Randomly Received: The Boo Bobby Blogger Box

All right... the time has come. I am officially getting ready to delete the content from Really Rather Random Guy (dot blogspot dot com) and in preparing for that, I wanted to import a bunch of the content that I know will then be lost forever, by bringing the posts over here to Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks (dot blogspot dot com). So, with that in mind, I thought I would preface these entries with the fact that they are indeed OLD blog posts from an OLD, now DEFUNCT blog, and cross my fingers and hope that folks will still want to read them.

This post was originally published back on January 30th, 2014.

So... this package showed up. And it was from my friend Laura over at the Boo Bobby Blog. If you've never been to the Boo Bobby Blog, you really should go and check it out. It is a sort of combination between a slice-of-life confessional blog and a "hey look at this cool stuff I found for CHEAP!!!" sort of blog. And somewhere between those two is where the magic happens. I dare you not to go over there and simply fall in love with Laura and her husband Jerome, and their kids and their friends. Join them for a family game night of charades or out roller-skating, and then see how Laura has decorated the built-in bookshelf in their new house with cool vintage toys and kitschy knick-knacks that you've seen a million times at old antique stores but NEVER LIKE THIS. I have so much respect for Laura and her natural photography talents and her easy, effortless way of writing like she's talking directly to you. It ENRAGES me with pure JEALOUSY that her blog is so ridiculously good. 

And then she sent me some stuff in the mail and it just made it WORSE because she's GENEROUS TOOOO!!! Will she stop at nothing? Let's take a look at what she sent me, shall we?

First up, we have to take a look at the decorations on the box. I get the feeling that Laura literally doodled on this package while she stood in line at the post office and did I mention that she is also an incredibly talented artist who recreates giant-sized Disney-and-other-kids'-characters decorations for parties? 

Spider-Man, ladies and gentlemen. And we haven't even gotten INSIDE THE BOX YET.

Here we go! Look at this pile of goodies y'all! Let's look closer.

First up we have these adorable little Mini Bean Sesame Street Characters! Laura and I share a deep and abiding love of all things Sesame, and she knew these little guys would be a shot right through the heart! Bert and Ernie are great, that's a given... but a Twiddle Bug? Come on! That is the cat's pajamas people! What a random character to give the mini-bean treatment! I love it!

Next up are these seasonal Snoopies. These guys are just spectacular. I actually have a bunch of these Snoopies for the Christmas tree already... but amazingly NONE of these ones! And the Halloween Snoopy stirring a bubbling cauldron of green slime? Excellent. These are Russel Stover premiums that were (and may still be...) sold attached to little boxes of chocolates around their respective holidays. Obviously the Christmas ones are meant to be hung on the tree. 

Mini-figures! Little plastic guys! Gotta love these. I've seen these featured all over the internet in the last couple of years. The bigger guys, the astronauts, Turtle/snail/alien guys, and the white robot are all from a set of Tim Mee toys "Galaxy Laser Team" figures which I must now track down the rest of. The little tiny arm men? No idea. But I LOVE them. I mean, look at those beautiful bast**ds. 

Laura is a big fan of old, kitschy items and uses them in ALL of her decorating. So naturally this overflows into her Christmas decorating as well. So it was no surprise at all to me to find these fun little guys included. These are going on the tree next year! 

Muppets and rodents are both woven intricately into my life. Laura is yet another of my online friends brave enough to mail me glassware. This Rizzo the Rat juice glass is actually a Smuckers Jelly jar from back around '99, promoting "Muppets from Space". The mice are... well they're just mice. But they're PULL-BACK mice!!! 

I had a bunch of these Dick Tracy action figures as a kid. I think I liked them back then because they were made by Play-Mates in the same style as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures. I had them pretty much working for the Shredder and Big Boss from C.O.P.S. (both of whom, in my imaginary universe answered to Hordak). I wasn't a huge fan of the Dick Tracy movie, but I loved the bizarre nature of the gangsters in the Dick Tracy canon. They weren't quite supervillains... but they were close enough. And most of them ended up with powers when I played with them anyway. Flattop was one of my absolute favorites! This is a straight-up blast from my past! 

I think this is probably my #1 favorite item from the package. ZOAR!!! Laura knows of my deep and abiding love for all things MotU and this little lady-bird is proof of it! Fun-fact: Zoar started off as a boy-bird, and a completely independent character on his own in the mini-comics packaged with the action figures. Then he became a lady-bird when it was revealed on the TV show that this was an alternate form of the Sorceress. When I was just a little guy I actually pulled the wings completely off of my Zoar and cried for DAYS. I probably won't be doing the same with this one. But I am a huge man-child... so who knows?

