What does a dollar buy these days?

March 4, 2006 11:40 PM

"If ever a company needed a marketing department, it's New Choice, whose Original Flavor Round Crackers take the cake for stating the obvious. Points should be awarded for attempts to woo health-conscious consumers with facts about added DHA ("prevents heart attack, enhances eye sight"), but there's no two ways to look at Round Crackers: It's a badly executed Ritz rip-off." So sayeth the wits at the Onion A.V. Club, who scour the nation's dollar stores for food products to evaluate in their sporadic feature "Dining for a Dollar." Round crackers too boring? You might prefer Freakin' Nuts (tagline: Is it a chip? Is it a nut? Yes!), Thick Mints, or maybe just a handful of Balls. Their annual Cheap Toy Roundup is just as good; last year's featured products such as Preeminent Car ($1), Stretchy Body Bits ($1.19), and a DVD titled Clothes That Went to a Party ($2). Perhaps the all-time best, though, is the Mini Wooden Furniture: Table: a "plain, unadorned wooden table." ($1)
posted by anjamu (12 comments total)

lol, poor people!
posted by sourwookie at 12:12 AM on March 5, 2006

The "Micro Bak'N! Artificially Flavored Bacon Snacks" box has more exclamation points than the cover of a British rock magazine.
posted by sourwookie at 12:15 AM on March 5, 2006

there's plenty of decent stuff to be had at dollar stores and the like; i just wonder who comes up with some of these ideas, especially the toys. it's the marketing that's funny to me, i'm sure you could find toys that were just as absurd but cost $50. i just don't think the av club has that budget.
posted by anjamu at 12:31 AM on March 5, 2006

preeminent car.
posted by wakko at 2:58 AM on March 5, 2006

Balls.

I was kinda hopin' Chef from South Park had something to do with these.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:10 AM on March 5, 2006

The idea of mocking dollar-store namebrand imitation food stuffs has already been done by The Sneeze: Cheap Ass Cereals
posted by tippiedog at 6:36 AM on March 5, 2006

Freakin' Nuts are actually quite tasty.

and make for funny photos.
posted by jonmc at 8:12 AM on March 5, 2006

It's not that I was disturbed by these links, it is that I was disturbed by where they lead (hint: read the reviews)
posted by blue_beetle at 8:35 AM on March 5, 2006

blue_beetle, i'm not following you. where did the pet sweaters come from?
posted by anjamu at 1:35 PM on March 5, 2006

blue_beetle, i'm not following you. where did the pet sweaters come from?
I think there was a link to them in one of the links in the post

from blue_beetle's link:

Anyway, last week I was at home whilst Margaret was out shopping and the boredom set in, so I made a jumper out of Geoffrey. He had no fur left so he has ended wearing the jumper instead of me, which I don't think is fair because I made it, but Margaret says if I ever raise that subject again she'll throw me out.

poor dog
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 6:20 PM on March 5, 2006

Who among us doesn't hang out in dollar stores every so often, but actually reviewing (i.e. eating) the food from one is both a brave and a great idea. It reminds me of Joe Bob Briggs reviewing drive-in movies. Even if you wouldn't want to go anywhere near either genre, both certainly are worthy of critical investigation.
posted by lelilo at 7:54 PM on March 5, 2006

Scariest-sounding ingredient: Who could choose just one?
that's the best bit
posted by chouchou78 at 10:48 AM on March 16, 2006