Day nine of the Halloween countdown has arrived and I figured it would be a good day to dig back into my sticker collection with another installment of the more gruesome Peel Here column. Well actually it's not all that gruesome, but there are monsters, Gremlins to be exact. Sure I realize that the film actually takes place during Christmas, and it was released in the summer of 1984 instead of say the fall, but it still has monsters in it and it freaked me out as a kid so I say it counts.

I thought I'd start out a bit small with this one single individually wrapped Hallmark Stick-R-Treats Halloween sticker…



I'm not sure exactly how many of these there are though I know of at least one more that features Gizmo. I missed out on the whole idea of non-candy Halloween treats growing up, except for the occasional house with a bowl full of pennies and the one time I received an apple (which my father quickly yanked away from me and threw down into a nearby sewer.) Though as a kid I probably would have sung a different tune, now that I think about it, I really like the idea of stuff like stickers and cheap plastic toys intermixed with a bowl of candy as Halloween treats. I don't think it really caught on though, as I only really remember seeing a couple other similar ideas over the years (like the fun but overpriced Matchbox cars two packs that come incased in little skulls and jack-o-lanterns.)

This next sheet of Hallmark stickers is a little odd because they're all dated 1983 when the movie didn't come out until '84. Now granted, I realize that the merchandising machine is crazy, but even today you only really start seeing stuff a few months before a movie hits, so I'm wondering if the date on these is a misprint or something. If not, then maybe Spielberg and Dante were really hyping this thing like crazy during the winter before the movie came out…



Next up we have some very suspicious looking puffy stickers. I say suspicious looking because even though Gizmo is prone to amazing acts of cuteness, I don’t think I've ever seen him jam out on a ukulele or fly in cute, multi-colored saucers. There's also a variation on this set where the top left Gizmo is carrying a torch, so I'd have to say that these are bootlegs. Yet, at the same time, the top left Gizmo is on all of the official merchandising, including the rest of the sticker sets I’m sharing today, so who knows…



A column on Gremlins stickers wouldn’t be complete with out the 1984 set of Lazer Blazers hologram stickers from Colorforms…



Again, you can see the goofy picture of Gizmo (from the puffy stickers) just bopping along…

Like all fun science fiction/fantasy/horror movies of the day there was also a set of Topps trading cards, which of course had a subset of 11 sticker cards…



I’m not all that fond of the repeated Gremlins logo in the background of the stickers, but I do like the various poses the designers chose, in particular the pre-gremlin version of Stripe which seems to get overlooked a lot in merchandising…



There's also the card back puzzle, which features a really fun close-up of a freaked out Gizmo…



I’ve also decided to include the following Rub n' Play Transfers set from Colorforms. I haven't really broached the subject of these transfer activity sets yet. There were a few brands out during the 70s and 80s, but the two I was most familiar with were Presto Magix and these Colorforms Rub n' Play sets…



Basically these acted like stickers except instead of just sticking willy nilly or in albums you transferred them with a pencil or some other blunt instrument from a thin sheet of cloudy plastic to a board or a mini fold out poster which had a background printed on it so that you could set up little elaborate scenes. Basically these were printed up with the picture portion stuck to the back of the plastic and you drew on top of it to transfer the image onto another surface. The transfers are very similar to temporary tattoos actually and could easily be ripped or develop a horrible case of wrinkles.

I remember mixing and matching the transfers between sets so that the Dukes of Hazzard could meet up with Knight Rider, or so Skeletor could fight against Thundarr and stuff.



I think I need to gather the rest of my transfers sets together for a future Peel Here column. Next week on the column I'm going to break out a whole mess of creepy weird wheels…

As I promised a couple weeks ago today will start the 31 days of insanity as I try and make a Halloween themed post every day this month, along with my regular Cartoon Commentary! columns. Luckily I have enough material to convert the Peel Here postings for this month into holiday appropriate fare, so without further ado I present my first official Halloween Peel Here…

I thought I'd start off with a bang by sharing one of my favorite acquisitions over the last year, sticker-wise, the 1980 Topps Creature Feature (aka You'll Die Laughing) sticker card subset. I'm not 100% positive on this, but I believe these stickers are part of a set that is the sequel to a stickerless set of cards that Topps manufactured in 1973. Topps was really big into the whole monster thing in the 60s and 70s (what with the monster initials, monster stickers, Weird Wheels and the like), though it pretty much died out in the 80s (to be replaced by Wacky Packs and Garbage Pail Kids, so not all that different in tone.) A couple years ago, when the more or less complete Universal Monsters backlog started coming back out on DVD, I really started to get into these films and characters, in particular Frankenstein's monster, but they're all pretty much tops in my book.



This sticker subset is a little weird as far as which characters (and which versions) appeared on the stickers. There are some gimmies character-wise, the wolf man, Frankenstein's monster, the phantom, the mummy, and the invisible man, but there are also some more neglected characters like the creature, the mutant from This Island Earth, Mr. Hyde, and the Hunchback. Of course I was really surprised to see that there was no Dracula sticker, or at least Chaney's London After Midnight vampire whose visage is just as striking as Chaney’s phantom, probably even more so than his hunchback.

