Little Golden Book Monday #105

Today's Little Golden Book is Walt Disney's Scamp's Adventures from 1958. By Annie North Bedford, with pictures by the Walt Disney Studio. Adapted by Joe Rinaldi and Neil Boyle.
From the inside front cover: This is a brand-new book, written and illustrated especially for Golden Books. This Little Golden Book was produced under the supervision of The Walt Disney Studio. Scamp, the puppy, is one of Walt Disney's most endearing characters. Lady is his mother, Tramp is his father. This is Scamp's second appearance in a Little Golden Book.

7-11 Presents FOX-O-RAMA

A while back I posted some photos of the 3D glasses and Smell-O-Vision cards from the 1994 Fox television Fox-O-Rama, and that post has received the most email of any of my posts. For those fans of Fox-O-Rama, I present two of the ads from the Sunday, May 8th, 1994 TV Guide that promoted the event. First is the ad for the horror! The shock! The Bundy's in 3D (3D glasses not required for viewing pleasure). The second ad is for The George Carlin Show presented in Grumble-Vision. What was Grumble-Vision? Nothing... really. It was a regular episode in which George did some extra grumbling, thus making it Grumble-Vision. I am sure there were those who turned in expecting something extra ordinary. What they got was a mediocre half hour comedy with a great tag line. Pretty lame really, but genius advertising!

Little Golden Book Monday #104

Today's Little Golden Book is Walt Disney Productions Robin Hood and the Daring Mouse from 1974. It's been a while since I have watched the Robin Hood film, and I am little woozy from the flue today, but I do not remember a mouse named Oliver in the film, and a quick look though the book Disney A to Z didn't provide any info, so I am going to guess that this book which came out a year after the original Robin Hood film, was cashing in on the name Robin Hood with a new story. If anyone has more info on this book/story, let me know.
And check out that price sticker on the front of the book... just 46 cents, 2 cents less than the price printed on the book... what a deal!

Little Golden Book Monday #103

Today's Little Golden Book is The Wizard of Oz, retold by Mary Carey, and illustrated by Don Turner / Jason Studios, 1975.
I was never a fan of the wizard of Oz, and I can remember being, like so many other kids, scared by the flying monkeys. Its kinda funny that as an adult, I used the phrase "flying monkeys" a heck of a lot for a guy who was afraid of them as a kid!
I got the chance to see the film at my local movie theater with my girlfriend (now wife) way back in the late 80's or early 90's. She wanted to see it on the big screen and it seemed like it might be fun. I fell asleep somewhere after the film turned to color.
I'm not sure why, but for some reason, I am now interested in seeing the new musical Wicked. I would hope though, with the ticket prices of the show I would not fall asleep during this one!

Saturn Shirt Inspectors

With GM casting off Saturn, their website www.SaturnCollection.com is having a big 50-80% off sale on all merchandise, so I ordered a pile of shirts for just $5 each including one with the Rethink logo which I talked about a few posts back. I wore it the other day and while I was out, I started to feel something itching my back. I found something stuck to the inside of the shirt, and when I pulled it out, I found it was an "inspected by" sticker. When I got home and took the shirt off, I found it had 3 more of them stuck inside all with different names. So, turns out this shirt was inspected by not one, not two, not three, but four different shirt inspectors. Wow, this ought to be one problem free shirt!

Best PC Upgrades

Photo of a grocery store magazine rack back in 2006. That's both funny, and true!

Hide-A-Pod

OK, here is something I saw a while ago and made me giggle. I own an iPod, and I love it and take it everywhere, and with a $10 cord, I can now crank my tunes in my new Saturn Vue as well! The idea of owning a Microsoft Zune makes me laugh. The idea of someone paying money to make their iPod look like a Zune, makes me question their sanity. But that is exactly what the people at hide-a-pod want you to do. For just $29.95 you can disguise your cool looking iPod to look just like one of those awful looking Zunes. I guess their strategy is a good one though... nobody is gonna try to seal your iPod when they think its a Zune!

Little Golden Book Monday #102

I found a surprise at the drug store today while looking though the magazines and books. I was looking for the upcoming "Princess and the Frog" Little Golden Book, but what I found instead was a new Toy Story book that I didn't even know about. I guess it makes sense with all the hype around Toy Story right now. I didn't manage to get out to the theater to see Toy Story and toy Story 2 in 3D recently, mostly because I didn't think my 4 year old could sit though 2 movies back to back without going totally squirrely.
I have to say that I have noticed that the quality of the newer books seems to be getting pretty poor. This one that I picked up today, the front cover panel is shorter than the back panel, and all of the pages are longer than both and stick out. And many of the recent books I have purchased, I find that within a few months, the gold foil on the spine starts to peel up by itself.
That being said, this is still a fun addition to my Disney - Little Golden Books collection.

