JCC The Everything Retro Thread

I graduated from those to these...

 

Saw this one on the "Rifftrax Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza" DVD:

 

I remember getting sent those when I was a kid.

 

I figure that's either a Wendy's or a Burger King next door. The design is wrong for McDonald's.

 

There are so many restaurants (and other businesses) who updated their logos in the early aughts, and I wish they'd go back to their earlier retro roots. Like Burger King had done last year. The 70s logo is so much better than the ... planet swoosh thing on the left.



Same goes for Wendy's, Chilis, Pizza Hut, Olive Garden, Taco Bell. Etc etc.

Not that I would ever really eat at most of these places, (even though I used to) but everything became so....boring. So lifeless. Glossy and yet bland. And that doesn't even bring up the interior design of these places. They usually all state how they wanted to appeal to adult customers. But everything ended up boxy, gray, or just depressing.

The old vibes had character. Personality. Charm. Like you'd actually want to visit these businesses, Something that brand design has - overall - been moving away from for decades now.

 

Last time I was in McD's it was like that, all tiled walls and floor and steel countertops. If the firemen ever go in with the hoses, they can spray everywhere full blast and not hurt a thing. I call that prison architecture.

 

Looks like either a small thrift store or a Hardees/Carl's Jr.

 

Yeah. There's a bunch of articles on this ... trend. It's basically economics. Notice how so much of modern architecture is just boxes and rectangles. Tile design is modular, easily made in the factory, and can be assembled in various endless ways. And so that's cheap. I'm pretty sure some of these places are designed by a randomizer feature.

It's also boring. And ugly as hell. At least in my view. And every new building, condo, restaurant in town is using this style.

 

Yeah, it's an eyesore.

 

Here's one they just built a few blocks from me. I drive past it all the time. I'm a designer. I like modern. When it's actually thoughtful. What an eyesore this is. And they bill it as LUXURY living. High priced 1000 sq ft 2 bedroom unit. And...best of all...It's right in front of shipping train yard, as well as the electrical grid for the area. lol.

And the thing about this is...it will never last long enough to make it retro. These things are going to fall a part in 10 years. It literally just looks like my 4 year old stacked some random legos.




Now. Back to our normal retro broadcast.

 

That's hideous.

 

I understand that cost has to be a factor, but....yeah. It's one nice thing about a lot of the older buildings -- they have some character to them. Of course, maybe that is a biased sample...perhaps older buildings 'with character' are more likely to be kept, to be kept up, maintained. But regardless - the generic rectangular box thing and modular "Lego" buildings are definitely BLAH.

 

We had a lot of these growing up in the 80s in our family. I remember loving the fried chicken ones with the raspberry dessert ones. And we each had our own tv dinner tray and we'd sit right in front of the tv on friday nights and chow down.


And they really loved Jello in the 60s. WTF were they thinking.

 

We had the Swanson dinners as well. I think the fried chicken was my favorite.

 

My dad especially loved the Salisbury steak ones. I don't even know what a Salisbury steak is. lol

Of course, he also used to love eat 5 slices of white bread with mayonnaise spread on it, while eating dinner. Soooo....lol.

 

I'd forgotten about the Salisbury steak ones - those were good..
My dad worked in NYC and we lived in Connecticut so he wouldn't get home til 6:30 or 7 PM (Later if there were train problems) so my mom used to make these so we kids could eat earlier.

 

These chairs snagged my hair a lot during school.

 

Mmmm. Chef Boy-ar-dee Frozen Pizza.

 

Every summer, up at the Farm, we'd use this stuff to make our own root beer. It was sort of a family-friendly equivalent to bathtub gin.

 

I love that packaging. That needs to come back. As well as 16oz glass soda bottles.