The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is an American live-action children’s television series about transforming teen superheroes who pilot giant prehistoric-themed robot animals that can form together into a giant robot called a Megazord. With help from a creepy robot named Alpha and his floating head master Zordon, the Power Rangers battle enemies like Rita Repulsa, Lord Zedd, and all of their monstrous henchmen.

At the height of its popularity, the show appealed to kids of all ages and invited them into its world of colorful martial arts and slapstick comedy. With this success came all types of toys, video games, apparel, and various other merchandise with the Power Rangers logo plastered all over it. Being at the perfect age for full indoctrination when the show first premiered on Saturday morning Fox, I was hypnotized and engrossed. I even saw the abysmal feature film in theaters on opening night and scored myself a free poster.

In good conscience, I could not overlook this $1 set of magnets at a local poverty vendor. These collectible magnets represent everything that is pure and beautiful about the Power Rangers. Just look at the Megazord standing there with his power sword. His legs are made out of a saber-toothed tiger and a triceratops, respectively, for fuck’s sake. His shield is a giant robotic wooly mammoth head. Toys don’t get much cooler than this.

Also featured are Jason Lee Scott the red ranger and Trini Kwan the yellow ranger. Thuy Trang, the actress who played Trini, died in a fatal car crash in 2001. The saber-toothed tiger was my third favorite zord and Trini’s contributions to the show will not be forgotten. Rest in peace, good ranger.

Jason the red ranger was my favorite until the green ranger was introduced, and who could blame me? The guy not only got dibs on the Tyrannosaurus Rex zord, but also had the honor of piloting the Megazord in its final form.

Absent from the set are the blue ranger Billy Cranston, the black ranger Zack Taylor, the pink love of my life Kimberly Hart, and that bad ass green motherfucker with the gold trim known as Tommy Oliver.

As the box assures us, these magnets “play on most metal surfaces” and I’m sure I’ll get around to testing that theory one of these days. Until then, it’s been fun to reminisce. I fondly remember coming home from school every day and catching the syndicated Mighty Morphin Power Rangers episodes that they’d play back to back. Saturday mornings were the new episodes and I made sure never to miss out on all of the action.

You can tell a franchise is strong when it lasts several decades and the Power Rangers intellectual property shows no sign of slowing down. We’ll just have to see in the future how many times they can add the words “in space” or “mega ultra ninja” to the title to create even more spin-offs of this classic kids television show.

There is no better way to end this article than with the most epic theme song of all time presented in both its original form and a power metal cover. Enjoy.

On a lazy, rainy Saturday afternoon, children can be a real handful. They’re whiney, agitated and complaining about how bored they are and how all of their thousands of dollars worth of board games, video games, and action figures “suck.” What in the name of shutting them the fuck up can you do to appease them? That’s where family fun centers shine like a beacon of hope in a sea of destructive thoughts like “Why the fuck did we ever decide to have kids?” and “Could we get away with murdering them?” Family fun centers are the answer.

However, the best family fun center ever invented closed its doors in 1996 due to bankruptcy. Their bottom line was stretched to the point of collapse with each new expansion the company made and it finally had to close its doors and hand over the keys to the far inferior wasteland of broken dreams and shitty arcade machines known as Chuck E. Cheese.

I am here to honor and cherish the memory of one of my favorite childhood distractions of all time. It was the birthday party mecca. It was the car ride you begged your parents to take you on. It was a place every kid dreamed of. A mess of slides, climbing play structures, ball pits, and giant foam everything, Discovery Zone was THE most fun place imaginable to get out all of your pent up childhood aggression with minimal adult supervision.

As evidenced in this 1993 Discovery Zone TV commercial, it was advertised as a place where kids could be kids without getting in trouble for it. Kids were used to being told no. Whether it was sliding down the columns at the local history museum or running and climbing on things at the grocery store, children were told to sit still, be quiet and behave when out in public. Discovery Zone wanted to change all that.

