ChocoLoto Bars: Chocolate and Cash!

 

Sitting in the dining hall of the Satellite we have access to retrieving artifacts from the 80s. Seeing that this Satellite has decided to stall in the 80s I figured just for fun I would sent one of our crew on the hunt for a childhood favorite treat of mine…Lowneys ChocoLoto Bars! Lock in coordinates to 1982 computer…Initiate!

Begin Transmission: 05/18/2016

In 1982, not to sound like an old curmudgeon, but money went a long way on trips to the corner store. If you were fortunate enough to land 2 bucks you were a champ! On visits to my Grandmothers in a desolate rural town called Harcourt that may as well have been my childhood Tatooine, I managed to get the best visits to the corner stores. The town was about a 40 minute drive from the thriving metropolis that I lived in. To be clear any town you lived in, if you didn’t travel much, was always the biggest cause it was the center of your universe as was Clarenville to me..but I digress.

During numerous sleep overs at my Grandparents house I was always spoiled in the sense that I would always be given money almost any time I needed then jump on my bike and drive a very short ways to Holloway’s Grocery which was literally two doors away. I was always treated well by the lady who worked there (Shout Out to Audrey!!) and they always called you by name, which I appreciated as a kid! Being a little bit off the beaten track this store seemed to have older treasures still on the shelves  in 1982 but that was a great thing for me as you would always find that one treat in there that you didn’t expect to find that in hindsight may have been sitting on their shelves from opening day. It was here I gained a great coloring book collection as dictated in a previous article. I loved that store though as I always came away with something great like a Buck Rogers coloring book or the item in question in this article..the Chocoloto Bar!

For those of you who do not remember it was a Bar with a bright green wrapper which featured a mint bar inside that one would liken in today’s world to a Laura Secord Mint Chocolate Bar but its key feature was that inside the wrapper if you peeled it carefully without destroying it you could win prizes! Inside the wrapper you could be alerted to a free giveaway like a T-Shirt..One of the very rare images of that T-Shirts thankfully still exists as per below..

The other prize was MONEY!! Well money wasnt simply placed in the bar wrapper but it was printed on the inside of the wrapper in coins. If I recall you could win 5, 10, and 25 Cents within these wrappers. This was pretty sweet as the bar its self was usually only 30 cents to purchase! You could save them up as well depending on how many bars you would buy you could come off with a good amount of money from these things depending on that appetite..I had little will power and always cashed in my money for candy and other confectionary goodness! One tragedy was he fact that I never won one of the shirts. I do remember loving the taste…the mint chocolate wasnt the norm back. In that time things like Laura Secord was something that the high rollers who lived in the big city would have but for this kid in small town Harcourt NL it was perfection.

Stop by and say hi to Audrey and the gang at Holloways Grocery one of my favorite stores ever as a kid!

Playing outside on my bike with a few kids from the area with your Drink, foil bag Hostess Potato Chips and me with my Chocoloto Bar life was all I needed it to be! So if you ever visit Harcourt and you head to Holloway’s Grocery, ask for a Chocoloto Bar..they wont have any but maybe they will remember old Hero here cleaning them out with my Grandparents coins!! Life is short gang…remember to smell the roses and hold on to the good memories!

Transmission Ended…Time to eat some Chocoloto!

 

 

 

 

 

A Heroes Color

Welcome back Satellite Subscribers! The team and I on the Satellite have pillaged the time streams of my youth and using the memory analyzer I have purged several historical publications that were of great interest to me as a child of the 80s. No, it was no great work of literature..it was not the Bible..although I could have used a few passages back then! Outside of my documented interests in Comic Books and Action Figures..I also had  consistent exposure to Coloring Books. Some of my fondest memories of road trips, camping excursions always fall back to the memories of my old companion, the coloring book! All hands to the conference deck as I enlighten our team of heroes on coloring heroes!

