Old School TMNT Stuff Spotted at the Mall

It has been years, pos­si­bly even a decade, since I last set food inside a Spencer’s or a Hot Topic. Spencer’s is the place to go when you need some edi­ble panties or over-the-hill gag gift, and Hot Topic may as well be named Emo­zon, Goth­mart, or Hip­sters R’ Us.

But strolling past these stores through the mall yes­ter­day my eyes could not help but be drawn to large dis­plays of that unmis­tak­able shade of ooze green:

Retro Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles Stuff!

Nat­u­rally I couldn’t resist pick­ing up a few things ( cheap Wii games aren’t the only thing I bought yes­ter­day!). I got a sweet-looking wal­let, lan­yard with key­chain, shot glass, and a strawberry-scented car air fresh­ener that has this kick­ass Turtl­e­Van design:

Here’s the other side of the shot glass, which is one of those larger ones that will be per­fect for shots of Midori.

There were also t-shirts, sets of indi­vid­ual shot and drink­ing glasses, back­packs, stick­ers, buttsons, badgets–pretty much any type of tchotchke you can think of.

I don’t know if retro-style TMNT mer­chan­dise has always been as “hot” at Spencer’s and Hot Topic as it seems to be right now, but my guess is that it’s a well-timed mar­ket­ing launch to reel in TMNT fans my age and cross-promote the new Nick­elodeon show (which pre­mieres Sep­tem­ber 29th!). What­ever the rea­son, I love it. TURTLE POWER!

More stuff and things!