Mystery Solved

If you're like me...and God help you if that's so...then you have some really old, faint memories from childhood that are so dim and distant, you're not too sure if they were real things or not.
Many of my fondest memories as a kid were from those first moments of each day...the mornings. Weekday mornings was cereal and watching the 3 Stooges on local Ch 11. Most of the time they'd show a bunch of cartoons along with at least two Stooges shorts. These cartoons could be of anything from, George of the Jungle, Super Chicken, to the Mighty Heroes, Bat Fink, Tennessee Tuxedo, or Tom of T.H.U.M.B.
If that line up wasn't great enough, in your cereal you almost always got some AMAZING toy to fiddle with in school later on. If your about my age, then you realize that being a kid during the 50's to the late 70's was a great time for cereal premiums. Companies were hittin' that kid audience hard with anything plastic and everything cool.
I came across a site that, not only has those distant memories pictured...they have some of those forgotten, swept up, and vacuumed up treasures FOR SALE!!
The guy pictured below, was to me, one of those distant faint memories. It was as if I dreamed him up, because of all my years of poking around in thrift stores, garage sales, and antique shops...I never came across this guy.

Once I saw this pic, I instantly remembered...in some weird flash in my head.. putting together what I thought, at the time was, the COOLEST cereal toy ever!! I thought it was so cool, that over the years, I thought I made it up...but look at it!! It's a freakin' action figure, from a cereal box...of a SKELETON!! How cool is that!? He's about 1 and a half inches tall, and fully poseable!! Mine was blue, actually. I also remember getting his pal...

...a robot action figure. In cereal! It boggles the mind today. What do kids get today in cereal? A coupon for more cereal....a bracelet...an offer for a mail way premium that costs money?!
These treasures came IN THE BOX and sometimes were better than what you could get at the 5 & dime!
The site is called CRATER CRITTERS, named after the more famous series of premiums produced by the Rosenhain & Lipmann company...my favorite being pictured below...

...Bugsy Backbone!
I also had some of the Tooly Birds...

...and a couple of the Daffy Dawgs..


Check out the site...you might solve some mysteries of your own.

Stardate:9.30.2005

I had a few of those great Gold Key comics when I was a kid. I still do, actually. There's something about those painted covers fom that time period. Maybe it's the fact that people were still painting for various covers and not just "drawing" them.
A great site I like to steal from....look at...is called "BUBBLEGUM FINK ...which is THE coolest name EVER for a blog! He linked up with a site that has EVERY issue of the Gold Key Star Trek comics.

This issue shows Spock getting ready to quarterback for the San Diego Vulcans.











This issue is all about Spock getting his picture taken for his senior yearbook.

Overheard In New York

My buddy Bob sent me this hysterical link for a site called Overheard In New York. I 'pert near pee pee'd myself while reading these great snippets of real conversations that were overheard in public. If you check it out, be warned...you'll be reading these for hours with sick fascination.
Some examples:

Mother: When I'm so old that I think it's okay to wear a fanny pack, please just set me on fire and walk away.
Chick: Okay.

--Brooklyn Heights Promenade


NYU Girl #1: Oh my god! I was so drunk this weekend, and now my legs are covered in bruises. They look terrible, you have no idea. I don't even know how I got them.
NYU Girl #2: Ha, ha! I love when that happens. I love drunk bruises.

--NYU Elevator


Kid #1: Paper beats rock. BAM! Your rock is blowed up!
Kid #2: "Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes it spicy. Now I got a SPICY ROCK! You can't defeat that!

--#6 train


No...you can't beat a Spicy Rock. NOTHING can!

You Thought I Went Berzerk, Ha ha!

You just might pop your cork after listening to all 21 versions of the classic track "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha HA!" The nut over at WFMU's Beware the Blog has listed each one as a downloadable mp3.

I don't remember hearing it when it came out..it just reminds me of Davy Jones' schtick at the end of "Gonna Buy Me A Dog" from the first Monkee's album.

Here I Come to Blog the Day!

I use to have a great Mighty Mouse t-shirt. I wore it out and I can't find another one that has the same graphics on it. I went looking on the internet and found some great info about the mouse we took for granted.

