Bonus: One Plastic Rock Ball

Cambridge and Was Sean is a weirding Way media podcast. Michael Rockelo, Hello and welcome to this special bonus episode of Cambridge and was Sean. All about the post Pebbles Plastic rock Ball serial Premium because we have a major update. Oh yeah, this is Mark Bigley, one of your loyal hosts. Along with me as always is Ronnie slash Skelevator.

I'm excited about today's conversation, are you. I'm having deja vu these certain Beatles take two clip here. Ronnie and I just sat for about forty minutes and talked about this and I hadn't hit the record button. This is the second goof in recent history, because I thought I had completely lost the Serf and Turf episode. Oh that was scary.

Back on episode six, Big Boy versus Bibendum Bibbendum Bibendum, where we discussed cereal mascots and premiums. At the end of that episode, I brought up this item I had been looking for since I was a kid that I remembered having. So let's take a trip back down memory lane. I do have a weird dreamery that's my combination dream slash memory thing that relates to cereal premiums, and I have it in my head that I got from one of the pebbles cereals, so either coco or Fruity Pebbles, because they did have a lot of premiums and or prizes, that I got a little rock, like a blow mold rock, just a brown lump. It probably was part of maybe a set like collect All five.

I just always have it in my head that I had a little rock, flintstone rock. It's impossible to search for it. You can't type in flintstone rock, what do you want to get? Yeah, it brings up just all kinds of nonsense and cereal, cocoa, pebbles, premiums, free pebbles premiums usually just brings up little figures of them or dono. I'm like, is this a real thing?

Did I totally create this whole cloth in my brain? Why? And why? Why? And why?

A rock? Why? A plastic rock? But I loved it. Maybe we'll find the answer by the time we record next.

I doubt it. I've been looking for years since eBay. I signed onto eBay almost exactly twenty four years ago in May of nineteen ninety nine. I've looked for it since then, off and on forever. Now you've thrown it out into the podcast cosmos, so yeah, maybe it'll activate something.

It's one of those things that I would probably never figure out how find. Now you've got me hooked, I'm going to start doing some research too. That's exciting. You'll never find it. By the time we recorded episode eight, prior to that, I had been contacted by my friend Jeff Lamb.

So let's hear that discussion now. And there's a little bit extra in that that I had cut out in the original release that is pertinent to the new information we have. So let's travel back down memory lane one more time. And then the only other thing that I have, which is pretty cool. I'm gonna give that a shout out to one of my online friends, Jeff Lamb, and I told him i'd be doing this.

He sent me a message on Instagram with a picture attached, and he said, is this what you guys were talking about on your podcast. It's a picture of a fruity pebbles box with a big ad on the back for a crazy rock ball. Yeah, inside this box one plastic rock ball and it has a picture and of course one of the pictures and I love it when they do this as you know, actual size. Yeah, and there's a couple of different colors. There's like a brown one and a gray one, and I don't know if that's supposed to be the gray one or if there was a blue one as well.

I said, holy shit, yes, that's it. So he mentioned that someone had posted it on one of the vintage toy pages on Facebook, and then he came back and said there was a commercial for it too. So I went over to YouTube and watched the commercial, and like many things that I bring up on here, my memory wasn't quite bright. It's not a blowmold hollow figure. It's a bouncy ball, so it's like, oh, a super ball, but since it has ridges and yeah, indentations and stuff, it bounces in all kinds of different directions.

Yeah, I love it. I was like, oh my god, I can't believe you found me. That's so cool. And then he sent me the full post. What did he say, got one for all the plaid stallions out there?

Sounds silly, but does anyone have a picture of Freddy Pebble's plastic boulder Prize with action figures? I have a vague memory of playing with this and maybe seventy two to seventy five Migo Lone, Ranger Jo or big gym anyone else remember this? So I used rock ball as my search Freddy Pebble's rock Ball and I got a couple other box pictures, but that was it. Looking for that on eBay brings up nothing but either other flint Stone premiums or rock Ball actual balls made out of rocks. So it still maybe a while, and I'm sure if anybody has one of those out there, they probably have no idea what it even is, and most would likely assume that it's from a toy set.

