The Retroist

When I was young it seemed that the United States was going to switch to the Metric System. Not only was my school equipped with US Customary Units measuring devices and materials, but right next to them were metric ones. We were expected to learn both at the same time, and while it was a little inconvenient and slightly confusing to my young brain, I enjoyed it. It was exciting—the metric system seemed like it was going to change everything around me. I was seeing evidence of it everywhere, and I really got a kick out of it.

The United States government was a fairly early adopter of the Metric System and, over the years, has flirted with switching to it completely. My brush with it came via the Metric Conversion Act, which was signed into law by President Ford in late 1975. This act established an independent board that worked toward educating the public on a voluntary adoption of the system. Unfortunately, in 1982, President Reagan abolished the Metric Board, and slowly but surely, evidence of that big push faded away.

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You can still find traces of it if you look at items on eBay from this period, but you can also see it in films and television shows from the era. It’s never obvious. Very few plotlines hinge on weights and measures, but if you start looking, examples begin to pop up.

I have always been a fan of the TV show Quincy, M.E. Jack Klugman does an amazing job playing the titular medical examiner, and the show shined some much-needed light on the coroner system and its place in public health and criminal investigation. The show tried to be authentic in how it portrayed the science and even hired people with a background in medical examination as regulars. They also made the lab on the show look like a real, functioning lab.

The equipment looks slightly dated nowadays, but much of it was cutting-edge at the time and fun to look at, but that’s not what I have become obsessed with over the years. No, the thing I couldn’t take my eyes off of, that hung on the wall in many scenes of the show, was a giant, colorful Metric System Poster. It was there for up until about the last season. I am not sure why they replaced it with a periodic table, but I missed seeing this familiar splash of color.

It was a very clever bit of set dressing. Quincy took place during the educational push by the Metric Board, but to most Americans, the Metric System was unfamiliar. It seemed complicated and scientific—something professors or scientists might use. The poster was large, but the wall it’s placed on was usually far enough in the background that you might not notice it. When you did though, it made you think: This is a place where smart, scientific stuff is happening. This Quincy must know what he is doing.

I can’t say when I first noticed the poster. Probably at some point in the 1990s while watching the show in late night reruns. At first, I tried to think about how big it must be, and I would try to make out exactly what it said. Eventually, I started to wonder: Where did it come from? Were they common? How could I get one?

Despite appearing in dozens of episodes of the show, the quality of the recording and the placement of the poster made it difficult to read. So after trying to get a decent screenshot and enlarge it with mediocre results, I took to the internet to try and get some more information. What I was able to find was much better—the actual poster.

It was hard to tell from the show, but I can confirm this is one big poster. It is 45x29 inches—or should I say 114.3 x 73.66 cm. So over a meter across! When you see it up close, you can see that not only is it colorful and eye-catching, perfect for background on television, but also very useful and easy to understand. You get an illustrated explanation of seven base metric units:

• Meter (length)

• Kilogram (mass)

• Second (time)

• Ampere (electric current)

• Kelvin (temperature)

• Mole (amount of substance)

• Candela (luminous intensity)

They also include two supplementary units: radian (plane angle) and steradian (solid angle), a short history of the metric system in the United States, yard and meter comparisons, common conversions, and a list of multiples and prefixes. Everything you would need to get started, understand, and start using the metric system.

Being able to see it up close, I discovered that it was distributed by the U.S. Department of Commerce National Bureau of Standards in 1972. So this poster predates the Metric Conversion Act. They offered a few metric publications that you could send away for, ranging in price from 30 cents to $3. This poster might be titled National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 304 and would have run you about 55 cents—which is significantly less than people charge today for a copy.

I have seen it online for as little as $10 to well over $100. As usual, condition matters, but it really seems to be more about what the seller thinks it’s worth. This is a very specialized item and would certainly make an interesting statement piece on the wall, but the people who would want it are very niche. Maybe a narrow group of Quincy fans who have taken a shine to it, metric enthusiasts who enjoy a large, refreshing reminder on their wall, or perhaps people who appreciate its design aesthetic. I might put myself into all three groups.

Finding this poster and learning more about it has been a fun little journey. It started as just something in the background of a TV show I liked, but the more I looked into it, the more interesting it became. It’s a piece of a time when it really seemed like the metric system was going to take over in the U.S., and you can still see traces of that push if you know where to look. It also says something about how changes that seem inevitable can quietly fade away, leaving only small reminders behind. The U.S. still hasn’t fully switched to metric, and maybe it never will, but for a brief moment, it felt like a real possibility. That moment may be long gone, but thanks to Quincy, M.E., a little piece of it is still hanging on.

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I grew up loving the various Peanuts cartoons and holiday specials. Its a world that felt magical, where adults didn’t talk and beagles cooked Thanksgiving dinner. The voices and tone of these cartoons would change over time, but one thing I thought I could count on was that we would never hear the Snoopy says words. That all changed in 1985.

