Random Handful of Goodwill Goodies: 80's Kid's Books

Today's Random Handful of Goodwill Goodies is all about kids' books. BUT WAIT! There's some really cool ones in here, so even if you'd normally click away when you see I'm just doing a big weird post about kid's books... hang around for a while, okay? Almost every single one of these books is based on an 80's property, or was published back in the 80's. 

Let me get the obligatory Sesame Street book out of the way. This one's pretty rad though. It's a book of Sign Language ABC with Linda Bove!!! When I was a kid I was completely in love with Linda on Sesame Street and the fact that she was deaf and spoke in sign language only made her seem cooler to little me. I remember this book from somewhere, probably school. I found it not at Goodwill, but for .50 cents at Bull Moose in Bangor, ME. 

Next up, a trio of exciting Hollywood adventures! These books and all the books to follow were indeed found at Goodwill, for .99 cents. Benji and the Tornado, Gremlins: A New Friend, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: The Mummy's Curse. I was most excited to find the Gremlins picture book, but Young Indy ain't no slouch either. Benji I used to watch a lot as a kid, so  it gives me warm and fuzzies.  

Here we have a Who Framed Roger Rabbit book, detailing a very abridged version of the movie's plot. Then, I found this Muppet Babies McDonald's premium book featuring baby Fozzie and Kermit. There were at least two other books in the series given out with Happy Meals. This one is all about how Fozzie wants to make Kermit into a frog-skin suit he can have Kermit all to himself. I guess. I haven't read it yet. The ALF book is from the animated series, detailing his adventures on his home planet of Melmac. Pretty awesome!

All right! Now we're into the Good Stuff! You can tell because the pictures are solo shots. Here we have a G.I. Joe book titled Operation Star Fight. The art in this book, done by Earl Norem, is phenomenal. It's pretty violent by Joes standards too. It looks like folks are actually taking bullets. The story's not much to talk about (Cobra tries to hijack a space shuttle. It goes about as well as anything Cobra tries to do.) This is a sweet looking book though.

The Real Ghostbusters: The Haunted Castle is nothing amazing to write home about. I'm mostly just excited that I now own a Real Ghostbusters storybook. This tiny little book is about as long as a novel, so it doesn't make for great bedtime reading... It's weird that most 80's books have this same problem. It's like they didn't even take into account that most kids have an attention span of about 40 seconds, give or take depending if there's candy in the room. Fun little piece of nostalgia. 

One of the MOST exciting kid's book finds in recent memory is this Thundercats book, Lion-O Walks the Plank! I haven't read this one yet either, but I have to beg the question: How does one walk the plank into the vacuum of space? Aren't they in like... outer space up there in that picture right now? How is that happening? All kidding aside though, I'm stoked (yep, stoked) to own this book.

Aaargh! I published this post without writing anything about this tiny little TMNT book! It's pretty great, but much like the Real ghostbusters book above, it's TOO LONG to read to my little guys. Maybe when they're older... until then I'll just hang on to it for them in the cave...

I guess Isaac Asimov must have been into like, science or something. This is not the first kid's science book I've found written by him. There was that "Did Comets Kill the Dinosaurs?" book I found back in August LAST year... (Spooky!) There are no Robots gaining self-awareness in either of these books. It's kind of a bummer. 

Hey! Here's a Q*Bert book! It has nothing whatsoever to do with the animated series either, which I found pretty refreshing. So no villains dressed up as a greaser/biker gang, and no malt shops or letter-jackets for Q*Bert. 

In fact, all of Q*Bert's dialogue is written in code that you decipher using the phrase key at the beginning of the book. The whole thing pretty much just tells a story to explain what the hell is going on when you play Q*Bert. I like how the picture on the cover is in the shape of a Q. This is deep stuff here people.

You didn't think I'd do a whole post about kid's books and not have at least ONE Little Golden book did you? This here's a Tom and Jerry LGB. They... have a party apparently. Looks fun, albeit most likely highly unsanitary. I love finding older properties like this. Even though the copyright on the story is 1955, this book was still published in the 80's as the coupon for 15 cents off another Golden book in the back of the book has a copyright of 1982. 

