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!

Walt Disney's The Adventures of Mr. Toad

I picked up this book recently at a thrift shop. I love the artwork inside and decided to scan a few of my favourites including the inside front cover (also inside back cover) two page spread of a map of Toads adventures, and also the title page with a great image of Toad Hall. Enjoy!

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.

Big Bang Babies Official Merchandise T-Shirt

In the early 90's Big Bang Babies was one of my favourite bands! They were very similar in style to Poison and Warrant, but sadly they never broke out like those bands did. Along with a long list of demos, they released two albums, a 6 song self titled EP and a 10 song album titled Black Market. With songs such as Everybody Needs a Hero, Saturday Night, 8 Arms, and Stop the Clock, these guys should have made it big.

After Big Bang Babies, lead guitarist Kerry Kelli went on to play with other bands including Slash's Snakepit, Skid Row, Vince Neil Band, Ratt, Warrant, L.A. Guns, Pretty Boy Floyd, Tuff and Alice Cooper.

Pictured here is the front and back of a very cool concert shirt I ordered from the band back in the days of mail lists and order forms through the mail pre internet sales! Such a great logo that most never got to see!

That's a Lot of Missing Cartoon

I was watching an old VHS tape full of Tom and Jerry cartoons I taped off of TV in the 90's and something stuck out to me. During the 1951 cartoon, His Mouse Friday, Tom encounters some stereotypical island cannibals, and in one scene they have a close of  the cannibals face and you can hear muted music but when his mouth opens, there is no sound. I have recently purchased the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection DVD set which has all of the original theatrical cartoons (minus two; Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat), so I grabbed my DVD and popped in disc 3 which has the His Mouse Friday cartoon on it. When I watched the same scene, I could hear the original voice that came out of the cannibals mouth. He says "Mmmmm... [licks his lips] barbecued cat" in a voice that sounds like a million other cartoon voices of the time. The same thing happens just a few seconds later then a tiny cannibal does this same thing to Jerry. On the cartoon taped off of TV, there is no sound when he talks, but on the DVD you hear him say "Mmmm [licks lips] barbecue mouse". I found it kinda odd that they removed the voice which I guess was considered stereotypical 'black' voice, and yet left in Jerry smudging soot onto his face to create 'black face'.

I was happy that on my DVDs, they had the original sound. But then I noticed that the DVD seems to be a pan and scan of the cartoon, where they cut the ends of the picture off to make it square like an old TV screen and sometimes they just cut the two ends off, or sometimes they pan and scan which means they move to where the action is and cut out the rest - sometimes (such as in this case) losing crucial animation. Shown here you can see the original wide screen version I taped off of TV back in the 90's and then the letterboxed version from the DVD. Odd that the one shown on my old TV is the wide version and the one on DVD is the reduced version.

The quality of this one is not great as I took a photo of the VHS image off of the TV using my phone.

This is a screen grab of the DVD

I had been excited that I could finally throw away all of my old VHS copies of Tom & Jerry that I can collected over the years now that I had this complete collection on DVD, but now that I see there is actually cartoon missing from the DVDs, now I think I will keep my tapes along with the DVD collection. 

Little Golden Book Monday #184

 Mickey's Walt Disney World Adventure has been repurposed 25 years later as Walt Disney World celebrates its 50th anniversary. 25 years ago in 1997, Little Golden Books released Mickey's Walt Disney World Adventure in conjunction with WDW's 25th Anniversary.  Although most of the book has remained the same, some things in the park have changed in the past 25 years, and those changes are reflected in updated artwork as you will see below.

Cover to the 1997 Little Golden Book release

Cover to the 2022 Little Golden Book release

Inside cover of the 1997 release

Inside cover of the 2022 release

1997 artwork showing the new entrance to Tomorrowland

2022 showing the Tomorrowland Transit Authority

1997 artwork showing an arial view of Fantasyland from the defunct Skyway

2022 artwork highlighting the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Original 1997 artwork 

2022 slightly altered artwork altering the Main Street Cinema marquee

Little Golden Book Monday #183

Here is the most recent Disney related Little Golden Book. It is It's a Small World! adapted by Lauren Clauss, illustrated by Steph Lew and designed by Winnie Ho, with a publication date of 2021. I love seeing Disneyland attractions being adapted into Little Golden Books, and am excited about the upcoming Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion books coming out later in the year. Shown here are the front and back covers, along with a few of the wonderful interior illustrations.

