Eclectic Mayhem Special: The Big Saturday Morning Post!

So I don't talk about it a TON here on the blog, but I have mentioned before that I am a part of the Eclectic Mayhem Podcast along with my friends Brian, Jason, and Miss M... and we recently did an episode where we talked about our ULTIMATE Saturday Morning television lineups. 

One of the tasks that our host, Brian (of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame) gave us during the episode, was to try and actually watch some of our lineups, and then blog about that experience. So I'm just NOW getting around to that. (It's late I know, but I can't be ridiculously early like my cohort Jason of Nerdy Life of Mine was... or just generally on time like Miss M of Diary of a Dorkette was... Imma be me.)

I found the lion's share of my episodes on Youtube, and sat down to watch some of them with my two sons, who are currently 4 and 6 years old. Before I did into the meat of our viewing, I thought I'd post the listings here (The League of Extraordinary Bloggers did a challenge relating to this topic a while back, when there was still a League, and my post for that challenge was very similar, but in some important ways, also pretty different. You can read that here.)

7:00 – Teen Wolf 

7:30 – Real Ghostbusters 

8:00 – TMNT

8:30 – Thundercats

9:00 – Dungeons & Dragons

9:30 – Galaxy High

10:00 – Captain N

10:30 – Kid Video

11:00 – Muppet Babies

11:30 – Punky Brewster

So as you can see, my lineup kicks things off with Teen-Wolf, the animated series. This was a short-lived show from my youth that lasted only two original seasons. But what seasons they were! I was in LOVE with werewolves as a kid, thanks MOSTLY to this cartoon. 

Hearing the classic "Beware Scott! When the moon is full..." sent a shiver of pure joy down my spine. My kids seemed to really enjoy this too! The episode I wanted to watch was the one where a magical spell allows Scott's younger sister, Lupe, into a werewolf. She is too young to know yet if she can turn into one yet, and she desperately wants to be one. This episode was not to be found on youtube however, so I settled for the episode where she brings home a Moon Rock for her science project and we learn that having a chunk of the moon so close to a family of werewolves is never a good idea. 

The kids really dug the show, as I had hoped they would, and I found it held up pretty well, all things considered. These are all broken up into three parts on youtube, so I'm posting the first third here for your enjoyment. 

Next, The Real Ghostbusters!

Truth be told, I cheated a bit on this one. I watched this one on my own, and kind of skipped through the slow parts because my boys and I have been watching The Real Ghostbusters on DVD in the past 6 months or so, and I suspected they might not sit through it again. I picked "The Boogeyman Cometh" because it is one of my absolute FAVORITE episodes of this show from my childhood. The Boogeyman is INSANELY scary, and is a perfect example of how creative this show could get. 

There is a part of me that kind of enjoys the Real Ghostbusters cartoon just a little bit more than the movies, if I'm being 100% honest. I know the entire internet just collectively gasped and made some sort of evil-warding symbol in my direction... but let me explain. When I was a kid I had waaay more of a connection to the cartoon and the action figure line than I did to the movies, which ind of terrified me, to make another embarrassing confession. Don't get me wrong though, I LOVE the Ghostbusters films. But back then, the Real Ghostbusters were... well... the REAL Ghostbusters to me. And so they still feel a little bit like that to me now as an adult. 

Up next: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

My kids are definitely not loving the classic TMNT as much as they like the Nicktoons version of the show. And while this brought me back to some extremely cool memories... I kind of have to agree with them. This episode features one of my favorite TMNT villains of all time though: Baxter Stockman! This goofy homage to Vincent Price's "The Fly" is also one of my favorite action figures of all time! 

I always used to LOVE using my Krang action figure and doing his voice as a kid. He had such a distinctive way of talking and I was convinced that my impression of his was DEAD on. Watching this episode brought me right back to those days, playing with my action figures. 

Next Up: Thundercats! 

I have talked on here about how awesome the Thundercats opening sequence is, and believe it or not, this was the FIRST TIME I had ever introduced this to my kids! And just as I had hoped... it LITERALLY melted their faces off. This episode features "Mandora the Evil Chaser" which was a ridiculously unwieldy name for a space cop. But Mandora was cool and she schools Lion-O more than once throughout the episode. 

Next up: A huge leap forward to Muppet Babies! 

So the kids were getting a little restless at this point, and we hadn't yet gotten to the show I REALLY wanted them to see at this point: The episode of Muppet Babies where the kids are given a video recorder to play with and they do what any nursery full of children would normally do: They make Star Wars! 

