More From The Toy Store In The Mall

Black Friday Circular
KayBee Toys (1990)
This advertisement for a sale that began on the day after Thanksgiving 35 years ago was shared on Twitter by Dinosaur Dracula.  Check out the early draft of box art from Super Mario Bros 3.

Going On An Atari Adventure

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration
Nintendo Switch (2022)
This game is the gold standard for vintage game compilations.  It's a collection of Atari arcade and console games that can either be selected to play from a menu or experienced as part of a larger timeline of the company's history.

I spent the evening playing through part of it.  Some of the games were old favorites from my childhood while others were games that I was seeing for the first time.  The latter includes an unpublished sequel to Adventure, and I'm kinda proud to say that I was able to beat the game.

Playing this inspired me to spend a little time going through the NES catalog of my Nintendo Online subscription.  I finished Mighty Bomb Jack, but I'd be lying if I said I beat the game because I had to use the rewind feature quite a few times.

Santa Shops At The Mall Toy Store

Kay-Bee Dear Santa Sale
KayBee Toys (1989)
This advertisement for a sale that ended on this day in 1989 was shared on Instagram by Dinosaur Dracula.  I was nine years old when this flier was publishes so I was into pretty much all of this stuff except Cabbage Patch Kids.

We Were Not Ready

Sony Playstation
September 9, 1995
A new player entered the video game console market in North America thirty years ago today.

I was 15 years old when Playstation first hit store shelves in North America.  The Sega Saturn was already available in the United States for five months at the time.  At first, I wanted to get a Saturn, but a few things changed my mind.  The most important factor was seeing quickly they dropped support for the Sega CD and 32X.  If the cartridge port on the Saturn allowed the system to play Genesis and 32X games and if the optical drive were backwards compatible to play Sega CD games, I probably would have saved up to buy a Saturn instead.

 

The hype leading up to the release of Playstation was massive to begin with, but that hype grew even larger four months before it was released.  At the 1995 E3, Sega CEO Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn console was already being shipped to stores and would retail for $399.  Moments later, Sony Computer Entertainment of America President Steve Race stole the show by revealing that the Playstation would be $100 cheaper in what is remembered as the ultimate mic drop moment in the industry.

The first piece of Sony Playstation media that I saw was a demo disc called "Hear It Now!  Play It Later!".  It was given to people who preordered a Playstation, and it was one of the discs that was packed in with the console on release day.  I don't remember how I managed to get my hands on it because I didn't preorder the console.  I'm guessing that it was probably given to me by a friend who did.

There were five songs from Sony recording artists that you could listen to in any CD player.  Those songs were:

The The - I Saw The Light

Korn - Blind

Mother May I - Meet You There

Dag - Lovely Jane

Dandelion - Weird Out 

The video above is a playlist of all of the songs that were on this disc.  They're not bad, but the real attraction was the tech demos on this disc that you had to wait until the Playstation console was released to see.

The interactive videos on this disc was the first look that many gamers got at what the Playstation could do.  It may not seem too impressive by 2025 standards, but it absolutely blew my mind in 1995.

A Trip To Blackmoor

2025 Patreon Screening #5
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA

Our friend Zack brought his dad out to the drive-in for the fifth Patreon screening of the season.

And, naturally, I had to get a couple games of Ms. Pac-Man in before showtime.

 

When the sun went down, we watched Carl's 35mm print of Russ Meyer's 1973 blaxploitation flick Black Snake, which had the alternate name of Sweet Suzy on the title card.  It was alright.  It's not really my cup of tea, but I thought it was good and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to see it.

American Life Has Enfeebled His Mind

Mortal Kombat
New Line Cinema (1995)
The first film based on the Mortal Kombat video game series premiered in theaters thirty years ago today.

The Past Is Dead. It Was All Just A Dream.

Chrono Trigger
Squaresoft (1995)
One of the greatest role playing games ever made was released in the United States thirty years ago today.

Hold My Fur While I Play Missile Command

Warner Communications Inc Annual Report

Photo by Joel Sternfeld (1980)
This image was scanned and shared on Flickr by Colom J Romero.

