Heckle and Jeckle Visit the Farm

Yesterday we visited a few of our local thrift shops and I came home with some really neat stuff including this Wonder Book, Heckle and Jeckle Visit the Farm. The copyright for the book is 1958, but this particular edition is from 1983. I have always been a fan of Heckle and Jeckle and back when I used to still get up early to watch cartoons, I used to get pretty excited when they would toss in a Heckle and Jeckle cartoon in the mix of usual Bugs Bunny, Casper and Popeye cartoons. I can also remember back in the 80's before VCRs became popular, you could actually pay to see cartoons in a little cartoon hut at the mall. Once I got this book, it got me to thinking about those little cartoon huts. I can remember that they had one in the Surrey Place Mall and than when I was working at the A&A Records and Tapes shop, I would use my breaks to run over to the Sears, where they had one such cartoon hut in their stairwell leading out to the parking lot. For just a quarter, you could sit and watch a full length (roughly six minutes) cartoon. I loved it because it only played Terry Toons and your odds of seeing a Heckle and Jeckle cartoon were pretty good.
After a short Google search, I found this guys site where he showed off his very own original Kiddierama Theatre. Be sure to check out his site to see who these things actually worked. Now a days, a quick YouTube search will instantly bring up a whole bunch of Heckle and Jeckle cartoons to view in the comfort of your own home. Pretty amazing to think back and realize how much things have changed in just 30 years.

Little Golden Book Monday #131

Today's Little Golden Book is Baby's Mother Goose Pat-A-Cake. This copy is a seventh printing from 1971, with the original copyright being 1948. The quality of this copy is not that great, but I had never seen it before and I liked the 50's style artwork on the cover. Inside the book is a cute illustration of a cat playing a violin with this note about the artist: While this is Aurelius Battaglia's first children's book he has done murals for children's rooms and worked in the Disney Studio. He studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and now lives in New York City.
I thought it was funny that they listed his accomplishments as doing murals on children's room walls and working for Disney. It's pretty hard to decide which should come first on your resume.
Along with the cover, I have scanned a few of my favorite pages from the book, including a two page spread of Little Miss Muffet and the last page of the book, Rock-a-bye baby. I've always thought that so many of the young children's nursery rhymes and songs are kind of morbid and/or depressing. This one is a cheerful story of a little baby in a cradle stuck up in a tree, and eventually falling to the ground, bough, cradle, and all. I did learn something from this though, as I don't think I have ever included the word "bough" in the last line of the song when I have sung it. I'll have to remember to add that next time I have occasion to sing this tune.
[Ed note, here is the fun learnin' part of the blog. Bough -noun, a branch of a tree, esp. one of the larger or main branches.]

Lastly I have scanned the inside back cover and back cover of the book. The inside back cover lists the current titles for 1971 and the back cover is one I don't see very often. I love the 'eyes' in the letters GB. And by the looks of it, I would guess that the Donald Duck at the bottom left of the back cover was done by Aurelius as one of his bedroom wall illustrations.

Retro Cap'n Crunch

Not sure how I missed this, but apparently The Quaker Oats Company released Retro Cap'n Crunch boxes this past summer. Although I am a huge fan of sugary cereal box art, I don't spend too much time looking in the cereal isle anymore as there really hasn't been many new boxes worth adding to my collection over the past number of years. Here in my area, we only get the regular Cap'n Crunch. I used to have to travel down across the boarder into the US to pickup my Peanut Butter Crunch which was my favorite, along with what ever goofy new concoctions they would come up with such as Vanilla Crunch and Volcano Crunch. I'll be sure to have a look next time I visit the grocery store, but I won't hold my breath, as I am sure us Canadians will get hosed and miss out on there awesome looking retro boxes of sugary cereal.

Ding Dongs Ain't Ding Dongs in Canada

Sometimes you just gotta know! While surfing the Interweb Tubes tonight I saw a picture of an old Ding Dong package.