Transmission Begin: Nov 28 2013

So as it may be, this post is more or less a gallery of my room closets book shelf. From time to time my parents, to occupy me, would by me one of these coloring books. If it was a trip to the Doctor…a coloring book followed close behind. A trip to visit my Grandmothers usually spawned several coloring books from numerous runs to the general store for a snack run!! Here are a few of the books that were forever locked in my consciousness all of which I personally owned!

Fantastic Four Meets The Witch. One of my all time favorite stand out books. Was always a BIG Human Torch fan..now I could color him!

Out of all the Coloring Book lines available to me during the early 80s ,the vintage Whitman line of coloring books were the best. Whitman publishing company, was a major publisher of children`s books from the early 1900s to the 80s. Many of the titles were liscensed books from popular TV shows and Comic book heroes. Whitman was essentially my entry drug into the world of Coloring Books. One of my first memories of Camping as a child brought me to Dildo Newfoundland..yes insert joke here. One trip to a local general store later and I had my earliest coloring book purchase that I can recall. The Fantastic Four Meet the Witch. The story was very simple. The Witch is picked up by government radar and causes havoc for the U.S. Government. Here comes the F.F. to save the day. Whitman was not known for elaborately drawn books, but that was a good thing. The pages were easy to color as well I was an avid artist at the time so the characters were easy to redraw!

Its Clobberin Time with the crayons! Whitman Coloring Books were simplistic but fun to color!

Even though this book always has a special place in my memories This Amazing Spider-Man Coloring Book always drew me back to it for years later and even as an adult I have flipped the pages of this one!

Spider-Man The Oyster Mystery!

While my love of this book is just that..my own, several websites out there have parodied this book for its basic storyline and super loose artwork. Check out http://www.somethingawful.com/comedy-goldmine/spiderman-oyster-mystery  

Not being the best colorist, I decided that I would be unable to draw a dime begin a colorist in the comic book industry but my favorite thing about this book was the simplicity of the art, especially Spidey! It was a proverbial `How To Draw`as a kid! Thanks Whitman..now I can at least draw this good to this day!

Holloway’s General Store always brought a coloring book on my sleep overs at my Grandparents! The upstairs craft part of the store was always well stocked with Whitman classics like these!

`Buck Rogers was HOT on TV in the early 80s and the Buck Rogers action figures comprised some of my early action figure collections. I had Buck, Twikie, Kane, Draco, Tiger Man and the Draconian Guard!

One of my early forays into action figure collecting! The Buck Rogers collection. A perfect companion to my coloring book.

Buck was lucky enough to have a sequel to his own coloring book! he was THAT popular!

I will not lie..Star Wars was MY space fantasy. As much as I liked Buck Rogers NOTHING and I mean NOTHING captured my imagination like the Galaxy far far Away!

Star Wars was the ultimate in coloring fun and Kenner not only produced a swarm of excellent action figures but amazing Star Wars coloring books with Live Movie Stills as covers! Even some had special studio publicity shots that were amazing!!

Who would not buy this coloring Book.

The Star Wars Coloring Books loosely told a story much like the famous `Little Big Books`they usually told a chapter from the movie and always had a nice happy ending.Others were a mishmash of traced movie scenes, Toy ads and Comic Book pages..and possibly even traced by a drunk. I submit for your approval..

Shamelessly traced from Howard Chaykins work in The Star wars Marvel Comics Series.

Hey this looks familiar!

So artists clearly didn’t  care much  about their artistic output as some could not even draw a straight line while tracing! I put this before the courts as evidence number 2.

Sloppy ass art work!Check out that platform they are standing on..as well as the side panels next to Leia. Anyone have a ruler for gods sake!.

Some images however hit the nail on the head . The right blend of accuracy and simplicity!

The ONLY Toy to put Star wars on my play time back burner was G.I. Joe! The Joe’s were incredible. They had a figure for every job in the military. They had the best vehicles and accessories, one hell of a cartoon show..as well as friggin awesome coloring books!

YO JOE!! This Joe Coloring and Activity book was a staple at coloring time!