Little Golden Book Monday #101

Just a quick one today. Here is the cover artwork to the Princess and the Frog Little Golden Book which will be released on October 13th.

Little Golden Book Monday #100

Today's Little Golden Book is the 100th LGB I have posted here since I started Little Golden Book Mondays. I wanted something special for the 100th book post, so I dug though my collection and found this one, The Happy Little Whale from 1973 (originally printed in 1960). What's so special about this book is that I believe that it is my first Little Golden Book as a child back in the early 70's. When I found it, I quickly opened the front cover hoping to find my young signature scrawled on the inside front page in the "This little Golden Book belong to" box, but alas, it was blank. Which doesn't really surprise me as even as a child I would have been thinking about how writing in the book would destroy its 'mintness'!
After 30 years or so, I had pretty much forgotten about this book, and the story of a little whale that gets separated from his pod and ends up at an aquarium where he makes friends with a dolphin and a female whale, but as soon as I opened it and started flipping though the pages the story quickly came back to me as if I had just read it yesterday!

Explanation

I have an explanation for the lack of a Little Golden Book Monday yesterday. I forgot. The darn Labor Day holiday got me all confused and I thought yesterday was Sunday... Won't happen again... until next time I forget!

TV Week 2009 Fall Preview Issue

I picked up the TV Week 2009 Fall Preview issue tonight at the grocery store. As I have said in previous posts, TV Guide is no longer sold in Canada, so this is what we have in its place. I have already checked out the TVGuide.com web site and seen that they also have their Fall Preview issue on stands, so I emailed my pal to see if he could pick up a copy for me.
I used to buy TV Guide on a semi regular basis (I even had a subscription for a few years), but I did find I was buying it less once I got digital cable and it included onscreen TV guide info. As for TV Week magazine, I pretty much buy one issue a year. I love checking out all the upcoming new shows, and always have a large slate of shows I want to check out.
This issue of TV Week lists 41 new shows. Here is a list of the eleven the shows I will be tuning in to and checking out this fall (I'll give each show a rating out of 5 for how much I am looking forward to it - 5 being the ones I am most excited about):

GLENN MARTIN DDS (3) - a stop motion animated comedy that follows the road-tripping adventures of a beleaguered dentists and his family after they ditch their suburban home and hit the highway in a tripped-out Winnebago, encountering an eclectic array of humanity - ranging from slick mobsters to Amish farmers - along the way.

THE JAY LENO SHOW (4) - Jay's new five-nights-a-week 10 pm talk show filled with his signature bits such as "Jaywlking", "Headlines" and "99-Cent Store". Sounds good. all the fun stuff without the dull interviews!

ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE (1) - I like Jenna Elfman so I will give this a look, but sounds like its going to be too much of a romantic comedy for my liking.

V (2) - Based on the iconic 1980's mini-series, starships loaded with seemingly benign aliens visit Earth, supposedly here to co-exist in peace with humanity while gifting us with planet-saving technology. I like Sci-fi but hated the original V, but I will still check it out.

HANK (1) - I like half hour comedy shows, and this in one of those. For that reason along I will check this out. I'm not expecting much though, as I am not a fan of Kelsey Grammer, and his last show (a half hour comedy) Back To You was pretty lame.

THE MIDDLE (4) - Another half hour comedy, this one actually looks promising. Patricia Heaton stars in this single-camera comedy set in the American heartland (aka "the middle"), focusing on the comedic struggles of harried working mom Frankie, her wisecracking-but-supportive husband and their kids at they struggle with what's left of the American dream in a small Indiana town. TV Week says its clearly going for a Malcolm in the Middle vibe. Sounds good to me.

MODERN FAMILY (4) - Another half hour comedy which also looks like it could be funny. It stars Ed O'Neill (Married with Children), and is done in a mockumentary style. That's enough to get me to tune in.

COUGAR TOWN (3) - Love the title and Courteney Cox is hot. If I can get past the dating / relationships part of the show, it might be good.

