Showing posts with label Toys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toys. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

NEW PODCAST WITH GUEST HOST


This is a trial run for a new format for the Desdinova Super Villain of the Ozarks podcast. I've turned the hosting duties over to some friends, Jeff & Jamie. They ad libbed a stream of consciousness podcast at the last minute. They will be working out the bugs for next time. Right now give a quick listen (less than 20 minutes) as they discuss cartoonist Syd Hoff, fast food restaurants Mr. Swiss and Del Rancho, the Ripley's Believe It or Not TV shows, the Playskool McDonalds playset, Andy Warhol illustrations in a children's book and a mention of the resent blog post about Laredo. Enjoy!





Sunday, April 16, 2017

WHY THE VELVETEEN RABBIT SCARED ME AS A CHILD?


I realize I have poked fun of some of the nonsense on the Internet where people talk about fears of clowns, department store Santa Clauses and department store Easter Bunnies. Now, I am going to confess to having been frightened by something that is frequently referred to a "beloved children's favorite." It is the children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and first published in 1922.

I never read the book or had it read to me, but I saw an animated TV version. I tried to look for the one I watched on YouTube and couldn't find it. I had a hard time looking up information on this story or looking for the video because I get shaky and nauseated just think about the story (Go ahead, you jerks, and call me "snowflake").

So what scared me about this story that it STILL bothers me in my 40s?  Near the end of story, the little boy contracts a serious illness and a doctor tells the parents that they have to burn his toys because they are contaminated.

This probably wouldn't frighten any other kid, but since I was two years old, I have had multiple illnesses. I nearly spent several months of my early childhood in a oxygen tent at the hospital in Lebanon, Missouri, because of severe asthma. I was never able to really play outside like other kids, because what triggered my asthma was pollen and other allergens, which include trees and grass. I was confined to the indoors, so toys, books and records were my only source of fun. Imagine the terror if that was taken away and burned.

Maybe this didn't frighten other kids, because they didn't have illness in there lives or they had different circumstances in their lives. As for me, it created an anxiety that still won't go away.

At least I didn't say I'm afraid of clowns.

   

Sunday, December 4, 2016

WHAT DID MATTEL'S SOMERSAULTY THE CLOWN DOLL SAY?



This is a Mattel Somersaulty the Clown pull string doll. I had one just like this when I was a child. I had a hard time understanding what he said. He was supposed to say, "Do you want to see me do a somersault?" However, it always sounded more like "Do you want to see me suck soapy water?" True story.

NOTE: I had used this anecdote as part of a post on the original blog. I decided to delete that post, but this anecdote made me laugh so hard, I decided to use it in a post here since it had to do with a retro toy of the 70s. Hope you enjoy it.
 

Saturday, October 31, 2015

GHOST THE GAME

I found this photo on another website of a Ghost game. Ghost is a word game. I had heard of Ghost because of a trivia book I had as a child. That book spawned my interest in trivia. There was a section of trivia having to do with ghost. It mentioned a TV game show called Super Ghost, hosted by someone name Bergen Evans. I did some quick research on line about both after seeing this game.

Here is the best explanation I could find of how to play Ghost and Super Ghost. From some other photos I've seen, this came with letters and score cards.


There is wealth of information about Dr. Bergen Evans (above). He was a professor of English at Northwestern University. He hosted another game show called Down You Go, as well as two other shows called Of Many Things and The Last Word. He also wrote several popular reference books and newspaper columns, many aimed at increasing peoples vocabulary. While you can find information about Dr. Evans, two other things are hard too find: a photo of Bergen Evans with out a watermark and video of his TV shows. I managed to swipe this photo and enlarge it. Archive-dot-org has one of the only known copies of Down You Go in existence.

Ghost has gone modern too. You can find Ghost game apps on Google Play and online.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

THE THINGS THAT CAME FROM DESDINOVA'S LAIR

Trying out an new camera by taking photos of some things in my apartment for Halloween/monster kids.
When the batteries were good, this little guy would say, "Boo! Did I scare you?"

An original Shadow novel from the 30s.







Speaking of shadows, an original copy of the Dark Shadows soundtrack LP with the poster included.

The Eerie 1972 Annual

This is a mangled library copy of the Crestwood Frankenstein book. I bought this at a Friends of the Library sale. I believe it was in the Springfield R-12 Public Schools library system. To answer you Seinfeld fans out there, there were no "pee-pees or wee-wee" drawn on the monster, but I believe one page is missing. Below is what the book looked like in good condition.






