Random Buys of a Random Guy: Dream Catcher Finds!

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 on February 24th, 2014.

I've mentioned before, more than once, that there's an antique mall in downtown Ellsworth, ME called the Dream Catcher. It's three stories, and the top floor has one area that is solely dedicated to comic books, lunch-boxes, toys, collectibles, magazines, ANYTHING a geek might like. I don't go there nearly as often as I do Goodwill, simply because the guy who runs it doesn't get new stock in that steadily (or it seems that way at least).

Anyway, I've strolled around in there before and taken pictures of things I've been drooling over in the past, mainly the collection of vintage lunch-boxes that I (mostly) REFUSE to start collecting. Yesterday I found a bunch of boardgames I also (mostly) refuse to start collecting, but thought I'd share.

But wait! There's more! Down past all the boardgames in this post there are a few other shots from the store, and then a few shots of the loot I actually brought home.

First up Bonanza, which is less a game based on a show, and more a game based on a game they play in the show. I LOVE how they've shoe-horned in the chip-tray from this game awkwardly into the photo on the cover of the box... because everybody knows cowboys had plastic poker chips and plastic blow-form trays to keep them in. Don't look at it too long because the perspective starts to hurt your eyes. 

I kind of wish I'd taken more time to open these up and see what the game mechanics were... but here is a game based on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. No idea what the gameplay is like.

A "Medical Game For The Young" because kids needed more excuses to play doctor with each other. Starring Thorn-Birds-sexy-priest Richard Chamberlain. Because just having a doctor game isn't enough to get the blood all riled up and pumping. 

The Ewoks were Green before it was cool. They were hippie, hipster, tree-hugging, teddy bear, jerks. 

I apologize for the crap quality of these photos, which were taken with my iPod. This one is just the worst, and it's too bad because the Hair Bear Bunch deserve better. 

Happy Days! This (according to the box) is "Fonzie's Real Cool Game" which is all I really need to know. 

The Legend of Jesse James. Too lazy to Google if this is based on a specific film or show about Jesse James, or if it's just about the "real" Jesse James. I used quotes there not because I question the reality of Jesse James. He is neither the Loch Ness Monster nor is he Santa Claus. I used them because undoubtedly the Jesse James depicted in this game is nothing like his real-life counterpart. I mean, look at that Brady-Bunch lookin' mother-f**ker on the cover of the box. Nope. 

I am probably just going to go ahead and buy this the next time I go. I didn't want to blow half of my cash on just a board game today... but I WILL own this in the near future.

Same with this one. For no other reason than the fact that they made it. If you look right below it you can also see an Ewok paint set that I forgot to get a shot of on its own. 

If I recall, this game was featured on an episode of Toyhunter. I remember it being a big deal if all the pieces are included and it still works. I'm not a board game collector for the most part, so I didn't mess around with it too much. 

If I were to buy this it would only be so I could set it up and display it out of the box. Again, I did a really poor job of investigating these games, so I don't know when this copy was produced, but it looks old. Like... IDEAL games old. However old that is. 

Raggedy  Ann! Nothing else to say really. Except that horse has no legs, which means Ann and Andy are running (awkwardly, because there's a stick between their legs, to help maintain the illusion). 

This looks cool from the front. I don't know how it plays or what's in there, but it looks cool from the front. Not the first time I've seen this game there, either. 

Posting this last one without comment. I just know that at some time in the past, there were people in various states of being naked people handling this box, around it, potentially ON it... and that is terrifying to me. 

This cross-eyed duck was nearly as big as me. I kept my distance. Seems like it's either a knock-off Donald Duck, or a really cheaply made official one. Either way I wanted it far away from me. 

Keebler Elf cookie jar. Can't think of a more fitting and appropriate form of merchandising, honestly. Too bad this one appears to be missing its lid. 

