Goodwill Finds from Last June???

Wow. I am just getting further and further behind in my blogging. Maybe I'll have all this posted and shared with you guys before it's time for me to hit the holiday season and get behind all over again. This is a pile of stuff I brought back from Goodwill in June of last year, and it may be a bit anti-climactic after the last post touring the Geek Cave... But let's take a look anyway! 

My movie novelization collection continues to grow as I add things like Benji to the mix. Apparently Benji's adventures are not only heroic... they're spooky too! I distinctly remember being expected to enjoy Benji movies when I was a kid. But really I only kind of cared about them in a very general "I'm a kid so I-guess-a-movie-about-a-dog's-adventures-are-okay-at-least-it's-not-sports-again" kind of way. 

I've thought this series looked interesting for a while, so I thought I'd pick up the first book in the series. Picked it up LAST JUNE. Still haven't read it yet. Sigh.

I TOTALLY FORGOT about the TV special starring Puff the Magic Dragon!!! So this adaptation of it into book form (with a TON of stills from the show) was a real blast from the past. REALLY bizarre deja-vu nostalgia from this one, I tell you. The whole thing is available on youtube if you want to track it down.

This was a genuinely exciting find for me. A storybook by Gary Larson of "The Far Side" fame! There's a Hair in My Dirt! is a ridiculously unromantic take on fairy tale tropes that injects a healthy (or in some cases extremely UNhealthy) dose of both science and (dark) humor into the proceedings. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for any fans of Larson's work out there.

Look at this amazing toy! This is a beautiful piece, and was put out by the fine folks at Illco once again. I believe this is meant to be a version of Oscar's "Sloppy Jalopy" which went through several different face-lifts on the show over the years. There is no date on the toy, but researching similar toys on the Muppet wiki tells me this was probably produced somewhere between 1988 to 1992.

Found this Donatello TY Beanie Ball for .99 cents and let my son have it because Donatello is his absolute favorite.

This book looked interesting. It's a sort of catalogue for obsessions. There's a whole collection of things for people to geek out about. I was kind of hoping it was going to be an exploration similar to Shari Caudron's book Who Are You People? which I found endlessly entertaining, even when she was talking about fans of Josh Groban, messenger pigeon trainers, and competitive ice fishermen. This is a bit more dry, but still fun to flip through.

A Choose Your Own Adventure book about The Haunted House? Uh... yes!!! This is designed for younger readers than the typical CYOA, sure, but that doesn't make it look any less fun! R.A. Montgomery, you are missed!

I'm a little less excited about my find of this "Ghost Dad" Novelization this year than I was last year... but hey! Cheesy 90's supernatural family comedies... right?

And finally... THIS. A "Rover Dangerfield" frame-tray puzzle from the merchandising STORM that was the 1991 film of the same name. This has got to be one of the weirdest and most wondrous things I have ever found at Goodwill (maybe not but I'm in a good mood).

That's it for tonight kids! Hope you enjoyed this look back in time to last summer! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Grab-Bags from Brewer: Loads of Old Toys!!!

Welcome! I know one of my favorite things to find and then write about here on Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks is TOYS. And this post is HEAVY with TOYS. I found a couple of pretty decent Grab-Bags just a few months back at the Goodwill in Brewer, ME, and I wanted to take a minute to paw through them with you and discuss their contents. There were some cassettes that came home that day too, so I'll be sharing them as well. Let's dig in!

First up, this guy was loose on his own. He was produced by Imperial Toys back in 1983. I've been having some great luck finding fun Imperial figures like this one at Goodwill lately!

Next up a couple of AWESOME 80's soundtrack cassettes!!! First the Ghostbusters Original Soundtrack and then The Miami Vice soundtrack! Both of these made me incredibly happy to find. I LOVE how Crockett and Tubbs are GLOWING.

These three "Oliver and Company" finger puppets were in a separate grab-bag of their own. This was officially known as a BIG DEAL to me. I have owned an Oliver puppet for what seems like forever... an EXTRA Olver puppet in fact, because I made another one of them into a Christmas ornament for my wife. I also already own the Bulldog... but never have I ever found the poodle, Georgette or Dodger, the dog mentor to Oliver in the movie. So now I have the complete set of 4 characters. I also have a Tito pull-back toy that is not from this particular set of premiums.

