Goodwill Geek Mailbag: A Package from Miss M!!!

Long overdue is my reporting on this wonderful piece of mail that I received... a package from my good friend Miss M over at Diary of a Dorkette!!! Miss M and I have both recently begun podcasting with Geek Fallout, which is a part of the Atomic Geeks Network. SO I get to talk to her a lot more now and she never fails to impress! We've also been package-pals (not as dirty as it sounds) for a while now, sending boxes back and forth filled with lots of awesome goodies we think the other may enjoy. So I was pretty ecstatic when this showed up: 

Be careful. This box may melt your face off Arc-of-the-Covenant-Style. But let's throw on our sunglasses and check out what she sent me anyway... 'kay?

Let's start with this koosh yo-yo thing that straps to your wrist. I threw this on, grabbed my hackey-sack, got a bandana on my australian shepard and went to the park to toss him a frisbee... because that is my lifestyle. No. Actually, I pretty much spent a good half-hour wanging this koosh ball around my cave and knocking random sh*t over. Most. Exciting. Half-hour. That room. Has seen. And a TMNT skateboard and ramp set from McDonalds!

A hot piece of brother and sister action! Wait... No. First we have Johnny Storm from the 2008 Marvel Legends Ares BAF line. And a Jessica Alba as Sue Storm action figure that, funny enough, is the same one I bought for my daughter when the movie came out back in 2005. They look pretty rad together right?

Next up is this set of Men In Black Burger King toys from 1998. The set on the left is pretty disgusting actually. You fit the little guy with the green goo INSIDE the big blue guy. Yeah. And then there's the hangar looking thing with the peek-a-boo creature poppin out the top. Creeper. 

Miss M knows I like a good, goofy food mascot toy... and these guys for Sonic, called "Brown Bag Juniors" are right up my alley! I don't have a Sonic around where I live, so these are a great get! I do want to mention that Sonic could have stepped up their game a little and come up with a better mascot than a brown paper bag. Honestly Sonic. 

Some miscellaneous fast food vehicles. One pull-back, one dump truck that becomes a horrific open-mawed monster, and a race car that, less threateningly, becomes a pen. 

Random handful of action figures. The original puffy-faced Batman action figure from the 1989 film, and a couple of Happy Meal toys, including a Beast Wars Transformer and a Small Soldier. 

Some toys from Bobby's World! Howie Mandel's 90's kid's show got a set of Happy Meal toys that showcased different fantasies of Bobby's being lived out, as his wagon transforms into a racecar and his pool toy becomes a sub.

Miss M also knows I like me some creepy creepy... turkey jokes? There's a LOT of eclectic reading material in this pile... from ghost stories to... talking turkey..?  Miss M knows that I like me some creepy short story anthologies, and holiday books!

Two of my FAVORITE items in this whole package are these Jack in the Box mascot "Jack" toys. My brain melted a little bit when I pulled these out and beheld them. There isn't a Jack in the Box restaurant anywhere near here... and I absolutely ADORE their ad campaigns. The character of Jack is irreverent, only very mildly creepy, and always unexpected. Being able to add these to my shelf of fast food ephemera is a real treat!

Next up is this trio of Toy Biz X-Men from the mid 90's. Captive Sabretooth, Weapon X Wolverine, and Mutant Armor Beast. Once you get out of the first two waves of the X-Men action figures from Toy Biz I started to lose a bit of interest... I do appreciate the insanity of lines like the Mutant Armor subset though, and the details on both Sabretooth and Wolvie are pretty great though! What really got me squealing though was these:

Toy Biz Storm and Magneto from the very first wave of X-Men figures! I FLIPPED OUT when I realized Miss M had bestowed these action figures upon me!!! Storm was one of a very small handful of female action figures I owned as a kid, and I treasured her for it! Magneto was never really an A-list villain when I became familiar with the X-Men as a kid. He was just sort of easing out of his position as Headmaster at the New Mutants school and taking his place as a member of the Hellfire club... but he wasn't really doing much villainy at the time. Even Emma Frost was starting to lighten up a bit by this point. And by the time he became the leader of the Acolytes I wasn't as faithful to the main X-books as I once had been. But as an adult I have developed a true love for all things Magneto, and I was astounded to have this old fave back in hand. But then I pulled this out of the box: 

