Little Golden Book Monday #93

Today's Little Golden Book is Big Bird's Red Book featuring Jim Henson's Muppets. This educational book was created in cooperation with the Children's Television Workshop, producers of Sesame Street. Children do no have to watch the television show to benefit from this book. Workshop revenues from this product will be used to help support CTV educational projects. This is the forth printing from 1978. The artwork in this book reminds me of a Richard Scary book with Big Bird walking though all the scenes.

Mark Waid writes the Incredibles!

There are some very interesting looking new comics coming out next month from Boom Studios based on some famous characters including the Incredibles, Cars, and the Muppets. I have added all three titles to my comics pull list, but its the Incredibles comic that has me most excited! The Incredibles movie was amazing, and the idea of using that world of characters to create a comic series seems like a natural. And having Mark Waid write the series doesn't hurt. My only concerns are 1) that the art work on many of these famous properties to comics ventures are horrible! 2) Many of these famous properties to comics never get enough buzz to get anyone but comic book fan boys buying them, which usually leads to a mighty short run. Slave Labor Graphics already tried to bring 4 Disney properties to comics; the Haunted Mansion, Gargoyles, Alice in Wonderland, and Tron. None of them made it past issue #7. Hopefully Boom Studios has a better run than SLG did.

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 #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.

Little Golden Book Monday #43

Today's Little Golden Book is Oscar's Book by Jeffrey Moss with pictures by Michael Gross. Great name for an artist of an Oscar the Grouch book, don't you think! And I love the artwork in this book. Oscar is so rough looking and grouchy, that he looks like some sort of a monster out of a Godzilla movie.
I saw something recently in a magazine (don't remember which one), but they had a small photo of Big Bird on the cover and inside there was a couple of paragraphs talking about the recent DVD release of Sesame Street: Old School. They went on to warn parents that the DVD might not be suitable for children as in the early episodes of Sesame Street, which this DVD focuses on, the Muppets were pretty rough around the edges, and not as cutsie as they are today. That really made me chuckle! Today's youngsters are certainly missing out on the good stuff.

Little Golden Book Monday #40

Today's Little Golden Book is another Fozzie Bear title. This time it is Fozzie's Funnies: A Book of Silly Jokes and Riddles, starring Jim Henson's Muppets - more to the point, Fozzie Bear. The book is from 1993. As I have said before, I am a big Fozzie fan, so this book was another great find!
As one would expect from a Fozzie Bear joke book, the jokes are just unbearable... get it... unbearable!? Ok, so lets have a look-see inside shall we.



Why did the chicken cross the Road? To get to the other side!

Why did the rooster cross the road? He was following the chicken!

Why did the chicken cross the road halfway? She wanted to lay it on the line!

Why did the turtle cross the road? It was the chicken's day off.

Where does a six-hundred-pound gorilla sit? Anywhere it wants to!

What does a four-hundred-pound canary say? CHEEP-CHEEP!!!

Hotel guest: Young man, please call me a taxi. Doorman: Yessir. You're a taxi!

What's black and white and black and white and black and white and green all over? Three skunks fighting over a pickel!

How do you know when an elephant had been in the refrigerator? There are footprints in the butter!

What do you get when you cross a duck with popcorn? Quackerjacks!

Why shouldn't you tell secrets in the cornfield? Because it is filled with ears!

What do cows wear in Hawaii? Moo-moos!

Did you hear about the man who turned into a pair of glasses? He made a spectacle of himself.

Ok, I could go on, but I am sure you have all stopped reading by now as you are all doubled over at your computes laughing hysterically.
Wocka, wocka, wocka!

Little Golden Book Monday #35

Today's Little Golden Books is Ho-Ho-Ho Baby Fozzie! by Louise Gikow and illustrated by Lauren Attinello. The book is from 1977 and features what looks like a an early version of Baby Fozzie from the Muppet Babies - the Muppet Babies didn't didn't appear on TV until 1984 and ran until 1990 on CBS.
In the story, Baby Fozzie receives the "Big Book of Jokes" from Santa Claus. Apparently Satnta got Fozzie started early with the lame jokes. Kinda makes you wonder what would have happened if Santa had given him a ventriloquism book instead.

Little Golden Book Monday #31

Tonight's Little Golden Book is the Sesame Street, The Together Book from 1971. When I saw this one at the junk store, I immediately loved the cover. I have always loved Sesame Street and the Muppets, and this cover has a certain charm about it. It's so simple and yet so familiar.
Upon opening the front cover we see that this book features Jim Henson's Muppets. There is a large text box with the following words; "The Sesame Street Together Book was created to entertain your child as he (1) tests his logical thinking by choosing the object that will prove useful in each set of circumstances, and (2) discovers that things go more smoothly when we cooperate with each other.
This educational product was designed in cooperation with the Children's Television Workshop, creators of Sesame Street. it has independent educational value, and children do not have to watch the television show to benefit from it.
Workshop revenues from this product will be used to help support CTW educational projects."
So what did we learn from that... (1) that only boys are ready this book, (2) that we were being tricked into learning while enjoying Sesame Street as kids, and (3) that luckily for those unfortunately few souls without televising sets in the 70's, they could read this book and enjoy it, even without watching the Sesame Street TV program.
I'm not sure, but I bet I owned this book as a child.