Just look at this lucky bastard sitting on top of a giant pyramid in the ball pit. “King of the Hill” games were never as fun as they were at Discovery Zone. I distinctly remember throwing other kids off of this thing into the balls below. When I was feeling particularly violent, I would perform flying elbow drops as well.

Speaking of childhood violence, remember these things? These giant foam blocks arranged in a crude staircase were the site of the some of the most epic battles between friends and strangers alike. They were set up in such a way that kids were forced to fight for dominance. I’m sure these two girls in the commercial were eyeing each other up, just waiting to pull hair and throw punches when their parents weren’t looking. These foam blocks punctuate everything beautiful and chaotic about the freedom of youth.

The one thing that’s not in the commercial that was the only other part of the experience I thought was worth mentioning was their roller slide thing. Shown below, this Skittles-like rainbow of fun was a slide made entirely of smooth colorful plastic rollers. It felt like a combination of a cheap massage and a conveyor belt of happiness. I spent most of my time at Discovery Zone riding this thing over and over again and I thought it deserved an honorable mention.

Also, like I said before, this place was the most exciting birthday party a kid could ever have. Forget bumper bowling and group trips to the movies, this was the absolute greatest birthday in a child’s life. Not only could you beat the crap out of your friends, but you’d also get to open presents and have a custom-made Discovery Zone cake with sparklers on top. What a magical fucking place.

My only regret is never having met this amazing looking robot on any of my visits. It was in the commercials, but I never remember seeing this little dude around any time I’ve been there and I will regret that fact for the rest of my short, pitiful existence.

It’s a real shame that Discovery Zone didn’t have a better business model because, in my opinion, it would still be relevant today. There aren’t many places that fill this same void in a parent’s everlasting quest to alleviate their child’s boredom and misbehavior anymore. Should there be another family fun center to come along and take America by storm, I hope it borrows a few of Discovery Zone’s key values and brings back a little bit of that magic that made places like these so special.

Blank Check, at its most stripped-down definition, is a film about a 12-year-old boy named Preston is given a blank check after his bike is destroyed. After doing the good, honest thing and forging the check to read $1,000,000, Preston has a ball spending the money until the gangsters he ripped off come looking for him.

However, what seems like a somewhat original premise is executed in the most paint-by-numbers, obscenely trite way onscreen.

The characters make absolutely no sense and their motivations are so muddled. Preston’s dad, for instance, is incredibly hard on the boy for not being an entrepreneur at 12 years old. His two older, meathead brothers have started their own business, but they don’t even know how to use a computer. Preston’s father lays on plenty of guilt for his lack of business savvy because, y’know, 12 year olds should be trading on Wall Street and shit.

From his dad’s disapproval to his brothers taking over his bedroom and a bully stealing his birthday money, Preston has it pretty bad. He even has to embarrass himself in front of the heavenly bank-teller-who-is-actually-a-government-agent Shay, the film’s hot girl, after admitting to falling well short of the minimum $200 to open an account. Fortunately, a money-laundering mafioso mistakenly crushes Preston’s bicycle and, in a hurry, hands over a check to cover the damages and forgets to write in an amount.

Like any kid with a wad of cash, Preston believes his troubles are over as he spends his money on everything from limo rides to expensive video games and even buying a castle. That’s right, folks, a castle somehow exists in this fantasy suburbia and it’s for sale!

Speaking of the castle and horribly written characters, Quigley the mobster is also trying to buy that very same castle for himself. Now, there’s a smart criminal. Let’s illegally acquire an assload of money and buy a fucking castle. Sounds like the perfect way to lay low.

Under the pseudo identity of “Mr. Macintosh,” Preston gains Shay’s affections as he tries to impress her with all of Mr. Macintosh’s money. Throw in the cliche comic relief limo driver who is always trying to spout sage-like wisdom, and you’ve got the makings of a real unoriginal piece of cinematic garbage.

