halgardner's blog

Some call it Retro Chic or even something as simple as Old School, but I prefer the term Nostalgia Culture. At a time when the technology moves faster than we can consume it, our generation has longings for a simpler time. I'm not going to go into a luddite diatribe here, but it seems that nowadays before we can really begin to enjoy a piece of new technology, the next newer, better thing is available. The iPhone gave away to a new model a year later, having those who shelled out their hard earned money, do the same again for a couple of new features and an open SDK, which in a few months will be overshadowed by the introduction of the Google Android phones and SDK, offering the same gizmo and applications much cheaper. Just as XBOX and Playstation 2 were beginning to push the boundaries of their capabilities, the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3 were available, making those consoles obsolete, and I have no doubt that as soon as the Playstation 3 becomes affordable for the average American, Playstation 4 will be ready to ship. Not to say that there is a rage against this particular trend. In fact, we are consuming these things now more than ever. But, there is also a trend towards Nostalgia Culture for the modern 25-35 year old. Wedged in the crux between Generation X and Generation Y, we are a generation without a home. Generation X encompasses all those individuals born between 1965 and 1981 and Generation Y is supposed to span the birth dates 1982 to 1994. Now, I'm sorry sociologists, but given the way the world works now, a generation is not fifteen or ten years, as it may have been for the Baby Boomers or Greatest Generation. At most, it is five years. In a decade or so, it might even be three years. Are you telling me that someone born in 1982 has the same world view as someone born in 1994? Someone born in 1994 doesn't remember the world without an internet or cell phones. They wouldn't know what to do if they got into a car with roll down windows. Someone born in the late sixties came to the peak of their Generation X ennui in the early nineties, embodying the slacker, grunge world their parents had handed them, but I wasn't old enough to enjoy what Woodstock '94 represented.

So now, in an effort to explain why I am different from the 40 year old that is still in my 'Generation', I introduce a middle ground, Generation 8-bit.

In the early '80s, there were a handful of kids that had an Atari, or were still enjoying the number pad basics of Intellivision. These were the kids whose houses everyone wanted to be at. But in 1985, everything changed. With the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System, video games became an integral part of everyone's life. Almost everybody got a Nintendo over the course of the next 5 years and in the time between 1985 and 1994, there were over 750 games released by major developers alone! That includes the three years that Super Nintendo was in production and making games. 750+ games in an almost 10 year period, and for those of us in Generation 8-bit, that time period was at the peak of our playing time, after we had emerged from the sandbox and before we peaked into adolescence and found other distractions like the opposite sex. This was also a time when Video Stores had become commonplace and had started to carry Nintendo games to rent. So, at my optimum playing, I probably owned about 25 Nintendo games, but via rental, I had played hundreds.

Now, loyal readers, I have not busted into this little rant to show how the kids today don't appreciate what they have, but to revel in the fact that I have something that they don't. In fact, a whole generation of people has this nostalgic love for the world of 8-bit. For the past four years, there has been an art show in Los Angeles that celebrates the Nostalgia Culture of the 8-bit generation. Artists creating a world that reinvigorates our love for Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Mega Man. It is a show called I Am 8-bit. I was lucky enough to see this show in the few short weeks that it was installed in a storefront gallery on Hollywood Boulevard and I can tell you my friends, I didn't stop smiling the entire time I was in there. It wasn't just seeing my favorite characters from Street Fighter II or Donkey Kong depicted in paint and sculpture for the world to enjoy forever, it was the combination of that nostalgic feeling and the production of some of the flat out most impressive artwork I have ever seen. It was a reminder that these characters were not just something that helped us escape our lives or keep us entertained, but that they were part of us. Part of who we are now. For Generation 8-bit, the Konami Code is not just a secret password for Contra, but a secret password for generational camaraderie. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start, my friends. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start, indeed.

These are the pieces at this year's show. Each and every one of them I would love to have hanging on my wall right now. But, like all great art, these pieces were priced appropriately, and those prices were appropriately out of my price range.

Of course, I couldn't leave empty handed and managed to pick up something to my liking, and I think Little Mac and Soda Popinski will look great on my wall.

I am proud to be part of Generation 8-bit. I am 8-bit and so are you.

Everyone has great memories of cereal box prizes. They are our generation’s Cracker Jack prize at a time when Cracker Jack prizes had stopped being the whistles and glow-in-the-dark decoder rings that our parents enjoyed, and started to become stickers and temporary tattoos. I was always a fan of digging through a box of Cap’n Crunch or Corn Pops and finding a Cap’n Crunch water squirter or submarine that ran on baking soda. Even at my most ambitious, I would never have to save more than 2 UPC labels to send away for something and beg mom to write the check for $1.49 shipping and handling. My favorite prizes were the sticky hands and magic wall walkers that would destroy the paint job in the living room, but were always hours of mindless fun. Alas, it is a memory of a simpler age and, a few years ago, the cereal box prize went the way of the decoder ring.

