Fall Preview 2003 Disney Store Catalog

While hunting though my room the other day, I found this great looking Disney Store catalog from 2003. I can remember how excited I would get when we would make it to a Disney Story and I was able to pick up a catalog, although it seems that more times than not they were out of them when I would ask. That was back when there were very few Disney Stores, and we didn't have any here in Canada yet. As they added more stores, and moved into Canada, it seems the stores become less of a 'must visit' destination and more an extension of WalMart. What had made the stores so much fun to visit, was all but disappearing from the stores. Now, on the rare occasion that I visit my local Disney Store, I am in and out in a matter of 4 or 5 minutes and since I don't meed any plush characters or any Disney Princess items, I never end up buying anything. Flipping though this old 2003 Disney Store catalog reminded me of how much cool merchandise the used to have for us Adults / Disney collectors.

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 #62

Today's Little Golden Book is Disney's Tale Spin: Ghost Ship, from 1991. I borrowed this book from my sons collection, as I liked the ghost ship on the cover.
I don't really know the characters from Tale Spin, as I was a little too old by the time The Disney Afternoon came along with shows such as Tale Spin, Dark Wing Duck, the Adventures of the Gummi Bears, and Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers. There are a few shows from this period however that I did watch, and still enjoy to this day including; Goof Troop, Raw Toonage, Bonkers and Gargoyles. I have tons of episodes of these four shows on video tape which I taped off of TV back while the shows were still in first run. I used to get up early on Saturday mornings to tape my favorites and set my VCRs to tape the shows in the afternoons when I was still at school / work. I thought it was going to be so cool years from now when these shows were no longer on TV. I would be the only person with all this stuff in my collection to watch any time I wanted. Little did I know that years later these shows would be available on DVD in pristine condition, in season order.
In any event, I am now having fun sharing my hard work of preserving these animated gems with my son who is becoming a huge cartoon (animation) fan!

Some Mad Summer Reading

Here are a few Mad paperbacks I picked up recently. I have shelves full of these things. They are always a fun read, and I just about always love the covers.
The four I found this time include: Clods' Letters to Mad, illustrated by Al Jafee from 1981, The Rip Off Mad from 1978 (first printing 1973), Mad Horses Around 1981, and Pumping Mad from 1981.

Happy 2nd Birthday to Ronn's BPoS!

Today marks the second Birthday of Ronn's Big Pile of Stuff. I started this blog on July 30, 2006 as a goof, and just keep going. I remember back in 2006, I was starting to find and visit a lot of blogs and I remember thinking to myself, there are so many of these blogs, that sooner or later there would be more blogs than people looking at them. I wanted in on the ground floor (or close to it) and started this blog, which now I am thrilled to say gets up to 100 visits a day. That may be small numbers compared to many of the blogs I visit, but I am still amazed that anyone is visiting, let along 100 people a day! So to those of you visiting... thanks! I'd love to hear from you all, so please take a moment to post a comment on the blog to let me know what you are enjoying or not enjoying in my posts.
And if you enjoy this blog, you can now check out two new blogs I have started the Disneyland Records Blog and Ronn's Minor League Hockey Mania Blog.
Before you go, be sure to enjoy a piece of our virtual birthday cake.

Touche Turtle and the Fire Dog

Ever since 1983 when I started Firehouse Magazine (1983-2000), I have always liked collecting things with a firefighter theme. Here is a great Whitman book from 1963. It is Hanna-Barbera's Touche Turtle and the Fire Dog by Jean Lewis and illustrated by Mel Crawford. Check out this great artwork on the front and back covers. This cover alone was worth the $4 price tag I paid for this at the local used book shop.

Little Golden Book Monday #61

Today's Little Golden Book is Cars. We are almost at the halfway point of the summer vacation, summer vacation usually means lots of car trips to fun and exotic new places. But with the gas prices what they are this summer, I am thinking our family will be taking a lot less car trips, and spending a lot more time around the home.
So, in honor of those fun car trips of yore, I present this great book from 1973, which celebrates the automobile and all the fun you can have just driving around.
There are lots of great illustrations inside this book, including this great drawing of the ABE Motors. I love that retro looking showroom in the background.

Then there is this great drawing of a suburban home. I just love the architecture of the 50's and 60's. The cars in these drawings, lack a little pizazz though.

