Thursday Throwback: Zubaz/Hammer Pants

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: Zubaz/Hammer Pants.)

For weeks Jake has been asking be to highlight "Hammer Pants" in the weekly Thursday Throwback. Having zero clue what these were, I chalked it up to him being sick and delirious for the 453rd time this year, pretended it was a dece idea and moved on to something else. It wasn't until today that I realized he was like righhhttt. Balla IM'd me saying "Zubaz" would be a good idea.

What the F are Zubaz? He sent me a pic:

Ohh that's right, those things. I knew exactly what it was then. I remember kids wearing these huge baggy softish pants usually in ridiculous colors and designs. Still a bit unsure, I called Wolfie to see if he knew what they were. He said yes and sent me a pic of him waring them back in the day:

See, both comfortable and fashionable, Zubaz were the Troy Brown of fashion -- they could do it all. Now you don't have to be that beast above to rock 'em. Many people did. Lots of middle schoolers, lots of people at the gym and particularly a lot of bros.

Successful people, poor people and everyone in between dabbled in Zubaz or Hammer Pants. Even unreal 80s-style athletes:

And that's back when the Dolphins were good. Coincidence? 'Fraid not my friend.

Of course, not all Zubaz were Hammer Pants and not all Hammer Pants were Zubaz. In fact, Zubs were just one brand made by a couple of gym dudes who wanted to give extreme roid heads pants they could fit in without them coming apart at the seams after a diesel power sled.

Hammer Pants were any kind of ridiculous baggy style pant made famous by, you guessed it, MC Hammer:

I actually didn't even own a pair of these. Not too sure why. Was I too up-tight? Was mom not down with these at JC Penny's or Filenes? Prolly not.

The good news -- for all of us -- is that Zubaz, the original, are back:



--Nick

Thursday Late Throwback: Yikes! Pencils

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: Yikes! Pencils.).

After last week's Back to School post, I had school supplies on the brain. This post could have easily been about Trapper Keepers and how sweet those beastly Velcro folders were, but instead I wanted to get specific. Specifically, Yikes! pencils.

Yikes, as you may recall, were sweet multi-colored, crazy patterned pencils. They had weird erasers that were strange colors, green and yellow tips and some had different feels with zig-zag patterns and such.

Some of them even changed colors when you wrote. Still, the bread and butter were the ones that changed different colors when your sharpened them. I mean, yea, it was just multi-colored wood product slammed into once pencil, but it seemed magical at the time. A green pencil for one week, a yellow one for the next! Wooo!

I don't even know why these were popular. I guess making any type of school thing "cool" works, but these just seem pretty gay to me now.

But back in the 90s they were certainly sweet. Writing with a regular No. 2? Boring. You needed a swirly red and yellow with a purple eraser to complete that worksheet. You could maybe even store your Yikes pencils in your trapper keeper. Now that's a beastly student.

The other underrated thing about Yikes! was the exclamation point. Which can first, Yikes! or Yahoo!..? Did Yahoo! rip off Yikes! or vice versa? It looks awfully similar with the Y, doesn't it? A true mystery, no doubt.

As always, leave any memories in the comment section.

--Nick

Thursday Throwback: First Day of School

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: First Day of School.).


I know technically some of you reading this actually had or will soon have another first day of school. But college doesn't really count. Not everyone starts the same day, you might have night classes, you might only be in a class for an hour and that's it...I'm talking about the REAL first day of school, from elementary up to high school.

That's a first day. You get to see everyone you know, some of whom you haven't seen all summer. You are a little pissed about being back in school but excited at the same time to see friends and play sports or participate in clubs or whatever you do.

There are a few things you always have for the first day:

1) A fresh outfit. This is universal. You always wear something new the first day, from Kindergarten to senior year. If you're like me, back to school clothes shopping probably went from being your least favorite thing to one of the best activities you could possibly do. I wish my mom would take me this year. Jealous of my younger brothers and sisters getting an influx of fresh seasonal gear. You always end up looking something like this kid:

-Note the freshy white shirt. Thing is unstained right now. The sneaks, even though they are black, look pretty shiny and new. The lunchbox and backup are also looking good. The hair is short, which brings me to ...

2) Haircut. Gotta get cut up nice for school. Whether it's the wiffle, the bowl cut or the spiked in the front look, you had to hit the barber shop a week or so before. Girls, I'm not too sure how you handled it. I feel like a girl haircut is so random and not on a strict schedule that you could do it at anytime. Get your bangs trimmed? Colored when you were older? Female readers feel free to fill us in.

