Goodwill Finds: Stridor, Cowboy Curtis, Softhead Leo

Here's a pile of goodies from a trip I  made to the Bangor, ME Goodwill just a few months ago. I'm going to be honest and tell you all that I skipped a bunch of other much more boring posts that I have stored in the archives to write about this stuff. I just couldn't force myself to write about a bunch of lackluster Happy Meal toys or mediocre Little Golden Books tonight. So I went looking for something more exciting. And now here we are. 

Here's the grand pile of junk I brought home from Bangor. LEt's take a closer look, shall we?

Remember back before the Star Wars prequel trilogy came along and messed up everything? I don't just mean the story or the canon or the continuity. I mean all the other merchandise too. Remember when you could buy books and things that didn't try to awkwardly shoehorn in reminders that Hayden Christensen exists somewhere in the timeline? Well these books do. They remember a simpler time when all that existed was a ragtag group of rebels and their hyperventilating archnemesis. I LIKE THESE BOOKS.

I picked up a handful of other books as well. A novelization of Disney's "Oliver and Company" for one. An interesting-looking Dungeons and Dragons themed memoir by Mark Barrowcliffe, "The Elfish Gene" and a collection of ghost tales from Daniel Cohen called "Railway Ghosts and Highway Horrors," which has been added to my Halloween Read Pile. Altogether not a boring trio of books by any means.

I found a sort-of-carded (the blister was stapled to the card) Cowboy Curtis from the NECA reproductions of the 80s Pee-Wee's Playhouse toys. I liberated him from his poorly preserved plastic prison and shelved him with the Miss Yvonne I received from Miss M of Diary of a Dorkette. These repros were done in 2007 but you would almost never know it.

This was a fun find. It's a plastic Hershey's Kiss container done up to look like a Jack O'Lantern. The year on the bottom is 1990, so this little fella's been around for awhile. Unfortunately he is missing the Hershey's Kisses sticker that used to be his nose. But I don't mind. I honestly kind of like him better without it.

Of all my finds I think this was my favorite. Far from complete (and it matters not at all to me) this Stridor toy is from the old Masters of the Universe series. He's missing his headpiece, his tail, and his guns on either side are broken... but the effect is still there: STRIDOR!!! I always desperately wanted a Stridor as a kid, but never got one. So now... I own him.

Finally, there was a grab-bag full of old action figures. Or some cases... pieces of them.

Roboto has a permanently broken arm. I'm not sure but I think I re-donated him to Goodwill. I already have one anyway. Another Sy-Klone and Clawful in marginally better shape (these were cleaned up and traded off) also a pair I already own.

With these guys I now owned Two and a Half Hordaks! A new sitcom coming this fall. Legless Hordak donated his armor to legged Hordak and took a trashcan dive. Legged Hordak took a trip to Canada.

This "Ninja Master" is a Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandoes action figure. He's a bad guy. Despite all that, I forgive him.

I was probably most excited to find this soft-headed Leonardo with his belt and one of his katanas. His bandana is a little chewed but again, I don't mind. (ALL of the action figures in this grab bag needed a BATH and they got one shortly after I got done photographing them... I just like to photograph things as fresh out of the grab-bag as possible...)

I also found this King Hiss! This is the second King Hiss I've found, but the first one with the torso disguise pieces. He's just missing his arm covers.

Yay for Goodwill! Yay for toys!

Well that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back with some more (probably slightly less exciting) Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Another Package from Miss M!!!

I have a good friend, Miss M, whom I often podcast with (on both the Geek Fallout podcast and the Eclectic Mayhem podcast) whose blog, Diary of a Dorkette, is a MUST read, and with whom I also often exchange packages of pure FUN with on a semi-regular basis.

So another one of THOSE showed up a while ago, and in typical Goodwill Geek fashion, I have put off blogging about it for MUCH too long. So let's take a look at what Miss M sent my way, shall we?

First up there were some Star Wars toys included. The loose figure there is Zam Wessel, a shapeshifting bounty hunter whose right arm is removable as she gets it light-sabered off apparently? (Thanks Wookie-Pedia!) still on the card there is Jabba the Hutt lackey, Bib Fortuna! I freed him from his carbonite prison and quickly added him to my Star Wars shelf.

