Ramblin' Root Beer

When Ramblin' Root Beer came out, it was puzzling - did the world really need another root beer?

There was already Hire's, A&W, Mug, Dad's, Barq's, Shasta, Faygo, Nesbitt's and various store brand knock-offs. So what made Ramblin' any different?

Well,......nothing actually. I swear it was just Dad's root beer in a different can.

But sometimes, the selling point in mass produced soda isn't really the flavour, but the very perceived lifestyle of the consumers of this product. Ramblin's first TV commercials evoked an outdoorsy kind of feel with banjo music and a John Denver sound-alike singing the jingle. The later commercials were more mainstream....

Ramblin' was discontinued in the '90s when the Coca-Cola company, which made both Ramblin' and Dad's bought the Barq's root beer company.

Poloroid One Step Cameras

Until I was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age, The Polaroid One Step was MY kind of camera.

It was fast and easy and you didn't have to wait 24 hours for the film to develop to see results. They were my family's kind of camera (my mom, grandma, uncles and aunts all used them at family holidays.)

The only problem was the film. The film packs were SUPER expensive. And if you had lighting problems or your subject wasn't cooperating, you were SOL

And while Polaroid discontinued the film a few years ago, a new company called The Impossible Project now manufactures classic Polaroid film. But the price is still outrageous (even more so, around $25), ensuring whatever film I'm using will only be for a specific purpose.....

http://www.the-impossible-project.com/   

Kmart Brand Products

Sambo's Restaurants

Sambo's was a national restaurant chain that specialized in pancake breakfasts. But also offered burgers and other fare.

It also found itself on the wrong side of history.

The name was created out of the names of the founders of the chain,  Sam Battistone Sr and Newell Bohnett. But they soon tied it into one of the most racist children's stories in recorded history, The Story of Little Black Sambo. 

But somehow, the founders didn't get the memo. They originally decorated their restaurants in stereotypical illustrations of a little African-American boy (the original story had depicted a dark skinned Indian boy, but the illustrations were of these stereotype images.)

But by the '60s, the illustrations had been neutralized to a lighter-skinned Indian boy with a turban (but that opened another can of worms.) They began emphasizing the tigers in the original story. But then there was that name. The African-American community had enough.

By the end of the '70s, the writing was on the wall. Soon Sambo's locations either changed names or owners or were closed by 1982.  

Only the original restaurant in Santa Barbara, CA remains......

Mr. Steak Restaurants

Mr. Steak was a chain of steakhouses, popular in the '70s.

They were pretty good, but couldn't survive the increasing competition from upstart steakhouse chains like Sizzler and Stuart Anderson's Black Angus and folded in the early '80s.