Scooby Doo on Gilligan's Island

I saw this image of Scooby Doo and Shaggy with Gilligan and the Skipper. It got me thinking how much fun it would be if they appeared together in something, and then I remembered that the current Scooby Doo series is called Scooby Doo and Guess Who, with each episode featuring some famous guest. Why not an episode where the Scooby gang ends up on a deserted island where they meet the cast of Gilligan's Island! I threw on a Scooby Doo and Guess Who logo onto the image, and now I'm super excited to see this happen!

Cap'N Crunch's Captain Canuck Cereal

Back in 2021 I saw a limited edition Canadian version of Cap'N Crunch cereal called Cap'N Crunch's Canuck Crunch. But to me, something was wrong, it's called Canuck Crunch, but there on the front of the box was the old Cap'n Crunch. Shouldn't this box have Captain Canuck on the front!? So, I took it upon myself to correct this mistake. And here you have the real 'faux' Cap'N Crunch's Canuck Crunch. And of course on the back of the box you can cut out your Captain Canuck membership card, and somewhere deep down inside  the cereal box you can find one of four Captain Canuck mini figures... Or at least you could if this really existed!

Hitchhiking Ghosts in 3D... Kinda

I have been playing with the DittoPro 3D printer we have at work. When I noticed one of the colours of filament we had was a semi transparent aqua, it immediately made me think of a ghost, and of course that lead me to looking for a Haunted Mansion ghost that I could print. I found was this Hitchhiking Ghosts silhouette file which I printed out and it now lives in my collection along with my faux Sleeping Beauty animation cell and Tinkerbell in a lantern.

Little Golden Book Monday #182

Here is a Faux Little Golden Book cover that I saw years ago and came across again today while cleaning out my old iMac. I was surprised to see that I never shared this in the past, as I love the artwork and title so much that I really want to add this book to me collection! Here is Incredibly, Undeniably BORED by Stacy Curtis. You can find it over on the Three Men in a Tub blog.

Pluto and the 37th Recon Co.

I saw this logo online featuring Pluto for the 37th Recon Co. created by the Walt Disney Company during World War II. I really liked the logo but wished there was a better version online. After looking around, I didn't find any that looked much better, so I decided to make one myself which now pops up every now and again in my iMac's screen saver. Along with the logo I made, I decided to make a second one that looks older and distressed as if it was actually used. The bottom logo is the original and the other two are the ones I created in Photoshop.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in "Ye Olden Days"

Here is another faux Oswald the Lucky Rabbit poster I made for myself. I always liked the poster for Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse in "Ye Olden Days", so I decided it would be fun to re imagine the image as an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit animated film. Here is my faux Oswald poster, along with the original poster. I hope you enjoy!

Mickey Mouse and th Perilous Jungle Cruise

Recently while visiting one of my favourite Disney sites, I saw some great faux Disney movie posters that are displayed at the character meet and greet at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida. They were all really cool, but I especially liked the one for "Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse in The Jungle Cruise". A day or two later I saw the cover of a 1947 comic book, "Mickey Mouse and the Submarine Pirates", and immediately imagined it as a Jungle Cruise themed picture. So, a little bit of Photoshop magic and, voila, it's Mickey Mouse and the Perilous Jungle Cruise.

Gilligan's Island Comic Books

Back in the early 90's Harvey Comics got back into funny books in a big way! They got the licenses for Tom & Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, Caster the Ghost, Baby Huey, Richie Rich and others. I was excited to have all these new funny books to buy each month, but it got me thinking about my favourite TV show of all time, Gilligan's Island, and more specifically the cartoon series that followed the three years of the live action show, The New Adventures of Gilligan. It would make an great comic book, and it seemed like it would fit in nicely with the stuff that Harvey was publishing at the time, so I decided to write them with my great idea! I was excited and not to surprised to received a reply that said my idea was great, but that the idea didn't fit into their 'present publishing plans'. Knowing what I do not about the show and mess with its rights, I realized it was not to be. But, it would have been my favourite title every moth if it had come out as a comic book!

Shown here is the letter I received from Sid Jacobson, along with the cool envelope with embossed Casper just below the word Entertainment. The letter from July 2, 1993, reads: Thanks so much for your suggestions about Gilligan's Island. I'm sorry but the idea doesn't fit into our present publishing plans. I with it would... It would be fun. But I'm afraid it would be to difficult for us to reach the appropriate market. Sincerely Sid Jacobson.
Also shown is the New Adventures of Gilligan comic book cover I threw together in Photoshop. Anybody else here want to buy a copy of this first issue!

Batman's Dostoyevsky Comics

Here is a Batman story you have probably never seen before. Its from Masterpiece comics (Where classics and cartoons collide!) by R. Sikoryak, first edition 2009. One of the stories in the book is this one titled "Crime and Punishment!"

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Banjo Blues

Back in June I came across the Heritage Auctions site which was auctioning off a huge lot of Disney animation artwork, production cells etc. I downloaded a bunch of the amazing artwork, including this great background painting from The Black Cauldron. On the same site were some great images of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. I have scanned and printed a few of the old Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon movie posters which are hanging on my wall. I decided to make one more to add to my collection of Oswald movie posters. Above is the poster I made for my faux Oswald cartoon titled "Banjo Blues". Below you can see the original background painting from the Black Cauldron, a second version shows the Oswald drawing I used. While I was at it, I also made a "Banjo Blues" desktop wallpaper for my iMac.

 The last picture is a faux title card I made a long time ago, for the Oswald cartoon "Cats Me'Ow" which you won't find in a history book because I made it up!