I thought it was interesting which versions of the characters the designers at Topps chose to use, for instance the Glen Strange Frankenstein from Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Lon Chaney Jr.'s Mummy, or the fact that they chose to use both Chaney Jr. and Oliver Reed's werewolves. I wonder if this was for design or licensing reasons? It's cool to see these later versions in merchandising, though it seems a little weird. I also loved seeing a mad scientist get his due on a sticker, though for the life of me I can't tell which movie it's from. I want to say it's Boris Karloff, but my movie knowledge is failing me on this one…



Either way, I love the super high contrast direction Topps decided to go with on this bordered portrait stickers. Not that the monsters weren't already creepy enough as it was, but with the nice dark shadows and limited colors they appear quite a bit more impressive.

The second half of this sticker set is mostly made up of movie posters, though again there were some odd choices here. I'm not sure, maybe the bulk of the regular card set came from these movies (and the later Universal or Hammer flicks that they portraits were taken from), but it's kind of weird to see poster stickers for the Hammer version of the Mummy when the Chaney version is on the portrait sticker.

On these stickers we also get to see the beginnings of the patented Topps 'Peel Here' logo, a convention that I have burned into my memory after collecting so many Garbage Pail Kids over the years.



Rounding out this sticker set are a couple of candid shots of the titular Creature From the Black Lagoon. Now I'm not sure exactly how the story goes on this, but I believe that these pictures have been colorized, as the original gillman suit didn't have red on his palms and lips. I think the addition of the red to the creature had to do with advertising posters and stand-ups that were produced and then managed to make their way into other merchandising as well. I could so be wrong about this, but that's what I remember reading anyway. It's nice to see the gillman get some love though…



Last but certainly not least is the poster that's made up of the sticker card backs, again celebrating the creature!


Though I love horror films from all the entire expanse of cinema history, the Universal period of the 30s-50s, is hands down my favorite, quickly followed (in recent years) by the Hammer versions of these flicks. I'm so glad there was a cool set like this in the 80s so that I could share them here.

On next weeks ghoulish edition of Peel Here I'm going to take a look at my collection of stickers surrounding a bunch of creatures that you really should pour water on, and never, ever feed after midnight…

Well, seeing as how the wonderfully spooky, ghoulish, costumed, candy-addled, holiday season is practically upon us (well at least the month before festivities), I thought I'd break out my creepier, monster-themed sticker fare for Peel Here.

So as a sort of shortened intro post this week I present a sheet of Build Your Own Monster stickers which was released by Hallmark in 1984…


Though these monsters aren't really creepy, there,s enough arms, legs, torsos, and heads for three fun Muppet-esque monsters, or one heck of a three-headed, six-armed, six-legged creature (with two limb-less torsos left over for mood and setting.) I know I would have put the latter together as a kid.

Next week, the spookiness starts proper with some very fun Universal Monsters stickers.

I figured it was time to bust out with some stickers which broach a subject that I am sad to say that I am not very knowledgeable in, professional wrestling. Well, they deal with wrestling to a degree, but in reality the following stickers are really more about wrestling personas, as they cover wrestling from a merchandising perspective. So what is it that I'm talking about here? Well, none other than Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling!
Hulk Hogan


These stickers were produced by the Diamond Company in conjunction with Titan Sports Inc. in 1986, and are in the style of the Panini sticker sets (these were meant to be placed into a sticker book that was sold along with packs of these stickers.) The stickers were just a smidgen of the huge merchandising boom in WWF (now WWE) that took place around 1985-1988 which consisted of trading card sets, lunch boxes and large scale hard rubber in-action figures, not to mention the animated series that these stickers feature…



Even though I collected the trading cards and watched the heck out of the DiC cartoon, I never really felt like I was all that much of a wrestling fan as I never watched the actual matches and I was more familiar with the wrestlers from their non-wrestling projects (Jessie Ventura from Predator, Roddy Piper who starred in John Carpenter's They Live, Andre the Giant from the Princess Bride, and Hulk Hogan from the cartoon.) I knew some wrestling trivia, most of which was gleamed from the trading card set (my favorite bit of which was that George 'the Animal' Steele dyed his tongue green and liked to eat turn buckles.) In fact the only time I ever tuned into an actual wrestling match my mom got pissed because it appeared that the wrestlers were stripping each other naked (the match between Rick Rude and Jake 'the Snake' Roberts.) Besides this I do remember playing my fare share of Pro-Wrestling on the NES.



In fact it wasn't until years later that some of my friends got me into watching live wrestling (mainly WCW Nitro during the rise and height of Bill Goldberg and the NWO), though even then my interest was more in hanging out with my friends than watching the matches. I even briefly met Lex Luger while I was working the night shift at a grocery store. For some reason though I’ve just never really gotten into the whole thing…

Junkyard Dog


Anyway, here's some more stickers from the cartoon, with a few included stickers of the actual wrestlers (which is kind of weird considering the wrestlers themselves didn't work on the cartoon at all, instead professional voice actors took over all the vocal duties.)



Captain Lou




Iron Sheik




Nikolai Volkoff




What was kind of weird about the cartoon is that wrestling really didn't figure into the show at all. Instead the 'heels' took on the role of the conventional bad guys (I don't remember exactly, but I'm sure they planned robberies and that sort of bad guy stuff...), while the other characters were basically the heroes (though I think they acted more like the Scooby Doo gang than action heroes.) The cartoon featured a lot of the popular wrestlers at the time including Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan, the Junkyard Dog, Jimmy Snuka, The Fabulous Moolah, Hillbilly Jim, Captain Lou Albano, Tito Santana, Bobby Heenan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, The Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Wendi Richter, as well as 'Mean' Gene Okerlund.