Also, for some reason, the limo driver is allowed to engage in all of the fun activities that Preston buys along the way. It screams “creepy,” but somehow a guy in his 40s hanging out with a 12-year-old is deemed perfectly acceptable in the context of this film.

Cue lots of montages about having fun with lots of money that isn’t yours with no consequence.

Preston plans to throw a giant birthday bash for Mr. Macintosh, but it’s really just a party for himself. As he is making the arrangements, he realizes that the money has finally run out. After a heartfelt speech from Preston’s dad who thinks he is talking to Mr. Macintosh, Preston learns that his dad really does care about him and just goofed up raising him. It’s a terrible speech.

After his father leaves, Preston sends everyone home and waits in the castle, alone and broke. Going along with the lack of creativity of the rest of the film, this is when the bad guys arrive. This is when the film does its best to plagiarize Home Alone and succeeds admirably. It’s the classic formula: booby traps that would never work in real life being tripped by incomprehensibly idiotic villains. Preston’s catch phrases after each successful trap only serve to elevate the cringe factor.

Just as the bad guys catch up to Preston and are about to make him pay, the cops arrive and save the day. The bad guys are arrested and Preston tries one last, futile attempt to get into Shay’s pants. Shay tells him to give her a call in 10 years and they share an awkward, borderline illegal kiss.

Afterward, Preston returns home to his angry parents who have every right to ground him until he’s 18, but instead they give him a birthday cake. What? I guess crime really does pay.

Although I really enjoyed Blank Check as a child, I feel like it was just my greedy fantasy of having that much money to throw around clouding my judgement. Really, this film is a really good example of an interesting premise taken over by boring, generic storytelling and unlikable characters. I might watch it on a Sunday afternoon on cable if there wasn’t a COPS marathon playing, but I wouldn’t give it the time of day otherwise.

Overall: 1/5

They went to school and whispered about the Spice Girls and the two boys in town behind their seemingly nonexistent teachers’ backs. They went home in a giant shoebox-schoolbus, and by the time they hit the first bus stop, the bus’s contents had shifted considerably. The school was always right by the nice part of town, so the popular girls—Polly with the blonde pigtails, Polly in the pink minidress, Polly’s brunette friend who always wore a swimsuit to school—were the first ones off the bus. I could have made them go home and do their homework, but after they finished cheerleading practice, it was usually partytime (whatever 7-year-old me thought cool teenagers did at parties).

I preferred to play Polly Pocket by myself—when I had friends over, they’d want to change the layout of the town or which centimeter-tall dolls were friends with each other. Sometimes it was nice to have others join in on the fun, but my friends always disrupted the continuity of whatever soap opera I was writing in my head, and never helped me clean up when we were done playing. In the giant bin under my bed, I had enough houses and businesses (many of which had apartments on top: likely why the idea of living above a shop appeals to me today) to build a sprawling plastic metropolis that spanned my entire bedroom. With each themed building I got coming with a Polly doll and maybe three of her fittingly dressed friends, the town’s population grew to over 100. There were a few casualties—those dolls who broke at the waist from too much play, or those shoved to the darkest corners of my room when my mom came in and told me to clean my room immediately. But for the most part, the mini citizens of my bedroom lived long, happy lives (I still secretly played with them through maybe the eighth or ninth grade, and I’m pretty sure they’re still somewhere in my mom’s basement).

Bluebird Toys, the company that sold Polly Pockets from their 1989 release until they were bought out in 1998, also released a line of Mighty Max miniatures directed at boys. In addition, I had multiple playsets from Disney’s Pollyesque line (the aforementioned two boys in town were a Mighty Max figurine and one of John Smith. Mini-Pocahontas was constantly warding off classmates who had the hots for John). My favorite knockoff playset featured a family of four and a large house with rearrangable rooms; in all the houses sold by Bluebird, the furniture was built into the plastic floors, with little spaces that determined where Polly and her friends could sit or stand). Still, nothing beat an authentic Polly Pocket playset—there were so many of them to collect/beg my parents for (a Polly with rollerblades affixed to her feet, horseback riding Pollys whose legs were built to straddle a saddle, a Polly with a magnet in her feet so that she could move across her living room when you pulled a lever, Polly Pocket-sized dogs and cats). With so many possibilities, it became easy to have a world unto myself.

