Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 127 of 581)

After we left the Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show last Saturday, we headed over to Hershey’s Chocolate World, which is right next to the Hershey World Amusement Park.

Dear reader, let me share with you some advice: If you want to go to Hershey World: DO NOT GO ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON WHILE THE AMUSEMENT PARK IS OPEN.

The place was a teeming madhouse of humanity. The parking lot was crowded and we had to walk half a mile from our car. Once we got inside, the place was filled with cool stuff, but not-so-cool people rushing to get in our way.

Now, if you absolutely love Hershey’s chocolate, this is the place for you. For me, Boyer was a much bigger deal. Hershey’s chocolate, to me, was always just the default chocolate. It was nothing special, and since they shut down the factory in Hershey and moved all their production to Mexico it seems like the quality has slipped further from its less-than-spectacular norm.

Even with that, this is an impressive place. The displays are huge. They had “shopping experiences” where you could learn a sanitized history of the company or make your own candy bar, but we did not indulge in those. The lines were way too long. What they did have was a massive amount of merchandise–candy, shirts, caps, toys, magnets, gift boxes and bags that you fill yourself and a gigantic food court. The food court is there for the amusement park-goers, and looked to have pretty much the kind of food you’d expect at an amusement park food court.

There was every variety of Hershey’s candy for sale, and to sort of drive the point home that this was a corporate-branded store and not really a “Chocolate World,” they also sold the beef jerky, popcorn and other non-candy snack products that Hershey owns now.

To be honest, it felt a little insincere and overly-corporate. Hershey Pennsylvania is still the corporate headquarters for Hershey, but they no longer produce any candy there. We had been to Hershey’s Chocolate World stores in Chicago (now closed) and Times Square, and to be honest, those seemed like more fun, even though they only took up a fraction of the space. Those stores had piped in chocolate aroma. If they had that in Hershey you couldn’t smell it over all the sweaty people.

Don’t get me wrong. We had fun there, bought some cool stuff and enjoyed our visit, but we were also happy to get out and get a little peace and quiet when we were done. It wasn’t as much fun as the Boyer Candy Factory Outlet Store. It was bigger, but bigger is not always better.

I took a bunch of photos, so you can see for yourself. I didn’t get any pictures of the non-candy merchandise. That part of the store was so crowded that I couldn’t get my camera out comfortably.  Late this afternoon I’ll bring you pictures of the toy show, but here’s our look at Hershey’s Chocolate World…

The outside is adorned with huge statues of the Hershey candy mascots. The building is made to look like the now-demolished Hershey’s Candy Factory.

Right inside the front door. It was actually way more crowded than it looks in this photo.

This is one of the exhibits we didn’t want to stand in line to see.

Lots of candy for sale all over the place.

You could even have your photo put on a candy wrapper, for some reason.

Surprisingly, the prices weren’t really that great.

It was a bit sad to see some of Hershey’s better-tasting, but lesser-known candy bars just shunted off to the side on slovenly-kept shelves.

The better-known candy got more respect.

Hershey’s Kisses are one of the stars of the show. Twizzlers and Jolly Rancher seem a bit out of place in Chocolate World.

The fill-your-own dispensers had an odd mix of stuff available to fill your bag, tin, or barrel.

Cool, huge sign, but my favorites weren’t there.

That’s one big kiss!

We leave you with one last look at the Hershey Trolley, in front of Hershey’s Chocolate World. It’s a pretty cool place, and probably at its most enjoyable if you visit on a weekday during the off-season.

Later today we’ll bring you photos of The Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show, and tomorrow expect a couple of bonus photo essays of other cool places we visited on our trip.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and admit something.

I prefer Boyer’s Peanut Butter Cup to Reese’s.

I realize that some people consider that blasphemy, but it’s true. I also prefer Hunts Ketchup over Heinz and hate the idea or image of chili and slaw on a hot dog. I guess I’m just a contrarian that way.

Since I was a kid, I’ve been a fan of Boyer candies. I love the Smoothie and the Peanut Butter cups.  I’m not as big a fan of their signature candy, the Mallo Cup, but then, as I said, I’m a contrarian. I mean, I like the Mallo Cup, but my heart belongs to the Smoothie.

