Who out there remembers the Banana Jr 6000 from Bloom County? It made it’s first appearance in a ad that also featured Gene Simmons. I wonder why it took so long for someone to finally make a real Banana Jr 6000.
If you’re too young to remember it, the Banana Jr 6000 was a thing of beauty that appeared in the comic strip Bloom County, which used to run in these things we called newspapers. (You can find out more about newspapers on Wikipedia and by asking your older relatives.) To this day, Bloom County still cracks me up, and I can quote you more of those strips word for word than is probably healthy.
Anyway, Bloom County featured a character/computer called the Banana Jr 6000. I loved him so. He made his grand debut just about the time that I got interested in the machines made by another fruit-named computer company. He was a clever little television worshipper who taught me that Dan Rather was a god, tequila hallucinations are to be avoided, and poor translations are hilarious. Eventually he strolled off into the sunset, and I always wondered how things went for him after that.
At one point he was threatened with having his memory chips put into programmable toaster ovens, but thankfully that never came to pass. Instead, John from the RetroMacCast took his love of Bloom County and some free time and built his own Banana Jr 6000. It is a glorious thing to behold.
via Bloom County’s Banana Jr 6000 lives on as a fantastic case mod.
I love the Banana Jr. 6000..!!!!! Long live Berke Breathed.
In college I was a Bloom County/Opus freak! Loved that comic. I have some of the books and a couple Opus stuffed animals.
I have the books as well and regularly read the clips as they were published in our paper. Likewise and Opus freak…(preferred the middle period versus how he looked early on).
My college roommate and I subscribed to the newspaper in college just so we could read Bloom County every morning.
My mom would clip them out of the paper and mail them to me every week.
The hacker character with the glasses was my favorite, Steve Dallas was a close second.
The artwork was astounding – I see “Berkeley Breathed People” everywhere!
My introduction was the Great Snake Massacre. I was hooked – bought every book (several times, since I had to replace loans that never came back).
I still have, on file, Bloom County comic clippings that define my life. Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes… the best comics ever.