Aaaand now we're onto the REAL reason you people come to my blog... The freaky-tiki stuff. Or in my case, the Advertising Mascot soft-goods. These oven mitts featuring the Poppin' Fresh Doughboy and Sprout are honest-to-goodness ALWAYS going to be on display in my cave. There will be no scorch marks or boil-over stains for these mint-condition mitts! These paw protectors are staying pristine! And Mr. Peanut? Well I have documented in depth my love for this chap. He's going on the shelf with the other bean-bag mascots. 

Who ya gonna fall... asleep on??? That was terrible. But this pillow case isn't terrible at all! I'm assuming this was from a Real Ghostbusters (cartoon) sheet set... but I really don't know. (I'm so lazy... hold on.. I'm Googling it...) Yes! RGB indeed! loveLoveLOVE the Real Ghostbusters cartoon and toys and memorabilia... so this one is a real coup! Not sure if I'll display it or just go ahead and USE it! I'm leaning towards using it though. I ALWAYS forget to check the bedding sections at second-hand places but I totally should because I'd love to find some old Star Wars sheets or Ghostbusters, or even California Raisins! 

Christmas Golden books! Here we have the version of the Night Before Christmas that I remember the best from when I was a kid... Disney's Santa's Toy Shop, which is loads of good fun, and Frosty the Snow Man! If I'm being honest, this version of Frosty always creeped me out. I couldn't really put my finger on why until it dawned on me: The weird coal-chips for lips. They look... sinister in some way. 

And a couple of non-seasonal Golden Books, including "I Think That It Is Wonderful" from the Sesame Street collection, and "The Neatos and the Litterbugs in the Mystery of the Missing Ticket" which sort of sounds like there would be other mysteries in the series, right? Like Nancy Drew in the Mystery of the Cackling Cankles (or whatever) is just one in a series. But nope. This is the only appearance I can find of the Neatos and the Litterbugs, mystery solving or otherwise. It looks fun though. 

And this is a book about Mountain Monsters. Because Laura just... "gets" me.

And look at this thing. This is a vintage Christmas Card in which Laura wrote an incredible message to me in AND bemoaned the fact that she was defacing a beautiful vintage Christmas card! I felt her pain believe me, but I'm so glad I was card-worthy, because this beautiful reindeer has earned itself a spot among the valuable wall-space items of the CAVE. I only have 4 Christmas cards hung up in my cave, and this is one of those 4. Because... look at it. Just LOOK. Bask in its glorious light. 

Welp... that's it for this addition of RRRG kiddos! I want to send a huge THANK YOU!!! Out to Laura at the Boo Bobby Blog for the amazing gift-package. I LOVED it. Everything you sent me was obviously thought about and considered for quite a while before selecting it to be included. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. It was so thoughtful! 

I'll be back soon with a reveal of the new-and-improved Geek-Cave, which has been undergoing renovations since I revealed it last year! I'm pretty excited with the semi-new look (although a lot of it remains mainly unchanged... there's still a LOT to share!) and I can't wait to post about it here! Before that happens I may hop on here and post some stuff about books I like, or characters I've been thinking about, or heck my favorite flavors of Jelly Beans... who knows? Keep 'em peeled here folks!

A Package From the Trash Man!

So on the exact same day that my package from Miss M arrived, ANOTHER awesome package from another of my Podcasting comrades (and honestly one of my very best friends) Brian Farrell, of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame, arrived! 

So here's a preliminary glance at the contents of said package. But as usual, we shall plumb these depths together! Dive! Dive! 

Brian knows that I am an educated gentleman of some distinction. So he always includes reading materials that will educate and elucidate. In this case, he sent me a Choose Your Own Adventure gaming book, "Return to the Cave of Time" (which is the 50th book in the series, and a sequel to the very first book in the series, "The Cave of Time") AND "HOBGOBLIN," a HORROR NOVEL that combines HALLOWEEN and ROLEPLAYING GAMES. This has given me an idea for next year's Halloween countdown... Let's just see if I actually remember to carry through with this plan as next October creeps towards us. 

Included were these licensed books as well! Check out this awesome vintage Go Bots coloring book! Brian knows my INTENSE loyalty to the Bots. I think it's mostly due to the fact that I realized as an adult that all the toys I owned as a kid and loved, and had been told were Transformers... were actually GoBots. So they're what I know. 

I have a very clear and distinct memory of my Grandmother buying me a Turbo as a kid (one of the red car robots) and breaking him on the way home from the store, She exasperatedly turned the car around and exchanged him for a new one, which I got all the way home before breaking him a second time, at which point my Grandmother told me I was s**t out of luck. 