Delivering Pizza On A Mario Kart

Domino's $25 Million Nintendo Instant Win Game
Domino's Pizza (1992)
You could win prizes that included a Super Nintendo with Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart, or a Game Boy with Tetris from Domino's Pizza 33 years ago.

These days, a collector would probably pay as much for an unscratched game card from this promotion than they would have paid for the game consoles that you could have won from it back in 1992.

Krispy Kreme Power Pellets

Pac Man Donuts
Krispy Kreme (2025)
Today is the 45th anniversary of the release of Pac-Man to arcades across Japan.  In honor of this, Krispy Kreme has decided that they're going to put me in a sugar coma.

I'm trying to change my eating habits and lose some weight, but these look pretty tempting.

Mario And Link Drink Sharkleberry Finn

Kool Aid Koolers advertisement
Kraft Foods (May 1991)
Nintendo and Kool-Aid partnered up for quite a few promotions in the late 80's and early 90's.  One such promotion had Nintendo Power Puzzlers, which were games like the kind that you'd find in an activity book, and tips for popular NES games printed on the back of Kool Aid Koolers box drinks.  This advertisement for these drink boxes was published in the May 1991 issue of Sports Illustrated For Kids.

I haven't been able to find too many images of the Nintendo Power Puzzlers games other than this advertisement and a few images from this commercial.

I'm not sure what was going on to cause these to not be available in Maine, but we had them in Pennsylvania.

You Are Home

Almost Famous
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
Mother's Day at the Mahoning Drive-In Theater was dedicated to one of the first truly great movies of the 2000's; Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical masterpiece Almost Famous.

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern

I'm getting closer to the high score on the Ms. Pac Man machine in the concession building with a new personal best score of 163,070.

 

While playing Ms. Pac Man, I noticed a VHS tape on the wall near the machine that had episodes of the 90's animated series Wild West Cowboys Of Moo Mesa.  I get the pun that they're going for here, but "Bang 'Em High" sounds more like the title of an adult feature than it does a cartoon.

Prior to showtime, there was a live acoustic set performed at the photo op stage outside of the concession building that featured Rich Penecale on guitar and Virgil on vocals.  They performed about six songs including this cover of Mary Jane's Last Dance by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

Almost Famous premiered in theaters on September 22nd, 2000, but I didn't see it for the first time until just a couple of years ago.  The story is set in 1973 and it follows a 15 year old prodigy named William Miller whose musical tastes were influenced by his rock and roll loving older sister Anita.  His writing earns him the opportunity to go on tour with a rock band to write a story about their struggles with success.  In the process, he befriends Penny Lane and her group of "band aides" (groupies who don't like to call themselves groupies) and grows to have a complicated relationship with Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond.

This movie is incredible in every way, picking the audience out of their time and place and putting them in the shoes of its protagonist.  It's shot beautifully, the music is perfect, and a standout performance by Kate Hudson who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.  Philip Seymour Hoffman and Fairuza Balk also deliver excellent performances that left me wanting their characters to have more screen time.

Actor Zack Ward appears in a brief cameo towards the end of the film as "The Legendary Red Dog", a roadie for The Allman Brothers Band.  He's best remembered for his role as the bully, Scut Farkus, in the 1983 holiday classic A Christmas Story.  He's also the actor who was kind enough to give me the greatest photo op that I've had at the Mahoning.

Uncle!  Unnnnncleeeee!!!

I'm very thankful to have had the opportunity to see this on the big screen.  Just prior to the start of the film, Rob mentioned that there is an extended cut of this film on Bluray which has forty minutes of additional footage.  I'm going to have to hunt that down to watch next.

Graboids, Dancing, and the Afterlife

Bacon Bits: Flatliners / Footloose / Tremors

Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
This weekend's tribute to Kevin Bacon was the last event that was originally scheduled before the passing of the Mahoning Drive-In Theater owner and master projectionist Jeff Mattox which had to be rescheduled.  This event was originally scheduled for the weekend of May 10th and 11th, 2024 and was delayed by almost exactly one year as it was rescheduled for the 2025 season.

 

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern

Show poster designed by Tom Bifulco

I've been cutting back on t-shirts this season, but this one was too good to pass up.  The artwork on the shirt was created by Tom Bifulco and is the same design as what was used on the poster.

