A Bronze Age BACK TO SCHOOL showdown! By CHRIS FRANKLIN In late summer of 1980, I went school shopping for the first time. I was soon to enter kindergarten and in among the ritual of buying pants, shirts, shoes, a backpack (I chose a Peanuts model), there was the all-important selection of the lunchbox, or lunch kits as the manufacturers often called them. For kids, the lunchbox was essentially a metal billboard advertising your favorite characters, TV shows, and movies, designed to keep your bologna sandwich safe until lunch time. That year I chose Aladdin Industries’ Super Friends model, which had been in production since 1976. It was a hard decision, because sitting next to it on the shelf was their Superman: The Movie lunchbox. As much as I loved that film (it’s still my favorite movie of all time), I couldn’t argue that the SF box had MORE of the DC characters I loved from comics and TV. Most importantly, Batman and Robin. Years and several lunchboxes later, I came across something that blew my mind on several levels. Circa 1984, I was riding my bike down an alley near my home. There along the paved alley street, sitting in the grass was another lunchbox — a Marvel Super Heroes box with a similar design to my beloved Super Friends version (which I still owned), also produced by Aladdin. I had never considered stealing anything in my life, but this abandoned metal box tempted me. I rode past it several times. Went home, and came back, riding by again, thinking how easy it would be to make it mine. I even revisited it a few days later, and IT WAS STILL SITTING THERE! Whoever owned this clearly didn’t deserve it, treating it like this! But all those comics I read had given me a gushy moral center, and I couldn’t do it. So, it evaded me for another four decades until I bought it at a toy show just a few years ago. Now owning the two, and displaying the similarly designed boxes side by side, I began to wonder, what would I have done if I’d had to choose between them on that fateful day in August 1980, or perhaps a few years earlier? Would I have gone with the DC model, or the Marvel? What would...
It’s a full moon — but they don’t all have to be Moon Glasses! By CHRIS FRANKLIN Much has been written about the famed 1976 Pepsi Super Series of collector glasses based on DC Comics characters, or as they are commonly known among fans, the “Moon Series.” This name stuck because of the circular design, or “moon” behind every character. But that was just the tip of the ice cube when it came to Pepsi and DC promotional glasses in the 1970s. In 1978, Pepsi released not only a second set of comics-based Collector Series glasses, but they also made a similar set of vessels based on Superman The Movie. As we did with the original series, let’s take a look at each of these sets and rank them, based on the criteria of artwork, presentation and which ones just visually ring from the cupboard, shall we? — At first glance, the 1978 Pepsi Collector Series looks like a direct continuation of the previous “Super Series.” But a lot has changed on closer inspection. For one there are only seven distinct character glasses rather than 14, although there are variations we’ll discuss. The number of different inks used on each glass is generally more limited than the first series as well. There are no villains present this time, and the heroes tend to stretch across the glass more. The biggest change is that the heroic action image isn’t replicated on both sides of the glass. Now on the back you have the character’s name logo, and their emblems. There is also a second set of slightly smaller glasses with a different shape, rounded at the bottom. These variations seem to be much rarer and harder to find on the secondary market today. I rarely see them in the wild or on sites like eBay. Like the previous series, the glasses were seemingly sold at various restaurant chains that carried Pepsi fountain drinks. I know for sure they were available at some Pizza Hut locations, because my cousin bought me a set of the small round Superman and Batman glasses back in 1978 when I wasn’t quite yet 4 years old. My Mom took the “Collector Series” name seriously and put them in her China cabinet for safe keeping. I never drank from them, which is probably a good thing,...
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