt or a Blueberry Blowtorch is but I'm pretty sure I need a dozen of each.

BONUS

For your viewing pleasure, here is a sweet original TMNT ice cream truck sticker! A friend of a friend of a friend found these on ebay and they happened to have a couple more when I checked and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show it off. I use to snag these all the time from the local truck when it was still in business. They made so many of these style pops for just about every franchise but, of course, I would pick Ninja Turtles over the rest any day.

  I hope you enjoyed reading about mostly unimportant ice cream trucks. Stay tuned for more Summer Survival articles coming soon. Thanks for reading!

On December 31, 2019, with minutes to go until a new decade was upon us, I turned to my sister and told her that the 20s were going to be a full on 90s renaissance. A mere 24 days later, and who else but 1990-something heavy hitter Dunkaroos pops up on Instagram and declares that the Summer of 2020 would mark the return of an old lunchbox staple. I'd hate to say that I can predict the future, but my batting average speaks for itself…

Either way, it's been a long five-ish months, but DemBoys FINALLY has a pack of the revived Dunkaroos in hand. I would like to mention that this pack was sent to us by the good folks over at Betty Crocker, free of charge. We were lucky enough to have won one of the first 5,000 packs, and DUMB enough to sit on this review for over a month...classic DemBoys move! Whatever, in the grand scheme of things it’s not like people 5 years from now are going to care when they’re reading this review on their $19.95 SpaceX trip to Mars.

God. We really do ramble around here.

So how did the revived snackfood hold up after disappearing since the tail end of our childhood? Well, they tasted exactly how we remembered them tasting. You’d think that’d be a good thing, right? Well, it is and it isn’t. Dunkaroos certainly are tasty for the first two or three dunks, but after that it morphs into an incredibly sugary amalgam of cookie, frosting and imitation vanilla extract. I know that these are not supposed to be some high concept dessert full of complex flavors, they were made for KIDS. I still genuinely think that even in 2020, kids are going to love these just as much as we did 20 years ago. Unfortunately, as 26 and 30 year old men, we will not be buying out our local 7-11 as we’ve been seeing other retro-influencers doing (really guys?). 

One interesting thing to note here is that the cookie portion of the Dunkaroos, admittedly my least favorite part of the snack as a child, was probably the highlight for me throughout this tasting. They were incredibly buttery with a subtle sweetness, reminiscent of something like a Lorna Doone biscuit but like...not trash? Oh how our palette’s have matured.

On a final note here, I think it’s important to mention that at the time of this writing the only available flavor is the vanilla frosting with rainbow sprinkles. Should the good folks over at Betty Crocker choose to bring back the chocolate frosting, we’d absolutely love to give those a try and see if they fare any better. Overall, we’re glad that Dunkaroos have made their return after a much-too-long hiatus. They were certainly a heavy hitter in the snack world and I see no reason why they won’t continue to reign supreme on the playground. Now if the creators would just wake up and turn their attentions to making a breakfast cer-

Ah...good. Nevermind.

Now that everyones timeliness are all filled with Coronavirus and Tiger King, I figure we could break up the trend and look at some good ol' plastic crack! By now, if you've been around for a bit, you know the drill; a list of random figures (old and new) that I blab about and take awful pictures of. However, this entry won't be random like the last few. Today, we're gonna take a look at something real special; the highly anticipated Neca TMNT: Turtles in Time Series 1 action figures!

Neca has, without a doubt, taken the Ninja Turtles to some epic lengths in the action figure and toy categories; places every Turtles fan has dreamt about; myself included! They never fed their significant others to tigers or anything that we know of, but they've certainly fed the hungry appetites of turtle fans worldwide!

I, personally, skipped on the very similar first release of the SDCC Arcade Game figures (the original 4 brothers along with 3 Foot Soldiers and Shredder in sweet arcade game packaging). When they announced the Turtles in Time series, I was sold. Who would've guessed we'd have fucking TURTLES IN TIME FIGURES in 2020 (almost 30 years after the release of the video game)!!!!

The packaging, which Neca always goes above and beyond with, features classic images from the original arcade cabinet; the goofy looking puffy faced Ninja Turtle costumes falling into a time warp. On the backs we see each figure posed in front of backdrops for corresponding levels they come from. On the insides behind the figures is also a backdrop accurate to where they appear in the video game as well. Such a great way to set the tone for these figures. Also, I love that a lot of Neca stuff is coming in these boxes that can be opened without damage. I like to display my figures but I also like the possibility of putting them back as if they were never displayed.

We will start with Leo and Don. Besides the faces, they both have the same body sculpt. And for anyone asking, these are slightly different from the Arcade Game figures from SDCC. Mainly upgraded paint deco and, from what I've read, minor construction upgrades. What really sets these apart from the original lineup is the addition of some extremely rad new Turtles in Time accessories. 