I know that I got Baron Von Joy, Leader 1, and Flip-Top as gifts at some point... and I think Future Machine. And of course I had (and LOVED) a crap-ton of Rock Lords, which I may have mentioned in passing once or twice or a MILLION times. 

Another toyline I was obsessed with back in the 80s was the California Raisins! I loved the Raisins. I had their cassettes, I had their Commodore 64 video game, I watched their clay-mated Christmas special and actual please-buy-raisins-to-eat-them-PLEASE commercials with a kind of rabid fanaticism I can only describe as "Intense". I also had a veritable army of the PVC figurines put out by applause. I did not however, EVER own a California Raisins comic book (put out by Blackthorne Comics in the late 80's) which had me nearly peeing my pants when I pulled it out of the box! 

Also in the package were these They Might Be Giants cassettes! FLOOD is probably one of if not THE ONE favorite album put out by TMBG for me. With songs like "Birdhouse in Your Soul," "Particle Man," "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," "We Want a Rock," and the self-titular "They Might Be Giants," you really can't go wrong with this one. 

Apollo 18 is not as EPIC in scope, but the cover art is AMAZING and with songs like "I Palindrome I," "Spider," "Dinner Bell," "Which Describes How You're Feeling," and "Hypnotist of Ladies," you definitely get some hardcore TMBG classics. 

Now we're into the toys! Going from right to left (as people do...) we have a Big Boy Caprice action figure from the Dicky Tracy line put out by Playmates in 1990! I really enjoy this line, probably more than I liked the actual movie itself. I mainly liked the hideously deformed villains in the line, like Lips Manlis, Flattop, The Brow, Rodent, Pruneface, and of course, everyone's favorite, Steve the Tramp. I basically used these guys as extra villains for my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to fight. Big Boy here is one I never actually had as a kid. But boy does he look swank on my shelf next to Flattop! 

On the left we has Sully from the Spinmasters line put out (I believe) to promote Monsters University. I am a BIG fan of the first Monsters film, Monsters Inc. And this figure is deee-luxe! Take a look at him compared to the Happy Meal version of the character: 

And you can see why I'm struggling with whether I should toss my old Sully for this one (I settled on keeping them both because I am a hoarder and will most likely be found dead under a giant pile of collapsed toy shelves someday... IF I'M LUCKY!!!) 

Next up... THESE guys. I've already gushed over the California Raisins, so that giant bendy guy should come as no real surprise as something I would love.

The Ronald McDonald hijacking a United Airlines plane is also a gem, as I love random cross-pollination of brandings when it comes to my Happy Meal toys! I've seen message boards that claim back in the mid-to-late 90's these were served in-flight First Class in branded McDonald's Happy Meals. Other sources say they were from restaurants in the airports. I want to believe these were given out on the plane, as a bizarre version of a kids' mile-high club.

But let's all face facts: The real star of this picture is that carded Ms. Pac Man toy from Tomy, circa 1982. That s**t is the BOMB. "Wind her up and she gulps, gobbles, and wiggles around. She's got cute little shoes and the biggest mouth in town," Now THAT is a write-up my friends!!! Once again, I will remind everyone that I wrote my very personal feelings about Ms. Pac Man in a post on this very blog about two years back... and I will leave it at that.

 Finally, we have these guys. I think these may top the list of favorite items in the box, believe it or not. These, for your information, are two action figures from the old 80s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons line. The tallest and blondest of the lot is Northlord, who was a giant (literally a giant, that was his race) barbarian. He was one of the "Battle Masters" of the line. I've seen pictures of this guy with all of his included gear, and have to admit I prefer him the way he looks above. The helmet he originally had looks a bit silly in my opinion. The horny short guy is a dwarf named Elkhorn. The dino on the far right is not actually from the same toy line. He's a hollow plastic dinosaur from Marvel Trading Corp. There was a whole series of these put out, but this is by FAR the most gorgeous one of the line. Look at his color! Look at his eye! He actually looks like a perfect fit to fight these brave warriors. Here's a look at my entire AD&D action figure collection, including some of the solid rubber monsters I've collected as well:

 They really put out some fantastic (and fantastically weird!) toys for this line back in the day!

A big HUGE thank you to Brian for the great package! Be sure to check out his site at Pop Pop It's Trash Culture, check out his Facebook Page for the site, and be sure to listen to us say witty and amazing things to each other (and our friends Miss M and Jason) on the Eclectic Mayhem podcast!