On the other hand, this Mr. Peanut peanut butter maker seems to make sense at first glance, but then a bit sadistic upon further reflection. I mean, yes, who else would you rather get peanut butter from but a anthropomorphic peanut, right? But let us not forget what must happen to peanuts to make them into peanut butter. And you force Mr. Peanut to be complicit in the grinding of his people by pouring the peanuts into his head to grind them up. Chilling. 

If this on-the-card American Gladiaors Turbo is still there for purchase the next time I go I am probably going to bring him home. I just didn't have the funds this time around, and it would have been a novelty buy, plain and simple. But he brought back many a teenage late-night, watching a muscle-bound freak shooting tennis balls at his victims. 

And finally, I'd like to show off the stuff I actually brought home from Dreamcatcher with me. Surely, in comparison to the magical wonders I have shared thus far, the items I brought home must be truly wondrous right? Well... I'll let you decide:

Here's the entire pile. I'm not going to wax poetic over the two Scooby-Doo plates, because I mainly bought them for my boys and they are only special because we're going through a Scooby-Doo phase right now and they will be excited to see these at supper-time. The Grover's Own Alphabet was also a fun find because... well, y'know... Sesame Street and Golden Books... Let's take a closer look as some of the other items, shall we?

First up is this Officer Big Mac glass to go in my McDonald's collectible glasses collection. They actually had a Hamburglar glass in another part of the Mall, being sold by a different vendor for WAY TOO MUCH money. So I settled for just the one. But look at it! Isn't it GLORIOUS???

Just as I was checking out, I had a question about an action figure I had found (see below) and it reminded the guy behind the counter that he had just put together a box of action figures he hadn't put out for sale yet. He offered to let me go paw around in there and see what I could find... which I gleefully did. Most of it was a let-down to be honest. Old Phantom Menace figures and armless 90's Batman figures. But there was this nice trio that I picked up (plus the Shaggy figure you can see peeking from behind the Shredder's shoulder pad in the first picture). I never owned Sergeant Bananas when I was a lad, but I was happy to add him to my collection now (he even still has his snake belt!)... and while I am not a huge fan of the weird costumed TMNT figures, I couldn't NOT buy this Davey-Crockett inspired Raphael figure. Between the Raccoon hat, the fringes on his sleeves, and the bolo tie... I was smitten. But I was by far the most excited about finding a Super Shredder figure from the second movie line. I really did NOT like the original Shredder from the first TMNT line, so when this guy came around, he pretty much just became my "default" Shredder figure. The scale was off so that he wasn't all that "super" anyway, and he looks waaay more bad-ass than the geriatric Shredder we were given before this. All-in-all, I was happy to add these three to my collection. 

Finally, I  found this guy. I almost didn't buy him because when I found him he was missing his left arm. Then as I was rummaging around the bottom of the bin I found him in, I discovered the arm was still in there! So I popped it on and took it. I had no idea who he was at the time, but using the "1983 Filmation" stamp on his back, it wasn't long before I was able to Google him up. I discovered he is "Neptul" a villain from the Blackstar series. He's one of those guys that comes with one of those weird looking little gargoyle/gremlin/demons that every kid in the 80's seemed to own at least one of, even if they didn't know where it came from: 

This image belongs to Littleweirdos.net
follow the link to read their article about these little guys!

And the one that came with Neptul here is STILL THERE! I remember seeing him (in fact, if you follow the 'before' link waaay back at the top of this post (or that one... right there), there's a picture of him in the linked post!), so I'll be going back for him. I love a good toy reunion. The Blackstar line is a REALLY fun line, and according to Shawn Robare of Branded in the 80's fame (follow the link for more Blackstar love), the show was a kick to watch as well. I think I may start trying to track both the toys and the show down in the near future. 

So that's it folks! I may be headed back to the Dream Catcher sooner rather than later to pick up a couple of items... and if I do, you'll surely read about it here first (because who else would write about that... nevermind)! Keep your peepers peeled here for more random randomness! 

