Goodwill Finds: King Kong, Star Wars, and More!

Welcome friends! I have such sights to share... So without further hyperbole or ado, let us begin. 

Here we have the entire haul in one shot. So let's dig in, shall we? Let's get a closer look at all this stuff.

First up, a Sly and the Family Stone Greatest hits compilation. I love, Love, LOVE 70's funk music, and Sly and the Family Stone is one of the greatest bands to come out of that era (for me anyway, I'm not going to pretend to be a music historian by any means). But there are SO many great songs on this cassette you guys.

Terry Pratchett has passed away in the time between me buying these books and writing this post. I still have a hard time processing this. Mr. Pratchett's stories are just so good, and full of wry humor, and life, and heart, and genuine warmth, and a sharp eye and tongue directed at everyone and everything equally. It is hard to believe he's gone now. Hard to believe the door to Discworld will be permanently closed and that what we've got is all we've got. But that's life I guess.

I don't even ponder whether or not I should pick up Terry Pratchett books when I see them. They never disappoint.

This is my second of Stephen King's crime thriller stories under the Hardcase Crime banner. I still haven't read Joyland either. and now I have The Colorado Kid to add to the pile. That's sort of my M.O. though, right? Always adding to the pile?

Speaking of... here's a copy of Blackbeard's Ghost with the Disney movie cover, which is technically not a novelization... but is close enough. It's about a ghost pirate. C'mon now.

This is where I picked up my copy of Garfield's Thanksgiving! This is the comic adaptation of the TV special, and as usual, there are a slight, strange variations in there. I've never been as much of a fan of the Thanksgiving special as I am the Christmas and especially the Halloween special... but it's still right up there. We watch it religiously every year.

THIS GUY. I mean whoah. This is am Imperial Toys King Kong toy! I love finding classic imperial toys at Goodwill. Nothing brightens my day in quite the same way. This toy is so cool. This was definitely the highlight of the trip. Everything else is downhill from here I'm afraid.

Which is really too bad, because all I have left is this big grab-bag full of toys...

And here are the contents. Let's get with the closer look already!

Included in the bag were a BUNCH of Mega Bloks pirates mini figures. The majority of these are just okay in my opinion, but there were three truly stand-out figures in the bunch:

And those three are right here. First of all, we have a skeletal pirate. I'm no stranger to this line, as my daughter picked out one of the mini skull playsets for me for father's day back when these were a brand new thing (maybe 7-8 or more years ago?) so I'm no stranger to how neat-o cool these can be. Starting on the left we have the skeleton, and then the pirate captain, with a peg-leg, ring in his beard, and an eyepatch. Finally, we have arguably the very best character of all: Some sort of witch doctor islander with scary eyes, a rooster comb, and a skull painted on his face. I love these things SO MUCH.

There were also a couple of random LEGO mini-figs in the mix. Not 100% sure who these guys are or what they're from. I ended up giving them to my son.

Also given to my sons to play with were these half-dozen Star Wars Attactix toys. I'm not into the prequels so I didn't want any of the clone troopers, and I honestly didn't care about the Tie Fighter pilot either. Nothing says fatherly love like handing over a pile of toys that fire tiny hard projectiles with alarming force to a couple of young boys who can barely go 5 minutes without getting into a fight.

Also in the bag was this broken Electro figure. He's sad, so we won't talk about him anymore.

What was NOT given over to my sons? These guys. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader figures that both ended up on my Star Wars collection shelf. There's a lesson in here somewhere about father/son relationships... but for the life of me I couldn't tell you what it would be.

Moving on.

This thing.

It was in the bag.

Don't know what it is, what it comes from, what it's for.

There is a grey pressure plate inside it, that when pushed, snaps the whole thing shut. Sort of like a trap... but it doesn't really scream "IT'S A TRAP" like you-know-who. Mainly because there's also what appears to be some sort of handle-bars inside it as well. So part of a vehicle maybe? I've been trying to investigate this for a while... and still nothing. It's baffling. If you know anything about it, let me know in the comments below.

UPDATE: This toy belongs to a Robots (as in the animated film called Robots) playset. Mystery solved.

Well kids... that's it for tonight! I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! But until that happens, Happy Hunting!

Stuff I Found While I Was Looking Where I Don't Usually Look

Gotta say, now that I'm past October-December, it is nice to go back over all of the stuff I found in the past few months and finally get a chance to write about them. Today's post is a pile of Goodwill loot that I found because I took a dive into a few sections of the store that I don't usually bother with (aaaand some stuff in the sections where I usually do... because I won't NOT look where I usually do too). 

First up, I found some great vinyl records: 

First up we have this incredible Mickey Mouse Disco record. I love this idea of Disco being represented by a bunch of the Disney characters back in the 70's. This album was put out in 1979 so really Disco was pretty much done by this point... but still.