And I leave you with a selfie of me.







 

Sunday, October 19, 2014

CASTLE DRACULA FUN HOUSE COLORFORMS

Some of my favorite toys as a child were the many Colorform playsets I had. Castle Dracula Fun House was one I especially loved. What set this one apart from the others was the working doors in which you could hide the cartoonish versions of the famous Universal monsters behind, so you could torment the goofy guy in the ugly pajamas. I would like to know the artist name. I wish I knew what happened to my set, I would love for my 4 ear old great-nephew to play with it. You can click on the photos for a larger look.


Monday, December 23, 2013

MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS GIFTS

1. Mighty Men and Monster Maker
2. Merlin
3. Quiz Wiz (Spawned my life long fascination with trivia)
4. Playskool McDonalds
5. A Hot Wheels Loop to Loop track (I think that is what was called)
6. Speak and Spell
7. Playskool Bristle Blocks
8. Pocket Flix (with Scooby Doo, Spiderman and Star Trek cartridges) and the GAF knock off (Can't remember what it was called - can't remember the cartridges)
9. A bicycle
10. 12 inch Cornelius figure from Planet of the Apes

Sunday, December 15, 2013

CAPTAIN ACTION: THE FIRST SUPERHERO ACTION FIGURE

CLICK TO ENLARGE
This post was inspired by several incidents. First off, this classic toy from the 60s is back again. I bought one for my great-nephew Carson (named after Johnny Carson), because I was born to late to have one of the originals. I bought it  and a Spider Man costume back in January of this year. last month, Retrospace featured a comic book ad for Captain Action toys. Yesterday, Pam of Go Retro posted a clip she found on You Tube of a family's Christmas home movies from 1966. She mentioned that in her post on Facebook, that a little boy in clip received Superman and Lone Ranger action figures as presents. Before even watching the the footage, the boy had received a Captain Action with a Superman outfit and a Lone Ranger outfit, because in 1966, Captain Action was the only superhero action figure.


The history of Captain Action is interesting. Most people saw Captain Action as Ideal Toys' oddball knock off of Hasbro's G.I. Joe. The truth is both were the creation of the same guy, Stan Winston. He took the money he earned from G.I. Joe and created a company to licence famous characters for toys. He pitched an idea to ideal called Captain Magic, a soldier who could change into various comic book superheroes. He would go the "accessories sold separately" route, but with the emphasis that had made Mattel's Barbie a success: clothes.

The backlash against "war toys" and the sudden success of the Batman TV series, as well as Saturday morning cartoons about Superman, Lone Ranger, Captain America and Aquaman, Ideal ran with Captain Action. Besides outfits of the five superheroes mentioned above, Captain Action could also dress as The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Steve Canyon and Sgt. Nick Fury.

Now, The Phantom and Flash Gordon still make perfect sense to us in 2013, because they are still in newspapers as well as  having been the subject of movies with the last thirty years. Sgt. Nick Fury and Steve Canyon may not seem like good choices. Sgt. Nick Fury and Steve Canyon were obviously included for the G. I. Joe fans. The Sgt. Fury outfit was basically camo fatigues, a helmet and guns. Steve Canyon's outfit was a pilot jumpsuit, helmet with oxygen mask and parachute. Ideal had been successful with Steve Canyon toys during the height of the character's popularity in the 50s, when it was in newspapers, comic books and a TV series. About the time Captain Action was introduced, Marvel Comics changed Sgt. Nick Fury into Secret Agent Nick Fury of SHIELD. Steve Canyon shifted from adventure strip about a jet pilot to soap opera strip about an aging jet pilot with a mild case post-traumatic stress disorder.

Captain Action was a hit, so Ideal added outfits for Buck Rogers, the Green Hornet and Spider Man. Here began more problems along the line of the Sgt. Fury and Steve Canyon dilemmas. The Green Hornet TV show was cancelled about the time the outfit hit the stores and the Buck Rogers comic strip was cancelled after the outfit was released. Spider Man had a successful cartoon on TV but didn't sell well. For one thing, it didn't look quite like Spider Man and one of his accessories was a hand saw (?). The original Spider Man outfit is highly collectible. One smart change to the original outfits was to change the Lone Ranger outfit from the red shirt and black jeans used in the newspaper comic strip to the blue jumpsuit he wore in the movies and TV shows.