When Snoopy was first animated, Bill Melendez who was integral to the creation of the TV version of the Peanuts, wanted to know what Snoopy would sound like. He went to Peanuts’ creator Charles Schulz who told him that Snoopy does not talk. When Bill pointed out that Snoopy has a lot of word bubbles in the comic strip, Schulz said give the lines to Charlie Brown. Snoopy doesn’t talk, he can’t, he is a dog. Ultimately Melendez would come up with sounds for Snoopy based on his own voice and he would voice him for decades.

Here is Melendez telling the story about how it all came about:

So Snoopy isn’t supposed to talk! Case closed.

Not so fast. In 1967, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, a stage musical was first performed and it became very popular. In that musical we actually get to hear Snoopy. I guess you can see where I am going with this, 18 years later, in 1985, they made an animated version of the musical and in it we get to hear Snoopy not only sing but speak (Voiced by Robert Towers).

I remember seeing this at the time and not liking it one bit. They would repeat the use of a speaking/singing Snoopy one more time in the 1988. This time voiced by Cam Clarke in the special, Snoopy! The Musical. You might know Clark better from his work in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons, where he voiced Leonardo and Rocksteady

Both are nice specials and I like Cam Clarke’s singing voice, but happily that would be the last time we would hear Snoopy speak.

(If you have retro finds you would like for me to share, I want to hear them. What old useful website are still lurking on the web? Some old TV show streaming online? Old tech being brought back? Let me know.)

ONE COOL VIDEO

Another rules of the Peanuts Universe seemed to be that adults were never heard, instead you just heard a trombone sound whenever they spoke. Well, in the Peanuts Universe rules were meant to be broken in the special, She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown, we actually get to hear a teacher in the Peanuts’ real voice. This wouldn’t be the last time we hear adults, and in future specials, they even showed them in cartoons like Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown and others.

TEN THINGS RETRO

❤️ Peanuts - Recently, I did a podcast on Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. It is a fine special that I have seen many times over the years, but I wouldn’t have done the podcast if Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack to the 1975 animated Peanuts TV special hadn’t been released. Amazingly, this release has found its way onto a host of Billboard Album Charts.

📜 Typewriters - The Actor Tom Hanks owns around 300 vintage typewriters. With typewriters not as common as they used to be, its great to see that a selection of his collection will be on display at a show at The Church in Sag Harbor, New York until March 10th.

🦇 Comics - The story about the creation of Batman is a complex story about artists. Bob Kane was originally credited as Batman’s sole creator for a very long time (until 2015), but as you might guess, the story of how Batman came to be in a lot more complicated and messy.

📺 Television - 10 years before Breaking Bad became a huge hit, Bryan Cranston had a memorable role on The X-Files episode, Drive. That episode was written by Breaking Bad series creator Vince Gilligan, who never forgot about Cranston’s performance. Cranston believes that if had not been that episode of The X-Files, he never would landed his career defining role.

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🕹️ Video Games - When someone tries to remake a classic video game of my youth, I will usually try to check it out. Mike Birken remade Activision’s Pitfall!, so that you can play it on your browser. This is something I have seen before, but Birken also decided to try to improve the game and the results are pretty satisfying. Now I wish I could get a version to play on my original Atari.

🎥 Movies - Movies keep appearing and disappearing from paid streaming services and its hard to know which to subscribe to from month to month. Recently a surprising trend has started with major studios publishing full movies to YouTube. Will this continue? History would say no, so enjoy them while you can.

📱 Phones - Sony’s PSP was a big hit, and with its form factor, it seemed like it would make for a pretty good phone. But when Sony Ericsson tried to bring the PlayStation brand to mobile, it fell flat.

🎸 Music- Nowadays one doesn’t associate MTV with music. But one of my favorite artist from the height of the music television era, DEVO’s Mark Mothersbaugh, is still earning a good amount of money from the channel.

🚗 Cars - For a few years, when you bought a car, you might get to bring home your owner’s manual in a new format, VHS. So from the comfort of your living room you could sit back, relax and learn all about your new car. These video tapes, which act as pretty great time capsules are fun to watch nowadays. Here is one from 1993 for the Dodge Neon.

📺 Commercials - David Lynch passed away recently. In addition to groundbreaking film and TV shows, he also did some notable advertising including this commercial for the Playstation 2.

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In the 1980s, granola bars were hitting shelves and although nutritionally they were almost the same as candy bars, many thought they were a healthy alternative. Cereal Bars like the Rice Krispies Bars found their way into people’s home under the same halo. It was a great time to be a kid!

SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATION

Daniel Best is a historian of pop culture and his Substack reflect that. I have recently been enjoying his posts on comic book history. I mentioned one above, but you might also want to check out this newer one about A New Superman Legal Battle. I am also looking forward to reading his newest book Terror Down Under: A History of Horror Film in Australia, 1897-1973, which I just ordered.

FROM THE RETROIST ARCHIVE

Let's take a moment to look back at four posts from the Retroist's past. I have been at this a long time.

One Year Ago…

🥤 The Coca-Cola MagiCan Contest

Five Years Ago…

🍫 Pillsbury Fudge Jumbles

Ten Years Ago…

🤖 It’s the K-Tel Records’ Music Machine with Robby the Robot!