3) A Tired Ass Look on Your Face. Hey you just spent 3 months sleeping to whenever you wanted basically. Getting in the 6-7 range is not ideal for you right now.

4) Lunch. Usually pack a bagged lunch on Day 1. Why? Too risky to buy the first day, especially since you most likely don't know the menu yet. Don't want to get stuck with Sloppy Joes or hot dogs or something. You might even be singing this song:



5) Pointless accessories. Twelve book covers? Two 10-packs of pens and/or pencils? Parents for some reason thought you were burning the midnight oil, writing and reading tons and slaving away over lined paper. Nah dude, we type everything now. I'll use one pen for this entire quarter/semester/whatever it was called. Oh and the ruler and staple remover? Please. I'm using the latter to puncture forearms the former to measure...well, never mind.

Well, that's pretty much it. Hope everyone who is still in school isn't taking it for granted. It's the best moment of your lives. In the words of Billy Madison, you've got to CHERISH IT!

--Nick

Thursday Throwback: AOL

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: AOL.).

Ahhhh...good ole America Online. You could lump a few other services in here. Prodigy. Netscape. Others I've since forgotten. But AOL was the original and best. It had email, web browsing and -- omg -- this communication tool called INSTANT messaging. Like, you could message someone, instantly.

And the sounds. Oh, who can forget the sounds. "Welcome." "You've got mail." "Goodbye." Plus we had doors crankin open and shut, little beeps and droplet sounds for some reason. It was ill.

It also gave a whole new forum and exacerbated the progress of two things: creeps and people trying to peep porn. Creeps had a slew of new chatrooms to prey on others. Oh, that lesbian chat room you wanted to check out for jokes? Yea, that's all dudes in there. "Huh huh, lesbos bro.."

Just don't ever try to sneak on late at night without first giving your comp a speaker check. Cause you will absolutely blap your whole house with a giant WELCOME in the middle of the night. C'mon, anyone who hears that knows immediately what you're up to. Hide the tissues, bro. Thank your little brother or something for leaving the speakers cranked up playing computer games. I haven't even mentioned the dial-up sounds "ceee booo coooo jjjoo choooo koooooo ppujhhjkhj"

Another great aspect of AOL was the fact that at first everyone had to use it on their phone line. You always knew the families that sweated online because you'd never be able to get ahold of them. Moms, in particular, hated it. "I can never call Ms. Smith, that Johnny is just always online!"

I kind of miss AOL. The orig buddy list was ill. The email was super easy. Combining them all into one system was genius, and really what enabled AOL to take off and become the internet service for the masses. I sort of chuckle when I see people with AOL email addresses still. I know you can just log on to their website now and that's how it's done. But in my head I imagine them dialing up and waiting like 5 minutes and getting blapped in the dome with "WELCOME!"

--Nick

Thursday Throwback: Power Rangers

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: Power Rangers.).


Ho ho hooooooo. This is one of my favorite throwback editions yet. (Props to Balla on the idea.) Power Rangers were a global phenomenon that no one -- not even evil creatures grown to giant sizes -- could stop.

And I'm not talking about the later editions that we saw down the road -- in fact, the show is still around today, believe it or not. I'm talking about the original Might Morphin' Power Rangers.

Here's something to listen to as you read. Go Go Power Rangers!



The show, the toys, the movies were all huge. People would get in line around Christmas time for the release of these puppies. Not since Tickle Me Elmo, was there a rush and chaos of this magnitude for toys. And by the way, what the FACCCCKKK was the fascination with Tickle Me Elmo? Are you effn kiddin me? It's a stuffed animal that giggled when you touched it. Nothing revolutionary at all. Wasn't nearly as good as mine -- the Lick Me Elmo. (Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.)

Anyway, pretty sure my mom almost got trampled fighting with other bitch moms for the ultimate prize: the Megazord, aka the top toy of our generation. Thanks mom.

The toys all originated from the characters on the show, which was like a Japanese ninja show that combined Saved By the Bell with Ninja Turtles and added technology. Truly strange. The five "teens" rocked in colored ninja suits and had corresponding zords they could call on for backup. The zords were all dinosaurs, which is lol worth. T-Rex, Triceratops, Pterodactyl, Sabertooth Tiger and the Mastodon. Woooo.

