League of Extraordinary Bloggers: ROBOTS

DANGER!!! DANGER!!! It is time for another edition of League Extraordinary Bloggers! That's what happens when I submit late on one week and then early the next!

What's the topic this time around? 

ROBOTS

As with many of Brian's one-word themed topics, I started off by scouring the cave for any signs of robots in my various collections. Here's what I turned up at first: 

First up my meager collection of McDonald's themed food-transforming-robots from 1989. I won't go into what all of their names are, as I plan on exploring my McDonald's Happy Meal toy collection at a future date... but here they are. Some of these I got back in February in a Goodwill grab-bag for 2.99. The rest I either got from my brother-in-law, or bought from Brian over at Cool and Collected!

Here are most of the Transformer toys I own. A slew of Optimus Prime toys and then a set of Hasbro Robot Heroes mini-figs. You may notice in the crowd a bubble-bath bottle Optimus Prime, a Happy Meal toy Optimus Prime, a pair of Rescue Bots figures (O.P. and Bumblebee), a Mighty Mugg Optimus Prime, and a Beast Wars Quickstrike toy in the back. I was a HUGE fan of all the Hasbro Heroes lines when those were still selling (Robot Heroes, Combat Heroes, Adventure Heroes, Galactic Heroes, and Super Hero Squad) and was crushed when the discontinued a line without releasing a classic Ratchet figure. 

Finally, here's my Galaxy Force Star-Scream, which I featured last September. I absolutely adore him. I picked him up at the Brewer, ME Goodwill for a total steal. 

Here's my collection of wind-up vintage-repro robots and a few other miscellaneous generic robots. Anyone know who the loose torso belongs to (second on the left)? None of these are vintage but a few of them look it. I love the old-style feel that many of these guys have. A bunch of these were actually gifts from my wife. Others were just random buys that struck my fancy. 

Here are some of the robots I had to dig around for... a random assortment of Heroscape Robot figurines, a couple of Astroboy figures, a mutant killing Sentinel, General Grievous and a Fisher-Price Adventure People X-Ray Man whom I have always believed was supposed to be a translucent android due to the panel on his chest. 

And here? Here is EVERYONE else. Rolie-Polie-Olie, the giant robot from Monsters vs. Aliens, Ultron and Vision, Sparks, Fugitoid, a Sigma Six Sky-B.A.T. (sans wings, which I prefer), Roboto, C3PO and R2D2, IG-88, Red Tornado, a WALL-E action figure, an EVE PEZ dispenser, Voltron, Robot Chicken, and not ONE but TWO Metal-Heads!!! (Plus one little blur bubble-gum dispenser robot guy with no name that I know of...) I got these from so many different sources I can't even begin to tell you, but some of them definitely came from Goodwill, others from Toys R Us, a bunch others from other secondary market sources. 

I THOUGHT that  this was all the cave would yield to me for robots... but I hadn't counted on books AT ALL. I didn't comb through EVERY book I own that has robots in it, because that would have taken forever... but I remembered one very special purchase I had made a Goodwill the weekend before Father's day. This:

What does a Donny and Marie Little Golden Book have to do with Robots you may ask? (Why does a Donny and Marie Little Golden book exist at all the rest of you may ask?) Well, let us take a look inside and we shall just see: 

 Seems that Donny has a Top Secret project brewing. What is it? Well, obviously, the Osmonds are the founders of Cyberdyne Systems because DONNY IS BUILDING A STRAIGHT UP TERMINATOR.

Except his building skills are for S**T. So what does Marie do? She shows him up like he's her bitch. 

Then it's revealed that Marie did not in fact build a Terminator of her own, she simply turned their younger brother Jimmy Osmond into a Six-Million Dollar Borg-slave. 

So that is the width and breadth of the ROBOT contents of my Geek Cave. Let's see what the other members of the League have built in their robot shops: 

- Over at the Nerd Nook, Rich counts down his top 10 favorite Pop-Culture robots.

- Shawn Robare over at Branded in the 80's shares with us the sordid Hollywood secret of the bastard child of Star Wars' C3PO and Metropolis's Maria... forced to shill VCRs back in the 80's. Yes that is a sentence I just typed.

- Jamie at Whatever I Think Of! features Hymie from Get Smart.

- Vikki Verka features some favorite kaiju fighting mechas.