Sgt. Rock from REMCO

While reading some old comic books, I came across this ad for the Remco Sgt. Rock action figures and vehicles. As a child of the 70's, I was overly excited to play with war themed toys, tanks being the coolest of them all! I remember having the A.T.C. Amphibious Armored Troop-Carrier "with working action gatling gun" as shown in this ad. How cool was a vehicle that could drive on land and cruise on water, AND had a BA (Big Ass) Gun to blow stuff up! I also had one G.I. Joe figure, but because it was the larger size figure, it was only good for being the attacking giant that all my other action figures would battle. My G.I. Joe was also pretty rough looking, as I remember trying to burn off his beard!
Sgt. Rock first appeared in G.I. Combat #68 (Jan. 1959). His rank is not given in this story; instead, he is merely called "The Rock." The Rock returned as a sergeant in Our Army at War #81 (April 1959) with his unit, Easy Company (the precise US Army infantry regiment to which Easy belonged was never identified during the history of the character). Sgt. Rock steadily gained popularity, until, in 1977, the name of the comic was changed to Sgt. Rock. The comic ran until Sgt. Rock #422 (July 1988). In addition to the semi-regular comic, several "digests" were sold, under the DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest banner, reprinting stories from Our Army at War or Sgt. Rock. Some were subtitled as OAAW or Sgt. Rock, some as Sgt. Rock's Prize Battle Tales.
A line of 3-3/4" action figures bearing the SGT. ROCK name was released in the 1980s.

Little Golden Book Monday #60

After a short absence, I'm back with another LGBM - Little Golden Book Monday. Todays book is Walt Disney's Mickey and Friends Lets Go to the Vet.
This book is from 1997 and one of the last Disney themed titles for a period of time. I'm not sure of the exact dates and titles, but I do know that there was a period of years where Disney and Little Golden Books parted ways. I remember being very disappointed about this as in 2001 when Disney released Atlantis the Lost Empire, one of my favorite Disney animated films, I found out there would be no Atlantis Little Golden Book for my collection. You can check out my fake edition of the Atlantis Little Golden Book here.
Luckily, some time after 2001, Disney and Little Golden Books kissed and made up and have been putting out Disney themed books ever since.

Cracked: Jason Goes to the Hellton!

I picked up this great old issue of Cracked magazine from April 1993, with a parody of Jason Goes To Hell on the cover.
Along with all the horror movie parodies inside, it also has a 4 page listing of "Jason's Body Count". I scanned in the pages and am presenting them here for all of you trying to keep score at home. Of course this list only goes up to Part VIII Jason Takes Manhattan, so this list is for amusement only... no betting please!

Batman's Got Milk

Here is a "Got Milk?" ad from 2005 with Batman sporting a milk mustache. This ad tied in with the release of Batman Begins in 2005.
There is also a brand new "Got Milk?" ad once again featuring Batman, this time, to tie in with the upcoming "The Dark Knight" movie. I'll scan and post it soon.

Who Knew, Batman uses Onstar?!

Here are two ads I found in some old magazines from 2000. I always thought that Batman was so cool when he was driving around in the Batmobile. That car could do just about anything, and made KITT look like a remote control kiddie car. But it turns out that Batman actually had a little secret up his sleeve, or under his suit... or whatever you want to call it.
Have a look at these two ads which reveal his little secret!

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.

Little Golden Book Monday #58

Today's Little Golden Book is Disney's Mulan, based on the 1998 animated feature Mulan. I am not a huge fan of the film, but I do love the Jerry Goldsmith score, which does get stuck in my head any time I hear it. And the comedy provided by the Mushu, voiced by Eddie Murphy provides for lots of laughs.
According to Robert D. San Souci, who retold and researched the original story, Disney didn't like the idea of putting in a dragon as a companion for Mulan; they feared it would be too big and menacing. San Souci explained to them that in Chinese lore, dragons can be any size, so a small dragon was approved. Thus, Mushu was born. This change is acknowledged when Mulan calls him "tiny" and Mushu replies, "Of course! I'm travel size for you convenience! If I was my REAL size your cow (Khan) here would die of fright!"

Squirly Puffs Cereal

Here is an ad for some video game web site, but that's not important. What's important, is that there are some great 'fictional' cereals on the selves of the store in their ad.
There are; Fruity Kitty Pebbles, Okay, Honey Buzz, Honey and Nut Oatsy Dotes, Mallow Yellows, Shredded Shreds, and my favorite Squirly Puffs... they're crazy good!
(*If you haven't figured it out yet, click on any of the images to make them larger!)