Fans of Mighty Mouse may be surprised to hear that the heroic rodent actually got his start as an insect. But it was that exact idea that story man Izzy Klein proposed to Paul Terry of "Terrytoons" in 1942. His idea for "Super Fly" poked fun at the popular Superman comics by featuring an ordinarily weak, miniscule creature which possessed superheroic abilities. Having a reputation for only promoting his own ideas, Terry shot down the "Super Fly" concept, only to change it to a mouse and pass it off as his own brainstorm later on. He named the character "Super Mouse" and incorporated the same concepts Klein originally proposed for the fly. During Super Mouse's beginning stages, his attire was very similar Superman's, adorned in a red and blue costume. Later on, revisions were done (and a few copyright points were discussed with DC Comics) and eventually the ensemble was changed to the classic yellow attire we are all familiar with.

Right around the time of Super Mouse's big debut in October 1942, it was discovered that a different Super Mouse character was already in the works at Nedor Publishing Co, (brought there by an ex Terrytoons employee)and that its release date was also set for the same month. After some consideration, Terry decided to change the name of his character to "Mighty Mouse" to differentiate between the two. The previous releases of the Terrytoons production were altered to reflect the new name.

Soon, Mighty Mouse became the hottest animated character at Terrytoons. He was featured in a number of "mellerdramas", which were cartoons done in opera-style singing rather than simply spoken word. The first of Mighty Mouse's mellerdramas was Mighty Mouse and the Pirates, released on January 12, 1945. A number of other characters were also introduced, including Oil Can Harry, who was an earlier Terrytoons character rewritten as a cat for the Mighty Mouse adventures. Pearl Pureheart was also introduced as the cartoon's "damsel in distress".

Later the same year, Mighty Mouse began starring in a series of comic books, "Terrytoon Comics". He eventually got his own self-titled comic in 1946, which was published until the 1960's. In 1945, Gypsy Life, a cartoon featuring the valiant mouse, was nominated for an Oscar. It was one of four Terrytoons cartoons to receive such an honor. In the 1950's Paul Terry sold his Terrytoons library to television, and Mighty Mouse became the first-ever Saturday morning cartoon character in "The Mighty Mouse Playhouse". This series ran from 1955 to 1967, and featured Mighty Mouse along with a compilation of other Terrytoon classics.

After a hiatus that lasted over a decade, Mighty Mouse returned to television in an animated series produced by Filmation (whose credits include Fat Albert and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe) in 1979. However, the poor animation resulted in the series being canceled after just sixteen episodes. In 1987, another attempt at bringing Mighty Mouse back to Saturday mornings was made by Ralph Bakshi, a former Terrytoons director. Mighty Mouse, the New Adventures had much better audience reception than its 1979 predecessor, introducing Mighty Mouse's secret identity Mike Mouse and the addition of more supporting characters. The series lasted 38 episodes, though, most likely due to the fact that the cartoon seemed to be aimed more toward adults than to children.




Although no new Mighty Mouse cartoons have come to television in awhile, he still remains a classic to cartoon fans everywhere. Many Mighty Mouse items such as clothing, patches, figurines, and keychains are still widely available. This proves that the famous cry, "Here I come to save the day!" still lives on even since his debut over 60 years ago.

Ultimate Hawaiian Shirt

I went thrift store hopping last night (lookin' for jeans for Mitch) and came across this ultimate find.
Look at it close...

It's the Hawaiian Punch guy, "Punchy"...from the 70's! I'm not sure if the commercials still run or not, but this seems to be a new shirt. So it's not vintage. The tag seems to indicate that this is some kind of premium from the present owners, Dr. Pepper/7 Up.
The company aquired the character in '99, from what I understand, and are trying to revive it for nostalgic reasons...and merchandise resons.



A lot of people don't remember much about the commercial, except he always asked the bigger guy in the spot, "Hey, how would you like a nice Hawaiian Punch?"..and then he clobbers him, making Punchy look like a violent punk. The original spot...and I remember this..shows the bigger guy beat Punchy into the ground first..THEN Punchy asked the classic line.

I admit, I geeked out on the image when I saw it. Dr.Pepper/7 Up are right to merchandise him...he brings back memories.
The thrift store tag said $4.95 and had been marked down to $2.95. It was half off night for certain items, and you guessed it..I got that kitchy mutha for $1.50!
Perfect fit.

Easy Downloadin'

I went to one of my favorite mp3 sites, and downloaded this awesome, unique, and hard to find, stereo test record.


Magoo...Myeh heh..you've done it again..myeh heh heh.