Based in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Boyer has been around since the great depression, and has seen its share of ups and downs. Currently, the company is heading to new heights, and they recently acquired the Clark Bar, which was originally made in nearby Pittsburgh.  Until last year the Clark Bar had been made by Necco, but when that company went belly-up, their assets were auctioned off and Boyer brought the rather nifty candy bar back to the Keystone State.

The Clark Bar is not back in production yet. It’s expected to be back soon, but Boyer is still working on perfecting the shape (my educated guess is that they need to figure out the proper alignment of the flattening wheel between the extruder and the enrober).

However, since they are cranking out a sizable quantity of misshapen Clark Bars during the trial-and-error process of finding the right shape, they have decided to grind the failed experiments up and deposit them into Clark Cups, which are selling briskly and taste just like a Clark Bar, only as a cup instead of a bar. You can see the colorful boxes to the left.

The Clark Bar is also one of my favorite candies, and it’s cool that it’ll be back in production soon, and made by the folks at Boyer.

There have been a few times over the past couple of years when Amtrak’s Cardinal line was not fully operational, so we drove to Pittsburgh and hopped the Pennsylvanian to go to New York. That train stops in Altoona, and from the trains at the station you can see the Boyer factory, and when we found out that they had a factory outlet store, we decided to find an excuse to go there. Last week’s anniversary trip to the toy show in Hershey gave us that excuse, and the contrarian in me was delighted at the prospect of driving through Hershey with a cooler in the backseat filled with Boyer candy.

The Boyer Factory Outlet Store is small, but it’s still a massive treat for any Boyer fan. If you can’t make it there, you can find a lot of what they sell within at their online store (but none of the bulk goodies are available online). There is plenty of candy, of course, but also T Shirts, mugs, plush toys, toy trucks, gift tins and other coolness. Check out the photos to see what the shop is like…

A closer view of what we saw from the train.

Even closer! We’re nearly there!

Some might think this be heaven.

Boyer also makes some more traditional candies. We didn’t get photos of the chocolate-covered Oreos. They were good, though.

TV screens show the inner workings of the factory, and there are cool gifts all over the place.

More Clark Cups and Jimmie Stix.

It’s so cool to see the Clark logo on mugs and tins. Plus there’s plenty of cool Mallo Cup logo merch here, too.

Another shot of the sales floor.  On the racks in the background are where the irregular Mallo Cups and Smoothies are sold, unwrapped, in bulk.They tasted just as good, but you don’t get the play money.

After we left we drove by the front of the factory. The unwashed masses are not allowed in there, much to the relief of those of us who like to eat this candy. Nobody wants unwashed masses handling their Mallo Cups.

Finally, your PopCulteer stuck his camera out the car window as we sped down 17th Street and got lucky with this money shot of the famous yellow tank of Mallo, and the newly-installed Clark Bar sign. We shall look for some excluse to return to Altoona someday…probably after they get the Clark Bar up and running again.

Friday morning we’ll give equal time to Hershey’s Chocolate World, and later Friday the PopCulteer will present a huge photo essay of the Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show. We were going to post some of that Thursday, but every telemarketer in the world decided to call me today.

As has become tradition over the last fourteen years, anytime your PopCulteer goes anywhere cool, he takes lots of photos and maybe even shoots video to share with his reader.  Last week I went on a ridiculously fun trip with my wife to celebrate our fifth anniversary, and along the way we visted many cool places.

Over the next couple of days I plan to bring you some cool photo essays of places like The Boyer Candy Company Factory Outlet Store in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Hershey’s Chocolate World, The Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show, The Lindt Factory Outlet Store and some of the other cool places we stopped along our meandering drive through the wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania.

We experienced a wealth of chocolate, toys, and other fun things whilst enjoying a no-pressure drive through the land of towns with funny names and outlet malls.

In addtion to the photo essays, we also have a video of the Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show in the works, probably for Sunday.

To get you started, here are a few random images from the trip, just to give you a sample of what you can expect in PopCult in the next several days. Our lead image is at the Boyer factory. You can expect that to be the next photo essay, later today. Here’s a few more teaser images with their descriptions below each photo (where the captions would be if we ever figured out how to do captions with the new WordPress interface)…

Part of the central PA drive. It wasn’t too hot, nor too sunny, both of which kept my Myasthenia Gravis from becoming a major issue.

You’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s PopCulteer to see the huge photo essay from the Toy Show. sorry. I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

You’ll get to see what it was like in Hershey’s Chocolate World after we go to the Boyer Candy Factory, probably later today.

