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American Bandito Pop-Culture Roadshow for Oct 30, 2019


Pa-pow! This is another one of my pop-culture roadshow videos. A little show that I'm doing during the offseason of my American Bandito podcast. I look at some of the stuff that I have collected and try to find out a little bit of history about it.

photo of vintage card game set

The Very Fashionable Miss Piggy Card Game From 1980

This game is literally just cards. Some of them have Miss Piggy in different outfits, I don't know why most of her outfits look like she's from the 1800s? And then some of them are just numbers. I've tried to read the instructions on how to play this game and it's confusing as all get-out.

I found out that Milton Bradley actually got the rights to all the games for the Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock.

Most of the artwork for all the Jim Hensen, books and games and stuff was done by an artist named Michael Smollin. One of the first things that he did was the artwork for 'The Monster at the End of this book'. Which was the book where Grover goes don't turn the page because the title said there's a monster.

Michael Smollin was an advertising executive but he wanted to go back to drawing. Jim Henson signed him on exclusively.

Photo of a vintage card game set

Waterworks Leaky Pipe Card Game by Parker Brothers 1970

Here's a weird game I don't know much about it, I don't recognize it, It's also a card game and it's called Waterworks.

So you've got a set of cards that come in a bathtub shaped holder. There are tiny wrenches like ten of them and the whole concept is you pick these cards, they have pictures of pipes on them, you lay them out and you just try to connect these pipes.

I don't know why in the 70s they were like 'hey you know what we need more of games about? Plumbing'.

A photo collage of two robot dog toys

Wonder dog and FurReal Pal Dog

So the FurReal Pal is from 2014 and it's cute as all get out. The Wonder Dog, I found no information about this. I can't find it online anywhere and I totally remember the stupid thing.

The FurReal Pal dogs they say were made for kids that are allergic to dogs. It's a realistic robot thing that sits up and begs and you can pet.

The Wonder Dog just flips and barks and that's about all it does. And it's a lot more robotic. It came with a doghouse which is what the original box looks like. There's not even a date on this thing. I know it was as at least in the 70s or 80s.

Photo of two retro color glass mugs. one yellow, one green

Anchor Hocking Fire King Two-Color Milk Glass Coffee Cups

I find a lot of dishware. One of the cool things about collecting this stuff is I get to go 'what was the deal with these'?

These are what are known as Fire-King dishware. The reason they were called Fire King was because of the way that they were fired it I guess? And they were supposed to withstand a lot of stuff. So people used them for cooking cuz they were really durable.

And you would get them if you bought like a bag of flour or they'd have a sale where they'd be like, fill up your gas tank and they would give these mugs away with that. That's why a lot of people from the seventies and early eighties kind of remember these.

Screen caption from an instagram story of a workout cassette tape

Fataway Weightloss Cassette Tape

I found this cassette tape, it's called Fataway from the 90s. It's a motivational cassette tape for losing weight and it's got like an 80s MTV metal chick on it.

I listened to it and it's not at all what I thought it would be. It's a guy talking over constant adult contemporary jazz. It's so clinical and medical! It's not an exercise tape which is what I was hoping it was gonna be. That would have been fantastic. But it's seriously two sides of a cassette with a guy reading the concept of what food is and how it works with your body.

That's what I got for today! Some of the things I found, some of the things I've learned. There you go.

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