Parker Brothers Continental Game Risk!

I love board games, and I am always on the look out for fun and interesting new games to add to my collection. I recently found this 1959 edition of Parker Brothers Risk! at a local thrift shop.
I wasn't that interested, as the box was in pretty rough shape, but I kind of giggled when I saw it. It reminded me of a joke Triumph the Insult Dog made at the premiere of Star Wars episode 1, about Star Wars geeks playing risk in their parents basements. While chuckling to myself, I realized I had never actually played Risk! before and decided to have a look at the game.
When I opened it up, I was first, amazed to see that all the parts seemed to be there. And instead of little plastic parts, all the markers etc were made of wood, and were all stored in little clear plastic boxes that were inset into the book for safe keeping when the games was put away. I then opened the game board and realized this was well worth my $2.
The game board is a map of the world, and, although my geography is not great, I was a little confused by Canada. On the map, is Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Northwest Territory. Then it all began to make sense. All these years I have wondered why, every time I watch a TV show where they ask Americans about Canada, they always seem to know Quebec, Ontario and Alberta, but can't seem to name any other Canadian provinces. I now realize it is because they have learned their Canadian geography from the map included in the game Risk!

Invasion of the Nibble-Bots

I picked up a pile of magazines at the Library book sale last weekend. I always love going though magazines and pulling out all the cool ads to add to my ad collection. I have a bunch of binders with page protectors in them, all full of ads. I have a Coke book, a Disney book, A Macintosh book, and a few miscellaneous books for everything else.
Here is an example of the sort of ad I am interested in. Its an ad for Cheez-It, which I am not 100% sure what that is. And from this ad, I am still not sure. I assume is it some sort of cracker product. But, who cares whey they are selling, the artwork is an awesome ode to old 1950's sci-fi movies.
I would go see this flick if it was showing at my local googaplex!

Thunder Road from Milton Bradley

Thunder Road, The Ram and Wreck Survival Game from Milton Bradley, 1986.
I picked up this very cool board game recently at my local thrift shop. Amazingly, it still has all its parts, which includes; 2 Switch & Link game boards, 12 cars, 4 choppers, 8 wrecks, 3 yellow dice, 2 red dice and 1 black dice, as well as a set of game play instructions.
Drive and survive on the never-ending road!
Its a desert road race played on a unique gameboard that never ends. Drive on the road and try to survive. Outrun opponents and dump the stragglers left behind. Switch & link the gameboard to create a new road every time you need one.
You have three attack cars and one aerial assault chopper. use them to ram and shoot at opponents' cars. Wreck them and ride to victory.
The last surviving car owns the road and its driver becomes the ultimate survivor. Will it be you?
Today, my son and I decided to set it up and have some fun. Once I got it set up, I decided to get some photos so I could share it with you!

Little Golden Book Monday #57

Todays Little Golden Book is Miss Piggy, Queen of Hearts from 1997.
I have always been a big fan of the muppets ever since I first saw them on Sesame Street as a youngster. I loved Kermit the Frog, especially when he was the reporter on the street. And Ernie and Bert were pure comedy gold for a young kid! And when the Muppet Show came along, I had a new favorite Muppet, as Fozzie Bear was introduced. I loved all the Muppets... except for one - Miss Piggy.
I never liked the Miss Piggy character, she was always very one dimensional, very annoying and the voice was horrifically awful! I was really annoyed when her character started getting so much of the spotlight. It seemed really odd to me, as I never knew anyone who actually liked the character. To this day, I hear people tell me how much they hated the Muppets, and when you ask why, they always say they disliked Miss Piggy.
At this point, its been almost 10 years since the last poorly received Muppet movie "Muppets from Space" and the most recent TV movie Muppets Wizard of Oz from 2005, was a huge disaster. Now that Disney owns the Muppets, I am sure they would love to reinvigorate them and introduce them to a new generation of fans. But, if they continue to put Miss Piggy in the spotlight, I am sure whatever form they take, they will continue to fail.
Here's hoping Disney has the smarts to leave Piggy in the past and move forward with the rest of the Muppet gang that everyone actually loves!