EASTWICK (.5) - Yes that's a point 5. Not sure why I will give this a look, but for some reason I feel compelled to check it out. I'm guessing I won't make it though the full episode before I change the channel over to watch a Seinfeld rerun.

FLASHFORWARD (5) - A mysterious worldwide event causes every human on the planet to black out for two minutes and 14 seconds, during which time each person experiences a vision of what he or she is doing at a specific time and date six months in the future. While the FBI tries to unravel the mystery, some people must come to grips with the seemingly shocking turns their lives will take - and whether it's possible to alter the future they've seen. This COULD be the one really awesome show this season... IF it doesn't end up sucking!

COMMUNITY (5) - the most promising of the half hour comedies this season. In this single-camera comedy, The Soup's McHale is in full-on wiseass mode as a disbarred lawyer forced to go back to school when it's discovered his law degree from Columbia is from the country, not the university. Finding himself an unmotivated student in a third-rate community college, he tries to pick u a fetching co-ed (Jacobs) by tricking her into attending his bogus study group,but the joke's on him when she invites a group of her misfit classmates.

There are also a few Midseason shows that look interesting: DAY ONE - A 13 episode series that follows the survivors of a global catastrophe that has destroyed the entire infrastructure of modern civilization as they try to decipher the mystery of what happened and why, all while trying to rebuild society. THE DEEP END - A quirky legal comedy/drama that follows the adventures of a group of sexy young lawyers, both in and out of the courtroom. HAPPY TOWN - In this mystery series, a deputy sheriff tries to unravel the unsolved kidnappings of a half-dozen children over the past decade in a small Minnesota town. SONS OF TUCSON - When their wealthy Wall Street dad is imprisoned for financial fraud, three young brothers hire a goofball slacker to impersonate their father so they won't be split up and send into foster care.

Little Golden Book Monday #99

Today's Little Golden Book is The Very Best Home For Me! from 1982. The book was originally published in 1953 with the title Animal Friends.
The writer is Jane Werner Watson, who has written many Golden Books. Among them are Whales, Dinosaurs, and a series of read-together books for parents and children that includes My Friend the Babysitter, My Friend the Doctor, and Sometimes I'm Afraid.
The artist is Garth Williams, who's endearing art work has enhanced many popular Golden Books, including such favorites as the The Friendly Book, Home for a Bunny, The Sailor Dog, and Three Bedtime Stories.

Apple & Saturn both like to Rethink

I became a Saturn owner today! We purchased the 2009 Saturn Vue Hybrid and I absolutely love the car and the experience of buying it. I remember all those ads on TV years ago telling us that each Saturn owner was a part of the family, and showed them all attending the big Saturn Family Picnic.
There were some that questioned our judgement of buying a Saturn now, with all the stuff going on with Saturn and parent company General Motors. But after test driving well over a half dozen SUV crossovers, the Saturn Vue Hybrid was by far our favorite, and with all kinds of incentives and loyalty discounts, the price could not be beat.
The other day while out driving with my wife, she mentioned that while driving around she had been looking at all the other cars on the road and had not seen very many Saturns. I told her that I really didn't care if there were not that many, and then went on to tell her how I thought that the Saturn brand was much like the Apple brand. I have always been a huge Apple fan and although I have been using them for over 20 years, its only recently that they have started to become mainstream. So Saturn being the small company making great cars was fine with me.
The next day I was at the library checking out the magazines, and I noticed a two page Ad for the Saturn Vue on the inside front two pages of a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. I found that interesting, as I collect Apple ads, and they love to put their ads on the inside front two pages of magazines such as Entertainment Weekly.
I decided to scan in the ad for my collection of ads on my computer. While scanning it, I noticed the Rethink logo in the ad and remembered an Apple poster I have up on my wall at work that I received from Apple about 3 or 4 years ago. The poster is a simple black poster with the word Rethink spelled out upside down in the center and the slogan "Rethink the Possibilities" at the bottom. I quickly opened up iPhoto and looked for a photo of the poster on my wall at work, and I managed to find a photo that showed the poster.
Above you can see the recent two page Saturn ad along with the older Apple poster which I have added to the top left of the Saturn ad. It would seem the two companies have more in common than I would have ever guessed. Those Rethink logos are extremely similar. Just click on the above ad to make it larger and see for yourself.
I can't wait to head out to the garage tomorrow to slap an Apple sicker on the back window of my new Saturn!

