Halloween Countdown Day 27: Goodwill Finds!

There are only 3 days between today and the BIG day ladies and Gentlemen! That means this will probably be my last straight-up "Stuff I Bought at Goodwill" post between now and then, because I'll be focusing more on the festivities around the house and just sort of rounding up anything else I've got to share before the night arrives. So let's take one last look at some Halloween-y items I've picked up at Goodwill! 

Possessions: Unclean Getaway from Oni Press is a fun little graphic novel starring a young girl possessed by a demon. This girl is added to a collection of supernatural characters including a poltergeist, a haunted jukebox, the ghost of a headless woman, and a talking, glowing sphere. The story is all about the demon Gurgazon the Unclean who has been added to the collection at the Llewellyn-Vane House for Captured Spirits and Ghostly Curiosities, and who desperately wants to escape. It has a distinct "Great Escape" meets "Perhapanauts" vibe, but almost more for the YA reader set. It was definitely a cool little tale, and one I'll probably check out the following three volumes for. 

"...MORE OF THE NIGHT HE CAME HOME." Ha! I thought I had never seen this movie, but after picking it up at Goodwill and watching it, I realized I must have seen it. I guess this one gets kind of a bad rap... but sitting and watching it back-to-back with the first Halloween, I have to say I kind of enjoyed this one more. There was more going on, the characters were a little more fleshed out, and the pacing was a little more to my liking. It could simply be that I hadn't seen it in so long that it felt new and fresh compared to the very familiar-to-me first film. After rewatching the original Halloween again this year with my daughter, I realized something: There are still some great scenes and classic moments that horror fans NEED to experience, but at times I found myself almost... bored. Sure, parts of the Hospital setting in part 2 (and some of the kill scenes) feel a little hackneyed and hokey... but it does have a nice consistent vibe to it. I don't think it deserves the bad rap it seems to have in some circles. 

Here we have a "Panther Alien" from the early 90's Alien action figure line. Sadly, he did not come with his projectile, which apparently was some sort of firable parasite creature, but he's still pretty neat. As much as I can admire his sleek frame and interesting pose, not being much of a fan of the oddball Alien figures of various different genuses and species, I passed this guy on to a new home almost immediately. 

As we leave the city limits of Halloweentown and move on to other things... we find this novelization of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome! "He's a lone warrior in a world gone mad! She is the only power in a land of fear." I have not seen Thunderdome in many a year, but I remember it being weird, and disturbing, and really liking it a lot. Again, its a movie that seems to get a bad rap in most reviews I've heard or read, but I don't get it. Finding a novelization of the film really made my day! 

There was also a grab-bag I picked up that had these three handsome fellows included: a couple different versions of Raphael from the mid-2000's toy line, and a PVC figurine of Robbie from the Dinosaurs sitcom! The Raph on the left does a backflip if you bend him over at the mid-section. The Raph on the right is from the 200's series of toys, a Cave-Turtle character. 

A handful of Sesame Street books in A Visit to the Sesame Street Museum, Show and Tell, The Tool Box Book, and Who Am I? These are all nice classic-feeling Sesame Street books.

And keeping in line with the Sesame Street theme, we have this set of cookie cutters! Big Bird, Prairie Dawn, Grover, Bert, Ernie, and Elmo, all in different modes of transportation. Not sure if these are true cookie cutters or if they came with a play-doh set or something, but either way I picked up a little baggie of them for .99 cents.

Some more Jim Henson-themed books in a Fraggle story and a Muppet Babies story.

This was an interesting find. "Little Toot from Walt Disney's Melody Time" on a vinyl record. This just caught my eye and had to come home with me.

Couple of other random properties here in kids' book form. A Garfield book I already have a copy of that I will probably send off to a friend, and a "Ring Raiders: Doom on Ice" book. Ring Raiders were toyline released by Matchbox back in '89 and consisted of jets that you wore on rings on your fingers. There was also a cartoon show to advertise... I mean to tell the story behind Ring Raiders.

This is a set of Tupperware stencils from the 80's. My wife already owns a complete set of these (missing the yellow case) from when she was a kid. I don't know exactly what I plan on doing with these... but letting my kids play with them is the first idea that springs to mind. Which... is admittedly unusual for me.