Little Golden Book Monday #56

Today's Little Golden Book is The Little Red Caboose from1953. When I found this book, I immediately thought of my favorite book about a caboose called The Caboose Who Got Loose which was written by Bill Peet in 1971.
The story of the Little Red Caboose see the little caboose saving the day when a large train full of cars beings to loose steam going up a mountain the the little caboose puts on its breaks and stops the train from rolling back down the mountain long enough for another large steam engine to come up behind them and push them all safely up the hill.
The Caboose Who Got Loose on the other hand is about Katy Caboose. She is sad that she is always at the end of the train, and nobody ever bothers to wave at her like they do the engines up front. One day, she accidentally becomes detached from her train and ends up rolling out of control until she flies off the tracks and ends up high in a tree. She ends up finding happiness in high in the tree as as she has a wonderful view of the valley, and many of the animals end up using her as a shelter from the weather.

Morning Funnies Cereal

My 3 year old son has been really getting into superheros recently. This past weekend we attended the Emerald City ComicCon in Seattle, WA and had a blast! My son entered the costume contest as Batman. He also got some used Batman action figures, and a ton of comic books out of the 25 cent boxes, including all his favorites; Batman, Iron Man, Spider Man etc. We have been having lots of fun reading though all the comics, and as an added bonus, I am finding lots of great ads, including this full page ad I found in the Batman, issue #432 from April 1989.
It's an ad for a kids breakfast cereal called "Morning Funnies" and from the box artwork in the ad, it looks like the box featured lots of famous comic strip characters such as Dennis the Mennis, Marvin, Hagar, Beetle Bailey, etc., but the cereal looked to be pretty generic looking little happy faces.
The box looked very interesting, as it had a flap on the back that opened like a comic book to revel more comics to read while sitting eating your Morning Funnies.
Back in 1989 I was already a big cereal box collector, and was always on the lookout for new boxes to add to my collection. I don't recall ever seeing this cereal, but since its been almost 20 years, maybe I did see it, but didn't like it enough for it to leave a lasting impression.
In any event, I would love to add one of these boxes to my collection. At least now, I have the ad - that is, if my son will let me have this comic from his collection.

Little Golden Book Monday #55

Tonights little Golden Book is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I picked this book up at the thrift shop because I love Little Golden Books and loved the cover. But I have never actually seen the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and don't have a clue what the movie is about, other than it obviously stars an old looking car.
I looked up the movie on the Internet Movie DataBase and found the the movie came out in 1968, which is the same year as this book, so it looks like this is a fist edition. As for the plot of the movie, here is what I found on the IMDB: A wierd inventor (Caractacus Potts) invents an amazing flying car, which drives by itself. It takes him and his family to Vulgaria, where the sinister buffoon Baron Bomburst kidnaps the car. The baron has made children illegal, and Caractacus and Co. have to try and rescue the children of Vulgaria.

Little Golden Book Monday #54

I am a huge fan of the film Song of the South and am always happy to add something SOTS related to my collection. Yesterday I picked up this 1986 Little Golden Book, Walt Disney's Uncle Remus.
The book is not in great shape, but I am very happy to have this wonderfully illustrated book in my collection.
I have been a fan of the film ever since I first rode the Splash Mountain ride in Disneyland back in 1989. The sights and sounds of the attraction were spectacular, and the final plunge thoroughly exhilarating. I was humming the music from the attraction for weeks afterwards. I came home from our Disneyland visit with my set of Song of the South plushes (Brer Bear, Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit - I even bought an infant sized Splash Mountain T-shirt which Brer Bear has worn ever since), and a craving to see the movie the attraction was based on. To my dismay, I found that the movie has never been released by Disney in North America. Luckily for me I was able to snag a copy of the Japanese laser disc at a local record shop that was going out of business and happened to carry foreign laser discs (for about $100 each). Lucky for me, I was able to get my copy for $15! The great thing about the disc is that you can watch it in English without subtitles (other than the songs for some reason which have Japanese subtitles), so it pretty much is like having an American copy of the film. For anyone who hasn't seen it, you really are missing a Disney treasure. Lets hope Disney finally has the smarts to release it domestically as part of the Disney Treasures DVD series with some added bonus features to make it even more special.

