The Nostalgia Thread :)

[Tien Long]

[center]I concur. I'll always be grateful to Wizard Magazine for helping me discover other companies besides "The Big Two"!

Totally. At the same time, Wizard published special magazines that caught you up to speed with titles. For me, I'll always be thankful for their Avengers special back in 1999:



I was a total noob when it came to the Avengers. I had just heard about the buzz that the Busiek/Perez run was having and wanted to know more about the characters. This issue filled me in on tons of Avengers history and their best moments. Under Siege, Vision materializing into Count Nefaria, the fight against Korvac, and their appearance during Daredevil's "Born Again" storyline. I never realized just how awesome the Avengers were until that issue.

[Tien Long]

As the holidays are starting to approach, thought it would be apropos to post some interesting holiday commercials. The one that I remember had to be the Hess toy truck commercial, specifically the one from 1992 (disregard the rock music):



It's been a while since I've passed by a Hess gas station. But I certainly remember the commercials, especially this one. A truck carrying a sweet looking Porshe? Holy crap, where could I get one?!

[K7P5V]

Totally. At the same time, Wizard published special magazines that caught you up to speed with titles. For me, I'll always be thankful for their Avengers special back in 1999:



I was a total noob when it came to the Avengers. I had just heard about the buzz that the Busiek/Perez run was having and wanted to know more about the characters. This issue filled me in on tons of Avengers history and their best moments. Under Siege, Vision materializing into Count Nefaria, the fight against Korvac, and their appearance during Daredevil's "Born Again" storyline. I never realized just how awesome the Avengers were until that issue.

Indeed. Always looked forward to those specials. They were quite impressive (IMHO):

[MajorHoy]

As the holidays are starting to approach, thought it would be apropos to post some interesting holiday commercials. The one that I remember had to be the Hess toy truck commercial, specifically the one from 1992 (disregard the rock music):



It's been a while since I've passed by a Hess gas station. But I certainly remember the commercials, especially this one. A truck carrying a sweet looking Porshe? Holy crap, where could I get one?!

I think they stopped selling the trucks at gas stations a while back, but they still run the promo every year and you can buy them online.

I think this year they have a Hess cargo plane with a jet plane inside of it.

[Tien Long]

This suddenly came to mind:



I think many of us are familiar with CBGB's. It's the birthplace of punk. Icons like The Ramones, The Talking Heads, and Blondie got their starts there. Now, I never went to the venue. However, it's significant to me because of my roommate. Indeed, while many known how important CBGB's was back in the 1970s, it was still popular for decades afterwards. I can still remember in the early 2000s my college roommate coming back from shows there. I believe other students at my university talked about the place and stating how bands played, how they played so much that one more song wasn't possible at all, of t-shirts drenched in sweat from the energy of a show.

I'm unfamiliar with CBGB's now. I remember it closing, but now I read how the owners are trying to reopen or something. Still, even though I never attended an event there, the memories of it are indelible.

[Tien Long]

One of my favorite hangouts back in the day:



If any of you go to the end of Mott St. in Manhattan's Chinatown, you'll find Chinatown Fair. Chinatown Fair has been one of the most storied arcades in NYC. It's mainly due to the fact that it's the last classic arcade in the city. As a college student, I'd pass through the arcade and just take in the sights. Players from across the city played one another as they hooked up their PS2 controllers to Street Fighter, Tekken, or KOF. One of the best competitive fighters in history, Justin Wong, practiced there. Of course, there would be some kids dancing over at the DDR machine in the corner.

Like CBGB's, Chinatown Fair has had it's up's and down's. It has closed and reopened numerous times. But yeah, memories of cold Friday nights and seeing players duke it out were pretty cool.

[seismic-2]

I'm unfamiliar with CBGB's now. I remember it closing, but now I read how the owners are trying to reopen or something. Still, even though I never attended an event there, the memories of it are indelible.

Here is the clothing store that opened in 2008 in the former CBGB site:

[ed2962]

Originally, created to draw attention to the plight of The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union,these PSAs became pretty popular for a few years late 70's/early 80's. As kid I couldn't have told you what the ILGWU was, but I do remember a number of adults saying things like, "When you buy foreign cars, you put Americans out of work!"

[ed2962]

Watching this I was like, "Wasn't there an SNL parody of this or something?" And yes, there was...

[MajorHoy]

Originally, created to draw attention to the plight of The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union,these PSAs became pretty popular for a few years late 70's/early 80's. As kid I couldn't have told you what the ILGWU was, but I do remember a number of adults saying things like, "When you buy foreign cars, you put Americans out of work!"

I use to know all the words to the "Look For the Union Label" song.

Years later, I was caught off guard when I heard for the first time the actual song that was originally based on!

[Tien Long]

A ha, thought I had imagined this, but here it is. Did anyone else read these big hardcover books in their local libraries?:




These are 1981's Spider-Man: The Secret Story of Marvel's World Famous Wall-Crawler and The Incredible Hulk: The Secret Story of Marvel's Gamma-Powered Goliath . Both were published by Children's Press. The Spider-Man title offered a reprint of Amazing Fantasy #15, I believe annuals which explained his abilities and gear, some essays and commentary, as well as a reprint featuring the Chameleon. In a similar vein, the Incredible Hulk title offered a reprint of his debut issue as well as a story featuring the Absorbing Man.

Both of these were my gateways into Spider-Man and Hulk history. As a 5-6 year old kid, I started to buy and read Spider-Man comics at my local convenience store. However, I was oblivious to their origins. This book served as a very good primer. Plus, it was offered at readily accessible locations, my town and school libraries.

After school and on summer days, I remember taking these huge tomes and being enraptured. The essays in the middle of the book were a little above my reading level, but the reprints, nearly 30 years old by then, were still (no pun intended) amazing. The art, the fights, the abilities, resonated with me. Afterwards, I'd be so hyped up that I'd head back to the convenience store for comics or trading cards, wanting to delight more in these marvelous (pun intended) characters.

Books like these helped reach a wide audience. Indeed, Newsrama published an article about similar hardcover books recently and interviewed notable comic fans like Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada:

https://www.gamesradar.com/marvel-co...ck-in-the-70s/

Apparently, they had the same experience I did. As I'm sure many of us here had as well. Just young kids getting into these characters and wanting to know more and finding it at their libraries.

[Zauriel]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-Chi%27s

Chi-Chi's served good food and had good service. Too bad they went out of business twenty years ago.

[Kirby101]

I never ordered one, but always wondered what you got for $6.98?

[ed2962]

I remember this Calvin Klein ad campaign being pretty popular but a fair amount of folks thought it was a little creepy...



Some people were like it seems like an audition for 70's porno, others were like the narrator sounds like someone's predator uncle...

[Zauriel]

What an unsightly end for Hong Kong's Jumbo floating restaurant. It was an iconic landmark that is worth preserving. I visited Hong Kong a few times before but never visited that restaurant.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/artic...hnk/index.html