So there you have it! I'll be back soon with more Gutturally Growling Goodwill Goodies... so until then, Happy Haunting!

Halloween Day 26: A Payday Friday Trip to the Ellsworth Goodwill

I go to Goodwill pretty frequently. If I don't... I can hear the cool stuff crying out to me in the night from the houses of people that found them before I did. It. Is. Haunting. 

BUT! My most regular trips to Goodwill happen on the bi-weekly Fridays when I get paid. This is the afternoon when I really slow down, take my time, and comb through the inventory. This past Friday was a payday Friday, and I went into my Ellsworth Goodwill with Halloween on my brain. And I'm glad I did. You can already feel a lot of stores winding down and easing away from Halloween and gearing up for Christmas. My local Wal-Mart has had a Christmas section complete with pre-lit trees and aisles of ornaments up for weeks now. Sigh. But I am not yet done with this Halloween season, dear readers. I still have some goodies in store. Let's take a look at what I picked up just this last Friday, shall we? 

I'm gonna lead with this amazing guy. He's one of those old hanging cardboard cut-outs from awhile back. I'm not sure how old he is, but I get at least an early-90's vibe if not an all-out-80's one. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if he was made last week because I am hopelessly in love with him. From the green pallor of his skin to the hot pink of his cape/wings/whatever, to the fact that he has a KEY to the BLOOD BANK chained to his vest... I just absolutely adore this guy. He is very likely to spend the winter hanging in the cave rather than packed away in the attic. He definitely makes me want to "Give Blood".

This cute trick-or-treat pail is about 3/4 the size of the ones you can get at Wal-Mart right now. He's also adorable. Pails like this kind of become visual white-noise around this time of year, but Goodwill does a good job of highlighting these types of items and making them seem new again.

I've had a bumper-crop of Jack-o'-Lanterns this season Goodwill-wise. All but two of these guys were picked up just this year (The two Jack-o'-Lanterns in the top left corner, NOT the kitty) and I genuinely adore every one of them. 

I remember this little guy being out for sale one year and not really caring about him for the 2 bucks or so he was being sold for at the time. But now that he's only .99 cents? Sure I'll bring him home. He's adorable. Looks like a Looney Tunes character for crying out loud.

Here they are together because I just really like the picture of them next to each other. We can move on now. 

This mask was also only .99 cents. I like cheap rubber Halloween masks, and nothing says "Halloween" more than a cheap rubber Jack-o'-Lantern mask. This thing is definitely hanging up in the cave.

This season my Ellsworth Goodwill actually put together a shelf of Halloween-themed shelf of books for sale. This little book was tucked in between a bunch of mostly lame mystery novels on that shelf. The Addams Family: Is Cousin Mumbles Here to Stay? by Wendy Wax may not be a holiday classic, but I appreciate the effort to merchandise the franchise.

The last of the truly Halloween items on this trip was this Dunkin Donuts Trick-or-Treat sack. on the front is a Dunkin Donut not only frosted and decorated for the season... but wearing a costume. I genuinely wish companies would go back to making PVC figurines of their anthropomorphized characters because I would buy a bunch of donuts just like this one, dressed up for Halloween if they were roughly the same size and material as my California Raisins. Why have the M&M's been put out as straight up collectible PVC figures? I just don't get the world we live in anymore.

At least sticking to the Holiday theme... and the next chronologically correct Holiday... I found this Thanksgiving book: Samuel Eaton's Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy. We don't have nearly as many Thanksgiving books as we do Halloween or Christmas, but we do really enjoy them as a family. A lot of pilgrim/historical books tend to be very long winded and quickly lose the attention of my two boys. This one looks like a nice, quick read that they'll get a lot out of.

Next up, I made some additions to my budding Cassette tape collection! I thought these three were pretty exciting finds. "The Rocketeer", "A Clockwork Orange", and "Heavy Metal" are all interesting soundtrack finds, for sure.