Mad Magazine Flexi Discs

Do you remember those great flexi disc records that used to come on the back of cereal boxes, inside magazines etc? I do. And I used to love them. Magazines like this 1982 Super Special Summer issue which came witch featured a free super special bonus: The mad Laugh Records, was always something I wanted to buy as a kid. The idea of being able to purchase a magazine and then actually hear the sounds on the little flexi disc included inside was a real treat!
I have a few flexi discs that I have purchased over the years at junk sales etc, but all of the ones I had as a kid seem to have disappeared - most likely ending up in the trash as they "wore out" from continues use on my super special (aka really cheap and crappy) record player.
This recent issue of Mad Magazine I picked up was one of those great magazines that had a flexi disc inside. But of course now, 26 years later, the magazine is still in pretty good shape, but the flexi is long gone.

Little Golden Book Monday #53

Today's Little Golden Book is Richard Scarry's Best Little Word Book Ever! This book is from 1992, and is based on the hugely successful Richard Scarry series.
I loved these books as a child. My favorites were the ones that showed cutaways of buildings so you could see things like how a lumber mill worked, and cut aways of things such as planes and boats, to give you an idea of how things worked. I used to sit and stare at those drawings for hours!
This book has a great cut away of a family home. You can see the kitchen, living room, hallway, bedroom and bathroom. These is even a carpenter on the roof.
I also loved Lowly Worm. He was usually hidden somewhere on the page and it was always fun trying to find where he was hidden. To my count, there are 12 Lowly's hidden throughout this book. Lowley truly was the original Waldo!

Friday the 13th: Jason's on a Joyride!

I am a huge fan of the Friday the 13th series of movies and love collecting anything to do with them. Here is a new item I picked up recently at my local thrift shop. Its the third Camp Crystal Lake novel series, Friday the 13th: The Carnival. This copy is from 1994.
The first two titles are; Mother's Day and Jason's Curse, and the inside front cover says "Coming Sept 1994, the fourth book in the series titled Road Trip.
From the back cover: The Legend of Camp Crystal Lake. Once there was a boy named Jason Voorhees who drowned at summer camp when the counselors weren't watching. First, his mother got revenge. Then, Jason rose from the grave. And now, everyone knows you can't kill a legend... but a legend can kill you.
Friday the 13th: The Carnival. Summer school's a drag. And to four young students, nothing sounds better than a traveling carnival to break up the boredom. unfortunately, the carnival has pitched its tents at the old Crystal lake campgrounds - where the murderous spirit of Jason seeks out new fun and games. It's the perfect place for four teenagers looking for thrills and chills. Especially chills. Because Jason's evil is running the show. The fun house is a real scream... and the roller coaster's a killer.

The Sixth MAD Case Book on Spy Vs Spy

Here is a great paperback I picked up other day for a quarter. It's The Sixth MAD Vase Book on Spy Vs. Spy, by Prohias. The book is from 1982 and the cover price was $1.95. For anyone who ever read Mad magazine, I am sure you will be very familiar with Spy Vs Spy. As a kid, it was one of my favorite parts of any Mad magazine issue, along with the little Mad Marginals (those silly little drawings in the margins of the magazine) done by Sergio Aragones.
For those of you who have missed out on the antics of the White & Black spy, run, don't walk, to your local bookseller and pick up a copy of the recently released Spy Vs Spy: The Complete Casebook volumes 1 & 2. They are full of stuff that will have you giggling for hours!
You can also check out Youtube.com for all kinds of Spy Vs Spy fun. There are the shorts from Mad TV, and you can also find the Mountain Dew commercial featuring the two wacky spies.
This book features 15 of their "cases", and the Black Spy has the edge with 8 "Wins" to 7 for the White Spy. I wonder how many "cases" there have been over the years? And, of all those "cases", I wonder if one of these guys comes out a winner, or are they both really the looser.

Little Golden Book Monday #52

Today's Little Golden Book is Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp, based on the 1955 feature film, which includes two of my favorite Disney songs; "He's a Tramp" (written by Sonny Burke & Peggy Lee performed by Peggy Lee) and "The Siamese Cat Song" (written by Sonny Burke & Peggy Lee performed by Peggy Lee).
The film also has two of my favorite Disney characters, which are the two mischievous Siamese cats named Si and Am.
The book is adapted by Teddy Slater and illustrated by Bill Langley and Ron Dias.
The artwork throughout the book is great. I love the rich colors. It reminds me a lot of "Sleeping Beauty".
What makes this book special for me is that it was previously owned by a dog. If you don't believe me, check out the scan of the inside front cover. You can plainly see the paw print on the "This little Golden Book belongs to" space in the book. That really is how I found this copy when I picked it up at a local thrift shop.