Actress Finn Carter was in attendance both nights to meet fans, take pictures, and sign autographs.  She played Rhonda LeBeck in Tremors; a role for which she received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Night One - Friday, May 9

Flatliners

The first movie of Friday night was Joel Schumacher's 1990 psychological horror film Flatliners.  It features an ensemble cast that includes Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and the namesake of the weekend's event, Kevin Bacon.  They play the role of five med students who are conducting secret experiments in what appears to be an abandoned church in which they bring their peers to a point where their heart stops (or flatlines) to explore what exists beyond death before they are then brought back through the use of drugs, a defibrillator, and CPR.

I've only seen this movie one time before this weekend.  When I was 12 years old, I lived with my dad, stepmom, and stepsister in South Florida.  My stepsister and I got along well and we'd often hang out in her room and have a movie night.  One of the movies she rented on one of these nights was Flatliners.  My memory of this film is that I thought it was cool, but I didn't really remember any of the details.  It all started coming back to me as we watched the story unfold on the big screen at the drive-in.  My feelings on this movie haven't changed 33 years later.  Despite the critical reviews which are pretty rough, I still think it's a very cool and atmospheric film and one that I'd recommend to anyone who loves movies.

Night Two - Saturday, May 10

Footloose

The movie that kicked off the second night of Bacon Bits was the 1984 teen drama Footloose.  This film has become synonymous with the 80's, but for as much time as I've spent watching films from the decade of my childhood, I have never seen Footloose before tonight.  The only thing I knew about the film is that it starred Kevin Bacon and John Lithgow, and it's about a small town where dancing is against the law.

This is not a difficult movie to find so I've had plenty of opportunities to see it over the years, but I didn't think it would be the kind of thing that I'd like all that much, so I never gave it a chance.  In fact, I came very close to passing up this opportunity to see it on 35mm on the big screen.  I only got tickets to Bacon Bits: Night One when tickets first went on sale last year, and if not for the fact that a lot of my friends on the lot told me that they were going to be at this show, I probably would have sat this one out.

I'm very glad that I did decide to give Footloose a chance because it's a pretty damn good movie!  It's not exactly filled with plot twists that you won't see coming a mile away, but it's an entertaining story with solid performances throughout the cast, including an incredible performance from John Lithgow as the reverend (and father of Kevin Bacon's love interest) who is responsible for the town's dance ban.

 

Since the second feature of both nights features monsters that live underground, Rob included the 35mm commercial of Dig Dug in the intermission trailer reel.  I'm always happy to see this hit the big screen.  It does a good job of taking the audience out of 2025 and bringing them back to a time when theaters showed a promo for an arcade game prior to the feature film.  It's things like this that make this place more than just a drive-in theater.

Both Nights - Friday, May 9 and Saturday, May 10

Tremors

The second film that was screened on both Friday and Saturday night was the 1990 modern monster flick Tremors.  I slept through about 45 minutes of this film on Friday night, but that has nothing to do the movie or my interest in seeing it.  First of all, it's hard for me to stay up on Friday nights since I wake up for work at 5:00 am.  Second, it started drizzling, so we had to pack up the lawn chairs and head into the car for the second half of the double feature on Friday night.  I can usually stay awake even if I'm tired as long as we're sitting outside, but when I settle in behind the wheel in a warm car with the seat back and a pillow behind my head, I almost always doze off for at least part of the film.  Finally, I knew that I would be coming back the next night when they'd be playing Tremors again, so the incentive to try to force myself to stay awake and alert just wasn't there.  I had no trouble staying up to see it tonight.  It was kind of chilly, but there was no rain so we were able to sit outside for the whole night.

Like Flatliners, Tremors was a movie that I have only ever seen one time before.  When I was ten years old, I went on a road trip with my maternal grandmother, her husband, my uncle Kuuipo and his wife, and a bunch of my cousins to spend a month staying with my Uncle Sumo and his family in Provo, Utah.  I didn't get along too well with my mother's side of the family when I was a kid, and that has only gotten worse as I've gotten older as I haven't spoken to any of them in years.  Frankly, I'm glad to not have them in my life and I'm sure that most of them feel the same way about me, so it's for the best.  Despite this, my memories of our time in Utah aren't all bad.  One of the more pleasant things that I remember from the Summer of 1990 was the movie night we had.  One of my uncles brought home Back To The Future and Tremors on VHS from the rental shop.  We popped some popcorn and watched both of them in my Uncle Sumo's living room.

