The Retro Dad

My first memories of dining on fast food were at Jack in the Box. I remember my Dad and I visiting the drive through in his old Ford Falcon station wagon. I always used to giggle when he would talk into the big clown head to order our food. One day we pulled up to the drive through window and something caught my eye. Just inside the window was a little poster featuring Jack in the Box action figures! Just as McDonald's had characters like Ronald, Hamburglar, Mayor McCheese, Big Mac, & Grimace, to market their product towards children, Jack in the Box also had their own cast of characters to help sell Jumbo Jacks. I begged my dad to buy me one, and he shelled out twenty five cents of his hard earned money for an "Onion Ring Thing" figure. What a Dad! Back in those days, twenty five cents could buy you a half gallon of gasoline. He continued purchasing different figures for my brother and I every time we visited Jack in the Box. These were some of my favorite to...

Have you purchased any kids cereal lately? If so, have you noticed the lack of cool in box prizes? Being a kid at heart, I certainly have. Kids cereals of today seldom offer in box prizes, and even if they do, the premiums are nowhere near as good as they were back in the day! If you're a kid in this day and age, you hope and pray that your parents buy three to five boxes of the same brand cereal. That way, you can mail away the UPC's along with a check or money order for $5.99 to get a toy. Or, you can enjoy minutes of fun with a maze, or word games printed on the back of the cereal box. I'm sorry, but kids of this generation got the short end of the stick in regards to cereal prizes. When I was a kid, I used to run to the cereal aisle while my mom was shopping. I would scour the entire aisle to find the boxes with the best toys. Yes, it was more about the toys than the cereal itself. This was the hook that the cereal companies used to persuade buyers (Mothers) to buy...