Seeing Horace and Clarabelle cutting a rug here beside Chip n' Dale and Donald and Daisy warms the cockles of my heart to be sure. I have not bothered to search it, but I am curious to see if the version of "Chim Chim Cher-ee" included on this album is some sort of Disco remix (in which case... weird) or is simply included in its original form (in which case.. weirder... right?).

Now let's jump ahead to 1982 and get into a little Mousercise!!! As we saw with the Disco phenomena, Disney gladly jumped aboard the Jazzercise wagon.  Again though, with a song selection called "Tweedledee and Tweedledum" I have to beg the question if the song is the original from Alice in Wonderland, or a "jazzed up!" version.

I find it hilarious that there appear to be a pair of Silly Symphony bugs Mousercising at the bottom of the picture on the back.

When I come across a Sesame Street Album, I can't pass it up. It's just not in my DNA. And this one looks so familiar that I would ALMOST swear I owned it as a kid. I know I had some Sesame Street Albums.

Then there was this even older Sesame Street record with an included book. On the cover there you can see Mr. Hooper, and Matt Robinson as Gordon!

The book inside is in HORRIBLE condition, but here's one of the better page, depicting the lyrics for the song "Green" and shows an interaction between Kermit and Grover. I MISS the days when Kermit was a Sesame Street Muppet as well as a Muppet Show Muppet.

Here is a later Sesame Street Album "Sing the hit songs of Sesame Street" which features yet another Gordon, Hal Miller this time, on the cover! All-total, four different actors have portrayed Gordon on Sesame Street.

Finally there was "Merry Christmas Sesame Street" which I definitely had as a kid. I distinctly remember being SO disturbed by the gold beads in Bert's mouth.

Here's the interior of the gatefold cover. LOVE this spread! The illustrations are so great, and Roosevelt Franklin makes not one, but TWO appearances!

I also found this Playmobil Pirates Take-Along Dungeon. There were no pirates inside, but that's okay because I really just wanted it for:

These guys! You may recognize them from the League of Extraordinary Bloggers Post I did about pirates back in 2013... If not, you should click that link and give it a read, I give the complete background of these awesome pirate dudes there.

As per usual, I found a few kids' books as well. Here we have a book based on the 80's cartoon adaptation of the Littles, "The Little Winner" and Darkwing Duck's "Clean Money". 

"Safe All Day With the Happies" is a horrific book of consequences. I LOVE THIS.

Here's a picture of a kid falling down the stairs after playing on them. "The Happies do not like broken arms!" HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! 

Love it. 

I usually give the DVD section a cursory glance and then move on. There's usually not much there except for old copies of the third disc from a boxed set of Friends season seven box set... or "The Period of Purple Crying" informational dvds (look it up for yourself... but I see A LOT of these at Goodwill) but I was shocked to discover some stuff I actually wanted to buy in this section this time around! First up I found DVD copies of "The Dream Team" and "Mallrats" which had me VERY ecstatic! I don't know if you remember Dream Team, but that movie was once upon a time one of my very favorites. It made me think that crazy people could team up like superheroes and achieve ANYTHING. Mallrats is a Kevin Smith classic, and I haven't seen it pretty much since it came out. But I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

But wait! There's more! TV movie "Gargoyles" which looks like stupid, schlocky TV-PG horror at its finest! I will probably throw this on as a part of some sort of Horror marathon when Fall gets here. I also found the complete Third season of "The Batman" which I never watched even once when it was on, and don't own the first two seasons of... but you gotta start somewhere right?

...Right?

And finally, "Garfield and Friends: Behind the Scenes" which is a nice way for me to pay homage to the cartoon series from when I was a kid without actually having to buy the entire series on DVD. I loves me some animated Garfield all right!

Well that's it kids! It really paid off for me to check the records and DVDs with a bit more enthusiasm than I usually reserve for those sections because I found some pretty neat stuff! That's all I have to show off for tonight, but I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies, so until then: Happy Hunting!

Creepmas Day 10: Creepmas Kids' Books!

So this year I'm celebrating Creepmas! 

From the 13 Days of Creepmas website: 

"A reaction to the continuing incursion of Christmas into Autumn and Halloween, CREEPMAS is a good-natured chance for Halloween lovers to exact revenge by bringing some spooky good cheer into the holidays or, more appropriately, the Hallowdays..." Read more about the inspirations behind this 13 day celebration HERE. 

So you thought Creepmas was only for adults... huh? Well, as yesterday's post proves, there's a definite market for chocolate-in-your-peanut-butter marketing for the frightful and the festive for kiddies this time of year! With that in mind, today's post is all for the youngest fans of Creepmas! I'm highlighting 7 books that fall under the category (IMO) of "Creepmas books for kids".

