During this past Halloween season the wife and I were browsing around some of the outlet stores in North Georgia and I had another one of those lightening strike nostalgic moments while in an antique shop.  Sitting on top of a stack of old records was a copy of Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Rider Without a Head record and storybook issued by Peter Pan records back in 1977.  I've mentioned this feeling before, but it's my favorite sort of nostalgia moment, the kind when I can't believe I forget whatever it is that made me slap myself upside the head with disbelief.  There are plenty of these bits of pop culture flotsam and jetsam that I come across that will put a smile on my face or make me stop for a second and say "Huh", but it's really a great an rare feeling when I feel like a part of me has been lost and is there sitting in front of me again.

This particular book must have been a hand-me-down from my sister as I was born the same year it was released and probably wouldn't have used or appreciated it until I was five or six.  I'm also not sure how often I actually listened to the record as I didn't recall much when I listened to it recently…

(You can listen to the record at the great read-along site, the Secret Cavern of Read-Along Treasures.) What really grabbed me when I found this in the antique shop, and what I really remember pouring over as a kid is the interior artwork.  Unfortunately the artist on this particular book wasn't credited, and I have a feeling it's because it was more of a quickie in-house art department rush job as opposed to shopping the work out to freelance talent.

Honestly, looking back at this stuff so many years later I have to say that I'm a bit underwhelmed at the quality.  Actually it's pretty sloppy in a lot of places, smacking of a bad tracing job.  The line work is very stiff with almost no grace or variance to the line width and weight, but even for all of this, I still love it.  It makes me feel like I'm six years old again…

My favorite bit in the book is the Rider Without a Head, not only because of the monster-esque subject matter, but because the character is rendered with the most detail and attention throughout.  In fact, the stiff art style paired with the watercolor in the book reminded me of the work of one of my favorite artists, Quinton Hoover.  When I started playing the Magic: the Gathering collectable card game back in the mid 90s, Hoover artwork was the one that really stood out and spoke to me.  I'm a big fan of the exacting lines and the colored pencil & watercolor work in the color.  It's the essence of comic book art, minus the thick black shadowing.  There's something in this type of clean line work that makes me think of cartoons or the type of simple effective illustration used in product packaging.

Even though the artwork in the Scooby Doo book isn't nearly as elegant as Quniton Hoover's work (example of which you can see here and here), it makes me wonder if spending hours pouring over the book helped to predispose me to enjoying this sort of clean style (though obviously there were the hundreds of hours of cartoon watching and comic book reading that didn't hurt.)  Looking at the pieces above and below, I really do see a close connection to Hoover's style, so much so that I would have to say that there is some sort of connection (as tenuous as it seems.)  At the end of the day it's another piece of the puzzle at least.

On a side note, I thought it was interesting how on-model the above image of Scooby is compared to the art in the rest of the book.  You see this exact same pose repeated in the final image in the book, again leading me to think that a good bit of the artwork was traced from other existing Scooby Doo work.

Though I had a handful of other read-along storybook and record sets (namely Gremlins, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and the various weird Star Wars exopanded universe books like Planet of the Hoojibs), I don't remember if I had any others released by Peter Pan Records.  I seem to remember the company character icon pretty well though.  I wonder if it was from pouring over this Scooby Doo book so many times?

Well, the day job is certainly doing its level best to impede my work on the Halloween countdown this year.  I'm not writing to complain about the woes of the working life though, nope, I'm here to share a crazy piece of Halloween-y goodness (one endorsed by the California Raisin Advisory Board none the less.)  For today's entry into the countdown I present the wackiness that is the California Raisins in A Haunting We Will Go! (circa 1988.)



The book was written by Mark W. Lewis and illustrated by the elusive Pat Paris Productions (elusive because the only info I could find on the world wide intertubes was that she/they illustrated not only the rest of the California Raisins books, but also Lady Lovely Locks and the Pixietails books as well.)



The story is pretty simple (how could it really be all that convoluted anyway), everybody's favorite sun-dried R&B a cappella choir runs out of gas late at night near a broken down abandoned manor that just so happens to be the site for some ghostly birthday celebrations.   The ghosts have a broken phonograph and a need to boogie, and the Raisins can't stop boogie-ing if they tried and need a place to crash.  Hilarity and a good dose of Scooby Doo inspired antics insue…











I was surprised by the art in the book. It's not amazing, but it's still pretty fun and I like the wrinkly style (especially in the 300 year old Shadowy Lady.)



I'll tell ya, I've never seen a group of raisins secrete so much flop sweat in my life!



I do have to say that even though I've been aware of the raisins since their inception, I never really paid all that much attention to the story or characters.  After reading the book I'm sorry to say that they don't get much deeper than the goofy claymation commercial shorts they originally starred in.  Proof of this can be found in their names (Shades and Tux are a couple of the amazing examples of how deep the character design goes…)  I never had any of the Raisin's swag, but I always wanted some of the little PVC figures you could get at Hardee's when you ordered their raisin biscuits for breakfast.



Anyway, the Raisins are another shinning example of anthropomorphized food items that should turn kids off of eating the sun-dried fruit ("Mommy, I don't want to eat Shades, he's my friend!"), but ironically fueled a temporary fire of raisin purchases in the 80s.  Weird.

So if the fact that I'm doing this Halloween countdown weren't enough of an indication that I love the season and horror themed entertainment in general, I just have to take a moment to say that I love the scary.  Ever since I was a little kid I've been infatuated with the macabre, be it grotesque Garbage Pail Kids artwork, the array of insane Halloween masks that used to be on display at Spencer's in the 80s, the addictive VHS covers to all the horror films at my local video store, and especially in the fiction I chose to bury myself in.  I've written many times of my love of the Crestwood Monster Series in past countdowns, and when I started ignoring chapter and Choose Your Own Adventure books for more adult fare it was Stephen King that I first picked up (around the time I turned 12.)  Another example of some ghoulishly fun reading that I did when I was younger is a short series of books starring a character named Samantha Slade.  I mentioned the series a couple years ago in passing, but I thought I'd take a second today to look at the books a little closer, in particular the wonderful cover art by the very talented Jody A. Lee.  The series was published between 1987 and 1988 by Archway Paperback Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, and was written by Susan Smith (an author who I haven't been able to find much information about.)



