X-Entertainment's Christmas Season & Advent Calendar, 2008.

01/06/2007: Cylon Bubbles & Vader Troubles.

This week’s SNT is brought to you by two old crappy commercials I’ve been wanting to feature.

I never got into Battlestar Galactica in any of its incarnations, mostly because I don’t remember ever having access to it as a kid. I was intrigued by its many aliens and robots that I’d spot in various sci-fi rags and the occasional TV Guide, but if my geek cred rode on even the most basic Battlestar quiz, I’d flunk and be shot. That said, it’s pretty hard to go through life not knowing what a Cylon is, and I have no trouble appreciating the heck out of a Battlestar Galactica Cylon Bubble Machine.

The “Bubble Machine” technology was nothing new — basically, you had a tub of bubbles with a large, plastic figurine attached to the top. (A Cylon, in this case.) By flipping the figurine’s head back and blowing through a hole, a mass of bubbles sprung from its exposed neck cavity. It sounds kinda macabre when I explain it like that, so it’s important to remember that fun soap bubbles can ever be ghoulish.

In the ancient commercial, a couple of kids give us a demonstration. And then they give us another demonstration. And they keep repeating the demonstration, over and over again. They don’t even take a breath to look at their bubbles — fools just keep blowin’ away, apparently skirting the usual contest of seeing who can make the biggest bubbles in favor or the less-competed challenge of who could make the most.

One thing the ad doesn’t mention is how awesome it was to turn the bubble-spewin’ figurine into an everyday action figure once the soap stuff either ran out or got boring. Cylons are pretty badass looking; if I had that thing, there’s no way I wouldn’t have dropped the bubble bottle and made the topper part of my action figure wars.

Click here to download the Battlestar Galactica Bubble Machine commercial.

I touched on this in an old article, but Toys ‘R’ Us stores used to (and maybe still do) host big bashes where kids could meet their favorite cartoon characters, movie heroes and sports stars. These events usually transpired during a particular store’s grand opening, but I was lucky enough to grow up near a TRU that hosted them pretty regularly.

It was nothing formal. You’d walk to the back, and store hands would sorta herd kids on one side, while other store hands ushered out costumed characters from the stockroom. (The “ushering out” was a necessary bit, because the people inside those costumes could rarely see anything.) Though this commercial promotes appearances by Geoffrey and his family, the Care Bears and Dwight Gooden, my personal experience was far cooler: I got to meet Darth Vader.

See, one of my brothers worked at Toys ‘R’ Us at the time, and by “time,” I mean the early ’80s. I have such great memories of what a major mindfuck it was to see him in that old pinstripey uniform TRU workers had to wear, because at a young age, I didn’t take that to mean that he was just working a retail job. I thought he was a big part of the TRU machine. Since he was connected, he knew well in advance that VADER WAS COMING, so on his day off on some long ago Saturday morning, he took me there for the show.

I don’t remember which other characters appeared, but when Vader walked out from the back…holy shit. These were “official and licensed” appearances — it wasn’t like the store just happened upon a Vader Halloween costume and decided to do this for the heck of it. As such, the costume was movie-level quality. Between the flowing black cape and the blinking lights on his chest box thing, I absolutely believed that Darth Vader was standing…right…there. It was equal parts exhilaration and fear, in part because Vader had taken a peculiar interest in pointing an evil finger in my brother’s direction. Only now do I realize that the guy under the mask was probably one of his coworkers goofing on him. To me, it meant that Darth Vader wanted to kill my brother.

Click here to download the Toys ‘R’ Us Huge Party commercial.

And yes, I totally went home with a shiny new Kenner Darth Vader figure that morning, even though I already had six of them.

I felt exactly the same way when I met Vader at MGM Studios in Florida….at age 26. Some magic never fades with time.

My wife told me a story about how in elementary school, she and her schoomates were promised an appearance by “Darth Vader” one day. It turned out to be the actual David Prowse, but as another character: “Green Cross Man.” He told all the kids to always look both ways before they crossed the street, then he made his pecs jiggle.
I think my wife was scarred by the experience.

Matt- Nice story! I felt the same way when I went to Disneyworld- the characters felt real.

***Just got back to my hotel in Montreal- watched my New York Rangers beat the Canadiens! WHOOT! It is SO HARD being from Quebec and being a Rangers fan, but it paid off tonight! What a game!