That got me to thinking about those tasty little cakes filled with magically delicious filling and covered in a chocolaty coating. Ok, I'll admit its been years since I've had one, but its not entirely the fault of the tasty little treat, but more to do with the fact that here in Canada we don't have Ding Dongs, instead we have the exact same tasty treat, but with a different name... King Don. I'm pretty sure that when I was a kid they were called Ding Dongs here in Canada, and I remember loving them. I was always begging mom to buy a box when we were in the bakery section of the local grocery store. But then as time went on and I got to be a teenager I can remember noticing the box in my local grocery store, and wondering why it said King Don? It looked a lot like a Ding Dong, so what had happened? Somehow a King Don just didn't seem as appealing as a Ding Dong, and I haven't had one since. So tonight when I saw the original package, I had to do a Google search to see just why that tasty treat had changed its name. Here is what I found on Wikipedia:
The Ding Dong is similar to other cream-filled cakes, such as Arcade Vachon's Jos. Louis introduced before 1934 and still in production. Hostess began marketing its Ding Dong in 1967. The name was given to coincide with a television ad campaign featuring a ringing bell. The company marketed the snacks on the East Coast as Big Wheels, to avoid confusion with the Ring Ding, a similar (and pre-existing) treat by Drake's Cakes. The names were consolidated in 1987, when a short-lived merger of Drake's with Hostess' parent company (then Continental Baking Company) briefly resolved the Ring Ding/Ding Dong conflict. When the merged company broke up, however, Hostess was forced to cease, once again, using the Ding Dongs name in areas where Ring Dings were available. The compromise sound-alike name King Dons lasted until Interstate Bakeries Corporation, which had recently merged with Hostess' parent company, bought Drake's in 1998. The Hostess product is now sold under the name Ding Dongs throughout the United States. However, the snack is still sold as the King Don in Canada.
Hostess created the "King Ding Dong" cartoon character to advertise the Ding Dong: an anthropomorphized Ding Dong sporting a crown and sceptre. He was similar to other Hostess characters Twinkie the Kid and Fruit Pie the Magician. Where King Dongs were marketed, the character, like the product, was known as King Dong. In areas that used the "Big Wheel" name, the character was an Indian chief named "Chief Big Wheel".

American Dings Dongs (recent packaging)

  Canadian King Dons (not recent packaging)

I'm pretty sure that after this post I am going to have to check out the bakery section of my local Safeway next visit to see if I can find a package of those tasty little treats to bring home with me.

Little Golden Book Monday #130

Today's Little Golden Book is Walt Disney's, Donald Duck's Toy Sailboat. Donald Duck has always been my favorite Disney character (followed closely by Pluto) and I find myself picking this book up every time I find it in a thrift shop, hoping to find a mint copy. This is definitely one of the books I seem to see most often, but almost always they are in pretty dog eared shape. This copy from 1990 is in decent shape and even with a bit of scuffing on the cover around the edges its still probably the best copy I have. Without looking, I would guess that I have 4 or 5 of this book in my collection from various years and differing conditions. Although I have not spent the time to catalogue my complete collection of Little Golden Books yet, I do regularly use my iPhone to visit this blog to check out what books I have already posted, which has actually saved me from buying multiple copies of a number of books!
This book, originally from 1954, has great artwork produced under the supervision of the Walt Disney Studio. The story  is adapted by Samuel Armstrong from the motion picture Chips Ahoy. I particularly like this illustration of a mischievous Donald pouring water onto the small toy boat as Chip & Dale try desperately to pump out the water before they sink!

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 #127

Today's Little Golden Book is Bert's Hall of Great Inventions featuring Bert and Ernie and other Jim Henson Muppets including Franklin and Prairie Dawn. The book is originally from 1972 (this is an eleventh printing edition from 1981). I certainly remember this book from you childhood. I was always a big fan of Sesame Street and the Muppets, so I am sure I owned my own copy of this one at some point. I have scanned two of the pages from the book that I particularly like. The first is a great drawing of Bert and Ernie hanging out in the dark with their firefly friends. The second is a silly drawing of Bert whacking Ernie on the head with a fly swatter. I like that the fly is saying "Ha ha."

KISS Super Big Gup Cups

Just saw this today. I have not been collecting KISS merchandise for years now, but this looks cool! New KISS Big Gulp cups from 7-11. I guess its partly that they look cool, and partly that I have a nostalgia for the old 7-11 Slurpee cups that I used to collect as a kid. I'll have to stop by my local 7-11 this weekend to see if we have these in Canada so I can pick up my set. The last Gig Gulp cup I purchased was the really cool 3D Iron Man cups promoting the first Iron Man movie.

Hanging out with The Famous SD Chicken

Back in 2008 the family and I got the chance to hang out with the Famous SD Chicken (aka the San Diego Chicken). He attended the February 9, 2008 Delta Ice Hawks hockey game in Ladner, BC vs the Delta Devils of the PIJHL. Being a huge fan of the SD Chicken, my wife requested that we purchase tickets for the game as soon as she found out he would be attending. Being as the Ice Hawks generally draw about 150-250 fans per game, we knew we would have a great chance to meet the chicken. Kaden spent a good part of the game sitting front row, side by side with the chicken, even helping him out with some of his props! I'm not sure Kaden really knew what to make of some guy dressed in a chicken costume making such a ruckus against the glass all during the game!

