Giant Storm Shadow and an Alternate Reality Flintstones Family

I've had a good run of luck lately finding a handful of books here or there at Goodwill and then a couple of Grab-bags full of fun little toys to boot. This always makes me happy, as it feels balanced. And when all is balanced, all is right in the world. 

It is possible I am making more out of this "finding some books and grab-bags at Goodwill" thing than I should. 

Here's a quick look at the pile as a whole before we move forward. Now heeeere we go!

These knights are produced by Papo I believe. I myself don't really care about these kinds of toys, but my Aunt collects them, and so I keep an eye peeled for her when I'm out on the prowl. These guys and their horses were in a bag by themselves for a buck. Their weapons are completely destroyed, one snapped completely off, and the other appears to have been (ugh) chewed. Luckily, the weapons are interchangeable, so I removed the handles from their little hands before passing them on to my Aunt.

I already own a Sword of Omens from the 2011 animated reboot of the show, and mine is in much better condition because I bought it on clearance instead of secondhand. BUT in a judgement call I may question myself on for the next couple of decades of my life, I bought this sword for my sons to beat each other with. It went about as well as you'd expect.

This is not my first Sigma Six Stormshadow either, but this one is in MUCH nicer condition, and has his sash, pants, and scabbard intact. Unfortunately, none of his swords or other awesome weapons were included, except for the big stick thing with holes in the ends for... what? blades maybe? The other stuff in the bag were not Stormshadow's accessories. I'll find some substitute weapons for him at some point, I'm sure. Right now he stands proudly on my G.I. Joe shelf!

HEre are the contents of the bigger grab-bag in the set. Let's take a closer look.

The aforementioned Aunt also collects Hex-Bugs of any shape, size, or origin. So I knew as soon as I saw these Happy Meal toys that this bag would be coming home.

Also included was an assortment of Mario Brothers toys! I kept the Bob-Omb but most of the rest of these went to my kids. I only have a very tiny collection of Mario Bros. toys at this point and that's how I plan to keep things.

Plastic army men! The one I found to be significant is that one big guy near the middle. He's HUGE and I feel like he might actually be from a set or something? Anyone out there recognize him? I'm curious.

I already have a hula-dancing Spongebob, so the fact that this one has a broken nose is just fine. This is actually a set of cake toppers that goes along with the plastic Pineapple House I found back in 2012. So now I have the complete set! Man... I'm creeping up on my third blog-aversary! I've been doing this blog since July of 2012!

Here's a shot of the happy trio, with the unbroken nose-Spongebob included. 

Finally, here are some other random toys included in the bag as well. A Pirates of the Caribbean watch, and a couple of quarter-machine monsters that ended up on my ROYGBIV shelf of tiny plastic toys (They're on the "IV" shelf. I know skull guy looks red, but he's more magenta, so I place him in the violet category. Indigo and violet share a shelf.)

To add to my cassette collection: Blondie! "Parallel Lines" This is the one with "Heart of Glass" "One Way or Another" and "Hanging on the Telephone" on it.

A couple of action adventure stars this time around in the book-haul... Batman in The Stone King, and Tarzan in The Return of Tarzan. I don't have a whole lot to say about either of these books as of yet... but I look forward to reading them.

A couple of Holiday books made it home as well! A kids' book adaptation of the Christmas movie, Elf and the Goosebumps book: Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns.

One of my all-time favorite books (and I love the film as well) The Outsiders. My bromance with this book begins waaay back in middle school. I actually already own a copy of this book, but I saw this one with the movie adaptation cover and I reeeeally wanted it.

Finally, I found this bizarro "Flintstones" Little Golden book. In this story there are no Pebbles or Dino, and instead Fred and Wilma have a sone named "Junior" and they get a pet dinosaur named Harvey that looks a lot like Dino, but grows to... well... dinosaur size over the course of the story.

This is bizarre. Did this book come out before the cartoon? I don't think that's possible honestly, but I can't otherwise explain the presence of Junior and Harvey. I'm sure I could figure this out if I did even a cursory Google search... but I like to pretend sometimes that I'm living in the 80's and that every answer to anything I'll ever have a question about doesn't exist on the internet somewhere.