Happy SNT! I am off to hit the streets of Montreal now…who knows what will happen tonight!

I can’t I remember believing any costumed characters that I encountered in my youth were the real deal. Maybe Santa.

Oh! I remember, I went to a bizarre live Ninja Turtles show. Pretty good costumes, and they fought and everything. I don’t think I believed they were flesh and blood incarnations of the turtles, but it was still super awesome.

BTW: they’re airing Willow right now on TV…I didn’t remember how much I love this flick!

We could never go to anything like that as kids. Little Brother used to have a fear about big costumed characters, especially the cartoon ones. Wheter it was Huckleberry Hound, Mickey Mouse, or any giant, fabric, chicken wire, and fake fur version of even favorite ‘toons, he would run the other way. A few years ago, he finally told me it was because he had some kind of dread that the suits were empty. Now, I get creeped out about the concept from time to time.

Wow, I’m thrilled by your story of meeting Darth. I never got to go to a TRU when I was younger since they seemed to be located in a galaxy far, far, away. Ok that was lame. Enjoy your Saturday night!

Woot! Feelin’ better and watching new fangled Star Trek. Does life get better? No, no it doesn’t. Rockin TRU review. Too bad they;ve strayed from what made them great.

One of my sons turned me onto Arrested Development…I’m watching the first season now. Damn - what a great show!! What was Fox thinking when they cancelled it, anyway?

I feel the same way about BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. I have never seen it but I loved the retrospective on SCI-FI a couple of years ago and even have the dog monkey robot (I am not looking it up) action figure for some odd reason.

I was watching the Disney animated ROBIN HOOD and I thought of a DISCUSSION TOPIC:
What are some slang words/sayings that DID NOT take off that were blatantly pushed in movies?
I can think of 3 that I will spell phoentically:
1. “Wizard” or “That’s so wizard” from The Phantom Menace
2. “Bang-a-rang” from Hook
3. “Oooo-da-laley” from the aforementioned Robin Hood

“Jerkin!” from Josie and the Pussycats. Though its purpose was to be lame and was a joke about slang….

My dad, bless his heart, took me and my sister to all of the TRU opening bashes. I couldn’t believe he put up with all of that when I was a kid, and I especially can’t believe it now.

Who’s the Walrus in the TRU commercial? My TRU did the same thing when it had it’s grand opening years ago, but I don’t remember who showed up except for Geoffrey, of course.

Do they make stuff like that bubble thing anymore? The closest thing are rubber figures you see on fruit drinks and bubble bath sometimes.

Unfortunately, TRU never came to my town until it was almost too late for me (I was probably 10-12), but we did have a great local chain called Child World, that had the crammed with toys feeling of a mall KB, but was probably the size of an average TRU. It felt like you were in the middle of a giant toybox. Man, why can’t grown up stores make you feel that way.

It’s kind of weird how toys are so much better now (like GI Joe vehicles actually shoot now), but there seems to be way fewer of them. Plus, there’s hardly any toy ads on TV anymore.

Happy Saturday everybody!
Oh Trish, you are in for a treat, my friend. You’ve got three seasons worth of awesome to look forward to! As for what Fox was thinking, well, it was the same stupidity that goes on when any show is prematurely cancelled. Plus genuinely unimpressive ratings, which in turn were generated by the horrible scheduling and promotion from Fox themselves. I love The Office, but I’m still a little sad about that Emmy loss earlier this year…here’s a good site for all things Arrested.
On the catchphrase topic, I can think of a couple from Arrested D that I wish would take off: “Douche-chill” and “Charlie Browns”.
(psst Matt the Cereal Project is still showing up top there…looks good though :D)

I got my DS this afternoon. It’s very prone to fingerprints. Perhaps I should have gotten white after all, to match my iBook

But that’s the only complaint I have. Can’t wait to fire it up when it’s done charging. As soon as I snag a wireless router I’ll post my friend code. Well, I’ll post it where Matt told me to

Have you seen the new black iBooks? Why do I have to pay 500 bucks extra for it? I know its on the higher end model, but why can’t they make the regular model in black too?

I remember a grand opening of the TRU in Atlanta growing up. My friend conned his dad into taking us to it and we scored a couple of Cobra red dudes who drove those boats. I might be wrong on that. Later that day we argued whether thier packs were jet-packs or advavced scuba rebreathers. I wanted the character to fly and he wanted the abilty to breath under water. We decided to duel with yellow (not the red fattys) whiffle ball bats to determine the outcome. After I few minutes of fencing and a monster “Tommy Boy” bruise across my face we decided scuba gear was cooler.