This is one of those pretty standard, generic books about monsters that talks about all the different categories, from old mythology, to current legends and cryptozoology, to monsters of the movies, and the "possible" monsters that aliens could potentially be. The artwork and text are all incredibly cheesy and enjoyable. This is the exact kind of flashlight-under-the-covers kind of book I would have checked out from the school library for six weeks in a row as a wee lad. 

Nyah-ha! I slipped ANOTHER Sesame Street book in here!!! This one's about The Wanted criminal known as the Great Cookie Thief. It plays out like a classic Sesame Street comedy sketch from the show, and it's all western themed. I'm cheating a little bit here as this book is actually from 1977. But it's classic Sesame Street! And by classic I mean the awesome stuff they used to do back in the day before it all started being about Elmo's goldfish. 

Well 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. 

Goodwill Finds: Something Personal

Goodwill is of course a donations based operation, so the items you are buying from them are second-hand, as in they once belonged to someone else, odds being in the favor of complete strangers.

When I shop there, I'm pretty careful about checking items over for damage. I miss things from time to time, like the last few pages missing out of a Finding Nemo Little Golden Book that just broke my heart. I'm also looking to make sure pages haven't been colored on with crayon, or covered in stickers, etc.

I'm fine with books given inscriptions. I like the idea of books being handed from one person to another, and the history of that being recorded in the book. Gifts for kids, for girlfriends, for graduates, or for whatever.

Occasionally though, I find things written in books, or left behind in them that gives me pause. It lets me look into the life of a complete stranger in a way that feels like a little treasure all on its own.

For example, I picked up this copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night at the Belfast, ME Goodwill for .99 cents. It's bigger than it looks, more of a trade paperback than a "pocket" size. I picked it up for a handful of reasons. First, I just really like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and I've never read another one of his books. Second, I love the look of the book and its cover. It has this great old-style feel to it, and indeed, this copy was printed in 1962. The pages are rough and yellowed with age, and the cover has this art-house feel to it I just really dig on. But what really sold me on the book was this:

When you open the front cover you find a handful of someone's notes. Interpretations of the text. Notes for an essay, or from class. I love this sort of thing. It gives me insight into someone else's experience with this book. You can see a lot of psycho-babble about incest and bloody bedspreads scribbled here, and what various actions and images in the book do to help build themes throughout the book. It also turns this book into something more of an artifact for me. A piece of human history. 

That's not even the best example of what I'm talking about though, because then there's this: 

It should be fairly obvious why I picked up this book. It's a collected edition of the YA novelizations of the first three Indiana Jones movies. I do actually plan on reading this to see how they are, though my hopes are not exactly sky high. Movie novelizations don't usually do much for me. But I mainly bought it with dreams of reading it to or with my sons someday to get them hooked on Indiana Jones as well. I picked this up NOT at a Goodwill believe it or not, but at a little thrift store called Nice Twice. I paid 1.99 for it. And when I got it home, I discovered I had not only bought a book, but a...

Bookmark! You remember these, right? These came free with a lot of school book orders, and so were given out by teachers as rewards in class, or by librarians... or whatever. They came in perforated sheets of like, 8 or 12 bookmarks, and they had cartoon characters, or sports stuff on them, like the one above. This one is a motivational phrase that I happen to agree with: "You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take" Which is a fancy way of saying, if you don't try, you fail by default. It's when you flip over this cheap cardboard tchotchke that the real magic appears though: 

Apparently this bookmark was given by someone named Javen... to someone also named Javen... which seems like it's either a fantastically incalculable coincidence... or he just gifted it to himself. And if I may take some liberties and interpret his art work, I would assume that the smiling stick figure on the left is meant to be Javen himself, as the packages being dropped by the helicopter above have initials beginning with J on them. And I will assume that the speech bubble containing "TY" is meant to be a thank you. It is night. And what's happening to stick figure on the far right is anyone's guess. But I'm assuming the helicopter may be using the gun turret on its front to "stick 'em up" or... stick figure #2 is simply trying to get helicopter's attention. Not sure. 

