Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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There's plenty of excitement in dear old Blighty, right now, with a general election campaign well and truly underway.
But is that what's on the minds of those who visit this venerable site?
I cannot say.
Not because I'm banned from doing so by the mysterious They who, if you believe some, are behind every conspiracy on the planet - but because I don't know what's on visitors' minds.
But I soon will.
You guessed it. This evening sees the cosmos-crunching return of the feature in which the first person to comment gets to choose the subject for debate. It could cover any field of human endeavour - or even non human endeavour. Or even non-human non-endeavour.
Whatever it is, post it below and we shall see just which way the winds of chat blow us.
Posts
25 comments:
Did any of you buy a comic because you were inspired by the give-away?
Did any of you or your parents buy a box of cereal for a give-away?
What else had give-aways that would grab our attention as kids?
CH “Charlie” 47
Yeah. I wanted the first few issues of 2000AD for the free gifts (the ‘space spinner’ and the cyborg stickers) in 1977.
I bought extra Ready Brek (or Weetabix? Can’t remember) for the quite nice widescreen ‘Flash Gordon’ cards in 1980.
And sent off for a Wagon Wheels poster for ‘The Black Hole’ (which, disappointingly had a massive ‘Wagon Wheels’ logo on it, which spoiled it) in 1979.
Fun topic, Charlie!
In 1980, Nutty comic was big on free gifts. My brother started buying it, because it gave you Space Dust. Another free gift I remember as the Zooming Boomer was actually called something completely different:
http://www.greatnewsforallreaders.com/blog/2018/2/10/on-this-day-16-february-1980-nutty
Also, of course, Star Lord # 2, with its famous space calculator (much better than issue
# 1's crap free badge!):
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/starlord-comic-magazine-issue-2-may-1978-scifi-comic-includes-space-calculator-british-publication-32-pages-nice-condition-etsy--155303887721995934/
Phillip
Oh - and Weetabix's Dr.Who cards were a big hit, too!
https://www.google.com/search?q=weetabix+dr+who+1975&rlz=1C1TEUA_enGB467GB467&oq=Weetabix+Dr+Who+&aqs=chrome.2.0i512j69i57j0i22i30l4j0i390i512i650l3.9191j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#vhid=wCNtSfT0qqvyNM&vssid=l
Phillip
Charlie, I don't ever remember buying a comic to get a giveaway, even though British comics often had them.
I remember the tea we bought when I was a kid used to include picture cards you could collect and put into albums. Those albums had titles like The Space Race, Prehistoric Animals and The Sea, Our Other World among others. I think we ended up managing to fill five or six of those books. We must have been drinking a lot of tea.
I also remember a spell when Kelloggs cornflake packets had Star Trek masks on the back of them, which you could cut out. I remember having Captain Kirk and Mr Spock from that set.
I also remember our primary school getting all the kids in it to collect crisp packets because, if you managed to collect an insane number of them, you could send them off to the manufacturers and get a free football in return. Thus, did our school get what it claimed was its first football. Seemingly, it hadn't occurred to any of the teachers that they could just buy one.
I had the dinosaurs tea cards. My extended family used to… I don’t know what they did but it netted me collectibles.
I recently re-bought the entire filled dinosaurs album from the local charity bookshop.
I've got some tea cards with things like the Mongolfier brothers' balloon, & maybe the Cutty Sark (somewhere). Hand me downs.
Phillip
Ah, freebies and giveaways! I recall getting a pair of shoes as a tyke, that came with a "March of Comics" miniature. Lassie, I think.
There was a Batman mini comic from a box of Pop Tarts. And a Archie comic from a bag of Indian Corn Chips. Can't recall any specific giveaways included in a comic, though-maybe it was a UK thing.
Oh,but cereal? Had a ring from Quisp. A magnifying glass whistle from Trix. An Archie's record off the back of Honeycombs.
And it seems like there was a treasure chest ring from Capn. Crunch. We ate a load of cereal at our house!