Pure. Sex. In black leather. Longshot!!! This is a Marvel Legends figure from 2006, and it features one of my all-time favorite X-Men characters, Longshot! Longshot is from "my" X-Men. When Inferno was starting out, and I was discovering the X-Men for the first time, the entire world believed them dead, they were invisible to all electronic means of detection, and they had a home-base in Australia that they had taken over from the cyborg Reavers. Longshot was a member of the team alongside Dazzler, Rogue, Storm, Colossus, Havok, Wolverine, and Psylocke (who was still a purple haired british woman at the time, not an Asian ninja sex-doll).  Longshot left the team shortly after, and was not heard from again for a very long time, but he brought plenty of mythos to the table, introducing the X-Men to a couple of their weirdest and yet enduring villains: Mojo and Spiral. 

I can't thank Miss M enough for this spectacular package!!! I always appreciate getting neat toys in the mail from good friends, and Miss M is definitely that. Don't forget to check us out over at Geek Fallout, with our other good friend Brian, the Trash Man from Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture, and the regular hosts, Chris, Evan, and Rich! 

That's all I've got for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Payday Friday: Goodwill Finds!

So payday Friday happened on May 23rd. For those of you not "in the know" I almost always stop off at Goodwill on my way home on Payday Fridays. (I also stop off on non-payday Fridays, some Wednesdays, sometimes Saturdays, and any other day of the week... given the opportunity.) Here's a look at what I picked up on my way home from work when I stopped off at Goodwill:

Some books (there's ALWAYS books...) but also a couple of semi-fun grab-bags this time around. All of the books in this post cost me .99 cent apiece. Let's take a closer look shall we?

First up from the kid's book department we have The DUNE Storybook from 1984. I have a terrible confession to make: I have never seen this movie! I have STILL not read the book/s and I ONLY picked this book up because I knew it was from the 80's and I couldn't just leave it there. But I WILL see this movie... I just don't know how soon. Then we have a Little Golden Book that I very distinctly remember owning when I was a kid, Tweety Plays Catch the Puddy Tat, which obviously starred Sylvester and Tweety. It was memorable for this moment: 

Which TERRIFIED me. I also distinctly recall wondering why the witch's skin was green but the nose was ruddy pink. Also, I know Tweety is a bird, and is only pretending to be a witch here, but how exactly is he flying? 

Next up a couple of fun CYOA finds... first up, the very first Choose Your Own Adventure story: The Cave of Time albeit the 19th printing. I don't mind though this copy is from 1986 and will still play through just as well in its 19th printing as its first. I would like to find one with the original cover artwork at some point, but again, that's not really all that important to me. And even though I'm not much of a Star Trek fan, I can't hide the fact that I TOTALLY GEEKED OUT when I found this "Which Way Book" starring the crew of the Enterprise in Voyage to Adventure. 

The first of my two grab-bags cost me 1.99 and only had these two items in them. But they're enough! These are toys from Safari Ltd, one of those toy companies that specializes in solid plastic figures in lines such as dinosaurs, jungle animals, and fantasy creatures. Here we have their example of a griffin and a "lucky dragon" which looks endlessly familiar... Anyway, these types of toys usually run for around 10 to 15 dollars... so getting these for about a buck apiece is pretty awesome. 

Ironically, the next grab-bag had way more in it, and only cost me .99 cents. I'm going to completely ignore the Little People furniture, because it's not of the type I collect, the Kung-Fu panda toy because I already own it, and the orange maraca. Let's focus on the other stuff. 

I have already owned two of these Oscar the Grouch Garbage 'Delivery' trucks in the past, and sent one of those off to a buddy. Still, I'm glad to bring another one home. I'll be finding him a good owner in the near future, I'm sure. The blue and pink fellow next to him is a Moosel figure from the Wuzzles line back in 1985. I really liked the wuzzles as a kid, but I never owned any of the toys, so this is a sort of retroactive geek-out. 

The other two items of note from this particular grab-bag are Finn from the recent Adventure Time McDonald's Happy Meals premiums, and Gary from Spongebob, also a Happy Meal toy, from back in 2012. I wanted to get more of the Adventure Time toys when they came out, but I only ended up with a couple of them. I'm still on the look-out for a bendy Jake figure too. Getting to add this sword-wielding Fin to my collection is the next best thing. I am a pretty big fan of Spongebob, regardless of how much people seem to have grown tired of it. I still find the show funny, classic-yet-innovative, and mind-bending. Spongebob is one of the forebears of the entire trend of cool animated shows (like Adventure Time!) that we see nowadays, and I appreciate him for it. This is a roller-blading Gary with a sweat-band... so I'm pretty pleased. 