Idea also added a Action Boy doll that could be dressed as Robin, Aqualad and Superboy. They also added the Silver Streak vehicle and Dr. Evil, Captain Action's creepy looking mad scientist arch-enemy. Sadly, in 1969, Ideal dropped Captain Action. The superhero craze was fizzling out and replaced by space travel toys inspired by the real life moon landings. Another problem was the cost of licensing of characters and a few missteps such as Buck Rogers and Green Hornet hurt financially. Unlike G. I. Joe, who reinvented himself as an adventurer with a fuzzy beard and kung-fu grip, Captain Action disappeared into toy history.

One thing you will notice when you see the 60s Captain Action in the uniforms, by today's standards, they don't look very good. Of course, this was the first and only superhero action figures available in the 60s. Baby Boomers had no choice. 

A company called Playing Mantis revived Captain Action in the late 90s. As with Ideal, the Playing mantis found Captain Action to be very costly. Another thing about Playing Mantis was they sold the Captain Action doll and uniform together in many cases. Playing Mantis ceased production by 2000. They only made Green Hornet, Flash Gordon, Lone Ranger and the Phantom, as well as Kato, Tonto and Ming the Merciless. No DC or Marvel characters were produced which is a shame considering the 90s uniforms were an improvement over the 60s uniforms.

In April 2012, a company called CA Enterprises released a new version of Captain Action. The new incarnation of Captain Action comes in both the classic look as well as a white and blue Arctic Adventure suit. The superhero uniforms are all Marvel characters (Captain America, Spider Man, Thor, Iron Man and Wolverine). They are well designed and great looking, unlike the original 60s uniforms.

They say things eventually come back and Captain Action is a good example.

Here is the original TV commercial.

 


Wednesday, December 11, 2013

REMEMBERING THE CHRISTMAS WISH BOOK


Hopefully this post will not sound like one of those stupid "What-has-happened-to-our-wonderful-nation" memes on Facebook that conservative people post, but I want to bring up something that has disappeared from the modern day Christmas season that today's children will unfortunately not get to experience. Most of you probably never noticed it was gone, so it more than likely has not been a detriment to the country. I'm talking about the Christmas Wish Book or Christmas catalog.


Major retail giants such as Sears, J.C. Pennys, Montgomery Ward, Aldens, Spiegel and others published a special catalog in the fall called the Christmas Wish Book, which featured special values on the same stuff that was in the regular Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter catalogs.
The main difference was this catalog featured TOYS!

When I was a kid, I would make out my list for Santa Claus by going through the Sears Christmas Wish Book and writing down everything I wanted. Usually, I had a minimum of six pages of thing I hoped Santa Claus would bring me. Sadly, I never got 95% of the stuff I asked for, but it was always a fun activity. This may explain why (As some of my critics and fans have both mentioned) my writing contain long list.

My mother always received the Sears catalog because she frequently ordered from Sears. My grandmother and my aunts got Montgomery Wards catalogs, which I felt was superior. They had great large color layouts for the action figures and toys I wanted. Sears usual had small black and white photos of the action figures and most of the toys. Sears then bombarded us with big color layouts of Winnie the Pooh crap. Examine the photos below of Star Trek action figures. One is from the Montgomery Ward's Wish Book and the one below is from Sears Wish book. See what I mean.

MONTGOMERY WARDS STAR TREK

SEARS STAR TREK
So why do nitwits like Glen Beck, Bill O'Rielly and Sarah Palin not whine and gripe about the loss of the Christmas Wish Book? Because the demise of the Christmas Wish Book was a business decision. It had to do with cutting cost. It is cheaper to display tiny photos online rather than print out several hundred copies of a catalog. Apparently stockholders and profits are more important than the simple enjoyment of children.   

I searched the Internet for scans of pages of Christmas catalogs. I found quite a few here and there. I borrowed a few from Mego Museum. You can find scans of whole Christmas Wish Books at Sherry Lou Toys website. Also this month Plaid Stallions is featuring some retro catalog pages.

SEARS did okay on the GI Joe layout. Click to enlarge
Sears also did okay on this Captain Action page. Click to enlarge.
THE NEXT TWO PAGES DEMONSTRATE WHY I BELIEVE MONTGOMERY WARD'S WISH BOOK WAS THE COOLEST CHRISTMAS WISH BOOK OF ALL TIME!