Like Redartz, I had one of those Poptart Batman mini-comics back in the Long Ago. I think we talked about these on his blog a few years ago. That’s the only “freebie” or giveaway comic I can remember.
But also like Redartz, my brothers and I ate lots and lots of boxed cereal — and sometimes even made our choices at the grocery store based solely on what kind of toy came in the box.
I remember having a little Cap’n Crunch figurine. One of my favorite toys was a teeny tiny Dick Dastardly’s Car from the WACKY RACES show — I don’t remember which cereal it came in. Also, we had a record of “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies that was actually printed on a box of Super Sugar Crisp. You’re probably thinking “it must have sounded like crap” and you would be right :)
b.t.
Charlie had all day to contemplate give-aways while slaving away for the man.
Like BT and Red and presumably Dakota, I had the usual prizes from inside cereal boxes but can really only remember these cars from Capn Crunch. Pull them backwards and they take off forwards? Or perhaps there was a little rip cord?
Had the two RECORDS from CEREAL BOXES: SUGAR SUGAR and SINATRA's STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT. I'd like to have seen the marketing plan behind putting Sinatra on a cereal box.
Also, as a kid, there was some SOAP shaped like alligators and such that had capules of a small toy in the center. Scrub harder!!!
OSCAR MEYER HOT DOG packages had WIENER WHISTLE RINGS stuffed into the package of 10 dogs. My brother and I took all the whistles out one day, whilst shopping with my mom. (We were like 6 and 8 years old.)
FRITO BANDITO ERASERS were in Frito corn chip packages. I assume it was eventually seen as racist. "Aye, yi, yi yi.... I am the Frito Bandito!" (Easily found on Youtube.)
To be honest, the big payoff from CAPN CRUNCH was using your tongue to push around the shards of flesh hanging down from the roof of your mouth. It took that stuff forever to get even remotely soft and soggy.
Charlie Horse
Ohhh... though not a prize per se, Charlie had some interaction with cereal to be able to become a card-carrying member of the BANANA SPLITS CLUB.
But I defer to my fellow americans as to how one joined the BSC as my memory is a little foggy. 1969 was a long time ago.
What's funny is how that show still lives on in the minds of folks my age +/- given it only had a 2-year run!
Oh Oh!!! CHONGO!!!
Charlie- Sinatra on a cereal box?!? Wow. Maybe it was Life cereal "...That's Life! You can't deny it"...
Which reminds me. Does anyone remember a series of parody record stickers ; late 60s to early 70s? They looked like mini 45 rpm singles with funny titles. I remember 2 of them- "Stranglers in the Night" and "96 Fears"(that one by ! and the Exclamations...)
Red, I’ve never even heard of such a thing. I just Googled it and found three : ‘THESE BOOTHS ARE MADE FOR TALKING’ by Nancy Sinister, ‘IRVING THE XI’ by Sherman’s Sherbets and ‘I CAN’T STOP SLUGGING YOU’ by Ray Charged :D
b.t.
Wow… it seems cereal box records were a thing into the 80s maybe 90s in the USA. And well, I am my brother clearly recall, having a Frank Sinatra one, I find no reference to it on the Internet. However, if I recall correctly, it was inside the box, not outside and cut out.
What a weird idea for a WACKY PACKAGES type card/sticker set. I doubt I would actually have bought them if I saw them back then. They’re a bit ‘dry’ and conceptual ( I generally prefer the louder ‘MAD’ magazine style art on the actual WACKY PACKAGES and things like ODD RODS) but some of them ARE pretty dang funny.
Found a couple more:
‘REACH OUT I’LL BE BARE’ by the Four Topless (on Mootown Records) — and :
‘BALLAD OF THE GREEN BERRIES’ by Sgt. Barry Saddlesores (on RGA Victim)
That last one… :D
Most of you guys seem to be much more into Sports than I am or ever was — did any of you collect Sports cards?
b.t.