Of the series, I must have read this first installment (SS: Monster-Sitter) the most (at least 10 times if not more) since my mom picked it up for me in 1987.  The series was probably cashing in on the craze of the Babysitter's Club and the rest of the book series in that ilk.  I certainly wasn't against dipping into series that were more or less meant for the other gender (I loved the more girl-centric Judy Blume books for example), but what really grabbed me wit this series was its creepy theme in that Samantha is a babysitter for what amounts to an amalgam of the Addams Family and the Munsters.  Basically, Samantha plays Marilyn to the Brown Family's monsters, spending the majority of the first book unaware that the kids she's sitting for are actually monsters (believing that the family is just eccentric to a T.)  Between heading up the planning committee for her school's annual haunted house, taking on this new babysitting gig, and trying her darnedest not to embarrass herself in front of a boy she has a crush on, Samantha just doesn't get a break.  With the help of her best friend Iris and some unexpected aid from the Brown kids (Lupi, a real life werewolf, and Drake a mad scientist in training) she manages to pull everything together and put on a legendary haunted house party.

One of the aspects of the first book that's always stuck with me is all the crazy food that the Browns (an unbeknownst to her, Samantha as well) consume including crunchy spider's legs (seen on the cover above.)  There's a scene in the book where the Brown kids help Samantha make burgers out of, well, it would be indecent to say.



As far as the rest of the series goes, I wish I had found them when I was younger.  Though I loved the first book to death I never found any other entries in the local used and new bookstores around the central Florida area.  There was an ad in the back of the first book which teased me with and informed me to look out for the second installment, Confessions of a Teenage Frog, and for years I was curious about the continuing adventures of Samantha Slade.  It wasn't until the amazing gift that is the internet that I've managed to track it, and the rest of the series down in the last 10 years.  Confessions picks up where the last book left off with Samantha now the permanent sitter for the Browns.  While attempting to run for class president she partakes in Drake's "Greatness Formula" which does little for the campaign, and in fact turns her into a frog.

In the third installment, Our Friend: Public Nuisance #1, Samantha is introduced to Lupi and Drake's pet dinosaur Bubbles.  Drake invents an invisibility formula that makes Bubbles disappear, but he escapes the starts ravaging the town.  Samantha has to snap to action to corral the dinosaur and keep him safe from the nation guard and the angry townspeople as the invisibility formula begins to wear off.



The last installment revolves around Samantha and the kids starting up a band (called simply enough Blood) and entering into a battle of the bands.  This is probably my favorite cover in the series as the realization of the band in full glam/glitter rock glory is awesome…



I think these hold up pretty well, and aside from the questionable first person perspective (it gets old having Samantha explain and give internal commentary on everything), I was surprised at how enjoyable it was to read through them.

From time to time I get solicited for reviews by marketing firms representing companies with DVDs or CDs that they want to get the word out on.  Typically these are targeted pretty well, at least in terms of my interests and what not, so I accept and do my best to write and honest review of the product in question.  Lately though I've noticed an increasing trend where these companies want me to pimp products that either don't hit on my interests all that well or they want me to blindly "review" a product or service, which basically means that I don't get a chance to really play with the item in question (they either don't supply a review copy or it's a truncated version.

Recently I accepted a solicitation to review some CDs that came out this past year, the deluxe collector's edition of Blondie's Parallel Lines and the 2-Disc Pat Benatar Ultimate Collection.  On the one hand I was kind of dreading the idea of writing reviews for albums that have either been available for 30 odd years (Blondie), or are career retrospectives of an artist that I'm not all that familiar with (Benatar.)  Not to mention the fact that I'm far from a music aficionado and don't really know how to do a good review beyond gushing about what I like to listen to, etc.  On the other I felt confident that I'd be able to come up with something based on the format with which these albums are being released (the packaging and extras), I mean that's really what the company (in this case EMI) is selling right? 

Well, here's where the above mini rant comes in.  Because companies are becoming stingier and stinger as far as providing review copies, it makes the job of pimping their product very difficult.  Basically EMI sent me the barest of bones versions of both albums, which are for all intents and purposes burned copies of the music on CD with almost plain white packaging (they had small photocopied versions of the album covers, but that's about it.)  None of the actual packaging is included, so I'm left with only the music (and a bonus DVD that came with the Blondie album), which affirms my fear that I have to find something original to say about these albums.

I guess I'll start with the deluxe collector's edition of Blondie's Parallel Lines as I'm more familiar with both the band and the album…



Call 'em new wave, punk, post punk, pop or just plain rock, Blondie is certainly one of the most recognized bands to come out of the 70s New York Punk movement, and this success can surely be attributed to their breakout album Parallel Lines (well breakout in America that is.)  This is also the album that solidified the classic Blondie sextet of Debbie Harry on vocals, Chris Stein on guitar, Frank Infante also on guitar, Jimmy Destri on keyboards, Nigel Harrison on bass (taking over from Infante who had then recently moved to guitar), and Clem Burke on drums.

Parallel Lines is probably the tightest of Blondie's oeuvre, with a mess of hits (both in the U.S. and the U.K.), but everything on the album feels pretty solid which seems pretty rare in the post Beatles/Beach Boys pop scene where many albums seemed to have two singles and a ton of filler.  It's also the album where the group really begins stretching themselves in terms of style and genre, floating in and out of pop rock, punk, new wave, a touch of reggae and even a smattering of disco (say it ain't so!)  The album practically explodes with 'Hanging on the Telephone' (written by Jack Lee), which features Harry jumping out almost a full second in front of the drums and then the rest of the band.  'Telephone' is pretty much the blueprint for the perfect two and a half minute pop punk song that just keeps pushing and doesn't let up until the last guitar strum fades out.  The album keeps this pace with the second track, the debut of Harry and Harrison's writing collaboration, 'One Way or Another', which opens with a great crisp guitar lick that leads into a very upbeat head bopping rhythm which completely goes against the disturbing stalkerish lyrics.  Harry's cat growl is dripping with feminine machismo, particularly when her voice cracks and you can hear her words practically ripping out of her throat.  OWOA is surely the late 70s reinvention of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's 'These Boots are Made for Walkin', if not in lyrical content, then in tone and the gusto singing of an empowered woman.