My final find of the day was this old Monopoly game from 1946 or so (had to do some research online for this one). I am NOT a huge Monopoly fan, but the siren call of this ancient boardgame would just not be ignored. I actually paid 6.99 for this, which is the most I've paid for any one thing at Goodwill in a very long time. 

I examined it in the store and yet didn't notice that the game-board itself was not included. Don't know how I overlooked that. I think this was one of those rare occasions that I tricked myself into thinking I was buying something that was "worth something" other than to just myself. This is the sort of thing that ALWAYS happens when I let this type of thinking influence my buying at Goodwill. I still really like the fact that I have such an old edition of the game, but I don't think I'm going to hang onto it for long. You can see this old version of the game came with wooden character pawns instead of the metal ones we use today (this is legit, these are not just random pieces someone included in the game before donating it... Research.) I think the jade-green dice included are from some other game, but other than the dice and THE BOARD ITSELF, this game is pretty neat and complete. 

Well, that's it for now kids! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! So until then, Happy Hunting!  

Another Trip to the School House Antiques Mall in Brewer, ME

So, I made another trek out to the School House Antiques Mall in Brewer, ME. Here's a shot I took of the outside. The next time I go, I need to get pictures of the interior, but I was in a hurry this time around, and simply did not have the time to get shots of the amazing toy areas they maintain upstairs. 

And I did not come home empty handed! Take a look at muh loot! Here it is:

Let us take an in-depth look at each item individually, shall we?

Look at this pair of dastardly dinner-swiping ne'er do wells! A Hamburglar glass from 1976 and a Captain Crook glass from 1977! Each of these cost me 2.50 apiece. They look great up on my shelf with my other McDonald's collectibles, especially the other glasses I own, including a Ronald I found at Goodwill, an Officer Big Mac I found at the Dream Catcher Antiques Mall in Ellsworth, and the Grimace glass sent to me by my good friend Brian (aka Trash Man) over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture. 

In 1988 Fisher Price put out a Happy Meal Playset. This was the box from that set. You can see there's representation of almost all the McDonald-Land characters on this thing. Hamburglar, the McNuggets, the talking burgers, Grimace, Fry-Guys (and gals) Ronald himself...

Captain Crook, Early Bird, the talking beverage and fry pack, and the Professor. Pretty much just Mayor McCheese and Officer Big Mac are missing (unless you count the Apple Pie Tree) and in fact, the inclusion of the Professor and Captain Crook have me scratching my head a bit... because they had been all but forgotten by 1988. Love this box though! It cost me 3.00 and it looks incredible on my shelf. 

This little stuffed Ronald McDonald from 1981 is in pretty great shape. He makes yet another lovely addition to my McDonald's shelf. He cost me a cool 2 bucks. 

This Fisher Price Adventure People figure was 3 dollars, but I didn't bat an eye, even consider he is lightly... chewed. I've become obsessed with these little fellows. I have a few more from the Sci-Fi space adventures line (a handful I haven't shared on here yet for some bizarre reason... need to correct that) and this one brings the total up to four (six if you count the regular earth-folk I also own). This guy was a real nightmare to photograph, so I apologize if his face is hard to see.   

And finally, a McDonalds Happy Meal Muppet Babies Miss Piggy figure. She's meant to ride on a little nursery vehicle, but it was nowhere to be found, so I'll just settle for her sitting. I have the three other Muppet Babies in this quartet, so even though she was 2 dollars on her own, I bit the bullet and bought her. 

Ths School House Antiques Mall is almost NEVER a disappointment to visit, and I already had my eye on a few other items I just might pick up the next time I head out there... so stay tuned! That's all I have for tonight kids, but I be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

Goodwill Ghostbusters and a Second Hand Sub

So I've been getting distracted by Twitter and Instagram for a while now. They tend to cut a bit into my blogging time and my blogging motivation. Instagram has become an easy way to share pictures and Twitter an easy way to share ideas without really having elaborate on them too much. but its no replacement for my blog, which allows me to wax nostalgic and blather on for longer than 140 characters. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Twitter or Instagram are bad by any means, but they have proven distracting lately. That's all. 