Next week on Peel Here I think I'm going to break into the Halloween mood a little bit, and start with the ghoulish sticker goodness…

In the spirit of straightening out my muddled memories of my childhood, I've finally solved a little sticker mystery that I thought I had previously worked out as far back as the first Peel Here column. One of the most vibrant memories I have of collecting stickers as a kid revolved around these little storybooks published by Antioch Press which each came with a page of 12 stickers. In particular my I remember both a set of stickers and a book that was merchandised off of the first Ghostbusters movie, which made up that first Peel Here column. When I tracked down the book to share here, I was a little curious about the stickers that were included, as I seemed to remember ones that weren't on the sheet, and later I found a picture online of the sticker sheet that I was thinking of. Since there isn't really a resource on 23 year-old sticker storybooks, I sort of made an educated guess, figuring that there were probably variants of the books, one with more traditional stickers of the actors, and one with the GB quote stickers.

Well, it turns out that I was wrong, and I was actually combining memories of two separate Ghostbusters books, both printed by the same company in 1984. I believe I had both, but for some reason I seem to remember the book portion of one more and the stickers of the other. Memory is such a weird thing, and it makes me wonder how many of mine are muddled like this; my brain picking and choosing the best moments to combines into a pleasant recollection of the past. It's funny; I think this same phenomenon has also led a lot of people to remember things that didn't exist at all, one of the best examples of which is a finally plot-resolving episode of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. The people who believe it exists, fervently believe that it exists, as they have specific memories of events in the episode, in particular a plot point in which one of the main characters was reunited with someone they came across in the realm. I've seen every episode of the cartoon, and there is no final episode (well at least not one that was filmed), and honestly the best explanation I can think of is that they are remembering various parts of separate episodes, combining them in their memory into an amalgamated final episode. Like I said, memory is a really weird thing.

Anyway, I managed to track down a copy of the second Ghostbusters Antioch sticker/storybook from 1984, the Official Ghostbusters Training Manual: A Guide to Catching Ghosts…



Here is a better scan (and a more complete set of) the stickers that were included with the book.



What's fun about tracking down older books like this, especially ones that came with disposable components like stickers, is that sometimes you can get a feel for how the owners felt about it. Typically, if you found this book in a used bookstore or on eBay the sticker sheet would be lost or used up with absolutely no evidence as to where they ended up. In the case of Antioch, a lot of their books were designed with a page at the back that the owner was supposed to stick the stickers on, and in this particular book's case, the stickers were designed to be applied on every other page. Luckily there was only one sticker missing from the sheet, and it ended up in the book, so technically it's still sort of entirely intact.

Unlike the other GB book, which was a straightforward concentrated version of the movie story, this book is actually something new, a training guide to becoming a Ghostbuster. According to this manual, after only ten short lessons (well 9 lessons and a graduation day celebration) anyone who is looking for a change in their life can become a ghost hunting fool. There is of course the matter of making sure you apply the correct sticker to the correct lesson page, but thankfully there are silhouetted hints to help with this.



For sake of ease I'll paraphrase for those of you clicksters in the go that can't be slowed down with reading an eleven-page book…

Lesson 1: Buy a cheap run-down, possibly condemned building for a headquarters…



Lesson 2: Acquire some large, eye-catching, yet amazingly cheap form of transportation…



Lesson 3: Build your own proton pack if you don't have access to a nuclear accelerator (it's easy)…



Lesson 4: Acquire or build a foot pedal operated ghost trap (handy schematic provided for construction purposes)…



Lesson 5: Procure an Ecto-Containment Unit, probably the most daunting task as we've learned from the film that the EPA really hates unauthorized machinery located in rickety buildings, operated by people who build things like proton packs and ghost traps…



Lesson 6: Grow a set of solid brass balls…



Lesson 7: Know a slimer when you see one (as well as being prepared with old cold anchovy covered slices of pizza for bait)…



Lesson 8: Learn to be weary of all statuary…



Lesson 9: Final exam (i.e., pissing off a demigod while waiting for them to summon a giant piece of American iconography to test your mettle)…



Lesson 10: Sign the certificate and start booking birthday parties because you're on your way!



Since I believe anyone who has made it through my cliff's notes is just as capable of handling nuclear equipment as anyone who read the book, I'm also providing a cleaned up version of the certificate so that you too can bust some ghosts…



Next week I'll either be preparing readers for a stint helming a nuclear submarine, or talking more about stickers. Both are just as likely…

Even though it might seem like I'm more into Filmations Ghostbusters after reading this blog, I was actually weaned on the Real Ghostbusters cartoon as a kid. I was a pretty big fan of the two movies, and at the time I was still young enough to whole-heartedly accept the cartoon, even for all of the odd changes that were made in character and design, not to mention that fact that Lorenzo Music whose voice is synonymous in my head with Garfield, did the voice of Peter Venkman in the first half of the series (a fact that wasn't lost on me even as a kid.) I loved the fact that Slimer was now both sort of a good guy and part of the team, which is also both very odd (seeing as how he's a ghost) and makes perfect sense in cartoon terms. I have to assume it's Disney's one weird contribution to the world of animation, that all cartoons must at least try and have some sort of animal or creature as part of the cast. Look at the Punky Brewster Cartoon and her weird leprechaun-like pal Glomer, or Uni in Dungeons and Dragons. Heck, wasn't there even a raccoon in the Pole Position cartoon?

Anyway, I am a fan and I'm glad that I was able to dig up some stickers merchandised off of the show to share on this week's Peel Here. These three packages of puffy stickers were released in 1986 and feature the entire main cast in all of their multi-colored-suited glory. Since these sets of puffy stickers seem to come in sets of four, I'd bet hard earned money that there is another set floating around out there somewhere. In fact I'd be willing to bet it would have at least a couple more Slimer stickers (as he's very under-represented in these three sets) as well as at least one more Egon (if not two.)

The bottom left Ray sticker in this last package is also inadvertantly ghoulish as the pupils were left off (an he's all gape-mouthed and all.)  I thought it was a nice bit of kismet for a set of Ghostbusters stickers to have an error like this.

Another aspect of the cartoon that I think it pretty interesting is how Janine's role was beefed up, not to mention the fact that the character had a sort of Cyndi Lauper-esque make over that managed to carry over into the second live action film. I'm not sure if this is a coincidence (as her role in the second film was possibly beefed up due to the fact that Annie Potts' career was on a high note with Designing Women and all.)

As a bonus this week I present some leftover Ghostbusters puffy stickers that really didn't merit a column of their own. When I was buying stickers off of eBay there was a great seller who would throw in a bunch of extra single stickers, and over time I managed to scrape together a tiny set of these small GB movie stickers…

In addition to these I also present some of the worst and yet best bootleg stickers I've come across. At first I felt that I was burned on eBay when I purchased these 'vintage Ghostbusters puffy stickers' when I got them and realized that they were bootlegs, but after taking a look at the bottom right sticker I just couldn’t be angry. Man, remember when the Ghostbusters had to chase down the rabid ghost of an angry red-eyed panda? Me neither, but the sticker sure does look cool. These stickers also get the esteemed honor of being the only ones I've shared so far with profanity on them, even if the word is as harmless as 'ass'…

Next week, more Ghostbusters goodness as I bust out my official GB training manual/sticker book.

Of all the cartoons and toys of the 80s, the one that I was into the most was probably G.I. Joe. I started collecting the figures around the time that the 2nd wave was released in 1983, and pretty much stuck to them though 1989 or so when Hasbro started re-releasing old figures in vehicles, repainted to look like tigers or snakes, which was just weird. Aside from the toys I also had my fare share of stuff that was merchandised off of the property including, but not limited to, bed sheets, lunchboxes, erasers, coloring books, comic books, and yes, stickers.

I didn't have all that many stickers, but I have a very vivid memory (that I think I've shared on the site before), which involved getting punished for going onto our sub-division's golf course (which I was strictly forbidden to trespass on), having to sit alone in my parents room after said punishment (my first being spanked), and then my mother coming in half way though to sneak me a package of G.I. Joe puffy stickers to cheer me up. I remember opening the package and taking the stickers off the backing to play with them, getting a ton of cat fur, fuzz and dust on the back of the stickers, but also not carring.

So for this week's Peel Here I'm going to share my meager collection of G.I. Joe branded stickers that I've managed to put together over the past year. This first sheet of stickers though, I received from a close friend around the time we graduated from high school. I didn't ask, but I assume he'd had them since around the time they were sold in Hallmark stores in 1983.

I found these kind of interesting because the artwork on some of the characters here is very close to the original artwork on the toy packaging, though re-worked a little to remove any trace of weapons. I'm not sure if this change was on Hallmark's part or what, but it's sort of interesting to see the lengths that companies will go to, in order to appeal to a particular market. The art for Doc, Torpedo, Airborne (as you can see from the original artwork on the Lazer Blazers below), and the Polar Bear skimobile has been re-worked to remove the guns, while new pictures were drawn for characters like Steeler (who ironically has the MOBAT behind him), Snake Eyes and Gung Ho. I'm actually not sure whether the other 'new' pictures were done for these stickers or for another reason as some of the images are re-used later, and may have originated elsewhere. I also thought it was interesting that there were no members of Cobra included.  Anyway, there was also a variation of this sticker sheet with a white backgorund instead of a blue one.

1984 saw the release of a series of puffy sticker sets. I believe there were 4 in all, but I could only get a hold of the two packages below…

As you can see, the Steeler image was re-used for these sets, and apparently the whole 'no guns' thing wasn't an issue here as all the characters are armed to the teeth. The art on these stickers is a mixture of re-drawn images from the original packaging art as well as new (I say new, but I really have no idea if the art was previously used in other merchandising) drawings. Yo Joe has pictures of the other two sets available, one of which (the one on the top right) is the set that my mother gave to me to cheer me up back in the day. Though there aren't many, at least Cobra was represented in one of the sets. Our Way Studios, a company that I'm not familiar with, manufactured these puffy stickers, which is actually the second time they released G.I. Joe puffy stickers (not to mention reusing a bunch of the original artwork from their first attempt.)

The last set of stickers that I have to share is this G.I. Joe holographic Colorforms Lazer Blazers set from 1983, which again is very heavy of the Joe team members, with only Major Bludd present to represent the opposition…

The packaging states that this is collection one, and even though Lazer Blazers were being produced up to 1985 (I believe) I don't think there was ever a second collection released.