They come painted with a sweet pixel style shading which works very well and is common for all Neca video game style figures. The plastic is a lot different than i had expected. The carapace (front shell) is sort of a soft rubbery type of plastic, as well as the belts. I really like the feel of this a lot. While fiddling around, I noticed right away all of these mofos are tighter than a tigers jaws wrapped around Carole fuckin' Baskins husbands neck, so I went ahead and hit them all with a hair dryer for a few minutes to loosen them up. If that doesn't seem to cut it, put them in a ziplock bag and stove warm water. It doesn't have to be boiling, just warm should do the trick. I've seen others say theirs weren't as tight. Could be the cold here in Pennsylvania. Once they've been thawed out a bit, the posability is really nice, you can get some pretty legit and dynamic poses with each of these four figures. Seriously, some of the best Neca figures I own so far.

Leo and Don come with their signature weapons and a different pair of swappable hands for each. You can mix and match from Leo's hands to Don's hands as they all have the same color scheme. The best accessories for last, video game accurate hover/surf boards seen in the Sewer Surfin' level! The build is quite nice, a very durable light plastic. Each board matches each turtles color as it is in the video game. They've put in a few white highlights which is also true to the video game art. The boards come with a clear stand that plugs into the bottom. You can swivel the board around and display however you feel fit. Such a nice touch! A+++. I was a little worried about breaking the little piece that plugs into the board but I treaded carefully and kinda rotated the board back and forth to avoid damaging it. Once its together, it's solid and swivels with ease.

We'll move onto the Foot Soldier next. We get a classic purple gowned Foot Soldier which looks great in that pixel style art. As I said before, the color scheme has been updated to fit the Turtles in Time Foot Soldier which looks accurate. The bottom half of the shirt that dangles over the goods is a softer plastic which is good for posing without much interference from the wardrobe. He comes with interchangeable hands, a sword, a nice looking gun and a hover/surf board similar to the turtles boards. I think I like this one a little more than the turtles boards, honestly. The yellow against the blue and gray and slightly lighter blue highlights.... the colors just pop.

 And now for what everyone is waiting for, the prehistoric turtlesaurus dwelling evil turtle from dimension x, Slash! This was ultimately the biggest reason I was instantly sold on this line and I assume he was many others reason as well If you're gonna do Turtles in Time figures, you have to have Slash. He's arguably the hardest and coolest boss in the entire game! I'm SO HAPPY they chose to use him instead of Cement Man from the arcade version. How disappointing would that have been? Maybe not "sorry, you get 22 years in prison for killing tigers and plotting a murder" disappointed, but I digress.

Where do I begin with this guy? Slash comes with a couple small accessories; a little grenade and his signature staggery bent sword making him the figure with the least amount of accessories which is no biggie.... the figure itself is the real prize! He's mostly comprised of body parts borrowed from the other turtles sculpts but he is improved and built on immensely! The claws on both his feet and hands, the blades on the knuckles of the gloves, the wooden shoulder pads, the spikes on the knee bands, the spikes on the shell, the upgraded belt, the face sculpt with those spikey teeth.... holy shit. What a beauty! I'd argue that he might be the most fun to pose of the 4. I do wish he was a little bit thicker than the other turtles, though. Thats just how I feel he looks in the game. Other than that, he's solid. The skin color on this thing is perfect; some teal and some deep greens that all blend nicely along with some nice purple, white and brown accents.

I can't stress enough how stoked I am about these figures existing or how awesome it is to be able to personally own turtle figures like these now days. As with all turtle figures, I feel Neca knocked these out of the park! I'm glad I held out and didn't purchase the SDCC collection when I had the chance, however, had I not skipped them, I would've more than likely purchased all four of these guys anyways. They may seem like simple upgraded re released figures but they are, in my opinion, worth it for the accessories alone. 

You can currently purchase these guys from online stores such as Big Bad Toy Store, Entertainment Earth, Dork Side Toys, etc. I managed to snag mine from Mallfish Collectibles. Series 2 (which includes Raph, Mike, Leatherhead and Shredder) was scheduled for a May 2020 release but, due to the current situation with the covid-19 pandemic, it's unclear whether or not that is still the plan for the release. What do yous think about these figures? Yay? Nay? I personally give this release 9.5 tigers out of 10. That's right. 9.5 tigers... which means there is half a tiger somewhere else. Hope i didn't get stuck with the half that poops. Actually, not sure which side is worse. Thanks for reading!

Visit the Sweetsmith Candy Co. website and use the promo code DEMBOYS at checkout to get 25% off your order of $20 (CAD) or more now through June 30th!

    We're back with another junkfood review and, this time, we're checking out some hand made brittle bars from Sweetsmith Candy Company in Strathmore Alberta Canada! Disclaimer: these bars were sent for the purpose of review (we did it, mom!!!!) and we are delighted to check them out! For future reference, if anyone else wants to send me food, there is a 10,000% chance that I will never say no!