With that being said, I posted a picture on Instagram a while back that showcased a couple of awesome finds I made one weekend at a couple of different Goodwill stores. After that, I sort of half-forgot about them because they were sort of checked off my mental list as "shared". Now I plan to correct that oversight by finally posting them here! So here we go:

First up we have this TMNT sub from 1991. I never owned this as a kid, but when I found it at the Bangor, ME Goodwill for just .99 cents... I felt like a kid again. It is far from complete, since it's missing some torpedoes, a gun turret, the periscope, and the steering mechanism inside... but it's complete enough that I'm happy to own and display it.

Next up I found a handful of Real Ghostbusters toys at the Goodwill in Brewer, ME. Each of these was .99 cents apiece as well. First up we have Slimer. This is from the "Gooper Ghost" subline, back when he was still just called "Green Ghost" on the packaging. I had a couple of the larger Gooper Ghosts, but not this Slimer toy. He's the sort of toy where you'd plop some goop (Ecto-Plazm) into the hole on the top of the pack he's wearing, and then push the plunger down in behind it to make the goop come drooling out of his mouth. I was pretty impressed that the plunger was still included. As far as I can tell, excluding the actual goop and the packaging, this is the complete toy. 

A little less exciting (to me at least, your experience may vary) are these two "Power Pack Heroes" Real Ghostbusters action figures of Winston and Ray. Neither hero came with their accessory proton pack, which was the real draw of this wave of figures. As you can see, these are sort of the "Tiger Force" repainted versions of the original first wave, but they included proton packs that served as mini-vehicles and ghost trapping tools. Still won't turn my nose up at these guys though! A Ghostbuster toy is always welcome on my shelf. 

Here's a shot of my 4 dollars worth of vintage toy finds from Goodwill! I never actually owned any of these as a kid, and yet they still manage to transport me back to a simpler time, when anthropomorphic martial arts enthusiasts and paranormal exterminators were what I thought about most of the time. 

That's it for night folks, but never fear! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting! (And hey... follow me on Twitter and Instagram! @thegoodwillgeek for both)

Of Comics and Books and Comic... Books.... wait.

So I thought I'd finally use some of the thousands of pictures I have mouldering away on my hard-drive to actually show off some of the stuff I've been finding at Goodwill while I've been off having my mid-life crisis. I thought I'd get some of the books out of the way this time around, as they seem to be the majority of what I've been finding lately. 

First up, a couple of Darkwing Duck Books! The first one I was kind of disappointed to find featured Tuskernini as the villain, who I never really got behind as a D.D. villain in the first place. They always played him as a weird mix between The Penguin and Mysterio... but a walrus movie director supervillain just feels kind of sad. 

Next up we have this copy of Darkwing Duck: Just Us Justice Ducks which is an adaptation of the tv show. This is the story where the heroes that Darkwing has met throughout the series all come to help him defeat a team-up of his most dangerous foes. The adaptation is a little sloppy, and is definitely aimed at kids, not "all audiences". It feels rushed, and the panels are crowded together to fly through the story as quickly as possible. It's a shame too, because they could have done a great deal more with what they had for material. For instance, there are no splash pages that show the villains all together. The best we get is pretty much just this:

Always loved those episodes of D.D. because it gave the show the same shared universe feel of the comics it was parodying, and you got the goofy, anthropomorphic version of the Avengers or JLA, but Darkwing style. Gizmoduck from Duck Tales makes another guest appearance here, and we get returning heroes like Stegmutt the dinosaur, Neptuna the fish woman, and Morgana the sorceress. But of course, this kind of story is all about the villains. I really loved the villains in the roster of the Fearsome Five: the plant controlling Dr. Bushroot, the electrifying Megavolt, Darkwing's evil twin from the negative universe, Negaduck, the watery salesman Liquidator, and the Mad Jester of crime, Quackerjack! This was a neat find, but honestly if you're a Darkwing Duck fan, I recommend just sitting down with the DVDs and watching the two-parter instead of trying to track this graphic novel down. 

Next up we have this Choose Your Own Adventure book: Mystery of the Maya. I haven't had a chance to play through this one at all yet, but it looks like some good old-fashioned Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones style adventuring, except with kids. Long-time readers will remember that I am a CYOA NUTJOB and I collect just about any of them I find. 