Here we have a Toothless and a Dragon trap from the series of toys put out to promote the second film (or the second film put out to promote the toys, depending on how cynical you feel like being...)

A few previous packages from Miss M had included X-Men characters that were missing some of the accessories. Miss M thoughtfully held onto these for me and included them here!

And finally, what I think are my absolute favorite items of the pack, this Miss Yvonne figure from the Pee-Wee's Playhouse line, and the Christmas card (this was meant to be a Christmas gift LAST YEAR... did I not mention that... since it is now MAY???) which definitely evokes Pee-Wee's Bicycle from the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure film. Miss Yvonne immediately started hanging off the shoulders of all the Masters of the Universe figures, which immediately made them all very uncomfortable, except for Prince Adam, who seemed to really get along well with her. 

Here's one last look at the box of pure FUN sent to me by Miss M! I want to make sure I send out a heartfelt THANK YOU to her, and make sure everybody knows what a great person and friend she is!

Well that's it for tonight kids! But I'll be back soon with some 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!

League of Extraordinary Bloggers - Young Love

It's League of Extraordinary Bloggers time again! What are we talking about this week?

"When I was a kid, my favorite _______ was _______."

Which to be honest, had me scratching my head. I know a lot of people in the League are going to list cartoons, comics, action figure lines, movies, candies, sodas, fast food chains, etc. I wanted to do something sort of unexpected. But I couldn't think of a darn thing.

Then I saw Chris Tupa's post over at Tupa's Treasures, about his favorite stuffed animal as a kid. And it instantly clicked for me. Sometimes when you're a kid, your favorite something is actually something so personal it couldn't possibly really click for anyone else. It's all about that weird kid-connection you make to things.

Thanks to Chris Tupa, I had my answer.

If you were to wander around the Geek Cave you'd notice most of my random vintage toys sort of end up clumped together in one spot. You'd also notice that in the midst of that vintage chaos, there's this:

It's a little plastic case that my original iPod came in. I use it to display six tiny figures, "Usual Suspects" style, separate from all the other toys. There's a LEGO man, a MUSCLE guy, a ghost, a Pee-Wee's Playhouse figure, a GPK, and a robot.  These six seemingly unrelated toys were my WHOLE WORLD from about 10 years of age or so until... well... probably until I was older than I should have been to still be playing with them. Let's just put it that way. 

In late 1988 (November/December) I discovered The New Mutants and the X-Men. That spiraled into an obsession with all things super-hero. The way I played with my toys began to change at that very same time. Instead of just living in their own worlds, characters from my different toy lines began teaming up and developing mutant powers. 

I loved mini-figures as a child almost as much as I loved action figures. It's part of why I love to collect them so much now. One day I remember having to pick out a handful of toys to bring with me on a car trip to my grandmother's house, and when I looked down at the handful of figures I had selected (seemingly at random) it was these six figures. On the car ride, I began developing powers for each of them, and how they worked together. I never had a name for their team (I sort of just felt like they were the X-Men... but not) but each one of them had a name, powers, and a personality to aid in the super-hero soap-opera antics that my young brain would emulate from the pages of my favorite comic books. 

Petey

The leader of the group was Petey. Full name Petey Graffiti from the Garbage Pail Kids Cheap Toys (With Crummy Candy) line:

Image belongs to Midnight Cinephile.
Click on picture to visit their page.

I loved those toys, and I had all of the original line, some in various different colors.  This is not the original Petey from my Childhood. In fact, he's not even the original Petey from the group. My original Petey was red. He got lost. So I replaced him with a flesh-colored Petey. That Petey was chewed and cut and mutilated to the point where he was thrown away. But flesh colored Petey is the one I remembered most from my childhood, so he was the one I wanted to track down. The one you see here was bought from an online dealer for something like six bucks. 