Little Golden Book Monday #98

I picked up today's Little Golden Book while I was out shopping earlier today at my local Wal-Mart. I knew that this book (Sponge Bob Squarepants - Mr. Fancypants!) was supposed to have been released a few months ago, but I had not seen it anywhere until today. I actually really like Sponge Bob Squarepants, so this is a great addition to the collection, and I look forward to reading it to my son who also likes Sponge Bob and his pal Patrick. Sponge Bob is one of those cartoons that is enjoyable for kids, but is also a lot of fun for adults as well. Thankfully Kaden prefers the same high brow entertainment that I do, such as Sponge Bob, Batman, Scooby Doo, The Secret Saturdays and Bugs Bunny.
I am still looking for the Veggie Tales Little Joe book that was released back in June, and I am looking forward to Disney's Princess and the Frog that is slated to be released in October of 2009.

Caroline's Party & at the Seaside

A few weeks ago I found two more of these wonderful Caroline books (by Pierre Probst) at a used book shop. Each book was $4, which is slightly more than I like to pay for used books, but I liked the artwork so much that I was willing to pay the $8 to add these two new books to my collection. First off if Caroline's Party originally from 1953, this printing is from 1972. The second book is Caroline At the Seaside, originally from 1965, this printing is also from 1972. The illustrations are absulutly whimsical. I decided to take a few photos (the pages were much too big for my scanner) to share here on my blog. Hope you enjoy!

Little Golden Book Monday #97

Today's Little Golden Book is Disney's Pocahontas the Voice of the Wind from 1995. Not much to say about his one - I was never much of a fan of this Disney movie. I believe that this is one of only a handful of Disney animated films I don't have in my collection in any format (VHS, or DVD). I picked up the book because it was only 25 cents and I didn't have it already. It was also in really good condition except that it had been written on inside the front cover. Apparently this book used to belong to Mila and Vuk. It must have sucked having to share books etc with a sibling. Luckily for me, my name was the only one written in my books!

Batman Circulation Numbers

I picked up some old Batman and Detective Comics recently. One issue in particular was issue #360 from February 1967. I love the cover on this issue, and the old stories are always lots of fun, but what really interested me was on page 8. It was the Statement of ownership, management and circulation, and in this document are the circulation numbers of Detective Comics along with all kinds of other interesting info.
I have always been a bit of a numbers junkie when it comes to minor league hockey attendance, magazine & comic book print numbers, etc. With this 1967 issue, the paid subscribers for Batman's Detective Comics was 2,339. Back in 1999, the paid subscribers for my KISS fanzine, Firehouse Magazine was just over 3,000 paid subscribers. Pretty amazing to think the little magazine I was producing out of my livingroom had more subscribers than Batman - at least compared to the 1967 numbers!*As always, click to enlarge*

My First Two Comic Books

I recently read on another blog that the the writer of the blog was trying to acquire all of the comic books that they had as a young kid. That got me to thinking about how and when I got started collecting comic books. I could remember exactly what two comics were the first comics I bought, they were issue #2 of Rom Spaceknight and issue #2 of Fantasy Masterpieces staring The Silver Surfer, both from January 1980.
There used to be a drug store across the street from where I lived, and I mostly remember heading to the back of the store where they had the toys. I can remember spending a lot of time standing back their staring at all the toys hung on the pegs on the wall - I'm sure there was not that much there, but to a twelve year old in 1979 it seemed like Toys R Us to me! Then one day, for some reason I noticed some comic books on a bottom shelf near the front of the store. They were all packaged two to a bag for one price. I remember sifting though all the packages looking at the amazing covers. I settled on the one with the space robot comic and the space man comic.
Its pretty amazing to see that these two comics are still in amazing shape. I didn't start bagging my comics for about 10 years, so for the first 10 years, these two comics sat along with the rest of my comics in the top drawer of my desk. My favorites being kept in paper bags that I would receive when purchasing comics or magazines at the local drug store.
Shortly after I picked up these two comics, I began to swap comics with the kids in my neighborhood, and I ended up trading for a copy of Captain Canuck issue #6. I liked it so much that I subscribed to Captain Canuck and would run to the mailbox every day hoping for a new issue to arrive!
I also started spending a lot of time at a local book store called the Bookaneer that as well as selling used books, they sold all the new comic book titles. I can remember spending a lot of my free time hanging around that store talking about comics with the shop owner and other kids who would come in.
It was in 1988 that I visited my first real comic book shop. I was a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and when I found out they had action figures based on the TMNT, I had to have them. There were not many toy stores in my area, so I didn't have much luck finding them. Someone at one of the small toy shops I visited, told me that I should check out a comic book shop to get these figures. After checking out my phone book, I found a comic book shop in New Westminster called Talking Illustrations, and when I called them, they told me that they did in fact have them in stock, but that they were selling very fast. I jumped into the car and drove the 30 minutes to the store to get my turtle figures. My eyes must have doubled in size as I stared at racks and racks of comic books and all things comic related! I have been making the 30 minute drive on a regular basis to that same shop for the past 20 years!