Click To Enlarge

Click to enlarge

WARDS CHARLIE'S ANGELS & DONNY & MARIE
JC PENNY'S 1980

     

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Saturday, December 15, 2012

CHRISTMAS MOVIE CONNECTIONS

This is a kind of free form, stream of consciousness post that may lead to a sequel, but I've tried to think of as many of these as possible. I began noticing that several things in the popular Christmas films were connected. Sometimes on purpose and sometimes on accident. If anyone thinks of one I left off, post a comment and I'll check it out.


Lionel Barrymore was originally to play Ebeneezer Scrooge in the movie version of A Christmas Carol, but suffered an injury. He played the role on radio every year. Because he was so good at playing Scrooge, Frank Capra chose him to play Old Man Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.




In this scene from Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, the kids defeat the bad guy, Voldar, using toys (provided by Ideal Toys). MST3K and others have pointed out the violent and dangerous nature of some of the toys used. The film was made in 1964. A year after that film came out a movement by parents to have toy company stop selling war oriented toys. It was around this time that New York radio personality Jean Shepard, talked to a "concerned woman" in a coffee shop about the "Ban War Toys" movement. It brought back a memory from his childhood of wanting a Red Ryder BB gun and being told by several adults "You'll shoot your eye out." That story was included in his book, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. It became the basis for the movie A Christmas Story.


A Christmas Story was directed by Bob Clark, who also directed a horror film called Black Christmas in 1974 (Above). Peter Billingsley, who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story, plays an elf named Ming-Ming in Elf.


Obviously, Holiday Inn and White Christmas have both Bing Crosby and "White Christmas" in common, but what does White Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life have in common? If you said Alfalfa, you're right. Former Our Gang/Little Rascals star Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer played Mary's date at the dance in It's a Wonderful Life (His big moment is opening the gym floor to plunge George and Mary into the swimming pool in an act of jealousy). In White Christmas, he is only shown in a photo (below) as Vera-Ellen's brother "Freckle Face" Benny Haynes.



Also the gag involving the photo is similar to the one in another Christmas film, Home Alone. Kevin finds a photo of his bully, big brother Butch's girlfriend (above), which cause Kevin to say, "WOOF!" (below) It is actually a photo of a boy in drag. Director John Hughes felt that using a photo of a "real girl" would be cruel.


The 1934 film version of Victor Herbert's Babes In Toyland, starring Laurel and Hardy, there are several joking references to Walt Disney, including a Mickey Mouse clone (Below) and Three Little Pigs (accompanied by "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" in the background).



 In the 1961 Disney version of Babes in Toyland, Barnaby's henchmen are Laurel and Hardy clones (Above).

Character actor Dick Elliot plays the Judge in Christmas in Connecticut. In It's a Wonderful Life, he is the neighbor, who yells at George Bailey, "WHY DON'T YA KISS HER?" when he is escorting Mary home. 

  
 

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Sunday, June 19, 2011

THE MYSTERY OF THE LITTLE BEAVER PUZZLE

I may have a retro toy mystery on my hands. When I was about seven or eight years old, I was visiting my sister in Oklahoma. I went with my brother-in-law to get the car serviced. Since it was going to take awhile, we walked over to an antique shop (It was the only thing close) and looked around. Most of the stuff was vases, china and lamps (You know - old lady stuff). The only toy of any kind in the store was a Whitman tray puzzle. The picture was of a Native American boy and girl. The boy had caught a fish and the girl was cooking a fish in a frying pan. My brother-in-law pointed out that the boy was Little Beaver, the sidekick of a comic strip cowboy named Red Ryder. The puzzle was about $1, so he bought it for me. The copy write on this puzzle is 1954. There is a code number of some sort on it of 2628:29.



I have for the past few weeks been Googling to find out information on a possible price for this puzzle. I can't find any information on this puzzle. I can't even find a picture of it. I have seen several collectors and website showing two different Little Beaver puzzles. One pictures Little Beaver carrying an injured deer through the woods, as the other woodland animals look on in appreciation. The other puzzle depicts Little Beaver walking on rocks in a brook. I also cannot find any reference to a girl in the comic strip.
So I have decided to post photos here of the puzzle. If you have any ideas on this or have any info, you can either leave a message or contact my by e-mail at d4windsbar@yahoo.com.

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