My kids are going through a massive Star Wars phase right now, and just like when I was a kid, I thought they would get a huge kick out of seeing the Muppet Babies do their own version of the story. And they did! This episode also brought me back to my childhood with the atomic blast of a nostalgia bomb. It was incredible! They totally did not understand why the Death Star was a tomato, even after I explained the whole bit involving Fozzie being terrified of tomatoes because of the throwing-tomatoes-at-bad-comedians thing. But that was about it. Otherwise the only other comment (from my 6 year old) was "There's no way they had all that stuff in their play room. It looks too good." My son understands production values and the struggles of the independent film maker. 

At some point I really want to get them back into this and show them the magic of Captain N: The Game Master, if nothing else. But I honestly feel like they would like just about ALL of the shows in my line-up. 

So what about you? What cartoons would you want to watch from 7 in the morning until GOLF comes on at 12? Let me know in the comments below, or HECK, write a blog post about it! If you end up doing that, toss a link in the comments below, or tweet your link to @EclecticMayhem4 on Twitter, or post it to our page for Eclectic Mayhem on Facebook! Or do all three! I'm all about the elf-promotion! (Hey... also follow us on those things, plus subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, and leave us a review!!! M'kay?)

So that's it for tonight kiddos! I'll be back sooner than soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies (or other nonsense). Only 83 days left until Halloween! Until then, Happy Hunting!

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!

Halloween Countdown Day 17: A Package From Brian "The Trash Man"

So my friend Brian, "The Trash Man" over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture and I often exchange mail. And it's almost a cheat to include his packages in this countdown because he almost always sends me something that could be construed as Halloween-y. But hey, it's my blog, so I cheat. And besides, there are some pretty overt, directly Halloween-y things in this package to share. 

Like for instance, these two. First up we have an INCREDIBLE McDonald's plate featuring the McDonaldland Gang having a Halloween hoedown! I actually have no idea if its a hoedown or a sock-hop but based on Birdy's and Grimace's costumes, it could go either way. Next, the jack-o-lantern tin on the right which is cool enough in its own right, but once opened was revealed to contain a veritable ARMY of mini-figure toys and other goodies. So lets look at those next. 

Still staying firmly in the theme of Halloween, we have these Monster in My Pocket figures. I had almost ALL of these (well, series 1 anyway) when they came out back in 1990. Nowadays my MiMP collection is getting respectable again, but is a shadowy echo of its former glory.

Next a squad of LEGO-style guys, ranging from LEGO and Mega-Bloks to KRE-O and whatever that little yellow space-guy in the front is from. First we have the INCREDIBLE Man-Bat figure which I LOVE!!! and Havok from mega-bloks. Havok is one of my favorite X-Men. I now own a LEGO Krang-bot from the new TMNT Nicktoon, and Dr. Mindbender from G.I. Joe KRE-O.

Next up are an assortment of toys from various different MUSCLE-related lines. The teal and orange guys are from the original Kinkeshi line that spawned MUSCLE Things here in the states. The Blue and red guys are hard plastic MUSCLE Thing toys, and the guy in the center is from the Ultimate MUSCLE line.

Mini-figures were really like my own personal crack as a kid. I collected the hell out of both of the pictured lines above. Battle Beasts and Army Ants!!! Between all the MUSCLE Things, MiMPs, Garbage Pail Kids Cheap Toys, and the ghosts and sidekicks from the Real Ghostbusters and TMNT lines, plus just other random mini-figures from other lines... I had an army of mini-figures! The Battle Beasts pictured above are "Danger Dog" and "Fleet-Footed Ante-Lope" The Army Ant is is called "Heave-Ho".

Tiny plastic robots, dinosaurs, and firefighters were also included! I placed the two I loved the most in the foreground. The Orange robot and the weird gray "dinosaur" with two ridges running down its back and a snout like the Luck Dragon from the Neverending Story.

More plastic goodies included these "cowboys and indians" figures (I know that's not P.C. but it feels weird calling them Cowboys and Native Americans) and a set of plastic pirates that I believe are probably cake toppers. The pirates have taken up residence on my Pirate/skeletons shelf, even though they are clearly not skeletons.

These two figures are from the Trash Bag Bunch line, which I missed out on, but would definitely like to track more down of nowadays. These guys remind me of Bebop from TMNT and Mutant Zero from the Initiative in a ridiculously vague way. 