I Panned for Gold with the Metal Queen

I went with the family to Fort Langley to visit the Fort Langley Historical Site. Fort Langley is the exact location where, a century and a half ago, a huge fur trade organization called the Hudson's Bay Company established a small post to trade with the First Nations of the West Coast. The enterprise grew, evolved, and influenced history, leading to the creation of the colony of British Columbia. Fearing annexation by the United States, British Columbia was proclaimed a Crown Colony on this site by James Douglas on November 19, 1858.
And on Monday while there, my son got the chance to pan for gold at their gold panning exhibit. While there another family stepped up to try their luck and do some gold panning. Turns out songstress Lee Aaron (aka the Metal Queen) was standing next to me! I didn't have the heart to let on that I knew who she was, as I always feel like such a nutz talking to celebrities I don't know. I was just happy in the knowledge that the singer of some of my favorite songs (some of which just happened to be on the iPod in my pocket at the time) was standing next to me in the muck pretending to pan for gold!

Little Golden Book Monday #96

In keeping with yesterdays CARS theme, I have a brand new Little Golden Book that I just picked up a few days ago. I love how they have Mater and Lightning McQueen on roller coaster tracks on the front cover. It's also interesting to see that Mater has now had two Little Golden Books to Lightning's one.
It's also amazing to see how the Cars movie is still producing new merchandise 3 years after its release, pretty good considering that many were calling the film a flop when it didn't initially preform as well as the previous Pixar films. And for those keeping up on their Disneyland news, as well as of the new merchandise, there is a whole new land being built at Disney's DCA called Cars Land set to debut in 2012.

Jonny's CARS Wash

I recently drove by a local car wash that has been in the same location for about 30+ years. I'm not sure what they used to be called, but their brand new signs say "Jonny's Car Wash", and the images and fonts used looked extremely familiar! I had been meaning to stop by and get some pictures for a few weeks but never seemed to remember, until one day a week or so ago I was out driving around town with my wife and son and I happened to mention the car wash. My wife asked if I wanted to stop by to get some photos and I quickly said "Yes!" She parked in the empty parking lot of the next door business and I hopped out of the car with the camera to take some photos. While I was trying to get a good shot of the main sign, I walked over to their drive way and stepped though the open fence to take a photo. I was quickly greeted by a woman working there who told me that I could not take photos. I stepped back onto the sidewalk and continued to take photos. She then came out to where I was now standing and informed me that if I didn't stop taking photos she was going to call the police. Wow, I didn't realize it was illegal to take photos of a business that could be plainly seen from the sidewalk! I made my way back to the car, all the while taking more photos, and all the while listening to her threaten to call the police on me for illegally taking photos. When I finally got into the car, she held up a piece of paper and let me know that she had my licence plate number and was calling the police.
I hadn't thought much about it, but after all of her fuss over me taking photos, I have to wonder... did they get permission to use the Disney/Pixar logos and images on their signs... I think not!

Happy 3rd Birthday Ronn's Big Pile of Stuff!

Today marks the 3rd birthday of Ronn's Big Pile of Stuff! I've been having tons of fun posting all kinds of stuff that I enjoy, and that hopefully others enjoy as well. And thanks to all those other blogs who have added this page to their links, the extra traffic is great. Don't be shy, use the 'comments' button at the bottom of any post and let me know what you think. And be sure to check out my other two blogs the Disneyland Records Blog and Ronn's Minor League Hockey Mania Blog.
Lastly, a BIG thank you to all the other bloggers whose sites I visit on a regular basis. Thanks for all the entertainment you provide!