The Fulton Steamboat Inn, in Lancaster, Pa, near Intercourse.

A random photo taken out of the car window to capture the brightness of the colors of what might otherwise have just been a dismal farm or factory shot.

A covered bridge near the Amish Farm in Lancaster. To fully experience the Amish experience we had just eaten at Cici’s Pizza.  It’s not as good as it was when we used to have them around here.

On the way home (in Maryland now) we saw this Mini Cooper with a sticker that cracked me up.

Here it is blown up so you can see it even better.

One of these days we’re going to have to get off the interstate in Cumberland and take photos of all the cool architecture. Hopefully someday when the city doesn’t smell like burnt motor oil and farts.

And we leave you with a sloppy composite photo showing off the full majesty of one side of the Fulton Steamboat Inn. We just stumbled onto this after visiting The Shops At Rockvale, which is a unique beast of an outlet mall in decline. In retrospect, it was positively thriving and vital compared to the Premium Outlet Mall in Hagerstown, Maryland, which was nearly a ghost mall with about 40% of the storefronts vacant. When we went there we only saw about ten other shoppers.

Up next will be photos of our trip to the Boyer Candy Company Factory Outlet Store in Altoona, PA.

Your PopCulteer has more than his fair share of anniversaries this week. Monday was the fifth anniversary of his marriage to Melanie Larch, which was the bestest day in his life. To celebrate, we went on a meandering trip which I will tell you about in the coming days.

Speaking of the coming days, This weekend is roughly the thirtieth anniversary of the first broadcast of Radio Free Charleston, which debuted over Labor Day weekend back in 1989.

Also, today (Wednesday) is the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Jack Kirby. If you don’t know who Jack Kirby is, you are probably reading the wrong blog.

Coincidentally, also today, exactly fourteen years ago, the very first post was entered into this, The PopCult Blog.

I’m not going to post a link. Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page and check the archives for August, 2005 if you want to see it. It’s not really that impressive.

Today’s accompanying illustration is my sloppy, five-minute digital painting that updates the old graphic that used to be at the head of this post.

Since I’ve done something to mark PopCult’s birthday every year, I did this. It’s only slightly more than the least I could do.

It’s been fourteen years. My readers have been with me through deaths, births, a wedding, many trips, loads of toys and comics and a metric ton of Radio Free Charleston. Thanks for enjoying the ride.

Let’s do another fourteen years, okay?

Your PopCulteer just returned from his week-long anniversary/toy show/candy factory vacation late last night, and has a lot to do to get back into the groove of things. So to make my life easier, The AIR will be in reruns for the next few days. You can still listen to the wonderfulness of truly independent radio at The AIR website, or on this embedded radio player…

Wednesday we offer up an all-day marathon of Melanie Larch’s Curtain Call. Thursday and Friday we’ll bring you our regular schedules, but with encore episodes of Radio Free Charleston International and Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.

Saturday we have a really important programming stunt kicking off, but you’ll have to wait until Friday for details on that.

In the meantime, your PopCulteer will be hard at work on editing photos and video to bring you that show the cool places I went with my lovely wife over the last week. You may start seeing those Wednesday or Thursday, right here in this blog.

It’s yet another day with new programming on The AIR.

Tuesday on The AIR we deliver new episodes of Radio Free Charleston, Psychedelic Shack and The Swing Shift to our loyal listeners. You may point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to this happy little embedded radio player…

It all kicks off at 10 AM (with a replay at 10 PM– all times EDT) with a brand-new edition of Radio Free Charleston.

This week’s show goes back into our video vaults for the second of two shows that bring you highlights of the Tribute To The Troops II benefit show, held at Saint Albans City Park back in the summer of 2012. Some of these songs were heard on a three-part series on the RFC video show, while others are being heard here for the first time. This week we bring you performances by Everpulse and Point of Jerus. For some reason we had audio recordings of two entire sets by these bands, so we made them the second part of this series.