Another pair of my near-favorite toys from the whole pack were these two. A Panthro eraser!!! I was (and still am) a huge lover of Thundercats. And Panthro was one of my favorite characters from that show as well as my favorite action figure from that line. The crocodile is from old Super Golden Crisp cereal commercials featuring Sugar Bear. I am also a huge fan of advertising mascots (and their nemeses) so this hungry guy is a perfect addition to my collection.

On the military side of things, The Trash Man included this mega-sized army man and a Cobra Commander action figure! C.C. ended up on my Joes shelf. He's the classic 80's villain and I love both the hooded and helmeted versions of the character.

So Brian and I share an enthusiasm for the Rock Lords. I had most of the toyline when I was a kid, a receiving Granite here made me rush to eBay to see how much it would cost me to fill out the rest of my collection. Turns out... kind of a lot. It's weird to think that a series of toys that had warriors transforming into lumps of rock can go for so much money these days... but if I love 'em, obviously a lot of other people out there probably do too. The fella on the right side there is Taco Terror, one of the Refrigerator Rejects from the Food Fighters line of toys from back in 1988. I've been seeing these things make a huge comeback lately due to nostalgia and the bizarrely awesome concepts and designs of the toys themselves. This was another line that I had a BUNCH of as a kid.

In the category of "items that made me gasp out loud when I removed them from the box" we have this Kermit mug. And not just ANY Kermit the Frog... but his Muppet News Reporter role from Sesame Street. Brian has had some amazing success sending me breakable items via the sometimes-questionable postal service. This is one of my absolute favorite versions of Kermit EVER. As this news reporter Kermit would go out and interview the characters from famous nursery rhymes and fairy tales. It was brilliant. The PEZ dispenser is from 1991 and makes a great addition to my current muppet PEZ collection.

It wouldn't be a package from Brian without some sweet wax-packs (Technically the Beetlejuice cards are not in a wax-pack, I know. Don't worry about it.) and this package did NOT disappoint! I opened the ALF pack to see who the Bouillabaisseball Card featured. The other two remain sealed.

There is probably a very quantifiable laundry-list of items that people have discovered that I love just from reading this blog. Very close to the top of this list is any kind of Choose Your Own Adventure books (or "gaming books" if you're hardcore). And Brian is always hooking me up with these things. The Third Planet From Altair is the 7th book in the CYOA series and Famous and Rich (I'm assuming Robin Leach has the copyright of "Rich and Famous"?) is the 4th book in the "Which Way Books" series. Both look like they will be fun to read.

One of the other most surprising items to come out of this package is this VHS tape featuring the Madballs. I don't talk about Madballs enough on this blog, because frankly I find them next to impossible to find around my area nowadays. Madballs were not the most durable toys when I was a kid, and none of mine survived my childhood whatsoever. I have exactly two Madballs in my vast collection at this point, Slobulus and Crackhead. I would rent the video tape you see above from a local rental place obsessively as a child, as well as its sister-tape Madballs: Gross Jokes. I think they were collectively to be the beginnings of some sort of Saturday morning cartoon that simply never took off.

It was interesting in that it took place in a dystopian world inhabited by ball-shaped organisms (and by interesting I mean "bizarre"). The world was ruled by the evil "Badballs" (all of the second-wave-released characters, led by Wolfbreath who was heart-breakingly one of my favorite Madballs, and VERY hard to watch acting evil) and there was a resistance building to escape the oppressive world led by the good Madballs (all of the first-wave-released characters led by Screamin' Meemie) who just wanted to have fun, which was illegal on their home planet of ORB. Ah the 80's.

If anything sums up a package received in the mail from The Trash Man better than the phrase: "From Trash to Treasure" better... I can't think of one. So the title of the first of three Little Golden Books that Brian included in the package is more than fitting. I am of course a rabid collector of Little Golden Books which is either endearing or creepy depending on who's reading this. In the pile is a book starring one of my favorite Disney Afternoon properties: Chip n' Dale's Rescue Rangers! The Big Cheese Caper. And a Woody the Woodpecker Takes a Trip which stars the main character and his obligatory child-versions of himself that are named Knothead and Splinter.

Also included in the package were some comic book treats! Marvel's STAR imprint was always good for some toy-licensing fun, and here we see Air-Raiders and Silver Hawks representing! Brian of course knows from this blog how much I love my Air-Raiders figure that I salvaged from childhood:

As demonstrated in this picture of Baxter Stockman KILLING him...