I remember that I thought Tremors was pretty cool when I saw it as a kid, but the only thing I remembered about it nearly 35 years later is that it took place in a desert town in the US Southwest, and it's about giant worms that are terrorizing the people who lived there.  I enjoyed it even more seeing it on the big screen at the Mahoning.

And that's a wrap on Bacon Bits.  I'm not sure if this is going to become an annual event, but there are plenty of Kevin Bacon films to choose from (including one that was shown as a secret feature), so they could keep this going for many years to come if it draws a crowd.  It was a fun weekend, so I'm rooting for it to make a return in 2026.

I Hate People Who Preach, Especially In Bathrooms

The Funhouse
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
The third punch on my Thursday Thread-Up card for the 2025 season was the 1981 slasher The Funhouse.

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern

Show poster designed by Tom Bifulco

The Mahoning haven't hosted a Tobe Hooper themed weekend since we started coming here, but I've still been able to check off quite a few of his films off of my 35mm screening wish list over the past five years.  I've already gotten to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Part Two (twice), Eaten Alive, Poltergeist, and Lifeforce on the big screen in Lehighton.  This screening of The Funhouse is my sixth Tobe Hooper film.

Last night's screening also fell on Virgil's birthday, so there was cake in the concession stand for everyone.

 

Speaking of the snack bar, I managed to score a new personal best 108,860 on the Ms. Pac Man machine near the entrance to the projection booth, however it's less than halfway to the new high score of 222,600.

As always, the feature hit the screen when the sun went down.  When this show was announced, I could immediately picture the cover of the VHS tape box in my mind, but I couldn't remember if I had seen The Funhouse before.  I probably would have had a better idea if I'd seen it or not if I looked up the description online, but I didn't want to do that just in case I hadn't seen it before.  There's no movie-related experience that I cherish more than going into a screening with absolutely no prior knowledge about the film that I'm about to see, especially when it's a classic horror flick.

I realized about two minutes into this screening that I hadn't seen it before.  In fact, I don't think I'd ever even seen the trailer.  It's a damn good slasher flick with a lot of incredible scenes that feature the attractions at a traveling carnival.  This one gets my strong recommendation to any horror fan.

There Is A Fifth Dimension...

Twilight Zone: The Movie
Mahoning Drive-In Theater - Lehighton, PA
Tonight's Thursday Thread-Up was the film adaptation of the most successful anthology series in the history of television, and one of my personal favorites, The Twilight Zone.

Show banner designed by Andrew Kern

Show poster designed by Tom Bifulco

The creature on this week's show poster was giving me serious Donnie Darko vibes.

I'm on a mission to set the high score on the Ms. Pac-Man machine in the snack bar, but it's going to take a lot of practice to beat Rob's score.  I was able to crack 100k points, but I'm still about 70k short.

Twilight Zone: The Movie premiered on June 24th, 1983.  It was a source of controversy before it was ever released due to the death of actor Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen.  They were killed in a helicopter crash in July 1982 during the filming of the first segment of this anthology film.  The investigation into their death revealed that quite a few labor laws were broken in the production of this segment which resulted in civil and criminal charges for those involved.

The controversial segment of this anthology movie was the only original story in the film.  Each of the other three segments were remakes of three classic Twilight Zone episodes: Kick The Can, It's A Good Life, and Nightmare At 20,000 Feet.  The first two are good, but I think the theatrical adaptations pale in comparison to the original episodes.  The only one that I think is as good (or possibly better) than its television counterpart is Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, and that is largely due to an incredible performance from John Lithgow.

And that's a wrap on Twilight Zone: The Movie.  I'm not sure if there are any 35mm prints of old episodes floating around out there, but if so, I'd love to see a follow-up next year with the television series being shown on the big screen as a Twilight Zone Marathon.