I should also mention that I have never seen Oliver and Company in my life... so I have no idea why I should care so much about these toys... but I do. My wife loves the songs from the film because she used to watch a Disney sing-along VHS when she was a kid that had a few songs and scenes from this movie in it. BUT I AM SO SATISFIED that I now own a complete set of these finger puppets.

I can't help how I am.

All right! So now let's dig into the first of the two big Grab-Bags I brought home from this particular trip to Goodwill. Here's a shot of everything from grab-bag number 1, all piled together. But let us take a closer look... shall we?

First an assortment of PVC character figures. From left to right we have a Sahmu figurine,  couple of Richard Scarry's Busytown folks, a semi-generic teddybear playing football of the kind you might pick up at the Hallmark store back in the 80's, a Hushpuppy figure from Lambchop, and a figurine from something called "Gallavants" from back in the mid-80's. I think I was most excited about the Shamu figure and the pig driving the pickle.

Here we have double Scorpions facing off with double Rufios. I think Rufio wins one of these battles... but then dies in the other one "Zero-Hour-Green-Arrow-Style". I was actually PSYCHED to own a Rufio toy though.

These are my yellow toys. Again left to right, we have a Mr. Happy from the Mr. Men PVC series, a vintage fruit-people pencil topper from the 70's and a Hawaiian Punch figure from the Hawaiian Punch board game from 1978. These three little guys are some of my absolute FAVORITE items from this particular Goodwill haul.

Next up we have a "Snaps" toy from the Burger King Kids club, Papa Bear from the Berry Bears, a fruit-snack brand from the 80's, and a rollerskate that was also from the Burger King Kids club, and originally had the athletic girl, "Boomer" sitting in it.

This trio of beautiful rodent ladies include a Gadget McDonald's Happy Meal toy from 1989 (which I had a complete set of as a kid... along with a weird little crush on Gadget...), a Brittany from the Chipettes Happy Meal toy from 1990, and a Gadget cereal premium from 1991 (In pretty rough shape. Good thing I already had one of these.)

This is a Beaver from the Hub Bubs line put out by Mattel back in 1975. This chipper little fella clicked into his playset and then with the turn of a crank, he and his fellow Hub Bubs (all living in Happy Hollow) would move their arms or bodies and miic doing work. Mr. Beaver her has a big white pressure plate/button/thing sticking out of his bottom that you push to make him move his hammer.

This little (ahem) nugget I have been able to find nearly NOTHING about. Obviously it was a premium from Louis Rich chicken nuggets... but that's all I can figure out. But I kind of love that this thing is so mysterious. Featuring a "Nugget Dude cave-dude" there was a free translucent dinosaur to be had in this prize pack! I almost feel guilty not popping it open, but I gotta say I honestly I kind of like the package as a whole here, dino, cave-dude, cellophane and all.

There was a random pile of toy cars mixed in, including a set of old firetrucks, some stock cars, a Humvee, and some Hotwheels McDonald's Happy Meal toys. Two of them are cars with some bite! Now let's see what was hiding in that SECOND grab-bag shall we? We're already doing pretty well with this first one after all.

This mound of toys is slightly smaller than the first, but you can already spot a few exciting pieces in there I bet!

First up a couple of action figures, first up we have a Triceraton from the old TMNT line. This one is missing all of his accessories, and sadly his tail as well... but I will still toss him up on the shelf to display regardless of this fact.  And we have Batman in some sort of orange overcoat. I think the orange coat piece is from a different action figure unfortunately. One that transforms from Bruce Wayne into a weird orange-suited Batman. Putting it on this Batman is just a cruel joke. That's why I kind of love it.

Random toy furniture! Genie box, fruit juice machine, and TV featuring Sonic the-- Wait... Genie box!?

It's Jambi from Pee-Wee's Playhouse! The one from the Grab-Bag is on the right. It is a legit, real-deal vintage toy from the old playsets. The one on the left is the one I bought when they put out the reproductions around 2002 or so. Looking at them side by side like this you can really see some glaring inconsistencies... but I still think they did a good job on the repros.

A wild pack of Animaniacs toys. I wish I had found the Pinky and the Brain toy... or the Mindy and Buttons toy... those were my favorite segments on Animaniacs. Well, those and the "Good Idea... Bad Idea" segments (ie. Good Idea: feeding kittens in the park. Bad Idea: Feeding kittens in the park... to a BEAR.)