Part of what I love about Blondie is encapsulated in the third track, 'Picture This' (Harry, Stein, & Destri), particularly Debbie Harry's juxtaposition of her deadpan and almost talky singing (not to mention her patented voice crackling) over the perfect pop rhythm of the music.  To me this is the punk creeping out and marring what could otherwise be the perfect pop band, but helping at the same time to keep some of the edge of bands roots and not letting it ever sound too manufactured.  Of course, that doesn't keep her from showing off her vocal range as her lyrics trail off into sustained soaring notes during the short breaks between verses.  Of course another aspect that I dig about the band is expressed in the fourth track 'Fade Away and Radiate' (Stein), which is as much New Wave (with it's moody keyboards and modern dystopian lyrics) as it is Prog Rock (with it's slow plodding beat sweeping toward sonic crescendos; the song reminds me of some of Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon), yet also containing a dash of Reggae at the end to close the song out.  It's this variation and experimentation that keeps the band interesting to me.

I can probably go on talking about every song on the album like this, from the fun Talking Heads-esque harmonizing, duets, and the Kraftwerk-ian background electronica of 'I Know But I don't Know', the exquisitely simple beat and church organ keyboard riffs of '11:59', the tug of rope between Harry's talky and sing songy delivery of the lyrics and the start and stop verses on 'Will Anything Happen', the almost sickeningly (but never over the top) sweet early Beatles pop of 'Sunday Girl', the childlike giddiness of 'I'm Gonna Love You Too', which almost sounds like it's riffing off of the Eep Oop Ork Ah-Ah (Means I Love You) song from the Jetsons, or the all-for-one crowd chanting and smarmy backing vocals that punch up 'Just Go Away'.  The biggest surprise for me on the album though is the staying power of the most popular hit on the album, the disco revamping of 'Heart of Glass' a live rock mainstay for the band up until Parallel Lines was recorded.  Not only is it the album's biggest hit, it's also the song that more or less defines the band in the public consciousness popping up on a million pop compilations and band best-of collections.  Growing up surrounded by all of the very plastic and heavily manipulated pop of the 80s, not to mention the glut of sort-of bands that neither wrote nor really preformed their music, you'd think I'd love Heart of Glass outright.  Hell I'm particularly vocal about my love of the Monkees for crying out loud.  But at some point in my upbringing I latched onto the idea of creator written and preformed music equated quality, and I was right there pumping my fist in the air when I saw footage of Tom Petty smashing drum machines and decrying the disco era of pop music.  So when I first heard Heart of Glass as a kid I reacted as if someone threw a wet towel from the garbage in my face.  Years later though, I can't help but appreciate that Blondie was stripping away all the untalented posturing of disco performers and taking the undeniable pop bliss of the sound and melding it with their own, and makes for a perfect dance hit that you can feel proud about liking.

All in all, I completely adore the album, and as I said in the beginning of this rambling love letter of a review, I don't really know what I can add to the 30 years of commentary on Parallel Lines.  I've read that the album's title reflects the never connecting bodies in motion in many of the songs, which I think makes perfect sense.  Unfortunately I fear there really is no original thing I can say about this classic record as a whole.  So again I find myself left with the truncated burned-copy version of the re-release and what sets it apart from the various times this album has been released on CD in the last 20 odd years.  It's called the Deluxe Collectors Edition, but what exactly does that mean?

Well, from reading reviews on Amazon, and thanks to the handy synopsis on the back of my crappy copy I see that the set comes with a booklet featuring the entire original album cover photo session (obviously not included, so I can only hazard a guess that it might be fun.)  The set also contains two discs (and I was lucky enough to get both); Disc one includes 4 bonus audio tracks which consist of alternate versions of 'Heart of Glass' (the 7" version without the little disco opening bit) and 'Sunday Girl' (the French language version that I actually sort of prefer to the original), and two of the most annoying and pointless remixes of 'Hanging on the Telephone' (which is just an evil massacring of the original with a pointless two minute high speed tub thumping intro that I can barely get through) and 'Fade Away and Radiate' (which is almost unrecognizable.)  Disc two contains 4 video shorts, three of which are precursors to what would eventually inundate the teen pop culture on MTV, and the fourth which is a segment from Blondie's appearance on the BBC's Top of the Pops (where they 'preformed' 'Sunday girl'; and yes the quotes around preformed are intentional.)  The first three music videos (which are for 'Heart of Glass', 'Hanging on the Telephone', and 'Picture This') are interesting, but not ground breaking (they've been available in other formats before), not to mention kind of difficult to watch as all of them have the music overdubbed and it's plain to see that the band isn't even trying to go through the motions of faking it.  Heck, during the video for 'Hanging on the Telephone' Jimmy Destri spends most of the running time pretending to hang himself with a phone cord which though fitting for the song, seems instead to speak of his boredom with the at-the-time-pointless video shoot.  The creative impact of music videos just hadn't been explored yet and to me it feels like the band is going along with them in a completely obligatory fashion.  The worst offender of the overdubbing is the Top of the Pops segment though as the band is obviously faking it in front of a live audience.

So in the end, is this version deluxe?  Not really, not when all of the bonus content (except the French version of 'Sunday Girl') detracts from the natural brilliance of the record.  Is it worthy of collectors?  No and, uh, no.  Is it an edition that I would recommend running out to purchase?  Not if you already own it, and honestly, not if you have a choice to get the remastered re-issue from 2001 which is cheaper.  If you can find it cheap it might be worth having nice versions of the promo music videos, but they're hardly worth seeking out the album.

Next week I think I'll sit down and try and get under the hood of the Ultimate Pat Benetar.

It's been awhile since I had a moment to sit down and sort of deconstruct a cartoon episode for the Cartoon Commentary! column.  I'm not tooting my horn in terms of importance or quality when I say this, but these columns tend to be pretty time intensive including watching and re-watching cartoon episodes, note taking, getting the screen grabs for the scenes I want to talk about, etc.  It's still something that I want to and enjoy doing; it's just been on the back burner for a bit.  Before I get too far removed from doing them though I wanted to sort of revive the column by including another facet to my 80s cartoon nostalgia.

Recently I began thinking about how I want to 'collect' and remember the cartoons I loved as a kid.  I have a few goals as far as a collection goes, and since I have some silly issues about buying up old toys and stuff off of eBay I've mainly been focusing on picking up whatever I can on DVD.  My original goal was to get at least one episode from every show on DVD, but as the format changed and season boxsets became first the rage, and then affordable, I've been focusing on those.