Norman Bridwell is most famous for his Clifford, the Big Red Dog series. He created many other books during his career as a childrens' book author/illustrator. Including a series of about 5 books about a witch. The Witch Next Door, The Witch Grows Up, The Witch on Vacation, the Witch Goes to School, and this one: The Witch's Christmas. The witch is a friendly practitioner of the dark arts, and lives next door to some children who appreciate her talents. She also seems to simultaneously serve the Dark Lord while celebrating the birth of the Savior.

We get a look at the black snow that falls on the witch's property. And the animate snowman who attacks all who threaten his mistress. 

Her Christmas traditions are similar but appropriately Creepmas-y. The tree is decked out in skulls and bats and spiders and the like. Her caroling group is a horror show that terrorizes the neighborhood.  All-in-all this is a cute book that my kids do enjoy. The witch has an adventure where she saves both Santa Claus and a pair of astronauts from a frosty death in the vacuum of space. Check it out! 

Next up, from the author of Bunnicula, we have The Fright Before Christmas which also stars Harold, Chester, and Howie, from the Bunnicula books (Bunnicula himself makes a cameo but is, disappointingly, NOT the focus of the tale). 

The animals are worried about such horrors as fat men with sacks sliding down chimneys and ghosts of Christmas (like the ones in a Christmas Carol) showing up to do who-knows-what to their family. So Harold and Chester set out to stop this holiday horror-show from happening.

Hijinks ensue and absolutely no one is  slaughtered by a vampiric leporid. So there's a nice build-up but not much payoff. And a totally wasted of a blood-drinking bunny.

Next up we have A Pirate's Twelve Days of Christmas. Now, you may or may not know from this blog, but we at the Goodwill Geek's house have made pirates a pretty standard part of our Halloween celebrations. So mixing them up in our Christmas celebration SCREAMS Creepmas!

Most of the 12 gifts are pretty tame, including a Parrot in a Palm tree, a pair of cutlasses, 9 Mermaids singin', and some monkeys. But the 3 black cats and the 6 Jolly Rogers? Pure Halloween gold dear readers. And when you get Halloween gifts for Christmas you get CREEPMAS!!!

Finish it all off with a shot of a sleepy Pirate being watched over by a winking Jolly Roger and a Piratical Santa... and you've got a Creepmas classic on your hands.

So I've already discussed the Ghosts of Christmas as a different part of my 13 Days of Creepmas, I am aware. But now I'm going to focus for a moment on the book version they put out of the tale.

Marley shows up, as do the other 3 spirits, and for the most part, the only disappointment of the whole thing is the fact that we lose the door-knocker scene that kicks things off.

We still get all of the classic scenes starring the spirits and Scrooge before redemption finally sinks in. This is a great adaptation of the classic TV special and it makes for a nice shivery Creepmas kids' tale for the Christmas season!

Next up we have this pair of books by horror novelist Dean Koontz. He wrote two books detailing the harrowing Hallowdays adventures of Charlotte and Emily. The girls have to contend with not one but two strange, sinister doppelgangers of Old Saint Nick.

 In the first book, Santa's Twin we meet Bob, the off-kilter, mischief-and-mayhem making evil twin of Santa Claus. Deep down Bob is mainly misunderstood and out to get attention, but for the first 75% of the book we get no sense of this whatsoever as Bob wreck's people's homes, swaps out good gifts for horrific ones like the one pictured above, and threatens to eat the families of the reindeer to gain their complicity in assisting him in his crimes.

In the sequel, Robot Santa Bob has begun assisting Santa in his yearly duties, and builds a robotic Santa to help deliver gifts. Things go awry and the (more than a little creepy) robot starts creating Christmas Chaos of its own. Instead of eating cookies, he eats the plate (and some of the furniture) they sit on. Instead of leaving gifts from his sack, he fills the sack with gifts from the houses he visits. And he's got a trained gorilla helping him out that kidnaps the girls' dog. But as with last year, the girls persevere and prevail and set things to right.

Saving the best for last, we have quite possibly the book that DEFINES the concept of Creepmas in its own Merrilyy-Terrifying way. The Nightmare Before Christmas written and illustrated by Tim Burton! This is the book that the stop-motion animated Disney movie directed by Henry Selick was based on.

The entire book is a fun blend of both Halloween and Christmas imagery. If you're at all familiar with the film, then the themes of the book will be no surprise to you. Although there are no romantic story threads or villainous Boogie-Men trying to eat Santa. Those subplots are missed but traded out for a sense of focus that a book for children needs.

The imagery is festive and spooky and beautiful for it.

All the elements are there: the red and green and black and white and orange. The snow and the pumpkins. The Creepy and the Christmas. The Creepmas!!!

That's it for tonight! So tuck your kiddies into bed and crack the spine on one of these delightful, frightful feasts for the imagination!

Happy 13 days of Creepmas! I'll be back tomorrow with another entry in the countdown, which may or may not involve a Goodwill Goody! Until then, Happy Hunting!