Let's take a quick look at these peeps:

Couple very underrated things:
1)How ill is it that the people wore colored clothes corresponding to the color ranger they were?
2) The Yellow Ranger is ASIAN and the black ranger is BLACK. See, before everyone was all PC, you could pull this crap.
3) The Pink Ranger was a secret babe. And they made her dumb as shit, like the first time they morph and everyone says something witty as they get into their zords and she says "Sweet radio!" I also remember when the talking ranger toys came out and one of her sayings was "Totally styling!!" Again, you have to cherish the non-PC world. I truly miss it.

The dude in the middle of the above pic is Tommy, the Green Ranger, and obviously the illest one. Sucha bad ass hearthrob, Tommy was a bad guy to start (which is prolly why I sweated him) before changing to a good guy and becoming the bitchy, yet powerful, White Ranger.

Tommy also rocked the Dragonzord. C'mon with these things:

The show was either dudes in redic suits fighting in mini hand-made cities to look giant size or shots of actual toys speeding to the rescue. I honestly think that's why the toys were so successful -- they looked exactly the same as the things on the show. Well, that and they were a series of toys that could connect and form a mega toy. Can't argue with that.

Looking at the videos though, budget must have been low on this thing. Someone the corniness didn't resonate with me back then.

All the individual dino zords were dece, but Oh God, don't EVER make them call upon the MegaZord:



Here's a lil compilation at all the different combos that came about, including the vaunted Mega-Dragonzord which was a combo between the two:

I really can't get over some of this stuff. The toys were out of this world. The show has unintentional comedy that rises to levels never seen. The song is still incred. In fact, it may be stuck in your head the rest of the day.

This took me down memory lane. I could go on and on about these guys. How the puddy were just worse Foot Soilders, the dubbed English on everyone, etc etc. I also had younger brothers and sisters, so Power Rangers stayed in my life a little longer than I wanted (or was it?).

--Nick

Thursday Throwback: Goosebumps Books

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: Goosebumps books.).

In the words of Eric Cartman: "awwwww sccarrryyyyy."

Goosebumps books were the choice of literature for any middle schooler my age who didn't want to read something real and enjoyed scary shit. R.L. Stine must have made a killing off these things. Because I'm pretty sure they had about 354,459745 different versions.

The covers were always badass and the writing was simple but effective. I cannot remember if they were actually scary or not. I'm guessing yes, but I wouldn't be surprised if no.

Call me a chooch if you want, but I loved the Scholastic book fairs we had in EB middle school. Used to load up on these books (plus MJ and Gretsky biographies and random posters and ish of Patrick Roy, Lemeuix, etc.) Plus because there were books, mom couldn't say no. Write that check, cause the kid needs some new gems from the Stinester.

I have no idea where all mine ended up. Maybe I still

have them somewhere at my old house. I do know my favorite one though, and it was the Lawn Gnomes (see right). Nothing scarier or funnier than some animated crit things coming after you. Woo.

And please don't even get me started on the vaunted "Choose your own endings" version of Goosebumps. I'm pretty sure those alone extended the shelf life of these things for at least another 3 years.

Sometimes you'd get pwned and end up killing yourself or doing something crazy by choosing a wrong step. Then you would most likely cheat and go back and choose the other option which was always awesome. Unless you made a wrong choose two chances ago, in which point you were F'd.

And those of us who were lazy could even justify stopping right there because technically, we did finish the book.

I hope there are others out there who enjoyed Goosebumps. Lemme know...

--Nick

Thursday (Late) Throwback: GI Joes

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: GI Joes.).

First off, I think I've now done about 10 of these Thursday Throwbacks, and this is like the third that's actually come out on Friday. That's a pretty shitty ratio and clearly epitomizes my affinity for partying, as I went to yet another concert yesterday. Party. Woo.

Anyway, I figured this throwback was very apt considering the release of the new movie today. But it's not the movie, I'm talking about today, it's the ill action figures and the unreal cartoon. Remember these guys:

Equipped with the best weapons -- rocket launchers! -- and lathered with mustaches, muscles and angry eyebrows to make them look badass, these action figures were the bomb (oooh throwback word in a throwback post?!?!). I know I'm going way back here, but I played with tons of these things when I was a young'n.

The good guys always had sweat power weapons, but I kind of sweated the bad guys, were always shift characters like ninjas and scuba guys and stuff. I don't even remembering armies fighting Ninja hordes, but GI Joe did it anyway. The bad guys were even called Cobra and wore red masks over their faces.