Lately though I've stumbled unto another money sucking aspect to the collection, but one that really solidifies the idea of 'owning' a piece of my childhood, which are animation cels.  Pretty much, for me at least, animation cels represent the ultimate keepsake when it comes to cartoons, as you can't get much closer to the source material beyond finding a weird Charlie Kafuman-esque way of crawling into the heads of the animators and writers who created these shows (and it's much less disturbing in that stalker sort of way.)  Also, as far as the collecting gene that I suffer from, I'm the type that prefers the ability to easily look at (my wife would say 'blankly stare at') the collection, as opposed to simply squirreling it away with the knowledge that it's there (which is one of the reasons I can't bring myself to buy individual comic books anymore as they don't display well.)  So the nice original hand-painted cels will hopefully look really swell framed and on the wall.  Anyway, I figured since I'm going to be scanning these in as I buy them for posterity reasons, I might as well share them on the site, and it might as well be under the Cartoon Commentary! heading as it fits in really nicely.

Today I thought I'd share the first cel I decided to buy.  It's a medium sized shot of Orko from the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe show…



Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the process of traditional animation, each second of footage in a cartoon in made up of a series of drawings and paintings done on cellulose acetate (think of a clear plastic sheet much like a transparency) overlaid on top of an opaque painted background.  Typically, each separate element in an animation scene that moves will be painted on it's own transparent cel, and then the cels are laid on top of each other to form a scene.  So when I say I'm picking up animation cels for the collection, they are usually going to be one of the individual elements on it's own cel without the background (as this is pretty much the only way I've seen them available for purchase.)  Since the backgrounds are re-used so much they are a bit rarer and might have been sold off in separate lots than the bulk sets of animation cels when studios liquidate their stock.  Also, there are typically a series of production numbers at the bottom of a cel (so the animators can keep track of each cel as there are thousands per episode), and I'm going to try and keep those in the scan when I can, but my scanner only has an 8"x12" bed, so for the Orko cel above I couldn't fit both the painting and the production notes.

I was really happy with this cel (especially for the price), as it's a character I adored from the He-Man cartoon and the actual image itself it pretty nice.  He's floating in a more or less normal pose, which his full body in the shot and his eyes are open.  This points to another aspect of collecting cels that's sort of weird.  Like I mentioned above, there are thousands upon thousands of cels produced for each and every cartoon covering a whole range of movement and perspective, so it's a gamble as to whether or not you'll find a cel where the character or element you want is small, medium or close-up, whether it's in a weird position, whether the character's eyes are closed or if there's an element from another cel intended to sit directly on top of this one you want (in which case that portion isn't painted as it wouldn't show on film anyway.)  Sometimes characters are cut-off on the side of a cel if they are entering the scene from either side, and it depends on what you are looking for as to where there is a full body shot or if it's more of a bust-like close-up.  It really is a crap-shoot.

As far as the actual quality of the artwork itself, this particular cel has survived pretty well over the 24 year or so that's it been around changing hands.  None of the paint has chipped off or stuck to the pencil under drawing that was included (see below), and all of the tiny little blemishes in the black line work appear to be original from when the cel was first produced.  Again, going into a little bit of the process of cel animation, and I'm certainly not an authority on the matter, but from what I can gather there are a series of pencil tests done on paper that is the same size as the finished cels.  These pencil tests include drawings of the various elements through out their series of movements in a scene.  Each pose is rendered on a separate piece of paper which are them scanned in or photographed to see how well the movement works.  If these pass the inspection, they are passed on to junior animators who fill in the gaps of the movements, again in pencil on separate pages.  When the final set are approved, they go onto to yet another group who use model sheets as guides and they re-draw all the pages so that it all looks like one artist drew the final sequence.  These final pencil drawings are then copied to the acetate cels, either hand inked, or photocopied.  I'm not positive but I would assume with the speed at which television animation needs to be produced that they are typically photocopied onto the acetate and then painters come behind them and paint the cels.

The blemishes in the black linework in the above Orko cel look like a bad photocopy job, is basically what I'm getting at here.  Now, for completeness sake I thought I'd also scan in the back of the cel where the actual paint is applied…



Now the Orko cel above is pretty simple in terms of color choices, there aren't any shading or color variations in the final image.  So basically it was simply a matter of painting on the back of the cel (so that the front will look crisp and clean) underneath the copied black linework (so that the line work when the image if flipped around will be showing with the paint under), taking care to paint anything perspective-wise that would be closer to the camera (for instance his right hand and ear with overlap both is cloak and hat respectively.)  You'd want to paint the closer aspects first so that they appear to overlap the colors that are 'behind' them and so that the red of his cloak doesn't bleed onto his hands, which would break the suspension of disbelief aspect to the image.  So when you look at the back of the cel you can see that the paint is pretty messy, but because of the way it's layered it looks crisp and clean from the other side.



The last element of the process (which is actually the last image created before the final cel is painted) is the pencil under drawing above.  This is the final drawing that is transferred onto the cel before it's painted.  As you can see in the drawing, it's initially done in non-photo blue lead to get the pose and basic shapes down, and then is 'inked' with a regular graphite lead for the final line work.  You can see in the artwork above where the animators kept changing the placement of the tip of Orko's hat.  When the final pencils are done there is no need to erase the blue under pencils because they won't copy onto the cel.

So I don't have a ton of animation cels in my collection yet, but over the next few months I'll try and share them as I scan them in.

Well, I recorded another show, though I'm kind of iffy about it.  Basically I'm trying to get back into the swing of podcasting on a regular basis and I thought it would be best to just record anything that I'm currently thinking about.  At first I was just going to keep recording shows without posting them, but after thinking about it some more I decided that if I don't post them I'm not going to get off my ass and record them in the first place.  I'm a goal-oriented person in this respect.

So what's in this episode?  Well it starts off with me getting cranky about the upcoming complete Real Ghostbusters DVD release (see the previous post for more), and that I slide into a one sided conversation about story telling conventions, in particular the whole idea of alternate history as a concept.  Is it in depth?  No.  Do I ramble like a goon?  Yes.  It is 50% shorter than the last episode though, which brings me back to my more normal running time.  Next time, there will be some research, or at least some notes to guide me along. Enjoy!

Oh yeah, I also mention the Art & Story podcast with Jerzy Drozd and Mark Rudolph, but I forgot to give a link to their show in the episode, so here it is!