Random Ramblings: The Saga of the Replacement Turtles

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.

So time for me to ramble a bit. Something I promised I was going to let myself do with this "new" blog that took the place of the of Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks site. And one of the things I genuinely enjoy thinking and writing about is how I played with toys as a kid. I mean the ways I used my action figures imaginatively to create whole worlds and epics that took place in those worlds. I had a lot of drama and action in those sessions. I was pretty complex...

...or something.
This wasn't even Halloween.

When I was a kid, I loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I loved the cartoon, I loved the toy-line, and I loved the idea of a group of ass-kicking mutant ninjas. But I have a major confession to make:
I found the original four turtles a little boring after a while. My style of play incorporated a LOT of different characters from a LOT of different toy-lines. The main gist of most of my imaginative play was based on the comic books I was reading at the time, the majority of which were from the X-Men family of titles. While all of my other random action figures were developing optic blasts or berserker rages,  Leo, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie had a hard time fitting in with teams of super-powered misfits. They were so insular... so designed to be together... that I had a hard time working them into my interior storyline. They didn't get a lot of play honestly.

And that made them sad.

Until I read parts of this storyline:

Which blew me away. I never actually owned these comics as a lad, but I had flipped through enough of the stories while browsing the bookstore that I knew the basic gist: The main protagonists of the story are incapacitated and a REPLACEMENT TEAM is called in to clean up the mess left behind and save the day. The replacement team is made up of a seemingly disparate group of loners who come together to fight in honor of the fallen heroes. And from this seed an idea grew in my head....

Yeeeeeeah... we're the replacements! Rock n' rollin' 'til the break of dawn!

The Replacement Turtles! You will of course notice that with the exception of Mondo Gecko and Metal Head being sorta-kinda-close... NONE of these characters are actual turtles. But IT DIDN'T MATTER. All of a sudden when I would be playing with my action figures, the four main Turtles became VERY clumsy. They repeatedly became extremely susceptible to being taken prisoner by Shredder and his goons. And whenever that would happen, an alert would go out to four of the Turtle's closest allies: Usagi Yojimbo, Mondo Gecko, Metal Head, and Casey Jones! This alert went out... like... once or twice a day I would estimate. The four core turtles became more damsels in distress than heroes very quickly. This was right around the time that April O'Neil developed light-control powers ala Dazzler (Dazzler was a part of the Australian X-Men squad at the time so...) and started kicking ass on her own terms. 

This was happening in my head.

Where was I? Oh yeah... let's take a look at those replacement turtles!

First of the replacement turtles was the robot that was designed to emulate a Ninja Turtle as closely as possible. Metal Head! Metal Head was the replacement Donatello. He was the science-guy of the group, but with all the benefits of a super-strong android with lots of gadgets and deus ex machinas up the butt (sometimes literally). My Metal Head wasn't the robot-run-amok spazz they showed on the TV shows at the time, but he did have a bit of a Max Headroom (or, let's be honest, Konky of Pee-Wee's playhouse) stutter that he had no control over when communicating with his team-mates. 

Next up we have everyone's favorite psycho-sociopath... Casey Jones! He was my surrogate Raphael. Again, my Casey Jones was much less informed by the cartoon show, which had him portrayed more as a Dirty-Harry-Travis-Bickle-Punisher mashup played for comedic effect. I had him behaving more like the movie version of Casey Jones played by Elias Koteas (which was in turn, a bit more informed by the original comic-book version of Casey Jones) AAAAND Wolverine. Casey Jones was prone to random berserker rages in battle. I think he also developed a healing factor. I may have even tried to convince myself that he could sprout adamantium claws from the backs of his forearms. Yeah... he was pretty much just Wolverine. And let me tell you, it was HARD to have him develop a romantic relationship with April O'Neil when his hockey mask was not removable. But they managed... sort of?

The foundation of all my future relationships was this comic panel.

But I digress. 

