The Zeroids

I remember Christmas of 1968. It was when I got a Zeroid, no, not a painful sitting condition, but a toy robot by the Ideal company (And no, not that Ideal). I vaguely remember it, other than my cousins both had them as well, and it was rare that my parents relented and got me something everyone else had.

The plastic robots were all the rage apparently, the Cabbage Patch Kids or Tickle Me Elmo of that Christmas, although I remember very little else about it. I know I had the Zobor model and it came with the fancy packaging that was also its 'home.'

My memory was jogged just recently by learning that Moonstone Books has a comic book series based on the Zeroids. I'll have to check it out.

Ideal Never Closed

Just a correction to a very popular blog entry I did a year or two back, Ideal never closed, as many of us believed.

They are still open, and still in that Quonset hut on the White Horse Pike in Hammonton New Jersey and still the place for folks with a passion for fashion, and a craving for saving.

Check them out here, and if you're feeling nostalgic for that unforgettable theme song, click here for the Dumpsta Players doing their tribute to a true South Jersey multi-media and shopping legend.

No More Passion for Fashion?

This one's for the folks local to the Philadelphia area, and more specifically geared to folks who grew up watching television here during the swinging seventies. We are losing a pop culture icon, Ideal is closing.

For those of you with no idea what I'm talking about, Ideal was a clothing shop down in Hammonton, NJ on the White Horse Pike, on the way to Atlantic City from Philadelphia. Their commercials barely changed over the years but always featured the coolest jingle ever written. The jingle has even been immortalized in the shows of the Dumpsta Players.


Come on, folks, sing along one last time...

"It's not a fancy salon,

It's nothing but a quonset hut,

But,

If you've got a passion for fashion,

And you've got a craving for saving,

Take the wheel of your automobile,

And swing on down to - Ideal!"

... and happily repeat until the end...

"The Ideal Manufacturing Company is on Route 30, the White Horse Pike in Hammonton, New Jersey, open every night and all day Sunday."

We'll miss you, Ideal!