Arrested Development was awesome. Shows aren’t given a chance anymore, they’re yanked if they aren’t immediate successes. If it’d always been like that, we wouldn’t have Simpsons or Seinfeld. But luckily, if you’re like me, you can get the Arrested DVDs and watch on a near-daily basis.
Also awesome - Robin Hood. And some sweet unrelated Robin Hood Lego sets I had. And by “had” I mean “have, and still play with every time I go in the garage.”
Movie slang - everything from the Zenon trilogy. Stellar.

I remember when our local (and by local, I mean an hour away) Toys R Us had one of those days, it was Geoffrey and the Kool-Aid Man! He’s no Vader (Darth or Big Van), but he’s pretty cool too.

Hrm, kind of a slow night, huh?
Canoes, I’m glad I’m not the only person who’s still watching AD all the time. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen an episode, I can watch it again and still find it hysterical.
Do we need another poll or something? Where everybody at?

Okay, time to bring out the big guns. Me and Mrs. Manimal are having another baby on 7-7-07. The 2nd holiest baby???

If that doesn’t work, I have one more idea but it is not as good as my first two. C’mon SNT, suck it up and play like a champion!

I never actually got a chance to go to any of the Toys ‘R’ Us character meet-n-greets, but that commercial brings back some memories. What doesn’t bring back memories is actually going into a Toys ‘R’ Us these days. I’ve been in a few recently to buy things for my nephew and niece (and at least once on my failed quest to obtain a Nintendo Wii) and I’m pissed they lost the whole warehouse motif. The best part about going into the store was feeling like you could get lost in a place full of toys. Now, not so much.

On the topic of AD, I can’t stop thinking of “My Name Is Judge” from one of the last eps. I still can’t believe that got cancelled…

Let’s see…a topic…Cotton Candy! Like it, don’t, indifferent? Me, I like Cotton Candy-flavored things, but not CC itself for some reason. I loved the rare Airheads flavor, and now I’m pissed since it was a limited edition flavor!

I didn’t have a nearby TRU growing up. The closest one was over an hour away, and we rarely got to go. As TRU’s go, it wasn’t a great one anyway. Very dark, very, VERY, dirty, and pretty depressing. When TRU started axing stores left and right, it was one of the first to go. Now it sits empty next to an equally closed Chuck E. Cheese and an even more closed video arcade. It’s like looking at the corpse of decades gone by, right there on the side of the highway.

So anyway, no TRU character appearances for me. But I DID get to meet the Ninja Turtles at the local Wal-Mart as a youth. I could see the guy behind the mesh in Donatello’s eye holes. It deeply saddened me, but not so much that I didn’t get my picture taken with them. Still, I felt kinda dirty.

Man i had the goofiest dream that everybody who posts X-E was watching the movie “The Explorers” in my garage. You know the movie. Ethan Hawke and I think River Phoenix ( the kid with glasses that has carnial knowlege of the alien) were in it. They built this ship out of a couple of garbage cans and the Tilt-a-whirl thing and went to space when PC’s could make women and launch nukes from your house.
I don’t know what is stranger, having an xe party since I don’t know what people look like, dreaming of a movie I haven’t seen in 20 years or watching a movie in the garage. I need to stop reading this stuff before going to bed.

I think you should call the kid Seven, and hope it learns how to like George Costanza.
I like cotton candy but not cotton candy flavored things. That might be a lie though because I used to be a pretty big fan of that cotton candy flavored bubble yum.

Oh man…Should they really have let Dwight Gooden near any children? Hopefully his nose wouldn’t bleed all over them from all the coke he was snorting….I’ve never seen someone violate a drug probation as many times as him and NOT go to jail except maybe Scott Weiland who routinely gets rehabed and then goes to buy heroin once he’s out and gets busted. But its like they say celebrities don’t go to jail they go to rehab…

Oh my gawd, Manimal, congrats to you and the missus! How exciting. I hope your wife doesn’t get mad about you spilling the beans just to give us something to chat about ;). You’ll have to go with a classic name, to match E. Claire…how about Victoria Marie? Okay, that sucks, but you’ve got seven months to top it :D. Boy names are harder…maybe you’ve got a grandpa who’d be flattered?
I had to work today, so I’m really feeling the weekend minutes bleed away. Now I’m thinking about Jessica Alba…I should watch Sin City, maybe try to invent a drinking game.
I like cotton candy, both the blue and classic pink, but only the real stuff. I also agree that TWOP is a great great site for tv talk (I’m tarava4242 over there). It’s awesome hearing from AD fans here though.