The Joe’s did double duty at my house as I bought up every new coloring book I could find! The interesting thing about these books were the attention given to supplementary characters! Rock and Roll and Grunt were featured!! What ever happened to Rock and Roll?? He was the original BIG gunner before Road Block! No Love I tell ya!

The ORIGINAL 80s Joe’s were always my favorites! This was magic for me at my young age. Yo Joe!

I had a very respectable amount of Masters Of The Universe toys and even this coloring book. He-man was highly revered at my house!

Masters Of The Universe, especially The Action Figure line, were huge in my town. He-Man and Skeletor and the gang were huge additions to my action figure line up! Even though actually role-playing in the MOTU world was not their long-term purpose as they were all eventually absorbed into my fictional playtime wrestling league. That is another story for another day! The MOTU coloring book had longevity at home. I literally rode this one to the grave. It still lasted months after going cover-less! I was always a fan of the cover art and I think that’s what gave it its longevity! The cover features He-Man riding on the long forgotten Battle Ram. This is a very early toy that debuted in the pages of the old He-Man mini comics that came packaged with MOTU figures . It was very rare to catch glimpses of this vehicle as the classic Wind Raider was the one most prominently in the cartoon series!

This Laff a Lympics coloring book was a book that featured many stars of cartoons we did not get in our area!

Hanna Barbera Cartoons always a favorite, were aired on a limited basis in our area of Canada , but this Coloring Book opened my eyes to my favorites Blue falcon and Dyna-Mutt! This book allowed me to see stars like Magilla Gorilla,and others I had never seen before! It was a wake up call that our cable package was horrible!

The Good Old Boys Never meanin no harm!

From time to time my parents would surprise me with a JUMBO Coloring/Activity book!! These could literally be 500 plus pages of pure coloring fun and always were a hefty price in our day. The Dukes of Hazzard was a favorite of my fathers who liked vintage cars and country music.  I was bestowed this super sized coloring book! I loved it! 8.95 was a mega price to pay..it may as well been a hundred dollars as that was big money to pony up in the early 80s for a coloring book no matter what the size. The cover always got me as well..pre-photoshop days..these guys did okay!

I was a DC Kid in the 80s..still am..and THESE were my Super Heroes! You might call this the Secret Origin of The Super Hero Satellite!

The Coup de Gras of Coloring Books was the DC Super Heroes Big Big Book! This 448 tome was the best of the best. It was a Coloring book / Activity Book of epic proportions. A full-fledged adrenaline rush of coloring fun. I have a fond memory of this book and it was the center piece of my coloring piece collection. There was no tracing involved in this one. The art in the book was directly taken from the comics and it was fantastic! This was no ordinary activity book. This book had challenging puzzles and mind-boggling games. THIS was the best book of its kind and if you can find it on eBay just grab this one! I’ll show ya why!

SuperMans Game Page!

Batman’s Word Search! Try your best! Solve it yet?

Jokers Word Ladder! These games were no pre-school fun for sure!

Even though my god given skill was drawing and never so much coloring,  when I look at my kids coloring books and cannot help but smile. I just wish that one time I could pass along my son a pack of crayons and the DC Super Heroes Big Big Book and say “You will thank me later!” Shutting down historical archives..Heroes back to the iso chambers we have a big destination planned for our next stop…strap in we are entering our next destination on our time stream…Christmas…Later Heroes!

Transmission Ended:

Satellite Extra Coloring Book Gallery..

My best friend Jason at the time had this one..it always drove me crazy and I always had coloring book envy over this issue!

JAWS 2!! This is one book I scored with one of my numerous sleep overs to my Grand Parents as a kid! Awesome cover!

Saturday Morning faves The Smurfs gave me a Smurfy time with a crayon in this bad boy!

More craziness from Spider-Mans Oyster Mystery parody!

Okay Heroes…PUZZLE Time!

If you have enjoyed this post there are many more to check out here at the Super-Hero Satellite. Contact me directly on Twitter @Charlton_Hero and use  #SuperHeroSatellite to join in the conversation!