    I was given the choice of 5 bars from their lineup of flavors to have sent, so I went with some of my personal favorite flavors they had to offer including Strawberry Shortcake, Pumpkin Pie, Carrot Cake, Groggnog (egg free eggnog), and Birthday Cake! The bars did come from Canada but they arrived timely (within a week) and were packaged very well. With the package comes a business card and a little brochure with the Sweetsmith Candy short story which speaks for itself. Now, onto the candy!

    First off, I'm a packaging nut and these look beautiful. I'm told the packaging was designed by the founder (Dannah) and a friend. Another important note, as far as I know, these bars are all gluten and egg free. They also offer dairy free, corn free, soy free, sugar free and vegan options which is a huge plus.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE

    "Overwhelm your senses with decadent white Belgian chocolate, golden vanilla brittle, and finally - luscious, tangy, DELECTABLE, strawberries picked at their peak of flavour. You'll be berry pleased!" You can immediately smell a sweetness and a bit of vanilla through the packaging. Overwhelming the senses is a good way to put it with this one, no joke. I didnt expect it to be so flavorful! The strawberries on top, for one, are soft and not crunchy or dry and are tangy, tart and sweet. The texture from the brittle is very crunchy and airy. If you dont like crunchy, don't get brittle. I like crunchy, so I am happy with brittle. The vanilla flavored white Belgian chocolate on top is light and doesn't overpower the strawberry.

GROGGNOG

    "This sweet lives on the naughty side - GROGGNOG DEFINITION: Boozy brittle filled with rum and notes of nutmeg and vanilla. Evoke your favorite holiday treat - creamy, egg free nog!" One of my favorite holiday drinks; EGGNOG! This one has me feeling nostalgic, if I'm being honest. The nutmeg and the vanilla in the white chocolate shine through very well. The rum flavor comes off to something similar to a butterscotch candy like Werthers. The flavor is pretty spot on. With each bite I can practically hear children unwrapping gifts and relatives trying to leave early because the weird uncle drank too much and tried starting fights again.

CARROT CAKE

    "Veggies are best served baked in a cake! Perfectly crisped carrots, brown sugar and spices, topped with cream cheese white chocolate frosting and a nutmeg garnish will bring you back to your 'roots'." I'm a huge fan of making anything dubbed healthy into something sugary and delicious. I can smell the fragrant spices right through the packaging. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not but the white chocolate is noticeably thiccer (intentional double c) on this bar so far and boy oh boy is it beautiful! The cream cheese flavor in the chocolate is actual heaven. Spot on! The cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger all come together perfect with nothing overwhelming or overpowering than the other. We, legitimately, have crunchy carrot cake. This one is a real winner in my book!

BIRTHDAY CAKE

    "There's always a reason to celebrate and there's always a time to party... in your mouth! This one is for the young and young at heart. You're never too mature for sprinkles!" Yah. I picked birthday cake. Of course I did! I could never resist the cake! They nailed the aesthetic of the birthday cake with the variety of sprinkles they chose to use for this one. Very colorful! Each package has a theme corresponding to the bar inside. The colors of the sprinkles actually match the colors on the packaging, now that I look at it. The sprinkles don't do much for the texture because, you know, it's already crunchy... but it looks pretty as heck. Pretty basic flavor, sweet vanilla. Its enjoyable though. This is what I would expect from a birthday cake flavored brittle.

They also offer a Chocolate Birthday Cake Brittle, which isn’t something you usually see.

PUMPKIN PIE 

    Last, but certainly not least, pumpkin pie! "Delightfully packed with loads of real pumpkin, and infused with our special spice blend; then artfully garnished with a flick of white chocolate and nutmeg. Whipped or iced cream? Your call!" I love me some pumpkin pie; I'm new to having anything "pumpkin pie" with nuts involved, though. Thats right, this one is a peanut brittle and the only one of the five I got that has peanuts. Right away, the peanuts shine through but it quickly morphs to this warm spicy pumpkin pie. The description says there is real pumpkin in the mix but I don't see that listed in the ingredients. Nonetheless, it's pumpkiny, clovey, nutmegy, cinnamony and gingery in all the best ways. The peanuts make for some awesome texture which sets it apart from the rest of the bars.

*EDIT: We’ve been informed that there is in fact real pumpkin in the mix, and the ingredients list has been updated To reflect this on newer boxes!

