Felix the Cat

While shuffling through lots of junk at a local thrift shop, I found two really cool Felix the Cat records. The first is a Cricket Records Play Hour long playing record. from 1959.  As soon as I got home I put it on my turn table and had a listen. What I found was the theme song from the Felix the Cat cartoons and them four stories read with limited sound effects and no Felix the Cat voice. I am always reading stuff on Mark Evanier's blog about kids albums and how he would be really disappointed when he would listen to a cartoon record and the voice from the cartoon would not be on the record. In this case, they don't even have anyone doing the voice. Its just a story teller telling us the story. So, other than the theme song that starts each side of the album, the rest of the album is barely worth the one time listen.
The second record is a Cricket Records 45 from 1953, again with the Felix the Cat song and The Cat's March on the reverse side. I had not listened to this one yet, but just now as I check out the label on the centre of the record, I saw that The Felix the Cat Song was by the Criketone Chorus & Orchestra and The Cat March is by the Cricketeer Marching Band, so I decided to give it a listen. Sadly, when I tried to play it, it didn't work at 33 rpm or 45 rpm. A quick look on wikipedia and I found this:

Cricket Records was a children's label operated by the Long Island, USA based Pickwick Sales Corp., more commonly known as Pickwick Records, and headed by Seymour "Cy" Leslie. Pickwick owned and operated several budget labels; Cricket is significant in that it may have been one of the very last American 78 rpm labels to operate at the end of the 78 rpm era.

So sadly, I didn't get t hear it, or last least not the way it was supposed to sound. It was more of a reverse Alvin and the Chipmunks sound!

Irwin the Disco Duck

Here is a super awesome looking album I picked up the thrift shop recently. It has spent a few weeks in their glass case with a bunch of other kids records, all way over priced at $10 each, then on my most recent visit, I found this album had been moved to the regular floor records with a new price of just $1.99. I happily bought it and brought it home. I really like the artwork on the cover, and decided to Google George Peed. It turns hes done a ton of really great cover artwork for kids records, some of which I already own!

Record with Double Label

While going though my records recently to thin out my collection I came across this album by Rimsky Korsakov, Scheherazade. I don't know where I got it or why, but it was probably really cheap and I liked the fact that it still have the price sticker on it from Eaton's. Eaton's was a large department store chain in Canada from 1869 until 1999. I bought many of my vinyl records at Eaton's as a young kid, so I'm sure the price sticker is why I ended up with this in my collection. Since I don't care about this particular album, I thought I would toss out the record and just keep the price sticker, but when I pulled the record out of the sleeve, this is what I found. There were two record labels stuck on side 2, one of them was in the proper location, the second was off centre and covered almost the last half of the albums music. Makes me wonder, who bought this album, and did they bother to return it, or did they just enjoy listening to side 1?

Opryland USA Original Cast Recording

I recently went thrift shop record hunting and came home with some cool stuff. There was lots of Disney records which you can check out on my Disneyland Records blog. There were also lots of non Disney records including the six in the photo above. My favorites being the Magilla Gorilla Tells Ogee the Story Alice in Wonderland from 1965, and the I Hear America Singing, Original Cast Recording from the home of American music, Opryland USA, Nashville, Tennessee from 1973.
I didn't know much about Opryland USA other than I could tell it was some sort of theme park from the photos on the cover of the album. A quick Google search and I found that it was an amusement park located in suburban Nashville, Tennessee, which opened May 27, 1972 and closed December 31, 1997. As well as featuring live music, it also had many rides and attractions including a log flume ride and a couple of coasters.

My Elvis' Christmas Album

This Christmas I decided to find my first two childhood Christmas albums. I knew the first was Elvis' Christmas Album from 1970. I could not remember much about the second one except that it had a red cover and was perhaps mostly instrumental Christmas music. These were the only two Christmas albums I had has a kid, so they got played over and over ever Christmas for years. I found them in my mothers small record collection, which she had not touched in years. I asked if I could have them, and pointed out that my name was even written on the front cover of the Elvis album. She happily handed them over knowing they would get a prized place in my record collection.
On Christmas Eve, I poured a Coca Cola into a Coca Cola Christmas glass, turned on the "fire log" channel on my TV and put the Elvis' Christmas Album on my USB turntable which is hooked up to a grape iMac. I was instantly transported back to my childhood as the first song, "Blue Christmas" began.
Although I am not an Elvis fan, I enjoyed the album greatly, until the very last song on side two which I though didn't seem to fit the Christmas album theme. I then noticed that on the front cover of the album it lists all the songs, and then in a box at the bottom it says By Request "Mama Liked the Roses". I guess they could not come up with a full albums worth of Elvis Christmas songs, and needed one more song? I wonder who requested it?
This album has always been the Christmas soundtrack in my head, and now I can play it every year for the foreseeable future.

Boxing Day Bonanza at Goodwill

On Boxing Day (December 26th) we took a trip down to Marysville, Washington to partake of the Golden Coral "All You Care to Eat" buffet.  It was amazing as always. If you have never been to a Golden Coral, and you have one within driving distance (our closest one is about 1 1/2 hour drive), you have to check it out. After lunch, we driving around checking out various malls and stores. Along the way we found two Goodwill stores where they are having a 50% everything sale, which meant that 99 cent records were now 50 cents, and 10 cent cassette tapes were now 5 cents... Yippee!

I came home with 29 LPs and 1 cassette tape, with the bulk of them being Disney albums, but there were also some other great childrens albums, including:
1) The Muppet Alphabet Album, Staring Jim Henson's Muppets from Sesame Street
2) Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron featuring Peter Pan Pop Band & Singers
3) Alphabet Song, on Tinkerbell Records
4) Danny Kaye tells 6 stories from Faraway Places
5) Songs for Children on Golden Records
6) Musical version of H.H. Rey's Curious George
7) The Unicorn, on Peter Pan Records
8) Frosty the Snowman, on Tinkerbell Records
9) All the Songs from the Walt Disney Movie Pinocchio, on Golden Records

Although a few of them are in rough condition, they all had the original LPs inside and once I put them into shinny new record sleeves, they all looked great, and are ready to be added to my collection. Total cost for all 29 LPs plus one cassette was a grand total of $14.55.

If you would like to check out the other non Disney albums I picked up, check them out over at the Disneyland Records blog.

Cricket Records Winter Wonderland

Now that it is December I can start getting into the Christmas spirit. Anytime before December is just too dang early to be listening to Christmas songs or seeing those pesky Christmas television commercials. So to kick thing off, I have dug out a few of the great Christmas records I have picked up over the past few months. First off is the great looking Cricket Records 45 RPM record of Winter Wonderland. I love the cover artwork.
While working in my office tonight I have turned on my Ion TTUSB10 USB Turntable to listen to a bunch of my Christmas vinyl. There is something so comforting in all those clicks and pops while listening to your old favorites. I have to admit though that listening to 45 records with one song per side seems like way too much work now. At least with an LP I can put it on and don't have to reach over to flip it over for 10 to 20 minutes. Three minutes per side just seems crazy now in the age of iPods full of hundreds of hours of continuous music. And yet, here I am reaching over to flip this one over to hear "The Sounds of Christmas" by Warren Vincent & Orchestra with The Cricketones. Silly me.

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!

Pancho The Parrot 45 rpm Record

While checking out a local thrift shop the other day I found this Pancho the Parrot picture sleeve 45 record. I remember seeing this parrot back in 1979 when I visited the San Diego Zoo with my mother on my second trip to California. I also remember seeing him on TV on a few occasions on shows such as That's Incredible.
If you would like to check out an mp3 version of Pancho singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" you can over at abMP3.com.

Reason for the Season

Here is the cover of Stryper's "Reason for the Season" EP from Enigma Records, 1984. On it you will find the long and short version of the title track along with what is perhaps my favorite Christmas song ever, Stryper's rockin' version of "Winter Wonderland"!

You can check it out with the youtube video below.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Peter Pan Records - Frosty the Snowman

Here is a 45 RPM Extended Play record I found last month. Today I was going to listen to it and I found that the record inside the sleeve was not the correct one. It was instead, a Disneyland Record of Frosty the Snowman, so although it is not the actual correct record, it is at least the correct song. Too bad though, as I was really looking forward to listening to Morris, the Moose.

Wizard of Oz Lp cover

I picked up some more fun looking records at the Salvation Army on Friday. Among them was this really neat looking Cricket Records version of the Wizard of Oz with the Hanky Pank Players, with orchestra and chorus. I love how the letters in the title look like someone took a pen and doodled in them. Sadly this one album was sans record - but they did give me this nice looking record cover for free!
I have never been a big fan of the movie "Wizard of Oz", but I do remember going to see it in the movie theater some time in the late 80's when they rereleased it. At some point near the beginning I fell asleep and stayed asleep until the credits. Afterwards my wife was abuzz with excitement about the movie she had just seen. Wasn't it grand she asked!? All I could say was, "yeah, and the whole thing was in black and white, right!"