But do you remember those boring afternoons in class when all you had to get you through math at the end of the day was doodle in your notebook, or (God help you) in the margins of your textbook? Or on a crappy bookmark that told you not be be such a whiny Quitter McQuitterson? 

I sure as hell do. Which is what makes this item so cool. It's still stuck right in that book, and until I start sharing this book with my kids, that's right where it will stay. These are just some of the weird little scraps of human ephemera you are exposed to when you buy your geekiness second-hand. 

That's it for today folks! I'll be back soon with some more Goodill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

Imaginext Jungle... Found in the Wild: Kids Go Without in the Interest of Geekiness

So here's a Goodwill find I made shortly before Christmas. It's the Imaginext Gorilla Mountain Playset. It was found for 1.99 completely sans accessories. 

Aaaand... full disclosure my original plan was to give it to my boys to play with. But as I was scrubbing the thing down (I may love Goodwill but I don't love the filth that can sometimes be found on the things you buy from Goodwill. I want to bring geekiness home... not cholera.) I started to have second thoughts. 

I had an idea... since I've moved into the new house, and I set up the cave, I haven't had room to display my Indiana Jones Adventure Hero figures. They're cute versions of almost all the important characters (The only really major omissions being the villain Toht from Raiders and ally Marcus Brody) from the 4 movies. 

The more I looked at this playset... the more I realized I was going to keep it to do this: 

There... that's better.

I'm pretty happy with it, overall. I even stuck a few other critters and characters in there for flavor. 

Pay-Day Friday 10-28 Part 3 (The Final Chapter)

No idea why I felt it should take me two weeks to post about the stuff I bought last Payday Friday (Payday Friday came and went this weekend with NO trip to Goodwill... I'm slipping... but I did buy some stuff, and do some stuff, that I'll post about soon...) but this is the third and final installment detailing that trip to Goodwill. 

First up is this Scooby-Doo Trick or Treat pail. I know it's not terribly remarkable, in and of itself, but it was the last one I needed to complete my set of 3 and I paid .99 cents for it instead of having to pay Happy Meal prices for it... and since it was the first one out in our area, I couldn't have gotten it any other way. So... I was pretty pleased to find it donated to Goodwill so soon after it was released. 

See the rest of the last after the jump!

Back to School!

I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what I was going to write for this week's League of Extraordinary Bloggers assignment.

Summer’s over, it’s time to go back to school! (Interpret it as you will.)

Gravedale High fanart by Makinita on Deviantart

Then I thought... hmmm... it's been a long time since I've gone to school. If I were to go to school nowadays, WHO would I like my teaching faculty to be comprised of?

See my staff after the jump!

What was brewing in Brewer

So I need to just go ahead and tell you about my trip to Brewer, ME a few weeks back already. Things are still crazy at my place, with the moving, and painting, and trying to get everything settled for three kids, but I need to just sit down and do it already. If I keep teasing it, you guys are going to think there was some miraculous discovery that cured cancer in that store... and believe me, there wasn't. There were, again, a handful of items that I found that were pretty cool, but that I am saving for my countdown to Halloween come October. But that only accounts for like... three things. 

So... I'll kick it off with some books, and I'll move into the toys. 

This was a neat little book of fable/riddles to read and try to figure out. I'm a sucker for logic puzzles, and a sucker for folktales and mythology... so this was a no-brainer. Probably the least exciting thing I picked up, depending on your interests. Got this for .99 cents. 

See the rest after the jump!

Goodwill Trip: Bangor Store

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I went to Bangor and Brewer ME this past weekend to go school shopping with my family. While there, I made sure to stop into the Goodwills in both of those towns. Today I'm going to share with you some of the things I found in the Bangor store, none of which were jaw-droppingly amazing or anything, but there was one toy in particular that made my day.

I'll post the stuff I found at the Brewer store some other day coming up.

But for now: Bangor. I'll start with the books. There's always books.

More details after the jump!