As well as a ton of photos that I took, both Sara and Kaden got autographed photos for their collections.

Terry David Mulligan's Good Rockin' Tonite

Back in 1984 there were a ton of rock videos, and if you wanted to see them, you had to turn on the TV and wait for one of a plethora of video shows to show them to you. Unlike today when you can just go to Youtube and watch any video you want, any time you want. But back in 1984 you watched video shows such as the grand daddy of them all, Friday Night Videos, or Canada's version called Good Rockin' Tonite. GRT was a 90 minute weekly video show hosted by Terry David Mulligan. I can remember watching this show regularly for years, always hoping to see videos by my favorite bands such as; KISS, Motley Crue, Helix, Def Leppard, Lee Aaron etc. They were also always having contests, usually for signed albums and posters. On one occasion when I entered, I didn't win anything, but I did receive this really snazzy postcard, which wasn't even hand signed - the signature was printed on the card. On a separate occasion, I entered a Motley Crue contest, and won a signed Gary Moore album (go figure)! I was never a fan of Gary Moore (I actually had no idea who he was at the time) so wasn't all that thrilled with my win. But years later I traded it to a friend for a copy of the ultra rare Wendy O Williams (Plasmatics) album titled Deffest and Baddest. Being a huge Plasmatics fan, I was pretty excited to acquire this Wendy O Williams album I had never even heard of. A quick Google search today finds this description of the album: Originally, the album was to be credited to the fictional rap group "Ultrafly and the Hometown Girls," with Wendy's name left off it, but the distributor wouldn't back it without Wendy's name. On this disc, Wendy slams hair bands, creates interesting sexual scenarios between Jerry Falwell and Jessica Hahn, and oh yeah, becomes the first person to fuse rap and speed metal. Thanks Good Rockin' Tonite... that Gary Moore album turned out to be a pretty awesome prize!

Little Golden Book Monday #126

Today's Little Golden Book is Susan in the Driver's Seat. I had never seen this book before, so was happy to add it to my collection for a hefty 20 cents at a local thrift shop. The book is from 1973 and was written by Kathi Gibeault with illustrations by Jane Ike. I always like to see who my new books used to belong to. Apparently this one belonged to a child who is now in the witness protection program.

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 #125

Today's Little Golden Book Monday book is another one that I am not sure if it is actually a Little Golden Book. It looks a lot like an American Little Golden Book, but does not say Little Golden Book anywhere in it. It does have a very worn golden spine resembling a LGB. When I did some online translating, the cover translated to "Little Book" and the title translated to "Suffers the infernal rabbit." I'm not sure how good that translation is, but it is kind of funny. I also scanned in the inside two pages. You will notice that much like the American LGB is has a full page pattern on the left page which is very reminiscent of the American LGB. And if you didn't notice from the front the cover artwork, the story and artwork is by Richard Scarry. One last translation tells us that this book is an "edition of two cocks gold".

American Express Print Ad

Here is another of the ads I pulled out of all the magazines I got last week. I don't usually collect American Express ads, but this one made me chuckle while I was flipping though the piles of magazines.