Recently Time Life announced that they would be releasing the complete Real Ghostbusters Cartoon on DVD sometime this fall (including the later re-named version Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters.)  On the one hand it's pretty cool that all 140 odd episodes of the show are finally coming out on DVD (instead of those annoying 4-episode discs that came out a couple years ago), but on the other, the set being released is sort of a behemoth, the type of DVD release that could very easily hit shelves with an astronomical MSRP, not get purchased, and then find it's way quickly to out-of-print DVD hell. 

Personally I'm not a fan of complete series sets, unless of course the show in question only lasted a couple seasons. Typically they're released after all of the individual seasons have come out and for folks like me that pick them up bit by bit, the complete set is pointless.  What's worse is that these sometimes come with the best special features (as in the case of Seinfeld which came with a nice coffee table book put together by Jerry and the producers of the show which is only available with the complete set.)  Also, there's that whole pesky price issue.  Who wants to drop over a hundred dollars on a set of DVDs, no matter how much material is on them?  It took me forever and a day to convince myself that it was worth dropping $80 on the complete Monty Python set (a show that I adore), and that was after it had been out for years and the price slashed in half.  I don't mind paying this much in the long run, it's just the all-at-once deal that really gets on my nerves...

Getting back to the Real Ghostbusters, I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of having to choose between either three 4-episode discs that would run around $15 total, or a 25-disc set that will probably cost in the neighborhood of $130.  Since when is targeting only the uber and extremely casual fans a good business plan?  Anyway, that's quite enough griping from me. 

**Update**  Well, apparently I was being way to conservative with my $130 estimate on the complete series.  TVshowsonDVD.com just updated with the release date, price and extras on this set and it's going to clock in at an ungodly $179!  Again, I ask, who has 2 bills to drop on an 80s cartoon series all at once?  Oh, and you have to purchase it thorough Time Life much the way they held the Muppets hostage for so many years.  Ug.  This coveted, yet overpriced, set drops on November 15th...

The reason for this post is to point to a news story on TVshowsonDVD.com, which give fans the opportunity to vote on possible cover artwork for the complete series set.  There are two possible choices, both of which will probably feature some sort of lenticular motion action scenes on the outer slipcase.  Personally my favorite of the two is the simpler art featuring the gang against a flat black background with a lenticular slime effect at the top of the box…



The other choice features the trademarked home base of the Ghostbusters, the renovated fire station (which is going to feature lenticular motion action in the windows as well as having the Ecto-1 pulling out of the garage.)  I think it's just a bit wonky, I don't know…



Anyway, you can head on over to TVshowsonDVD.com and vote for your favorite…

I m starting to get to the end of my personal 80s sticker collection (but don't worry, I think I have enough material to at least take me through the rest of this year), so I thought I'd share my last Antioch sticker/storybook this week.  I've certainly talked about these before (with the Karate Kid II, Bigfoot Monster Truck, and the various Ghostbusters books; GB, GBII, and the training manual) and they'll always have a special place in m heart if only because with these books I purchased some of my very first stickers as a kid.  Unfortunately these are also some of the hardest stickers to track down because they were mostly a premium that came with a story book and were most certainly ripped out and stuck all over sticker books, dressers, and wherever else kids had the gumption to stick 'em. 

From what I can gather there were at least 10 other Antioch sticker/story books available (other than what I've shared on the blog that is) including 2 Garfield books, 2 Mr. Byte Presents books (which centered on early 80s computing), a couple WWF wrestling books (Hulk Hogan Wins the Belt and one for the cartoon Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling), a couple that centered around the 80s BMX and skateboarding craze, and two more in the series I'm going to share today which centers on the Mr. T cartoon…



Mr. T starring in Pirate's Gold was published in 1984 by Antioch and was part of a trilogy of books, which also included an Everglades and Wilderness adventures.  Though I'm not positive, I don't think these three book were adapted from episodes of the Ruby Spears produced cartoon (at least not from reading through the episode titles), so for anyone seriously hooked on the show there are at least three more adventures awaiting you…



Unfortunately the artwork for both the storybook and stickers wasn't culled from the cartoon.  I say unfortunately because the un-credited artist who worked on both is lacking a bit in the quality department.  Actually the artwork isn't that bad, it's just very flat in places and I think a lot of it has to do with the style they were going for.



The drawings on the title page aren't bad at all, but the interior art, which isn't just pen and ink, but rather fully painted pieces, is where it all starts falling apart for me.  I guess the artist just doesn't work well with paint…



Even though I loved Mr. T as a kid (growing up on a steady diet of the A-Team, as well as his appearances in TV shows and films like Silver Spoons and Rocky 3), I never really bought into the premise of the show.  He just doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd be coaching a team full of teenaged gymnasts. Throw the whole Scooby Doo archetype into the mix with them always solving mysteries as they travel around the country and it gets even sillier to me. I think I was also wondering why he didn't just ditch the kids, pull out a machine gun and REALLY solve some mysteries if you know what I mean.

I guess it's just the Ruby Spears touch as they were also responsible for the Rambo cartoon which is another perfect example of taking a concept that was way more for the adults and trying to shoehorn it into a cartoon for kids.  The silliest thing is that I still watched the show whenever I'd catch it on USA's Cartoon Express (along with another Ruby Spears produced favorite of mine, Turbo Teen.)

As for the story in this book, well lets just say that it's lacking a certain something.  I didn't have the heart (or the patience) to scan the whole thing, but here's a taste of what it was like…









I love that the book ends on a moral much like in the cartoon, which featured live action segments of Mr. T going over what happened in the episodes and what you could learn from them.  I know it's heavy-handed and all, but it still an aspect to growing up in the 80s that I'll always love. I guess it's the price we had to pay to get action back into cartoons…



As a last bit of trivia, while looking through the wiki entry on the Mr. T cartoon I noticed that the voice actor that played Spike (the precocious little red-haired upstart that idolized and dressed like Mr. T) was none other than Teddy Field III, the same kid who played Bobby the Barbarian on the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.  I wonder if he cared that he was typecast into this type of annoying kid role?

