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.