Fifteen Years Ago…

🕹️ The Earth Dies Screaming for the Atari 2600

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At one point in the mid-80s, two light based combat gun games hit the market, Lazer Tag and Photon. I wanted Lazer Tag and would eventually get one, but the first set I got was Photon. Which my grandmother got me as a very thoughtful Christmas Gift.

In the episode I start by talking about how poorly I received the gift, but to my grandmother’s credit, she kept it in mind. Many months later she would surprise me with a visit to a Photon arena in Wildwood, NJ. It was AMAZING. While I might have still been interested in Lazer Tag, I was suddenly proud to have a Photon set.

After the story I move onto Photon itself. I talk about the arenas, the home guns, the toys, the TV show, video game and much more.

Photon had a lot going for it, but the toy business is rough. If you don’t catch on completely, its hard to become a multi-year hit. Despite the arenas and the TV show, Photon just couldn’t make the leaps. Still for those of us who owned a set or got to visit and area, it was very memorable.

The light shines!

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• This is the 335th episode of the Retroist Podcast and episode 10 of the new season. I planned on doing this show back-to-back with my Lazer Tag Podcast. It has only taken 7 years for me to get to it.

• We didn’t go to Wildwood, NJ very often and when we did, we tended to squeeze as much out of it as we could. This might have been my best trip there with my family.

• I wish I could bottle the enthusiasm I had for the gun set I had once I got out of that Arena.

• You can hear segments of the music in the commercial for the Arena in Baltimore that I play. Now looking for the laser disc, although I am sure a lot of other people are doing the same. Here is a digitized version posted onlne.

• I think we had 3 of these arenas in NJ.

• Do check out video that Flack shot of the last Photon arena.

• Entertech’s water guns were bananas. Still amazed they existed. My friends and I were obsessed them. The biggest problem with these water gun (besides the realism that scared people) was that they used up their water quickly.

• The Photon TV show reminds me a lot of Power Rangers. When the music shows up in an episode, its pretty exciting.

• When I look through old TV guides about Saturday Morning, I am always surprised at just how much kid’s programming you could get every Saturday Morning. Just hours and hours of cartoons.

• Bonus Clipping should be up on Patreon tomorrow.

• Music on the show is, as always, by Peachy.

Thanks for listening to the show and I hope you have a great weekend.

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When ALF premiered on TV in 1986, I was all in. I had followed the hype around the show and was there on day one to watch. For the next four seasons, I don’t think I ever missed an episode, which was easier since my family had gotten a VCR. I thought the show was going to last forever (or at least five seasons), but in 1990, the sun set on the Tanner household. While we would get a TV movie and some animated series, I thought ALF wouldn’t show his face ever again in the new millennium. I was very happy to discover in 2004 that I was wrong.

ALF returned to television that year thanks to a network that specialized in classic television, TV Land. There, in 2003, they decided to break out of just broadcasting old programming and create some brand-new shows, but with retro origins. For their first two shows, TV Land Productions leaned heavily on existing properties and decided to produce The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited and ALF’s Hit Talk Show.

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The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited was a reunion special with members of the original cast coming together to share memories in the form of a clip show. It was great to see the original cast together again, but my exposure to The Dick Van Dyke Show was mostly through reruns. What I was really excited about was their next original program starring ALF.

The first episode of ALF’s Hit Talk Show aired on July 7, 2004, as a lead-in for an ALF marathon, featuring guests Drew Carey and Dennis Franz, with special appearances by Joan Rivers and Henry Winkler. What was expected to be a one-shot special seemed to go over well internally, and they slated the show to return in the fall of 2004. Being a big ALF fan, I made sure to be home to watch and assumed, like everyone else, it would be a one-shot event.

The show was done in the style of other late-night talk shows, with ALF seated behind a desk and guests seated on the couch for the interview portion. To add an extra layer of authenticity, they managed to land Ed McMahon as ALF’s sidekick. On his return to TV, ALF was quoted in Entertainment Weekly, stating, “They have demonstrated superb taste by giving me my own show, and it’s humbling that they recognize my unequaled genius.”

Sal Maniaci, the vice president of TV Land at the time, said, “We are excited that we are able to entertain our audience with ALF’s wit and humor. This is definitely an alternative to many of today’s standard late-night programs.” Such optimism for the show came with a commitment to six weekly 30-minute episodes.

That fall, when the show returned, I was excited to see how the format would work in the long run. While I thought it was still a great concept filled with potential, others did not. The press was pretty negative about the show. I can see why they felt that way—the timing was off, and sometimes things felt rushed, with guests lines getting stepped on to squeeze in an ALF punchline. If they had just given the show a bit more time to work out the issues, I think it might have found its place. This is common for most talk shows. The host needs to feel comfortable and get into the rhythm of the show. Sadly, ALF’s Hit Talk Show never got that opportunity.

The show premiered on November 12, 2004, and didn’t light the world on fire. They continued to broadcast episodes weekly as promised, but they never did more than the six promised episodes. The good thing was that if you missed the show during its original run, you could catch it in reruns. Much like the show it spun off from, the talk show was marathoned a few times. Unfortunately, since the show wasn’t popular, it never got a proper digital or physical media release. Fortunately, though, because it wasn’t very popular, uploaded episodes on YouTube aren’t taken down.