I will have to say I NEED to do a better job checking over my cases next time. These ones are all cracked to heck, which I don't want. But I gotta say regardless you guys: I was probably MORE excited to find the soundtracks to Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman than I was to find any other cassette in this group. I know, I know, not the geekiest... but I really like both movies AND their soundtracks. So sue me.

To get us back on the Geeky-train, I found a second copy of the "Batman" film score on cassette, which I will be sending off to a new home at some point I'm sure. And the soundtrack to "Star Trek: The Motion Picture".

And to finish off the cassettes, and this post for that matter, I have Janet Jackson's "Control" and Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey". I'm a big fan of both artists, so these were nice additions to the collection.

Well that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more Goonish Goodwill Goodies. So until then, Happy Haunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 25: A Package from "CRPechonick" of Geek Show Ink!

So a... WHILE back... I won an instagram (...or was it Twitter? I don't remember now.) contest. And it was actually being done by an online buddy of mine "CRPechonick" (or Charles... or Chuck) who runs the Geek Show Ink blog and site, and whom I'm received goodies from before. He's an incredibly talented artist, and the prize he was giving away in his contest was a sketch card of any character you chose. I... being a Halloween fanatic, knew EXACTLY who I wanted featured on my sketch card. 

In typical fashion, Chuck sent me a whole box of goodies instead of just my prize... because that is just his way. He's generous to a fault. So let's take a look at what he sent me shall we? I'll show you the sketch card at the end (eagle-eyed readers may THINK they see the sketch card... but you would NOT be entirely correct...) and THAT will be what makes this post a part of my Halloween countdown!

To at least start us off on a Halloween-y note, I'll show off a couple of the movies he sent me! First up, the Gamera Trilogy, which begins with "Guardian of the Universe" from 1995. I had confessed to Chuck at some point that I was interested in kaiju films and had not yet really... seen... any. So he offered to send me some because that's how he rolls. Godzilla's revenge from 1969 makes this the perfect 1-2 punch of famous giant scaly guys.

MIGHTY BEANZ! I actually ended up giving these to my two sons to play with because they love both Star Wars and Mighty Beanz.

One of my FAVORITE things about this package? All the frikkin' BATTLE BEASTS!!! I had the beaver guy in the front when I was a kid, and he was actually one of my favorites!!! So glad to have another one in my collection! The others are all completely BAD-ASS as well. These are some truly cool Battle Beasts. I mean the frog? The tarsier? And ANY Battle beast with wings was automatically coveted by all when I was a kid. I like his leg hoses. Makes me think of Apocalypse.

Love Batman: The Brave and the Bold so receiving two of those toys really made my day... and the Brainiac is from some version of the Legion of Superheroes, I know, but I confess I'm not sure which version. Just FYI: The bat-s**t crazy concept that the Batmobile could transform into a mecha really pleased me. THAT is what you see crouching there in the middle. THE BATMOBILE.

Next up Marvel! In a way, Agent Coulson is directly responsible for me winning this prize from Chuck and getting me all this cool loot. My absolute favorite pieces in this little lot are the Sentinel and Iceman. But I'm a marvel guy, so I love it all.

Star Wars stuff! Two bobbleheads (technically R2-D2 is a bobble-body but you get the point) and an Angry Birds Star wars X-Wing pilot!

Yoshi in his Kart and the G.I. Joe Combat Heroes Duke notwithstanding, this batch of stuff seems pretty Halloween-y right? We have a Gogo's Crazy Bones minifig that looks like a cobra, a little pitchfork-wielding voodoo doll guy, and a SLUGS Zombies Sawblade Sampson figure (obviously an homage to Ash of Evil Dead). That beautiful ZBot in the center? The one who looks like a Jack-o'-Lantern carbed by H.R. Geiger? His name is "Jawbreaker" and he's from the Burger King set of 5 (of which I now only need 2 more to complete the set!!!)