- Charles over at Geek Show Ink features an excellent TOMY wind-up robot that he used as a muse...

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

Hake's Shopping Spree (Redux)

So the topic this week for the League is a pretty fun one:

Go on a fictional shopping spree at Hake’s current auction #209 

to make your collection a little more amazing.

This is not the first time the League has gone shopping at Hake's, but it's my first time taking a look around. Let's see what they've got to set my mouth a-drooling shall we?

Oooh... check out this 1982 Indiana Jones action figure from Kenner! Sweet pete that's a fine looking item! I am a huge Indiana Jones fan, and would love to own this fine piece of nostalgic memorabilia. 

I have never seen or read a single thing to do with Astro Boy. But I love the simplistic design and iconic look of the character, and I own more than a couple of toys based on the character already. This die-cast metal and plastic action figure from the 70's is AMAZING. 

These two DC playsets come as a packaged deal. From 1966, these were Sears exclusive sets. With villains like The Key, Brainstorm, and Mouse Man facing off against icons like Batman and the Joker, who can go wrong? Look at those vehicles! Look at that robot!!!

This button is from 1966 and is a "satirical anti-war button". I would happily pin this into the ceiling of my car, with all my other buttons.  

A "Life-sized" bust of Jack-Skellington? Yes please. The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my all-time favorite films, and Jack Skellington is a one of the essential Halloween Spirits in my mind. 

Love the look and feel of these old Buck Rogers pop-up adventures. Look at the color! Look at the creatures! Awesome. Completely awesome. I have a reproduction greeting card of this cover somewhere in my collection, but would love to own the original pop-up book!

I don't know what it is about this Frank Buck's Adventurer's Club Black Leopard Head ring but I find it whimsical and bad-ass at the same time. WANT. I guess the fact that it's from an old radio show sponsored by Pepsodent should deter me... but it does not. 

Actually, I think I want to start a collection of vintage, collectible, promotional rings. This Captain Marvel Rocket Raider Compass ring is pure sex. Look at it. I want to buy ten of these awesome old-style rings and wear them like the Mandarin. 

Okay, so I won't dedicate ALL the rest of this post to just rings... but I had to squeeze this last one in. IT'S A SIREN!!! A Rocket Space Patrol Siren Ring to be exact. 

This set of Nightmare Before Christmas: Lock, Shock, and Barrel masks are amazing, and would look stunning hanging on my wall. 

This psychedelic eye-in-a-flower PEZ dispensor will top off my purchase, thank you very much. It is too twisted to pass up on, as I am a PEZ nut. 

So... now let's see what the other members of the League got in their "Hake-Takes":

- Shezcrafti dreams of the crap she'd buy if she wasn't broke. 

- Shawn Robare of Branded in the 80's wants to face the Infaceables... 

- The Trash Man over at POP POP! It's Trash Culture wants a Mecha Gorilla that I actually considered putting on my list as well. 

- G.I. Jigsaw makes some excellent choices in his first-ever League post! Welcome to the League!

Well, that's it for me... for now... but I'll be back very soon with some Genuine Geeky Goodwill Goodies! A whole flood of stuff should be on its way once I get motivated enough to post it. 

The 2.99 Bag of Wonders

So here's one of the most exciting things about Goodwill: Once upon a time you had to rummage through a big bin of old Happy Meal toy refugees, and play-set cast-offs, and cereal premiums, and quarter machine detritus and pay up to .99 cents a piece for each item. No longer. Goodwill dispensed with the old rummage bins because there was a lot of crap that people just weren't buying. Like Country Bears toys, among other horrible items. So what was the solution? Grab bags! Clear plastic grab bags filled with random goodies that you might, or might not, want. The beauty of these bags is that they almost always have a couple of fun items in them, and they are usually priced anywhere from .99 cents to 2.99 for the whole bag. When I've picked out the other stuff I don't want, I just re-donate them... because who knows, maybe someone out there actually collects those Madame Alexander Happy Meal dolls. (If you do, it's okay... and I'll be sure to send them right back to Goodwill so you can find them, right after I cherry-pick all the Spider-Man and Star Wars figures)

So on a recent trip to the Belfast, ME Goodwill I found the following items in just such a grab bag. The price was 2.99 for the whole lot, and the bag looked like it had been put together for me specifically:

More details after the jump!