Sunday, October 29, 2023

Flopcast 599: I Can't Mall Here Anymore

Let's go to the mall! But one specific mall that isn't there anymore! (Well, it's sort of still there, but not really.) We're joined by Gleaming the Tube's Kevin Cafferty to look back on the Lincoln Mall in Lincoln, Rhode Island (frighteningly close to Woonsocket). It wasn't the biggest mall, it wasn't the best mall, but it was our mall. And our Lincoln Mall memories include: Waldenbooks, our primary source of X-Men comics, Bloom County collections, and Tolkien; sketchy sausage samples at Hickory Farms; failed attempts to meet girls at the movies; the freaky pet store; the inexplicable organ store; the restaurant no one went to (Roast House); the restaurant everyone went to, because there were two of them in the same mall (Papa Gino's); the neverending weirdness of Spencer Gifts; and the glory of the Dream Machine video arcade. Also: Andre the Giant eating spaghetti! The sticker girl phenomenon! Our first comic book shop experiences! Our first dishwashing experiences! Record store employees with attitudes! Randy the Talking Reindeer! The Challenge of the Checkers Champion! A mall visit from Spider-Man! A ring of car stereo thieves! Rhode Island's own John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band! And yikes, so much more... Even if you never visited the Lincoln Mall, we know there's a mall or two in your past, so you can relate. In a way, we're all still lost among the overflowing bins of cheap junk at Kay Bee Toys.

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Show Notes

Kevin and Kevin discovered another weird parallel in their lives! Let's just say neither one of them was on the job as long as Dishwasher Pete.

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You can find some additional musings on Lincoln Mall at Labelscar and ArtInRuins.