Anyway! That's all I have for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies so until that tie arrives... Happy Hunting!

Yardsale Bin Pt. 5: The Very Bottom of the Bin

So this is where it ends. 5 posts I managed to wring out of this one Sterilite tote I picked up from a yard sale last September. You can still check out parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 if you haven't already done so. 

Here is the very last time you will have to look at this thing. Let's take a look as I scrape the bottom, shall we? 

First up, there's this intrepid trio. I had no idea what to make of them at first. Too small to be G.I. Joes... these are more the 3 inch scale rather than 3.75... I guess... eyeballing them? 

Well, turns out these are The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest action figures from 1998! Heeeeeere's Johnny! "X-Treme Action" Johnny, to be exact (which sounds dirtier than it's supposed to... I think). 

Here's "Drop Zone" Race. He still has his gun in his holster!!! So badass. 

Here's "Desert Stealth" Hadji. I thought this was just some sort of generic ninja action figure until I noticed the matching symbol on both Hadji and Race's shirts. I didn't get they were supposed to be the letter Q. 

Next up there was this motley trio. 

I actually had to get some help from a shout-out on Instagram to help me identify this armored fellow, as he didn't fit the profile of any action figure line I was aware of. Turns out though that he's General Hawk from the 90's G.I. Joe Star Brigade line. He's missing a helmet and a giant hot pink machine gun. So sad. 

This is a Tarzan action figure from the Tarzan: The Epic Adventures line. Apparently it was based on a Hercules-style live action adventure show? But from all appearances, the characters in the action figure line are all related to a storyline where Tarzan conquers mars...? Anyway, I researched the figure and found out this guy is severely stripped down, since he has a set of golden armor and a red cape that I think I donated instead to my Brimstone Love action figure from the fourth installment of this little Yardsale Bin exploratory series. 

This is a Conan action figure from yet another failed Hercules-style live-action TV series "Conan the Adventurer". That's not important though. You know what is important? The cod-piece. Look at that thing. The size and shape of it. Next? The pull string in Conan's back that makes his arm jerk sporadically up and down. Look at that arm. It all looks EXACTLY as you might imagine it when set in motion. I am never giving this toy up for ANYTHING. 

On the left and right of this pic we have a couple of cavemen from Playskool's late-eighties toy line "Definitely Dinosaurs". Apparently there was initially some doubt about whether they were dinosaurs or not... but Playskool laid those to rest when they named the line. The guy in the middle I'll talk about a little further down who I lumped in with the cavemen for size reasons. Sometimes themes are hard.

This fellow's name has been lost to history (or at least the history of Playskool as known by Wikipedia) and was originally packed in with the Psittacosaurus of the series. I am pretending that he is "Shipwreck Survivor Tyrion Lannister". 

This guy's name is Brin and he was originally packed in with the Triceratops. I'm not pretending he's anything. He's just Brin. 

This figure used to be another one on my "unknowns" list where I was putting out pleas to see who could help me figure out what line it was from. It looks pretty obviously cheap. Come to find out it is a bootleg wresting figure of Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, a WWF wrestler from back in the day. I have to admit... since I'm not a wrestling fan, I was a bit disappointed that this wasn't from some sort of bootleg swords-and-sorcer line. He certainly looks the part. 

Next up are these Power Rangers action figures. I am absolutely in LOVE with the pig-thing guy. I I have featured him once on the site already because I brought one home from the Dreamcatcher Antique Mall in August of 2013. So you won't see him featured below. 

Here is a bendy ranger wearing a niqab. Why I don't know. I suppose it was explained in the movie? This looks a little bit like Jinx from G.I. Joe... but I suspect it's a dude. 

Here is a hybrid shark/huggy-bear monster. His action feature is in fact hugging. Again... No idea why. 

Raven lady? Bendy? Power Rangers movie? 