That's why he mentioned the g I, Joe and other things. Probably used it with your action figures, absolutely, so I don't know if my memory is just totally wrong or if at some point they made one that was like a hollow blow old version about I said, well, you solved the unsolvable one for me, because I was thinking I made that up. So thanks Jeff, And the next step is finding one, I guess, yeah, just keep searching for rock balls. That brings us up to July thirty first, at eight forty five pm. I was doing my normal searches on eBay and Google in regard to this item.

I put in those usual search terms Coca Pebbles, Cereal Premiums, Fruity Pebbles, Cereal Prizes, Fruity Pebbles, crazy rock ball as it's described on one of the boxes, Coca Pebbles, rubber Ball, Fruity Pebbles, bouncy ball, Pebbles rubber and or plastic rock ball, and was getting the same stuff. Yeah, nothing was coming up. I had seen listings either on eBay or Google that were just highlighting post that post trademark in the corner of those boxes, and I thought, yeah, that's always kind of bugged me about these cereals. Which one do you look for? So I put in post Pebbles, Cereal rock ball items pop up.

The second image down was a blue plastic rock Voila and I clicked on it as fast as humanly possible because I was going to hit the buy it now button regardless. Yeah, I mean it would have taken a peek at it. It was one hundred dollars or something, right, I probably would have passed. Who knows though, and much to my dismay, realized that it was an auction listing. I could feel the disappointment in your text message to me.

It wasn't even in the words, but it was certainly there, and the energy of it, excitement and disappointment was tangible. I immediately sent you the link. That's how I know what time this is all transpired back at our text history, and I believe I mentioned, yeah, it's an auction listing, and you're you know, ever, the optimists said, oh, it's only five days, actually more towards six days, five and three quarters days left. So that was Monday night. It was going to end on Sunday afternoon, and I just knew, you knew how things were going to play out.

I tried to just be cool about it. I knew i'd be checking every day at least a few times throughout the day just to see if anything was happening with it. Noticed that there were four watchers. Two of those were you and I. I figured this guy from that vintage toy page was probably the other one.

So I just kind of prepared myself for the usual bullshit that goes on with an auction listing. I've had some good luck with auctions in the past, so that's part of like why I'm like, it can never really know. I know, for example, though, it always ends up being more than you wanted to be. This vintage Castle Gray Skull I got not too long ago. I was really surprised.

It was almost like no one knew it was like a hidden auction or something. It was weird because it just was a super reasonable plus it had all the accessories that come with it. Is really shocked, So that's part of the reason why I'm like, there's potential mark that this could go your way, and I have had that too in the past. Usually though on the things that I'm really interested in, it ends up being a battle. So more on that in a bit.

The interesting thing that I noticed about the listing was this description, and it said Fruity Pebble's Plastic rock Ball Cereal Premium nineteen seventy five, which was the title of the listing. It is used and has scuffs and scrapes that is to be expected for something that's old. This is not the bouncy version. This is the boring, plastic, non bouncing version. My memory about this item was verified and correct.

There was a blow Mo old verse of this, and I was super happy that this auction was for that version. What a relief. A relief, but just having that memory validated, I don't know. Something about that was uplifting for me. Yes, we've had memories that aren't quite right.

The only difference between this and what I had as a kid is this is the blue version, and I'm fairly certain I had the brown one. I may have had the gray one. I distinctly remember brown, So I'm trusting my memory on that. Had a little less than a week to wait out this auction, followed it, checked it every day, nothing happened. I continued doing my searches just in case another one popped up for a buy it now price, or if I found more information online and was really just getting those box images.

The one box image that he had in the listing and it's in the title confirmed that date of nineteen seventy five, and I was like, man, I was only six years old. Yeah, so this is a real long lasting memory. Yeah, I feel like I was older. I probably held on to this thing for quite a while. Yeah, six is pretty young for like solid memories for me, I was surprised by that.

I do believe it went on for a few years after that. It could have been that I had a later version. I don't know. I don't care. So I also, while I was poking around, found a different bouncy ball that was related to post Sugar Crisp Cereal that was an eighteen cited geometrical bouncy ball.

So this was something that they were into. That's so weird that they spent so much time creating plastic balls as toys for Cereal. Yeah, I wonder if they did some for any of the other Cereals they had. That's the only thing that shook loose using that bouncy ball. Than rocks were popular.

