Nostalgia

From Tom Scott's newsletter:

"When stick figures fought" is the history of the Flash-based stick-fight animations that I remember from 20+ years ago. And I never knew this history! They were just a thing on the internet, an artifact passed by email or instant messenger.

An excerpt from the blog post:

For people of a certain age, who grew up online, Xiao Xiao and its clones were part of life. The series isn’t deep and has little to say: it’s just kung fu, firefights, blood and chaos. But it was the height of cool to its (mostly young) audience. It was also a gateway to Flash animation for many.

Which episodes do you remember?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_Machines

Each Mighty Machines episode focuses on a specific type of heavy equipment or work environment. The machines talk to the viewers. Documentary footage of actual machines in action doing their day-to-day work is presented with voiceovers of the machines addressing the viewers. The audience is invited to follow the machines during a typical day. The machines explain their abilities and duties in detail over the course of the episode. The machines talk to each other too. Each machine is given its own personality and they often have conversations with each other as they work. Unlike most documentary-style shows, there is no external narrator.

Scummy company and product (it wasn't free, and you could get the same reports free from the credit bureaus directly), but the commercials and the Weird Al-esque musician they got for them were A+.

I'm sure the word "yogurt" belongs in quotes when describing this stuff. But as a 5-year-old, I loved the stuff. I can't imagine I'd like it now if they still made it. But it's associated with fond memories.

When I was a kid, Mr. Zogs Sex Wax ( a popular surfboard wax brand) was all the rage. All the cool kids at school chewed it, it came in a bunch of different flavors. How it ended up being a fad in the landlocked state I lived in, I have no idea.

I suspect this may be a lesser-known one. It was on CBS in 1996 and was cancelled after only one season (partially because of the FCC's strengthened requirements for making kids' shows "educational"), but it's very much imprinted on my brain.

You can file this (along with the "Star Tropics" video game franchise) under "underrated media that deserves a reboot but no way in hell is that ever going to happen."

This is one of the best phones I ever owned. You could type nearly as fast on it as a traditional keyboard. It even had a scroll ball as well to act like a mouse. The things I would do for Google to implement something like this in a modern Pixel phone. I hate even trying to respond to people these days from my phone, because of how just how bad touch keyboards are in comparison.

Back in the Xtreme days, former Rollerblade employee Chris Morris developed a shoe with a plate in the sole for grinding rails and curbs. This video oNe was a showcase.

I wanted these more than life itself, but they eventually disappeared from shelves and skateboards had to suffice.

The End of the World (also known as End of Ze World) is a Flash animated viral video created by Jason Windsor of Albino Blacksheep in 2003. A copy of the animation uploaded by Albino Blacksheep to YouTube in 2008 had approximately 14 million views before being abandoned in favor of a higher-resolution version.

Around the time the video was created, the United States invaded Iraq, which ultimately led to the Iraq War. In an interview with the Daily Dot in 2017, Windsor said "I don't know that I really thought that the world was going to end ... I guess that was kind of the first time I sort of had to comprehend that [the possession of nuclear weapons by foreign countries]."

Taking a test by filling in the bubbles with a #2 pencil.

The Jet Screamer classic "Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah" from The Jetsons.

A friend recommended I try the chicken and I laughed for a bit about the site. Had to post here.

The commercial with the jingle is required: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_WTjcI-VtA

BG was sponsoring the Atlanta Olympics that year, and some marketing person thought it would be a fun idea to put our home state on name badges as kind of a US ambassador-like gesture I guess for all the extra visitors the parks expected.

I don't know if we saw an increase in visitors that year. Williamsburg is like a 12 hour drive from Atlanta. But I did have one guy complain to me about the Italian food we sold in the cafeteria, that it was horrid, and his wife was Italian, and she couldn't eat this. Almost 30 years later and I still remember that guy. Why was he remotely expecting decent food at a theme park? I have no idea. And I still have Funiculì, Funiculà running through my head on occasion. Thanks BG.

Shoutout to Mr. and Mrs. "E" for their upstairs and downstairs VCRs always set to the correct time.

Related Question: What is the 2025 equivalent to this?

I remember this was a huge phenomenon when it came out and people were recording it on their home VCR's and playing it back frame by blurry frame. News programs reported on it. Serious people discussed the reasons why they thought it was fake, as though it wasn't just grainy footage of a plaster dummy stuffed with spiced meats.

It sparked a genuine debate about whether we were alone in the universe, and what that would mean for human beings. It's really amazing how easy it was to pull off such an obvious hoax and full a lot of people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Autopsy_(1995_film)