Petey was my group's Cyclops. He had the shades, and the optic blasts. That was his mutant power. Everyone still called him Petey. He was the leader of the group, and he was romantically involved with: 

Chicky

Chicky Baby from Pee-wee's playhouse. I didn't have very many female mini figures back then. I had a few of the aforementioned GPK toys, but not one of them was cool enough to catch Petey's eye. Chicky came in a 4-pack of Pee-wee toys, including the rest of the Puppet-land band, and Jambi, the genie head in a box.

The one you see here is also not my original. She had her little foot-stand chewed off as well as her hands (I had a horrible habit of chewing on my favorite toys until they were un-play-with-able) and got thrown away. In fact, this is not even a vintage toy. It's from a reproduction set that came out in either the late 90's or the very early 00's. 

Image belongs to Action Toys.
Click on the picture to visit their site.

Chicky was the team's Jean Grey. She had psychic powers and she often went all Phoenix-y on the group (I'm being dead serious here. Gods, how I wish I was kidding). She and Petey had a tumultuous romance (or as tumultuous as my experience with romance at 10 was, which pretty much meant what I had learned from the X-Men) and together they were the royal couple of my toys. They never had to have her put down Phoenix-style, but it was touch and go a few times.  

Vocal Chord

Quite possibly the weirdest (possibly second weirdest) member of the group was Vocal Chord. He is actually a "Tyrants of Wind Soldier" from the "Air Raiders" line:

Image Belongs to Virtual Toy Chest
Click on the Picture to visit their site.

I made up the name "Vocal Chord" back when I was a kid because I didn't know his real name. I am ashamed to admit he was one of two stolen toys I will feature in this post. In fact... I broke the first (and second...) figures of him that I stole, so this is the THIRD figure I stole from a friend's house. I feel sort of guilty, but in that "I did stupid stuff like this all the time when I was a kid" kind of way. He is however, the original. I have managed to hold onto this childhood contraband well into my adulthood.

Anyway V.C. (as his friends called him) was a robot with mutant powers. OH THE LENGTHS TO WHICH I WENT to justify his membership in my all mutant team. I think it turned out he was some sort of cyborg with mutant/human parts inside or something. His powers were sort of a cross between Doug Ramsey and Banshee. Anything to do with sound, language, and robot-stuff was his domain. He had a sonic scream, could translate alien languages, and was... well a robot so he could fly and shoot lasers and stuff too. Whenever he spoke it was in my best flat computer voice. My childhood approximation of Soundwave of the Decepticons.

Blob

Next up we have Blob. The figure you see here is in fact the tried and true one I had as a child as well. And I didn't steal him from anyone. He was originally the Gulper Ghost included with the basic Egon Spengler action figure from the first Real Ghostbusters line:

Image belongs to Comic Collector Live.
Click on the picture to visit their site.

He was sort of the Thing of the group. I know the Thing isn't an X-Man, but he was a tough guy with a gravelly voice (or at least, when I read F4 he had a gravelly voice in my head) and a heart of gold that was soft as gooey nougat... and that was Blob all the way.

Since he was not in fact a ghost at all, but instead a yellow mass of sentient gelatinous goo, he could shape-shift into form he wanted, EAT and digest anything (!) and fly. The reason he could fly was because Petey, Chicky, and a couple of the team-members you haven't met yet could comfortably sit in his mouth and he sort of looked like a little airplane. Thus went my 10-year old logic.

Prince

This guy was sort of inexplicable, to be honest. The figure you see here is not the original one I had. This is one I found somewhere along the way years later and kept because he reminded me of my original. I even scraped off the chest deco so he'd look more like the worn-down one I owned. The original one I had was from one of the Forestmen LEGO sets, similar to the one I found at Goodwill and featured here.

This picture is MINE dammit!

BUT he was... cough... ahem... another stolen toy. Yep. My childhood larceny knew no bounds. I stole the original Forestman LEGO guy from a friend who literally had a trash-can full of LEGO blocks and figures at his house. I know the quantity of LEGOs he did or did not own does not justify my crime... but it seemed pretty justified when I was a kid. That figure even had a Robin Hood hat, but I lost it. 

