Gone Fishing...

I'm leaving the country to travel for a few weeks. I will not be updating the site while I'm gone. In the meantime, check out the archives. There are over 200 ads to look at.

Cheers

Marvel's Super Slurpee Fun Game

What's the ad for?

7-11's Super Slurpee Fun Game
Year
1981

Spotted in...

The Scoop

To celebrate the near start of summer I thought I would share this Marvel Slurpee ad/contest. Your chance to win thousands of dollars in cash. I like the instructions on how to play...

"With the edge of a coin, gently scratch-ff the gold squares on the front of your game card."

Like that needs explaining? Then again, this was 1981. Perhaps the concept of scratch-and-win was new. When I was a kid in junior high (Calgary, 1989/90), Hostess potato chips ran a contest featuring a scratch-and-win Nintendo Power Pad. Every card was a winner; you just had to scratch the correct squares to get matching symbols. Someone in my school came up with the idea of carefully placing pieces of Scotch Tape onto the squares and then slowly pealing the tape off. A thin layer of the silver scratching material would come off with the tape. Now if you held the Power Pad game card up to the light, you could make out all the symbols hidden underneath. Most cards won you a free bag of chips or a bottle of pop but soon kids started showing up with wearing Nintendo swag (T-shirts and hats). It was a good run for us and I'm sure we all gained a few potato chip pounds but when your young it didn't matter, we were outside riding our bicycles and playing street hockey all the time anyway.

Then in the fall a new contest started. In each bag of potato chips was another scratch-and-win game card, this time featuring NHL teams. Same concept, this time match the team logos and win something. Every card was a potential winner. We tried the same trick again but it didn't work. The game cards were now made of thicker paper. There was no way you were going to see through these ones. I wonder how much money Hostess lost because someone decided to "save" costs on thinner paper.

I find it hard to believe that it was only the population my junior high whom were doing this. Did anyone else remember doing this? There were even rumors of a local kid ratting us out by telling Hostess what we were doing, which in turn lead to the thicker paper being used for the next contest. Supposedly he received boxes of free chips and stuff. In retrospect I don't think that was the case but you never know.

Secret Wars Action Figures

What's the ad for?

Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars Action Figures.
Year
1985

Spotted in the inside back cover of...

 

The Scoop

We've featured ads about Marvels Secret Wars in the past and here is another. This time it's for the Secret Wars toy line from Mattel. One thing I don't understand is why Dr. Doom wants to make the earth into a living TOOOOOMB. What good what that be? Who wants to rule a living tomb. What is a living tooooomb anyway? Only thing I've heard of being refereed to as a living tomb is a sixteen years heart after a three-month break-up. Maybe that's Dr. Doom's problem. He just needs a rebound to soften his heart and get over his lost love...wait what?

Super C and Snakes Revenge - Terrorists go Nuke!

What's the ad for?

Super Contra
Year
1990

Spotted in...

The Scoop

Bill and Lance are back...and this time they mean business. Snake is back too...he also means business. Here are two sequels of highly popular games ported to the NES that were not marketed as sequels. Super C if of course a sequel to Contra while Snakes Revenge is a sequel to Metal Gear. Snakes Revenge is an interesting one as it was only released in the North American and PAL markets and not Japan. Here is what the Metal Gear Wiki has to say about the game...

"It was made as a direct sequel to the NES version of the original Metal Gear. Snake's Revenge was the first game in the Metal Gear series made without the involvement of creator Hideo Kojima, although members of the development team previously worked with Kojima on the original MSX2 version of Metal Gear. It is not part of the series' canon. The game is generally hated by fans of the series due to its removal from the series' canon, and is considered by most to have nothing to do with the Metal Gear series at all."

Free Baseball From Nestle Quik

What's the ad for?

Free Baseball promotion from Nestle Quik
Year
1985

Spotted in...

 

The Scoop

Steve Garvey endorsed Nestle Quik and helped get baseballs into the hands of American children.  Hopefully it prompted those children to go outside and play sports....oh wait, this was the eighties. We were already outside playing. Maybe they need this promotion now.

The Activision Decathlon

What's the ad for?

The Activision Decathlon
Year
1985

Spotted in the inside back cover of...

 

The Scoop

 This was a unique ad for it's visual appearance. It looked like no other ad out there, especially for a video game. The Activision Decathlon was murder on your Atari or other game console joystick (controller for those young ones out there). Repeated back and forth motion, tap, tap, tap! A systems lifetime of use in a few hours of play.

Ravenloft the RPG

What's the ad for?

Ravenloft
Year
1990

Spotted in...

The Scoop

Ravenloft is a role playing game that uses the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rule set. From my limited understanding, the Ravenloft universe is an alternate time-space existence that consists of pocket universes which can appear anywhere in the Dungeons and Dragons universe. I primarily know the name Ravenloft from a popular board game that was released  a couple years ago entitled Castle Ravenloft. There have been numerous books and three video games based on the Ravenloft pocket universes, almost all of them released in the nineties. Perhaps the popularity of the board game will cause a renewed interest in the Ravenloft universe.

Demon Sword - Master the Power

What's the ad for?

Demon Sword
Year
1990

Spotted in...

The Scoop

 I'm always surprised by the regional differences in video games. It's not an uncommon occurrence or at least it never used to be. I'm not sure if they still make as many changes between Japanese and North American releases. Take for instance Demon Sword. The version released in Japan has several more stages along with several more bosses. There are also more items and magic spells in the Japanese version. Along with the added difficulty of more levels and more bosses, a Japanese player was rewarded with an ending featuring extra scenes and text that was cut out of the North American release. 

It's not all bad. Here in North America we got a life meter while in Japan they only got a life count. The box art is also vastly different. Now that I can understand. See the Japanese box art below.

image from www.gamefaqs.com