Random Buys of a Random Guy: Old toys!!!

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 February 12th, 2014.

Just a quick post to show off some vintage finds I made at Goodwill over the past weekend: 

I think I paid a total of 5 dollars for the three items you see here, and I was pretty happy to find all three. Let's take a closer look, shall we? 

First up was a pile of girly-girl stuff for my wife. A grab-bag of vintage Barbie clothes (which included the pair of baby My Little Ponies) and a vintage Strawberry Shortcake trolley. My wife's not huge into collecting vintage toys, so I may even end up passing these all along to a good home. I especially found the Ken-Doll Cosby sweater in the bottom left corner to be hilarious. The whole pile was pretty ridiculous though. 

First up, is this See 'N Say from Mattel. I was all agog when I saw the date stamp on the back said 1964. So I was a little disappointed when I saw the date on the large animal sticker running around the front of the toy said 1978. I don't typically make my old toy purchases based on age or value, I just buy stuff I like, or that bring me back to childhood, or that I think someone else might like. But the idea of this See N' Say being from the 60's really did get me excited. But still, it being from 1978 was pretty awesome too (I was born that year so... it was a good year). Then I noticed the copyright on the Zoo Keeper sticker in the center had 1983 on it. Sigh. I still smiled when I bought it. I actually had one of these as a kid, and THAT was why I wanted it anyway. 

Next up is this Fisher-Price Fire Engine which looks like it has a little person sitting in the front, but really just has a head attached. I've seen these for sale in antique shops in MUCH better shape... but I really love the look of this thing, and don't mind how beat up it looks. The ladder is missing, but the wild shoestring hose is still attached! This little guy is from 1968. And finally, drum-roll please...

A Fisher-Price Kermit THE Frog hand-puppet from 1978 (again... a good year). I've stuffed his head full of tissues to keep it from crumpling for display purposes, and honestly, it sketches me out a little bit sticking my hand in a hand-puppet that is 35 years old (it FEELS sketchy) but it was the item I was most excited to find. Now when I sing karaoke in my best Kermit impression, I can have a Kermit puppet to lip-synch with. (This is not a joke. It is something I actually do. I once did a version of the Carpenters' "Close to You" as Kermit the frog at my company picnic. I followed it up the next year by singing Dolly Parton's and Kenny Rogers' "Islands in the Stream" as both Kermit AND Piggy... I'm not bragging... but it was a pretty epic performance. Let's just leave it at that.) 

ANWAY! That's it for tonight kids! I've got some Valentine's Day goodies that arrived in the mail courtesy of Tommy Day over at Top Hat Sasquatch that I want to share tomorrow... And I'm currently working on a MASSIVE post about Scooby-Doo... but for now, this is all you get. Keep your peepers peeled here for more randomly random randmoness!

Random Buys of a Random Guy: Murder, She Wrote the Game???

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 31st, 2014.

So even though the blog is no longer Goodwill-centric, (Ha ha ha! Goodwill Geek, you ignorant fool!) I definitely plan on continuing to showcase the many finds and buys I've made there. Today's post focuses mainly on this beauty:

I like how it's billed as a game of strategy and PURSUIT,
and then you see the murderer running in the back, gun in hand,
while Jessica just toddles towards us smiling vacantly in the foreground.

Murder She Wrote, the Board Game!!! This beautiful boardgame is circa 1985 and stars Jessica Fletcher out-wiling a murderer. I was going to make a joke about her catching a killer who's gone off the deep end while simultaneously trying not to leak through her Depends... but making fun of elderly incontinence is just low-hanging fruit, insensitive... and I will not stoop so low. I am however tucking a "Taking a bite out of crime" dentures/Poligrip joke in my back pocket for later, so keep our eyes peeled for that. 

As a kid I remember reading a spoof of Murder, She Wrote in MAD Magazine. At the end of the spoof they take Jessica into police custody because it's glaringly obvious that everywhere this woman goes, someone gets murdered and she's prime suspect number one. In retrospect I wonder why people didn't make this connection on the show more often. Even if the police didn't have the evidence to arrest her, I don't think anyone would be inviting Jessica Fletcher out to their island resort. Murder follows her around like old people smell. 

Here's a shot of the game board, which is nicely illustrated and colorful. They did a pretty good job with this one. M,SW was so ubiquitous when I was a kid it felt like it was on for a solid block of six straight hours during day-time TV. Or maybe that's just because it was in a block with Matlock and I get the two confused. 

I have no idea if this game is "complete" or not, but it looks to be pretty close. I see copies of this game up on eBay and Etsy for around 25-30 dollars. So I feel like the 1.99 I paid for it was a pretty good deal. This is just one of those finds that you can't turn your nose up at, whether you're a fan of Murder, She Wrote, or not. Just the sheer weird factor alone was enough to make me pick this up. Actually... now that I think about it... maybe I shouldn't have picked this up. Maybe even just having a game with Jessica Fletcher represented in it is enough to put me in danger...?

You're going to be quite dead, you know.

That's it for tonight folks! I'll be back soon with more random stuff, so keep your eyes peeled here!