Little Golden Book Monday #95

Today we have the second of two farm related Little Golden Books I got recently. This one is A Day on the Farm from 1960 (See last Monday for Old MacDonald had a Farm).
The funniest part of this book is when the mailman shows up with a box for Farmer Brown. You know it has to be something good because the box has a bunch of holes in it. It turns out the box is filled with lots of new baby chickens! I wonder if you can still order baby chickens though the mail?
Reading though this book kept reminding me of my grandparents. They didn't live on a farm, but so many of the scenes in the book reminded me of my visits to their house. The little white house on the inside front page looks just like their house, and the page of the 'big folks' sitting around chatting on the front porch totally reminded me of spending my evenings on their front porch.

Magic Related Comic Book Covers

Here are two awesome comics I picked up in the 3 for a dollar bin at a local comic shop. These two issues happen to have magic related covers which I love!
Hi and Lois issue #9 from Charlton comics, 1971. I have always loved the Hi and Lois comics from the newspapers, so when I found this comic I snapped it up. The fact that is has Trixie coming out of a magic top hat on the cover is a bonus. Unfortunately when I got home and flipped it open hoping to read the cover story, I didn't find anything even remotely resembling a magic show in the comic. No magic hat, no rabbit nothing.
The second comic is Mandrake the Magician from King Comics, 1967. As well as being a really fun comic, I especially enjoyed the two page spread in the center of this one called the King Comics Corner Store which featured some great stuff including; The Green Ghost game (a great board game featuring aglow in the dark ghost), Hypno-Spex, the Chose ' N Play Automatic Phonograph, Spunkie Punkie Puppet (Skunk puppet), and a real live Venus Fly Trap you could send away for! Boy, if only I could go back in time to buy some of this neat-o stuff!

Disney's California Adventure Post Cards

I found some Disney's California Adventure postcards amongst all the various postcards at the thrift shop the other day. I picked them up because I enjoy collecting Disney postcards, but I have to say that these are some of the lamest Disney postcards I have ever seen. Generally Disneyland postcards have iconic images that make you want to go to Disneyland. These DCA postcards illustrate why the park has been such a failure. If these are the best images they could come up with, I certainly would not want to visit the park based on these postcards. And I am guessing that who ever bought these postcards at the park got home and realized just how lame they were and donated them to the local thrift shop.
Hopefully with the huge makeover the park is receiving, they will be some postcards in the future worth adding to my collection.

Little Golden Book Monday #94

I found a large box of Little Golden Books at a thrift shop today for just 30 cents each. I added 32 new Little Golden Books to my collection, including this wonderful 1975 eighth printing of Old MacDonald Had a Farm - first printing was 1960.
I know that I had a request from a blog reader for a LGB about a farm. Hopefully this is the one they were looking for. If not, I have another farm book to post next Monday. Ee-igh, ee-igh, oh!

Coca Cola: Original Great Taste, Since 1886

I have been collecting Coca Cola ads from magazine for years. Thankfully my mother knows this, as she is always finding Coke ads in her magazine like this one she found in the October 2008 issue of Canadian Living magazine. It's a great two page ad with the tag line "The Bottle Has Changed, The Original Great Taste Hasn't." With no added preservatives or artificial flavors, since 1886. Look for them in the "100 calories of refreshment" aisle. Original great taste, since 1886, and only 100 calories.
Seeing all those bottles in the ad got me thinking... I don't know about you, but for me, a Coke tastes so much better from a glass bottle than it does from a can. Some time a few months ago, I had purchased a few bottles of Coke while in Washington State. They were the tall 335 ml bottles that had been imported from Mexico. I drank one and have been using the bottle ever since. I put it in the dish washer after each use. Then, about 20 minutes before I want an icy Coke, I will put the bottle in the freezer, and and then use a funnel to pour a can of coke into the bottle, and voila, an incredibly refreshing retro Coca Cola!

The Melmarx Bros! Invade ALF Comics

I picked up a big pile of 25 cent comics the other day, and in the pile was this awesome issue of ALF comics #21 from November 1989. I picked it up because I am a big ALF fan, but was even more thrilled when I got home and noticed that it had a call out on the front cover that said there was a Melmarx Bros (featuring; Chippo, Oucho and Burpo)story inside! As big of a fan of ALF as I am, I am an even bigger Marx Brothers fan. I have all thirteen Marx Brothers’ feature films on DVD (as well as video tape), and have spent countless hours laughing to the hijinx of Chico, Harpo, and Groucho (as well as Zeppo).
Sit back and enjoy the story of the Marx Brothers Melmackian counterparts, the Melmarx Bros! in a Night at the I-Hopera!