I know of at least a few other sets of stickers that existed. There was another set of Hallmark sticker sheets which re-used the original artwork from the packaging of later figures (like Quick Kick and the Crimson Guard), some Diamond brand Panini style storybook stickers, some rolls of stickers that you dispensed with a toy called the Sticker Machine, and smaller stickers that I believe came with a pack of collector cards (much like the Transformers ones that Estaban lent me scans of to share.) The Sticker Machine stickers and dispenser seem to be pretty rare. I've only seen them pop up on eBay once, and I don't remember them at all from my own childhood. I'm sure there must be more out there, though, considering how widely merchandised the brand was (hint, hint Hoover, I'm sure you can fill me in on these if there are any.)

Anyway, next week more Ghostbusters, though this time in a real animated form…

As I promised, I'm finally getting around to talking about an issue of Stickers Magazine again, though this time it's an issue that was close to the end of the publication in 1987. I believe that there were 16 quarterly issues (total) of the magazine put out over 4 years, and honestly, even though I'm beating this whole 80s sticker craze into the ground in this column, I'm surprised that the magazine lasted that long. At the end of the day there just isn't all that much to talk about when it comes to stickers, and even though I've held two of these issues in my hands it still surprises me that ever existed.

In fact, I believe that the publishers pretty much ran out of material around issue #8, as the magazine was re-titled from Stickers Magazine, to Stickers & Stuff (with emphasis on the Stuff.) Though I haven't had a chance to peer into any of the other issues in the run, I have to believe based on issue #7, and the one I'm about to share, issue #14, that coverage of the sticker craze pretty much ended in 1985. In fact, there's practically nothing about stickers in this issue…

Actually, the best bit of sticker nostalgia that this issue has to offer is an ad on the inside front cover for the Pineapple company which offered a variety of generic stickers and toys very much in line with what the Oriental Trading Company offers today. Even with this ad, the most interesting bit is the horrible Madballs knock offs called Fatt Heads. Actually, I believe that this ad also ran in the G.I. Joe magazine if I'm not mistaken, as I seem to remember it pretty vividly from my own childhood. You've gotta love some of these products that are offered, with their pitch perfect 80s design work. Checkerboard, check. Odd, pointless geometric designs, check. Loud colors with liberal use of pink and green, check.

From the cover and the table of contents here we can get an idea of what was covered in this issue, which is fairly unisex, which I believe is odd for this magazine. Sure, there's a section on how to draw a unicorn, but practically everything else could have been enjoyed by girls or boys. There's an article on Pee Wee’s Playhouse, one on dinosaurs, and an expose on clowns (which are pretty much equal opportunity when it comes to scarring children of both sexes.) I see that Soleil Moon Frye was also given her own column called Punky's Place.

On the staff message page, though, you can definitely see that the publishers can see the writing on the wall as far as stickers as a fad goes, even though they are trying their best to keep a calm and composed face about it…

Maybe they were just trying to reassure the young collectors that even if there wasn't a magazine to reassure them, that their interest in stickers was still valid.

You know, I never realized that there were so many other toys available in the Teddy Ruxpin line. I wonder if they all had cassette players imbedded in them or if that was just Mr. Ruxpin himself. I always wanted to know what it would have been like to stick a Misfits tape in Ruxy. That'd be a fun custom Ruxpin, with the chunk of slicked hair hanging in the middle of is face, and maybe black fur to replace his more friendly light brown.

When I took a look at issue #7 of Stickers magazine I saw that the same publishers also released a souvenir magazine for the Goonies movie, and I had wondered if they were also responsible for the Karate Kid magazines. Well, my question was answered as I saw this mail in ad for that very magazine, one that I had as a kid and read at least a dozen times through. I always thought Starlog was responsible for these magazines (and I do believe they published their fare share through out the 70s and 80s), but I guess this crew covered some of the more child friendly flicks.

I was kind of curious why I didn't see any toy ads in the magazine, I mean considering their demographic and all, but there was this one ad (which was broken up over four separate pages) for Furrever Friends that was pretty interesting. I don't remember these odd stuffed animals that doubled as keen fashion accessories, but I'm sure any of the girls who dared to wear these out in public still have the emotional scars to prove it…

Along with the big reveal of the Furrever Friends ad there is also a little bit of space set aside for the Soleil Moon Frye column, which is funnily enough, about, well, herself. I guess it'd be kind of hard for an 11 year-old to come up with some hard-hitting sticker gossip, so it sort of makes sense that it was more of a space to make career announcements (as well as providing up to date info on the Punky Brewster show.)

The feature article for this issue was dedicated to Tracy Wells (of Mr. Belvedere fame, though according to IMDB she also made appearances in Gremlins, Silver Spoons, and Growing Pains, and according to this article it also has her in the Goonies which for the life of me I don't remember.)

This dinosaur story seems like it needs a little bit too much padding from our friendly neighborhood Godzilla, but at least there is a quick plug at the end for the Dinosaucers cartoon, as show I dearly miss.

There's also a quick bio of Anna Seidman, the voice of Penny from Pee Wee's playhouse, in which she states that her involvement in the show has made her decide that she might like to be an actress one day. According to IMDB, this hasn’t materialized yet. I wonder if she's still trying?