That is not to say that it disappeared entirely. For the past few years, most boxes of Lucky Charms or Fruity Pebbles were adorned with a free CD-Rom or two track music CD. A CD-Rom? I suppose that kids now have their primary entertainment come from computers, but it just doesn’t seem right to be coming from a cereal box. I found this trend to be stupid. You can’t destroy your parents house or shoot your little brother in the eye with a CD-Rom. You can’t take a CD-Rom outside and play in the dirt, well, you can, but that’s LAME. That is the whole point of the free prize. Stupid entertainment, using the imagination, and occasionally hurting the people and things around you.

I decided to do a little investigating. Wandering my way down the cereal aisle, I saw many familiar childhood cereals; Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Frosted Flakes, Trix, but the promotional cereal has disappeared. The likes of Mr. T, Super Mario Bros, and Batman Cereals don’t exist. Nope, not one box of Urkel-O’s. I was sort of expecting something, anything, Spongebob Cereal, Hannah Montana Cereal. Apparently, advertisers have pretty much abandoned the promotional cereal and switched to fruit snacks. Barbie, Indiana Jones, Spongebob, Batman, and Spiderman can all be found in the guise of a fruit snack, but there was ne’er a cereal to be found. Post cereals have even gone so far as to ban the CD-Rom and now have a website called Postopia.com. You collect “tokens” on the cereal boxes and use the “tokens” to buy games, hints, and codes. Several of the Kellogg’s boxes also had the send away offers of old. Again, they use the “token” system so kids can collect between 4 and 8 “tokens” to get a Shrek Hat, Kung Fu Panda Pandana, or Indiana Jones Search Light Flashlight. 8 tokens? Maybe I am just remembering my lack of patience as a six year old, but if I had to wait for my mom to buy 8 boxes of cereal, then wait 6 weeks for shipping and handling, I would have long forgotten what Kung Fu Panda was and would be on to the next media enhanced kid thing the world had forced upon me.

A Side Note: I know that cereal prizes may be gone for good and that advertisers are looking for different ways to entice the youth of today, but this may just have gone too far. Kids are able to get a free Kung Fu Panda wind-up toy included in, you guessed it, a pack of batteries. Batteries? Oh Oh Mom! Buy me some batteries! There is a toy inside! I promise I’ll use the batteries as soon as I get home! Someone might have overextended their blanket marketing campaign.

I am pleased to say, fair readers, the cereal prize is not dead! After a constant scan of the breakfast cereals, my eyes fell upon the glowing beacon of two cereals keeping the dream alive. Golden Grahams offered a free Dark Knight Batman Disc Launcher inside and Frosted Flakes had a free Indiana Jones Adventure Spoon. Adventure Spoon! Now that is what I’m talking about! It was never just a sticky hand. It was an Amazing Extendo Grabber! These two boxes made themselves into my cart post haste and I could hardly contain my excitement driving home to find my treasure.

First, I tore into the Frosted Flakes, because you could never open the box and get the prize without having some cereal first, and I might as well eat the cereal with my ADVENTURE SPOON. I will admit, I was disappointed to find that the spoon was in it’s little plastic pouch sitting on top of the sealed bag of cereal. No digging. Just right there on top. Fortunately, it is cool. Two pieces. It lights up. AND there is a switch to turn the ability to light on and off, along with the button to make the spoon light up, so the battery doesn’t die if the spoon is left in the silverware drawer in the ‘on’ position for too long. The Golden Grahams did not disappoint in the quest for a nostalgic experience. Tearing open the bag of cereal, I tipped the box ever so slightly on its side shaking the tiny grahams down enough to expose the sight of the plastic wrapper snuggly situated at the bottom of the package, careful not to let any of the still precious sweet cereal spill to the floor. Puffing the sides of the box out to gain easier access, I plunged my hand in, trying to grasp at my prize with two fingers as the rest of my hand crushed any Golden Grahams that got in my way. Pulling my prize from the box, I was pleased to see that in both cases, I got the same version of the prize that was advertised on the box. The spoons are collect all three and the disc launcher are collect all four. As I remember it, we would always buy the box with the version of the prize we wanted advertised on it, but rarely got the one we wanted and would have to go back the next week and give it another try.

As I dug my adventure spoon into a bowl of Golden Grahams dripping with milk, I reveled in my quarry. Cereal prizes may have become a rarity, but these prizes perfectly reflected the usefulness of the prizes of old. I couldn’t wait to finish my breakfast and go out into my neighbors back yard and dig in the dirt with my light up treasure spoon. That is, of course, after I tired of shooting my brother in the eye with my disc launcher.

If you are interested in seeing other cereal prizes from your youth, check out The Cereal Prize Project. I had forgotten about the Willow Coin Trick. Hours of fun!

Also, just in case you wondered how many boxes of cereal you would have to buy to, in fact, collect all four? Check out The Cereal Box Problem.

Hal Gardner, signing off.