IN CONCLUSION 

    All of these bars were delicious in their own way but, for me, the Strawberry Shortcake and Carrot Cake bars transcended the rest. I felt they both went way above my expectations and absolutely blew me away. Sweetsmith Candy makes a mean handmade brittle that truly can speak for itself through their flavors, craft and care. Offering dairy free, gluten free, egg free, soy free, corn free, sugar free and vegan friendly options; Sweetsmith aims to satisfy their customers needs. I enjoyed all of these and would like to thank Sweetsmith Candy for sending these my way. Check out their shop, they have a variety of other flavors than the ones I sampled. Thanks for reading!

If I'm being 100% honest, I've been favoring Hulu lately watching Hey! Arnold, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Solar Opposites. Since the removal of Friends and, more recently, all the Ninja Turtles movies (really, Netflix?), I haven't had much reason to Netflix and chill in quite some time.... until Ben and Jerry's released it's newest ice cream flavor (or, in this case, frozen dessert) Netflix and Chill'd! Disclaimer: I found the regular version too. I went with the dairy free option as I am a little more on the lack toes and toddler ants side and any chance I can get to avoid dairy, not die and still be fat is a win win for me and my insides. 

Finally, something worth binging from Netflix since season 3 of Stranger Things! Netflix and Chill'd might not contain any TV shows or movies but what it does contain is peanut butter, swirls of salty pretzels and chunks of fudge brownies. This dairy free version is made using almond milk (a portion of almonds which are fairtrade).

For dairy free, this stuff is pretty damn good if I might say so myself. The peanut butter is strong and over powers the almond milk taste very well. Like all Ben and Jerry's pints, the chunkage levels are off the charts which is always appreciated by fatties like me. The brownies are soft and not chewy. The pretzels are interesting; they're ground up into this lovely gritty textured salty swirl.... something I didn't know I absolutely needed in my life until now. 

 I'd have to say Netflix and Chill'd is like a fresh peanut butter chocolate pie but in pretend ice cream/frozen dessert form with some little surprise swirls of crushed salty pretzels. All in all, unlike the streaming service, Netflix and Chill'd doesn't have to ask if I'm still there; they know I'm here. They got me coming back for my second and third pint this week. I give Netflix and Chill'd a solid 9.5 out of 10 demogorgons. It doesn't appear to be limited edition so take your time heading out to find this one. I found this at Martins grocery but have also seen both dairy and non dairy versions at Walmart. Thanks for reading!

Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge is as close to a perfect adaptation of the classic video game franchise as you can get. 

While the original 1995 live action adaptation is still campy fun, I think we can all agree that this is a series that’s been in desperate need of a revisit. I know that next year we’re supposedly getting a big studio reboot, being helmed by cinematic God James Wan, but I refuse to believe it until I see a trailer...it just sounds too good to be true. So imagine my surprise when I was browsing around online a month or so ago and found out that I didn’t have to wait a whole year for a new Mortal Kombat film. April 28, 2020, Warner Brothers Animation (the undisputed kings of 2D animated films of the modern age) released an all new, R-rated, 80 minute adaptation of one of the seminal franchises of my childhood and teen years.

The story is not an overly complex one, but in this case it works in the film’s favor. In the opening scenes we witness Hanzo Hasashi (who we later find out is MK poster-boy, Scorpion) and his family get brutally murdered by the one and only Sub-Zero. What follows is a fun, almost Muppets style, “rounding up the gang” to go fight against Shang Tsung and his warriors in a tournament. If Raiden and his crew lose the tournament, Shang Tsung and his army will rise up and take over the Earthrealm, and life as we all know it is over.

This movie gets just about everything right. We’re treated to all of the heavy hitters from the MK roster that we’ve come to love over it’s nearly 30 year existence. There’s a lot of fan service thrown our way, but the writers and directors have taken great care here to not make any of it seem cheesy or groan-worthy. I’d imagine this is due in part to bringing co-creator Ed Boon on as a creative consultant for this project. 

There’s a beautiful blend of style in this movie between the Mortal Kombat of our childhood, and more recent entries such as MK 9 (specifically the X-Ray style attacks). The lush landscapes and set pieces are very reminiscent of those beautiful old stages you’d see on your SEGA Genesis or in the Arcades back in the day, and the gore...can we please talk about the gore for a moment? This movie is rated R for a reason, folks. The geniuses over at WB have managed to capture the gore we love and expect from this series, and crank it up to 11. I could never have imagined an animated movie being able to do justice to the brutally gory nature of the Mortal Kombat series, but again, Warner Brothers managed to surpass my expectations. This gets everything right that the ‘96 animated series had to censor out.

Bottom line? Scorpion’s Revenge was an outright blast, and any fan of the series shouldn’t hesitate to give this one a watch. I myself picked up the 4K Blu-Ray disc, and if you have the means to, I’d highly recommend the set. The colors really “pop” with the HDR mode turned on, and the movie also sounded really good coming out of my surround sound system. That being said, the artwork here is so pretty to look at that I think it’s look just as good if you’re streaming it on your iPad, so however you choose to watch it, know that Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge is worth seeing.

