Show Notes
This week, we’re delving into a very special sort of generational brain damage that we can specifically blame/thank the Reagan administration for: toy commercials! Growing up the 80s and 90s, children’s programming was practically indistinguishable from advertising, so why shouldn’t we have equal amounts of nostalgia for this particular type of bite-sized marketings? Let’s take a look back at some of the most infamous toy ads, the most famous people who popped up in them, and of course, Judge Reinhold’s Weenie Whistle. This episode’s topic was suggested by Patreon backer Matt Schottroff. Good call! It would totally rule if you helped support the show on Patreon at patreon.com/thisthingrules, You can also show your support by following us on Bluesky and Twitter @ThisThingRules, or find our little corner of our old podcast’s Discord at discord.comedybutton.com - and of course, we’re always happy to get email from listeners at [email protected] Intro contains clips from Mighty Max, WWF, and GI Joe toy commercials, Vin Diesel’s infamous viral Toy Fair video, and The Santa Clause.
More from This Thing Rules
From Comic-Cons on both coasts to gaming expos on multiple continents, we’ve attended our fair share of nerdy gatherings, and they’re great! This episode, we’re digging into that magic of getting a bunch of people in the same place who are all really excited about one thing. Sometimes that’s comics, video games or pinball tables, other times it’s… less family friendly activities.
This episode, we’re extrapolating on the joys of the most functional souvenirs with magnetic properties, our favorite short-form fiction, and one of the more wholesome settings to legally imbibe beer. Intro contains clips from Stranger Things, the trailer for Maximum Overdrive, The Simpsons (again) and Beerfest
You know! Those things that are like gumball machines, but for little toys! Growing up in the USA, they usually dispensed a sticky hand, some slime, maybe a lil Homie, but in Japan they’ve been in another league for decades. We unpack (or perhaps unbox) the charm of randomly distributed toys and trinkets, some of our greatest gets, and the backwards order that we’ve become aware of them.Intro contains clips from a Gashapon machine, Dragon Ball and Se7en.
We’ve got another grab bag episode here, or rather, three very different bags: one’s a big paper bag full of dead leaves and grass clippings, another from a shoe store, and the third is from a bakery. This week we’re unpacking our love of gruelling manual labor in the hot sun to make our yards look nice, the timeless appeal of wearing athletic shoes all the time for completely unathletic activities, and cookies. Which are like crackers, but sweet, or cakes that are small and flat and hard. Look, you know what all those things are, just listen to the show. Intro contains clips from King of the Hill, a shoe store commercial, and Friends.
Ah, hitting the open road! A timeless rite of passage and quintessentially American adventure, unless of course you’re stuck in the car with your whole family, taking the bus or making unexpected pit stops so your driver can hook up with random dudes. We recount some of our most memorable, or in some cases mercifully forgettable automobile journeys. Intro contains clips from National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Simpsons and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas