6 Little Golden Books #1

Tonight I think I'll talk about Little Golden Books. These were a major part of my childhood. In fact I still have all of mine. So I think I'll talk about a six of my favorites from my collection.

#1

Donny and Marie : The Top Secret Project
by Laura French
Illustrated by Jan Neely
I used to watch the Donny and Marie Show as a kid and I had this one book about Donny thinking he could build a robot. It doesn't turn out quite the way he wanted and so Marie and their little brother try to outdo him.

#2

The Black Hole A Spaceship Adventure for Robots
by uh, well my book doesn't give any credits.
From the Disney movie that I enjoyed it focuses on the robot characters of V.I.N.CENT and Old B.O.B. as they explore the spaceship and try to avoid being caught by Maximilian. A fun little story even if it doesn't actually fit in the with story from the film.

#3 

Underdog and the Disappearing Ice Cream
by Mary Ann Forn
Illustrated by Jason Studios
There's no need to fear Underdog is here. So his catch phrase went. An entertaining story. Ice cream disappears, Polly disappears, aliens show up and Underdog saves the day.

#4

Woodsy Owl and the Trail Bikers
by Kennon Graham
Illustrated by Frank McSavage
70's environmentalism. Remember kids, "Give a hoot, don't pollute."

#5

Woody Woodpecker at the Circus
by Stella Williams Nathan
Pictures by Frank McSavage
Woody along with Splinter and Knothead(niece & nephew I believe) decide to join the circus. Hilarity ensues.

#6

SHAZAM A Circus Adventure
by Bob Ottum
Illustrated by Kurt Shafenburger
And for our last book, how about another trip to the circus. This time however the circus train is delayed so Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel put on a circus themselves. Because real super-heroes aren't afraid to put on clown makeup and get hit in the face with pies.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this look back at a few of my Little Golden Books. If so, not to worry I have more and will be posting about them in the future.

The Return of Mego

Mego figures are back. These were the big thing back when I was a kid. I remember having a few of their toys. Only a couple of the 8" figures which I'll get to in a bit. First I want to talk about the return this year at Target.

I am so glad to see these figures in the stores again. I found them at my local Target today. The end cap was pretty full and there was only one figure they were out of. I didn't find Jimi Hendrix this time, but I'm not too worried.

A word from Marty President of Mego

Of this first wave of figures there are three that I want to get.

First up is one of my favorite characters. Dracula. And not just any Dracula, but the version as portrayed by the great Bela Lugosi. So glad they were able to get the rights to do this one.

Next up, Action Jackson. Admittedly not a character I'm familiar with. That said he looks really cool and seems like one I would have enjoyed as a kid.

And last but not least, the aforementioned Jimi Hendrix. One of my all-time favorite musicians and a must have.

Of course this is just from the first wave. I'm sure that there will be more to come in the not too distant future. I am hopeful for some other characters returning, namely CHiPs. These were the two I had as a kid. I even clearly remember getting Ponch at a department store in a mall while visiting my grandmothers and playing with it in the car on the way home. So it would be great to have them again. And to go along with them it would be nice to add Emergency!, Adam-12 and Dragnet. Fingers crossed, we shall see them one of these days.

Atari Force Comics

Back in the middle school I had a workbook where one of the pages was there to list some of your favorite things. I listed my three favorite comics at the time, G. I. Joe, Atari Force and Rocket Raccoon. A bit ahead of the curve on that last one I think. It was 1985 after all. Anyway I'll be discussing all three of those titles here, starting with the Atari Force.

The comics were published by DC, which like Atari at the time were owned by Warner Bros. They started with the Mini Comics packed in with some of the Atari 2600 VCS games in 1982. These were followed by the Star Raiders Graphic Novel in 1983. Finally they launched an ongoing series in 1985.

The Mini comics featured the original Atari Force team in their ship the Scanner One. These were packed in with the games: Defender, Berzerk, Star Raiders, Phoenix and Galaxian. I didn't have these originally and was unaware of them even until later. The Team, handpicked by A.T.A.R.I (Advanced Technology And Research Institute), consisted of Martin Champion, Lydia Perez, Li-San O'Rourke, Mohandas Singh and Dr. Lucas Orion. Later they were joined by Hukka an alien named for the noise he made when he spoke. 

The Star Raiders Graphic Novel that followed the Mini Comics I knew even less about, only learning about it in recent years. It doesn't actually feature the Atari Force as such. But it does include a member of Hukka's race. I have read that this was also the first ever original graphic novel. It was the first volume in DC's series of graphic novels at the time.

The ongoing series of Atari Force is the one I am most familiar with. I started reading it with issue #4 when it came out. I stuck with it to its end but missed out on the follow up One Shot that came out in 1986.

The new Atari Force was made up of two kids of the original team. Tempest, son of Martin Champion and Lydia Perez and Dart, daughter of Mohandas Sing and Li-San O'Rourke. The rest of the team consisted of Hukka, Morphea, an empath who looked like a praying mantis, Babe, a large toddler they rescued from slavers,  Pakrat, a rodent like thief, Blackjack, Dart's lover along with Taz and Kargg. They fought against a being know as the Dark Destroyer.

I enjoyed these comics when I was younger and are the only ones that I still have my originals of. I never parted with these and have added to the collection. I need only two of the Mini Comics and one issue of the Ongoing Series.