Click here to download a copy of the Melmarx Bros story in .cbr format

Little Golden Book Monday #93

Today's Little Golden Book is Big Bird's Red Book featuring Jim Henson's Muppets. This educational book was created in cooperation with the Children's Television Workshop, producers of Sesame Street. Children do no have to watch the television show to benefit from this book. Workshop revenues from this product will be used to help support CTV educational projects. This is the forth printing from 1978. The artwork in this book reminds me of a Richard Scary book with Big Bird walking though all the scenes.

STRYPER Murder By Pride

Christian rockers Stryper will be releasing their newest album on July 21st, called Murder By Pride. The band had a "Murder By Pride" artwork contest on their website for fans to submit the potential cover for the upcoming album. The winning artwork, which will be used for the group's new CD, was submitted by Gilvan Rangel of Campina Grande, Brazil. The band says, "Hundreds of submissions were received and carefully reviewed."
Above left is the artwork that Gilvan submitted to the band. The image on the right is the artwork after it was tweeked by the band, and as it is being advertised on sites such as Amazon. The middle image was created by Tobi Elektrik over at Firestream.net, and I think it is a substantial improvement over both the original and tweaked versions. Ever since I saw the original image, I have disliked the face in the image. And I much prefer the zoomed in image of just the body and arms, and the much larger Stryper logo. All in all I think the middle image looks more like an album cover to me than the other two.
I really hope that Stryper will decide to showcase all of the images they received on their official web site, as I would love to see some of the other images that were submitted. If you would like to see two such images, you can check out Death is Gain where the artist has posted two of his submissions.
The official album 'may' have the image to the right on it, but my iTunes copy will happily have the middle image as its cover!

Captain America #600

Last week saw the release of Captain America issue #600. The previous months issue was issue #50. So what gives? Turns out, Marvel Comics is celebrating 70 years next month, and as part of the celebration, they are releasing Daredevil #500, Amazing Spider-Man #600 and Captain America #600. This should make me really happy, as one of my biggest pet peeves in comics was the trend to restart all popular titles back at issue #1 (in some cases, more than once). Apparently the comic companies thought that comic readers would be too intimidated to start reading a comic with 500+ issues and would be more interested in buying more collectible #1 issues. I myself found comics that had been going long enough to have issue #854 (such as Batman Detective Comics has this month) to be extremely cool. Back in my youth, I read and collected Captain America and Daredevil, but once they reverted back to issue #1 (thereby ignoring the history of all the issues that had come before), it was a big part of why I quit reading comics. It took about 10 years to come back to comics. To Marvel's way of counting, the current issue of Captain America would have been #600 if it had continued with its original numbering. I'm sure they have fudged the numbers a bit to make sure that this summer, their big titles all hit a milestone number such as 500 and 600.
So, I should be happy right!? Unfortunately this just seems like a lame sales stunt. I'm sure if we wait a few months, someone at Marvel will get the brilliant ideal to start back at issue #1 again for these titles.
Happily for me, DC comics has allowed Batman and Detective Comics to continue with their actual numbering reaching 688 and 854 respectively so far!
Nuff Said...

Little Golden Book Monday #92

Today's Little Golden Book is Dinosaurs. Few things are more fascinating to a child than the story of the giant creatures that once lived on our earth. Jane Werner Watson's clear, simple text and william de J. Rutherfoord's imaginative illustrations bring to young children a vivid picture of how the world might have been, in the long-ago days of the dinosaurs.Seventh printing, 1973 (First printing 1959).

Toy Story III: Woody's Rip Off

Is it just me, or does the character in this ad look like a certain character from a certain movie?

My school library was tossing out a bunch of old magazines, so I happily dragged them to my desk and spend my lunch hour flipping though them looking for cool ads for my collection. Here is one that I pulled out thinking it was a Disney/Pixar ad with Woody selling batteries. It wasn't until I looked at it closely that I realized that it was actually for Children's Motrin, not batteries, and that it was not actually Woody, but a Woody knockoff. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Disney/Pixar should be extremely flattered with this ad.