Little Golden Book Monday #85

Today's Little Golden Book is Scuffy the Tugboat. This copy is the thirteenth printing from 1973, with the original being printed in 1946. I remember having this book as a child, but I don't really remember ever reading it. I do however remember another children's tugboat book titled Little Toot which I remember really enjoying. I have since picked up a hardback anniversary edition of Little Toot and also picked up various vinyl editions of the story including this awesome 1947 Disney edition!

I've Been Working on the Railroad...

Here are two great train related records I picked up this weekend at the local thrift shop.
The first is "The Little Engine that Could" from RCA Victor on two 78 Long Play records and in a nice record jacket with artwork and words inside. The Little Engine that Could was one of the first books I gave to my son. I found a great old vintage copy of the book at a thrift shop and read it to him. He liked it so much that we bought him his own copy reproduction copy of the book for his bookshelf. I'm sure we'll have fun listening to this new version together as well.
I could not find a date anywhere on the jacket or albums, but my guess would be that it is from the 1940's. If you would like to take a listen to this one, you can surf over to Kiddie Records Weekly where they posted a great mp3 file of this recording as well as many more vintage kids records.
The second record is "Railroad Sounds - The Sounds of a Vanishing Era" from 1957. What we get here is literally 20+ minutes of clickety clack, clickety clack, whistle whistle, chug chug. I am going to guess that this wasn't a huge seller. Hard to imagine someone pulling this off the shelve and putting it on the turn table, turning up the volume and sitting back to listen to the sounds of trains.

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.

Let's All Do the Bunny Hop

Here is another recent thrift shop find. I am always digging though the old LPs hoping to find something to add to my collection. This one was actually inside a banged up copy of a Winnie the Pooh LP. I didn't end up buying the Winnie the Pooh LP, but couldn't resist this great Peter Pan Records 45 of the "Bunny Hop". I have not listened to it yet, but I'm sure it must be good, as it is sung by Vicki Dale with the Peter Pan Orchestra. The record is from 1952 and manufactured by Synthetic Plastics Co., of Newark, NJ, and should last forever, as it states right on the record, "NON-BREAKABLE (with Normal use)."

Woodward's Music Department

The other day while flipping though the records at a local thrift shop, I came across this unusual item. It is a small bag, just big enough to hold a 45 rpm record, from Woodward's music department. For those of you who don't know, Woodward's was the name of a department store which operated in Western Canada for one hundred years, before its sale to the Hudson's Bay Company 1993, at which time the Woodward's stores retired to the history books.
I remember that when I was young, most department stores had a pretty decent record department. I did a lot of my record shopping at Planters which was the record department of the Bay. This paper bag was obviously for anyone purchasing and 45 singles, or other smaller items. I assume they also had a larger version for LPs. This one has a flap on the back like an envelope, and you can see where it had been taped shut when the customer made their purchase and left the store.
The front of the bag lists the shopping locations in British Columbia as Vancouver, Oakridge, West Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria and Port Alberni, and in Alberta in Edmonton, Westmount and Calgary.
When I found this, I was really hoping their might be an original receipt inside so I could see how much was spent on records, but no such luck.
Luckily though, the thrift store clerk let me take this treasure home with me for free!