After Mattel acquired Bluebird, they began phasing the line into the taller dolls, made out of softer plastic and with changeable clothing, that they still sell today. Maybe it was a safety issue—parents could have been getting more paranoid about the original dolls’ tiny size (or maybe kids were just getting dumber and more likely to eat little plastic people for breakfast). Maybe the company just wanted a line that could compete with lines such as Bratz and the like. With Sims-like games and role playing games in abundance, I  guess today’s kids would find little need for tiny dolls you lose easily and can’t even get cute clothes for. Still, if I ever have a daughter, I intend to bring out my bin of Polly Pockets and let her create her own—

“No, honey, the school has to be next to the pizza shop and across town from the apartment buildings. Get it right.”

Sienna Golden Malik is a recent Washington University in St. Louis graduate from the Philadelphia area. She works in retail, and her interests include the Fair Trade movement, 20th century pop culture, and learning languages.

It was no surprise that young, impressionable me was drawn to the violence, gross out humor, and off-the-wall antics of the dimwitted Stimpson J. Cat and the hot-headed, Peter-Lorre-inspired Ren Hoek. I owe much of my most demented imaginings to this gem of a show, and I vow that I will dedicate a fully-fleshed article to its magnificence at a later date.

Until then, however, I am content just talking about one of my favorite aspects of the Ren and Stimpy Show. A character whose cameo appearances always left me befuddled, but filled me with laughter all the same. A conundrum wrapped in a breakfast treat. Yes, I’m talking about the unforgettable face of all that is good in the world known as Powdered Toast Man!

Powdered Toast, the product, is exactly what it sounds like–toast that comes in a powder. It comes in a can with a salt-shaker-like apparatus on top that makes it ideal for sprinkling. Once the powder is sprinkled on a plate, the dust magically comes together to form a normal-looking piece of toast. Interestingly, it is apparent that the Powdered Toast product actually tastes terrible until Powdered Toast Man himself comes back and farts on it, improving its flavor profile greatly. Perhaps a satirical commentary on the over-processed nature of American food, it is nonetheless a part of the Powdered Toast Man legacy.

Powdered Toast Man’s superhuman abilities fall into both the traditional and ridiculous categories when compared against other, more mainstream superheroes. He can fly by releasing flatulence, launching from a nearby toaster after sticking his head in it, or from simply pushing off the ground with massive force.

Primarily, he flies backwards, farts, shoots bullet-like raisins from his mouth, fires corrosive croutons from his armpit, launches pads of butter from his head, and squirts acidic marmalade from his belly button.

Also, much like Spiderman’s “spider sense,” Powdered toast man can be alerted to danger via his tongue phone, inflation of his underpants, toast particles on his head, or distress messages in slices of olive loaf.

Biologically, he is made entirely of Powdered Toast and can produce the product by flicking his wrist or removing one of the two pieces of toast making up his head and scraping it with a butter knife.

As another parallel to traditional superheroes, Powdered Toast Man possesses an alter-ego that he uses to fool the public into thinking he’s just another guy. By day, he goes by the moniker Pastor Toastman, a cool youth deacon who disguises himself in black eyeglasses and a priestly collar.

His catchphrase is “Leave everything to me!” and he often melodramatically shouts his own name when appearing on-screen. Gary Owens, of Space Ghost fame, lends his voice acting talents to the character.

Who knew a superhero made out of reconstituted toast could have such a profound effect on my young life?

Although the Ren and Stimpy show is off the air and it’s subsequent Spike TV series cancelled, the memories of whacky antics and oddball characters remain. Powdered Toast Man’s legend lives on through youtube clips and Ren and Stimpy Show DVDs.