Even though ALF’s Hit Talk Show didn’t last, I’m still glad it happened. It was fun to see ALF back on TV, even if only for a little while. The idea had promise, and with more time, it might have worked out better. But at the end of the day, it was just cool to see ALF doing something new instead of just living in reruns. It may not have been a big hit, but for fans like me, it was a nice little bonus we didn’t expect.

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Amazingly, we are in the 50th season of Saturday Night Live. That is a long time to be on television and for much of the show’s run, it was helmed by the same person, Lorne Michaels. Michaels did step away from the show for a few years starting in 1980. Two people stepped in to fill his shoes, Jean Doumanian (1980–1981) and Dick Ebersol (1981–1985). It was an interesting time for the show, with exciting stars and mixed results. Michaels returned to the show in 1985 to help rebuild the show in his image, but before he did, he tried to launch another sketch comedy show, The New Show.

While it was a sketch comedy show, it wasn’t an attempt to duplicate SNL exactly. Yes, there would be sketches, but they would all be entirely pre-recorded, the show would only be 60 minutes in length and they would often have multiple guests on an episode.

For writers and cast, Michaels went with people he knew. This included many of the writers from his original time at SNL, with some writers from Late Night with David Letterman added. The cast was was stocked with SCTV alumni, and a few original SNL cast members and hosts made appearances including: Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Buck Henry and Steve Martin.

For its time, it might have been one the largest concentration of funny people on one television show. Unfortunately, it just didn’t gel. Airing opposite two solid shows, Matt Houston and Falcon Crest, it would be the lowest-rated of 94 programs that aired during the 1983–84 TV season.

When the show disappeared its 9 episodes didn’t have much of a second life. So memories of the show have faded Even though the show never got a home video release, several episodes have been posted in their entirety, and the entire series is currently on the Internet Archive.

The New Show has some funny moments, but America didn’t fall in love with it. Reviewers didn’t like it and viewer just didn’t tune in. While the cast and crew lost their jobs, many of them were able to get back to work quickly, including Michaels who would go on to run Saturday Night Live for the next four decades.

(If you have retro finds you would like for me to share, I want to hear them. What old useful website are still lurking on the web? Some old TV show streaming online? Old tech being brought back? Let me know.)

ONE COOL VIDEO

A few sketches from The New Show were particularly memorable. One that seemed to get a lot of replay over the years is this spoof of Michael Jacksons, Billie Jean music video, starring Steve Martin.

TEN THINGS RETRO

📺 Television - I was inspired to write about The New Show after watching the four episode documentary series SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night on Peacock. Its a little uneven, but its a joy to hear former cast members talk about how important the show was to them.

🛍️ Malls - Malls were important, but the world still doesn’t seem to have realized this. So we are are our losing vintage malls and their history at a rapid rate. Art Tavana has posted an oral history of one of the most famous celebrated and filmed malls, the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

🖥️ Computers - Do you still use a screen saver? Once sold in stores, these tech saving bits of software made staring at your screen fun. Sadly, the days of the fun screen saver seem to be behind us. Maybe that means its a good time to talk about Screen Saver History.

🦸‍♂️ Roleplaying - The Superhero Table Top Role Playing Game is not as popular as other genres, but in the eighties, my friends and I happily played in the worlds of Marvel and DC. Years earlier though, the first Superhero TTRPGs would hit shelves and gaming tables, Superhero 2044.

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📷 History - With our phones and their cameras constantly at the ready, its easy to take photography for granted. But in the 19th century, the technology was still new and didn’t seem accessible. So how does a company like Kodak convince the public that they should be taking photos of their own?

💿 Compact Discs - Streaming might dominate music, but the Compact Disc stubbornly holds on. For a generation it was the introduction to a quality of sound that seemed nearly impossibly clear. As you might guess, the history of the creation of CD is as interesting the music it helped sell to the world.

🎮 Gaming- Mark Discordia passed away recently. Mark was unfairly treated by the internet when he displayed his love for all things Nintendo (as an adult). It was snarky and cruel. He should be remembered for what he was, a precursor to the proud fans who have since found niche and accepting homes on the web. Mark deserved better.

🛹 Skateboarding - Do you remember your first skateboard? How long did it take you to learn your first trick? Many people gave up quickly after failing, but if you didn’t give up, the memories can stick with you for your entire life.

🖱️ Computer Games - Celebrities don’t often appear as themselves in video games. But if they do, how does that translate to an international audience who might not know the celebrity? In 2000, this is exactly what publisher Electronic Arts and developer Maxis had to deal with when they added comedian Drew Carey, to The Sims.

📱 Design - The Nokia Design Archive allows you to explore the behind-the-scenes design decisions of the legendary company.

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FEATURED RETRO COUPON

Another cereal coupon today. What can I say, breakfast cereal has always been important to me. GI Joe Action Stars were a decent cereal, but like many of the cereals from this era, what I really wanted was the box. In 1985, I probably went a few months eating this stuff every morning.

SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATION

In the 1980s, Mark Lesser was looking for a job in Los Angeles. The search wasn’t going well until he went and talked to the people at Hanna-Barbera. There, he was able to land a job that had a far-reaching impact on his life. Its a great story of creative gumption, just the type of stuff you want to read about in the entertainment industry.

FROM THE RETROIST ARCHIVE

Let's take a moment to look back at four posts from the Retroist's past. I have been at this a long time.

One Year Ago…

🥜 Koogle Peanut Butter Spread

Five Years Ago…

🐉 The Dungeons & Dragons art of Laura Roslof

Ten Years Ago…

🥣 It is time to bring back Crispy Critters Cereal (again)

Fifteen Years Ago…

🚀 Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom

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Like most people, I grew up in my own bubble filled with things that me, my family and friends enjoyed together. It didn’t even occur to me that the rest of the world didn’t love UHF. It was very high on my rewatch for at least a year and was very quotable.

I begin the episode talking about what my friends and I took away from our first viewing, Twinkie Dogs! We decided to try it and the results were mixed. I later learned that Weird Al had a similar problem with the Twinkie Dogs. Having to take bites out of too many during shooting was just too much. Also, if you watch closely, he dips the dog in milk. We didn’t do that. After my story, I move onto the film itself. I discuss the plot, its production, the stars of the film, music, its reception and much more.

Weird Al is very funny and he brings his brand of comedy to the big screen and sadly America wasn’t ready for it. I think comedy has evolved over time and maybe the disjointed silliness would be more welcome today? I hope so. This is a film I would like to catch on and be considered something more than a cult classic. So if you haven’t seen UHF, please give it a chance.

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• This is the 334th episode of the Retroist Podcast and episode 9 of the new season. How did I go this long without talking about UHF?

• I considered making a Twinkie Dog before recording this, but I remember how it upset my stomach and decided maybe it wouldn’t be worth reliving that.

• We had so many great UHF stations. My favorite was UHF 68. I spent a lot of hours watching Uncle Floyd and Mr. Ed there.

• Its is crazy how much people want for some VHS tapes. I wonder how many collectors are actually watching the videos? Is it just speculation? Not a fan of he high prices.

• When I first saw Seinfeld, I was hoping that Kramer was going to be more like Stanley.

• Weird that Jay Levey doesn’t have a lot of info online about himself.

• It would be a dream to work my way up the world of film production for the opportunity to say to Weird Al that I want to be in the Weird Al business.

• I like the Secret Life of Walter Mitty and thought the remake with Ben Still wasn’t bad.

• Had a much longer section about the stars but I cut it down by about 40%. It was just a bit much.

• Wonder why Ellen Degeneres turned down the role?

• Would have loved to see Joel Hodgeson take a change in the film

• My friends and I showed up to see the first showing, thinking it was going to be Batman 89 crowded. It wasn’t, but we didn’t notice, we were laughing so hard.

• Bonus Clipping should be up on Patreon tomorrow.

• Music on the show is, as always, by Peachy.

Thanks for listening to the show and I hope you have a great weekend.

Thanks for reading The Retroist! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

If you grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons or other role-playing games in the early days, you most likely have something in common with other early gamers: you “inked” your dice. I don’t recall calling it inking back then; it didn’t even occur to me because my dice never had ink applied to them. Instead, I would grab a crayon, fill in the numbers, and then wipe off the excess. I was rough on my early dice, plus I had a player who liked to take a pencil to the dice and scrape out the wax, thinking it was funny. As a result, I had to re-crayon them every few months.

As I moved from opaque to gemstone-style dice, I continued using a crayon. I even picked up a set of what were billed as "Dice Markers" but were actually just thick crayons. For years, the RPG store I visited had a case filled with shiny and glittering dice just waiting to be enhanced. Then one day, I went there, and they were selling sets of dice with the numbers already colored in. These dice were sold in sets, had rounded edges, and came in a rainbow of colors. We were smitten, quickly picking up sets in our favorite colors.

Taking them home, we studied them up close and realized that it wasn’t crayon but some sort of paint. What we would learn eventually is that the rounded edges were integral to getting the paint in those number grooves. These dice had been coated with paint and then tumbled in a drum with material that removed the top layer of paint. The result was dice with very clear numbers and smoothed-out edges. They looked cool, but these dice could also be biased when rolling, and with those rounded corners, they often rolled right off the table.

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Having grown up with pointier dice, often referred to as “precision dice,” I preferred them for their appearance and the way they rolled more randomly. As my friends started to pick up new sets, I was happy to add their old sets to my collection. During my first five years of playing, I probably picked up a dozen full sets from companies like Game Science and The Armory, which I was constantly filling in with crayons.

It was in the new millennium that I started hearing the term “inked dice.” I encountered it while ordering dice online. There, I could get my preferred sharp-edged dice, where ink had been pre-applied by hand to the numbers. Some of the sets I bought were pre-inked, but I also ordered a few “naked sets” and thought I would try my hand at inking. This led to a trial-and-error process, with a few dice nearly ruined in the process. Ultimately, though, I figured out a good system and some good markers for the purpose.

