Adventure People Mystery

Today when I went out to my art studio I found this in the mud.

It appeared to be the leg of an old Fisher-Price Adventure People figure. But I had no idea which one. So I decided to see if I could find out just which it was.

And I did find out pretty quickly. It took less that five minutes to search him out. And here he is,

 

His name is Jess and he is the pilot of the Rescue Helicopter. Which I clearly remember having as a kid.

More about it here.

Anyway, it is cool to have discovered this. And to be reunited with part of one of my childhood toys.

Attic Archaeology

Let's start the year off right. For my first post of 2019 I'm going to shade some things I discovered today.

This morning I went digging through my attic looking for an old book I seem to have misplaced. I hoped it may have been in one of those boxes. But I was wrong, it wasn't up there. But that's okay as what I did find was much cooler.

Old toys I had forgotten that I'd kept, or even had in the first place.

The main find was Sgt. Savage and his Screaming Eagles toys.

I still have my 12" Sgt. Savage with all of his accessories. The gun even still works. He's going on the shelf with my other two 12" G.I. Joes. 

Nine of the action figures, three versions of Savage, two of Dynamite, D-Day, General Blitz, Iron Stormtrooper and the Arctic Stormtrooper. I still have their weapons and accessories as well. Looking them up on Yojoe.com I found some encouraging news. There are only sixteen figures in the line along with three vehicles. So I headed over to ebay and found that they aren't too pricey. I think I can complete this collection and I'd like to do that. These G.I. Joe toys were designed by one of my favorite comic book artists, Joe Kubert and I just enjoy them.

Next I found my G1 and G2 Sideswipes along with my Action Master Shockwave.

I kept very few of my original Transformers. I knew about the Sideswipes, but I didn't remember keeping Shockwave. Nice to see I still have him in my collection.

Sideswipe was one of my favorite Autobots as well as one of my favorite Transformers overall. Only Brawn ranks higher with me. I knew I still had both of these versions, just wasn't sure where I'd put them.

I knew I'd kept this SDF-1 from Robotech as well.

The thing is, I thought I'd lost one of the cannons off of its shoulders. But it turns out I was wrong. The missing piece was just in a different box somehow. So now it is back together and complete. I also found some of my other Robotech toys. Scott Bernard with his transforming Cyclone armor and the Veritch Alpha. I didn't keep them out of the box or take pics though.

Sgt. Savage wasn't the only G.I. Joe stuff that I found. As you can see I still have a Toxo-viper squirtgun, the antenna from the Badger, a folding comb/brush and the remote for the R/C Crossfire which I still have as well.

I kept my two talking Cryptkeeper dolls but I thought I'd gotten rid of the action figures. Apparently I was wrong. 

To go with the Tales From the Cryptkeeper cartoon I still have the Keeper himself as well as the vampire. I remember having the mummy as well but I didn't find him. But at least I still have these two guys.

Then there are these.

A genuine original Madballs, Crackhead as he was originally known, and a knock off as well. I thought I'd kept Crackhead. I have trouble calling him Bashbrain as his name was changed to for the obvious reasons. I was sure I also still have Fistface, but I didn't see him.

One half of the Hardy Boyz still remains in my possession, Titan Tron Jeff is missing his brother Matt.

Some other guys still around are these two.

Buck Rodgers from Mego and a Defenders of the Earth Flash Gordon. I remembered having Buck, but Flash I'd forgotten about.

I found all kinds of other random things as well.

A Visionaries staff(Cravex's I believe), a floor panel from the Go-Bots Command Center and Frankenstein for example. I also found the entire Power Rangers Wild Force along with their playset. Numerous Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon and Masters of the Universe figures. And then there was all of my New Adventures of He-Man toys and Captain Power's jet. BraveStarr's Kerium nuggets and Air Raiders figures. So many cool old toys. I may have to spend some more time just going though them all here soon.

Until next time.

Last of 2018

Well, I didn't get as much blogging in as I had hoped this year. Life just got in the way. Next year I am going to make the effort to get more blog writing done.

I have plenty of subjects I want to write about.

• G.I. Joe collecting, Toys and the old comics mostly
• Thrift store and flee market finds
• Classic video games
• Little Golden Books, old and new
• Matchbox cars
• My art and the short stories I'm working on

These are just a few of the things you can expect to see on Shade of Jeremy in the coming year.

Happy New Year!

Thrifting and a Minor Update

Well, I haven't been blogging as much as I'd like to. It has been a combination of life getting complicated and another project taking up my time. Life is life, I'm doing what I can to make things better. The other project has been my taking up writing short stories again. I've tried off and on over the past few years but mostly just had false starts that led nowhere. But now I've gotten three stories written and just started the fourth. I'm pleased with that.

But tonight I want to talk about something else. Just a little thrift shopping I got to do today. My faithful sidekick, my nephew Mason, and I went out to some shops today. We managed to pick up a fairly nice haul.

First up we hit the Book Broker, a local comic shop and used book store where I go for my new comics. Today I found more than just the new stuff however. They had restocked their Dime boxes and I cleaned out a good chunk of them.