Mondo Gecko filled the Michelangelo-shaped hole left by the missing turtles. He was the party animal of the group and quite often his skate-board functioned as a hoverboard allowing him to fly into action. He also shared a power-set with Nightcrawler and the Toad. He was able to cling to surfaces using hands and feet, and his prehensile tail was a deadly whip in battle. He was agile and bouncy, a whirling dervish in combat, and he snapped off surfer-dude one-liners much like a Point Break Spider-Man. I just want to take a moment to appreciate the sculpt on this guy as well. Mondo Gecko was-and-still-is one of my absolute favorite TMNT action figures.

And finally, we have the Leo of the group... Usagi Yojimbo. I know that this guy was really only a sort of fluke guest-star on an episode of the show (having his own successful comic series completely unrelated to TMNT), and this begat a couple of action figures as well... but in my mind Usagi Yojimbo was Leonardo's best friend the way Raphael and Casey bonded in so many of their iterations over the various incarnations of the show. Ironically, my Usagi Yojimbo never developed many super-powers. I believe he was able to channel energy through his sword ala Silver Samurai... but that was about it. Basically his power was to kick EVERYBODY'S ASS ALL THE TIME. He was the leader of the replacement turtles because he was pretty much just the bunny version of Leonardo.

And here's everyone all together. I chose to photograph the vintage turtle allies with the modern-day turtle figures for a couple of reasons. 1.) In my personal opinion, the newer versions of the turtles are superior to the old in almost every way. I can't imagine as a lad EVER growing bored with these four turtles. This is how I wanted my turtles to look as a kid. 2.) My vintage turtles are WOEFULLY incomplete. Raph and Donnie are missing their belts and Raph has extensive paint-loss damage to his belly. Almost all of the quartet's weapons are lost to time. 3.) I really wanted to see how the sculpts on the vintage ancillary characters stood up to the modern turtles. And they look AWESOME. I think the only real weak link here is Casey Jones in his weird sweat pants and lime green tennis shoes... and hairy mid-riff. (Side-note... I am STILL on the hunt for a modern-series Casey Jones. If anyone spots one, e-mail me or message me on Twitter or something. WANT. UPDATED TO ADD: Since this was written, I have found the new Casey Jones action figure. No worries. Crisis averted.)

That's all the crazy I have in me for tonight kids! Be sure to keep your peepers peeled here for further ramblings, rants, and other random ravings in the near future!

Eclectic Mayhem Special: The Big Saturday Morning Post!

So I don't talk about it a TON here on the blog, but I have mentioned before that I am a part of the Eclectic Mayhem Podcast along with my friends Brian, Jason, and Miss M... and we recently did an episode where we talked about our ULTIMATE Saturday Morning television lineups. 

One of the tasks that our host, Brian (of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame) gave us during the episode, was to try and actually watch some of our lineups, and then blog about that experience. So I'm just NOW getting around to that. (It's late I know, but I can't be ridiculously early like my cohort Jason of Nerdy Life of Mine was... or just generally on time like Miss M of Diary of a Dorkette was... Imma be me.)

I found the lion's share of my episodes on Youtube, and sat down to watch some of them with my two sons, who are currently 4 and 6 years old. Before I did into the meat of our viewing, I thought I'd post the listings here (The League of Extraordinary Bloggers did a challenge relating to this topic a while back, when there was still a League, and my post for that challenge was very similar, but in some important ways, also pretty different. You can read that here.)

7:00 – Teen Wolf 

7:30 – Real Ghostbusters 

8:00 – TMNT

8:30 – Thundercats

9:00 – Dungeons & Dragons

9:30 – Galaxy High

10:00 – Captain N

10:30 – Kid Video

11:00 – Muppet Babies

11:30 – Punky Brewster

So as you can see, my lineup kicks things off with Teen-Wolf, the animated series. This was a short-lived show from my youth that lasted only two original seasons. But what seasons they were! I was in LOVE with werewolves as a kid, thanks MOSTLY to this cartoon. 