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Club Membership Card

Sometimes I find myself obsessed with the idea of something or other. Recently I was thinking about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and how interesting it would have been if Walt Disney had not lost the rights to this character and had built his media empire on the back of Oswald instead of Mickey.
In the 2005 Disney Editions book "The Disney Keepsakes" by Robert Tieman, there is a replica of a Mickey Mouse Club membership card from 1929. The front of the card shows a smiling Mickey Mouse and lists the club chapter number and name, and has a space for the members name to be written along with a membership number. There is also a place for "Chief Mickey Mouse" to sign the card. The back of the card has the Mickey Mouse Club Creed:
I will be a square shooter in my home, in school, on the playgrounds, where-ever I may be.
I will be truthful and honorable and strive, always, to make myself a better and more useful little citizen.
I will respect my elders and help the aged, the helpless and children smaller than myself.
In short, I will be a good American!
After seeing this, I started thinking about what it would have looked like if there was no Mickey Mouse and instead we had an Oswald Club. I took a photo I found online of a Mickey Mouse Membership Card and turned it into an Oswald Club Membership Card which now has a spot in my collection! It makes me smile every time I see it there displayed amongst my other official Disney collectables.

Disneyland Atlantean Encounter Sub Voyage

Back in 2008 I posted a faux poster I created in photoshop for Atlantis Expedition an attraction I dearly wanted to see at Disneyland in the submarine lagoon where the original sub attraction had been closed since 1998. Some time later I came across a blog Disneyland Nomenclature where they posted a great story about Atlantean Encounter, a proposed attraction that some Imagineers at Disney were working on. If you have any interest in seeing what we could have gotten instead of the Finding Nemo Submarine Ride, check out their post. In that post they showed an proposed attraction poster for the Atlantean Encounter. My head still spins thinking about how incredible a sub attraction themed to Atlantis could have been. Sadly the movie sank at the box office and the Atlantean Encounter never came to be.

Happy 7th Birthday Big Pile of Stuff!

Today, July 30th, is the 7th birthday of this, the Big Pile of Stuff blog. For the first few years, I made all kinds of fun graphics for the special occasion, but then the last few years, I have actually forgotten about the day completely. Today, I wanted to to acknowledge 7 years, but I was kinda lazy, so I have just recycled one of my favorite graphics from a previous birthday. I love this one because it looks so much like something you would see on Sesame Street, with the large foam letters on sticks parading around their apartment.
As a special thank you to those of you who actually read this, I will be having a cool giveaway in a few days, so keep your eyes peeled for my next post.

Little Golden Book Monday #129

Today's Little Golden Book is a second printing of the officially licensed Woodsy Owl and the Trail Bikers from 1976 (first printing 1974). As soon as I saw this book, I started thinking about a favorite childhood mall hang out, called Willie Woozle. There was one of these hot dog and malt shops at both of my local malls; Surrey Place Mall and Guildford Town Centre. I went looking on the net for some photos of Willie Woozle, but sadly, I could not find even one photo of the place, just some people reminiscing about how much they liked going there when they were kids. I can't be sure since I could not find a photo, but I seem to remember that the Willie Woozle logo featured an owl very similar to Woodsy and I used to think the malt shop was somehow related to Woodsy, which I'm sure is what they were going for.

I assume every one knows what a malt is, but just in case you've never had one, the term malt comes from the malted milk that made the shops famous. The concoction is a mixture of malted barley, wheat flour, and whole milk that is dried to a powder form. The taste found popularity in soda shops, and even greater popularity when mixed with ice cream. If you remember back, Scooby-Doo and the gang were always hanging out at the malt shop. Wendy's burger restaurants still serves malts which they call Frosty's.

Since I could not find a photo of the Willie Woozle malt shop, I decided I would get creative with one of the interior pages from the Woodsy Owl and the Trail Bikers book to at least include my childhood vice!

Little Golden Book Monday #128

Today's Little Golden Book is another faux Golden Book. This one comes from Bob Canada's Blogworld! blog. Here is what Bob had to say on his blog about this great faux Little Golden Book: For this year's custom-made Christmas card I had a novel idea: instead of waiting until the very last minute to begin working on it like I always do, I would actually get a head start on it! No more racing against the clock and mailing it out a day or two before Christmas. What an unorthodox concept.
My original intention was to make a simple card that looked like the cover of a Little Golden Book. But as I was sketching out ideas I started thinking of an actual story for the inside. Before I knew it my little card had evolved into a full blown eight page book.
I had a week long vacation at the beginning of November. I couldn't afford to go anywhere, so I spent almost the entire week in front of my computer working on this card/book. It turned out pretty much the way I pictured it in my mind. It was nice to have it done ahead of time for once.
Here are all the pages in order along with a few of the sketches he did for the project.

Little Golden Book Monday #108

Today's Little Golden Book is a faux Golden Book titled "Take the Banana". It was created by Cale Atkinson for the August 2009 Toronto Fan Expo. Cale created a limited run Sketchbook filled with 28 color pages of Art. He still has some copies leftover from the Con so if any of you are interested feel free to shoot him an email :) The books are $15 (+ Shipping).
I love going on Google and looking for Little Golden Book covers, and I am aways especially interested in faux covers that others have created (to see my faux Little Golden Book cover check out my previous post). Cale decided to put a little of his love for Little Golden Books into his sketch book cover, and I think it turned out awesome!

Along with the actual cover to his book, Cale was nice enough to send along two of the rough sketches he did while designing the cover.Check out his blog Cale's Museum of Delights

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!

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!