2 Warps to Neptune

12 Responses to “<em>The Black Hole</em> Lunch Box and Thermos (1979)”

1. 1 2W2N February 14, 2014 at 3:39 pm

   What happened to the lunch box? It’s virtually obsolete these days. Does it have something to do with the fact that most kids are eating at school? Is it partly because kids no longer identify with physical artifacts like we did, all their allegiances being advertised online? Other theories?

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   • 2 Brian Williams February 14, 2014 at 3:46 pm

     It has to be something about the people in charge of making and marketing things to kids these days.
     I showed my kids the Mighty Men and Monster Maker yesterday and they understandably thought it was the greatest thing they’d ever seen. Of course there is absolutely nothing on the market like it these days.

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   • 3 leftylimbo February 14, 2014 at 5:47 pm

     I’m sure there’s a lot of factors involved, including the ones you mentioned. A big part of it is the lack of physical artifacts and the overwhelming existence of “online” possessions, etc.

     For example—despite my resistance—I’ve been spending increasingly more money on my son’s iPad and computer game upgrades so he could have better weapons, armor, supplies etc. but luckily he’s still into action figures and actual playthings he can hold.

     There’s still lunch boxes with popular cartoon and/or game characters, such as Regular Show, Mario Bros., etc. but they’re just not as sought after. They’re much more ergonomic these days too, with more emphasis on light weight and insulating properties rather than cool design. All the lunch box manufacturers push for lunches and drinks to stay hot or cold for as long as possible.

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   • 4 Jason February 14, 2014 at 5:50 pm

     I recall hearing about bans on metal lunchboxes in the mid or late 1990s. Too dangerous. Children are extremely fragile, and everything they encounter must be made of soft foam.

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     • 5 leftylimbo February 14, 2014 at 7:09 pm

       Oh yeah, that’s another thing I’d heard when I discussed the disappearance of those good ol’ tin lunch boxes. Some time in the late ’80s or so they’d considered the metal lunch boxes as potential lethal weapons and were banned. Apparently at some schools, students were whacking each other over the heads with them. Ouch.

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     • 6 leftylimbo February 14, 2014 at 8:23 pm

       According to A Brief History of the Lunch Box on lunchbox.com as far as the disappearance of the metal lunch box:

       “..Blame it on kids, who came up with other status symbols to beg their parents for. Blame it on manufactures who in 1972 began switching to plastic molded–inferior in every aesthetic way to metal– to cut manufacturing costs. And blame it on crusading mothers and pandering legislators who began passing legislation to ban metal as dangerous assault weapons. The last metal lunch box of the Steel Age, fittingly depicted that hailed conking hero, Rambo. That was in 1987.”

       Something didn’t sit right with me on that date stamp (Rambo’s one of my fav characters), so I looked into it. Seems more likely that it’s ’85, and Ebay’s selling ’em with and without thermoses. Hmm. Time to check my “disposable income” stash.

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       • 7 2W2N February 14, 2014 at 8:33 pm

         Interesting! Plastic is much less interesting, for sure. It might have been ’87. Coleco came out with a Rambo toy line in ’86 and they were produced the following year as well.

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2. 8 Brian Williams February 14, 2014 at 3:42 pm

   Embossed surface and sweet thermos with robots and lasers. That was the good stuff.

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   • 9 2W2N February 14, 2014 at 3:45 pm

     Children’s commercial illustration/graphic design: another lost art.

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3. 10 Ed February 14, 2014 at 4:11 pm

   I remember how these babies would start to rust and get dented, by the end of the school year look pretty beat up. My children’s school did not allow metal lunch boxes, but plastic was still acceptable.

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   • 11 leftylimbo February 19, 2014 at 10:52 am

     Oh yeah, they definitely took the brunt of falls and scrapes in order to keep our lunches safe and sound. Every single tin lunch box I had definitely had some edge wear and dings, etc. I may still have my Star Wars one somewhere, actually. Hmm.

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4. 12 leftylimbo February 14, 2014 at 8:31 pm

   For awhile, as geeky as I am, I was bringing my Rusty Brown lunch box to work (by Chris Ware). It’s an awesome piece. Hmm. The description is the best:

   “Four color, embossed, and solid metal — so that it really hurts when somebody bigger than you smacks you on the side of the head with it.”

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