Justin

I loved the commercials with Sam Groom (soap opera actor / AMC spokesperson) walking through the AMC's Kenosha, WI factory. In a world of snazzy advertising, there was something very authentic about these TV commercials, and Sam Groom was the perfect spokesperson for AMC, and even better for JEEP: Think about how many Atari games and systems came home from Sears and Kmart in these cars

I found it! @Yo-Yo is/was an Atari I/O member who started a new topic years ago asking everybody to post about their first car. Yo-Yo said he owned an AMC Eagle wagon as his first car:

They still had cars after 30 years? Were the small white cars AMCs or Renaults? Maybe they should've offered a rebate ☺️

Good luck, Trek!

YESSSS LETSS GOOOOOOO 💥💥💥🕹️

We had a member in the forums a few years ago who said their first car was an AMC Eagle 4x4 wagon. I remember being a little surprised to see that, and thought of Lance of course.

One day to go!

The presenter in this video reminds me of Carel Struycken. Interesting video. The whole "Interactive Multimedia Entertainment System" idea of the early-mid '90s was showing us that video games could be esoteric gateways to exploring the world, travel, culinary delights, learning, and doing "so much more than Mario". It turns out however, people just wanted to play Mortal Kombat, and the interactive world wouldn't come on CD but would come online with the advent of the World Wide Web. (Microsoft Encarta giving way to Wikipedia is one example) Cool to see this, thanks for sharing @MaximumRD. CD-i, 3DO, Jaguar, Amiga and so many others promised an interactive multimedia world that never quite came to be.

Here's an update on where things currently stand with Billy Mitchell:

@Video 61 here's an episode of Jay Leno's YouTube show "Leno's Garage" (which has been in the news for a number of reasons lately). This episode is about the famous pink 1968 American Motors AMX with the current owner who restored it to its original condition. The car's history is a strange trip that involves a "playmate of the year" shooting and wounding her husband with Roman Polanski's gun, decades after Roman Polanski gave it to her for protection from retribution from The Manson Family. Weird, wild stuff! AMC had hits and misses. They always went for a niche market and were willing to take risks to try something new. They had some oddly-received designs like the Pacer (Wayne's World) and the Gremlin (which I recently shared here) and yet they had genre-defining cars such as the four wheel drive AMC Eagle Wagon which pioneered the idea of a "crossover" vehicle, the Jeep Grand Wagoneer which was the first American luxury SUV with Cadillac-level craftsmanship and appointments inside, the popular Jeep Cherokee design which remained in production nearly 20 years after Chrysler bought out AMC, the first American built European cars, galvanized steel construction on all cars with a 5 year rust-through warranty, the first comprehensive Buyer Protection Plan on a car, and of course their government service's division AM General Hummer, which few people attribute to American Motors in the 1970s.

Funny to think how many of our conversations on this site ultimately come down to Warner's business dealings.

@RickR It looks like they're still "kind of" publishing? I can't figure it out 🤔 https://subscriptions.dccomics.com/mad https://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2022/09/20/celebrate-mad-magazines-70th-anniversary-october-4-with-celebrities-and-the-usual

Who else read Mad Magazine in their youth? Remember SPY VS. SPY? And of course what about Cracked?

Is this a playmates toy?

They were supposed to build ours first in a spot behind where Back To The Future: The Ride used to be, along with the original Hard Rock Cafe. It was delayed indefinitely by covid, and I'm excited for them to do one here. @Gianna pointed this out to me a few years ago and was really looking forward to it. I don't know why Nintendo didn't do this 30 years ago, it's such a great idea.

I hope you guys enjoyed our lineup last year, and are enjoying a slightly different approach and stellar lineup for 2023 🙂

That's awesome feedback @CrossBow

Thanks! How do you see this working? What would the template be for? A template to cut the overlays?

BINGO. Say it a million times. I just sent a video message to @MaximumRD like an hour ago, regarding Amiga saying this very thing. That is so right on Rick. Speaking of Cameron and Joe, in all seriousness, it would have been nice for Atari during the Warner / Atari XL / Hawkeye era to have set up a subscription service not unlike a PlayNet (or the fictional Mutiny). Or at the very least, court other small companies to want to develop services like that to run on the Atari 8-Bit computers. Warner could've offered all sorts of incentives, and imagine buying tickets to Warner movies, online, in 1984, or playing the latest adventure game online for the Atari 8-Bit. That would've been the gateway into an internet age for the ST, or better yet the Amiga had Atari not lost the Grass Valley gurus. Whatever Jaguar would've become, would've been lightyears ahead of what it was.

These guys could've made it happen 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I know they had the lines and they had the computing power to get started with something. What Atari really needed was somebody in the building with the willpower and authority to empower a small group of young, ambitious, creative minds with that scrappy '90s gen-x attitude - just a handful of them working in a small group, having fun, taking on the world, throwing two sheets to the wind knowing they were small and they were the underdog and they were going up against Nintendo and Sega and Amiga and Sony and Apple and Sun and NeXT and everything else, and just pick something and go full bore with it and make it cool.

So many missed opportunities with the Jag. It literally had a keypad on the controller, they could've shipped the Jag with an online service (think SegaNet) that provided early online access to email, chat, and the web for a low monthly subscription cost. Atari had spent the second half of the '80s literally trying to be a computer company, they had the resources to do something like this, why not go for it?

omg I had totally forgotten that one and what a big joke that was, we thought it was so funny!

Here we are at a new favorite, a local Italian pizza place called “Two Meatballs In The Kitchen”. We absolutely love going there. It’s flavorful, local and cozy with a nice menu. It's the perfect place to go on a Saturday afternoon 🍝 As an appetizer they serve the most delicious garlic knots you can imagine! Baby @Gianna usually orders a calzone or the Chicken Marsala with a side salad, and I order one of their specialty pizzas. Gianna had eaten here recently with her family and suggested we go, and it's become one of my favorite places to eat in this part of the state. It's an Italian restaurant but with a vibe that's more in keeping with a craft beer and burger place, as opposed to what you might expect from traditional Italian restaurants, chains, and local pizza joints. Only thing missing is a Ms. Pac-Man machine in the back! Gianna and I have eaten here a few times, and I even thought to take pictures and a short video to share with you in July and September! I meant to post these a few months ago, but Hurricane Ian hit and things have been weird. Here's a look, I hope you enjoy, and if you're ever in the area we will have to go: Then at the end we stopped by Macy's at the mall and Gianna got to meet Geoffrey from the Toys 'R' Us setup: