Another Trip to the Old Schoolhouse Antique Mall

There's an antique mall out in Brewer, ME that I've only dropped in on a couple of times now, and this post to follow reflects the second visit I've made out there. It's a fun place to check out once in awhile, as the stock doesn't really change frequently enough for me to make the trip out there more than maybe once or twice a year. But when I do, man the finds are fun! 

Here's a quick glimpse at everything I brought home from The Old Schoolhouse. But let's take a closer look, shall we?

First up, I already had a capeless version of this same Shadow action figure. But since this one HAS the cape, I couldn't pass it up, This is pretty much the one action figure from the line put out to support the 1994 Alec Baldwin film that actually just looks like the character without any weird bells or whistles. Would I love it if I had the pistols that go along with this shadowy hero? Yes I would. But at least now I have an action figure that represents the character as he should look.

This Miss Piggy in repose is a Benjamina Gunn Muppets Treasure Island Happy Meal toy from 1996. I love the look of this toy, and the colors are amazing. So far I have Piggy and Fozzie from this set, and I honestly wouldn't mind tracking down the rest. I made the mistake of finding and passing over a Gonzo toy from this same line about a year before this, and have been kicking myself ever since!

This little Green fellow is an "Outer Terrestrial Creature" toy produced by Marty Toys back in 1983. This guys name is "Mooky" and on top of being a bendy toy, he's preternaturally top-heavy due to a special "Somersault Action" that these toys had, which basically meant that if you toppled them over, they flipped. I absolutely ADORE weird old toy lines like the one Mooky here comes from. It's precisely these kinds of discoveries that keep me picking through old junk as a hobby.

This might not strike you as ridiculously exciting... but for me, finding this 1996 Burger King wind-up "Scud" toy from the original Toy Story movie was a dream come true. I've been eye-balling these things on eBay for years now, and all because I wanted a Scud toy of an approximately appropriate scale to display with my Toy Story Buddies collection:

And this Scud fits the bill perfectly. (P.S. If anyone has an extra Etch-a-Sketch with Chickenman, Snake-and-Robot 2-pack, or any mini toys of the mutant toys from the first film... contact me. There's only like 5 toys left that I want or need to finish this collection off).

I used to religiously track down the M&M tubes every Christmas JUST for the ornaments on top. I don't do it anymore because they don't really make them either a.) new every year... they just recucle old designs repeatedly... or b.) they don't make them at all. Couldn't spot any M&M ornament tubes at ALL this past year... -sob-. So finding this little brown M&M skier really made my day!!! I feel like the brown M&M's are seriously underrepresented in toy/ornament form, since the reds and yellows and greens are so much more festive... so this guy really stands out!

I am now 1/6th closer to having a complete set of Fisher Price Little People to represent each of the Village people. I could literally NOT be more excited than I am about this fact. Look at this guy! I apologize if this toy is seen as horrifically racist. I really do. But it came from a time when toys like this were beloved.

And I belove him.

Please don't hate me.

I am not afraid to admit that I adore Marge Simpson. Probably to an inappropriate degree. And disturbingly, there is a whole LOT of inappropriate material out there on the internet (please, for the love of all that is good... do NOT Google it, as some of it will just make you lose faith in humanity) to support a man with my kind of carnal cartoon lust. Fortunately, I don't need to go looking because my collection of Marge Simpsons toys is growing healthily, (can the jokes you pervs) thank you very much. I now proudly own two of the toys from this, the very first line of Burger King Kids Club premiums to feature the Simpsons.

There was also a handful of fun books to be had while I was picking around the Old Schoolhouse too! This Bugs Bunny's Adventures copyrighted from 1948 is practically an illustrated chapter book. I picked this up with a friend in mind.

I will never not buy illustrated adaptations of Garfield TV specials. This one is from Garfield On the Town, which was the second special to star Garfield. In this one, he meets his mother and the rest of his extended family, and learns to be (somewhat) thankful for the life he leads with Jon and Odie. If this was being produced today, you wouldn't see the cigarette butts on the ground near Garfield's feet. Just a random observation.

Have I mentioned my undying love for Punky Brewster on this blog before? I think I have. So finding a kids' book dedicated to one of her animated adventures (with Glomer in the mix!) would obviously be a Holy Grail for me. So I brought it home. 

So that's it for tonight kids, but I'll be back soon with Geeky Goodwill Goodies before you know it! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

A Package from Tintod!

So awhile back I set up a trade with the writer of one of my favorite blogs out there right now. Tintod of the Junk Fed blog fame! He and I are buddies on Instagram while also kind of knowing each other through the blogosphere. His blog is an amazing patchwork quilt of essays that reminisce and ruminate on different aspects of childhood and nostalgia. The posts on Junk Fed never fail to either touch my sense of sentimentality or make me think long and hard about how I see my own past. 

Great. Read. All around. 

Check Junk Fed out. 

So! Long story short, (too late) we set up a trade, Tintod and I. I'd like to share the sweet haul I received from him as a result. This is another case of a post long overdue, but better late than never. So let's take a look at what I got from him, shall we? 

First up, some shameless self-promotion on Tintod's part... but he's earned it. As you can see he's tossed in a couple of his business cards, promoting both his blog and his services as an illustrator. The guy is truly talented folks, so be sure to check out his work! 

On the backs of both the larger postcards is this ad for Tintod's "Space Madness" (click the link to check out Tintod's Store) custom action figure lineline:

A series that's had me drooling for some time now. But enough about how awesome Tintod is! Let's talk about how awesome Tintod's package is! (Wait...)

The whole trade was inspired by this Burger King Kid's Club Universal Monsters Frankenstein figure. This one completed my set of four! And funny thing is, all four of these guys came from online friends! 

(Dracula courtesy of Laura of Boobobby Blog, The Creature courtesy of Erik Johnson, Illustrator, and The Wolfman courtesy of Stacey Rader, the Geeky Vixen!) So now I have the complete creep quartet and I couldn't be happier! The trade extended waaay past ol' Frankie here though...

Tintod told me he wasn't sure if all the 150 pieces are here for this 10x14 jigsaw puzzle starring Evel Knievel and his Ring of Fire. But it doesn't matter either way, because he could have sent me the empty can and I would have been just as excited!

Next up we have this "The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins" VHS tape. I vaguely remember this film from my childhood, when the world was hitting the peak of its Gary Coleman FEVER. I'm not a VHS collector as many of my online friends are, but this one has a place of honor on my 80's shelf in the cave, alongside ones given to me by other blogging buddies. Any film starring "A Little Bitty Walter Mitty" has to be amazing.

Last but definitely not least, we have a Hotwheels Carvel Ice Cream Truck featuring Fudgie the Whale! Next to Frankenstein's Monster, this is probably the item that most tickled my fancy out of the whole lot. This baby was added to the wall of pop-culture Hotwheels IMMEDIATELY.

So here's a final peek at all of the contents of the box I received from sir Tintod, and I think you'll agree it was a fun bit of mail to receive indeed! Be sure to check out Tintod's blog, and be sure to listen to his recent appearance on the Nerd Lunch Podcast, where he waxes poetic about Doctor Who!

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

Another Trip to Scottie's Books

So last year sometime I went back to "Scottie's Books" a little used bookstore (that I have a feeling may be getting ready to let out a death-rattle within the next few months... man that place just never seems to be doing business) in the area where I occasionally find some fun stuff in. Here's a link to last October's countdown post featuring some face-meltingly cool finds I made there. Anyway, this was just your run-of-the-mill trip to Scottie's, but I STILL managed to make some fun finds. So let's check them out! 

I brought home second copies of both Ray Bradbury's "The October Country" and Roger Zelazny's "Doorways in the and" for a friend. I love both of these books. Actually both of these authors. I have an extensive Zelazny collection, and my Bradbury collection is also picking up speed. I have certain authors that I consider to be "collectible," meaning I pick up books by them any time I spot one I don't already have, regardless of what I have or haven't heard about the books themselves. Both Zelazny and Bradbury are on that list for sure.

Another type of book I collect is movie novelizations. I rarely ever read them, but if the movie is good enough... or weird enough.. iconic enough... or just mind-numbingly bad enough... then I want a copy of the book they based off of that screenplay. Here we have a copy of X-Men 2, novelized by the one and only Chris Claremont. That actually has a pretty good shot of being read at some point. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," even though it IS written by Steve Spielberg himself... is probably not going to get read any time soon.

This book is straight up WEIRD. Which is why I love it. It's not a comic-STRIP book per se, but a series of gags and one-liners, mostly illustrated. Maybe I'll explore this one more in-depth sometime in the future, and let you see the pages. It was an interesting find, and apparently, its just one in a series of this kind of ALF book.

Finally here are some 80's cartoon/toy inspired picture books I found. "Meet My Pet Monster" and "Wuzzles: Eleroo's Big Surprise," both of which I read to my kids that same night. I miss My Pet Monster so much! Yet another great creation from "Those Characters in Cleveland" who brought us Care Bears and Madballs!

So there you have it! 7 neato-cool books I found at Scottie's Books! I will of course be stopping in there for my annual "spooky books" hunt for my October Halloween countdown again this year... but just in case they permanently close their doors before fall gets here, I may want to make the trip sooner rather than later.

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies in the near future! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Cyborg, Beatniks, and Blood

Again with the books and grab-bag magic! This one comes with yet another Imperial monster toy as well! I could keep talking and talking and talking and... well, you get the idea, but instead let's take a look at what I brought home this time, shall we? 

Trotting right out to the front we have this Imperial beauty which, after a little bit of research turns out to be their idea of a Pegasus... but I call bulls--t and say this thing is a Jersey Devil!!! It's meant to stand on its back-legs with the tail propping it up, but when I found it, it was broken off, and so had to be super-glued back into place. I was lucky to even find the tail if we're being honest. Usually that stuff is nowhere to be found, and alas, that would have precluded me buying this guy at that point. But here we are dear reader! Tail glued firmly back in place, this guy looks downright MAJESTIC posed with the rest of my Imperial toys in the cave.

Now let's pick through that grab-bag. HEre are the total contents. We will NOT be going over the entire contents, as there were only a handful of things I even wanted. There was a ridiculous overabundance of Night at the Museum knight/top toys from Wendy's (oh how the mighty have fallen...) and though I don't feature it here, I did end up keeping the Easter Bunny toy because there is a disturbing lack or representation for the Easter Bunny here in the cave. But let's look at the other stuff now:

First, flying out of the DCU animated television universe, we have a "Beware the Batman" Happy Meal toy and a "Teen Titans Go!" Cyborg toy. Both of these dudes were judged "worthy" of positions on the Batman/DCU shelves, even if Cyborg is missing his projectile fist.

Let's be honest. The reason I bought the grab-bag was for Maxwell the pig here. He's one of the apparently hundreds of spokes-things for Geico insurance. He's somewhat lost his charm as they've begun to overuse him... but back when he first appeared in the "Wheee! Wheee! All the way home." ad... he was HILARIOUS:

"MAXWELL!"

And what I originally took to be some sort of bootleg Sesame Street merchandise (Can you tell me how to get to "Sesame Place?") actually turned out to be merchandise from a Sesame Street THEME PARK that I had previously not been aware of. Sesame Place is my Graceland folks. 

I also found these, which I found fascinating, in the cassette section. "The Beat Generation" vols. 1 & 3 (I did end up finding vol. 2 on another day). Thee include everything from readings from books, songs, and interviews that have to do with the Beat movement. Artists include Kerouac, Burroughs, Gilespie, and more. This is one of those situations that I genuinely regret not actually owning a tape-player to play this stuff on.

More cassettes include "Captain & Tennille's Greatest Hits", and "Creedence Clearwater Revival". I'm a sucker for music from the late 60's-70's.

To kick off my book finds from this particular trip, we have the horror anthology, Psychos which I promptly added to the Halloween read pile for this fall... and Tales of the Cthulu Mythos which is really interesting to me because it is an anthology containing not only H.P. Lovecraft's tales, but stories from other writers who have borrowed Lovecraft's concepts for their own, building on them.

I found an extra copy of Spaceballs: The Book and the strangely appropriate companion volume of Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters which is a Star Wars anthology of EU fiction that I just couldn't pass up. I've mentioned my disinterest in most Star Wars EU stuff here in the past, but The Mos Eisley Cantina, Han Solo, and Lando Calrissian have all made me contradict that in the past, and no so have the Bounty Hunters.

I found these novelisations of Jaws 2 and Jaws: The Revenge and almost peed a little. My friend Miss M over at the Diary of a Dorkette blog (and podcasting companion on both Geek Fallout and Eclectic Mayhem) is a big fan of all things Jaws, and that interest has infected me as well. Her favorite was Jaws 3 and I was disappointed not to find that particular volume... but still. 2 Jaws books are pretty great. But I have to be honest... I was even MORE excited to find the NEXT two novelizations:

Gremlins and The Return of Swamp Thing!!! Again, potential urination threatened. And Peter David wrote the Swamp Thing one!!! Can I just say how much I adore the Swamp Thing live-action costume? Man that thing is gnarly, both literally and figuratively.

So that's it kiddos! Between that Jersey Devil toy, the Geico-pig toy, and those kick-ass novelizations, I was pretty pumped to bring home this particular haul!

I will be back (hopefully sooner rather than later...) to share more Geeky Goodwill Goodies with all y'all! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Giant Storm Shadow and an Alternate Reality Flintstones Family

I've had a good run of luck lately finding a handful of books here or there at Goodwill and then a couple of Grab-bags full of fun little toys to boot. This always makes me happy, as it feels balanced. And when all is balanced, all is right in the world. 

It is possible I am making more out of this "finding some books and grab-bags at Goodwill" thing than I should. 

Here's a quick look at the pile as a whole before we move forward. Now heeeere we go!

These knights are produced by Papo I believe. I myself don't really care about these kinds of toys, but my Aunt collects them, and so I keep an eye peeled for her when I'm out on the prowl. These guys and their horses were in a bag by themselves for a buck. Their weapons are completely destroyed, one snapped completely off, and the other appears to have been (ugh) chewed. Luckily, the weapons are interchangeable, so I removed the handles from their little hands before passing them on to my Aunt.

I already own a Sword of Omens from the 2011 animated reboot of the show, and mine is in much better condition because I bought it on clearance instead of secondhand. BUT in a judgement call I may question myself on for the next couple of decades of my life, I bought this sword for my sons to beat each other with. It went about as well as you'd expect.

This is not my first Sigma Six Stormshadow either, but this one is in MUCH nicer condition, and has his sash, pants, and scabbard intact. Unfortunately, none of his swords or other awesome weapons were included, except for the big stick thing with holes in the ends for... what? blades maybe? The other stuff in the bag were not Stormshadow's accessories. I'll find some substitute weapons for him at some point, I'm sure. Right now he stands proudly on my G.I. Joe shelf!

HEre are the contents of the bigger grab-bag in the set. Let's take a closer look.

The aforementioned Aunt also collects Hex-Bugs of any shape, size, or origin. So I knew as soon as I saw these Happy Meal toys that this bag would be coming home.

Also included was an assortment of Mario Brothers toys! I kept the Bob-Omb but most of the rest of these went to my kids. I only have a very tiny collection of Mario Bros. toys at this point and that's how I plan to keep things.

Plastic army men! The one I found to be significant is that one big guy near the middle. He's HUGE and I feel like he might actually be from a set or something? Anyone out there recognize him? I'm curious.

I already have a hula-dancing Spongebob, so the fact that this one has a broken nose is just fine. This is actually a set of cake toppers that goes along with the plastic Pineapple House I found back in 2012. So now I have the complete set! Man... I'm creeping up on my third blog-aversary! I've been doing this blog since July of 2012!

Here's a shot of the happy trio, with the unbroken nose-Spongebob included. 

Finally, here are some other random toys included in the bag as well. A Pirates of the Caribbean watch, and a couple of quarter-machine monsters that ended up on my ROYGBIV shelf of tiny plastic toys (They're on the "IV" shelf. I know skull guy looks red, but he's more magenta, so I place him in the violet category. Indigo and violet share a shelf.)

To add to my cassette collection: Blondie! "Parallel Lines" This is the one with "Heart of Glass" "One Way or Another" and "Hanging on the Telephone" on it.

A couple of action adventure stars this time around in the book-haul... Batman in The Stone King, and Tarzan in The Return of Tarzan. I don't have a whole lot to say about either of these books as of yet... but I look forward to reading them.

A couple of Holiday books made it home as well! A kids' book adaptation of the Christmas movie, Elf and the Goosebumps book: Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns.

One of my all-time favorite books (and I love the film as well) The Outsiders. My bromance with this book begins waaay back in middle school. I actually already own a copy of this book, but I saw this one with the movie adaptation cover and I reeeeally wanted it.

Finally, I found this bizarro "Flintstones" Little Golden book. In this story there are no Pebbles or Dino, and instead Fred and Wilma have a sone named "Junior" and they get a pet dinosaur named Harvey that looks a lot like Dino, but grows to... well... dinosaur size over the course of the story.

This is bizarre. Did this book come out before the cartoon? I don't think that's possible honestly, but I can't otherwise explain the presence of Junior and Harvey. I'm sure I could figure this out if I did even a cursory Google search... but I like to pretend sometimes that I'm living in the 80's and that every answer to anything I'll ever have a question about doesn't exist on the internet somewhere.

Anyway! That's all I have for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies so until that tie arrives... Happy Hunting!