Hearing the classic "Beware Scott! When the moon is full..." sent a shiver of pure joy down my spine. My kids seemed to really enjoy this too! The episode I wanted to watch was the one where a magical spell allows Scott's younger sister, Lupe, into a werewolf. She is too young to know yet if she can turn into one yet, and she desperately wants to be one. This episode was not to be found on youtube however, so I settled for the episode where she brings home a Moon Rock for her science project and we learn that having a chunk of the moon so close to a family of werewolves is never a good idea. 

The kids really dug the show, as I had hoped they would, and I found it held up pretty well, all things considered. These are all broken up into three parts on youtube, so I'm posting the first third here for your enjoyment. 

Next, The Real Ghostbusters!

Truth be told, I cheated a bit on this one. I watched this one on my own, and kind of skipped through the slow parts because my boys and I have been watching The Real Ghostbusters on DVD in the past 6 months or so, and I suspected they might not sit through it again. I picked "The Boogeyman Cometh" because it is one of my absolute FAVORITE episodes of this show from my childhood. The Boogeyman is INSANELY scary, and is a perfect example of how creative this show could get. 

There is a part of me that kind of enjoys the Real Ghostbusters cartoon just a little bit more than the movies, if I'm being 100% honest. I know the entire internet just collectively gasped and made some sort of evil-warding symbol in my direction... but let me explain. When I was a kid I had waaay more of a connection to the cartoon and the action figure line than I did to the movies, which ind of terrified me, to make another embarrassing confession. Don't get me wrong though, I LOVE the Ghostbusters films. But back then, the Real Ghostbusters were... well... the REAL Ghostbusters to me. And so they still feel a little bit like that to me now as an adult. 

Up next: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

My kids are definitely not loving the classic TMNT as much as they like the Nicktoons version of the show. And while this brought me back to some extremely cool memories... I kind of have to agree with them. This episode features one of my favorite TMNT villains of all time though: Baxter Stockman! This goofy homage to Vincent Price's "The Fly" is also one of my favorite action figures of all time! 

I always used to LOVE using my Krang action figure and doing his voice as a kid. He had such a distinctive way of talking and I was convinced that my impression of his was DEAD on. Watching this episode brought me right back to those days, playing with my action figures. 

Next Up: Thundercats! 

I have talked on here about how awesome the Thundercats opening sequence is, and believe it or not, this was the FIRST TIME I had ever introduced this to my kids! And just as I had hoped... it LITERALLY melted their faces off. This episode features "Mandora the Evil Chaser" which was a ridiculously unwieldy name for a space cop. But Mandora was cool and she schools Lion-O more than once throughout the episode. 

Next up: A huge leap forward to Muppet Babies! 

So the kids were getting a little restless at this point, and we hadn't yet gotten to the show I REALLY wanted them to see at this point: The episode of Muppet Babies where the kids are given a video recorder to play with and they do what any nursery full of children would normally do: They make Star Wars! 

My kids are going through a massive Star Wars phase right now, and just like when I was a kid, I thought they would get a huge kick out of seeing the Muppet Babies do their own version of the story. And they did! This episode also brought me back to my childhood with the atomic blast of a nostalgia bomb. It was incredible! They totally did not understand why the Death Star was a tomato, even after I explained the whole bit involving Fozzie being terrified of tomatoes because of the throwing-tomatoes-at-bad-comedians thing. But that was about it. Otherwise the only other comment (from my 6 year old) was "There's no way they had all that stuff in their play room. It looks too good." My son understands production values and the struggles of the independent film maker. 

At some point I really want to get them back into this and show them the magic of Captain N: The Game Master, if nothing else. But I honestly feel like they would like just about ALL of the shows in my line-up. 