Pretty neat huh!

Terrytoons and limited animation

I Picked up this cool 1977 Terrytoons coloring book at my local thrift shop the other day. Pretty amazing that it does not have any colored pages inside. Most times when you see old coloring books at the thrift shops, they usually have half of their pages already colored by some young artist.
Then I noticed that the front and back covers of this coloring book had the exact same drawing. The only differences were the Whitman logo and item number on the front, and the UPC code on the back.
After thinking about it for a minute, I decided that this book was just following the Terrytoons formula of using limited animation - the practice of using the same drawings over and over again making the characters look as if they are barely moving, if at all.
As for the uncolored pictures inside, again, probably a cost cutting measure by Terrytoons to save cash by not having to pay a 'painter'.
Just a though.

Little Golden Book Monday #51

Today's Little Golden Book is actually not a Little Golden Book, but rather a Wonder Book. This 1958 Wonder Book is called "Little Schoolhouse".
This book doesn't have anything to do with Little Golden Books, other than the fact that is is the same size as a Little Golden Book, and I usually see these filed away with the Little Golden Books at most used book shops, thrift shops etc. I also really happy to live the cover of this one. Very "Dick & Jane" don't you think?
I am not sure why these Wonder Books never became as popular at the Little Golden Books. These ones had the something that the others didn't... a washable cover. At least that is what is says on the front and back of this book.
The inside back cover of this book lists other Wonder Books & Treasure Books, including two I am going to keep my eyes peeled for on my thrift store visits; "The Jungle Joke Book" and "The Duck on the Truck", both of which have fun titles and great looking covers.

Popular Science in the 70's

Someone was tossing out some old magazines and passed them along to me. Great stuff! They are old copies of Popular Science (the What's New magazine), Popular Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated (the How-To magazine) from the 1970's. I don't know about you, but I get a huge kick out of reading old science/tech magazines like these from the 50's, 60's and 70's.
Its lots of fun checking out what we did and didn't get from all the stuff they predicted. Its also a hoot seeing things such as this early "Take-Along Telephone" from the cover of the July 1973 issue, and this early Video Disc Player from the cover of the February 1977 issue..
I really like the two rows of number buttons on the phone. And the Disc player looks great. I wonder if I can hook that to my HD TV?
From the Feb '77 issue: "Sometime this year (1977), TV viewers in selected areas of the country should be able to schedule their own shows in an entirely new way. They'll select movies, musical performances, or other material on video discs, slip the discs into players wired to their receiver's antenna terminals, and push a button to watch the show.
A long list of glittering new video players has been promised, post-poned, or introduced in recent years, only to fade from sight. But there are definite signs that at least two major worldwide organizations with the financial muscle and marketing know-how to succeed will begin selling their video-disc players regionally in 1977.
One of them, RCA, is already field-testing a fer hundred of its capacitance-sensing SelectaVision disc players. N.V. Philips, the Dutch firm that brought us the standard audio cassette, and MCA Inc., an American entertainment-oriented firm, also plan to offer an optical video-disc system this year.
The latest price estimates: about $500 for the player, and $10 to $18 for a disc or set of discs.
There's even a possibility that a Japanese licensee of a British and German disc venture, the grooved disc TED system [PS, Nov. '74], could be marketing disc players, too. Players for 10-minute TED discs have been available in Germany since 1975, although only for European TV-signal standards. Sales have been poor. A TED changer that handlers 12 discs was recently shown. Spinning on the sidelines are other disc systems still under development.
Both the RCA and Philips/MCA players will appear in stores just when new home video cassette recorders [PS, Dec '75], video games [PS, Nov. '76], and pay-cable programming are teaching viewers that their TV receivers can easily display something other than fixed-time broadcast fare.
What's the difference about the new disc hardware and programming? After operating both the RCA and Philips/MCA players, trying some amazing manipulations of TV images, and listening to stereo hi-fi TV sound, I have found that the new machines offer spectacular gains in performance compared with other home program sources.
Stamping out tomes of discs at low cost is the biggest advantage of the new medium. Both Philips/MCA and RCA expect to offer a broad selection of discs when their players appear. MCA, which will manufacture most U.S. discs for the Magnavox-built player, plans 1000 albums initially.
MCA discs will include new and old films, ballet, opera, theater, sports, how-to and children's programs, and documentaries. MCA can also make a thin flexible disc that might be inserted in periodicals. Discs may also be distributed as entire magazines, catalogs, or talking encyclopedias.
Also a variety of independent companies will add other special interest discs to catalogs. One firm, Visiondisc Corp. of New York, for example, planned to tape last year's Christmas services and works of art at a large cathedral for transfer to discs.
Sounds truly exciting doesn't it... I can't wait!