For all those fans of Stickers magazine, there's a nice ad for back issues here. No, obviously you can't order them anymore, but at least there are now some grainy black and white photos of what the covers looked like for the first 11 issues. Hey it's something, I mean there aren't a lot of places on the internet to find info on this mag, let me tell you.

Last, but certainly least, we have an ad for a line of Lisa Frank clothing that is making my eyes hurt for colorfulness and joy.  The girl on the right reminds me of a young Adrienne Barbeau though.

So that wraps up my coverage of the now defunct Stickers magazine. Issues do pop up on eBay from time to time, but they sell for outrageous prices, and I'll be honest, I think two issues is enough for me. That is unless anyone out there wants to share scans of issues that you might have in your own collections on Peel Here. No? Eh, oh well.

Next week, I think I'll take a look at my meager collection of G.I. Joe stickers seeing as how I'm currently obsessing over the new toys and all.

I think I'll do the proposed stickers magazine column next week and instead take a look at a bunch of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe stickers this week. I have a lot of really fond and vivid memories of the time I spent immersed in the He-Man universe, in particular moments when I received a lot of the figures for the first time. The whole Masters of the Universe craze seems kind of odd to me when I look back on it, especially after reading the crazy book Mastering the Universe by Roger Sweet (the man who created the He-Man toy line and who is very bitter years later), as the entire merchandising engine was so well tuned that it completely changed the face of toy marketing and cartoons for years to come. Not only did it open the door for more adventure and (for lack of a better term) violence to come back into cartoons, it also introduced the idea of syndicated cartoons that were beamed into the home on a daily basis instead of the more normal Saturday morning.

I wasn't even aware of the whole thing (I mean I was only five) until my mother surprised me one day with a set of He-Man and Skeletor figures, and the next thing I knew everyone had He-Man toys and we were all glued to the TV living out the adventures with Adam, Teela, Man-At-Arms, and the Sorceress against the villainy of Skeletor, Beastman, Evil Lynn and the rest of the crazy evil henchmen. I never really had much besides the figures in terms of the merchandising that followed with the toys; though I'm surprised I didn’t have some of these stickers when I was younger as it was during my prime sticker-collecting phase.

Well first up we have some puffy stickers from 1982, which were distributed by Gordy Intl.


I believe there were at least three other packages of puffy stickers in this series though I'm not sure exactly which other characters made appearances. It thought these were kind of weird for the little sort of throw away stickers like the shield and the head of one of the air sled things, but I guess more stickers, even filler, is better than less stickers. These are also based on either the art from the comics that came with each figure or some other comic style art as it seems to be pre-cartoon seeing as how Man-At-Arms is sans moustache and Teela is sporting her Sepentor-like viper headgear. This is actually a pretty cool package for me to have found as it contains most of my favorite characters (only really missing Trap Jaw and Evil Lynn.)

This next set of stickers is yet another example of the awesome holographic Colorforms Lazer Blazers stickers, this time featuring He-Man from 1983. There were at least three sets of these Masters of the Universe Lazer Blazers, as I also have the Skeletor set below and I've seen a set that focused on Beast Man as well. I'm not sure if there were any other produced, but it stands to reason that there was possibly one more set featuring one of the heroes, probably either Man-At-Arms or Ram Man to sort of even things out.

From the close-up on the stickers below you can see that the top right sticker almost looks like part of a bigger picture, what with the little sword tip and axe swinging in frame. Well if you look down at the Skeletor stickers it almost appears as if the sister sticker is also located on the top right, as Skeletor's sword is missing a tip and the style looks similar. Unfortunately, the two images don't line up properly, well unless they're lopsided and not even that is. I'm wondering if the same artist worked on both of these sets and did two drawings that he just sorted of eyed and hoped would come together or if these are taken from another source that had the images paired up but not connected (which judging from the similar set of Transformers Lazer Blazers which had art transferred from a coloring book it’s a possibility.)


I thought it was kind of weird that the mock-up or design department chose to have a Castle Greyskull sticker in with the Skeletor set, but then again, I guess I really don't think that these people cared all that much either (it's just my childlike nerd side showing through that I even care.)




Rounding out this Peel Here column is the set of Topps He-Man sticker cards from 1984. There were 21 different stickers in this set, all of which had art that once again I believe were probably taken from either the mini-comics or story books that were done at the time.


Like most Topps sticker card sets, these also featured poster puzzle backs, enough of which to make two separate posters, though in actuality since there were only 21 cards in the set you needed to get a double of one of the basic He-Man stickers which has two different puzzle pieces on it's back so you could complete both puzzles.


The set also featured the more iconic Topps die-cut stickers with the thick colorful border. I’m particularly fond of Skeletor on his disturbingly realistic throne of bones.

One of the small things I noticed with one of the cards was that who ever prepared these to be photographed (or however they did the printing process back in '84) left in an area that was taped down on the original art. This really shows up on the enlarged card back poster version of the picture…

I thought it was kind of cool that something like this slipped through the cracks as once again it reaffirms my love of all the subtle details, which show that art or fantasy is in a real tangible form. It's like that somewhere in the back of my brain I know that the artwork is on someone's wall or stuffed into a binder or something, which is weirdly comforting to me, whereas if it were obviously done completely on a computer it would sort of feel kind of hollow or fake. Actually I don't ever really think about this stuff unless I notice the details that ground something in reality (that is unless it's CGI in a movie in which case I'm more than well aware of it.)

