Lunchboxes: Past vs. Present

[drquest]

Space 1999 was my go to lunchbox for several years. I have a replacement one on my shelf and I swear I can smell tuna fish when I look at it.



I then rocked this Empire Strikes back one as well.

[Mikey]

I grew up in the 70's but was a "hot lunch" kid.

I did envy all the kids with lunchboxes.

I remember telling my mom I wanted a lunch box so she bought me one at the local second hand store ... It was a Ludwig Von Drake box and thermos .... I had no idea who that was at time so I wasn't impressed and it laid unused.

Today, I wish I still had it

[EMCE Hammer]

Great thread! My three have been using a backpack/lunchbox approach. Thomas the Train, Super Heroes, Star Wars, animals......and now it's Under Armor. I was a Peanuts, POTA, Super Heroes kid.







I went brown bag too soon.

[HardyGirl]

^ I have an Emergency thermos, minus the cup.

[EmergencyIan]

I had these:




- Ian

[Bruce Banner]

I loved my lunch boxes as a kid. I had Marvel, DC and Star Wars ones... All plastic Canadian versions.

Here are a few of the ones I had:

[Earth 2 Chris]

Oh, and I carried these at varying times:







Chris

[Earth 2 Chris]

My 8 year-old daughter carries this Scooby-Doo lunchbox on the days she takes lunch from home:



My now 14 year-old son carried both of these lunchboxes to school when he was younger:





So yeah, they are still out there. Not as prevalent as they once were, but some kids (the cool ones!) still carry them.

Chris

[JediJaida]

I used to have the H.R. Pufenstuff lunchbox, back when they were made of aluminum, and had their own thermos. It got dinged up pretty quickly, and it wasn't really all that much of a social tool. I only took it on class trips, and the other kids all had Star Trek, etc.

[Brazoo]

My kids were more about the licensed backpacks than a lunch kit.

That's a good point, I took a couple of my nieces backpack shopping a couple of weeks ago. Some of the designs were really cool and it seems like they make backpacks for EVERYTHING. One of my nieces got a "Five Nights at Freddy's" backpack. I never heard of it. It's like this bizarre indie video game where animatronic animals try to kill you, or something. It was hard to follow what my niece was telling me, to be honest, but she was really excited.

[Brazoo]

For some reason all the Canadian lunch boxes were plastic. I assume it was a safety thing. I didn't realize lunch boxes in the USA were metal until later. Maybe someone else has the story on this.

This is one of the last ones I owned. I honestly can't remember other ones, but I'm pretty sure one of them had the Peanuts on it:


--

I guess I only see licensed lunch boxes in comic stores sold as collectables, and things like that. They tend to be about $15 to $25, so I assume the generic, bag-like ones you see at Walmart are much cheaper or just easier to shove in a backpack?

My kid is only 5 months old - so too young for a lunch box yet!

[palitoy]

My kids were more about the licensed backpacks than a lunch kit. My son did go to school with a Bif Bang Pow Doctor Who tote but he totally destroyed it.

As a kid I had a plastic Hong Kong Fooey and later a plastic "The Black Hole" box that i still have, it's covered in weird stickers.

[HardyGirl]

Remember when lunchboxes were cool? You could get a lunchbox w/ practically any TV show on it. Not only were they great for carrying your lunch, but they were a "social tool" of sorts. Even the most awkward kid, could look around the lunchroom, and see some kid with a SMDM lunchbox, sit down beside them and say, "Hey, did you see that episode of the SMDM last Sunday?", and BOOM, you had a friend for life, (or at least 3rd grade). This was even the case when I taught in an after school program some years back, and ate lunch w/ my kindergarteners.

And even though "tin totes" (as they're now called) are still being made, most kids carry those generic, cloth, "Land's End" type lunchboxes (or bags if you prefer), with a solid color or pattern or animal likeness, and they're pretty...well BORING.
At my school, we take turns at setting up for lunch, and it's downright sad to see. Only 2 kids have metal lunchboxes in my class; one is Finding Nemo, (and that's a cool one) and one is just a generic cartoon dinosaur on one side of the box.

For those of you w/ young kids, think of yourself at their age. What lunchbox did you carry, and what kind does your kid carry now?