AND NOW LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... The moment you've all been waiting for! The sketch card that Chuck Pechonick sent me!!! Take a gander:

When I made my request of Chuck, I asked if he could do two characters on the same card. I wanted a nice picture of Sam from Trick R' Treat and Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas interacting in some way. And this was his solution: To heck with it, he'd just do two cards!!! Look at this thing! I love the idea that Sam is visiting Halloweentown and Jack is welcoming him in! I've decided I want to start collecting art from anyone who's interested in doing a similar piece (Sam and Jack together) because before I started requesting this idea (I have approached a couple of other artists as well) I found a disturbing LACK of art featuring these two characters together online. Doesn't it just seem like sort of a no-brainer? Anyway, if I get enough of these collected by next Halloween, I'm going to feature them all October long. I'd love to see these two balancing on a log Calvin & Hobbes-style, or sitting in a diner Norman Rockwell-style. Sam sitting on Jack's shoulders to watch a parade... or menacing terrified children on Christmas Eve! 

So there you have it folks! An incredibly generous package from an incredibly generous guy! Thanks to Charles Pechonick and be sure to check him out on Instagram  and Twitter and check out his site over at Geekshowink.com to see his blog, his art, and other cool stuff!

I'll be back soon with more Graverobbing Goodwill Goodies, so until then, Happy Haunting!

Halloween Day 24: More Brewer Finds

Another trip out to the Brewer Goodwill yielded a much smaller crop of Halloween goodies this time around, but some other great finds were made... so let's see what I brought home! 

At first, I couldn't figure out what these first two items were... and then it dawned on me that they were tiny cactus plants-holders! Someone had long-ago let the cactii die in them, and then donated them to Goodwill. Did NOT matter to me as I was more than willing to remove the remains of the long-gone plants and use these to populate my little Halloween village. The first one here features a skeleton and a gravestone for "Hairy Scary".

I much prefer this one though, featuring an evil tree hugging a terrified jack-o'-lantern. I want a hug too. I bet this guy gives out free hugs all DAY long.

The final genuinely Halloween-y item of this trip was this little ceramic tree complete with ghost and jack-o'-lantern. No cactus remains involved here, just a nice little addition to the Halloween village. 

Still half-in-and-half-out of Halloweentown, we find this copy of the Mad Scientists Club, which is a collection of short stories from the 50's and 60's that originally appeared in "Boys' Life" magazine, featuring the same group of boys each time. A strange sea monster appears on the lake...a fortune is unearthed from an old cannon ...a valuable dinosaur egg is stolen.... don't these all sound at least mildly Halloween-ish? Huh? Huh?

Before George Michael became a bathroom predator he put out some pretty great music. I grabbed a copy of "Faith" on cassette, and a copy of the Top Gun Soundtrack for my cassette collection!

A Mork and Mindy novelization to add to my collection as well! I have a Fotonovel already, and now I have a true chapter book about Mork from Ork!

I have gone on endlessly before about Rick Yancey's novels on the blog before. I already own a copy of this very book in fact, The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp. I loved it. So when I found a copy of the book that is the same SIZE as the other two books in the series, I snapped it up. I actually am kind of vaguely sorry that this kind of symmetry even matters to me... but here we are. Anyway, this story has to do with a loser of a kid who finds himself plunged into a life of danger and intrigue because of a connection to a society descended from the knights of the Roundtable. It's all pretty awesome.

I bought this grab-bag pretty much just for Luigi in his Mario Kart... but let's be honest, I wanted the sailor cat with an eye-patch too, even though I know he's from a PBS Kids show. Cats with eyepatches are cool. I didn't mind bringing home a Battle-Shell Leonardo either, though I don't collect the Battle-Shell figures and would not have bought it on its own. Mike the Knight? I hate. He will be re-donated. Now onto the mega-exciting find of this trip:

Ta-da!!! The Fisher Price Play Family Sesame Street Clubhouse!!! Now... calm down. It had absolutely no accessories or figures along with it, and there were no bags with those in them anywhere in sight. There was only the play-set... but man is that enough for me!!!

Look at the artwork on this thing! Cookie For President? David + Maria? Bert loves pigeons!!!??? YES PLEASE!!! This thing is in desperate need of a cleaning of course... and I will be cleaning it throughly, believe me... but omigosh the FISHER PRICE PLAY FAMILY SESAME STREET CLUBHOUSE!!! This thing came out before they were even calling them "Little People" people!