Once you pop, the fun don't..... wait a minute... wrong product. Although, that phrase is seemingly fit for the direction Pop Tarts has been taking their products lately... which is bite size portable snack pieces in convenient little bags to feed your food hole on the go. I swear, just a few years back I was saying how great it would be to have a less awkward way to indulge in Pop Tarts in a public setting and I'm here for it! I mean, it's not as bad as trying to eat a bowl of cereal while you drive but it's also not much better.

I've managed to avoid buying these little fuckers all the way up until they lured me in with their Confetti Cake flavored bites. Birthday cake flavored things, to me, is like pumpkin spice for basic bitches during the fall and I'm trying to get basic bitch wasted on some birthday cake flavored anything/everything all day/everyday.

I noticed on the front of the individual bags they have a picture of the bites along with the words "actual size." They're a bit bigger than what is pictured to be completely honest. What's weird to me is these don't really say "Pop Tart" but, I still fucking love them! They're, dare I say, better than just a normal Pop Tart? 

The crust and filling parts are softer and continue to soften and melt as you chew. That icing, though.... it has this interesting crunch to it that goes so well with the soft texture. As for the flavor, it's a nice sweet vanilla and the texture makes the "cake" aspect pretty believable. As far as I can tell, it's about the same flavor as the Confetti Cupcake Pop Tarts which I also enjoy on a basic bitch and pumpkin spice in fall level.

I rate Confetti Cake Pop Tart Bites 8.5 out of 10 basic bitches (so be careful, there is half a basic bitch out there somewhere wiggling around looking for her other basic bitch half). I found these at Walmart by the box full and I'm not sure if they're out in individual bag form yet. No need to rush to find them, they're not limited and seem to be staying with us for a bit. Thanks for reading!

Here at DemBoys, we’re not really the kinda folks to partake in rumors, speculation or leaks, we usually just leave that up to TMZ. But we DO make the exception if the subject happens to be of the Space Jam variety…ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

A NEW LEGACY

How badass is that title? I know that there are going to be a lot of fans out there who are going to be disappointed that it’s not simply titled “Space Jam 2” (electric boogaloo) but I think this title works. With Lebron James in the lead role, I’m not really sure I would call this a “sequel” in the traditional sense. From everything we’ve heard so far, this seems to be a new take on the almost twenty five year old property. What do we mean by a new take? Take a look at this tweet:

We’ve been holding off on sharing these images for a while, but with the title reveal of the film today, we’re all but confident that these screen shots may be legit. It seems like this follow up to the original movie might stray from the all Looney Tunes cast we were all expecting, and dip heavily into the Warner Brothers archives to round out the opposing basketball team. Sounds like a radical idea, but I won’t pass judgement until we see the film sometime next year in 2021. Plus, watching The Mask set up a pick & roll with Pennywise and the Wicked Witch of the West would be the best thing anyone’s seen since Godzilla vs Charles Barkley.

In conclusion, we don’t know much, but after a quarter of a century, all of us here at DemBoys are excited to have the opportunity dive back into one of our favorite childhood movies. That’s all, folks!

Today, we're gonna take a look at some old stuff found and sold on ebay; things that we collector's search for on the daily, and all of which I have watched for a period of time in hopes that they'd end at an affordable price and also become genuinely sad when they don't. For you non-collectors, some of these things may be familiar. You may have seen them when they came out on store shelves or possibly you've just heard of them. You might not believe your eyes when you see the prices.

Something to keep in mind, prices are subjective. Sometimes you can get lucky and find a "buy it now" or another auction listing that has fewer bids and can be a little cheaper. Most items that are listed super expensive usually don't sell. It is important to note these items we are viewing are sold listings. It's money already spent. We aren't buzzfeed; this is stuff that has actually sold recently at the prices shown. No clickbait. Now that I've got all that out of the way.... on to the items!

EMPTY TMNT PIZZA CRUNCHABUNGAS BAG

Up first, sold at $86.00 and $14.90 for shipping, is an empty bag of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Crunchabungas, which were a pizza flavored crunchy corn snack similar to Cheetos from the early 90s. This is one that I don't typically see pop up on Ebay very often. In fact, this might be the first one I've ever seen and watched in my roughly 10 year Ebay experience. I have "crunchabungas" in my saved search list, which means that at any time an item with "crunchabungas" in the name is listed, I get a notification. So I was immediately interested to see what was listed when I was notified.

It appears to be in decent shape, the rip across the top to open the bag doesn't look like it affected the front and back images at all. One thing I love about the packaging is that they used an existing playmates toy product, the "Pizza Thrower," on the front. The turtles are just cruising down an NYC street slanging these pizza treats at will like some mutant equality parade.

Other Info: End Date/Time - FEB 22, 2020 @ 12:00 PM.