And I'm not sure how many dudes out there remember this, but fi you do, I'm about to blow your mind. The GI Headquarters, one of the most dynamic toy bases in the history of play time lore:

God damn, this puppy was decked out with missile launchers, sirens, sound effect and a mother-f'n search light! It was unbeatable. It folded up into "battle mode" and unfolded when you wanted the full, sprawling effect of a fully functional good-guy lair. It even had targets you could hit with enemy fire that would cause something to explode or fall apart. I remember one was that orange barrel to the right. Blap that sucker and the door to the jail explodes, freeing all the CObra scum you had worked so hard to round up. Why place an explosive barrel right near a sensitive area of your fortress? GI Joe was clearly a victim of poor layout.

Anyway, I can't tell you how much money my dad must have spent on things like the GI Joe headquarters, but it must have been worth it. These toys would kill an entire Sunday, where I could just keep to myself and blow stuff up while he chilled or relaxed. (now that I'm older, prob recovering from a hangover, woo).

But as cool as the toys were, NOTHING compared to the corny cartoon that ran every weekday morning. I remember getting up mad early before elementary school to peep this. "GI JOE, reall American heerrooooo." Yahhh.

It was tough to have a war cartoon were no one ever died, but hey, the A-Team did it for years, and I'm pretty sure that was an adult show. In GI Joe, the only things that got bundled were the vehicles, from which every character luckily escaped before it exploded. Pheww.

And do you remember the PSA's at the end of each 'sode? This, in fact, may be GI Joe's lasting legacy and I hope to see one at the end of the movie because, you know, knowing is half the battle.

I mean, how else would I learn to not rush into a shaky tree house?

I mean, how can you not LOL at this:


Wowie, I should have done a whole post on this. Look at this shit:


There are literally hundreds of these. I could spend all day watching them, but I'll just give you one more:



Your mom, um, had an accident.

---Nick

Thursday Throwback: Light Up Sneakers

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: Light Up Sneakers.).

Back in the day, it was a treat to be able to stay out past dusk. Getting to still run around and play during the night time was a gift to be treasured. Maybe even skip supper too.

The only thing that made it better was proper footwear that was comfortable and could light your way. And we gotta give props here, because it was LA Gear came up with the Light Up Sneakers. Look at that 80s Purple collection at the top. Woowwwiiee.

I'm not sure if I love or hate that I used to think those things were tight. But I'm pretty sure everyone did. I believe British Knights came up with a duplicate (BK Lights?) but none could compare to the originals. I couldn't find the ill commercial with the kid in the park, but I was able to at least find one old one:

You know how popular LA Gear was in general? Well the King of Pop himself endorsed them:

Also, we can't talk about these kicks without mentioning the prevailing rumor (trumor?) at the time: the kid who was caught by the police because of his light up shoes. Once you heard this, kids everywhere were hesitant to cause trouble with these suckers on. Didn't want people pointing and saying, "no it was the kid with the red light up shoes."

LOL, red light up sneakers. Sounds ridiculous to even say. Or so I thought...because during my research for this post, I noticed that, yup, someone brought them back. This past year, there was a relaunch of LA Gear Lights. Things like dece?

Did you own LA Lights or a similar set of light up sneakers? Let me here any awesome memories stories, if so.

--Nick

Thursday Throwback: Pogs

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: Pogs.).

Looking back, Pogs were probably one of the gayest things ever. But damn it they were popular. I'm ashamed to say that I myself had tons of these things. Because they were popular, I used to collect these cardboard circles along with "slammers" with flaming skulls, 8-balls and other weird stuff on them.

People used to get in beefs in school about Pogs. Some people would play for keeps, stealing other people's fav ones away. There were countless types and knock offs with thousands of images, but you just couldn't get away from the 8-ball or skull. Seriously what was with the friggin 8-ball; it fadsinated people. The Ying-Yang was a beast too. Thing was everywhere.

And I don't even know how to play the game. In fact, I don't think i ever did. Tried Wiki-ing Pogs but it didn't explain how to play ethier. i know you stack them, then bundle the stack with the slammer. That's about it.

If I have to guess, I think that after they go flying, you keep the pogs that have the logos showing and restack the ones just showing white. Seems too simple though. But hey we were idiot kids back then.

Would this have been the illest slammer?

The Gods of Pogs


---Nick

Late Thursday Throwback: Snap Bracelets

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's one-day late edition: Snap Bracelets.).

Woo. Check out these suckers. Remember these things? Snap Bracelets -- also called Snap Wraps -- were AirHead shaped pieces of plastic coated in fabric that were stiff as a board before you hit yourself with it, causing it to curl up around your wrist like a bracelet.

