Little Golden Book Monday #175

Today's Little Golden Book is Disney Planes based on the upcoming Disney animated movie of the same name. I saw some previews of this movie about a year ago and thought it looked very much like a direct to DVD film, but that didn't stop me from picking up the book, and I'll be there on August 9th for opening night of the film. At least this book has me a little more interested in seeing the film.

Little Golden Book Monday #174

Today's Little Golden Book is Disney Pixar Monsters University. I have started to see lots of Monsters university books showing up in many local stores. I have not seen this one on the shelves yet, but since seeing this image on another site, I have been on the look out for a copy to add to my collection!

Little Golden Book Monday #171

Today I realized that I have posted a couple of Little Golden Books based on Toy Story and Toy Story 3, but had not done Toy Story 2. So, today, I present Toy Story 2 from 2006.
I love the Toy Story films and especially enjoyed Toy Story 2. I loved the way they turned Woody and Bullseye into retro stars of yesteryear on their show Woody's Roundup. I want all those collectibles they show in the film! A Woody's Roundup record player would look awesome in my collection.

Little Golden Book Monday #167

Today's Little Golden Book is Disney / Pixar's Monsters, Inc from 2012. This is the first Little Golden Book to feature Monsters, Inc. Then the movie initially came out, it was during the time that LGB's had dropped their Disney licence, so its nice to see they have put one out in 2012. There is a new Monsters, Inc movie titled Monsters University coming out in June 2013, so I guess this is a good time to get the characters out in front of the public again.

While we were in Disney's California Adventure park, we got to ride Monsters, Inc Mike & Sulley to the Rescue, and we also saw all of the characters in the Pixar Play Parade. The highlight of the parade was seeing George Sanderson, who sadly still had a sock stuck to his back!

Little Golden Book Monday #162

Today's Little Golden Book is Toy Story - A Roaring Adventure, by Kristen L. Depken, and illustrated by Josh Holtsclaw, with a release date of 2012. This title is another Quality Children's Book - at least that is what the sticker on it says.
I find it kind of funny that I found this on at the same place I have found my last few new Little Golden Books... at my local Shoppers Drug Mart. The last few titles that I was looking for, I spent all kinds of time looking at my local books stores and other stores with large book selections such as Toys R Us, but had no luck. Then I found what I was looking for in the local Shoppers Drug Mart where they have a dinkiest selection of magazines and books.
When I get the chance I like to take the trip down to Bellingham, WA to visit the Barnes and Noble Book store where they have a large spinner rack full of Little Golden Books, but at home, I have to visit my local drug store to find the newest titles.

Little Golden Book Monday #161

... And We're back! Today's Little Golden Book is Disney Pixar's Brave. I picked it up at a Barnes and Noble  in Washington state, as I can no longer find Little Golden Books in my local books stores. The local Chapters books usually has one solitary Little Golden Book on their shelves, and its usually one of the older titles such as Alice in Wonderland or Snow White. Its a huge difference from the Barnes and Nobel that I visit in Washington state which has a large spinner rack of Little Golden Books, including everything from the the older titles to the newest titles such as the new Disney films, DC and Marvel comics etc.
I really liked the new movie Brave, and always love adding the new Disney titles to my Little Golden Book collection, but I was not really impressed with the artwork of this title. I usually enjoy the stylistic looks they have been using for many of the recent Disney Pixar titles, but this one fell a little flat for me. I would have preferred artwork with much brighter colors to match the look of the movie, but I am always happy to add another Disney title to my collection.

Little Golden Book Monday #147

While trolling Amazon.ca for new Disney books to add to my collection, I found two new Little Golden Books that are scheduled to come out next week (August 9, 2011).
The first is Tractor Trouble, based on Disney / Pixar's Cars. The second is The Pet Problem, based on Disney / Pixar's Toy Story.
The thing that makes these a little unusual, is that neither is based on the current film, but rather on the franchise. This will be the fifth Little Golden Book based on the Cars franchise, and the fourth based on the Toy Story franchise.
Hopefully I will be able to find copies of these at my local book store next week, but I won't be surprised if I am back at Amazon.ca to order my copies.