Anybody else excited about Rome coming back? Only eight days!

I’ve heard the Darth Vader story before, but the retellings are always delightful. And now, the probably generate a more accurate mental image in me, since I’ve seen your face some. I used to just picture Matt from the first season of Digimon. Also a delight are these goldfish emoticons.

Also, they other day I had another x-e dream, in this one Matt was having a party (it wasn’t at your garage Bill) Anyway, Matt put up a billboard congratulating a new member of the x-e blog. The new memebers name was ilurvbitnerlololololololol. So I just may have found a new blog name?

Also: 7/7/07 is awesome.I myself have a “Lucky” bday: I was born at 7:07am in 1987

I have very little to contribute tonight, although I realized that I hadn’t yet shared my joy with you folks who can certainly appreciate it.

First off, congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Manimal! We never got a Toys’R'Us here until I was, let’s see…16. I never had that type of experience, except for the people dressed as the Justice League at our local branch of Six Flags (The Great Escape). That was just last year. Jumping on the old slang/phrase from shows, one I use often is from Futurama. It’s one of the many Amyisms. Pukatronic!!

I was rereading the Chuck E Cheese article and I was just thinking of the old Showbiz Gorilla “Fatz.” I remember waiting for that dude to jump the keyboard and eat a kid. Just look at his face! I know this has been covered. Still scary.

All of those Showbiz anamatronic characters look slightly evil. I think the entire enterprise was a front for a bunch of cannibal satanists AmWay salespeople.

Don’t worry, Matt, neither can I. Just got back from a Wedding that was three hours away. Poured rain all the way home.

When I finally decide to marry in my late 70s, it will definitely be in Vegas. I hate weddings.

I haven’t been to bed before 6am in weeks. G-D insomnia’s got me in its grasp something fierce.
I like the blue cotton candy…because it’s blue. I’ll eat anything blue.

Not that I could sleep much before, but I’m pretty sure after seeing those showbiz animatronic characters, I’ll never sleep again.
And weddings suck. I don’t know why people have them or why they make everyone else feel obligated to attend.

haha i guess i never thought about those animatronic things being creepy, to this day they still fascinate me

and now i have a taste for pizza. 24 hour pizza delivery, why can’t it be a reality?!

You guys gave up too early. I’m still up, and that is the most obvious statement ever made

I just finished watching the latest Red vs Blue. I can’t believe I only found it like 2 days ago. That’s like 30 eps a day. Good times.

I’m still up. Just got in from a date. That sounds really bad since it’s almost 5 am, but I wound up watching bad horror movies (Revolt of the Zombies and Bloody Pit of Horror) and petting the cat while my date passed out on the couch. I guess I wore him out beating his ass at pool.

Congrats to the Manimals!! If it’s a girl, name her Moonchild. If it’s a boy, name him Atreyu. For some reason I have Neverending Story on the brain…

I have not been to toys r us since I got the WWF wresling ring and rubber wrestlers to fight each other in. I had the best ones hulk, snuka, george the animal steel, andre the giant and my fav was ultimate warior. You could fling them at each other in the ring. I cant tell you how many dumb hours i spend pretend wrestling with them. I would then get bored and go play snafu on my intellivision.

I just got home as well….we stayed up and watched every single episode of SPACED at a friends apartment….awesomeness followed.

K, I also have a DS Lite and I hated how the fingerprints showed but I luckily found a case at Curcuit City that is like a clear plastic shell; it’s not like those stick on things, it literally ‘clicks’ the DS into place and makes it look like it has a cool force field around it! And no more fingerprints or fear of scratches….

I also wish my birhday was as cool as 07-07-07….the only thing that happened on my birhtday was Superbowl X…congrats to you and your wife Manny!

And to cover all topics: not sure it fits, but some of my friends and I always say “gorram” and “shiny” from Serenity…..see it covers “saying that didn’t catch on” as well as ” TV shows that were cancelled too early

spaced is the shit.. i watched every episode for the first time like 2 months ago, the first season especially was pure genius

I’m terrible at naming things which is one of the many factors for me not wanting children. The last time someone asked me what I’d name my children if I had any I said Sakura and Damien.

