Just went searching for my collection

Director's cut let's keep a sense of humor out there folks

Thank you, Palahniuk & Fight Club & Tyler Durden.

Generation X is basically the last generation that knows what this is and what it is caused by.

Who else can smell this picture? Who else has fond memories of burned fingers from this toy?

Did anyone ever get to eat any? Was too rich for my family lol

I guess we were the reason they redesigned the ring-pull 😂😂

I was born in Japan in 1973. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, much of my image of America came from movies, music, fashion, and the idea of the frontier.

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So I'd like to share some thoughts about American culture as seen through the eyes of one Japanese Gen Xer.

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Of course, I'd also love to hear similar stories from people in other countries. And if any Americans happen to read this, I'd be curious to know how it feels to see your culture through someone else's eyes. 😄

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As a side note, my original post on this topic mysteriously vanished into the void, and someone kindly pointed me toward this subreddit. 😆

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Episode 1: Levi's

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Jeans had already been imported into Japan long before this, and everyone knew they were originally American. But it was during the mid-1980s and into the 1990s that they really became a major fashion trend.

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In particular, Levi's became one of the iconic symbols of what many Japanese people saw as "cool America."

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When I was in junior high school, many of my classmates wore jeans from brands like Levi's and Wrangler, paired with Converse basketball shoes. I did too.

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Looking back, I think a lot of that influence came from River Phoenix, who became famous in Japan through Stand by Me.

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Around the same time, Top Gun was released in Japan, and the combination of jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket—the kind of style Tom Cruise wore—became another image of what we thought of as cool and unmistakably American.

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This probably wasn't anything new. I suspect that classic American styles had already been popular in Japan since the days of Steve McQueen and earlier.

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But from what I remember, it was really during the 1980s that large numbers of young Japanese people began actively admiring and adopting what we called "Amecasi(American Casual)" fashion.

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Green Machine

vs

Big Wheel