Ever send off cereal boxtops as a kid or order from the back of a comic book?

[nolabear]

I did a few times. I ordered a stuffed Toucan Sam for my baby sister for Christmas one year. And I sent off for one of those art school tests. I sent in the forms but they never answered. Might have been obvious I was a kid. I also ordered a Monkees 45...I think it was The Monkees...

Any revelations? Charles Atlas courses? X-Ray glasses?

[Indpndnt]

1. Sea Monkeys!

[nolabear]

2. Hey! I forgot sea monkeys!

I clearly liked my box tops.

[HopeHoops]

3. I know I did, but I completely forget what I ordered. I also sent a lick count to Tootsie Roll.

I think it was like 1024 licks, but I kept tick marks for each one. They sent me a certificate (obviously I wasn't the first kid to have done this) called "The Order of the Clean Stick" with my name, date, and count hand-written on it and a clean lollypop stick glued to the top section. That was cool.

[CBGLuthier]

4. The voice throwing device. Yes, I ordered the voice throwing device.

Stupid little piece of plastic that went squeak and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the art of ventriloquism. I think my innate cynicism was born the day I received the package in the mail.

I also have a memory of a deck of magic cards where every other card was a queen and shaved off so you could always cut to one. But I may have gotten those in a "magic" shop.

[nolabear]

6. I always wondered about those things. Those ads were meant to make us cynical, I think.

Of course they may also have been part of the genesis of my PT Barnum fascination.

[Tsiyu]

5. D>R>I>N>K>M>O>R>E>O>V>A>L>T>I>N>E

I did, but you know it's been so long ago I can't remember what the heck it was I ordered.

I LOVED my comics though. Little LULU and Archie and the one with the baby twins that I can't even remember now.

And I alwasy tried to get to the MAD Magazine FIRST so I could do the foldie thing in the back.

Great question for us geezers! ( well, speaking for me anyway )

Had to edit cuz I said "eat" instead of "drink" in the title. See, I used to eat that stuff by the big spoonful. Who needs milk?

[nolabear]

7. Remember finding MAD magazines on the stand that had been folded? *GASP!*

[Tsiyu]

8. The NERVE of some people!

[BarbaRosa]

9. Not box tops or comic books,

but I have a Speedy Alka-Seltzer Christmas tree ornament.

[OriginalGeek]

10. I am still pissed off.

I was 6. The ad in the back of the comic book made it look like I was getting an exploding army tank game with tanks about the size of footballs that really blew up with, at the very least, smoke and sparks.

In actuality they were two-piece plastic tank shaped blobs about the size of a small matchbox, held together with a rubber band (Not included!) that you pushed around on a notebook-paper sized sheet of plastic with some generic barbed-wire graphics on a WWII European battlefield. As you pushed them around the "battlefield" the poorly fitting together pieces had a chance of flipping up an inch or two off the ground from the rubber band overcoming the weak connection between the front and back half of the blob.

Needless to say that was the day I learned how advertisers lie and cheat you and haven't trusted an ad since.

I still remember my dad chuckling to himself as I begged him to order the tanks. I remember thinking how silly he would feel when my glorious exploding tanks arrived. And I remember him not saying "I told you so" and that is one of the many reasons I love and miss my dad so much.

[Art_from_Ark]

11. I sent off for some foreign coins once

I can't remember the name of the cereal that was making the offer, probably Cap'n Crunch. Anyway, there were four options-- I could send in X number of boxtops and get four coins from 4 different countries from any of 4 groups, or I could send in Y number of boxtops and get all four groups. I had originally intended on getting Group A, and marked the order form as such, but then I decided to get all four groups, so I saved up the requisite number of boxtops and I marked out "Group A" in the order form, and marked in and even circled "All Groups". However, when I got my coins, they were only from Group A

I still remember what they were--
2 groschen coin from Austria
1 pfennig coin from Germany
5 centavos coin from the Philippines
10 cents coin from Hong Kong

These coins are still probably worth the same (or even less!) than they were in 1967!

[ohiosmith]

12. A crummy commercial! SONOFABITCH!

[tavernier]

13. Labels from Starkist Tuna.

Waited for Charlie Tuna for several weeks. Mom told me not to expect too much and be disappointed. And then, when he finally came, he was ... ... ... enormous. Me and two other friends could ride him in my wading pool and there was still plenty of room left for another rider. I still remember the yummy plastic smell.

One of my best childhood memories.

[nolabear]

14. Cool! One satisfied customer!

I think that box top letdown is one of the great lessons of childhood, but hearing just one that turned out to be awesome restores my faith. Wonder what I can order now...