Welp! That's it for tonight kids! And probably that's it for September! I'll be dropping one more post the day after tomorrow for October Eve, and then with October 1st I will be full-on into my Halloween countdown for the month. So it might be a while before I'm back with the "Geeky" Goodwill Goodies (at least until November) but I won't be gone, that's for sure. Until I talk to you again kids, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Finds: April O'Neil, Snorks, and Freaky Chipmunks

Oh! I'm editing this to add: A of July 17th, 2015 my blog is officially 3 years old! I'm still toddling along, and occasionally pooping myself, but I'm starting to get the hang of this, and as long as I don't pick up some tiny item from the floor and get it lodged in my esophagus, you might all see me turn this thing into something worthwhile... at some point. I'll keep you posted. 

ALSO: this is my 403rd blog entry, which means I breezed past the 400 mark a few posts ago and just never noticed! So yay me! 

- And now back to the regularly scheduled blog! - 

Here's a fun little pile a' stuff from a trip I took to Goodwill awhile back! A handful of REALLY great retro finds here from the days of my youth! 

First up there was a grab-bag. Here are the contents:

With the exception of the Moshi Monster happy meal toy (sorry if you're a fan, but I am not), there weren't any real duds in here! LEt's take a more in depth look.

First up we have a Toonsylvania Burger King Kids' Club toy. This is from an Animaniacs-esque monster-themed cartoon from the very late 90's. Toonsylvania has appeared here on the blog before, although I had never heard of this show before that, and am unfortunately still no more familiar with it than I was, past the fact that I obviously know there are fast food premiums (and a wikipedia page!) based on the property.

Arguably the biggest win in this grab-bag is this lady right here. An April O'Neil from the original TMNT action figure line! If I'm not mistaken I believe this is the figure that became my "default" April because the one I had before was not in this good of a condition. I may have mentioned this before on the blog, but if not... here goes: My April O'Neil had Dazzler's powers when I was a kid because I was obsessed with the X-Men. (She's aiming a photon blast right at your face now)

Next up is this Goofy PVC. I'm not a huge Disney fan myself, in that I don't really care all that much about Mickey or the gang, but occasionally I come across a fun toy that catches my eye and represents one of the iconic characters well. This is a pretty nice figure. I think I may have sent this guy off to someone else in a trade or something, but I'm pretty sure I don't own him any more in any case.

Here's a really fun find! This is a Snork pvc figurine of Allstar from 1983! While I HATED most of the Smurfs-style shows that followed the lives of some strange tribe of creatures living somewhere in an adorable community (Biskits, Paw-Paws, Mon-Chi-Chis, the actual Smurfs) the Snorks got a pass for some reason.

This was one of the best finds in the bag as well, even though I have no idea what it's actually supposed to be. It looks like it might be some sort of cheap, hollow dinosaur, but it gives off way more of a "kaiju" vibe than a dinosaur one. Adversely, it looks more like some sort of tub toy or baby toy than anything else. So... anyone recognize this as anything that's actually something? Or are we looking at a dollar store reject here?

In the cassettes department we have the Danny Elfman score to the '89 Batman film. Back in the days of having to own EVERYTHING Batman because the film was so popular, I did in fact own both the score and the Prince soundtrack, so this find was a real trip down memory lane for me.

What was especially delightful to me was rediscovering the liner photos. I had forgotten these were even in there, although back when I owned this as a kid I pored over these to the point that they started falling apart.

Next up we have this bizarre looking Golden Book from the 1950's. It's bizarre to see them before the more standardized versions of the characters showed up.

Instead of steadfast Dave as the leader of the song, we have the wise Mr. Owl keeping the Chipmunks on track... which is kind of weird if you consider the fact that he'd actually be a natural predator for them.

I almost didn't pick up this Dick Tracy graphic novel. To be honest, the most interesting thing to me about Dick Tracy has always been the freakish villains (mostly in ation figure form), and the movie didn't really age all that well, IMO. BUT I flipped through the artwork in this thing and found:

INSANELY cool Kyle Baker artwork!!! So I snapped it up after all. This thing is just freaking GORGEOUS. I mean look at Flattop! Look at Pruneface! Lips Mannis is insane here! Steve the Tramp looks like a nightmare monster from the black lagoon! I hope I stumble across the other two volumes at some point!

And finally, I thought I'd end on some classic Sesame Street. Can't remember now (without going and finding this book which, let's all fact facts: I'm too lazy to do) but I'm wondering if this was some sort of "Follow That Bird" tie-in? Anyway, Big Bird returns from SOMEWHERE a bit earlier than expected, and instead of finding everyone on Sesame Street moping around ready to slit their wrists over missing him, Big Bird is dismayed to find out no one really cares... and in fact all his friends seem to be celebrating something. If you've already figured out what they're preparing for, then you're smarter than the big yellow bird in this book.