Though Warner Brothers announced this a couple months ago, I thought I'd go ahead and post the news about the impending release of the Silverhawks cartoon on DVD, October 14th later this year…

Like every other cartoon I loved as a kid it's been forever and a day since I've seen the show and from what I've been hearing it might not hold up all that well.  Personally I'm not worried about it holding up.  When I was a kid this is one of the shows that I was so pumped to watch in syndication after school that I memorized the theme song and would sing along at the top of my lungs when it came on.  Silverhawks was the Rankin/Bass follow up to Thundercats, and though I don't remember exact plots I do remember how much I loved the fact that nothing was off the table in terms of content.  Mark Rudolph describes this factor best in the Art & Story podcast, but the show was very Jack Kirby in this manner featuring villains and heroes that used space-aged guitars as weapons (Melodia and Bluegrass respectively), a villain with a giant tuning fork as a weather controlling weapon, and Poker-Face who has slot machines for eyes.

I always used to love it when the team of heroes would "get into battle mode" by wiping their hands in front of their face which would bring down a pretty cool looking mask.  It was a feature that was dearly missing from the action figures (though most of the Silverhawks had a function where you could squeeze their legs together or something to extend their arms out and unsheathe their wings.)  Anyway, coming from Warner Brothers the set is a little pricey ($49.99 suggested retail), but you can pre-order it from Amazon for only $29.99 right now.  The set is going to feature 32 episodes over 4 discs and should be volume one of a two volume series (as there were only 65 episodes produced.)

Also announced by Warner Brothers is the release of the second volume of the Smurfs DVDs.  They haven’t set a release date yet, but here is the packing art (swiped from TV Shows on DVD.com.)



The set should contain 20 more episodes from the series, most likely broken up into shorts to remove the repeated shorts from the previous set.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm a nut for 80s cartoons on DVD?  Yeah, okay just checking.  Anyway, it was announced today (well, announced sounds so sure, lets say that it was "put on the schedule") by Warner Brothers that Season 1, Vol. 1 of the Silverhawks cartoon will be released on DVD October 14th! 

The suggester Retail is listed at $44.98 (which I'm sure will be busted down at places like Amazon for aroun $38 or so when it goes pre-sale), which seems a little steep, but then again Warner Brothers are also the geniuses who released the Thundercats sets priced at $65 (for half a season.)  Haven't these companies learned from the mistakes Rhino Home Video made with the Sunbow properties?  Why haven't they taken a cue from BCI (who, in my humble opinion, are putting out some of the best packaged and priced sets)?

There's been some bootlegs of the Silverhawks show floating around on Amazon and eBay, but I'm glad to see it's finally getting an official release.  It's been like 20 years since I've sat down and watched an episode of the show so I'm not sure how well it holds up, but I have to say that when it was on I was an addict.  I'd rush home from school, plop down in front of the TV and sing along with the theme song (loudly if no one was around.)

I've got something a little special for this week's Peel Here, scans of a vintage sticker collection from 1985.  Why's this special you ask?  Well, these images were supplied by Shana Bilbrey, and are of her personal collection, so it's another rare occasion when I can take a look at some stickers from the 80s that I haven't been compiling and starring at for year before I get a chance to post them.  It's kind of nice to get a chance to see something new like this every once in awhile.  So anyway, thanks Shana for supplying some really nice scans of your collection.



**Update** As was pointed out in the comments and a few e-mails, the too-cute-for-words pink and white puppy that appears a in couple of the puffy stickers in the pages below is named Poochie, not Pookie. Always learing something.  Thank the gods that the kismet/karma worked in my favor and the sticker actually apologized for me...

The first thing I noticed was that these stickers are housed on an actual sticker collecting book instead of the converted photo albums that I tend to see (and had myself growing up.)  Each page, including the cover, has a television screen theme going on which is fun.  I didn't have a ton of stickers growing up (my collection was mostly Garbage Pail Kid-centric), so I was surprised by the letter themed stickers on the cover below (the ones with the animals) because I had a few stickers from this series, namely the S, H, A, and N depicted (as well as a W sticker.)  I remember the snake coiled around the S in particular as I had a little bit of a snake fetish growing up in Florida.  My mom is terrified of them and she was constantly warning me about the pond behind our house in Tampa.  Anyway, I think it's one heck of a bit of luck that Shana and I share the same letters in our first names because now I can revisit these stickers.  I'm not sure of the company that produced them, but I remember getting mine off of a huge spinner rack filled with rolls of stickers that you'd tear off and purchase individually (which is in the Lisa Frank/Mrs. Grossman/Sandylion sort of territory.)



Anyway, there's a really nice mixture of styles, brands and properties in this collection, which you can already see on the cover (Hallmark Thanksgiving, Garfield, Heathcliff, My Little Pony puffy stickers, as well as what I believe is a puffy sticker from one of the Pink Panther shows, as well as the large bumper sticker with a cartoon cat that I recognize but can’t name for the life of me.)  Heck, there's even a knock-off Michael Jackson sequined glove prism sticker.

On the back cover we can see that this sticker book was produced by Hallmark, and there's even more brands and styles including a puffy googlie eyed mouse, some Garfield scratch-n-sniffs, some Smurfs stickers as well as what looks like a Hallmark "Create You Own" style sticker featuring a cartoon dog.  It reminds me of a similar set of stickers I shared last Halloween.



You know, if there's one aspect of pop culture that I wasn't really hip to during the 80s it was probably music.  As a young kid I only had ears for Michael Jackson, the Monkees, the Beach Boys, and Weird Al, and then later on it was pretty much only Metallica, Megadeth, and weirdly enough Poison and Motley Crue (as a 10 year-old.)  As far as the whole pop and new wave deal, I totally missed out.  I remember getting into viscious arguments with my best friend's older sister about the validity of bands like Duran Duran and U2 (which led to the awkward shouting match, Me: "Well, U2 sucks!", Her: "U2!")  I remember trying to follow the stuff my sister was into, Christopher Cross, Prince, Cheap Trick, Madonna, and Rick Springfield, but it was all too much for my addled little brain.  So it's pretty interesting, at least to me, to see stickers for groups like Huey Lewis and the News, the Thompson Twins, and Wham in Shana's sticker book right along side her Mrs. Pac-Man, root beer scented teddy bears, and Care Bear stickers.

Again, thinking about the whole sticker-collecting boom in the 80s, this is the sort of thing that I find so fascinating.  Stickers are the perfect bits of advertising (portable and fun), and as far as inadvertently chronicling a period in pop culture history a sticker book is just an amazing and potentially comprehensive look into the past.