Forty-two back issues from the 70's mostly. Mainly Archie Comics titles, but a few Sgt. Rock and one Ghost Castle from DC. In other words some of my favorite reading materials. But that wasn't the only things I picked up there. I also found a couple Atari VCS/2600 games in the boxes. Since I already had Journey Escape I passed on it. But Chopper Command for only $5 CIB was too good to pass up.

It still had the price tag from Hills on there. That was cool as Hills Department Stores was my first job. I have a fondness for them and this has significance to me personally.

It is also my first game in the box that I have in my collection now. The rest are just loose cartridges mostly without the the manuals or any other paperwork.




After the Book Broker we went to Super Mega Replay and Coconuts. I didn't find anything in either place but Mason did get a movie he didn't have on Blu-Ray for $3.99. The Marine 3 I believe.

Then we checked out the Halloween City/Toy City that has taken over the old Toys R Us building. Pretty cool stuff in there, but nothing we wanted to get today. Nearby on the other side of the parking lot is World Missions Consignment. A big place full of all kinds of stuff. We looked around for a while in there but there was just too much to go through today. We may go back again and try to see what we find.

Our last stop was the Evansville Rescue Mission Thrift Store. Nice little place we hadn't been to before. Mason didn't find much he was interested in, but I found a bag of old records for $8.

Mostly they are Peter Pan Book and Records, minus the books. Though there were also some Disney and other children's records in the set. They need a little cleaning up before I try playing them. But still 24 records for $8 isn't too bad.

So all in all not a bad trip.

Mego Action Jackson 2018

The other day I got my first of the new Mego action figures. That being Action Jackson, a character I am admittedly not at all familiar with. But he seemed to be an interesting one so I gave him a chance.

Of course I took him out of his package and let him breath. I noticed the quality right away these are really well made figures.

The detail is amazing, from the features of his face to the uniform patch. The boots and the belt are nice as well.  Though I wish he'd had a holster for his gun on the belt. I mean sure he can hold the gun in his hand just fine. But I would have liked the idea of posing him with out the gun in hand. Plus it would have helped to keep the gun from being lost.

 

As you can see he does pose really well. It's easy to get him to stand up which is nice. I have plenty of action figures who cannot stand unaided. Thank you Mego for that.

 

All in all I am quite happy with this figure and I look forward to getting more.

Shelfie Time

Tonight I think I'll indulge in some shelfie photos. These are the toys I keep out on display, rotating things around from time to time.

Here's a good view of the whole lot. Top to bottom;

Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy

M.A.S.K
Go-Bots
Assorted
and unseen on the bottom shelf is my collection of coloring books.

Here's a better look at the M.A.S.K. and Go-Bots. With the exception of the Specialist Tracker G. I. Joe figure all of the M.A.S.K. toys are the originals I've had since I was a kid. They are all a little worn out and well played with. None of them are complete. The closest are the Boulder Hill playset and the Outlaw tanker truck.

The Go-bots are pretty much the opposite. Only the Space Hawk with the blue variant Leader-1 and a couple of the books are my originals. All of the rest come from my renewed interest in collecting over the past few years.

On the top of the shelf you can see mostly Dungeons & Dragons from LJN toys. But there are a few other things added in. My repainted Castle Greyskull, a Weebles Treehouse, generic carrying case and a two headed dragon. Of these only Greyskull and Warduke are my original toys. All the rest are additions I've collected over the years.

Sorry for this last photo being so blurry. The last shelf is an assortment of toys both old and not so old. A couple Morbius the Living Vampire figures, old Spider-Man series and recent Marvel Legends. My old Ultraman figure. A Frankenstein head and a wooden bomber that I got from my Joanne Fabrics and painted. A G2 Devastator. An old Godzilla figure and a Pac-Man hand held game finish up the front. In back is a stack of board games, puzzles and a box of Dungeons & Dragons Kree-Os.

You can barely see it but the bottom shelf is just filled with coloring books. Many of them old, going back to the 70s even. About a dozen G. I. Joe coloring books, some Transformers, super heroes and an assortment of other characters.

The shelf does get changed around from time to time. I only added the Go-Bots, taking the place of my old Starcom toys. I plan on bringing out the rest of my G1 and G2 Transformers at some point. Probably some of my other action figures as well.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share these with you.

Burger Chef Commercials #1

When I was a kid there was a chain of fast food restaurants known as Burger Chef. They were one of my favorite places to eat. As a bit of a nostalgia trip I've decided to share some of their commercials with you dear readers.

First up we get one with the mascots Burger Chef & Jeff. These are the guys that were a main part of my memories of the restaurant. But they weren't the only ones however.

There were also an assortment of monsters who interacted with Chef & Jeff. Such as Wolfburger the werewolf.

And of course there was Count Fangburger the vampire. I got a kick out of his little bat pal.

There were others as well. Cackleburger the Witch, The Great Burgini and Crankenburger. Fangburger and Crankenburger also had families as well. It was a fun and interesting assortment of mascots. More my style that the King or Ronald.

But before these characters came along they had other advertisements featuring cartoon characters.

In the 1960's they had ads with the characters from the popular newspaper comic strip "Family Circus"

Back to Chef & Jeff, they were used to introduce the Fun Burger followed by the Fun Meal. These were the predecessors to all the other kid's meals  that were to come later.

Incrediburgable!

I think that's enough for tonight. There are more that I will share at a later time.