Next week I'll probably get to that issue of Stickers Magazine, bit you never know…

There seems to be this trend with pop music where at times it becomes so manufactured that it gets to a point of pure absurdity, sometimes with a pleasant fun outcome, and sometimes with an insanely silly one. For my money some of the fun ones have been crazes such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Groovie Goolies, or like the Jackson Five, but on the other hand there are 'bands' that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around, New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys, and the godfather of them all Menudo.

I pretty much missed out on the whole Menudo craze in the 70s and 80s, though I was aware of them on Saturday mornings around 1983 as I believe they preformed the theme song to the Rubix the Cube cartoon as well as having shorts or videos peppered throughout the morning. For the life of me I can't recall any of their songs, and I have absolutely no idea who the band members are with the exception of Ricky Martin, and I think I only know that because it's one of those bits of pop culture trivia that's permeated into by brain over the years without my even trying to learn it. Too much Entertainment Tonight or something. My only real memory of the group revolves around a friend I had in Florida when I was six or so, Anthony, and his mom loved, LOVED, the group and cherished her Menudo key chain, to an extent where I believe no one was allowed to touch it.

Well, according to the Menudo Wiki page their big American break was in '83, which was large enough to spawn a set of Topps trading cards and stickers, which is what I'm sharing on Peel Here today. Since these are dated '83, and since Ricky Martin didn't join the band until '84, I doubt any of these feature him, which is a shame since I actually know who he is. In fact, I'll be honest, I can't tell how many different members are featured on these stickers, and the puzzle-backs. Every time I think I've got a handle on who is in the group I swear another six different guys seem to pop up, and considering their revolving door policy, it doesn't surprise me. So here you go, Menudo (which is probably not a reference to the Mexican tripe soup, but it sure would be funny if it were…)












I guess all I can really say about these is that I really don't care for the multi colored pixilated background that the designers choose as it hurts my eyes to look at it for longer than a second.

Next week on Peel Here, I think I'm make another dip back into the world of Stickers Magazine, though with a later issue that shows just how hard it was to keep such a focused theme going.

I'm still trying to catch my breath after a nutty weekend full of video games, Dim Sum, and seeing the Simpsons movie, compounded by coming down with the flu on Monday and being in bed for two days straight. I won't let the flu keep me from my regularly scheduled Peel Here column though, 102 temperature or not.

This week we're going to take a look at another of those Golden Sticker Fun Books, this time though it's inspired by a different cartoon, that weird and short lived plant versus machine action fest, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors from 1985. This is another one of those cartoons that I have only a few memories of, most of which revolve around the theme song and opening credits sequence. It didn't help that I never had any of the toys, and in fact I've only ever seen the toys once, briefly while at this one kid's house, and most of that memory is blocked because his house scared the crap out of me. It was all large, dark, and creepy or anything, his mother just had a thing for clowns, so there were sad clown paintings, hobo clown figurines, and various other household clown accoutrements lying around that gave me the heebie jeebies. I didn't want to be rude, but I made my best effort to avoid going to his house all that much least his mom snatch me up, stick me in a homemade well in their basement and threaten me with the hose again unless I apply the pancake make-up. Where was I going with that? Oh yeah, I'm not all that familiar with Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.  I do have the one single 4-episode DVD that was released about five years ago though, and I've been meaning to watch it forever, so maybe this will get me to do that.

What I do remember is that the story didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean why was this planet of flora so pissed off, to the extent that they'd turn into saw wielding vehicles of doom and destruction? Well, I guess that's what Sticker Fun books like this are here for to teach us about plant anger and those that would prune back the likes of Saw Boss…

I'm telling you, did radiation ever do anything productive in the fiction multiverse? As far as I can tell it can only burn, mutate into hideous plant minivans, or turn you into a zombie. Hey I wonder if Saw Boss still has the ability to feed everyone in the universe, and if so does he choose not to because he's evil, or because he's now sentient and that would be just kind of weird to have like everyone everywhere suckle off of your plantness?

These Sticker Fun stamp stickers are so weird. On the above page for instance there are already three stickers providing a color guide for the main characters, but why did Golden choose to include the little mushroom duo sticker? I mean, that's just sort of stifling the creativity of the kid that really wanted to color those yellow with blue dots. I mean, sure they could just discard the sticker, but then that’s just being wasteful. I wonder why made them choose the "stickers" they did?

See that right there is why this cartoon failed. If Audric had the full good root capable of destroying the Monster Minds, why did he have to separate it into two and ship the other half across the universe, or where ever Jayce was playing, just to have him go on a quest to bring it right back to him? I think even a four year old could see right through a plot hole like that.

I bet the above page was fun to draw for the artist. I love the cut off guy on the bottom running for his life, very dramatic.

I'm beginning to think that a whole bunch of cartoons were seriously influenced by Star Wars in the 80s, I mean if Darth Vader were a radiated plant, this would almost be like plagiarism.

It might just be me, but I think having the half of the good root in the medallion tell Jayce that he should lead would sound a little bit more normal. I mean where does this odd talking ring come into play? I guess it all makes a lot more sense in the cartoon.













The Monster Minds are Awesome?!? Who wrote this book, Saw Boss? I love that K-O Kruiser has an entire look-a-like K-O Krew, much like Scourge and his Sweeps from the Transformers movie. Come to think of it, why wasn't there a head Cobra trooper on G.I. Joe? Maybe Major Blood was, bus his brown outfit throws me off of the whole look-a-like thing.

