When I was young, I loved getting mail. I think most kids do. I signed up for quite a few magazines when I was little, and I didn't know it then or realize how lucky I was, but I able to subscribe in time to get the first issues of iconic kid mags like Disney Adventure, Sports Illustrated for Kids, and Nickelodeon Magazine. Mom must have found the subscriptions, I guess, and signed me up.
I honestly can't remember how I started with these subscriptions, but one day, I was reading "baby" magazines like Zoobooks, and the next thing I knew, I was in the wonderful world of preteen magazines like Nickelodeon!
Back then, people used to have magazine racks or newspaper stands in their bathrooms. Today, we have cell phones for reading material, but it wasn't uncommon to see stacks of magazines or books in people's bathrooms back in the day. My brother and I had the upstairs bathroom to ourselves, and there was always a stack of my Nickelodeon magazines present, even well into high school.
Somewhere around 6th grade, whether it was outgrowing them or Mom trying to curb my magazine budget, the herd eventually thinned out to only Disney Adventure and Nick, and eventually just Nickelodeon. At the time, I had 5 or 6 magazine subscriptions, and that was back when they didn't hand them out for practically free like they do today (since hardly anyone reads magazines anymore).
The pages of these well-loved Nickelodeon Magazines were warped and torn from years of reading and dampness caused by a shower, but I read and loved them anyway.
Eventually, when I went away to college or moved out of the house, I dumped a ton of my "collections" for the sake of "growing up" and "becoming an adult."
Boy, there are many things I wish I still had that I tossed when I tried to "adult up" my image. Oh well. That's what eBay is for, I guess.
This is where my long-lost orange soda label likely disappeared if it ever existed at all. Since I mention it so much, I think I'm going to have to write a post about it one day so I can refer back to it by just posting a link.
When we spent our summer vacation in Maine each year, one of the things I enjoyed doing was going with Granny to Shaw's grocery store. It's this great regional chain, or at least, as a kid, I thought it was great because we didn't have anything like it at home. Plus, Granny always let me buy some donut holes for the cabin, especially the chocolate with rainbow sprinkles. Anywho, she used to buy a few two-liters of orange soda for us kids and my Uncle Bob.
He liked Sunkist, and I did too, but I'd always ask for this special one available only at Shaw's.
I can still picture the black label on the 2-liter bottle. It had white pinstripes and orange or green striping with a cartoon orange that I think was wearing a crown or in a hammock or something. It was something called Ollie's or at least rhymed with Ollie's. I know this because Bob would shout OLLIE OLLIE at the top of his lungs whenever he saw the bottle. For years, it became a running joke among us. Or at least I thought so. Nobody else remembers it.
One year, at Bob's suggestion, I delicately removed and saved the label for my collection. I had that label for years but lost it sometime after I moved out of my parent's house. I've spent countless hours looking for it, in addition to my hours of research online or looking through old photo albums, hoping it would be in the background of one of the photos.
I cannot find this drink anywhere. My uncle and brother don't remember it, and it was something I felt like we joked about often. It's to the point that my wife believes I made the entire thing up.
Honestly, I always had an active imagination, and because I've found literally nothing about this old soda from the Shaw's in Windham, Maine, from the early to mid-90s... I'm starting to think I might have made it up, too.
I've contacted Shaws and spent hours on Google and nothing comes close. I've even contacted Hannaford's and Walmart, the two other grocery stores, just in case I misremembered what store Granny bought it from.
There was a powdered sports drink named Jolly Olly from way back when, and I even got a hold of the owner of that company at one point, but they never made 2-liter bottles and had stopped production by then.
If you have any information about this orange soda named Ollie or something similar (it's not Olipop), PLEASE email me at admin (at) yesteryearretro (dot) com or leave a message below so I can prove I didn't just make something up and believe it was real for nearly 30 years. Or do you know someone who is an expert in old sodas? Please send them my way.
Speaking of orange soda and Maine, I spent many summer vacations reading my stack of Nick mags. I'd bring a whole case of them, and while everyone was out fishing or shopping, I'd sit on the beach or up in the cabin thumbing through them. I'd try to recreate the drawings and play all the puzzles and games on the back pages for the hundredth time as I tried to get one of the three stations that came in over the rabbit ear antennas.
At home, back before the internet and without a television or video games in my bedroom like some other kids, I had to spend my time doing something. Rereading Nickelodeon Magazines for the hundredth time was just as good as anything else.
Nickelodeon Magazine first appeared in 1990 and was sold at newsstands for $1.95. However, through a special partnership, it was distributed for free at participating Pizza Huts. This first version only had two issues, the first with Chevy Chase and the second with hip-hop group Kid N' Play on the covers.
The magazine returned in the Summer of 1993 (which you can view in its entirety below!)
Nick Mag was originally released quarterly (hence this being the "Summer" issue) but switched to a bi-monthly cycle with the February/March 1994 issue. Starting in March 1995, it went to 10 issues a year, with the bi-monthly issues timed to staff vacations, like the December/January or June/July issues.
Even though Nickelodeon Magazine was related to the kid's network it was named after, it covered all sorts of topics for kids. It obviously covered Nickelodeon television happenings but also contained humorous interviews, comics, recipes (such as green slime cake), and even touched on current events and politics at a kid-friendly level.
The magazine's mascot was a Lakeland Terrier named Zelda Van Gutters, who appeared throughout each issue, making snarky comments about the topics covered on each page.
The magazine continued into the new Millennium and received a cosmetic makeover in May 2006. In June 2009, Nickelodeon announced the discontinuation of the magazine by the end of the year, along with the sister publication Nick Jr. Magazin. The network cited economic conditions and the declining advertising interest in reading actual magazines among children and teens.
December 2009 (Issue #159) was the final release until 2015 when it was announced that Nickelodeon Magazine would return under the management of Papercutz, a publisher of family-friendly graphic novels and comics. The "new" Nickelodeon Magazine only lasted 11 issues and ended during the summer of 2016.
Below, you can enjoy the entire premiere issue of Nickelodeon Magazine from the Summer of 1993! Scanned in from what remains of my personal collection, you can click on each image to make them bigger and easier to read!
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