Plastic monsters lurked in the deepest depths of the bin! They're all pretty fun, but only two of them truly stole my heart:

The two I was most excited about were the Mothra toy from the 1994 Trendmasters line, and this cheap old two-headed dragon. For some reason the perspective of this picture makes him look HUGE. he isn't. See the picture above this one for a more accurate scale. 

This King Kong ornament and Aston Martin Goldfinger display case went on the a better home, with Brian over at Cool and Collected. Yep. These were just... in the bin. 

Next up was this trio of TMNT action figures. We have a General Traag sans left hand, Splinter sans clothes, and Muckman sans his trashcan and Eyeball Joe. We're going to skim right on over armless and naked and take a look at:

Muckman! Even without his accessories and sidekick, this figure looks pretty amazing. He was introduced at the very height of the TMNT action figures-as-Garbage Pail Kids phase of the line. He's even got a clothespin on his nose to answer the age old question of: How do you stop Muckman from smelling? 

There was this night (From empire toys) and his squire (unidentified brand) hiding at the bottom of that bin too!

And a plastic baggie full of kniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiights!!! Not sure what I'm going to do with these guys, but they are most likely not going to live here much longer. 

This horse belongs to Batman. Dark Rider Batman to be exact, from the Legends of Batman line. Instead of being Batman's horse, this guy now stands next to my Headless Horseman action figure and looks pretty awesome. 

As we draw nearer and nearer to the very last bits of plastic in the bottom of the bin, we finally strike some Transformers! I believe both of these are from the Beast Wars line... but I didn't research it deeply, to be honest. I am also 90% sure that they are both missing limbs or other vital body parts. Which is a shame, because the scarab-beetle guy on the right is pretty awesome. The one on the left? He's just insanely complicated and tangled and I have no patience for Transformers and I just don't care and ugh.

And this is it! These are the last four toys to have come from the seemingly BOTTOMLESS yard sale bin I picked up almost an exact year ago. I genuinely didn't mean to drag this thing out over almost an entire year (I picked it up shortly before September 19th of 2013). First we have not one but TWO Tim Murphy action figures from the Jurassic park lines. The first one is from the second series, and the second one is from the first. Weird... I know. What I find hilarious is that they merely swapped the head out for a more movie accurate (IMO) head for the second edition of the figure. I feature my two Tims here because it truly highlights the feeling of mediocrity and buyers remorse I started to feel as I discovered what I had paid 40 dollars for in total. I mean... there was some good stuff in there... but I wasn't feeling so great in the pit of my stomach when I pulled these Double-Mint twins out. And then we have the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves action figures... which... didn't really disappoint me the same way that the Tims did... but finding that Azeem had none of his cloak included in the bin was more than a little disheartening. Azeem, being Morgan Freeman, is my favorite character in that film. Gods how I love that man. And now I have a unitarded Azeem in kinky boots.

So that's the end of the Saga of the Yard Sale Bin. It ends with more of a whimper than a roar... I admit. I hope that's not less than you were expecting... Except... I have a secret to tell. It's true I bought this bin last September... and just as Halloween countdown season began I kind of petered out writing about it after the second installment. THEN in July of this year I finally picked up the strand and started finishing the final three posts. It was shortly after the third Yard Sale bin post went up that something AMAZING happened:

I bought another BIN.

No, not this one. But almost as cool.

I'll tell the whole story soon, but let me suffice it to say: I was approached by the same guy I bought the first bin from. APPROACHED. And by "shortly after" I mean "two days" because that post went up on the 13th and this second bin showed up literally in my front yard on the 15th. I CANNOT WAIT TO START BLOGGING ABOUT IT. But my friend Brian over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture reminded me I hadn't even finished blogging about THIS bin. And I was so much less excited about what I had to share about THIS bin than I am about THAT bin!!!

Almost this excited.

So look for posts about that soon. (If I can squeeze it in before October 1st, along with a TON of really cool packages folks have sent me recently, that I NEED to give shout-outs for!)

But for tonight? That's all I've got kids! Goodwill has their Halloween section up! I brought some goodies home that I will be (of course) saving for my countdown. I'll still be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies before that starts up! So until I return... Happy Hunting!