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It's that time of year again! Another awesome funpack from everyone's favorite website, Dinosaur Dracula. If you're not catching the youtube videos, check them out here. My personal favorite this year was the video on the final broadcast of Garfield's halloween special, with special focus on the commercials. A wild ride to be sure.
But you're here for the treats n tricks in this month's funpack, which is the last of 3 funpacks with a halloween bent. If I find the time, I might try to squeeze in the August and September funpacks, but things have been hectic on a personal level so we'll see. @_@
So let's see what papa DinoDrac packed this month. :9
The treats! One of my favorite parts of the pack, and this month doesn't disappoint. I'm a huge Utz fan, and only recently have they been available in my neck of the woods. I'm a cheeseball/puff fan. When it comes to Cheetos, I always get the puffs. Don't get me wrong, I love the regular ones as much as the next orange dusted fingertipped Cheeto fan, but man, puffs just hit different. Maybe it's just the airy texture that makes puffs just crunchier to me. But katana to the neck, if given the choice between Cheetos and Utz, I'm with the latter. Have you tried the white cheddar ghost puffs?? Holy moly Monday, I can kill a bag in one sitting, and boy howdy, you won't find me being guilty about it. XD.
Now the exciting part here is the coffee. This is GIN-YOU-WINE 7-11 coffee, my friend, the packs they use in the stores, and this blueberry flavor is purported to smell and taste like the legendary Boo Berry cereal. I haven't had a chance to try this in store, but it really does smell like the cereal with coffee. Anyone know if I can use a French press, or will I have to use it with the coffee pot (that I have no clue how to use >> it's my dad's and I dare not mess with his appliances if I can help it)? That'll be an adventure to be sure. Check my IG if I end up using it. I don't know how Matt was able to procure some for the funpack, but I salute him. He always gets the best stuff! Back in May, he sent us all a panel from the McDonald's menus for Mac Tonight. MAC TONIGHT. I guarantee that's a reference to a mascot that's way over you whippernapper heads, but that's fine. I will treasure my moon headed pianist on my own.
Cards? Cards! I love collecting cards and this pack didn't disappoint. Ensconced in a cute trick or treat bag, I got 4 packs: The Crow 2 City of Angels, Monster in my Pocket, Toxic High School, and Morbid Monster cards. The latter 2 are your usual gross-out Garbage Pail Kids ilk, so if you're into that, you'll love it. The Crow 2 cards are for the fan, and while I haven't seen it, the cards aren't bad.
Many of these packs are contextless to me, but you get a good spread. Matt always takes care of you for that. In fact, this last July, he packed 5 packs of Skeleton Warriors cards! Gotta appreciate the ability to maybe make a full collection; in fact, I just may actually have nearly a whole collection of SWs, now that I think of it. I know I got some doubles...I definitely saw the well-endowed Shellytor wannabe named Shriek twice. I didn't think I'd ever see a completely skeletal chick with big gahzongas, but there we go. I mean, if you're gonna have flesh somewhere, a lady's gotta have her girls, right?
Shoot, I was going to talk more about the Monster in My Pocket cards....dang this harpy and her totally unrealistic chestular region.
Seriously...did she really need the funbags when she could have done something with her bald spot??
WRT those cards, I kinda liked them. Each monster has a point value in the back, and they seem to cover lots of different monster from around the world. I got a tengu card (which looked more like a winged kobold) and a catoblepas, along with a skeleton and hunchback, among other cards. I'd like to get a few more of these. The art is unique and their depictions aren't the kind you see commercially. I have an appreciation for taking unique spins on monsters these days, since I've been doing my drawtober as 31 monster girls (check the twitter or IG for them; I'm a smidge behind atm, but I'm planning on catching up.
Here's a musical treat: the soundtrack to thew 80's tv series Freddie's Nightmares. I didn't watch the series, as I am a mild salami when it comes to some of the 80s-90s horror movie stalkers and monsters, but I did hear the soundtrack was pretty bomb. I'll have to check it out during the week on my combo phonograph, but I've been told its pretty good soundtrack. About 28 tracks across 2 sides of a tape? That's packed by even now's standards.