Flash Backs...again.

I went looking at old Halloween costumes at the RETROCRUSH site, and came across this one.
'The artwork and mask "rang" a bell with me. As usual, a graphic image pops up from the almost 40 years of mental pictures. I don't remember "Ring" the gorilla at the Barnum Circus, but I do remember my parents taking me to the circus. I'm wondering why my parents bought this for me to wear. I'm assuming, because I was so in love with the animated King Kong, that showed on local Ch.11 in the mornings, that my parents...out of despiration..bought me this costume which looked like Kong. I probably couldn't read...or thought "Ring" was "King"...I was happy no matter what, 'cause the memory is a cool one. The stylization appealed to me, as I'm sure, did the over all ape motif. My generation wasn't the STAR WARS kids..we were the Planet of the Apes kids and for some reason in the laste 60's all through the 70's..until Star Wars..ape, monkeys, and gorillas were everywhere.
A few years later I came as another hero...

...Batman.
Somewhere I've got a pic of me wearing the mask, with my parents in the background dressed as, either, indians or hippies...I can't tell. I'll post that at some point.
I would have loved to gone trick or treating in this other hero from that era..

...Batfink!...or this one...

....a deadly Sleestak! I totally would have been hissing and crouching my ass off for some candy, sportin' that get up.

Muncha Geek

For some reason, I totally geeked out over this Muncha Bunch standee thingy. I took the below scan (post on Thurs. Sept. 15) and went into Photoshop, resized it, spat it out, traced and inked it by hand, scanned it, ran it through Streamline, and colored & tweaked it in Photoshop.
You can click on it, save it, print, and cut it out.

I promise, I won't mention Muncha Bunch again.

KISS (my paper)

Yea...another paper craft link or two. Good stuff. You'll thank me.

1-KISS in Hako form. You gotta make these and put on your desk...c'mon. It would SO rock! KISS!
2-From the same site, Homespun Magixx..it's MOJO JO JO!

Giant Dolls Seen Playing Arcade Games

(Yea...MORE paper craft stuff..get over it. I'm hooked!) The above picture freaked me out for a second. I couldn't adjust my brain to the scale. Weird.
Cool small scale classic arcade games!! Collect and trade with your friends!
PAPER ARCADE

Knight Rider (in paper)

Hoo Haaa! Another paper craft link. This time for a paper model of the Knight 2000 from Knight Rider!! Go and get some!!

Scissors Beat Paper

When I was a kid, I was fascinated with anything creative. So when my mom bought me a paper craft book of Disney scenes, I pretty much lost my mind. It was amazing to me that you could open a booklet, punch out the different pieces, fold, place tab A into slot B, and you'd basically have a new toy! Viola!
At the same time, it seems....kid's cereals had many paper items on their boxes for us cut n paste nuts to make a mess with. I'm positive that Cap'n Crunch had a model of the ship, the Guppy, on one of it's boxes...but I haven't been able to track it down.
There was plenty of topics for paper creativity...
Quisp had a few offers in this dept., and who was I to refuse a cereal sponsered by an alien!!? (I always thought that was pure genius on marketing's part!)
Mighty Mouse action toys! It was great to be a kid then!!

One of my favorite sources of freebies was, ironically enough, the Fritos chips boxed sets of mini bags. Not only could you get a Frito Bandito...

...and W C Frito erasers...

...but, there was also the Muncha Bunch paper figures....

I'm sure I cut these out and set them on my desk at school.
(I'm some point I'll post a pic of my Muncha Bunch eraser, since that is one of the hardest to find.)
I'm hoping to find the time to bring the above image into Photoshop, re trace it and make another, more clearer, cut out standee. I'll post it in the future, so you can print it out and put it on your desk.

This brings us up to today,
Little did I know that my generation grew up and just couldn't stop making paper models. When I was looking for reference for a Dodge Monaco, I came across a paper model of the Blues Brothers police car...free to down load and build!!
Bluesmobile!

Whoa!! Things have changed in this area...and are pretty effin' cool!!
After that, I stumbled onto a whole world of Paper Craft sites and links. Most had FREE downloads of awesome models, instructions, and building tips. A lot of these sites, especially one of my favorites, is an all Asian language site. That makes it hard to understand, but most of the time the models have picture instructions to bridge that language gap.
I think it's amazing that you can scan the internet, choose a page, download some info, print it out, and have a 3 dimensional figure on your desk! This is what computers were for!!