There's something odd about the last line in this book. It's sufficiently grammatically sound, but it still sounds like it's contradicting itself. I think that first bit about the 'Monster Minds withering one day', that's what's throwing me off. I'm used to more dynamic statements like: "The evil Monster Minds will pwn the universe, though as long as the Lightening League can it will do it's best to thwart them at every turn…" or something like that. I don't know.

Next week on Peel Here I'll take another dip into the collection of stickers and hopefully I'll pull out a winner. Wait, what am I saying, as long as it's paper, glue, and has some miscellaneous imagery from the 80s it's always a winner.

I forgot to mention while talking up my visit to Bizarro Wuxtry this past weekend, that of all the stuff Devlin had in his store the thing that amazed me the most was that he had a handful of 80s stickers for sale. While I've been looking for a place that sells 80s era ephemera, magazines and the like, I've really wanted to find at least 1 set of stickers, or at least some original Garbage Pail Kids or something, and he had both. Not a large selection, but it was certainly heartwarming to find anyway.

Well, this week on Peel Here I'm finally going to share my collection of Michael Jackson stickers, which as I've said, is a much larger one than I ever thought I'd end up with. Mr. Moonwalker made up a pretty big portion of my musical influences around the age of 7, and even though I was never sucked in to the creepy extent that Macaulay Culkin or Corey Feldman were, I did have my a few bits of Michael Jackson schwag. The two things I remember the most were a cheap record store knock-off white, sequined glove and a horrible white, cut-off sweatshirt that looked like it was torn away to reveal a couple hairy fingers, some yellow cat eyes, and had the word Thriller above it in a gaudy green and yellow airbrushing.

The Thriller album was one of my first cassettes (along with a hand-me-down copy of the first Weird Al record, a Beach Boys best-of, and a Best of the Monkees tape) and I think I must have listened to the title track at least a million times (and each and every time I'd totally get freaked out by the Vincent Price narration.) I was also turned onto zombies through his crazy video collaboration with John Landis. The one thing I never did have that I coveted to a crazy degree was one of those sweet red leather jackets that he made popular in that video, but I guess in a way I'm also glad as I have enough 80s articles of clothing to already be some what ashamed of wearing (for instance that cut-off sweatshirt mentioned above.)

Seeing as how he was probably the biggest star of the decade, it doesn't come as much of a shock that he was merchandised to hell and back, from a line of Michael Jackson dolls to school supplies, posters, and well stickers. Here's a few that I've picked up on the cheap recently…

Now I have seen some more officially licensed puffy stickers, but these are pretty much the exact same stickers only in a very bootlegged looking package. These stickers are actually a nice representation of the transition that the King of Pop was going through during the late 70s and early 80s, starting with 20 something afro Jackson, going through early 80s clean cut Jackson, and on to the 1984 Thriller era wet-hair Jackson. I also really dig that since the afro picture was so cool, it had to be repeated.

Now for something a little crazier and a little more official, here is the complete first series of the 1984 Topps Michael Jackson sticker cards.

There were 33 cards in this set, which could be purchased in either packs, or in a carded set. The stickers themselves have two variations, one with the Topps copyright and one with just the MJP text, but both are the same. I don't think I've shared any stickers that quite scream "designed in the 80s" like these sticker cards do, from their wacky shaped die-cuts, to the miscellaneous symbols in the background. The second card series is even worse as the BG is mint green, a much more 80s fad in terms of color.

If the puffy stickers exhibited a nice transition of his style in terms of going from sort of normal looking to his more patented freaky appearance, these sticker cards are ten times better. They manage to capture almost every aspect of his style, from the glitter jumpsuits to his freakish Llama fetish and his white glove to his mastery of wearing bow ties with a sweater.

There was even a shot with his monkey, Bubbles. I wonder how many personally owned moneys have been stuck with that moniker since?

By far though, and the reason I bought this set in the first place was for the inexplicably awesome Sad Clown Jackson sticker. Is there a better image of Michael Jackson? When the hell did this come up in his day-to-day entertainment life, I mean what urged him to rock the sad clown? I think I missed that day of MTV or something. To round things out for this set we also get a shot of Jackson as the Scarecrow from the Wiz.

It wouldn't be a complete Topps sticker card set without a couple of sets puzzle poster card backs, so here you go…






Last but not least, we have a couple of packages of Lazer Blazers extra large hologram stickers. I think I dig these the most because of all of the stickers featured, these seem like the type of merchandising that he'd of been really excited about. I mean as part of the whole hologram technology you get a 3-D like effect that we know he was super fond of, considering his Epcot flick Captain Eo and all (which I very much regret missing out on even though I lived just 30 minutes from Epcot growing up.)




It's kind of sad really, I thought that I would have a lot more to say, at least more funny things, but ultimately, I guess pretty much all of my love for the Smooth Criminal ended when I turned 10 and my musical interest shifted from easy listening Pop to Metallica and speed metal. Considering his downward spiral of self parody, and somewhere down the line, his buying into the whole god-like stature I've just never been able to get back into him, not even really in a kitsch kind of way. I do remember being impressed by his self-parody on an early season of the Simpsons, though only a little. Oh where or where is my 7 year-old self when I need him? 

Next week on peel here, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors fight the evil Saw Boss and the Monster Minds!