One Definitely Dinosaur Happy Meal toy (I definitely had a handful of those as a kid. The Happy Meal versions at least) and a couple of rubber alligators produced in very different styles.

HEre we have Lisa Simpson who is actually supposed to be a giant version of herself, but without the base she originally came with it's hard to tell that. She is the "Incredible Growing Girl" here, from an episode of the Treehouse of Terror (or at least a Halloween character, which Burger King and the Simpsons have teamed up to do several times) and the base she comes with originally is a drive-in movie theater with parked cars. Lisa is munching on the remains of the snack bar there in her hand. The other, portly fellow is a Dog Catcher from the Pound Puppies cartoon. I don't really have much to say about this guy honestly... but it's neat that he was in there!

I'm going to end with this devilish fellow. I had no idea what it was at first, and was really and truly enchanted and intrigued. But with a bit of internet digging I discovered that this is in fact a Loch Nerf Monster from 1983. They originally came in blue, orange and the magenta color you see above, and they had painted-on eyes. The eyes on this one have come completely off over the years, but his charm remains nonetheless. I love the fact that Nerf made some sort of devil creature for children to play with in the tub back in the 80's. THIS is another of my absolute favorite items from this particular trip to Goodwill. 

So here's the whole pile as it was when I got it home. Three grab-bags, two cassettes, and and dragon! Not bad at all if I do say o myself!

A Package from John Gaither

Today's post is yet another horribly overdue post where I've waited MUCH too long to thank someone for sending me an AMAZING package of goodies. Today I'd like to focus on one of the absolute nicest guys you'll meet on the internet: A fellow who goes by the name of John Gaither. John also runs the Robot Monster Space Super Hero blog, where he features the AMAZING assortment of toys in his vast collection. 

I'll blather on and sing John's praises later on in this post, but for now I want to give you all a look-see at what he sent me! 

Here we have a carded "Willy Du Witt" of the Bucky O'Hare toy line. I almost ALMOST popped this little guy out of his prison to play with, but I Still haven't quite done it yet. Usually I am a "I put the PLAY in DISPLAY" kind of collector, and I always open everything... but Willy here is still stuck to his card and I can't bring myself to change that just yet. The packaging here is almost as great as the action figure itself!

Here's a look at the back of the card too.

John also included a couple of the villains from the line, the first of which is this squat, ugly little guy, Toad Air Marshall. He looks like he'd like to be chomping on a stogie right now.

And then this "Toad-Borg" is a menacing son-of-a-mother ain't he?

This fella's not a Bucky O'Hare figure, but a "Walkabout" action figure from the TMNT line. He even has his little sidekick buddy, "Kid Kanga!" This Walkabout is in MUCH better shape than the one I had found in the Bin of Awesome I bought this same summer, and he comes with his buddy, so I swapped him out for the one I already had.

These guys were some of the only GUTS figures I owned as a kid, so it was trippy seeing them again! I had all but forgotten this toy line! I had some of the ninjas too.

What HAS to be the piece de resistance however is this guy right here!!! This is No-Zone of the Toxic Crusaders! He was an absolute favorite action figure of mine in the final years of my action figure phase as a kid. All the Toxic Crusader figures were amazing actually, but No-Zone was by far one of my favorites. THIS item right here folks... this is the one that made me let out a laugh of surprise and delight! The whole package was great, but this guy made me feel 12 years old again.

So that wraps it up folks! I can't thank the awesome John Gaither enough for thinking of me and sending this great package of goodies! I have to say that John is probably one of the nicest and supportive guys I've met online while writing this blog. He is one of the best examples of how great our community of geeks and nerds and toy collectors and pop culture enthusiasts can be. He always has a kind word to say about whatever anyone has to share, and he is jut the BIGGEST kid when it comes to being excited about toys. Be sure to check out his blog, and follow him on Instagram as well!

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies (they will ACTUALLY be from Goodwill next time!) so until then... Happy Hunting!

Rock Lords! An Off-the-Wall Post About Some Off-the-Wall Toys

Hey there everybody! For a change, I'm going to actually talk about something I didn't buy while out thrifting, but instead something I picked up on eBay. Normally I stay away from eBay talk on here, but I just love this topic sooo much I couldn't resist. 

ROCK LORDS!!! 