I never played with him properly, calling him "Vocal Chord" instead of the much more accurate and unwieldy: Tyrants of the Wind Soldier.

And the comic book includes this KICK-@$$ picture of "Vocal Chord" in all his glory! This sight gave me LITERAL goosebumps.

There's nothing not-awesome about these three issues as well. We have an Inferno tie-in that I actually don't own yet, a Marvel Holiday Special (LOVE the Holiday specials from back in the day!) and a Marvel Super-Heroes Super Heroes Summer Special with the tagline: When Balls Collide!!! That right there is worth the price of admission.

Brian also included this TPB of Rocketo which is a comic I have always been curious about, but too lazy to track down on my own. So now I can finally check it out! It looks amazing.

And when I had heard that he was getting rid of his Shadowpact trades due to the evil, Evil, EVIL minimalist game... I stuck my hand up in the air and said "mememememe!!!" because I liked the team back when they were introduced. These stories are of... mixed quality, and I can see why Brian had decided he no longer needed them in his collection. But I ASKED for them, remember. It was incredibly gracious of him to acquiesce. 

So there you have it kids! The contents of a package from Brian "The Trash Man" Farrell, of Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture fame! That's all I've got for tonight. I'll be back soon with more Gross Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 15: Marden's Finds!

I've mentioned Mardens on here a time or two... and I'll be mentioning them again tonight. But tonight, as with almost ALL things on this blog during this magical month... my mention will be HALLOWEEN themed. Mardens is an overstock and salvage place, similar to Big Lots... sort of. So they get some interesting stuff around Halloween. I am almost certain that they get a lot of their stock from Spirit stores, because some of it is surprisingly high-end. Here's a small handful of stuff I found on the cheap in their Halloween section:

Nice selection... Hellraiser, Thundercats, Shaun the Sheep... you see the pattern forming right? Right. Good. 

First up is this cool "Butterball's Weapons" on a faux-leather apron. Butterball, for those who don't know, is this guy: 

Sorry... he's SUPER hard to find a good picture of on the internet.

And next to the "Chatterer" he is my FAVORITE cenobite. Anyway, I paid 2.99 for his set of weapons... which are not really movie accurate in any way shape or form... but still, it looks like a tool belt full of bloody cenobite torture instruments... and that just says family fun to me! 

I'm a sucker for cheap but good entertainment of the Halloween variety. And Shaun the Sheep "Little Sheep of Horrors" fits that bill nicely. From the creators of Wallace and Gromit, this video has a bunch of kid-friendly tales of a sheep and his friends... and Halloween. I think my favorite one may be the part where a sheep dressed as a Dalek shows up for a Halloween party. Do I need to say more?

While I see the potential, I know that the Sword of Omens is not truly a Halloween object... but Mardens had them out with the Halloween stuff. So... deal with it. I paid 6.99 for this museum-quality replica (with lights, sound, and a retractable blade that sticks out about 2 feet) and now it adorns my cave. 

Next up we have another Halloween DVD and a cool book about monsters.

First up we have The Cookie Jar Halloween Cartoon Collection. I bought this pretty much for just ONE thing... and then discovered a handful of other great cartoons on the DVD:

I specifically bought the DVD for track #9: Bump in the night, an old claymation series from the mid-90's. What I discovered was that there was a Halloween episode of the Littles on there!!! Archie's Weird Mysteries!!! And Ripley's Believe it or Not: The Vampire kit. What I also discovered when I got it home was that the ONE track I bought it for had the AUDIO messed up!!! So Bump in the Night was unwatchable. Which is probably why it ended up at an overstock and salvage store in the first place.

Finally, this book of monsters explores mythology as well as a few other sources to fill its pages with monsters to excite and inspire. The artwork is pretty fun. It's one in a long tradition of "kids' monster books" that I was a NUT for as a kid. I paid .50 cents for this book. Check out some of the art:

Well that's it for me tonight my pretties! I'll be back soon with some Gristle-filled Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

Be sure to check out all of the great blogs participating in this year's Halloween Countdown! You can do so by clicking this link, or clicking on the Cryptkeeper 2013 banner on the sidebar to the right! Also, check out the "Blog-O-Ween" Halloween Blog collective, again by following this link, or through the badge on the sidebar! Thanks!