Let's hit them links!


My main link source!! Amazing!! Go to the left of the screen and check the listing for a topic. I always check new and am never dissapointed. Hundreds of pages of links!!Robots are a favorite subject for me.
MAZINGA Z baby!! Yeah!! What a great robot model! Can't have robots without R2-D2.

Here's the robot from LOST IN SPACE as a freebie from me (which I lifted from someplace). Click on it, print it out, color it if you like (or take it into Photoshop and color it), and build it. How about a Gigantor Model..TETSUJIN 28 in Japan.
I love cars, so check these awesome Volks Wagon and Citroen models! For the Mini Cooper fans...just poke around in here and you'll find both Coopers and Messerschumitts of many colors! Well worth looking.I love motorcycle models as well. Check out the INSANE paper craft cycles on Yamaha's Japanese site!
Holy crap, it'sTrilobytes!! Monsters! Gotta have some MONSTERS! On that note...The greatest Halloween paper crafts are located at Ravensblight! Mini coffins, hearses, skeleton marionettes, a great axe welding robot...it's all there!!
Superb animal models...but you have to join.
This site has a buncha nice free models...including SPACE 1999 props! Yeah!!
Killer X-Wing and Millenium Falcom models!
Another great X Wing fighter and Tie Fighter model!
Guitars!! How about the Aqua Team Hunger Force?

All this is just the tip of the iceberg. I suggest you go out and poke around the internet using the key words, " paper craft...card craft...card model..paper model" and see what you can find.
When building these, I usually print them out on card stock, cut with new X-actos blades, and glue with tape and Elmer's glue (on a toothpick). You can score the folded sections with the back of the X-acto blade.

Have fun.

Move, and I Blast Ya!

(above: the highly coveted Quisp Ray gun)
Cool ray guns and space toys!! Woo Hoo!!
Phasers on "KICK ASS"!

Join the Thump Side!

AT-AT BOOM BOOM

Score Baby!

Essential reference for the audiophile. Not as many sample mp3s as I'd like, but lots of good info in the search of the subject matter.
SCORE BABY!

45Blog

I'm diggin' the blogs that post mp3 singles, and entire albums...
45BLOG
PLANET XTABAY
RECORD BROTHER

This one's got horror stars in Old Time Radio plays...
DATAJUNKIE

Model Citizen

Here are more of my Fink & Weird-Oh models. Most of these were done for someone else, or eventually just sold to someone. Most were done during the early 90's


Here's the original...Rat Fink. I sold this to somebody years ago. Click it to see a close up.



Mr. Gasser, built for some friend. I have an old, crappy slap dash version of this that I got off of Ebay, and some day I'll strip the kiddy paint job off and repaint and putty it.


This is one of my favorites from the Weird-Ohs line...Digger, the Way Out Dragster. Built for someone. Notice the custom "Weird-Ohs" logo painted on the helmet. I love that font on the sign..."Dragsville"! I might have an unbuilt version in storage.



Daddy! My all time favorite from the Weird-Ohs line! I've built this one, for others, at least 3-4 times. Notice the martini hood ornament. In the original kit, this was solid gray plastic. I would recast the part in clear resin and even drop a tiny olive (made from putty) in there before the resin cured. I have a copy of this for myself...it's still in the box, in storage, waiting to be built.

I'll post more pics of other models at some point.

Mr. Barf's Rock and Soul a Go-Go!

Another great blog that I can relate to...
Mr. Barf's Rock and Soul a Go Go!
Check It Out!

Anybody that'll run images from Rat Phink a Boo Boo has got my vote, dad!

Oh Baby, Oh!

Now THAT'S what I'm 'tom 'bout!!

RETRORANDY

Go Baby, Go!

Now that's what I'm 'tom 'bout!!

BURLESQUE

Watching the Detective

This old nerd is another year old. I remember seeing his debut album in '79 and wondered, "what the hell?". His voice did not match his image. I thought it was some record company joke..."let's put a goofy image to this great voice...heh heh."


"Nice girls not one with a defect,
cellophane shrink-wrapped, so correct.
Red dogs under illegal legs.
She looks so good that he gets down and begs."
For some reason, these lines SOUND like the 80's to me.


Happy birthday, Elvis. How old are you anyway...14?