First of all, you will want to clean the dice. I like to use warm water with just a little dish soap. You don’t need to scrub hard; you just want to remove any dirt, oil, or small plastic bits from the number grooves. When you are done cleaning, make sure you dry your dice well.

Then you need to start inking. Before you do, you will need to choose a color, grab a marker, and have a steady hand. I suggest considering the contrast when picking the ink color. If you have a light-colored die, using a light ink can make it difficult to see. On the other hand, if you choose a dark color on a light-colored gemstone-style die, it can dull its luster, darken it, or even make it look muddy. You might also be limited by the markers you can find. You will most likely want an ultra-fine point. If you can’t find a satisfactory one, you can use a thicker-pointed Sharpie, but you will need to wipe away excess ink while it is still wet. Be very cautious with this; you can easily damage a set of dice using this method.

I tend to use two brands:

• Sharpie Ultra-Fine Point Permanent Marker, which is pretty easy to find.

• Sakura Microperm Ultra-Fine (sizes 01, 03, and 05), which is not as common in stores but available online.

You will really want to figure out what works best for you. It takes a little practice, so if you want to ink your own dice, I suggest buying a cheaper set online and practicing with your marker of choice. Make sure you are in a well-lit and ventilated space before starting and experiment with how you hold the dice. How you hold it and apply the ink will give different results. Also, make sure you give you dice a good cleaning with water and a soft brush to remove any debris in the numbers.

It was suggested to me that a grease pencil might be a good way to ink dice, so I orders some Sharpie brand ones off Amazon and gave them a try. The results were solid. The results were similar to what I get when I use a crayon, but the pigment laid down more easily. Wiping off required just a small amount of extra work, but I will definitely be trying it out more often on future dice.

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When I started playing D&D, I was invited to join an existing group at a friend’s house. His older brother played with us as a very clever mage. While I was impressed with his roleplaying skills, I was more taken with a set of dice he had. It was a dark yellow gemstone set from the company The Armory. I was smitten. Every time we played I found myself staring at them, wishing I had a set just like it. When I went to store to see if I could find them? No dice.

A couple of years ago, I visited a now-defunct RPG store in Seattle, and they had a good collection of dice, including some precision dice from Game Science. I decided to pick up a set when I spotted what looked like a dark yellow un-inked set. They looked very similar to my friend’s older brother’s set. After purchasing them and getting them home, I realized that they were much lighter in color. They were lustrous, and I decided to keep that sparkle and inked them with a white crayon for old time’s sake.

Over the years, I have picked up various dice in shades of yellow, amber, and brown, trying to get close to a color of dice that was becoming a bit of a Holy Grail. Then, last year, I was re-organizing my game shelves and had left a set of dice out on the shelf. They were sitting on a dark book in a dimly lit room, and I realized that I was chasing a phantom! The dice he had weren’t a different color. The lighting was just darker in that basement, and he had used a black crayon to ink his dice.

So I picked up two sets of modern precision dice, inked one in black, and kept the other natural to compare. The results on the inked dice were exactly what I wanted. I had a set of dice just like the ones I had seen growing up. It was a different company, but with retro dice prices booming, they would have to do.

In the end, my journey with dice has been a long one, filled with trial, error, and learning. From crayons to markers, from opaque plastic to gemstone-style dice, and from chasing memories to making new ones, it has all been about finding what works best for me. These small, numbered pieces of plastic hold a lot of meaning for players, and the time spent personalizing them only adds to their value. Whether you’re using a crayon, a marker, or buying pre-inked sets, the important thing is to enjoy the process and the stories that come with it.

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I have mentioned both here and on the podcast that I worked at Suncoast Motion Picture Company for many years. Not to brag, but I was Employee of the Month countless times, and I have pins to prove it.

When I would mention Suncoast to people, they didn’t always know what I was talking about. Suncoast had lots of locations in malls across North America and the company existed during the boom in video sales, but still a good portion of people I knew at the time, and now, have never heard of it.

Even though it had some diehard fans, unlike video rental stores like Blockbuster, Suncoast didn’t leave the same impressions on popular culture. In fact, I assumed it was completely overlooked until around 2013. That is when I finally saw a move that had been released two years, earlier in theaters, Take Me Home Tonight.

The film, which had a long path from production to release is set in the 1980s and starts Topher Grace. Topher plays a character who despite having a degree from a prestigious school, isn’t sure what to do with his life. So he gets a job at the mall working at Suncoast. There he re-encounters his high school crush and his life take some interesting turns.

It was really fun to see them capture Suncoast on film and they did a solid job with the art direction. It had differences from the store I worked at, but it really does look like a Suncoast. Unfortunately the Suncoast scenes are short and are all at the start. They help to explain the character, but once that is done, we never return to the store. Since Suncoast is so infrequently filmed or photographed during this era, its nice to see it even as a recreation two decades later.

The scenes aren’t posted online, but shots of the store figure into the trailer prominently.

