Cellophane roll-ups of yellow and green
By Christopher West
The year was probably 1986, and I was sitting in front of an amazing 19” plastic wood-paneled Panasonic television. Being only five, I was pretty sure wood didn’t come in plastic form, but I also thought Small Wonder was a great TV show. In other words, I was easily persuaded.
By day I would ride USA’s Cartoon Express. At night I was off to planet Melmac, the isle of Mypos, and the neon streets of Miami. With the turn of a giant knob attached to the TV, I had a dozen channels at my disposal.
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On one side of me would be Castle Grayskull and a pile of homo-erotic He-Man action figures. On another side, the crappy Go-Bots command center and a pile of useless Go-Bots. In front of me was a giant Voltron toy that looked cool, but I had no idea who the hell he was. Surprisingly, Japanese anime hadn’t conquered the suburbs of Ohio yet.
While watching these shows I would snack on many great 80’s foods. Usually that meant eating cereal out of the box. There was Smurf Berry Crunch, Mr.T, E.T., and Boo Berry. Pretty much every 80’s cartoon had a short lived random run of cereal.
There was one snack that was my favorite though. That was Fruit Roll-ups. They were kind of pricy for my recently widowed mother, so it wasn’t something I got very often. Sometimes she would try to trick me with those Sunkist rip offs or some kind of knock off fruit leather crap. I actually remember saying no to those at the store and saying I’d rather have Fruit Roll-ups or nothing. That often meant nothing, but I was an asshole child with high fruit leather standards.
My mother would hand me a Fruit Roll-up in the wrapper, and I would go to the living room to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks and play with my toys. This was pretty much the start of my latchkey childhood. From here on out I was pretty much on my own after school. Nanny from the Muppet Babies would turn out to be my actual nanny for a few years.
On this particular day though there would be a dramatic revelation in the world of Fruit Roll-ups. Turns out, I was not properly eating Fruit Roll-ups as the great people at Betty Crocker would advise. I remember it vividly.
Webster was on TV. Emmanuel Lewis was riding the wave of rich white people adopting African-American children and Alex Karras hung up his jersey and Malt Liquor ads to be a dad. I tried to give Wester a Fruit Roll-up through the TV, but he couldn’t be bothered. The great orphan war of 85’ against Punky Brewster had all but consumed his time.
Next to me in a pile of He-Man toys was also Webster, but with an “o”. He was a blue evil half-human half-spider master of escape. Those geniuses at Mattel nailed it again with those clever names. “Hey Tom what about a half-human half-bee guy named Buzz-Off.” “Sure Bob what about a guy with a giant fist named Fisto.” Genius.
My mom came in from the kitchen to check on me. I happened to be eating a Fruit Roll-up at the time. She started yelling at me to stop eating my beloved snack. “You’re eating that wrong spit that out” she said. Confused, I ran through the steps in my head.
Step 1: Guilt Mom into buying Fruit Roll-ups.
Step 2: Get mom to take Fruit Roll-up out of the box.
Step 3: Open outer tube wrapper of Fruit Roll-up in front of cartoons.
Step 4: Eat Fruit Roll-up.
Now for those Fruit Roll-up lovers out there, you may have noticed I missed a step. That’s right; I did not take the thin plastic sheet off the back of the Fruit Roll-up. I’m only five years old at this point, so I have no idea how many Fruit Roll-ups with the plastic still on them I had eaten up to this point. I’d like to think not that many because I had a good mother and really how long could that go unnoticed.
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On the other hand, her husband had just died, so I guess I’ll cut her a break. I also gave my TV nanny a break because for some damn reason they never panned the camera below her green stripped socks and purple shoes. How could she see me through the TV if they never showed her face?
I hope the old saying “back in my day they made things better” applies here. Just like cars used to be made of metal, I hope that plastic wrappers were made in America and had fewer chemicals in them in the 80’s.
So far there doesn’t seem to be any issues, but who knows about the future. I did also eat a bunch of those mini wax soda bottles with sugar juice in them. It’s a miracle I wasn’t constipated my entire childhood.