Bids/Bidders - 6/13

EMPTY TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES PIE WRAPPER

    Another awesome Ninja Turtles food item from the 90s, sold at $127.50 with $7.75 shipping, an empty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pie wrapper. As far as I know, there are 5 different variants of these wrappers; 4 of them have one of the turtles on each wrapper and then this one which has all 4 of the turtles. They all sell relatively high but this particular one is a little more sought after.

Conditions seem really good with minor fading on the back in the print which is noted in the listing. Usually you'll find icing marks that bleed through the packaging and this doesn't seem to have any of that. It's very clean. Side note, if you're interested in buying some sweet Turtle Pie stickers, check out ninjaturtlepies.com and leave your info and they'll get back to you when they're restocked! I purchased some recently and, I can tell you this, they're beautiful!

Other Info: End Date/Time - Feb 22, 2020 @ 12:21 PM.

Bids/Bidders - 8/3

8 SEALED ORBITZ DRINK BOTTLES

I remember trying these once and only once. I was a kid, probably around 8 or younger. The idea was cool but going through with consuming these little floating spongy balls was a task all on it's own that I wasn't able to uphold.

These pop up a little less often than most sealed bottles of old beverages but it does happen. It's usually a listing of 1 or 2 at a time. To find a listing with as many as 8 is pretty rare and a good start to a collection of expired drink gold.

The price sold... $305 big ones with $13.60 shipping. Holy shit. I thought at first.. well, they are sorta rare.. and finding 8 of them in one spot isn't all that common. However, a few days later, a listing for a complete 12 pack sealed in original packaging sold for about a 3rd of the price at $76 with $20 shipping. This is where the "price is subjective" part comes into play. Sometimes it's worth waiting out for a better option.

Other Info: End Date/Time - Feb 22, 2020 @ 10:49PM

Bids/Bidders - 25/4

SEALED THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS GRAPE BUBBLEGUM TUBE

If you don't know what this is or haven't seen these before, no it is not toothpaste... it's gum in a toothpaste style tube. Very expensive gum. Not to be confused with bubblegum flavoured flouride toothpaste gel, which also does exist and is listed on ebay at an insane price (it's $300 toothpaste, sheesh). This particular one sold for $125 with free shipping. I've seen them pop up a few times and they usually go a bit higher than this. One might consider this a pretty good deal seeing that similar items are all priced right now at the $300 mark. 

This one is sealed and is in really good condition judging by the pictures. A very clean looking outside and the description also notes that the contents have not hardened or dried out which is also a plus.

This was a "buy it now" listing. It appeared and ended within the same day. As mentioned before, there are a few others listed at the moment of like this one and the a few Slimer variant gums at $305 for buy it now. Chances are, they won't sell at that price. This is where I like to play the watch game and see if any of them do eventually sell at that price.

Other Info: End Date/Time - Unknown 

Bids/Bidders: "Buy it now" at the mentioned price.

MEDIA RELEASE KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE VHS

I will admit, I was pretty crushed to see yet again another Killer Klowns Media release VHS tape go for more than I was hoping. I've been after it for a bit and refuse to pay more than like $30-$50 range for a VHS tape. There are a few I'd undoubtedly go a little higher for, and Killer Klowns is for sure one of them. But, not this time. After reading a little further in the details, I'm glad I didn't throw down all I had and I'm wondering if the people who did bid even read the listing description.

This is a recorded tape; not an original Killer Klowns media release tape. How it caught $89.88 with $3.99 shipping, with the only authentic part being the case, is fucking beyond me! It's obvious to me that bidders, including myself at one point, weren't paying attention and didn't realize what they were bidding on.

I do see the authentic tape pop up every so often. I see the later and cheaper release a lot more than these, though. The case isn't near as cool on the later boxes.

Other Info: End Date/Time - March 10, 2020 @ 10:13 PM.

Bids/Bidders - 12/8

Final thoughts? Yes, it's true; some people will pay hundreds of dollars for empty old food wrappers that we use to simply throw away when they were readily available, single rare VHS tapes are selling at prices that could land you 10 vhs tapes back in the day, and, most importantly, sometimes it's a good idea to chill out and not jump the gun on some pricey auctions. Have an interesting Ebay experience of your own? Let us know! Perhaps we will feature them in a future article! Thanks for reading!

It’s funny how sometimes the smallest things can make a significant impact on a person. You can buy a kid the most expensive toys, the most popular movies and music, and yet somehow the cardboard box they found in the recycling is the thing that they have the warmest and most vivid memories of for years to come. For me, my “cardboard box” was none other than the Hot Newz 64 VHS tape - a promotional video tape sent out to Nintendo Power subscribers in 1999. It was meant to showcase Donkey Kong 64 and Jet Force Gemini, among other upcoming games for the Nintendo 64.

While I had no shortage of VHS tapes of actual movies and TV shows to choose from at the time, there was something about this video tape that drew six year old me in repeatedly. The in your face visuals & music, the video game footage, the jokes...all of it absolutely mesmerized me. This free tape, simply meant to sell more video games, somehow became my new favorite thing. So naturally, 20 years and one nostalgia blog later, I did the only thing left to do: interviewed the star of Hot Newz 64, Steve Sobel!

The VHS tape in question, in it’s entirety. For anyone who wants to watch first.

First things first Steve, let’s address the big monkey in the room: how did the infamous “crush me big monkey” line come about?

DK and I were riffing and it just came out. Kidding. It was in the script. Then, they told me to look up, like I was being crushed by something (we were doing green screen). That’s it. Wish it were a better story.

How did you end up landing the role in Hot Newz 64, and were there ever any plans to make more than one of these episodes?

That role is actually really important to me because it was the very first on camera gig I ever got! I had hosted a show on my campus’ TV network back at USC. After that, I’d been auditioning for a WHILE and hadn’t booked a legit gig. When they hired me, I was so psyched and relieved that I had gotten an actual job. We shot it in Seattle, so I got a free trip too. The director and crew were super cool. Plus, after we wrapped, they gave me an N64 and a bunch of games. Including Donkey Kong Jr. of course! AND I got to keep the yellow shirt! Everyone one was happy with it. But no, they never contacted me about making another. Why mess with perfection? 

What was it like working for Nintendo? 

This was a production company hired by Nintendo to make the thing. I don’t specifically remember anyone from Nintendo even being there, but they might have been. Or maybe not? Maybe that’s why it’s so over-the-top? On the other hand, it’s about on-par for the 90s.

Are you a gamer yourself?

I am embarrassed to admit that I’m not. I actually booked quite a few video-game related gigs around that time. I did a promo for Xbox, I hosted an event at E3 for Metal Gear Solid, and some others. I guess I just looked the part. I was always afraid that whoever hired me would find out I wasn’t really this huge gamer dude. But most of the time, all I had to do was read what was on the page.  

(if yes) What are some of your favorite games, N64 or otherwise.

Well, I’m an 80s kid, so I bet I could whip your ass at Galaga or Defender. But I never really got into console games (even with the free N64). The only game I ever got addicted to was Vice City. I grew up in Miami Beach during those years, so that one hooked me. I spent many late nights knocking over virtual jewelry stores and worse. But I started to have crazy dreams, and having the urge to crash my car into cop cars while I was on the road. So I pulled the plug. I now have a 10-year-old son, and he loves his Nintendo Switch. Sometimes we play Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros (Which I wrongly call ‘Smash Brothers’ and he thinks is hilarious.) 

If Koizumi ever can't do a Nintendo Direct for some reason, would you consider filling in?

Sure! Call me! I’ll be sure to work in ‘crush me big monkey’ somewhere. 

We also noticed that you just recently had a role on season 3 of Westworld, what were some of your other acting gigs? Which was your favorite?

Yes, I appear on Westworld this season (Season 3, Episode 3, ‘The Absence of a Field’). I play Thomas, a child predator who (uh, spoiler alert, I guess?) is violently killed by Charlotte Hale, Tessa Thompson’s character. I’m a huge fan of the show, so I was thrilled to play the part, even if he is a rather unsavory fellow. That was one of my favorites for sure. Another favorite that comes to mind is a film I did called ‘Love is Never Wasted.’ It’s part of the ‘Removed’ series of films about foster parenting. A beautiful film about an important subject matter.

Tell us a fun fact about Steve Sobel.

A fun fact about me is how much of a kick I get out of the fact that this weird promo I did when I was 23 impacted some kid’s childhood. I had this skateboarding video when I was a kid that I must have watched a million times, because that’s what I was into. I think this is one of those videos for some people. That makes me happy. Also, I know that I seem insane in it. When people online make fun of the clip, and say they want to punch ‘yellow shirt guy?’ I get it. If I could go back in time, I’d punch yellow shirt guy, too.

We’d like to thank Steve for taking the time to give us this interview, and for being so nice putting up with questions from us random internet people. He’s a great guy and you should definitely follow him on social media!

How is everyone holding up? We all know the situation, its affecting all of us... we aren't going into too much detail with that. I do want to take this time, though, to personally say that I appreciate anyone who happens to find and take time to read these articles, pandemic or not. I hope you find at least a little distraction from every day life through our words. I feel that couldn't be more necessary now than ever. So... if you're here, thank you and be safe. We'll get through this together!

    Anyways, today, we're gonna take a look at some ads; some from comics, some from books, some from magazines, all from a time when things were simple! Enjoy!