Give Old Magazines A New Life

While we were out the other day we visited a few thrift shops I had never been to. One of them had piles and piles of old magazines. It took a while to go though them all (OK, not all of them, but lots of them!) and I found a ton of great full page ads for my collection. There were great ads for Apple, Saturn, Disney, Coca Cola etc. Once I was home, I had a ton of fun sitting on the couch listening to music while flipping though them all and pulling out the ads I wanted to keep. Any of the magazines that still have covers and are only missing a few pages will end up back at another thrift shop, and the rest that are to mangled to pass on will be send to the recycling bin.
One of the ads I kept was a two page ad that was promoting the idea that magazines are still relevant in an internet age. The text in the ad reads: "We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines.
The Internet is exhilarating. Magazines are enveloping.The Internet grabs you. Magazines embrace you. The Internet is impulsive. Magazines are immersive. And both
media are growing.
Barely noticed amidst the thunderous Internet clamor is the simple fact that magazine readership has risen over the past five years. Even in the age of the Internet, even among the groups one would assume are most singularly hooked on digital media, the appeal of magazines is growing.
Think of it this way: during the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership actually increased 11 percent.
What it proves, once again, is that a new medium doesn't necessarily displace an existing one. Just as movies didn't kill radio. Just as TV didn't kill movies. An established medium can continue to flourish so long as it continues to offer a
unique experience. And, as reader loyalty and growth demonstrate, magazines do.
Which is why people aren't giving up swimming, just because they also enjoy surfing."
The next ad is a recycling ad from the Publishers of America, which reads: "Give old magazines a new life. We all love our magazines, but when it's time to let go, it just takes a little extra effort to recycle. After all, helping the environment is everyone's responsibility. For more information on how to recycle your magazines, go to www.Earth911.com. Make it a habit. Recycle"
The third ad is for the Apple iPad. The ad shows a person sitting at home reading The New York Times on their iPad.
The last ad is for Movies on Demand.
Why do I include these four ads in this post? Because I think it really does show that we are in an age where physical things such as magazines, movies, CDs, and DVDs are becoming less relevant to many people, which means they could slowly (or perhaps quickly) become a relic of the past along with VHS tapes and 8-Track cassettes. Does this make me happy... hell no!
As a collector, the idea that physical things such as magazines, DVDs, CDs, even concert/sports ticket stubs could disappear is a very depressing thought. I bought tickets recently for a concert (a band I love called Skillet) and was disappointed to see that instead of traditional paper tickets they had wrist bands. The young person selling me the tickets actually made the comment that these were so much cooler than old fashioned tickets. I didn't bother getting into it with her, as she would probably just laugh at the old guy blathering on about the past. But I have been collecting tickets for as long as I can remember. I even purchased some ticket books from www.ticketalbums.com to keep all my concert tickets nicely organized. A piece of paper printed on my ink jet printer just isn't worth keeping as a souvenir of the event. As for my magazine ad collecting. a digital ad collection just isn't the same as the binders I have filled with page protectors full of ads. I have books for Apple ads, Coca Cola ads, Disney ads etc. Again, I have been collecting ads for as long as I can remember and my binder collections of ads are quite impressive. The ads I have collected on my iMac (and use as a screen saver) just aren't as cool. And then there is music. I am a self professed Apple fan boy, and I do love using iTunes to listen to my music - I have not had any other stereo for playing music since I started using iTunes. But I prefer to buy the physical CD and rip it into my iTunes collection. Paying to download the music online may be convenient, but if you don't get something physical for my cash, it just seems wrong. Collecting music CDs in my iTunes collection just isn't as cool as having a shelf full of my favorite records and CDs. But then I guess that's the point for so many people. They would rather have a hard drive full of music and movies as apposed to a taking up a bunch of space on their shelves with stuff that is just going to collect dust. So to those people... I can help you recycle your stuff. just send it to me!

Little Golden Book Monday #124

Today's Little Golden Book is Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. I have never been a big fan of Winnie the Pooh, and ever since he forcefully removed the Country Bears from their home at Disneyland I have had even less love for the the chubby little bear. That said, I was impressed with the artwork by Russell Hicks in this book enough to pick it up for my collection. At just 69 cents this book was well worth adding to my collection. I hope you enjoy the two interior illustrations I have scanned to go along with this post. I have to saw that the honey that is covering Pooh looks a lot more like chocolate than honey - and its not just my scans - it looks like that in the actual book!

Homer and the Circus Train

I Just got a copy of Homer and the Circus Train by Hardie Gramatky. My wife was visiting her nephew, and in the lobby of the building was a bookcase with magazines and children's books. She noticed this one and instantly knew I would love it. She took a photo with her iPhone and sent it to me. As she guessed, I loved it. On her next trip to visit her nephew, I went along with a pile of books from my collection (all extras) and asked if I could trade my pile of books for the copy of Homer and the Circus Train. The woman made some jokes about how the book was probably worth lots of money etc, but was convinced to let me trade when she saw that one of the books I had brought was a brand new copy of Green Eggs and Ham which she said was her favorite. I went home with my new treasure. The book is from 1957 and was part of the Greater Victoria Public Library collection before becoming a discard. The book was written by Hardie Gramatky who also wrote Little Toot, another favorite of mine. The list in the back of the book also lists other books by Hardie Gramatky: Little Toot, Hercules, Loopy, Sparky, Bolivar, Nikos and the Sea God, Little Toot on the Thames, Little Toot on the Grand Canal, and Happy's Christmas.
This book features Homer a little circus train who looks a little bit like a few other cabooses I have featured on my blog previously. I absolutely love the artwork throughout the book and this one has made me want to search for more of Hardie's books, especially Sparky, which is about a little trolley car that looks very similar to Homer, except that he is yellow instead of red.