Plastic Easter Grass

 

Like the similar shiny silver plastic tinsel for Christmas trees....

THIS evil crap (Luckily metal tinsel was replaced by shiny plastic in the 1970s.)

Plastic easter grass (and tinsel) are indisputably the worst holiday decorating products EVER.

Namely because by April, you're STILL picking out the strands of Christmas tinsel that shedded off the tree and now gums up the roller of your vacuum cleaner.

But plastic Easter grass is much worse. Because that stuff doesn't stay in one general area. If you have little kids, they throw that stuff everywhere. And just as you're trimming the Christmas tree once again, out of the corner of your eye in an overlooked edge of the wall, you see a shiny strand of green transparent plastic that gets your blood pressure up.....

Today however, biodegradable paper is often preferred (one ugly side effect of plastic grass is pets eat them. And plastic doesn't digest.) or even edible candy Easter grass.  

Happy Super Bowl Sunday 2014!

My prediction?

For Your Candy Cigarettes

 

Wow, perfect for these.

"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" Tiny Tim (1982)

Originally sold as a flexi-disc part of a novelty card (I would hope so), here's Tiny Tim with his rendition (?) of the Rod Stewart classic.

No "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" falsetto here. If you're too scared to click on the YouTube video, imagine Al Jolson on amyl nitrate and backed by the Mos Eisley Spaceport Cantina Band and you'll have an idea of what this sounds like.

Kawaii Crush

You know, it's the creepy weird crap they make for little girls these days that really makes me take back every bad thing I ever said about Holly Hobbie.

Or at least Holly Hobbie never wore outsized animal carcasses over bubble gum pink hair. And some of you also have young daughters who have begged you or Santa for this.  

Now look, I know we live in edgier times. But what the hell is Kawaii Crush?

I had to investigate.

Oh dear. For those of you who just ate Christmas candy, you're probably going to need an insulin shot in 4-3-2-1.....

And who sings this soundtrack? Maroon 5? (I can't tell anymore through all the AutoTune they use in commercial pop music these days.)

Finding no answers from YouTube (and Wikipedia has no current entry on it.)

I went to Kawaii Crush's web site.

A Flash video popped up with "What is Kawaii Crush?" above the player and feeling a bit of relief, I watched my relief turn to horror as apparently, these dolls or whatever are, are supposed to be cute and they have cute crushes on cute kitties, cute pandas, cute birds and cute bunnies and cover their craniums in cute cuddly carcasses of cute critters. They live in a world where everything is cute and everyone has a crush. ("Even on candy!")

They have names like Sunny Bunny Hop Hop, Katie Cat Meow Meow, Owlena Hoot Hoot and Amanda Panda Pop.

It's enough to make Hello Kitty look like G.I. Joe.

Fortunately, the web site had a "Grown Ups" link. Unfortunately, it has the only information a parent needs to know from a toy company: Like, Follow, Subscribe and BUY!!

I stopped right here. This is about as far into Kawaii Crush cuteness as I could go without going into catastrophic diabetic shock.

Vision Dieter Glasses

In the early '80s. a new diet fad swept Japan and America. The Vision-Dieter glasses.

The glasses had blue tinted lens. The idea was they made food look unappetizing (after all, outside of candy, blue is not a very appetizing colour for food.....at least for most adults.)

The reality was they just made the world around you a pretty shade of blue. Nothing more.
  

Hungry?

More actual food products here and here.

Source: Buzzfeed

Candy Cigarettes

Candy cigarettes were a kids version of the things Mom and Dad had hanging out of their mouths from the '30s to the '80s......

And their boxes looked exactly like their grown up counterparts

 Cigarette companies back then (like modern corporations) liked synergy. Synergy is basically a simple modern word to describe using as many elements as possible to work towards one mutual goal - $$$ (i.e. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours"). And in both cases, it worked. Cigarette brands had the extra promotion and the future smoker potential and the candy companies had a ready made pre-pubescent consumer who wanted to look like Mom and Dad.        

And all was well....Until the first warning studies against tobacco use began appearing in the '50s and '60s.

But at this time, the health dangers of cigarette smoking were still largely ignored. After all, up to this time, DOCTORS recommended it for decades. How could they go wrong?

1910s

1950s

But the writing was on the wall. And on the sides of cigarette packs beginning in 1966.  And cigarette ads were banned from TV and radio in 1970. Courtesy ash trays, once ubiquitous everywhere from grocery stores to beauty salons began disappearing. 

By the '80s the scale between smokers and non-smokers began to tip. And candy manufacturers began discontinuing or rebranding candy cigarettes.

However, some candy cigarettes are still being manufactured as novelty/gag items. And others are rebranded as simply "candy sticks".

Beatlemania!

 

 More Here: Rare Beatles