If you can’t listen to the stream on The AIR, we are now uploading the RFC radio show to YouTube (by popular demand). So you can listen to it here…

At 2 PM on Psychedelic Shack Nigel Pye checks in from Haversham Recording Institute with a 60-minute mixtape of groovy Psychedelic Rock. Our friend, the Hippie Gnome, Nigel Pye, has cheerfully decided to provide us with a playlist for this new episode so tune in turn on and check out the playlist…

Psychedelic Shack 026

Terry Draper ‘I Have A Dream”
The Move “Walk Upon The Water”
Dantalian’s Chariot “World War Three”
Liverpool Scene “Tramcar to Frankenstein”
Eyes of Blue “Merry Go Round”
Spring “The Prisoner (Eight by Ten)”
13Th Floor Elevators “Postures (Leave Your Body Behind)”
Prince “Around The World In A Day”
The Turtles “A Walk In The Sun”
The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Third Stone From The Sun”
Donovan “Season Of The Witch

Psychedelic Shack can be heard Tuesday’s at 2 PM, with replays Wednesday at 11 AM, Thursday at 5 PM, Friday at Noon, Saturday at 9 AM, Sunday at 4 PM and Monday at 7 PM.

At 3 PM your PopCulteer returns to host a new hour of The Swing Shift as we continue to bring you the best Swing Music of the last century.

This week it’s another mix of old and new, with classics from the Big Band era, Retro Swing from the 1990s, and fresh Swing from today’s top bands.

The Swing Shift 079

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies “The Fixer”
Queen Bee and the Honeylovers “Beaucatcher”
Benny Goodman “Bugle Call Rag”
Artie Shaw “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive”
Gerald Beckett “Swinging At The Haven”
Glenn Miller “Chattanooga Choo Choo”
Joe Stilgoe “The Heat Is On”
Duke Ellington “Take The A Train”
IKS Big Band “Sing, Sing, Sing”
Charlie Parker Quintet “Wee”
Jeremy Sherman “Boulangerie”
Lionel Hampton “Flying Home”
Jive Me “On Stage”
Dave Stuckey and his Hot House Gang “Sister Kate”
Royal Crown Revue “I Love The Life I Live”
Jack Pack “Light My Fire”

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM and 6 PM, Thursday at 7 PM and Saturday at 5 PM, only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Remember, you can tune in to The AIR at all hours of the day and night for a variety and quality of programming that you will not find anywhere else. Check PopCult regularly for details on our new episodes.

Allow your PopCulteer a bit of indulgence here, please.  Today is his fifth wedding anniversary, and he wanted to celebrate that with a Monday Morning Art painting of him and his lovely wife, Melanie Larch, to mark the occasion. Mel won’t see this until it’s posted here, so I’m hoping that it will make her even happier as we spend our day wandering aimlessly around Southeast Pennsylvania, possibly somewhere between Blue Ball and Intercourse.

I did this when I was preparing a week’s worth of PopCult in advance so that nobody would notice that I was gone. It’s a mixed-media painting, based on a photograph of us taken at the National Mall a few years ago. I didn’t paint in the Washtington Monument because I was in a hurry to get this done while packing for our trip.

You can read about our wedding and see the photo that inspired this painting HERE.

If you wish, you can click this image to see it bigger.

Meanwhile, over in radio-land, Monday on The AIR, this week we bring you a Monday Marathon featuring four special episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

At 3 PM Herman Linte’s show, Prognosis marks 51 episodes with the second of a two-part “Prog Rock 101” special that will present songs from the quintessential progressive rock bands.

Check out the playlist below…

Prognosis 051

The Nice “America”
Frank Zappa “Apostrophe”
The Moody Blues “Nights In White Satin”
Syd Barrett “Rhamadon”
Steve Hackett “Shadow of the Heriophant”
Rick Wakeman “Jane Seymour”
Rabbit “Locomotive Breath”
Robert Fripp “Pie Jesus”
Queen “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)”
Peter Gabriel “Down The Dolce Vita”
Pallas “Cut And Run”
Asia “Wildest Dreams”
Can “Moonshake”
Captain Beefheart “My Human Gets Me Blues”
Chris Squire “You By My Side”
Kate Bush “Breathing”
Mike Batt “Imbecile/Plainsong”

Prognosis will be followed by an extra classic episode at 5 PM, and then by replays of last week’s Psychedelic Shack at 7 PM, Radio Free Charleston at 8 PM and RFC International at 9 PM. Then at 11 PM we kick it back over to Prognosis, with an extra eight hour marathon of great progressive rock.