B.t.- thanks for finding those examples! I was starting to think I'd imagined them. Although I distinctly remember having the "96 Fears" one stuck to the top of a jar of sea shells. Incidentally, it was on the "Camera" label.
Oh, and to answer your question- I did collect baseball cards, and still do to a small degree.
And Wacky Packages are a lot of fun. "Hostage" Cupcakes. "Liptorn" tea. "Footsie Roll". And so on......by the way, seems I read that Art Speigelman was involved with those...
Oh, we badgered our mum into buying sugar puffs every week just for the Doctor Who badges.
It was about three weeks before she sussed out that we all hated sugar bluffs and that nobody was eating them.
In the early weeks of 1975 the back-covers of the Marvel UK weeklies featured the 1975 Marvel calendar with a different month on each back-cover. I assume that in the USA you could buy the '75 calendar as a complete object but we Brits were instructed to remove the back-covers featuring the different months of 1975 and glue each one to some card. I suppose you had to buy all 5 weeklies to get all the months (which I didn't do).
Then later in 1975 the Marvel UK back-covers featured cut-out masks of the Hulk, Spidey, Werewolf By Night (on the back of Dracula Lives) and a chimpanzee (on the back of Planet Of The Apes). These too were meant to be glued to some card with holes cut for the eyes obviously.
Also in 1975 (it was a busy year!) I was into Planet Of The Apes trading cards which came free with packs of bubble gum, two cards per pack. Each card showed a scene from the POTA TV series on the front and PART of a scene on the back which had to be matched up with several other cards to make the complete scene. Lots of kids in my school collected the cards and it was quite a craze for a while. All the cards can be seen online.
OMG, Steve, there's still five more weeks of this election sh*t to go.
-sean
Sean, consider yourself lucky. We Yanks have SIX MORE MONTHS of election sh*t to endure.
b.t.
Colin - I remember the 1975 UK Calendar, from either 'Spider-man Comics Weekly' # 101, or 'The Avengers & the SSOC' # 116. I'm almost sure it was the latter. Either way, I recall a strange picture of the Beast on said calendar, with him having caucasian - rather than blue-furred - skin, and tan/brown hair. In fact, the Beast's head slightly resembled the lead singer from 'A Flock of Seagulls'!
Phillip
Colin and Phillip, I remember that calendar too. Didn't it give away that Gwen Stacy was going to die?
Sean, so far, I'm enjoying it. It has to be the funniest election I've ever seen.
Bt, I never collected sports cards. I remember a British comic giving away some in preparation for the 1970 World Cup. I remember one of them featured Bobby Charlton and another featured George Best. I don't recall who the other players were but they were the only sports cards I ever owned.
Phillip, Spider-Man Comics Weekly #101 came out in early January 1975 so that must have been the one featuring the 1975 calendar - The Avengers & SSOC #116 was much too late as the two comics didn't merge until July '75.
Steve, according to Radio 4 Sheffield is now the world capital of real ale.
I never had any Sports cards. I had a few packs of STAR WARS cards and some BATMAN 89 cards. Topps re-released the painted Batman card set from the 60s and the notorious MARS ATTACKS set and I still have those around here somewhere.
When “non-sports cards” were hot in the 90s I got complete sets of Jeff Jones cards and Steranko cards and Ken Kelly cards, etc.
Speaking of those cardboard cereal box records (as we were yesterday) it reminded me of those super-thin vinyl “flexi discs”— I had one that was bound into a MAD MAGAZINE SPECIAL, an audio adaptation of their ALL NIGHT IN THE FAMILY parody.
Charlie mentioned those Frito Bandito rubber erasers — my brothers and I must have eaten tons of Fritos because we had lots of those little guys .
b.t.
I think the rubber erasers for pencils were a fad because i had Frito Bandito ones and also a bunch related to Winnie the Pooh. I seem to think the Pooh ones seemed to clutch the pencil whereas Frito Bandito was impaled?
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