Terror-Vision's been doing these classic cassette tape soundtracks, and I've gotten a few from the funpacks. They always make such high-quality packaging with unique cassette colors (I believe Basket Case's had a bubblegum pink one), so they're always a big treat. I used to live on compilations of tape-recorded mixtapes when I was a kid, so this always makes me happy to receive.
Another awesome pack in throughout this year are the ice cream truck sticker replicas, and I have the gamut from the TMNT turtle head stickers to Choco Tacos, the Blue Ghost popsicle, and this literally eye-popping Mask head bar. I NEED A NEW STICKERBOOK for these giant pieces. They're' all high-quality printed, and super vibrant, as well as hi-def images. UGH I couldn't even stick them on my PC, they're so nice and big.
My sticker book for all of the stickers from DinoDrac will be completely filled by the end of the year so I'm gonna have to get a new one soon. >> If you're talking about all the cards and other big items like magazines, or the newsletters and essays, I've already filled 4--count i'm--FOUR 3-inch binders since I started subscribing since Sept of 2014. @_@ (Let's not talk about the tub of collectables, nah? 8D;;;) What can I say? It's like taking a piece of the site home with you. A piece of a childhood you didn't think you still had. And that's worth it in the end, at least to me.
Here's the mini-poster and the stickers for this month. The hooded skeleton is super cool, and the 4-armed Grimace (?) is a repeat visitor, but he feels much more at home with the halloween spread.
Let's talk McDonald's halloween buckets. These were for the 1994 editions, the ones, we all remember if we remember. My favorite was the white ghostie, but the classic pumpkin was also a fan favorite. These ones have the purple witches, which I barely remember, as I'm more used to seeing the green one. What was the green one?? A goblin? Also a witch? My memory comes and goes like a stray cat, so I couldn't tell you.The ones this year don't have a top like these, but a paper circle a la KFC with stickers and skeletons to decorate with said stickers. A smidge unexpected, but I think they're really cute.
I also seem to recall them being bigger than the ones they recently released this year.....or is this a Cadbury "they're not smaller, you're just bigger", we need to save on plastic thing? eBay might have some of the older ones, but there's a part of me that doesn't want to check. I'd rather they stay ginormous in my memories, like real Cadbury eggs, haunted house attractions, and allowances. Funny how things shrink as we get older.
And last but not least, the monthly essay and newsletter. the art activity this month is to design a McD Halloween pail from a horror icon. I dunno if I'll have time to crank one out along with my drawing challenge this year, but it did make me think. Maybe a kaiju? Dracula from Castlevania? Mookle Myers? Maybe I'd want one for Ultraseven, since its his 55th anniversary or slicing up hoes and running over his crew with a jeep (funny how that's nearly 50 years old too and we'll never let him forget it).
Well crap. Now I wanna draw a Ultraseven bucket. Crap.
The essay is a little more poignant, about Halloween the cat, Matt's kitty who has cerebellar hypoplasia. He makes occasional cameos on the DD Insta, so we're all enamored of the little orange guy. While he's defined the halloween season this year, I like to think his cute little face is year round, more than just his namesake month.
Much like Halloween and his needs, I've felt the same about our new puppy beast Ace. He's a huge work in progress, with destructive tendencies and his separation behaviors (he was a pandemic puppy). When we lost Cody over a year ago, we knew Luna would get lonely, so having him around, while annoying half the time, seems to have kept her less anxious. So I get it when you have a pet that needs a little extra TLC, from extra cuddling, to extra training. It's hard being a good pet parent but Matt's an ace at it (if only our own child of darkness was as good as his predecessor XD;;).
So that's this year's Halloween funpack! I'll see if I can't squeeze in a review of both Aug and Sept's boxes since they all had some really neat things in them too. And if you're looking for more Halloween fun, check out Dinosaur Dracula's channel on youtube! Its great background while you decorate or cook, though don't blame me if you get sucked into the magic of 90s commercials from the bygone age.
--Dio (10/22/22)
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