I also don’t plan of having a real wedding, I’m totally eloping in Vegas. No one’s getting a free drink on my bill, fuck that shit. I’ll get married by vampires (or maybe pirates) and have a live webcast so you can all watch. I’ll haveta make sure I get married on a Saturday so we can make an SNT of it.

RIP Momofuku Ando…He was the creator of Ramen Noodles and he founded Nissin Foods. He died of heart failure…Many hungry college kids over the years salute you…He passed on Friday at the age of 96

I saw a pretty cool set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles in Central Park once as a wee 3 year old. To anyone they would have been awesome. To ME, they SHOULD have been awesome. But for reasons, only three year olds can explain, they weren’t. I assume I mistook them for Satan incarnate. I actually have a picture of me crying out of sheer fear of the Donatello standing politely next to me. REALLY crying. Looking at that picture, I feel really awful for the guy in the costume. I don’t know why. Sympathy just oozes out of me. It’s like watching puppies drown in a sea of dead kittens.

Because no one should cry when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles think you’re cool AND are willing to hang out with you.

Oh, Crap! Congrats, Manimal!! (Sorry! Didn’t scroll up ’til just now. -.-; )

Augh! Mystie, I was totally going to put a disclaimer there about how Victoria was the good part! I was on your MySpace earlier, that’s why I thought of it. Douche-chill!
While I’m confessing, I gotta admit that thanks to Knacks I’ve spent more time on MySpace in a month than I had in a year. I wish more of you guys had eljays

When I was a kid (a huge He-Man fan of a kid) I found an ad in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch advertising that He-Man, Skeletor and several other MOTU characters would be appearing at a local department store LIVE AND IN PERSON!!!!! I pestered my parents daily and won out. We arrived at the store only to find a ginormously long line, which my parents and I waited in much to their chagrin. The line was not diminishing too quickly, and finally the store manager came by telling everyone that He-Man had to go, but that he would walk down the line quickly and say hello. WHAT A DISSAPOINTMENT!! So, as promised, He-Man and Skeletor (and maybe Man-At-Arms) walked down the aisle and waved… and sucked. They were the shittiest representations of the characters imaginable. As soon as my parents saw them they said “That’s it!? That’s what weve been waiting for?” Crappy rubber masks and low-rent costumes… one of the most depressing days of my life…

Manimal, congrats!!!! 7-7-07, huh? That’s great!
My girlfriend and I were talking about the future and kids. Wow, I just relized that I will be responsible for a human being. The finality of that alone is making my palms sweat right now so, good luck with that one.

Congrats Manimal! My daughter is a holy baby since she is 12/25/03. Can’t get much more holy than that. Not that I was all that excited to spend my Christmas in that fashion but the outcome was cool.

In regards to Darth Vader, I have a friend who does events as Darth Vader and is often asked by Lucas to show up at things. It is cool but also sad and wierd at the same time. He has an entire troop/squad/group that participate and these people are fanatics to say the least. They even have a Darth Maul in the group. I have a pretty cool pic on myspace (my hubbys page actually) of me when I was about 6 months pregnant posing with Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper at the grand opening of the new Cine-Capri here in Arizona. If any of you are interested I think I can get you a real working light saber at a fair price since my friend is one of those type of fans.

BTW did we ever find out what Matt traded his game in for? I am still hoping for Trauma Center.

Cotton Candy kind of creeps me out to eat because the grindy feeling on your teeth from all of the sugar is just … ick. I do like the flavor of cotton candy in jelly bellies! LOVE THE JELLY BELLIES!!!

Can’t think of any missed catch phrases off the top of my head but one that caught on with me and I still use (not sure why though) is from Sex and the City…F*ck Buddy…Love that one!

I went to a few of those “character parade” things at TRU when I was a kid. The most prominent I can remember was one featuring the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I was all excited and shit because I was expecting the REAL Mr. Stay Puft to appear. I was expecting the roof of the building to come off and there, standing tall over the whole place, would be his smiling face. Imagine my dissapointment when Mr. Stay Puft appeared…and he was about 5 feet 10 inches. The costume was top notch, I’ll give it that, but I was still bummed out. Ah well. Memories.

I concede, you guys were up as long as I was. I just didn’t post for the last 4 hours of my wakefulness

I am soooo getting an ArmorLite Shaun, I just found them on Circuit City’s website!