Rock toys were popular. There were even two action figures later in the Masters of the Universe line that were transforming rocks. To think that, let's take this bouncy ball idea or the ball concept and just turn it into a rock, kids are going to love it. The fact that kids did love it is kind of remarkable to me. I'm surprised they didn't just use the same thing for the Flintstones one, because it does.

If you look it up, and there are a couple on eBay right now, a couple of listings of this Sugar Crisp version, it looks like a jagged rock doesn't have the creases and indents and things that the Flintstones ones do, but they could have repurposed it. Yeah, it's a totally different design though. The other thing that came up when I used blowmold in my searches was the Flintstones pitch and bowl set that did have a little blow mold rock as well, but it's not the same one that was used in the cereal And it also came with just a ball, so you could either roll the ball and pull them over, or you could throw the rock and knock them over. I can't imagine that being the job of somebody working at Post.

So what do you do at a dinner party? Like, what do you do? I sculpt rock balls for Post serial. That's awesome. I would love to have that on my job description.

That brings up the thought I always have is who did this stuff? Who did this stuff? Yeah? Unsung heroes exactly like session musicians, like really talented sculptors working behind the scenes, no recognition, the wrecking crew of the sculpting world. That's right, that's right.

Sunday rolls around, I wake up, do my normal work routine. I take a look at the listing, see that there's been a bid, so it's resting at its starting price, which was ten dollars. Thought, okay, well, we'll see what happens. Maybe this person will go about their busy day and forget about it, or they won't be notified of an increase in the bid, or who knows what. I thought for sure that was the price it was going to stay at, because I was following it too.

I was like, this is not going to get it crazy. This is not going to get as crazy as it got I was wishing. I'm like, why couldn't this have been an early morning auction end. I had to wait all the way till three came in here so that I could be on a good computer that wouldn't foul up. Yeah, while I was bidding, there are all kinds of things that can go wrong.

These sniping tools that people use automatically increases without you having to type it in and or shill bidders, and you never know, somebody's got a buddy working with them to raise it up enough to where they're happy with the sale price. If they win it, they can always resell it. I'm cognizant of all that stuff. And then also my quote unquote training and auction listenings that I learned from somebody is to not do whole numbers. Not do thirty, thirty, twenty five, thirty seventy six, so that you can beat out someone that has that thirty dollars as their high bid.

That's good advice. I waited till there was about a minute and a half left and put in my maximum bid, which was pretty high, and I felt pretty safe with it. Stayed that for maybe twenty seconds, yeah, and then it jumped up over my high bid by about four dollars, so I increased mine to a couple dollars over that got beat. There was a moment where it jumped from I'm jumping back in time a little bit here, it jumped from ten to be and I was like, oh my gosh, what is going on with this thing? To me, it warmed my heart because I thought the people that are interested in this are genuinely interested in this, is not just someone trying to get it so they can resell it.

True, true people are willing to invest in this memory. So my I think third increase got beat immediately, and I did one last one just as it was ending, didn't get any indication that I'd want it. There should be like digital confetti or something when you win something, right, So I had to go to purchase history to see that I'd actually won and was relieved. I went about nine bucks over my initial high bid maximum bid and didn't fill an ounce of regret. That's good.

I haven't been buying a lot of stuff. I've bought some things that we've mentioned on a show. I've picked too much for hamhos Fanky's thing. That's about it. But I was definitely relieved because the whole thing of this is when is another one going to roll around another twenty years?

I gotta wait, Yeah, when I'm seventy something. You know, you purchase something of value, and I mean like emotional value, not monetary value, Like you know you bought something of value if you do not have that buyer's remorse at all. And I've had buyer's remorse before in the past, and those things that It's funny over time, those things that I've attached those feelings too, are always an item that I'm willing to get rid of down the line, even if like within the first day or so of owning it, I'm like, this is thing's awesome down the line. It's like my gut knows more than my brain, or my heart knows more than my brain. So it's the good sign that you didn't feel that buyer's remorse.

And it makes sense too, because this has been a lengthy journey to try and find this thing. Yeah, if we're going by nineteen seventy five, yeah, it's forty eight years ago for a long time, long time of looking. Not that I've been looking for forty eight years, but definitely have been looking off and on since eBay rolled around, which I mentioned previously. Yeah, yeah, so then I just had to wait until it showed up. Was continuing my searching.