What I especially liked about this one is the fact that Forgetful Jones plays a semi-prominent role. He's the one who has the idea of throwing a party for uh... whoever it is. He's so goldurn forgetful! I don't distinctly remember Jones being portrayed as an actual resident of the Street back when I watched the show. I thought he was always in puppet saloons or out on the range with Buster or Clementine. 

Anyway. 

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

Goodwill Geek Mail-Bag: John Gaither is Awesome. No really.

So... I've made a few friends around the internet lately. I send them things. They send me things. And sometimes... when other people send those people things... they send those things on to me. 

I've blogged before about the Trash Man doing giveaways over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture! These giveaways are epic. There are toys in them, and old collectibles... and comic books... and movies... and tchotchkes  galore. They are just crammed with stuff. Amazing stuff. 

I won the first of such giveaways, and a kind gentleman named John Gaither, of the Clawful Punch blog won the second one. And I lost the second one... and then I received a consolation pack for losing the second one... and then I secretly won the second one anyway, because a bunch of the stuff Jon won in his prize lack didn't fit his collection. AND HE GAVE IT TO ME:

Originally, John offered me a handful of Monster in My Pocket figures. I gladly accepted. But when the package actually arrived... well there was quite a bit more stuff in that box than just MiMPs. Everything you see above was hiding in that beautiful box. I will now talk about all of it in depth, and in graphic detail that lets you know EXACTLY how much I love these toys. 

First up, let's look at the LEGO-style mini-figures. We have some Mega-Bloks mini-figs from back when they still had the Marvel license. The Sandman, Mr. Fantastic, Captain America, and Spider-Man are all in attendance. The red guy on the end is a HALO guy... but since I don't play video games for the most part, I have no idea if it's Master Chef or a Master Shepard or whatever (ha! I don't know video game character names! I'm like an old person!) Then the soldier on the far left is a soldier that appears to be from the Character Builder line. He's pretty bad-ass and adorable at the same time. My absolute favorites of the bunch are the LEGO Yoda key-chain and the Kre-O Sunstorm. 

Mini-figures!!! Left to right we have 5 Monster in My Pocket figures. The yellow guy in the very back and the two leg-wrestling fellows are from (I BELIEVE) the "Kinnikuman Ultimate Muscle Kinkeshi" line. There's a hot-pink King Castor from the O.M.F.G. line, and a soft-rubber kinkeshi figure in light pink next to him. NO IDEA who the translucent blue guy is, but I absolutely adore him. 

To finish up the toy-portion of the package, we have a Super Mario Brothers red mushroom tin. On the right of him is some sort of squishy rubber battling virus figure (he came with the card you see him satnding on... but it's in another language...) The kung-fu guy up from is another Fisftul of Power figure, and the guy in the weird hazmat suit to the left of him? I don't recognize him. You can see an old Dick Tracy PVC figurine towering above all of them (I had this one when I was younger) and the most amazing piece of them all? The Dino Riders Termite figure on the far, far left there. This is one of the exact figures I owned and ADORED as a kid. I liked this particular figure so much that I didn't want him to be a villain. So he defected over to the good-guys team. He and my purple Construx Alien and my Adventure People X-Ray Man would go on space adventures together ALL the TIME. John featured him in a HILARIOUS post over on his blog before he sent him on to me. Please do yourself a favor and click on that link. I think my favorite shot is of Termite looking longingly out the window at the end.

And finally, a bunch of cool odds and ends. That Frankenstein Magazine is a treasure trove of old monster-movie GOLD that I will be poring over for quite a while. I don't want to open the Voltron Tattoos or the Pee-Wee's Playhouse Funpak... so those will remain sealed (for now). You can see a whole slew of wax-packs along the bottom there including Alf (!) Alien, Gremlins 2, Ghostbusters 2, Harry and the Hendersons, and 21 Jumpstreet! All cool. There's a trio of awesome pins featuring Thanos, Gumbi, and what I believe is a Reverse Flash symbol? Then a Dick Tracy novelization, and a Godzilla vs. Biollante DVD round out the awesomeness. 

So John went over-board... which just made it that much easier for me to send off a pack of junk his way as well (which I had already been planning to do before he beat me to the punch!). It was incredibly kind and generous of him to share his Pop Pop! Trash Culture "One Man's Trash" prize pack with me. I also want to indirectly thank the Trash Man for putting on his monthly give-aways. He is giving out NOSTALGIA GOLD over there people!!! 

BUT I also feel it bears repeating: John Gaither is Awesome!

No, really! 

That's it for me you guys! I'll be back soon to show off some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!