When I was a kid I collected a ridiculous number of toylines, from Star Wars, to Masters of the Universe, to Thundercats to Real Ghostbusters, to G.I. Joe, to TMNT. I was never huge fan of Transformers toys although I did love the cartoon. I ended up with a few GoBots in my toy box because they were the cheaper alternative and (in my memory at least) easier to figure out.

An offshoot of the GoBots were the Rock Lords, which were not transforming robots (with a couple of exceptions) but instead transforming creatures made of living rock. And yes, when they transformed, they turned into the rocks pictured above. They did indeed transform into (ridiculously unconvincing) rocks. This makes them one of the saddest punchlines of all 80's toy jokes because in all actuality, the Rock Lords were incredibly cool action figures that would have made more sense if they simply didn't transform at all... but in fact the transforming action just adds to their charm.

The factions of Rock Lords don't have fancy "Autobot and Decepticon" style names, so they're just good or bad. The leader of the "good guy" Rock Lords is Boulder. Boulder here is one of my all-time favorite toys period. He is one of those toys that I managed to hang onto through various cleaning purges, and as a result he managed to team up with everyone from all of my various other toy-lines over the years. He is also one of the few Rock Lords that actually resembles a rock when in rock form. One of the things I love about this line however weird it may seem is how the transformation mechanics really forced the designers to find a balance between the seeming natural elements of the rocky outer shells and the living elements inside, while still being a functional action figure. In some cases, like Boulder, this was a perfect, successful balance. In others however...

... like Magmar here, the conversion is less successful. Magmar is the leader of the evil faction of Rock Lords. He is supposed to be a bad-ass, but unfortunately his articulation is ridiculously limited due to his design. His arms move up and down but his pointless elbows don't really do much to enhance his arms posing, and his legs actually bend backwards, like a crane's. What I do genuinely love about Magmar's design are the color highlights and the mohawk. The yellow on his chest and shoulders here actually reads a much darker orange color in person (think my flash bleached it out a bit) and the green accents are pretty badass. I didn't own Magmar as a kid, and so my evil Rock Lords were led by Stoneheart (who I do not currently own, and who is therefore not in this blog post).

This weird looking fellow is Crack-Pot. As a kid I thought he was kind of creepy, and I think I ended up treating him as a villain. He is, in fact, actually a heroic Rock Lord. He was the only other Rock Lord from my collection to survive the great toy purges alongside Boulder.

This fantastic fellow is Brimstone. He was one of my absolute favorite villains from the line as a kid. He has the peculiar distinction of still having his eyes visible when he transforms into a rock (you can't see them in the picture at the top of the post because I have him flipped over on his face) and due to his hunched appearance and color he reminds me of a crab. This was always the "crazy guy" of the bunch, all hissing and screeching while he fights.

This rugged guy is Granite, and was given to me by Brian of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame. Granite was always Boulder's second in command in my mind, and a loyal friend. Nuggit (the little gold robot I also haven't tracked down yet) always played the part of the sidekick, so I wouldn't call Granite that. He's more Boulder's Samwise than his Woozy Winks. He does however remind me these days of the Sontarans from Doctor Who.

Actually most of the Rock Lords look like a combination of Doctor Who creatures cross pollinated with Gwar band members, so that's not surprising.

This last figure I currently own is Styx 'n Stones. Following the "my army of evil henchmen must include a two-headed monster" trope, here we have the double-trouble threat of Styx n' Stones. I LOVED Styx n' Stones as a kid. Two-headed villains were freaky and fun! You can see there's some color coding going on to help you differentiate between the two. Styx, on the left has pink coloring, while stones on the right gets red. This extends from their eyes and mouths right on down to their... toenail polish.

And here they all are as a group, good vs. evil, all in a group. I remember obsessively transforming these guys back and forth between their warrior and rock modes. It's too bad the line wasn't more popular because I found these to be genuinely cool to collect and play with as a kid. In addition to the ones pictured in this post, I also owned the aforementioned Nuggit and Stoneheart, as well as Marbles, Slime-Stone, and Pulver-Eyes I will probably not bother to track down ALL of the Rock Lords, but I might try checking some or all of these guys off my list one or two at a time. For now though, I'm pretty happy with the six-pack I currently possess.

What about you? Do you remember Rock Lords? Or do you have some other weird toy line rom the misty memories of your childhood that you feel like didn't get the love it should have?

Well that's it for today kiddos! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies (or something else) soon enough, so until then, Happy Hunting!