Donald Duck the Milkman 45 RPM

The other day while out thrift shop shopping, I came upon a large collection of picture sleeve 45's... all priced at 49 cents each! One of my absolute favorite things to collect is Disneyland Records, and any time I find a new addition to my Disneyland Records collection, I am very excited! Among the great picture sleeve 45's I found that day, I picked up this great Walt Disney "Little Gem" Record with 2 Fun Stories, "Donald Duck The Milkman" and Donald Duck The Peanut Vendor". The record is copyright 1961 Walt Disney Productions. There is a large white sticker on the front of the record with the price of 39 cents, which I am sure was put on the record back when it was originally on the store shelve back in the 60's. I absolutely love the artwork on the front!
On the back of the record sleeve is a listing of other Little Gem records. If you and your children enjoy this Walt Disney Little Gem record we know that you'll be happy to learn that the Disney Studio has prepared a wonderful library of 12-inch LPs for children.
This Little Gem record, while complete in itself, is only a small portion of the high quality and good musicianship found on the Disney 12-inch LP line. We invite your attention to the following LP titles which are available at your favorite record store:
DQ-1201 SNOW WHITE - Sound Track
DQ-1202 PINOCCHIO - Sound Track
DQ-1203M BAMBI - Sound Track
DQ-1204 DUMBO - Sound Track
DQ-1205 UNCLE REMUS - Sound Track
DQ-1206M PETER PAN - Sound Track
DQ-1207 CINDERELLA - Sound Track
DQ-1208 ALICE IN WONDERLAND
DQ-1209 Walt Disney's FUN WITH MUSIC
DQ-1210 GOOFY'S DANCE PARTY
DQ-1211 MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY RHYMES
DQ-1212 DONALD DUCK AND HIS FRIENDS
DQ-1213M BEST LOVED DISNEY SONGS
DQ-1214M HAPPY BIRTHDAY AND HOLIDAY SONGS
DQ-1215M MUSICAL MONKEY SHINES
DQ-1216 ZOO SONGS
DQ-1217 SONGS OF OUR AMERICAN HERITAGE
DQ-1218 STORIES OF AESOP
DQ-1219 BABES IN TOYLAND
DQ-1220 Walt Disney's DOG SONGS
DQ-1221 ANIMAL SONGS FROM AESOP
DQ-1222 PROFESSOR LUDWIG VON DRAKE
ST-1901 STORY OF DARBY O'GILL
ST-1902 STORY OF GOLIATH
ST-1903 STORY OF THE COUNTRY COUSIN
ST-1904 STORY TO TOBY TYLER
ST-1905 STORY OF GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANTS
ST-1906 STORY OF POLLYANNA
ST-1907 STORY OF SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON
ST-1908 STORY OF 101 DALMATIANS
ST-1909 STORY OF PERRI
ST-1910 STORY OF THREE LITTLE PIGS
ST-1911 STORY OF THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR
ST-1912 STORY OF THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
ST-1913 STORY OF NIKKI
WDL-1008M A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES
WDL-1016 PETER AND THE WOLF
WDL-1030 LITTLE GEMS FROM BIG SHOWS
WDL-1039 SALUDOS AMIGOS
WDL-4101A RITE OF SPRING / TOCCATA AND FUGUE
WDL-4101B NUTCRACKER SUITE / DANCE OF THE HOURS
WDL-4101C PASTORAL SYMPHONY / NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN

They're at the Post!

Remember when playing games meant getting the family and friends together and sitting down at the kitchen table to play a board game, and not sitting in front of the TV playing yet another repetitive video game.
In keeping with yesterdays Vinyl theme, today I present "They're at the Post". As I said yesterday I love collecting records, and I also enjoy collecting old board games. They're at the Post (1975) is both a record (well actually 4 records to be exact), and a game. Let the front of the box explain further: "The exciting new game that captures all the fun and suspense of a day at the track. 8 complete races on 4 LP records computerized for over 190 different finishes. The records are specially designed so no one can pre-determine the race results."

The game play is just like being at the race track. It includes racing programs, bet chits, banker's records and cash. Any number of players can bet on the various horses for each race. When the betting window is closed the LP is put on and the needle dropped and on comes the racing voice, excitingly giving a entire race breakdown. Each record has more then one spiral on them, so when the needle is placed, no one knows the outcome of the race, as the needle can skip from groove to groove, providing endless outcomes for each of the 8 races.

I have dragged this out at more than a few parties over the past 20 years, and it always gets a great response. You could even make it a little bit more exciting by playing with real money instead of the play money provided.
I guess we won't see an updated version of this game any time soon though, as they would have to find a way to get your mp3 player to skip (on purpose) for the game to work.

PS: Again, referring to yesterdays post, I think I'll take Bert's Wish in the 2nd!

Two More Thrift Store Finds

Here are two more items I picked up at the thrift store yesterday. I found a great Ernie & Bert 45 record and a Disney 45 from the movie Aristocats.
The Ernie & Bert record comes in a very thick cardboard gatefold, something I have not seen much with 45 records. There is also some great artwork on the inside of the gatefold. I find it a little funny that is says "Ernie & Bert" on the album, but only Ernie is seen on the cover and heard in both stories. I guess if it just said "Ernie" we might not know they meant Ernie, as in Ernie & Bert!
The second 45 is the single for the song "Everybody wants to be a cat" from The Aristocats, the twentieth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, released in 1970 from the Walt Disney studio, Of all my collections, my Disney record collection is one of my favorites. I would love to own a copy of every single vinyl album that Disney released, and therefore, even an item as beat up as this one, is worth picking up and adding to my collection.
A great resource for anyone interested in collecting Disney vinyl is The Golden Age of Walt Disney Records 1933-1988: Murray's Collectors' Price Guide and Discography : Lps/45 Rpm/78 Rpm/Eps.
And for anyone interested in the history of Walt Disney Records, there is a great new book out called MOUSE TRACKS: The Story of Walt Disney Records.