The glossy black walls, the red neon, it all takes me right back.

(If you have retro finds you would like for me to share, I want to hear them. What old useful website are still lurking on the web? Some old TV show streaming online? Old tech being brought back? Let me know.)

ONE COOL VIDEO

A few videos have been posted online of real Suncoast stores. My favorite is this one from 1995 that captures the last day before an in-mall move at the store in Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota. It’s a real treat to see and hear the employees talking and glimpse the silliness and camaraderie. It felt very similar to the location where I worked.

TEN THINGS RETRO

🎲 Board Games - Monopoly is 90 years old and isn’t lacking for spinoffs and variations. Now Hasbro is taking the game in a new modern strategic direction with a new packaging and plans for multiple expansions.

💿 Physical Media - I have not given up on physical media and I am not alone. Still, the ticking timebomb under this revival of physical media may be that good players are becoming scarce.

🍔 Collecting - Some of the best stuff on the internet is being posted on social media. One of my favorite accounts to follow is Consumer Time Capsule. They have an amazing vintage McDonald's collection filled with things I have never seen before. Follow on X and Bluesky.

📺 Television - One of the more unusual recurring bits on the tv show, The A-Team, was how the character of B.A. Baracus needed to be drugged into order to fly. It was played for big laughs on the show and it was something you could count on whenever the team was going to be traveling. For those not familiar, here is a video demonstrating how they tricked B.A. eight times on the show.

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📱 Mobile Phones - Do you miss the feel and design of eighties technology? If you have a 3D printer, you could recapture some of the magic of the era with this printable retro case for your iPhone. According to its creator, they wanted to “create a case that transforms the latest technology into a vaporware technology device.”

🎄 Christmas - While remodeling his parent’s home, Tim King found a 46 year old wrapped Christmas present addressed to him hidden in the wall. The present was bought in the fall of 1978, when he was just six years old.

📺 Technology - In 1968, Sony unveiled a 100-Inch Color Video Panel. Made from 78,000 small lights with red, green and blue filters, it was remarkably small, and well ahead of its time. It was never released as a commercial product, but it gave everyone who saw it a glimpse of the future.

🚚 Toys - When Chevron announced it was going to merge with Hess, it was a big deal. But Hess had something more important to say when they reassured us stating that they, “…want to assure all of you that the Hess Toy Truck, a long-standing, cherished tradition, will continue on for future years!”

📺 Television - The cult TV show, Liquid Television, which ran from 1991 to 1996, and launched shows like Beavis and Butt-Head and Æon Flux, is now available to download at the Internet Archive.

🎉 Public Domain - Do you celebrate Public Domain day? You should, because in 2025 a whole bunch of great stuff has entered the Public Domain.

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FEATURED RETRO COUPON

No expiration date on this Pac-Man Cereal Coupon. Unfortunately they stopped making it a long time ago. I had Pac-Man fever for years after the game peaked in popularity and loved this cereal. I was sad to see it go.

SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATION

Flack who runs Ninjas and Neon is a fellow fan of nostalgia with a wide range of retro interests that will surprise you and make you smile.

FROM THE RETROIST ARCHIVE

Let's take a moment to look back at four posts from the Retroist's past. I have been at this a long time.

One Year Ago…

🥣 Dunkin' Donuts Soups

Five Years Ago…

🎲 Did TSR try and trademark the word, Nazi?

Ten Years Ago…

🧇 The Early Bird gets the Eggo Waffle

Fifteen Years Ago…

🥋 Chuck Norris Superkicks

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When I say Burger Chef to most people, they might recognize the name from its appearance on Mad Men, but most people haven’t heard of. This, despite it being the second largest fast food chain in the United States by 1973. Its rise was dramatic, its fall, sad. On this episode of the show, I want to talk to you about this wonderful fast food restaurant.

I start the show talking about my childhood visits to the chain. They were all solo trips with my mom and I loved all of them. The place had character and tasty food, plus they had some great options for kids. All things I will talk about during the show. After my story I move on to the chain itself, I talk about its connection to Burger King, its growth, franchising, innovations, sale to General Foods and its decline.

My mom lamented the loss of this chain. She was convinced it was a higher quality offering than other chain. It just goes to show that a lot can go wrong when managing a fast food chain and that it can be difficult to recover when things go wrong.

Starting in the early eighties, they start converting Burger Chefs, mostly to Hardees. Bu the memory of BC lingered and Hardees has re-released the Big Shef a few times. Its been a decade since they release it last and I don’t see it happening again. I think that is a good indicator of people’s interest in the chain. My hope is that by talking about Burger Chef, I can inspire a few people to remember or seek out more info about it.

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• This is the 333rd episode of the Retroist Podcast and episode 8 of the new season. This is the first episode of 2025.

• I wanted to do this podcast a few years ago when it was mentioned on Mad Men, but I didn’t like what I attempted to record.

• They had some great fun meals that would inspire other chains. Actually the more you look at Burger Chef, the more you realize how much other restaurants “borrowed” from the chain.

• Look at the reviews of the Ghost Chefs I mention. People have snapped photos of the interiors and some great Burger Chef details have survived.