I started playing III last night and even though GI said they didn’t like the touchscreen controls for it, I’m using nothing but the touchscreen. I cannot stand D-pads for Isometric through true 3D games (VII and Xenogears come to mind), and it is no exeption here. But I can do EVERYTHING from the touchscreen and it’s honestly making me giddy.

This combined with the Gambit system in XII marks a new era of control in RPGs for me. 95% of the time I’m only using the analog sticks in that one. Innovation is beautiful

Holy shit Matt, I went to one of those Toys R’ Us events too! They had Strawberry Shortcake, Fred and Barne from the Flintstones, Geoffrey and his family and Spiderman.

Congrats on the 777 thing Manimal! (and the baby too)
Last night was one of my rare going out nights, and I whooped it up at high as I could. I sang “Bust a Move” from Young MC karaoke. I think I chose it cause I was so shocked to see it in a hole in the wall bar with mostly classic rock and country being sung, that and the vodka shots didn’t hurt either.

Other than vague memories of watching the original “Battlestar Galaxia” in re-runs as a very small child, I’ve never been into it, either. I’m not really that heavily into sci-fi, period. “Star Wars” is about as far as I go in that direction.

God Matt, you were a lucky kid. The closest Toys R’ Us to me when I was a kid was in Mays Landing NJ, 45 minutes from Cape May County. I was in college before I actually saw the inside.

Costumed characters never bothered me or, as far as I could tell, my sisters - we were used to them popping up from time to time during the summer on the Wildwood Boardwalk and, more rarely, in Cape May. The costumes were cheaper and more obvious than Disney World’s would be, though, which sort of ruined the illusion early on.

Awww, shucks, geez, golly…Thanks for all da congrats everybody. I’ll keep you posted as this situation as it develops.

On another topic, I bought 2 extra JONES SODA HOLIDAY PACKS for ebay. How much should I start the listing? I am worried that it may be too late and I am not going to get the big score I had hoped. What do you think? (This was my 3rd topic for last night so I am officially out of material).

i normally just do a completed items search on ebay to get an idea of what stuff goes for

she said hello, yadda yadda yadda come stand next to me u fine fellow what u want, u got it, what u want, baaaaaby u got it (just bust a move)

Congrats, Manimal! So how far apart will your kids be? My boys are 3-1/2 years apart, and my daughter came along eight years later (my ex hadn’t wanted any more even though I really did - but luckily for me, we had a contraceptive failure - let that be a lesson to you all). So I got my little girl after all.

As far as names go, mine are Brandon James, Cary Thomas (I would have used Kerry if he had been a girl), and Anna Kathleen.

It can be hard picking a name for your child, that’s for sure. My mom ended up using the same middle name for me and my sisters; I’m not sure if she was just lazy or what. So we have Barbara Ann, Jo Anne (first name is just Jo), and Patricia Ann. But there are definitely some bizarro names out there that kids get saddled with…I wonder if anyone has done a study that correlates a person’s name with the type of career or job path they end up on…

Hey, just read the rest of the Thread; Congrats Manimal and Mrs. Manimal! You should name the kid “Box”

Man, you guys are showing out with these names

but I am not the one you should be talking to because I will have little to say in the matter. Not because I won’t be asked or whatever but because I hate every name. She’ll pick a good one and I will finally say, “Sure, what do I care?”
But I do agree that naming a girl is a lot easier for us than naming a boy.
I guess the JONES SODA will have to wait for me to take a picture but I did list some other items. Just cleaning house for ‘07!!
Good night everybody.

Cameron, I don’t know. If it’s a girl, what kind of career path would she end up on with a name like ‘Box’?

I went to one of those TRU things back in 1990 during the height of Turtlemania. I went there especially just to see Michaelangelo, who was appearing along with Geoffrey’s family and (I think)Barbie. I can’t remember who else was there. Ah, memories.

My professional hunch is that the relationship between names and jobs is solely correlational IF THAT, despite typically held notions like you are referring to Trish. Although collecting enough data would be fairly daunting, if we were going to it’d be a Quasi experiment at best looking at age and/or race, gender, etc. etc. The usual subject variable suspects

In fact, I wouldn’t put it past someone to have already done research on the topic. I’d look it up, but I’m not all that interested in it. I suggest hitting up PsychInfo among other academic search engines. You’d need a subscription though, so for ease of use visit your closest university library.