JIM LEE PLAYMATES FIGURES

(IMAGE COMICS TMNT #1)

    First up, we have Playmates Jim Lee TMNT figures! We got Battle Damage Savage Dragon and regular Savage Dragon, She-Dragon, Barbaric, Don, Mike, Raph and.... wait... no Leo?! Turns out Leo wasn't produced. I'm not sure why but it's not too uncommon to see a series missing one of the guys. They did have a figure in mind for him which we do have pictured.

    You'd think that I, being a seasoned TMNT collector (not like with salt and pepper.. ew), would have owned at least one of these guys. I sure didn't! Not even one... and it pains me so to admit it but admittance is the first step to fixing the problem!

    While the turtles were being used in the Image comic universe we got to see them appear in their own image series as well as with a few quick pages with Spawn and also shared a few books with Eric Larsen's Savage Dragon. Since Playmates had thrown TMNT through every possible toy conception imaginable, these guys fit right in the Playmates lineup.

CAPRI SUN PACIFIC COOLER

(SPIDER-MAN 12 PERCEPTIONS PART 5 OF 5)

    A staple of all 90s kids and also a great addition to Lunchables, the Capri Sun! Back when it was new and cool.. who am I kidding, it's still fucking cool!! I can't actually remember the last time I had one... more reason for me to grab a few next time I'm able to.

    What a fresh ad! Characters made out of awesome 90s looking shapes who are showcased skateboarding, surfing, biking and talking to chicks on the beach... everything I use to strive to do and fail miserably at. This was back when their packaging designs were a little more far out than they are now. It's almost like they tried to appeal to a broader audience. I hate that. What's wrong with keeping the interesting packaging? People like me are more inclined to buy things with interesting packaging because I'm basically a 5 year old. Trust me, there are a lot of us "basically 5 year olds" out there; do a throwback label of these babies, collectors will be on them faster than flies on shit.

CAP'N CRUNCH BARS

(ARCHIE ADV. SERIES SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #51)

    There is this little family owned mini store down the road from where I use to live called The Westend Supperette where I would rent Nintendo games, buy Jones Soda and 25c candies and also buy the random issues of Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog they'd get in the magazine section.

  Quick confession, at this point (in 1997) I wasn't a fan of most cereals, least of all Cap'n Crunch. I mainly enjoyed Fruity Pebbles and Lucky Charms with my Saturday morning cartoons. I know, it's cliche but Cap'n Crunch is notorious for ripping your mouth hole apart. This ad was almost enough to get me past my unhealthy fear of bloody ripped apart gums, though. What appealed most to me is that this wasn't just Cap'n Crunch cereal... this was Cap'n Crunch cereal pretending to be a Rice Krispy treat, which I did enjoy.

    They still make something similar to these but they look way better. The new ones have a nice layer of icing on the bottom and a drizzle over the top. I would've been sold on those immediately as a kid.

GOOSEBUMPS FAN CLUB PACK

(GOOSEBUMPS #38 THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF PASADENA)

    Let's be honest, everyone owned at least one Goosebumps book.. even if you didn't read the damn thing, you carried it around with you like you did anyway.

    Goosebumps, to me, had the same appeal that horror vhs tapes did; I wasn't near as fascinated with what was inside, the cover (which we are all told not to judge) was all I needed. And you could get them in the school library. You were encouraged by teachers and librarians alike to read them, unlike R Rated VHS tapes. They even gave you free Pizza Hut pizza if you read enough of them!

    I feel like the fan club thing was pretty big when us 30 and 40 somethings were kids... do they still do fan clubs? Look at all this loot! And for $10.95 after shipping and handling, that's a steal! Not to mention it all comes in a box shaped like a coffin. And a water bottle, which surely would've been filled with Pacific Cooler Capri Sun and not water. Nice try, Goosebumps!

MATTEL NICKELODEON TOYS

(PREMIERE ISSUE SUMMER 1993 NICKELODEON MAGAZINE)

    What's most memorable to me about Nickelodeon Magazine? The commercial; "NICKELODEON MAGAZINE, PLEASE!?" And little Pete telling me how "UNBELIEVABLE" it all was. That commercial had to of aired at least 30 times a day but it never got old.

    I can remember wishing I could've jumped on the Nickelodeon magazine hype, even if I hated reading. I wanted in on it so bad but could never "think of something" to get my folks on board. We already had a healthy subscription to Nintendo Power. I assumed they had loads of pictures and interesting things and not just words. Through a couple of recent purchases, I'm happy to report that my childhood theories were correct!

    This ad is right on the front inside cover. What a treat! Most notably, the Gak collection pictured speaks the most to me. Gak was always in supply at my home back then. I do remember falling asleep with a blue one once and getting it stuck in my hair. Mattel did Nickelodeon toys justice.... maybe not for parents.

    That's all for now! Until next time, I envite you all to find ads of your own. Feel free to share your favorite one's with us in the comments below!