Goodwill Quick Stop 08-09-2013 Toys! Comics! Cool Stuff Galore!

On my way home from work on Friday I decided to stop in to Goodwill for one of my patented "quick-stops" this means I breeze through the departments I'm most likely to find something good without really digging much. I hit the toy department, scan the books, and look at the case at the front of the store. 

GOODWILL GEEK TIP #765: Always check the glass case or cases near the register. You NEVER know what they're going to stick in that case... sometimes its all just old costume jewelry but it could be old game cartridges, or steak knives, or vintage action figures, or sex how-to books, or anything they think may be valuable and/or dangerous for kids to get their hands on for whatever reason. Some of it may be obvious, but some of it will probably have you scratching your head. 

In the many glass cases of the Goodwills I frequent I have found: a bag of Masters of the Universe action figures, a bag of McDonalds vintage Happy Meal Cars, a can of Duff Beer from the Simpsons that turned out to house one-sixth of a dice game... the list goes on, but I will not. In fact, two of my quick-stop finds in this post were out of the glass cases by the registers! ALWAYS CHECK THE CASE

For instance, I found is set of 1991 Archie toy cars from Burger King in the case. I'm not a huge Archie fan, but this was a cool set, and I do enjoy have icons of different sorts in my collection. Plus the cars are all very cool. 

I love that the "big 4" of the Archies are all represented here, and that each has a distinct looking automobile that seems to match their personalities. Archie in his old-fashioned fun-loving jalopy, Betty in her classic Cadillac, Veronica in her suped up sports car, and Jug-Head in something that says Volkswagen to me, but I really don't know for cars... so feel free to enlighten me.

 

They have General Motors markings on the bottoms in addition to the Burger King and Archie stuff so I am led to believe these are genuine car models. I never liked them much as a kid but as an adult I'm becoming a sucker for any kind of old-school Fast Food premium with a famous character driving a toy car.

I paid 1.99 for each of these, making the set just under 8 bucks, and less than that with my discount card... but I still had this twinge of feeling like I was over-paying. I really fell in love with them though so I went ahead and brought them home. 

The next item I found was sitting in with the board games and puzzles in the toy department. It's a 2001 Dexter's Laboratory Coloforms playset! I've read enough blog posts from fellow bloggers to know how much fun Colorforms can be, so I snapped these up for .99 cents without hesitation. I was worried that when I got them home some of the pieces might be missing or damaged...

But I was relieved to discover that was not the case! All 32 Colorform Pieces were present, whole, and accounted for! They still stick to the background included like magic too! I was kind of disappointed by the selection of Colorform pieces to play with, as I know there were more crazy events and experiments that could have been represented rather than say... a loose lightbulb or a grandafather clock. I find it hard to believe kids would have had much to "play" with this set. But I still love that it reminds me of my childhood, and the Colorforms I had back then. They feel just the same. And I'm a big Dexter's fan so I can't complain. 

Kicking around loose on the shelf is yet another Dexter item, and I can only assume he was shucked from a grab-bag (This happens a lot. People pop open grab-bags and leave the contents strewn everywhere. It drives me insane) because he had no price tag so they just charged me .99 cents for him. The weirdest thing about him? He's a Subway Kid's Meal toy! I never thought Subway had anything worth bothering with in their kid's meals! This was of course from 2001 so it's been like, 12 years... they've probably had quite a few hits and misses in that time. 

Here's Dexter in his new home with some other fellows. I sort of see Dexter either teaming up with or facing off against Inspector Gadget. It just feels right. 

I cannot explain why I bought this book. It is a Perry Mason mystery/crime novel. It is "The Case of the Mythical Monkeys" I think... I think that the image of the monkeys and the title... juxtaposed with the hot "ready-and-waiting" red-headed bombshell... just got me. I will never read this book, just to be clear. I could easily just tear off the cover, frame it, and hang it on the wall. I won't do that because it causes me physical pain to deface books in such a manner... but I need to display this awesome piece of ridiculousness SOMEHOW. I only paid .99 cents for it, so I don't feel TOO guilty.

And of course, I can never leave a Choose Your Own Adventure book behind if I spot it. This one is particularly old, and is only #4 in the series. "Space and Beyond"" looks a little silly to be honest, based off the illustrations alone. The hero of the story has a chin that is larger than the rest of his head. I got this for .99 cents. 

And last but not least I found a parcel of comic books in the glass case up front! At first I sighed because the pack was 9.99 and I'm SO tired of Goodwill over-pricing old comic books... and then when I asked to see the pack and realized it contained sixteen issues of Power-pack... and THREE of them were Inferno tie-ins... I decided I would buy! That's like .63 cents per issue, and I'm okay with that. Not only that, but if you look above, there's a guest appearance by Nightcrawler and I suspect the Morlocks. 

I've never really followed Power Pack. I think I have a couple of loose issues somewhere in my collection (none of the ones I picked up here). I know a little bit about the characters and their powers, and some of their history That's only because I used to make it my business to know anyone and everyone in the Marvel Universe. But I've never really read any stories. These will be my first official foray into Power Pack territory. Hey look! The New Mutants guest star in one of these too!

Here's a three-issue story-arc featuring Galactus! The far right comic in the far right picture there is a Holiday special that came out in '93. "An All New Story from the Original Creators!"

I mentioned a while back that I've been having a bit of a dry spell at Goodwill. AND THEN... I run in for a quick-stop and I come home with some pretty cool stuff like all this! This was a fun little handful of great stuff and I walked out whistling!

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

League of Extraordinary Bloggers: Knock it Off!

It's that time again kids! The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is back and this week the topic is:

Bootlegs, knockoffs, and third-party products.

And let me tell you, I had been scratching my head over this one. I don't have a ton of bootleg items to be honest... and I just wasn't sure if I was going to be able to join in this week. Then! I remembered one item that I featured during the League's Spacemen week back in January. This guy:

I'm POOOOOSEABLE!!!

My Space Defender Poseable Figure from Hunson toys! Who's Hunson toys? Who the hell knows! (A Google search turned up a weird, nebulous importation company which does in fact deal in a bunch of action figures, but I would say their Space Defender days are well behind them). I picked mine up at Maine retail chain Reny's. 

You're fooling exactly NO ONE.

It's ridiculously transparent who he's supposed to be, even if he is colored pure, snowy, virginal white. Let me give you a hint: It rhymes with Garth Nadir. In fact, that is what I am officially naming this character. Garth Nadir, Space Defender. Guys, I love Garth Nadir. There are other figures in this series that also look suspiciously like Power Rangers in red and blue... and as you can see above Garth here even shows up in all black plastic as well. Imagine!

Party on Garth.

 Locally, I was only able to find those four figures, and the only one I fell in love with was this albino version. I've also seen these show up online as "Robot Spacebots" but which are obviously the exact same toys. I couldn't bring myself to pop him out of his packaging, because it would just ruin the whole effect. Here's a close-up of Garth's face. Look at that sculpt! Look at those details! It almost looks like he's got some sort of breathing apparatus going on there...

Or... he's sucking on a dog-tag. 

 I know there's an obvious money-grubbing element to all knock-off toys like this one, but there's also this goofy cheap innocence to them as well. A kid can see this and HOPE that play-experience with it is going to be as awesome as playing with an actual Dar- I mean... famous, officially licensed space-themed action figure... And at this price point, there's a much better shot that a kid can bring this guy home.

Says he's ready to play.
So... Let's play. 

He's even got a "glow sword" that lights up when he does his AMAZING play feature! And what might that be you may ask? Well, let's look:

Pretty outstanding right? This also falls into the category of "cheap toys you can buy for your friends kids so that you friends with put their ear-drums out with an ice-pick". This guy is maybe only slightly behind buying a gym-teacher's whistle or a drum set... and so much more affordable. 

That's it for me folks! Let's see what the rest of the League is Bootlegging this week: 

- Chris over at Tupa's Treasures features a BUNCH of awesome bootleg toys! Some of them I would be proud to own!

- Rediscover the 80's shows off some awesome Streethawk... or... GI Joe... or some kind of figures and playsets. 

- The Nerd Nook explores the seedy side of Super Powers action figures. 

- Brian at Cool and Collected shows off a Cardboard flying... Super-- er... Saturn Man?

UPDATE!!! I totally beat the Trash Man over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture to doing a post about this AWESOME toy!!! I am crowing it from the rooftops!!! I forced him into some kind of incoherent babbling about knock-off comic books featuring TMNT-esque teams of Mad-Libs like [Insert Age Here] [Insert Science-y Adjective Here] [Insert Fighting Style Here] [Insert Random Animal Here] super-fighting teams from the 90's. And if you ignore the obvious fact that he was crying uncontrollably until he got the hiccups while trying to write it, you'll see it's pretty Awesome Post! 

I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

Goodwill Cave Feature: The Curio Shelf

Lately, I've been meeting interesting people all OVER the internet, and I've been discovering a lot of awesome new blogs because of it. So when I was contacted here on Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks by one Laura Huey, I set about exploring her blog, boobobby.blogspot.com a little bit at a time. She only started blogging a little over a year ago (like me!) and went through a move shortly after (also like me!) so we get to see this transition on her blog. She has three kids (me too!) and loves showing off her thrift discoveries (ahem, me again!) on her blog. 

Laura Huey's "girl-ified" house shelf

She recently showed off a curio shelf she picked up second-hand, repainted, and filled with kitschy goodness. I just loved it. So I told her I had a curio shelf in my cave that I had filled with stuff in a similar way. I THOUGHT I had done a whole post about that shelf on here already. Turns out I only gave you a glimpse of it back when I first showed off the Goodwill Geek Cave back when I finally got it decorated the way I like a while back:

This is what it looked like then. Looking at it recently, I didn't like the looks of it anymore. It was just too cluttered. With Laura's awesome post fresh in my mind, I wanted to feature this shelf on the blog, so I tried to de-clutter it a bit. I half succeeded. Here's what it looks like right now: 

Before, there was so much stuff crammed into every square that you couldn't really see anything. I removed ANYTHING I wasn't immediately charmed by. I made a pile of stuff to remove, and a pile of stuff that would go back on the shelf. Then I picked a few new things that would look good up there now as well. This is still my homage to the kinds of toys that get lost at the bottom of the toy box. The stuff that get's scooped up in handfuls and donated to Goodwill (or worse THROWN AWAY) that people vaguely remember as those cheap but cool little doo-dads they had when they were kids. This is my paean to those toys. 

 Let's start with the very tippy-top shall we? We've got all kinds of plastic figure goodies up here! There's some spacemen I'm pretty sure are vintage, and some neon plastic dogs that I have NO information about whatsoever. A pirate and a skeleton warrior I found at Goodwill... and the best items up here: The Z.O.M.B.I.E. figures from October Toys (I picked these up at a local music/movie/game store called Bull Moose Music, where they just have a big dish of them by the register) and the Scooby-Doo plastic figures which are actually game pieces from some Scooby Doo board game I also found at Goodwill. 

This is my favorite corner of the whole shelf. There's a bunch of little rubber finger-puppet guys, and almost everything is monster themed in some way. The top right four squares, with the blue aliens, devils, clowns, and dapper monsters are some of my absolute favorite little toys of all time. 

The top left corner of the curio shelf is not without it's cool details. Plastic knights, plastic cowboys, a fez monkey, a cyclops surfer dude... these are all awesome in their own way. I think one of the best little toys in this corner is the little red camel with the canopy on its back. I don't know where he came from originally, but I do love him so. 

These are the middle two rows of the shelf, separating the corners I've just shown you from the top, and the bottom corners I'll show you next. There's some really great stuff in here. I have a square dedicated to giant reptiles, some vintage dinosaur erasers, wrestlers! and much more. The pink flamingo and the guy playing guitar are two of my favorite mini guys here. The gray astronaut being confronted by a yellow squid-like alien also floats my boat. Plus giant rubber ant!

Got a handful of deceptively girly items sprinkled through this corner. You can see a kitten in a Santa's hat, and a pink bunny. These are there to honor the holidays I feel they represent. I'm actually referring to the mouse in the pink dress and the flower fairy in the bottom left corner there. These used to belong to my daughter when she was little, and I always think of her when I see them. Among the crowd here you'll also see a pair of goofy old kangaroos getting ready to duel, a teddy bear ice-skating past a hungry tiger, a whole troop of fire fighters, rubber fish, and a set of red prehistoric creatures all together (I'm counting the crab because I know there were crabs back then... and it's my shelf, so I do what I want.)

Finally the last corner of the shelf holds my little purple afroed car washers, my suckling pigs (oh no! one piglet has wandered off!), my monkey themed square, my plastic divers-themed square, and my Halloween square. That little pumpkin you see next to the finger puppet is a cool little tin ring lacquered orange and black and it is AWESOME. Other stuff as you can tell is just sort of randomly wherever. Why Mr. Peanut is standing next to that little orange Asian kid I don't know. Why a mermaid is basking in the glow of a orange scorpion I'll never figure out.

A LOT of this stuff was picked up in grab-bags and sealed LEGO bins at Goodwill. Goodwill Geek Tip #394: ALWAYS buy the taped up tubs full of LEGOs. There is always a crap-ton of other stuff in them as well. Little plastic soldiers, Hotwheels cars, anything. They're almost never just LEGOs. It's like opening the Arc of the Covenant without getting your face melted off.

I want to thank Laura Huey for inspiring this post! She really has a great blog, over at boobobby.blogspot.com and great taste in general. She blogs about more than just what she collects, which is great. It's not all just about the vintage Raggedy Ann accouterments and 70's style owls.

There is... a like crazy-a** number of owls though.
But who am I to judge?

She blogs about her family, her beliefs, her friends, her conflicts... she's a well-rounded renaissance blogger.

Laura Huey plus kids, from the Boo Bobby blog.

With that said however, I want to take some time to point out some of the cooler posts she's written, dedicated specifically to her collecting: 

- In this one she shows off some of the incredible pieces she's collected and has on display in her bedroom.

- This post features a ton of vintage goodies that she displays out on the built-in shelves in her home. You need to see some of this stuff!

- This one showcases Laura's awesome ability to take old kitschy items and decorate a kids room with them in a way that makes them look new and fresh. Some of this stuff I wouldn't look twice at if I saw it at Goodwill. Seeing it up in Laura's daughter's room makes it look fashionable and cool.

- In this haul post, Laura shows off some thrifty finds. For every kitchen rooster or canning supply she picked up there was a Never-Endng story on VHS or an old Jack-in-the-box. I have no idea what's going on with the baby-limbs in the seashell... just go see for yourself.

That's it for me tonight folks! I'll be back in a while to show off some Geeky Goodwill Goodness. Until then, Happy Hunting (and check out Laura's blog!)

Geeky Videos for a Lazy Sunday

Felt like posting some stuff today without really having to explain it all... so here's some short videos I've been enjoying on YouTube lately. The Geekier the better! Some of these are super old but I think they hold up just fine.

That's it for today kids! Enjoy! I'll be back with Geeky Goodwill Goodies real soon! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Random Handful: Action figures from the Dream Catcher!

I recently made another trip to "The Dream Catcher" Antique Mall in Ellsworth, ME. I mentioned The Dream Catcher back in February when I wanted to post some pics of items I've been drooling over there. But this time, I didn't just go to drool. I went back with a specific purchase in mind: a couple of old CRACKED magazines that I had seen there the last time I'd visited. But I ended walking out of there with so much more!

After running upstairs to quickly grab the magazines, I headed back downstairs to find a box of mixed action figures that had caught my eye on the way by. This is the complete pile of stuff I brought home with me after my visit.  

I've been hitting a bit of a dry spell at Goodwill lately. I have to admit. I'm just not finding the vintage goodies in there like I used to. So I thought I'd visit the Dream Catcher, pick up the issues of CRACKED and then see what else they had for cheap. As I pawed through the box of old action figures, I asked the guy behind the counter how much they were, and he said "A buck apiece" which got me pretty excited. 

