The Inchworm

This was one of the CREEPIEST toy jingles of my childhood.

The Inchworm was a toy for little kids. It was plastic and industrial spring contraption made for ADHD kids with uncontrollable urges to bounce around everywhere.

You could only ride it on flat, level sidewalks. Hills would either send you backwards going up or accelerate at demonic speeds going down.

It wasn't made for overweight kids either.  

Pepsi Light

Pepsi Light was a saccharin flavoured sweetened diet soda which came out in the late '70s. It was flavoured with lemon, which was a good thing, but did nothing to overcome the saccharin aftertaste. Pepsi somehow never though of making a regular version of this soda, which I think would have been a much bigger hit.

Later in the '80s, the lemon flavouring was removed for some reason and the product tanked. It was just a poor imitation of their own Diet Pepsi.

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