This is an official, first or second generation of Ideal's puzzle toy Rubik's Cube. I say second generation because by the time my parents jumped on the bandwagon...it may have even been the third generation. Who knows how many of these were sold when they first came out, but it was CUBE MANIA for a few months in the early 80's. Hand held electronic games were just coming out to take our attention away from colored cubes. I got a official "How To Solve" book with it as well, but like geometry and algebra, not college material. Even with a manual on how to do it, I could only take it apart with a screwdriver and reset it.

What a delightfully simple way to kill 10 minutes and then use as a paperweight or chuck it in the junk box. When video games became cheaper and hand held electronics games came out with a vengeance, I'd rather spend 2 hours playing Galaxy II trying to improve my score before the batteries ran out. I spent time on that rather than trying to solve something that was hopelessly impossible for the douche that wanted to own a game company or publish comics or make stupid tape recordings of bad radio or turn into a dog.  S*IT! Did it again. That's BOOMER The DOG over there, and in the Cleveland studios, Ricochet Sheepdog.

...but like everything else, IMITATION killed the CUBE star. Not really. But, wow. After I got this official cube, then you could get every size of cube and every type of cube. They weren't IDEAL cubes, they were shoddy thin imitation cubes with stickers that fell off. To this day, other than a bit of wear, my IDEAL cube is in great shape. Then they came out with deluxe cubes and then chain puzzles and then, more more more puzzles. I may have got a "chain" puzzle, but a small one I bought really cheap.  You know, the CUBE is still made and still sold. You can get 100 imitation cubes with your store logo on them.  There must have been something about the simplicity of the puzzle. Screwdriver popped off the corner cube and you could reassemble it with no problem. Solved.

Really, this piece of plastic did have a good amount of time in the sun...I'm trying to convince modern viewers that indeed there was a HUGE mania over this piece of plastic. Not only were there hundreds of cheap imitations, not only were there dozens of other cheap plastic hand held puzzles, not only were there televised "solve it the quickest" contests on TV's THAT'S INCREDIBLE with TV's Fran Tarkenton, but there WAS also a HORRIBLE PERVERSION of the CUBE LORE.

Back when Saturday morning was a destination for the cheapest animation designed to lure in kids and sell sell sell them something, they somehow created a show based on a PLASTIC CUBE!  ..... No, I'm NOT KIDDING! THIS IS SERIOUS! Of course a little later in the morning you had the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show, but *GASP* !!!

It was called RUBIK THE AMAZING CUBE! It really happened! You can look it up! It's on the Intrawebs! If they could have a movie called "Mac and ME" which was a McDonalds advertisement where 10 minutes of the film was a dance number inside a McDonalds restaurant.... then why can't the Ideal corporation also sponsor RUBIK THE AMAZING CUBE!  It was part of THE PAC-MAN/ RUBIK CUBE HOUR  MINDF*CK!

It's a wonder those who watched it weren't turned into mindless minions for the Ruby-Spears animation company with intent on ruling the school and becoming "Saved By The Bell" fans forever. I'd provide a link to the Wiki but do it yourself. I wonder what Zach is doing with Screech in the bathroom right now? SIT ON IT! (Oh, that was the Fonz and the Happy Days Gang. Remember that one? The anthropomorphic dog wore a leather jacket and comedy ensued.)

Oh, that was Hanna Barbera, not RUBY SPEARS. WE MUST WATCH RUBY SPEARS! Plastic Man!  HOLY S! I'm looking away from this blog as you likely will to research this era in cartoons and found this WIKI synopsis of an episode of Plastic Man: "Solex uses his solar weapon to spring Weed, Half-Ape, Clam, Computerhead, and Disco Mummy from prison"

DISCO MUMMY???????? No, really, was this WHAT I WATCHED?  REALLY???? Maybe the writers and animators of this needed all the WEED they could get to write this pitiful crap. I think maybe THIS is what got me to be a mindless automaton for the RUBY SPEARS corporation. Not since Rick Dee's recorded DISCO DUCK had there been a more famous DISCO themed cartoon character than the magic of DISCO MUMMY!