Now, this first item I actually did not find in that box of action figures. This is a He-Man Soaky bubble-bath container from 1985. It cost me 5 dollars. And honestly, I can't think of ANYTHING I would have rather spent 5 dollars on. Look at this craftsmanship. It looks like an Academy Award from the Hyborian Era. 

ALL RIGHT!!! Let the 1 dollar goodness begin!!! First up straight out of 1986, we have this John Rambo action figure in his all his Rambo and the Forces of Freedom glory! I like your sleeveless sweat-shirt John, because your shirtless figure makes me very uncomfortable feeling. 

This is the action figure that actually drew my eye to the box. This is a Windhammer from the Silver Hawks line, from 1986. He is next to useless, even if I had his tuning fork accessory. But I like his colors, and he looks pretty bitchin' next to the vintage Thundercats figures I've managed to accumulate so far. He sort of looks like a medieval surfer-dude werewolf, right? 

Oh my ever loving F**K. I had NO IDEA what this figure even was when I picked it up. I just knew it was a bizarre pig-ball character with a Roman helmet and sexy legs. And, I might add, nothingh covering his crotch-ital area. Turns out this is a Pudgy Pig Power Rangers figure from 1994. I am not even a little bit of a Power Rangers fan. Sorry. But I F**KING love this toy. I reminds me of something straight out of MadBalls. 

Pawing around in that box, my face LIT UP when I saw this Anton Arcane and Weed Killer from the 1990 Swamp-Thing toy line. I found a color-changing Swamp-Thing at Goodwill last year, and even though these guys are missing their monstrous accessories that "transform" them into monsters, it's nice to have some of Swampies villains to menace him with. I love how Anton's head sort of just looks like a raisin. Weed Killer is the typical Toxic Crusaders/Captain Planet type villain... as eco-aware superheroes were the trend at the time. 

I almost didn't pick up this Strong Guy action figure from 1993. It's a little plain, and while I'm a HUGE fan of Strong Guy, I'm not a huge fan of this action figure... then I was like: "Hey, it's a buck, and what are the odds I'll ever find another Strong Guy toy of any kind? I NEED this." So I bought it. 

This Rocketeer PVC figure from 1991 was not actually in the box, but he was still just a buck. I found him while I was meandering through the upstairs area of the mall, where I picked up the CRACKED magazines. There was a suction-cup version of the character too, meant to cling to a window... but I ain't got time for that. 

Finding this 1993 Batgirl Happy Meal figure from Batman: The Animated Series put a huge grin on my face. For a simple, barely articulated Happy Meal figure, she's pretty great looking. She looks so... peppy, right? 

Finally, there's this guy. I have no idea where he came from. I've Googled and Googled and Googled. I picked him up at first because I though he was a Mummy figurine, possibly from the old Marx Universal line. I was disappointed to discover that was not the case, but he's still pretty cool. He's a larger-scale solid plastic playset style figurine. It looks like he was supposed to maybe have a helmet? And something plugs into his gut there, where you can see a hole. I've posted before and after cleaning shots because he was sort of caked in... clay I'm hoping? He looks like he's supposed to be an astronaut, but I have to admit, his dead-eyed face has a kind of creepy quality. If anyone can help me identify this guy, I would much appreciate it!

UPDATE: My inter-friend Anne Packrat did some research and came up with some other plastic astronaut toys. They aren't the same guys, but they are exactly what kept coming up every time I tried searching. I own a few of them, so I'm posting this next picture for reference/scale/whatever so folks can see how BIG this guy is. Keep in mind the guy on the left is about the size of a green plastic army man where my big blue guy is somewhere around 5 inches tall or so. 

UPDATE to the UPDATE: Well, Anne was right! Or at least very VERY close. MPC makes both figures. They put out the little guys but they also put out the 5 inch line as well, which had accessories. I found a picture of some more of them over at AngelFire.com. Here it is:

Image Courtesy of Angelfire.com

That's my guy in green there. The gray guy on the end is an example of a re-release and you can see how the accessories were pegged to the figure and then twisted off for play later. 

That's it for right now. I'll be talking a bit more in the future about the CRACKED magazines I picked up, but I wanted to dedicate a whole post to those. I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!