If there's one constant in Shana's book, it's certainly cat stickers.  The ones on the bottom of the page below I would have to assume are Lisa Frank (at least they have that airbrushed multi-colored, yet heavy on the purple and pink look of LF products.)  Shana also had some very diverse tastes in terms of sticker styles, with plenty of puffy, fun die-cut shaped, glitter, scratch and sniff, prism, foil, and hologram stickers.



As a another great sign of the style of the 80s, are the City Cats stickers on the below page (including odd geometric shapes, loud colors, and plenty of music references.)  I also dig the lone electrified cat sticker (Halloween perhaps?)



This next page has a nice gamut of holidays represented, from Easter, and Christmas to Valentine's day (not to mention two huge properties Peanuts and Heathcliff.)



The first thing that jumped out at me on this next page was the one lone Christmas present tag sticker which just reinforces my opinion that anything, no matter what it looked like or was for functionally, was fair game as long as it was a sticker (like my meager collection of produce stickers that I had growing up.)  There's also some nifty Marilynn Monroe stickers here, as well as some fun international cat stickers (the geisha being my favorite.)



On the page below there is a pretty cool glow in the dark Snorks sticker. I've managed to find a couple of Snorks prism stickers, but have yet to see any glowing ones.  That's a nice glittery Smurfette too.



Here's a nice page of varied puffy stickers.  I really dig the Kool-Aid stickers.  I was never allowed to drink it as a kid and thus developed a need to have it whenever I was at friend's houses, and since have always been a fan of the product.  I believe that cute cartoon dog was called Pookie, but I'm not positive.  There's also the rest of the stickers from the Pink Panther set.







Yup, Shana definitely likes her cats (only joshing with ya Shana, it's cool to see your childhood interest reflected in the collection as it makes it very personal.)



Take a gander at that awesome banana scratch and sniff sticker on the middle right.  I believe Shana said this was her favorite sticker, and I have to admit, it's pretty darn awesome, if not a little bit disturbing.  A sexy banana doing a nutritious strip tease is enough to stop me dead in my tracks I'll tell you what…







I of course love the inclusion of the Halloween stickers at the end here. I'm really digging the artwork on the Devil and that wolfman.



Well this is it for this sticker book.  There is one more in this series though, which I'll hopefully convince Shana to share soon.

Work has been really kicking my butt lately so I won't be able to get to the next TV Guide installment just yet, but hopefully I'll be able to start working on it this weekend.  I also wanted to throw out a reminder that I'll be attending the Wizard World Chicago Con at the end of this month (June 26-29th.)  I'll be located in the Artist Alley (where ever that will be), so if you're in the Chicago area, come by and chat a little.  I'll also have copies of my mini magazine available for purchase soon on the site, details to follow…

I finally got a chance this past weekend to see five guys that have had the most influence over my sense of humor and worldly outlook, the Kids in the Hall.  My mom introduced me to KITH right around the time they really got going with their show on HBO back in 1990, which just happened to coincide with a lot of changes in my life.  I just turned 12 and was leaving the southeast (having spent my life to that point in central Florida) to move up north (and getting to see snow for the first time), not to mention all the rigmarole that comes with moving up into middle school and becoming a teenager.  Up until that point my reference for comedy didn't stray much past John Candy, Tom Hanks, and the Amazing Spider-Ham (with a dash of MAD and Cracked magazines.)  I totally missed out on Monty Python up until then, and my exposure to the classic SNL skits was limited by the crappy heavily edited rerun specials that would air late at night on the weekends, so I didn't really have all that much exposure to sketch comedy.  Well, that's not true per-se, I did watch more than my share of You Can't Do That on Television and Out of Control on Nickelodeon.  Anyway, pointless story short, I love the Kids in the Hall and I finally got a chance to see them live at the Cobb Energy Center in Atlanta on 5/24/2008…



Before I get to the rest of this post, I wanted to give a shout out to Melanie McDermott who took all of the pictures below.  I never think to bring a camera to live events (always afraid it's going to get confiscated), and I stumbled upon her KITH pictures on her Flickr feed this past week.  I love it when I can get my hands on photos from the exact concerts I've attended, as I'm a pretty big archiver and well obviously a nostalgia whore.  You can see a lot more of photos from the 5/24 event in her KITH gallery.

I had no idea what to expect as I've only seen one comedy act, and never gotten a chance to see sketch comedy live.  After opening with a short pre-recorded bit (which was freaking hilarious and totally set the tone for the rest of the evening), the Kids burst out on the stage and it was pretty darn crazy.  I don't tend to get star-struck all that easily, especially after years of attending comic conventions and getting ample opportunity to see a lot of my childhood heroes from TV and the silver screen, but it still put a lump in my throat to see Dave, Kevin, Bruce, Mark and Scott race out onto the stage.

 



 

My only wish going into the show was that we'd get a monologue from Bruce (which we didn't), but my wife got a chance to see him and Scott bring the Cathy's to life, as well as seeing Scott's Buddy Cole character do a monologue.



All in all my favorite sketches are probably the ones Dave and Kevin write and play out together.  In probably the funniest moment of the night there was a little back and fourth between the two involving a prank on Dave by Kevin (an in-joke involving Dave's jacket) that broke the fourth wall a bit and for me made for some great ad libbing and vamping.  I thought it was really cool to see behind the curtain a bit, and it was obvious that they were really enjoying themselves which is always a plus.



The capper to the night was Mark performing as Mr. Tyzik doing his whole head-crushing bit, but in a very interesting way.  Mark brought out a video camera and shot the audience while he did his sketch and he used a large video screen behind him to get the whole head between the fingers deal across.  It was great when he got an uber fan in his sites (a dude who too the time to construct and wear a cabbage head toupee) and they had a little tête-à-tête (the fan using the patented head-crushing parry.)



It all ended with Mark's Tyzik picking off the rest of the Kids, one by one and insulting them on their post-KITH work, and then crushing their heads before he ultimately turned the camera and his fingers on himself.  I don't think I'll experience quite the same rush ever again, not at least unless science finds a way to reanimate Graham Chapman's body so he can perform with the surviving members of Monty Python.