For reasons no one will ever know, these were actually quite popular back in the day. Kids rocked em all the time. Hit each other with them. Collected different types and colors. Prolly one of the most cheapest things to make, the person who invented them no doubt laughed all the way to the bank.

My favorite style? Has to be the classic zebra:

That was the riskiest/best one. Maybe the cougar or lion skin one too. RLOL. Get outta here with animal skin snap bracelets.

And remember that rumor (trumor?) that a kid died from snapping one too hard. People became a little skeptical after that. Kids know that the wrist is associated with suicide so they def believed some beast of a kid swung this cheap plastic thing so hard that it killed them. Unreal to me.

--Nick

Thursday Throwback: Starter Jackets

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: Starter Jackets.).

Every dude born after 1980 had one of these puffed-out, logo gems of a jacket. The Starter Jacket was every lil dude's go-to for winter wear. I don't think they were waterproof or even protected you from winter weather -- pretty sure things would soak like a sponge actually -- but they were wicked popular nonetheless.

The logos were huge and obnoxious, including a chuge one on the back, a small one or word on the front and usually a little on on the zipper or hood. You'd pull em over and there was a little half zipper for the next. You could collect all teams and colors, although the NFL ones (particularly the Cowboys, Redskins and Dolphins) seemed to be the post popular.

I'm not sure if they didn't make that many Boston ones, but outside of the Celts, you never saw too many for New England teams.

This here was one of the secret most popular for one reason or the other. Look at this sweet logo:


I had a Cowboys one and hugggge yellow and black Bruins one. But, this was undoubtedly my most random and secretest one, though:

Why'd a have a Florida State one? Who the hell knows. Prolly got a sick deal at Marshall's or something. And if you were a kid trying to be ill, you wanted to have as many of these as possible.

I don't even think Starter exists as a company now, but I'd love to see one of these bubble coats around somewhere.

--Nick

(Late) Thursday Throwback: Cassettes

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Couldn't post yesterday, but I couldn't leave it out. Today's edition: Cassettes).

It's only fitting that the day after the passing of a music legend, we bring you one of the first ways peeps my age listened to tunes: cassette tapes. Everyone remembers their first batch of these. I believe my first cassette was actually Michael Jackson, which is what prompted this post. It was MJ's Bad, which I late had on CD of course (first CD, btw, Boyz II Men.)

Cassettes were first used for dictation and other stuffy endeavors before becoming the music recording tools we came to know them. Then they somehow became known as "tapes." Remember the Home Alone craze where everyone had secret recorders and stuff? Plus those little carry microphone kits where you could record your own music/voice/etc.? All of a sudden you saw a whole lot more of these blank suckers around:

Pretty sure they had the shortest lifespan too. The awkward time between 8-tracks and CDs was relatively short. Hell, people like my dad still clung to old record players claiming the "sound was the best quality." Maybe. The awful screech noise when you had to rewind or fast forward a tape was unbearable. Picture that guessing game if you wanted to skip around tracks. Nah, bro, you're listening to the whole album.

And, oh man, if you ever got the cassette jammed in the radio, or if you came back and saw your dog got it or something, and came back to this:

Ruined. Thing was toast forever. Sure, you could try and manually finger loop that stuff back in, but it was the worst task.

Other sweet cassettes I remember having: the Wayne's World soundtrack and Green Day's Dookie.

Anyone remember their first tape?

Thursday Throwback: Lunchables

(Every Thursday WKFTB will bring you a throwback, something that reminds us of our late-80s-early-90s childhood. Today's edition: Lunchables).


Lunchables were kind of the shit when they first came out back in 1st or 2nd grade. Sick of that PB&J everyday, it gave you a lil cracker and cheese lunch. Doesn't really make sense for lunch but people still sweated it.

You had the tradish hame and cheese, turkey and cheese, maybe get crazy and throw a deluxe package with BOTH meats. Then Kraft got nuts with the different types. Mini burgs? Mini pizzas? Friggin Cini Buns? I know one thing, tho, the nachos were firrrreee.

Always came with a Capri Sun or generic 'Cola' and a lil Snickers or Reeses treat for good measure.

Looking back, though, how shitty are those things? Nice Orange/Yellow cheese squares with slimey veiny turkey circles. LOL get outta here.

Check out this commercial from 1990:



Mini Pizza was a dece hit when it first came out, but I wasn't really feelin it, that ice-cold tomato paste and soggy crust:



What was your favorite Lunchable? Made it easy with a poll to the right.

--Nick