Little Golden Book Monday #145

A few days ago the family and I were at a local drug store and while I was waiting to leave I decided to check out their magazine and book section. I had found Little Golden Books there before and as it turned out, they did indeed have exactly one Little Golden Book hidden among all the other kids books. It is a book based on the upcoming Cars 2 movie. I haven't opened it up to check it out, as I am looking forward to seeing the movie this coming weekend.
My copy had a sticker on the front proclaiming "Quality Children's Books, 4-8 years". After scanning the cover, I removed the sticker and luckily it didn't leave any sort of mark. I hate it when they add stickers like this to products that can not be removed without leaving a mark. Don't get me started about Value Village stickers on record albums which can NOT be removed without damaging the cover!

The Wonderful World of Pixar

I picked up this copy of the June 2004 WIRED magazine with a great Pixar cover story for 20 cents at a local thrift shop. I am a big fan of the Incedibles movie, so it is always great to find something to add to my collection. Inside the magazine is a great 8 page article with the title "Welcome to Planet Pixar, How the pixel-packing upstart became an animation superpower and left Disney in the dust.

Little Golden Book Monday #121

With the upcoming release of Toy Story 3 later this month, I went hunting for a new Little Golden Book based on the film. I managed to find it listed on Amazon, but when I visited my local book seller, they did not have any copies of this book. They did however have a large display of other Toy Story 3 story books, coloring books, sticker books etc. Looks like I will have to order this one via Amazon if I want a copy. Back in 2008, I had to order the Little Golden Book version of Presto which I never found at my local book sellers. Seems that many stores no longer carry the Little Golden Books and the ones that do, seem to carry a rather strange selection of Little Golden Book titles.

[UPDATE July 7, 2010 - I found a copy at a local Walmart today and on the front cover was a sticker that read "Only at Walmart", so it would seem to explain why I could not find this book at any of my usual book sellers.]

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 #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!

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.

What's UP with this!?

This August, just a little more than two months after the release of Disney/Pixar's UP to theaters, comes the GoodTimes Home Video movie called What’s Up: Balloon to the Rescue. In the past there have been cheapo versions of Pocahontas, Pinocchio, and other classics, trying to cash in on the successful theater releases of Disney films. This one, is such a rip off, its hard to think that the Disney lawyers won't be contacting GoodTimes for something a little less than some good times!

Little Golden Book Monday #87

On Friday May 29th, opening night, I went to see Up with my wife and 4 year old son Kaden. We chose to see the 3D version, as both were playing at the same cinema. I am not actually sure why someone would chose to see it in 2D when they could see it in 3D - my guess it that once the 3D showings were full, people were forced to see the 2D version. Our theater was so packed that we could not find 3 decent seats together, so Kaden sat on our lap for the entire movie.u I thought the movie was great and loved the 3D. I was very surprised that 10 to 15 minutes into the movie, my son took off his glasses. When I told him to put them back on, he told me, "no, it looks better without them", to which I shrugged and allowed him to continue watching without the glasses. I tilted my head up a few times to look at the screen without my glasses, and found the picture to be somewhat fuzzy looking with the 3D effect on the screen and no glasses. It wasn't until we left the theater that I realized that after eating greasy popcorn for the first few minutes and then touching his lenses repeatedly, it was like looking through greasy saran rap, which is why he didn't want to wear the glasses.
I was pretty surprised that they did not offer a plastic popcorn tub with the Up artwork. There was a time when every kids movie got the popcorn tub treatment.
After the movie, we made a stop at the Chapters book store to have a look for the Little Golden Book version of the film, and sure enough they had a large stack of them, along with all sorts of other assorted coloring books, sticker books, story books etc. It was kind of cool getting to go home from the movie with little souvenir