So what about you? What cartoons would you want to watch from 7 in the morning until GOLF comes on at 12? Let me know in the comments below, or HECK, write a blog post about it! If you end up doing that, toss a link in the comments below, or tweet your link to @EclecticMayhem4 on Twitter, or post it to our page for Eclectic Mayhem on Facebook! Or do all three! I'm all about the elf-promotion! (Hey... also follow us on those things, plus subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, and leave us a review!!! M'kay?)

So that's it for tonight kiddos! I'll be back sooner than soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies (or other nonsense). Only 83 days left until Halloween! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Finds: Stridor, Cowboy Curtis, Softhead Leo

Here's a pile of goodies from a trip I  made to the Bangor, ME Goodwill just a few months ago. I'm going to be honest and tell you all that I skipped a bunch of other much more boring posts that I have stored in the archives to write about this stuff. I just couldn't force myself to write about a bunch of lackluster Happy Meal toys or mediocre Little Golden Books tonight. So I went looking for something more exciting. And now here we are. 

Here's the grand pile of junk I brought home from Bangor. LEt's take a closer look, shall we?

Remember back before the Star Wars prequel trilogy came along and messed up everything? I don't just mean the story or the canon or the continuity. I mean all the other merchandise too. Remember when you could buy books and things that didn't try to awkwardly shoehorn in reminders that Hayden Christensen exists somewhere in the timeline? Well these books do. They remember a simpler time when all that existed was a ragtag group of rebels and their hyperventilating archnemesis. I LIKE THESE BOOKS.

I picked up a handful of other books as well. A novelization of Disney's "Oliver and Company" for one. An interesting-looking Dungeons and Dragons themed memoir by Mark Barrowcliffe, "The Elfish Gene" and a collection of ghost tales from Daniel Cohen called "Railway Ghosts and Highway Horrors," which has been added to my Halloween Read Pile. Altogether not a boring trio of books by any means.

I found a sort-of-carded (the blister was stapled to the card) Cowboy Curtis from the NECA reproductions of the 80s Pee-Wee's Playhouse toys. I liberated him from his poorly preserved plastic prison and shelved him with the Miss Yvonne I received from Miss M of Diary of a Dorkette. These repros were done in 2007 but you would almost never know it.

This was a fun find. It's a plastic Hershey's Kiss container done up to look like a Jack O'Lantern. The year on the bottom is 1990, so this little fella's been around for awhile. Unfortunately he is missing the Hershey's Kisses sticker that used to be his nose. But I don't mind. I honestly kind of like him better without it.

Of all my finds I think this was my favorite. Far from complete (and it matters not at all to me) this Stridor toy is from the old Masters of the Universe series. He's missing his headpiece, his tail, and his guns on either side are broken... but the effect is still there: STRIDOR!!! I always desperately wanted a Stridor as a kid, but never got one. So now... I own him.

Finally, there was a grab-bag full of old action figures. Or some cases... pieces of them.

Roboto has a permanently broken arm. I'm not sure but I think I re-donated him to Goodwill. I already have one anyway. Another Sy-Klone and Clawful in marginally better shape (these were cleaned up and traded off) also a pair I already own.

With these guys I now owned Two and a Half Hordaks! A new sitcom coming this fall. Legless Hordak donated his armor to legged Hordak and took a trashcan dive. Legged Hordak took a trip to Canada.

This "Ninja Master" is a Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandoes action figure. He's a bad guy. Despite all that, I forgive him.

I was probably most excited to find this soft-headed Leonardo with his belt and one of his katanas. His bandana is a little chewed but again, I don't mind. (ALL of the action figures in this grab bag needed a BATH and they got one shortly after I got done photographing them... I just like to photograph things as fresh out of the grab-bag as possible...)

I also found this King Hiss! This is the second King Hiss I've found, but the first one with the torso disguise pieces. He's just missing his arm covers.

Yay for Goodwill! Yay for toys!

Well that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back with some more (probably slightly less exciting) Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Hunting!