C.T.W.!!! Oscar Loves Trash!!! The real joy of this thing is in the details on the decals.

And here behind the slide we can see the doors that surround Big Bird's home. Someone added a random bird sticker sometime long ago too. Now I just need to spend the rest of my life tracking down ALL of the Sesame Street little people (well, besides the ones my wife got me along with the other Sesame Street playset she got me for my birthday a while back...) that go with this thing.

Well, that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more Groaning Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 23: More Bangor Finds!

So yet another trip out to the Bangor Goodwill turned up yet more fun and funky Halloween items! (We've been out to Bangor a LOT in the past few weeks because my wife has been doing some Color Runs out there and some other stuff). So let us see what the latest trip out to one of my favorite Goodwills turned up!

First up, I found this wolfman mask that I found to be extremely charming. Its made of some sort of rubbery, cheap foam that really wants to curl n on itself, which made getting a good photograph of the thing difficult. I love this thing though. The color shading, the snout and fangs and ruby red lips... it looks a little more Michael J. Fox's Teen-Wolf than Lon Chaney Jr.'s Wolfman... but that is neither here nor there. As you can see there is a little bit of damage on it, but I don't feel this takes away from the sincerity.

Next up we have this Halloween kitty figure that I bought mainly because I thought my wife would like it, but also because I love Halloween black cat stuff. And this guy is pretty fun.

This candle holder holds one of those MASSIVE three-wick candles and has a  metal spider hanging off the side. How could I pass that up?

In the Halloween section I also found this book-on-tape that I thought would make a nice edition to my flourishing cassette collection. It's called "Creepe Hall" and is a story that sees a normal young man living in a houseful of monstrous family members. As soon as I have something I can actually play my cassette tapes on... I'm giving this thing a listen.

Here's a shot of the cassette tapes inside because I don't know why.

While technically not a Halloween book, I am including Dinosaur Comes to Town in our yearly Halloween reading pile from now on. The animal inhabitants of a small wooded area near a town are all terrified and on the run because a "meat-eating dinosaur" is on its way.

I love the aesthetics of the book, and the design of the dinosaur, which is almost more dragon than anything.

The story is weird and has a surprising ending, which I found funny and I'm sure my kids will like it too.

Apparently Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's Witch saga has 7 books in it, and starts right here with Witch's Sister. You can't have Halloween without witches can you? Actually really looking forward to reading this one. I vaguely remember the book cover from grade school.

Probably my absolute FAVORITE find from this trip is this young-readers novelization of Gremlins. love Love LOVE finding novelizations of awesome 80's flicks for any aged readers.

Spook by Jane Little is a cute little chapter book. Something to read to the kiddos when they get a little older than they are now. It's a book about a dog who belongs to an evil witch, who would much rather own a cat... and his quest to find a home with a little boy who loves him.

And finishing off the Halloween items is this little craft book Homemade Halloween. This is a nice one again for someone who has kids and wants to do some spooky crafts with them. Which I do... and I do.

Drifting on away from Halloweentown, we have a couple of cassettes to add to my collection that are NOT Halloween related. Here we have:

"The Simpsons Sing the Blues" which was a CD I owned as a teen and because it had "The Bartman" and more importantly "Deep Deep Trouble" and MOST importantly, "Look at All Those Idiots!" which is a song I would like to have playing on the P.A. system at my place of employment on a loop.

And next we have Bruce Willis's "The Return of Bruno" which has the song "Respect Yourself" included. If you can see the picture of Bruce Willis on the right side of the liner card there... you basically know everything you need to know about this cassette and why I bought it. I swore I wouldn't buy anything ironically for this collection of cassettes. Only things I genuinely love. I can't say I genuinely love the songs on this cassette... but I can say that I genuinely love that it exists. Look at that man. Just look at him. He's so ridiculously happy.

And finally, I found myself a copy of the novelization for War Games! This was a pretty genuinely exciting find to make. As heavily as this film is referenced in Ernest Cline's book, Ready Player One, it can't help but have bloomed anew in my heart with all new levels of nostalgic love.

So there you have it folks! I'll be back soon with more Goosebumpy Goodwill Goodies. So until then, Happy Hunting!