That's how those other items popped up, also trying to find a better box image. The one that I'm using for the episode here from the nineteen seventy five was specifically for this blow mold version which I had. The seller shipped it real quickly, it was out by the next day. I got it by Thursday. Was looking at it and looking at that box image and realizing, oh, this is like they took a picture or had the original artists illustration of this and used it for the box because it has the specific notches and swirls and stuff of the ball and actual size like they like to do, which I love.

I love that. Then I read the little corner description or tried to make it out as best as I could. It's not a high definition image, and it says plastic rock balls are one and a half inches in diameter, which this is one blue, gray or brown rock ball packed inside this carton have a ball collect all three. Looking at the other boxes in for that bouncy ball, it's not the same skult. I was incorrect in assuming that they just took that and remolded it as this blowmold version.

But I believe those came earlier than this, which is probably why I didn't encounter them. And I'm curious now. I wonder if that I asked my mom to get this because I wanted that rock ball because I saw it on the package, or was it just something she brought home. I'm willing to bet on the first option, because the initial interest is probably why it has lasted so long for you. You saw it, you liked it, you got it, you liked it more, and that kind of reinforces your enjoyment of this thing.

But some things are surprises, and you're like, oh, yeah, this thing's great that I have no recollection of the initial thing could have been either way, don't really know. Yeah, once I got it, I decided to contact the seller. You never know how people are going to respond to this stuff, if they even care. If he would have even replied back, but I just let him know this is something I've been looking for. Wasn't really sure it was real, or that this version of it was real.

It's come up over the last couple of months in this way on my show. Even though I paid considerably more than I was hoping to. I don't regret it at all. He replied back and said, yeah, I've had it for a number of years. My mom used to bring home boxes of stuff from flea markets and yard sales, so he's had it for quite a while.

And this guy's name is Trevor, and then he's in Louisville, Kentucky, and goes by Thor trev All one word all overcase on eBay. It's got a couple other listings right now, and I think he's planning on doing more sereal premium listings. Cool. So he assumed it was from a hot Wheels set, something that you would roll down the tracks that would roll over cars, and I was like, oh, that's interesting. I never even considered that kind of makes sense.

Yeah, you know, you could throw it at your hot wheels and pretend like they're being destroyed by a rock. Yeah, definitely. I've mentioned the big gem stuff, the camping sets g I Joe, all those toy lines had had these sets that usually came with cheap blow mold accessories. Ye. Now I'm my search item includes sereal premium lots.

Who knows might find the brown one? You might complete the three colors set one of these days. Well, I'm not going to say anything's impossible anymore, because this unsolvable mystery got solved pretty quickly in two months time. I love it when this happens. Sometimes these mysteries sort of hang over us, and it's not like we're being bothered by some enormously tragic thing, but it does hang over us, and it does sort of affect us, and we're always in the back of our mind, whether it be sometimes we're more active than others, but the search continues, right, Yeah, these are first world problems.

This is yes, exactly exactly it's exciting. It's if you enjoy research and you enjoy solving mysteries, or you enjoy that activity. This is something that a person can jump into. I've had these issues too. It's like, there was this song on a punk compilation that I loved as I think I was a freshman in high school when I first got this punk compilation.

I thought it was Punk Orama, but I'm beginning to doubt that now. But there was this one song, and for ages I've assumed it was Hoosker Do. But I've since like gone through all the entire catalog of hohoskrew Do songs cannot seem to find this song mentioning it. Now. Hopefully the answer will come.

But that's just one of those one of those things that I'm hoping to resolve too. Just like you, well, did they have any side projects or solo projects that it could be attributed to? Well, Bubble does stuff on his own, he does. It's true I haven't ventured into side projects. I'm beginning to feel like my attaching the band Hoosker Do to this song may be the mistake.

But now I have to sort of start over, and I've tried to actually like, listen through some compilations and like, is volume one, The one I remember is Volume two, The one I remember is Volume three. I totally get it, man, Yeah, but it's exciting too. At the same time, You're like, well, maybe I will find this, or maybe I will find that the song I remember is an amalgam of like three or four different songs, which I'm beginning to feel might be the truth. That idea of not having the one thing that would nail it down as a search term or a path to more information is really frustrating. Yeah, and we really only time will tell.