Goofy and the Tiger Hunt

Here I present one of my all time favorite Disney book covers "Goofy ant eh Tiger Hunt".
After Monday's Little Golden Book post, I decided to pull out this book from the Disney display case in my office. The tiger in the Goliath II book reminded me of the tiger on the cover of this book. In my mind they were identical. Now that I have the Goofy and the Tiger Hunt book in front of me, I see that although they are both tigers, they are not that similar. But, since I had already pulled this book out, and it is one of my favorite Disney items in my collection, I thought I would share it with you today.
This book is from 1954 and is based on the 1945 short "Tiger Trouble". I decided to pull out my Walt Disney Treasures DVD "The Complete Goofy" to watch the Tiger Trouble short, which it turns out is written by Bill Peet, which makes me appreciate this book even more.

Little Golden Book Monday #91

Today's Little Golden Book is Walt Disney's Goliath II. I am not sure of the date of the book as the inside front page is missing from the book, but the Goliath II short was released in 1960, so I would guess that this book was released around that time. I usually don't bother purchasing books in such poor shape, but as soon as I took a look at a few of the pages inside, I knew I had to have this one for my collection! The artwork is obviously done by Bill Peet, who just happens to be my absolute favorite children's book writer/artist.
Once I started writing this, I decided I needed to stop at watch the Goliath II short, so I popped some popcorn, and popped in disc 2 of the Walt Disney Treasures "Disney Reties" DVD set. It turns out the short was written by Bill Peet, but after watching the short, I didn't find that the artwork was very Bill Peet like, and since he didn't receive any credit for art, it would seem he didn't have much if anything to do with the artwork for the film. The Little Golden Book version however was obviously drawn by Bill Peet. You can see the obvious similarities to the artwork in his 1959 children's story "Hubert's Hair-Raising Adventure" which is the illustration right below (the other two illustrations are from the Goliath II book).
Something I learned from watching the Leonard Maltin introduction to the Disney Rarities disc 2 is that the Goliath II short was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Cartoons, in 1961.
All in all I would say this book was well worth the 10 cents I paid for it at the local thrift shop!

Disneyland's Summer Nightastic!

With Disneyland's Nightastic! opening up this summer, I have been seeing lots of Nightastic artwork on the net, and they all feature the two Disney dragons from Fantasmic and Pete's Dragon. Here is the recent covers of the free guides at Disneyland and California Adventure withe the Disneyland guide featuring the dragon from Fantasmic and the California Adventure one featuring Pete's Dragon from the Main Street Electrical Parade.
I have always loved the dragon from Sleeping Beauty (my favorite Disney animated film), and Fantasmic is a favorite of mine. When I was at Disneyland back in 1992 when the show opened, I picked up a very cool Fantasmic! soft cover book for $5.95. The book is 8 1/2 inches square and has 26 pages, and and the front cover folds out with 3 panels to reveal a great drawing of Mickey battling the dragon. Inside is a nice pictorial souvenir of the show along with the story behind the show.
The inside fold out has a great 2 page drawing which looks like it may have been a promotional sign promoting Fantasmic, with the words "Opening Spring '92".

Family Circus... What a Mess!

The wife has gone out of town for the weekend and left Kaden and I to look after ourselves... Amazing how much of a mess an old guy and a 4 year old can make in just two days! We've played with our Hot Wheels cars and race track, we've played with just about every superhero action figure ever made, we've played with our vintage set of Lincoln Logs, we've sat around reading piles of comic books, we've watched a ton of cartoons on Teletoon Retro, and now the house looks a lot like the covers of these two old Family Circus books.

Little Golden Book Monday #90

Today's Little Golden Book is a great one from 1959. It's Hanna-Barbera's Ruff and Reddy. I actually do not remember ever seeing these characters on TV as a kid, but as an adult, I have an appreciation for all things Hanna-Barbera. Their cartoons did not always contain the best animation and the characters could be pretty weak at times, but as a kid growing up watching cartoons in the 70's Hanna-Barbera have left a lasting impression on me. I am always pleased to find an old 50's or 60's Little Golden Book in amongst a pile of otherwise lame books. This is one of those great finds... well wroth the 20 cents I paid!
After choosing this particular book for today's post, I remembered that I had also picked up a Dell Comics Ruff and Reddy comic book in a pile of old comics recently. This issue is #981 from April-June 1959. So apparently as well as their cartoon series, they also had their own comic book title. I still don't remember them though!

Angelina Jolie / Tomb Raider Got Milk?

I picked up a bunch of old comics the other day and as I was going though them, I noticed that a bunch of them had great ads on the back covers. Here is one of those ads. It is a 2003 Got Milk? ad with Angelina Jolie / Tomb Raider.