Little Golden Book Monday #72

My copy of Disney Pixar's Presto! finally showed up at my local Chapters bookstore. I have been looking for this book ever since I saw it posted on someone else's blog months ago. Then recently while checking out my local Chapters I noticed they have a new computer search system in store. Instead of the Windows based system that they used to use, which always kinda sucked... when it even worked, was now replaced by new shiny large screen iMacs running touch screen technology. after just few touches of the screen I had found the Little Golden Book of Presto! and was able to print out a receipt that I took to the front counter to order myself a copy. I'm not sure what I was more excited about, ordering my copy of Presto!, or the fact that Chapters now had these great iMac computers sprinkled around the store!
This book is an illustrated version of the short cartoon that preceded the Wall-E movie in theaters. I loved the cartoon, and the illustrations in this book version are a real treat! I'd love to include a bunch of the pages with this post, but I only have one copy and I can't get myself to pry the book open to put it on my scanner - if you are a collector, you know what I am talking about.

Little Golden Book Monday #68

Sometimes you find things in unexpected places. That's what happened yesterday while doing my grocery shopping. My local grocery store has a discount book bin which is always filled with all kinds of old overstocked books. My son found a Wall.E book in the bin and picked it up asking if we could buy it? To my amazement, the book under the Wall.E book was the Little Golden Book version of Disney's upcoming film Bolt. I have been looking for this book ever since seeing it on another blog over a month ago. I have made trips to all kinds of book stores, drug stores and other assorted stores hoping to find this one, as well as the Little Golden Book "Presto!". I was so excited to find this book in the discount bin of my local grocery store that I actually said to myself... "Awesome!". Ironic that the next book I found was a Bolt coloring book with the title "Beyond Awesome".
I quickly snapped up the Bolt book, along with the Wall.E book for my son, and a copy of the most recent Little Golden Book version of Sleeping Beauty.
Tonight, just before adding this blog entry, I saw an ad for the Bolt film, and I can't say that I was terribly impressed. I'm sure that since its a Disney animated film, I will go see it - probably on opening night - but it didn't look nearly as good as the recent Pixar films. Other than popping this book open to have a look at the artwork (which looked great), I don't plan to read it yet, as I don't want to read the book before seeing the movie on November 21st.
I also saw David Copperfield yesterday afternoon. Too bad a copy of Pesto! didn't 'appear' in the discount bin as well huh!? Now that would have made for a great blog!

Little Golden Book Monday #63

Today's Little Golden Book is another of the Disney / Pixar films, Finding Nemo. It's kind of interesting to see the art in done in a simple 2d drawing style, as compared to the crisp cgi animation of the film.
I picked this one up in 2003 when it was released, and I must say, that after only 5 years, it is already showing signs of wear, even though it only sits on my shelve in my collection. One can only guess what it would look like it if was actually being read by a child! I have found that many of the more recent LGB's (from the past 5 to 10 years), have extremely poor binding, and the gold spine is a very cheep sticker that seems to start peeling within days of getting these things home! Kind of a sign of the times that my LGB's from the 50's though 70's are all still in great shape, but the books I bought in the last year, are already falling apart!

Little Golden Book Monday #59

Today's Little Golden Book is from the forth coming Disney / Pixar film WALL.E.
While at my local book store on the weekend I noticed they had lots of various WALL.E books in the kids section and decided to look for the Little Golden Book . I did not find one on the shelves, but asked the clerk in the children's area if they had received a WALL.E Little Golden Book. They went in the back and brought one out for me. It was in back, waiting to be part of a large display for the movie they will be putting out later this week.
Being as the movie is not out yet, I have been trying to keep myself in a media blackout as to the plot and look of the movie. I like going into a movie with little to no idea what its about, so as to make it all the more exciting. I did open the book to peek at one of the pages, just to wee what the art looked like. I was happily surprised to see a small drawing of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit on the edge of the page I had opened it to. With a smile on my face, I closed the book. I'll wait until after I have seen the movie to check out the book.