Little Golden Book Monday #50

Today's Little Golden Book is Walt Disney's The Rescuers Down Under. The book came out in 1980, the same year as this, the 29th animated Disney feature film was released to theaters.
I remember seeing this movie when it first came out, and I remember that I really liked it. I still do. So, it would seem that my taste in Disney animated films does not follow the norm. Some of my favorite Disney films include Atlantis The Lost Empire, Home on the Range and The Rescuers Down Under, all of which seem to be considered lesser films by most Disney fans.
But, come on, this one is just simply a fun movie, and it has some great voices, including; Bob Newhart as Bernard, Eva Gabor as Miss Bianca, and John Candy and Wilbur. What's not to like.

Here are some fun facts I found about the film on the IMDB.com web site:

* Disney's first animated sequel.

* This was the first 100% digital feature film ever made. The animation and backgrounds were done traditionally but all of the coloring, many effects and the final film printing was all done digitally. This was the first film produced with Disney's Academy Award Winning "CAPS" production system.

* The first Disney animated feature to use fully-rendered CG backgrounds (for the aerial shots of the UN building and the Sydney Opera House, and the globe for the relay sequence).

* Adam Ryen, the boy who voiced Cody also dubbed the same character in his native Norway.

* A third Rescuers movie was planned for 1996, but after the death of Eva Gabor, this and all future Rescuers movies were scrapped.

* The failure of this feature discouraged Disney from releasing later sequels theatrically.

* Originally meant as a straight-to-video production.

Little Golden Book Monday #49

In honor of Easter, today I present Fozzie's Fabulous Easter Parade from 1998. The story sees the Muppet game getting reading for the annual Most Beautiful Easter Egg Contest. Unfortunately, Fozzie's egg was nowhere to be found. Sounds like a pretty exciting story already, huh!? Turns out Camilla Chicken was sitting on Fozzie's egg, and it ends up hatching into a cute little chicken. Without an egg to enter in the contest, Fozzies decides to change the name of the contest to "Most Beautiful Easter Egg or Easter Chick Contest", and this year, the winner is Camilla and her very own egg-stremely egg-stra-special Eater parade of chicks.
O-yeah... and there are Easter eggs on the cover! Happy Easter.

Update to Yesterdays Post

After my post the other night, I was really keen check out a package of Corn Nuts. I am sure I have had them before in the past, but not in many, many years. So, last night on my way to see Ace Frehley in concert, we stopped at a 7-11 and I picked up a package of "original" Corn Nuts. After one bag, I was hooked.
On the way home from the show, we stopped at 7-11 again, and I picked up two more packages, which have both now been consumed. I tried to get my friends to try them on the way home, but both said that just the smell of them was enough for them. To me, the smell was quite intoxicating. To them, it was quite awful. At least I tried.
I finished the last package of Corn Nuts this morning while watching Woody Woodpecker cartoons with my 3 year old son Kaden. He gobbled them down as quickly as I would give them to him, so it looks like both of us are now hooked.
I also spent some time on the CornNuts.com web site, where I they have a great collection of their print ads. Click here to check out all 7 of the Corn Gone Wrong ads, along with a few others.

More Corn Gone Wrong

I bought a pile of used comic books today, and while flipping though them, I found a few more Corn Nuts ads from 2000. Back in March of last year, I posted a Corn Nuts ad, with the slogan "Corn Gone Wrong". Turns out, there was more than one ad with this campaign slogan.
Tonight, I present two more of the very funny Corn Gone Wrong ads.
The first is "Biker Corn" which is from Action Comics, issue #779.
The second one, "Fiery Corn" is from the back page of Superman, issue #168.
If you would like to check out the first one I posted, check out this link.
Now that I have found these two new Corn Nuts ads, I will be on the lookout for more whenever I am flipping though any comics from 2000. And I still stand by my thought that these Corn Gone Wrong characters would make for a great animated cartoon on Adult Swim!