Little Golden Book Monday #30

Today's Little Golden Book is Jim Henson's Kermit, Save the Swamp! from 1992. Any book with Fozzie Bear on the cover has to be part of my collection! I happen to think Fozzie Bear is the funniest bear ever, even if Statler and Waldorf give him so much grief during his comedy routines.
The story finds Kermit and Fozzie heading on vacation to the swamp, just in time to find that it is being turned into Swamp World, a big shopping mall and amusement park. Kermit aranges a Good-Bye Swamp party for the friends of the swamp, where Kermit reminds all the animals who live there that they are about to lose everything including their homes, as the whole thing gets paved over to make way for the mall and amusement park.
"Well, there's just one thing to do," Fergus the beaver says in his loud growly voice. "tell them we don't want Swamp World here after all!"
"Kermit, you did it" said Fozzie as everyone cheered. "You saved the swamp. But I still feel bad about one thing."
"What's That? Kermit asked.
"I really like amusement parks," Fozzie replied.
"Well, Fozzie," Kermit answered, "look at it this way. There are lots of amusement parks. But a good swamp is hard to find!"
That may be true, but you usually don't have to worry about getting eaten by an aligator while ridding the merry go round!

Little Golden Book Monday #19

Today's Little Golden Book is "From Trash to Treasure" which seems very appropriate for me right now, as I have been on a real Thrift store kick recently. There is a certain thrill in finding some treasure amongst a pile of junk at the local thrift shop, and recently I have been venturing into a lot of said thrift shops!
So, in honor of my recent trash to treasure finds, I bring you the 1993 CTW Sesame Street "From Trash To Treasure" in which Ernie and Bert, along with the rest of the Sesame Street gang learn about recycling, in which "new things can be made from trash."
So I guess what this book teaches me, is that I am actually helping the environment by buying all this stuff and keeping it out of the land fill! Makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over just thinking about my planned visit to some new thrift shops tomorrow afternoon.

Little Golden Book Monday #18

Today's Little Golden Book is The Amazing Mumford Forgets the Magic Words! featuring Jim Henson's Muppets (1979). This book combines three of my favorite things; Little Golden Books, the Muppets, and magic! And I love the artwork in this one. Check out this two page spread from the book, which shows The Amazing Mumford standing outside the theater where he is about to preform. Luckily it looks like Santa Claus is going to be able to see the show as it is only ALMOST Sold Out.

I don't want to give the whole book away, but that "D" on the marquee is going to fall and hit poor Mumford on the head, and cause him to forget who he is and where he is. That sure is going to make things tough for him to put on a good show.

Muppet Magazine

While digging in the basement looking for something the other night, I found these two issues of Muppet Magazine from 1983 and 1984. I was a huge Muppets fan back in the70's and 80's and I am sure I pretty excited when I found these magazine on the local news stand. I do remember that at the time I thought they were pretty expensive at the high price of $1.50 an issue! Here were have two great covers; first is Battle of the space heroes (aka Star Wars), featuring Kermit, Gonzo and Piggy in Luke, Vader and Leia. The second cover features a young Ricky Schroder of of the TV sitcom Silver Spoons.

Also being a collector of ads, I was thrilled to see how many great full page ads there were in these two magazines. I will post a few of them once I have the time to scan them all.

Little Golden Book Monday #13

Statler: "I like this movie so far"
Waldorf: "It hasn't started yet"
Statler: "That's what I like about it!"

Today's Little Golden Book is Muppet Treasure Island. This wasn't their best movie, but I love the Muppets and was thrilled to find this fun adaptation of the movie. This book came out in 1995 (the movie was released in 1996). If you have not seen the movie yet, it is worth seeing just for the song "Cabin Fever", a song that will get stuck in your head for days!

"Cabin Fever"

I got cabin fever it's burning in my brain
I've got cabin fever it's driving me insane
We got cabin fever, we're flipping our bandanas
Been stuck at sea so long we have simply gone bananas

Ariba!
Chica chica boom
A chica chica boom boom chic
Chica chica boom
A chica chica boom boom chic

We got cabin fever we've lost what sense we had
We got cabin fever, we're all going mad

*** [does not appear in movie, but is on the soundtrack]

My sanity is hanging by a thread
Since we're going nowhere I've gone out of my head
We were sailing sailing over the bounding main
(Lew Zealand:) And now we're not! Ha ha heh!
***

Grab your partner by the ears
Lash him to the wheel
Do-si-do step on his toe
Listen to him squeal
Allemande left, allemande right
It's time to sail or sink
Swing your partner over the side
Drop him in the drink

We got cabin fever
No if's, and's, or but's
We're disoriented
And demented
And a little nuts

Ach du lieber Volswagen car
(Yodel-lay-ee-hoo)
Saur braten viener schnitzel
Und a vunder bar
(Yodel-lay-ee-hoo)

We were sailing, sailing the wind was on our side
And then it died

I've got cabin fever
I think I've lost my grip
I'd like to get my hands on
Whoever wrote this script
Si!

I was floating 'neath a tropic moon
And dreaming of a blue lagoon
Now I'm crazy as a loon

Cabin fever has ravaged all aboard
This once proud vessel has become a floating psycho ward
We were sailing, sailing headed who knows where
And now though we're all here
We're not all there

Cabin fever!

Little Golden Book Monday #6

I found this one at the local Salvation Army the other day among a large selection of Little Golden Books that I had seen a million times before. This one caught my eye, as I had not seen it before, and it had Fozzie Bear on the cover. Fozzie Bear and Bean Bunny are my two favorite Muppet characters, so fining a book with Fozzie on the cover it was a "great find"! Although I was not a big fan of the Muppet Babies which this book features, its still a great addition to my collection. This one is from 1995.