Mickey Through the Years

 I saw this poster of Mickey Mouse through the years, and thought it needed just a little tweak.

David Letterman - The Morning Show Episode

I've been watching my old Beta episodes of Late Night with David Letterman that I recorded back in the early 80's and into the early 90's. So far, I've seen the "International Night" episode, "The Reverse Episode", the "Build Your own Episode", the "Monkey-Cam" Episode and last night I watched "The Morning Show" episode. And how about throwing stuff off of a 5 story building or crushing stuff with a steam roller, the suit of magnets, the suit of Alka-Seltzer, the Top 10 List, Larry "Bud" Melman, and the Guy under the Seats... they don't make television like that anymore!

Here are a few screen grabs from The Morning Show episode with Dave and Tawny.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Special Edition 2007

Back in my post on June 6, 2009, I showed two photos of Oswald items created by Kevin Kidney, and said how much I wanted both! Last month, I was finally able to add this amazing 2007 Disney Store exclusive Oswald the Lucky Rabbit hand finished soft microfiber figure to my collection. The box is 17 inches tall and Oswald's ears stick out of the top of the box, so this is a fairly large figure. Part of me wants to pull him out of the box and display him, but the box is really cool, and I love that his ears stick out the top, so he will probably stay in the box. I love the look of the Oswald, but its a bit distracting that there is a line just above his nose and below his eyes where the top and bottom part of his face is joined. It would have been so much better if they could have done it without this right thought the centre of his face. But, other than that, he looks awesome! 

There was a mini big fig (is that a thing?) for sale at Disneyland back on my last trip in 2015 that I didn't buy because I didn't have room to bring it home in my luggage. Been kicking myself ever since. But that one was more similar to the image that Disney is using for Oswald now, and I much prefer the vintage looking one that Kevin created. so, I'll keep my fingers crossed for an Oswald big fig based on the sculpt Kevin did back in early 2000. 

Awesome Glowing HareWolves Logo

I'm a fan of The Clink Room and all the cool logos their users create. I recently saw this Harewolves logo by Jason Villanti. I love the logo and it's the best uses of glow in the dark in a logo I've ever seen. Very Creative! I thought it would be fun to make an animated gif out the logo, showing its cool glow in dark alter ego!

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.

Mandrake, the Magician... Artwork project

The other day while I was at the local thrift shop, I found this really cool looking frame that was priced just right! I wasn't sure what I was going to put in it, but I knew I could find something really cool to replace the purple plant art that was in it currently. Once I was home, I had a look at all the things I had printed recently, looking for just the right image to put into this frame. The frame looked to me to be 'old' and had a certain retro style that made me think of something that would be hanging in a study, Hall, Billiard Room or Conservatory [yeah, I just played Clue a few days ago] of some cool old home. I decided on the Mandrake, The Magician theatrical poster from the 1939 Columbia Pictures theatrical serial because I love old magic posters, am a fan of Mandrake, and it looked like something that should be in this cool old frame.

There is a shadow box in the centre of the frame, and its height was not as tall as the 11 x 17 poster I had originally printed, so I had to go into photoshop and remove some of the top and bottom of the poster to make it fit.

It took way longer than I had thought to open the frame, as it was never meant to be taken apart. It was nailed and glued together very tightly. After pulling it apart, I was able to remove the flower picture and add a sheet of black construction paper to the back of the shadow box and then affix the newly printed Mandrake poster, before putting the whole thing back together.

I think the final result is pretty awesome, don't you! I can't wait to find a spot to hang this gem on my study wall - that's the fancy name I'm giving my living room.

Happy 14th Birthday Big Pile of Stuff!

Happy 14th Birthday to my blog, Ronn's Big Pile of Stuff! When I started it, it was mostly a joke to see if I could put something on the internet every day for a year. Then, once I started it, I kinda liked it! Hopefully there is someone out there also enjoying it, but if its just me, that's fine because I'm having fun!

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.