• I really think Hardees could do more with this brand for special offerings.

• Bonus Clipping should be up on Patreon tomorrow. I didn’t dive to deeply on this round and didn’t review them during the show. It just didn’t seem to go properly with the theme.

• Music on the show is, as always, by Peachy.

Thanks for listening to the show and I hope you have a great weekend.

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We didn’t have a Little Caesars in my hometown when I was growing up, but that changed once I left home. The pizza chain wasn’t even on my radar at the time, but the combination of roommates and lack of money led me to check out the various coupon deals that kept landing in our apartment. The pizza and “Crazy Bread” became the cornerstone of my diet for months. Then one day, two of my roommates went out on a pizza run and came back with something I had never seen before: a bucket of spaghetti. Not just a bucket, no, not for ol’ Little Caesar. The diminutive pizza emperor served his spaghetti in a Big! Big! Bucket.

For those not familiar with the Little Caesars pizza chain, it got its start in Garden City, Michigan, in 1959. Founded by Mike and Marian Ilitch, a single store quickly grew after the first franchise was opened in 1962. It is probably best known for its two-for-one pizza deals, which started in 1974. This deal gave you a second pizza for free with each medium pizza you purchased. In 1979, they started using the slogan “Pizza! Pizza!” to drive home this offer. They would start national TV advertising in 1988, and this catchphrase, spoken by the cartoon Little Caesar, caught on like wildfire.

This is how I knew about the chain, even though I had never seen one before. Just from advertising, I knew it was an affordable food option, and when they started sending coupons to our apartment, we couldn’t resist partaking. It was one of my roommates who opted to bring home the Big! Big! Bucket while the rest of us ordered pizza. What he brought home, and the value we saw in it, changed our orders for months.

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Pasta has always been a popular item at pizza places. Pizza Hut had been doing it for decades by the early nineties, and Little Caesars was selling it at the Pizza Stations they had in many Kmarts. With that experience under their belt, in the summer of 1993, they decided to add pasta to their 4,500 carryout locations. Initially billed in the Little Caesars style as “Spaghetti! Spaghetti!,” the dish debuted in stores in May of that year. The original deal was two medium pizzas with one topping and two side orders of spaghetti for $8.98. If you wanted to make it a large spaghetti, that would cost you $11.98.

That summer, they did lots of promotions and even local marketing events. They also announced immediately that they would eventually add a meat sauce option, and they would. My favorite promotions were spaghetti-eating contests, and a great example of that was at the Phoenix Zoo in Arizona. Contestants would sit on their hands and eat a small order of spaghetti. Winners would take home vouchers for free Little Caesars food, guided tours of the zoo, and other prizes.

By the end of summer, spaghetti seemed to be doing well enough that the company decided to introduce three additional serving sizes, all served in buckets. These buckets were supposed to add convenience to the ordering process. The bucket format allowed for easy carrying and warming in the microwave.

You could choose from four sizes: side order (no bucket), small, medium, and Big! Big! Prices were: $1.29 (side order), $2.49 (small), $4.99 (medium), and $8.88 (Big! Big!). The largest was by far the best deal for the amount of pasta you would receive. You would be looking at 28 ounces of noodles and 28 ounces of sauce. That was 3.5 pounds, AND it also came with an eight-piece order of their beloved Crazy Bread.

According to the company, the sauce and pasta were made at each carryout location. They didn’t specify how it was made, but I have read that it actually was just frozen, which makes a lot more sense than boiling big vats of pasta in stores.

I also read online that people who worked at carryout locations were not fans. Despite the bucket developing some loyal customers, it wasn’t as popular as the pizzas they were cranking out. Having to change things up and put together a spaghetti order could be very disruptive to the flow.

A few years later, with the success of spaghetti, they started to add other pasta dishes. These “Hot Pasta Dinners” included things like lasagna, stuffed shells, and manicotti. They were not served in a bucket, but instead were more like meal deals, served with four pieces of Crazy Bread and a 16 oz soft drink.

The Big! Big! Spaghetti Bucket had a good run. It might not have lit the world on fire, but in most locations, it held on until 1998. Some franchises kept it alive after that, but by the turn of the millennium, it was pretty much gone—lingering only in the buckets people held onto and the memories of bargain pasta eaters who managed to get through a week of meals after buying two buckets.

Why did it go away? According to an October 18, 1998 article in the Detroit Free Press, it was lack of interest. They further state that, “A number of franchisees said they were stuck with lots of frozen spaghetti. Company officials sat the spaghetti product is still available, and a good seller, in some store.”

Little Caesars wasn’t the first to offer pasta in a bucket, and they wouldn’t be the last. But they did try and take it nationwide and while it didn’t redefine the fast-food industry, but it showcased their knack for bold ideas and value-driven innovation. It was a quirky addition to their menu, offering a hearty alternative to their signature pizzas and proving that pasta could have its place in a carryout-focused operation. While it didn’t become a permanent fixture, it left its mark as a memorable example of how Little Caesars was willing to step up and experiment in an attempt to stand out in the crowded world of quick and affordable food.

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