As of 2015 Dynamite Comics has the rights to the Atari properties and are reprinting the Atari Force Comics. So far they have a collection of the Mini Comics available. Hopefully they will soon have reprints of the Ongoing series. 

Dino Drac Funpack July 2018

So the Dinosaur Dracula Fun Pack for July arrived a couple days ago. It's his fourth anniversary putting out these boxes of joy. It is also my first anniversary subscribing to them. And it's a winner once again. Lets dive in and have a look at what kind of goodness came this month.

Snacks. Two packs of Fruit Stripe Gum. Nice, but I don't chew gum honestly. So I gave these to my nephew who had never tried it before. He liked to so that's a win.  The barbeque chips were good as well.

Another Super Monstrous figure. This is the fourth one I've gotten in these funpacks. Previously I'd received Dracula, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde and a witch. Now I have the Huntchback from this cool like of toys from Spain.

Six packs of trading cards to add to my ever growing collection. I've already filled two binders with mostly the cards I get in these packs. Time to start a third one.

E. T. The Extraterrestrial earrings. Umm, okay.

Super Mario Bros. movie buttons. Fun.

The usual mini-poster and stickers. Always nice to get.

And finally my favorite item of the month. An unexpected Pog of Morbius the Living Vampire. Seriously, this is my favorite Marvel Super Hero. The pog was an addition to the pack this month that I didn't know about. And the fact that it was just randomly in there was mind blowing and wonderful.

I enjoy getting these fun packs in the mail every month along with reading Dinosaur Dracula's blog and watching the cool videos he post as well as listening to his podcast, The Purple Stuff Podcast regularly. I highly recommend checking them out if you're not familiar with them. 

Childhood Toys from Granny's Pt. 2

As promised the second post about the toys I had at my grandmother's house. Some of these are a bit odd, and some are not toys either. But I felt they should go in as well.

First up some stationary type stuff. The Cabbage Patch Kids ruler. Technically it was my sister's but I used it as much as her. 

My pencil sharpener, also served as a computer for my action figures. It was just the right size.

A 1984 Olympics cup from McDonalds. Used this as a pencil cup rather than drinkware.

This toy tomahawk hung on the wall in the playroom at Granny's for years. No idea where we got it from. 

This I've had since I was a wee babe. It used to be a squeak toy, but the squeaker is long gone.

A Stomper truck from a McDonalds Happy Meal. A rare thing for me to have at Granny's. Most of the time we ate at Burger Queen (yes there was such a place.) Later it was a smaller place called Druther's.

These little nick nacks sat on a small shelf in our playroom.  An elf with a missing leg, four clowns, a seashell, two swans and a poodle. I have no idea why we had these, we just did.

That's all for this time. There may be a part three if I find some more of the stuff I had. I haven't found it all yet as it got put away in different places. Until then...

Childhood toys from Granny's Pt. 1

Recently I've been sorting through some of the stuff I've had in storage for a while. In doing so I've found things I didn't remember that I kept along with stuff I hadn't been sure of where it was put away. One of the finds was old toys I'd had at my grandmother's house. At home I had G. I. Joe and Transformers and the "good" toys. But at Granny's I had the cheaper knock-off types of toys. Most of which I got rid of when Granny moved in with us. I just didn't have room for all of it. I did keep a few things however.

Here is a small sampling of some, mixed in with some other old toys I kept as well as some more recent additions.

First up is a generic action figure case I picked up a couple weeks ago at a local flee market. Perfect for storing these old figures. Most of which came from Granny's. The exceptions being the three Fisher Price Adventure People, the Tonka Play people figure and the Remco Sgt. Rock figure.

Here we have the three Adventure People. These I've acquired over the past couple of years as my interest in them has grown.

Next up, three cheap movie figures. Robocop, Rambo and The Terminator. All made by the same company, but in completely different styles. I think the studio sold the rights for whatever they could get just to have some money. They are pretty cool though.

My three remaining Remco American Defense figures. These were my favorites of all the toys I had at Granny's. As a kid I probably had almost as many of these as I did real G. I. Joe figures. I am not sure why I kept these particular ones as there were others I liked better.

Three more generic G. I. Joe knock-offs that I honestly don't remember anything about.

Lanard's The Corps. Wal-Mart's Joe knock-offs. And the one toy line that is still around it seems.

This one I had at home. A Tonka Play People motorcycle rider. Like the F-P Adventure People these were just generic figures of people from different walks of life. But still one's I enjoyed.

My last remaining G. I. Joe figure. V2 Snake-Eyes. I actually left him over at my grandmother's once I had several different Snake-Eyes figures. He's in pretty good shape surprisingly.

Remco Sgt. Rock. Not from Granny's. Nor even the one I had as a kid. I got this one off of eBay a few years ago to replace my long gone childhood one. I was a fan of the comics and had a few of the figures and playsets to go along with them.

As I said, I wish I had kept more of these guys. But at least I have these few. I occasionally look for more to add to them when I can. Mostly the Adventure People and the American Defense. I don't see too many out in the wild and eBay prices I just can't bring myself to pay most of the time. But from time to time I find stuff.

In part 2 I'll show some of the more odd-ball stuff from Granny's.

One year later.

So I haven't updated this blog. Things have changed and I no longer am pursuing an art career. So the purpose of this site is no longer what it was. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing on here. I am leaning towards a nostalgia blog.

I think I could write about stuff that matters to me. Just to have use of this and to justify my keeping the domain name.