The Untold History of Ugliness

The Untold History of Ugliness

We’ve all had that moment while perusing a flea market or junk store when you stumble across an item and have to yelp, "Good lord, that is ugly!" So ugly, in fact, you have to marvel that it even got made in the first place.

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The Untold History of the Easy-Bake Oven

The Untold History of the Easy-Bake Oven

I have a confession: My brother and I destroyed my Easy-Bake Oven. I had the 1981 Mini-Wave model, the boxy, yellow microwave style, which was, in my 7-year-old mind, the only kind of Easy-Bake there was. One day, my 4-year-old brother had a brilliant idea—to "cook" a green plastic steak from our 1972 Mattel Tuff Stuff Play Food set. After all, we should be able to cook a steak, right? It fit into the slot perfectly, and for some reason, I didn’t try to stop him. The plastic steak, of course, gave off a noxious odor as it melted inside the machine. Goodbye, Easy-Bake Oven. Goodbye, little round chocolate cakes we loved to bake and eat.

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8 Unfortunate Vintage Candy Wrappers

8 Unfortunate Vintage Candy Wrappers

According to a recent article on Smithsonian.com, the notion that poison candy is routinely distributed to unsuspecting children on Halloween is a myth perpetrated by advice columnists Dear Abby and Ann Landers in the 1980s and ’90s. But historically, candy meant for young consumers has sported poisonous-sounding, WTF wrappers and packages that most self-respecting 2013 parents would be dismayed to see dumped out of their children’s trick-or-treat bags. [CandyWrapperMuseum.com, Collecting Candy.com, CandyWrapperArchive.com, and Pez.com.]

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