That's part of the excitement. It's like a Scooby Doo episode, who will be unmasked at the end. You were able to uncover this thing, you were able to acquire it. This is a validation of the memory that I had. And the funny thing is is it's way bigger than I expected.

That's what she said, And that's unusual for childhood memories because we always think of things as being bigger back then. I don't know if it's because I just keep thinking about the insides of golf balls, right, because I brought that up as a comparison. I mean this is way bigger. I happened to find an old golf ball during the week. I got kind of hooked on that and split it open.

There it is, so I got a new inside of a golf ball. And then the thing like it was so old that it just popped out and all the rubber bands were just like slithering off of it like little snakes. It was amazing. I brought it in real quick to show Cleo as they were unraveling in my hand. It was the easiest extraction of the inside of a golf ball I've ever had in my life.

That's interesting. Cracked it open and the thing flew out and just unrattled on its own. That's cool. Anyway, As I mentioned before, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with this thing. I mean, I've got tons of toys.

It could hang out with my cyclops, my tom Land cyclops that I talked about, that's true. And I've got these Japanese vinyl figures, these two two and a half inch figures from this toymaker whose name I will insert now because I don't want to butcher it. In English, it means pigs nose or pig snout. Nice I've got these little caveman figures that I've got a few years back. I was like, oh, yeah, they're cavemen, so I don't work And then I got it.

I was like, this is kind of huge. He's holding the same color blue rock kind of and then my little Gorilla from Green Man Versus Gorilla has blue on him as well, and I think that size works better for him. Yeah, fantastic. So that's going to be the display. And I'm definitely not keeping this out in the house anywhere because that is something that the dog would immediately destroy.

You need a little plexiglass case. Yeah, I might hit Michael's at some points. Yeah, they've got a name because I don't want to play ten Amazon because I don't need tim Yeah, that's the only way you can get them on Amazon. Yeah, Michael's will have something. They've got to have something that golfers.

You is like, here's the golf ball that I and oddly enough, it is about the size of a golf ball. There you go, alrighty, well, maybe we'll do a Hoosker Do episode like this at some point, and I hope so another special episode could pop up at any time. Who knows. Wasn't planning on this. The excitement to finally getting one of these just bowled me over, so we had to do it.

It's fantastic. It'll be exciting to see if you ever happen upon the other two colors and complete your collection. Since we won't be back until October, what can people be looking out for over on the Sclevator YouTube channel. For those of you that are subscribed to the Sclevator YouTube channel, you know that I have a toy show on Thursday nights called Toy Frenzy where we talk primarily about Masters of the Universe stuff. But lately, because of Mark and I being obsessed with McDonald lan stuff that's been coming up in conversation, we were really excited.

I invited Mark to come on and co host an episode last week or two weeks ago. Now at this point, we invited Dallas Pogue, who's known as Dustin Cropp's Boy. He is renowned at this stage for fixing up the giant fiberglass sculptures in McDonald land play grounds and also he makes a little small versions of them. The conversation with Dallas is really great. I'll link it in this episode.

How about you, Mark, well that and there is an episode I've Wake Up Heavy with Cleo and I and I believe we're going to try and get another one done here this next week before she starts back to school, so that might be out around the same time as this. I enjoyed the last episode a lot. We have Game Night on the list now to watch. Oh yeah, we watched it again the day. I love that guy from Fargo and Breaking Bad Jesse Plemons.

Jesse Plemons, he is amazing in this. My wife and I love that guy so much. He's so good. So yeah, that's definitely something you want to see. He is one of, if not the highlight of this move.

That's great. How can that be profitable for Freedom Lane? Yeah, so that should be coming out around the same time. This will probably be out before then, so look for it over at Wake of Heavy, very Cool dot com or Weird Newwaymedia dot com or anywhere you listen to podcasts until we meet again in October. Everyone, be safe, be smart, be careful, have a good rest of your summer, and stay weird and stay weird like a rock.

It's like a ball. Please don't cereals brew the pebbles and cold, cold pebbles one rock ball, free and eat specially marked box of post fruity pebbles and Cocoa pebbles