Did the animated Abbot and Costello from the new  Scooby Doo Mystery Movies ever meet DISCO MUMMY??? Did Magilla Gorilla ever come up against HALF-APE? Did Spongebob Squarepants get in the time machine used on the FONZ show and do battle with the CLAM????? Wow. Rubik The Amazing Cube kinda looked like Grandpa Al Lewis from the Munsters. I could have gotten a screen grab, but decided to go with a cheap recreation...

....... Yep. He didn't wear a hat. All those shows had dogs in them to appeal to the kids. I just can't erase the thought of DISCO MUMMY! Oh well, I'll push on. Remember how I was saying that there were all sorts of cheap knock-offs of the cube? I had a mini and a micro cube. I don't know where the mini cube is...

Disco Mummy. I wonder if he ever appeared on Denny Terio's show Dance Fever? I imagine he's be quite the disco dancer. Put on a Gloria Gaynor record and I bet he hustled or unravelled or both or neither.  Then he appeared with Babyman Bruce Baum as his "diaper" on Make Me Laugh with mega star Bobby Van. (Anyone with VAN for a last name has to be a megastar right? RIGHT?)

Maybe he appears now as the gauze on head wound survivor turned dancer Gary Busey on Dancing With The Stars??? That DISCO MUMMY danced right into the hearts of hundreds.  Yeah, this was my micro cube. Bought from a flea market in the late 80's when I used it for a key chain for my Chevette. Man, I was styling with a PUZZLE CUBE (not Rubik) for the keys of my hot rocking 'Vette. Disco Mummy and I would troll for disco bims in that chick magnet. Ahhh memories. I wonder if Disco Mummy was really Billy Mumy??? Hmmmm. Lon Chaney  was pushed.

Well, I need to end this silly entry of this portion of my silly blog. I added this CUBE to my junk box just a few years ago. See, in Cleveland, we used to have Caribou Coffee. They were the BEST coffee you could buy. Period. My sister in law agrees with me. Any brew, any blend, was the best coffee ever. Didn't matter if it was the lightest or darkest or the Caribou blend. Something just made them the RIGHT coffee. I never had anything else. If there was one Caribou and ten Starbuxx/Dunka on the way, Caribou would get my 2 bucks. Then, good ol' corporate America based in Germany got their claws into it. The same company paid almost  1000 Million (G. Gordon Liddy) dollars for the Peets coffee chain and just 340 Million for the Caribou chain. What to do, what to do... Hmmmm, lets close some of the stores that have been open for 20 years and rename the rest Peets coffee. What could possibly go wrong?

Gee, maybe the die hard fans of Caribou coffee in all the stores you opened in states outside your major concentration of states would just love the BURNT NASTY BITTER REVOLTING flavor of Peets. You had the same kind of baked goods right? RIGHT?  I bought this cube from what I felt was my "hometown" Caribou coffee. The first place I fell in love with the brand and a store that had just celebrated 20 years being open. They had a clearance sale of various Caribou crap so I bought this for $3.  Little did I know that three weeks later, it would be no more. It didn't have a drive through so it didn't make the PEETS cut. I know, I should not bitch. I can buy Caribou coffee in the stores. Still nothing beat an Obsidian (TM) while I was drawing my worthless cartoons in that fake "ski lodge" that was Caribou coffee.  Hell, if I'm ever in Minnesota, I know where I'll get my coffee. Peets went over real well in the former 'Bou's as well, as within two years, they were closed.  Happy that Peets retreated but angry for employees that lost thier gigs. There is hope, slight as it may be, as the same company that bought the 'Bou bought Einstein's bagels so they may, they might... if I could find one.... Nice Cube though... Disco Mummy would be proud.

Arf! -Ricochet