C for...

CANDY: 

Remember these candy displays?

I'm not sure how often saw these things. The main grocery store in my town for years was a locally owned one and I can't recall if they had things like this. But this does seem familiar. This is one of many things that seem to pop up as memes on Facebook. I know I would have had fun digging through this, like the proverbial kid in a candy store--almost literally in this instance.

And there were these things:

Did these really encourage smoking real cigarettes and cigars? I know I chewed on some of these (mostly the candy cigarettes) at some point. At my 30-year high school reunion in 2019, the attendees were presented with a goodie bag of 80s candy, including the candy cigarettes, which I did not think were still around!

And this gave me flashbacks as well:

Ah, the candy buttons. I'm not sure how many of these I ever had, if I did at all. I did have plenty of the Fun Dip, though. And root beer and grape juice. 

What was your favorite candy as a child?

COLORFORMS:

One of my favorite toys was Colorforms.  I had several of these sets, one of my favorites being the Holly Hobbie General Store set.

It was always fun sticking the vinyl pieces on the surfaces without needing adhesives. The fun was endless. 

I know I had other Colorforms sets, but can't think off-hand which ones. It's possible a Snoopy (I loved the Peanuts strip) one might have been in my collection, but I am not so sure.

CASSETTES TO CDs:

For my music enjoyment, cassette tapes were my primary mode. I used my mom's old tape recorder to play them before getting a tape player. Even when my mom got a record and tape player, tapes were still my primary mode of collecting my favorite tunes.

I did have this sort of tape holder, though not many of the tapes seen in the photo were in my collection. In fact, I don't think any of them ever were! But this picture sums up how most people collected tapes at that time.

Also remember blank tapes and making mixed tapes. And calling the radio station to record a song on a blank tape, and trying to fix an unwound tape with a pencil.

It was in 1991 that  made the transition to CDs. I still have my tall standing rack of CDs, but have not listened to them in years. I'm hesitant to let them go, however. And I still have my players, but am not sure if it still works. I recently found some CD audiobooks at a thrift store, and am wondering if I can play them. I my have to try using my DVD player for that. I'm also reluctant to give up my DVDs as well and am still getting them from Netflix, even with my new smart TV. But that's a story for another time...

CATALOGS:

Memes like these have come up many times on Facebook:

Yes, I always enjoyed looking through the annual Christmas catalog. We always got the JC Penney one. It would arrive as early as September, when Christmas seemed like an eternity away. Looking for toys was what I mostly looked at. I loved seeing pages like this:

These were one of my favorite toys. Speaking of which...

CABBAGE PATCH KIDS:

Yes, I got one of those, even though I was a teenager when they became popular and easier to obtain. This was two years after the fights over the toys that occurred in 1983 as many parents scrambled to find one of these for their children, causing riots at retail stores. This was parodied in the 90s holiday film Jingle All the Way, and was even made into an HBO film itself.

I know I still have my doll. It's outside in the garage in one of the plastic storage bins. 

COSTUMES:

Remember when kids' costumes for Halloween looked like this?

Costumes packaged in boxes that consisted of a vinyl smock and plastic mask with a rubber band that would break in no time, and the name and picture of the character on the smock. Some of the characters depicted were questionable--did anyone ever say they wanted to be Father Murphy or Captain Stubing? These sound  like some of the least popular ones that would left over for those waiting until the last minute to buy one of these costumes. 

I cannot recall ever wearing one of these, despite how long they were around. I loved Strawberry Shortcake  and the Smurfs, but don't recall seeing either of those costumes for sale. My mom must have been great at making costumes. 

COLA WARS:

Remember the Cola Wars of the 1980s? I seem to recall drinking some Pepsi then, but today I'm Team Coca-Cola! No Pepsi for me now!

Team Coca-Cola forever!

And I have a vague recollection of these sweatshirts:

I never went after these, though I don't know why. Though I do remember some girls at school wearing them, once on Homecoming Day, since red and white are my high school's colors.

And I never cared either way if I drank Sprite, 7Up, or Slice.

CEREAL BOX TOYS:

There was a time when free toys could be found inside cereal boxes. Many kids would dig through the box to find the toy. According to this, some boxes had records on the backs. This must've been before I was born, because I don't think I ever saw a cereal box with record on it. And I don't know how many cereal box toys I ever had. Often it would be a promo for a movie or something and people would try to collect all the toys in the series. Chances were many got the same toy more than once. I know had one or more of these license plates from Honeycomb Cereal.

There were also mail-in offers from cereals. There was one I got that I will be taking about in another A to Z post.  Stay tuned.

Also, Cracker Jack popcorn always had a surprise in each box. One prize I got many times from these boxes was fake tattoos.

Here is why they stopped having such promos.

COLORING BOOKS & CRAYONS:

My childhood certainly would not have felt complete with coloring books and a set of crayons. I cannot even speculate how many different coloring books I could have had over the years. And how many boxes of crayons. I know I once had Crayola, back when they had the built-in sharpener in the box. And when at day care, they would also have crayons, most of which would be worn down to a stub, with the labels torn off. It was always hard to tell the dark blue, black and purple crayons apart when this happened.

One coloring book I remember was the Baby Alive one. And I had at least one of Barbie, The Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake, Snoopy and some Disney one.

CALIFORNIA RAISINS:

A series of raisin commercials featuring animated anthropomorphic raisins dancing to "I Heard Through the Grapevine," this promo lasted until 1994. Toys, books, and even a cartoon series (which didn't last long) all came out of these promos. The origin of the promos can be read about here.

COMICS:

I wasn't too big on comic books. My primary source of comics was in newspapers. I especially loved seeing them in color on Sundays. I did have a Peanuts comic collection, though (more on that to come). I regularly read the San Francisco Chronicle.

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CLOSING for today. DON'T forget to read tomorrow.