Name iiiiiitttt……”Giant Googly-Eyed Walrus That Pops Out Of The Bathtub.” Ehh, it was off the top of my head….

The Cylon ad is copyrighted 1978; hooray for ancient videotapes! Someday when I have a little more free money/time, I’ll go trading ’round the Internet for more of them…

Haha, Battlestar Galactica. My stepdad brought over a stack of DVDs last summer for me to watch. In it were two tv shows, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica (the recentish incarnation). I popped Firefly in first, figuring I’d do the short one first. I LOVED IT. I’m a total Browncoat now. After like 3 times through, I decided it might be healthy to watch something else for a while, so I threw Battlestar in. I fell asleep within 20 minutes. I tried several more times, and kept falling asleep, even if I wasn’t tired. So I went back to Firefly.

Mara- Firefly is a good time….I ended up going with my friend to the midnight showing of Serenity when it came out…I’ve never been to a fanboy showing of anything but it was interesting to say the least…..you should get that movie if you love the show Firefly

Cricket-
Your post prompted a little happy clap from me. I am a displaced desert rat from PHX and went to the old Cine Capri to see Titanic on Christmas day ‘97. If I remember correctly, that was the last movie shown there right? We all got these little commemorative “tickets.” That was a great theatre. I’m glad to hear they built a new one… hope it’s as nice as the original. If you see this can you tell me where they built it?

I remember getting to meet Geoffery and family when I was a kid. I made the terrible social faux-pas of mistaking Mrs. Geoffery for Mr, and spent the rest of the day in pants-wetting-level embarassment.

Wow, the 80s were so much cooler, now that I think back on it… sure maybe the toys have gotten a bit more modern, the molds for the figures have gotten better, but kids now adays dont have the same probaganda that we used to have, it seems like times are as exciting for kids these days as they were for us in the 80s. I think this happend with the death of Saterday morning cartoons, and the easier availablity of cable television, and 24 hour cartoon stations. Or maybe…I just dont pay attention to the toys my little girl plays with.
Jason

Now that’s out of my system…if I ever have kids, and if I had a girl, I’d do my best to name her Elita. Mostly just because I think it’s a pretty name.

I think I might have mentioned this before, but my neighbor growing up was a store manager at TRU…and I (or my mom) totally reaped the benefits. I distinctly remember meet and greets w/ costumed characters on more than one occasion. The Care Bears one made me sooo happy. They had face painting at that event.

This is just something that makes me feel older. But how great was that compared to what is now formidable advertising.

I can commiserate with the naming dilemma. I was fortunate in that I wasn’t the first-born female in my family. My sister was the one fated to having the exact same first and middle names as most of the women on my father’s side. Can I tell you how annoying/mind-numbing it is to go to a family reunion and see 28 women all name “Mary Elizabeth”? You run out of variations really quickly, let me tell you that much. It’s probably a good thing more than half of that family isn’t speaking to us. More Mary Elizabeths to get confused.

I like cotton candy but hate cotton candy flavored products like tooth paste. The soul exception being cotton candy bubble gum, but that leaves a funny film on the teeth.

I too plan on getting married in Vegas. Most likely by an Elvis impersonator. Or a Liberace impersonator. Or on a cruise ship. A cruise ship would greatly limit the amount of annoying family members drinking on my dime.

The thought of empty character suits is really creepy. I can completely understand freaking out over that.

He’s a huge dick. He hates pretty much everything, but worships at the altar of Stanley Kubrick. I think we can attribute that all the way back to when he got the name FORREST RICE!

Oh, and I got to meet the Ninja Turtles when I was 4 at Walt Disney World (at the Disney-MGM Studios). I knew they weren’t real, but I still loved it anyway.

One time ” Darth Vader” came to a local amusement park in my hometown of Shreveport,La. I was 6 and was absolutely thrilled, apparently Mr Vader was to because he actually rode the Ferris Wheel with me…..even at 6 at that exact moment I knew that this imposter was full of shit

Man, I remember those commercials airing when I was a wee pup. Only for whatever reason, I thought they were advertising the types of toys they sold, not appearances of real live Care Bears.

Looking back, this was a good thing. Because I would have gone apeshit if I had known, and my mother would have been driven mad at my chanting of “IWANNAMEETACAREBEAR” ad infinitum.

Somewhere in this house, I still have the autographed picture I got when Darth Vader came to my local TRU.

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