I'm also a pretty big fan of Monsters Vs. Aliens (The movie and the Halloween Special, not the abysmal TV show on Nickelodeon). I am also a huge fan of the wonky old Weekly World News-style craziness that used to be available in the grocery store checkout lanes. So when I flipped through this book and found that they were telling the story in that format:

I had to pick it up. I honestly don't even know if this book would interest ANYONE other than me... the subject matter is a bit young for most kids who are capable of this sort of reading level... and it's too densely packed for an kind of bedtime-story read aloud... so I'm thinking they were marketing this book (and in most cases the movie) to me and me alone. 

It's funny how often Disney and Golden Books put out these "picture stories" of their properties, which were really just comic book adaptations. I'm a sucker for the Fox and the Hound, so when I saw this I had to pick it up. Here's a little sample of the interior:

Straight up graphic novel. 

A couple of MAD magazine comic cartoon compilations from the 70s and 80s. I was really excited to find these, as browsing through MAD magazine was another grocery store pastime from my youth.  

The Mr. Bill Show book! I always found the Mr. Bill segments on the old SNL episodes to be hilarious when I was a kid. They seemed like a really demented version of Gumbi, which was another love of mine back then. Flipping through this book is much the same as watching the shorts on SNL as Sluggo and Mr. Hands torture, maim, disfigure, dismember, and emotionally scar Mr. Bill in some new way on almost every page. 

This one even still has the free soundtrack record included! It's been removed from the perforation and was actually tucked into the middle of the book when I bought it.

Frequent visitors to this blog will also be able attest to the fact that I am a Sesame Street person as well. I collect just about anything pre-90's (and some stuff beyond that... but it has to be really special). I'm certain I either owned this book as a child or I obsessed over it in my school library because the illustrations are sooo familiar. This book really stands out for having a picture of the 2-Headed monster from the wait down: 

Freaky right?

Here is a pile of random comics I picked up, the most notable of the two being the Marvel Comics Presents issues. This comic often told seriously long-haul serialized stories, such as the Colossus story you see featured here, which was a 13-parter (!). There was also a Black Panther story that ran on for 25 instalments!!! I sort of made it a personal goal to collect the rest of the Colossus story at some point, so finding these two issues was pretty cool. The Adventures of the X-Men .99 cent issue is pretty awful, but it features the Man-Thing... so I wanted it. I found another issue of Excalibur I didn't yet have, a part of the excellent "Cross Time Caper" back when comic books were still able to tell their own stories and go crazy places and not have to kowtow to the upcoming Summer crossover event. And I never don't buy What-If? if I find it cheap. And neither should you... not... not buy it? I don't know how write. 

I am a HUGE fan of advertising mascots and campaigns, and the "Got Milk?" campaign with its milk mustaches is one of the most famous and ubiquitous ad ideas of the past few years. So when I found this book detailing the history of the Go Milk ads with a bunch of the ads collected together in one book? I was pretty excited. The book is broken up into categories, such as athletes, cartoon characters, and musicians who have all participated in the campaign. Really enjoy flipping through the book Below are shots of some of my favorites:

Spongebob, Mario, and Kermit have all worn milk mustaches.

Crimefighters in the night, Batman and Angel count themselves among the thankfully lactose-tolerant.

And guys who like greasepaint on their faces like their milk as well, as demonstrated by Ronald McDonald and the members of KISS.

Finally, the last book of this post is the one I was the most personally excited about. Because I used to read this book obsessively as a kid. Everything You Need to Know About Monsters and Still Be Able to Get to Sleep by Daniel Cohen. I used to check this book out from the library (in the town of Bar Harbor when I lived there for a couple of years as a kid) on an almost weekly basis. I loved monsters as a kid and I especially loved werewolves. I would check this and a couple of other books out and pore over the pages lovingly over and over again. What is ESPECIALLY exciting about this particular book is the fact that it is the copy that came from that library. So I found a book at Goodwill that was the exact same copy I used to check out and obsess over as a kid. I now own that book. And it is a book about monsters. I mean... look at that guy on the cover! That mean green guy! He actually looks kind of worried.

Anyway, that's all I've got for tonight folks! I hope you found at least one of these books as interesting as I did. I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!