Anyway, Prince was named after... Prince. The singer. I had the cassingle of Bat-Dance from the Batman Soundtrack and listened to it incessantly. I have no idea what that had to do with a green LEGO man, but the name stuck. My little Prince was a confusing dude. I couldn't decide what his powers were, so he went through several different phases. For a while he literally could phase, like Shadowcat, through solid material. Then he was the team teleporter for a while. Then the fact that I could pull off his body parts sort of became a power in and of itself, where he could either turn parts of himself invisible, or shoot his hands, torso, or head at enemies for god-only-knows-why. He wasn't really powerful, but he had mad ninja fighting skills and he really was royalty, with an evil twin brother whom I'll introduce later. Prince is really in a duel with Vocal Chord for my weirdest toy in this group. 

Bulldozer

Bulldozer is a M.U.S.C.L.E. Thing. If you go by the American marketing, he was known as Terri-Bull. If you go by the original Japanese Kinnikuman story-line he's known as Buffaloman. Either way he was supposed to be a villain. 

Not my picture.
Click it to go to the MUSCLE Collector's Archive. 

But not once I got my hands on him! For some reason I was in love with the version of the guy in his letter-man's jacket. And I never called him Terr-Bull. I called him Bulldozer. I thought it was incredibly clever and badass. He was my team's Wolverine. He had adamantium bones, a healing factor, and went absolutely ape-s--t on villains. His horns were adamantium as well, and much like the Juggernaut, once he got moving he couldn't be stopped. He and Blob would argue constantly, but Bulldozer never had an romantic designs on Chicky (a la Wolverine + Jean Grey) behind Petey's back. 

And just like the X-Men or the Avengers, they had allies and back-up members who would swing in and help out once in a while. Some of these for my group included Firefly (An Army Ants "Knockdown" figure), Blur (A Battle Beast "Jaded Jaguar"), and Flyboy (An accessory packed with the Napoleon Bonafrog TMNT figure). Firefly had bomb-creating powers, much like Boom-Boom from the New Mutants. Blur was named after the Transformer, and he was a speedster. And Bug-Boy was a feral bug-mutant who talked in screams, grunts, and single words much like Animal of the Muppets. They all spent time on the team only to be phased out at some later point. All three of these guys are ones I actually owned as a kid. 

And there's no better measurement of a team of heroes than the villains they fight, right? Here's Wendigo from the Monster in my Pocket Line, a LEGO reproduction of Vince, Prince's evil twin, an evil wizard, "The General" another Army Ant, and Slither, another MUSCLE. The arguable leader was The General, but Vince had all the ambition and ire. The one you see above is a newer LEGO man put together to sort of look like how I imagined Vince looked (his face is a Draco Malfoy head from LEGO Harry Potter, and I believe his staff is actually a WoW Mega-Bloks weapon) when I was younger. The blue and red is all vintage. The other three figures you see are ones I salvaged from my childhood all the way.  

Here's the main group as a whole. They make a dashing team of six don't they? They used the Ecto-1 as they're base of operations in a junk yard made up of every toy vehicle I owned. Yes. They lived in a junkyard. They mainly spent their time fighting off much larger villains than themselves. Villains like Hordak and Granny Gross and Big Boss from C.O.P.S. To them (and me) size truly didn't matter, and the villains were never any match for them. I spent HOURS... no DAYS... okay YEARS in a fantasy land populated by my toys when I was a kid. And these six characters were the stars of the show. 

That's it for my Young Love! I hope you actually enjoyed reading all this. 

Let's see what the othe League Members love waaaaay back when: 

- Jathniel over at Space For Rent had a big green love. A big Green Machine love. 

- Rich from Fortune and Glory (Days) posts some awesome photos of his old Action Figure loves. We had some very similar tastes if I'm to judge the photo of his four surviving childhood action figures. 

- And as I already mentioned, Chris Tupa of Tupa's Treasures just destroys ALL of his street cred with his post... but it's AWESOME!!! One of my favorite posts so far!

- Grey over at Achievements in Gaming tells us his memories of his free-wheeling days as a biker.

- The Geeky Vixen shares the story of her Endor Leia. It'll mist your eyes. 

Well, that's it for today! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! until then, Happy Hunting!