Whenever I go out of town for a vacation, I know I can turn to The National Film Board of Canada for something cool to drop in to our weekly video showcase.  In this case it’s a cartoon from 1995 that they just posted week before last. Animator Paul Driessen sets eight interlocking tales to the music of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in this animated short. Toying with traditional storytelling structures, Driessen allows his stories to unfold simultaneously in eight different windows on the screen. Like Vivaldi, he uses the seasons to delineate the work.

It’s pretty cool. Enjoy it. I’m celebrating my anniversary.

From November, 2013, this week we go back to an episode of Radio Free Charleston largely recorded at Third Eye Cabaret, in their original location in a now-defunct bar on Capitol Street in Charleston.

This edition of Radio Free Charleston, “Snowshoe Shirt” comes to us from Third Eye Cabaret, a then weekly night of label-defying performers who brought a daring Bohemian spirit to Charleston every Thursday night at The Cellar, 8 Capitol Street. Sadly, The Cellar is no longer with us, but I see the Third Eye Cabaret name pop up once in a while at other venues. Our music this week is by The BrotherSisters, Jamie Skeen, Louis Argento and Snakebox, and we kick things off with animation by Jacob Fertig.

You can find the original production notes for this episode, with information on all the contributors, HERE.

The PopCulteer
August 23, 2019

Fishin’ for toys, that is.

Actually, I’m on vacation. Your PopCulteer and his lovely wife are off to the wilds of Hershey, Pennsylvania, where tomorrow we will attend the Hershey Action Figure and Toy Show. After that, we plan to stick around the area for a couple or three days to celebrate the fifth anniversary of our wedding.

I mean, toys, chocolate and ice cream is a pretty damned cool way to celebrate, if you ask me.

Because I’m rushing to write and post this stuff before we leave (which was a few days ago by this point) we have chosen a random photo for our header. It’s the Captain Action Mars Attacks Uniform set, which we will not be getting in Hershey, because it’s not out yet. You’ll have to keep reading PopCult to find out when you can get your hands on that gem.

Next week when we get back, I’ll tell you all about our trip, and the plan is to have plenty of video and photos and stuff.

In the meantime, here’s the graphic for the show, and below that the information that I swiped from their Facebook Event page, just in case you want to join us there.

Our show is growing and with that, we’re moving to new digs – The Hershey Lodge in beautiful Hershey, Pennsylvania. More tables, larger aisles and more action figures and toys to choose from!

G.I. Joe, Transformers, TMNT, Major Matt Mason, Captain Action, Star Wars, Super Joe, Big Jim, Action Jackson, Marvel and DC Toys and more are expected at the show this year. You wanted more variety, and we’re working on it!

Doors will open at 10 am on August 24th and will stay open till 4 pm.

Early Bird Admission (9:00 am) – $10/person
Regular Admission (10:00 am) – $5/person

Tickets can be bought day of the show at the Admissions Table.

Dealers in Attendance (as of August 19th, 2019):

Arsenal Models
One Sixth Syndicate
Benny’s Brick Barn
Treasure Trove Toy Store
Creative Outlet Productions
The Gamerz Edge
Shazam Comics & Toys
TrekPlus
Mark Lieske
Rob Stufflebeam
A2Z Toys
Kryptonite Toys
Sgt. Vans Custom Figure Boxes
GI Joe Rescue
Benjamin Crum
6 Scale USA
Pappy’s Toys
Henry Coffman Jr.
Winnie’s Vintage Emporium
Myron Comarnitsky
Jeffery Polino
Hake’s Auctions
Jackowick Toys
Your Nerdy Girl
Big Rob’s Little Toy Cars
Go Big Toys
Big O Toy Nut
The Greek Armory
Larry Selman
Jeremy Stough / Kat Chin Yu
Mattsquatch Customs
My Vintage Toys & Trains
The Retro House
Collector’s Sector
Comics Treasure Trove
Comic Store West
Vertigo Vintage Collectibles
Remember When Toys & Collectibles
Perfetto’s Panorama Diorama
McCollectibles
Hole in the Ground Productions
HT Game and Chill
RK Toy & Hobby
Robert Pangborn
Thomas Lewis
Gideon’s Attic Collectibles
Wanderland Novelty And Magic Company
Totally Radical Relics
Art Blair
Eric Burger
Art Lew
MegaPrime Collectibles
Joe Matthew
ITS Designs
Toylanta
CJ’s Collectibles
Sock It To Me Toys