I can't believe that I completely forgot about the upcoming DVD release of the Richie Rich/Scooby Doo Hour coming out on May 20th.  Of all the cartoons I watched as a kid, Richie Rich is one of the shows that I really associate with Saturday Mornings because I don't remember ever seeing it in syndication later on during the weekdays or on cable.  Though it's been forever and a day since I've had the opportunity to sit down and watch any episodes I can still vividly hear all the characters in my head as well as picture my favorite character, Irona the robot maid.  The show featured the voice talents of Frank Welker, Nancy Cartwright, and Joan Gerber (Mrs. Beakley on DuckTales), as well as Mark Evanier as one of the story editors.

It was paired up with probably the most unpopular version of the Scooby Doo cartoon (which was sans Fred, Velma, and Daphnie, and featured a whole bunch of Scrappy Doo) when it initially ran from 1980-1981, and then it joined the Pac-Man and the Little Rascals cartoons from '82-'84.  Unfortunately the set coming out is only listed as having 7 episodes of the series (it's titled the Complete Series Vol. 1), but there were actually 61 episodes.  I'm not sure if the 7 episodes contain multiple shorts (I'm guessing the 61 episodes of the series are actually shorts), or if there is going to be like 9 volumes in the eventual set of DVDs.  The Warner Bros./Hanna Barbera sets that have been hitting shelves recently have been very sparse, episode count-wise, so I'm afraid it might be the latter.

**Update**  The 7 episode Richie Rich/Scooby Doo set is in fact 7 collections of shorts.  There are 21 RR shorts in the set, and 21 Scooby Doo (without much of the gang, but including Scrappy) shorts.  With that in mind there should be another 2 volumes of DVDs eventually (I guess hinging on this set selling well.)  I just picked my copy up today and I can't wait to get home and watch some of these again after 27 years...

Anyway, I'm just glad the show is finally hitting DVD.  It's available for pre-order through Amazon.com right now for $20.

I also updated the complete list of 80s cartoons on DVD with the upcoming release of the Complete Galaxy High set (which is available for pre-order for the awesome price of $13!)

Holy crap!  I thought I was done updating the 'Complete list of 80s cartoons on DVD', but today while in the grocery store picking up some lunch I spotted the above DVD on the discount rack by the checkout.  I did not realize that the 1986 Rambo and the Force of Freedom cartoon (produced by Ruby Spears) had made it to DVD, 3 years ago no less.  Even though it was volume 4 and a single disc release I couldn't help myself so I picked up the only copy left on the rack and was excited enough to whistle a little on my way out.  When I got back to work I took a quick detour to Amazon and found out that all 65 episodes of the series were released in 2005 by Lion's Gate over 6 individual discs.

Normally this would irk me a bit as I'm not a fan of single disc releases, but these are that bad considering each one has 11 episodes (vol. 6 has ten) and they're modestly priced at about $6 a disc.  That's about $20 for the equivalent of a 33-episode set, not bad.  My main gripe about these DVDs are that the episodes are presented wildly out of order, though like most 80s action cartoons there is little to no continuity so I'm sure the episode order doesn’t matter all that much.  Also, even though it's cool that there are 11 episodes per disc, I'd be willing to bet this has hampered their quality a bit.  Oh well.

All in all I'm really excited to have found these episodes as I never saw the show in it's original run (I was more of a G.I. Joe loyalist when it came to military cartoons I suppose.)  Can't wait to get home and pop this disc in…

  

  

Also, since I'm updating the list of cartoons anyway I thought I'd throw out a shout out to the release of the Lone Ranger and Zorro Volume 2 which should hit store shelves July 15th…

I'm back this week with the fourth installment of this series on vintage TV Guide fall Preview issues.  As I've explained in the previous posts, though I generally talk mostly about the 80s, I have a weird preoccupation with the Quantum Leap time travel theory, so I decided to include the '77-79 issues as well.  So this week we're going to take a look at the highlights from 1978.  By the time this issue hit newsstands and grocery store checkout lanes I think my parents had just moved into a house in Austin and were ready to stop referring to my age in months.  I'm sure I was still completely unaware of TV in general, probably spending more time on trying to grasp, walk and understand one-syllable words, you know all the basic fundamentals for an enjoyable TV watching experience…

    

As has been the case, the first chuck of the TV Guide is mostly ads, like the obligatory Toyota one above.  What I found interesting in this issue was the sort of sloppy, left-field-ness of the ads.  Take for instance the Anacin ad opposite the Corolla one.  Where is the word Anacin?  In the small print.  Weird.  You'd think it'd be in big block letters over that disturbingly moster/robot looking 'medical' pain diagram.  Heck, you'd think there'd at least be a picture of the pill bottle down at the bottom.  The other ad that really got to me was the one for Vantage cigarettes on the next page featuring a very Photoshop filtered looking image of a one Vince Dougherty (who looks like the lovechild of Kevin Nealon and Tom Snyder.)  I guess this got to me because I'll be honest, I can't figure out who the guy is and why he's telling me all about Vantage giving him the good taste and low tar he desires.  After googling him I came up with a Vince Dougherty that is a member of the Pennsylvania government (which corroborates the ad location), but makes me wonder if he was paid off by the tobacco company to back their brand.  Again, weird, especially set against the article on the new fall lineup of cartoons and children's programming on the facing page.

Back on a more normal level is the great Zenith System 3 television ad up next.  Why doesn't anyone make a TV that feels like a piece of furniture anymore?  That's the kind of setup that can really tie a room together (design and flow-wise.)

One awesome aspect to flipping through these old TV Guides is seeing all of the shows that either didn't make it very long or featured familiar stars on the rise.  The preview for Apple Pie stuck out for me because it starred Dabney Coleman (who I fell in love with after repeatedly watching him help out Henry Thomas as a secret agent in Cloak and Dagger, and terrorize Dolly Parton, Lilly Tomlin, and Jane Fonda in 9 to 5 as a kid), but it wasn't until I took a closer look that I realized the lady in the picture is Rue McClanahan from the Golden Girls.  I'm so used to seeing her a little older that I totally didn't recognize her.

    

It was also pretty cool to see Pricilla Barnes in the Preview for The American Girls making her first big jump from guest starring on a bunch of shows to starring in one of her own (that is before she replaced Suzanne Somers on Three's Company.)  She was one of those actors that I never really put a name to the face until I saw her in Mallrats (playing the topless fortune teller with three nipples) and then in her very disturbing turn in Rob Zombie's the Devil's Rejects (probably the most uncomfortable I've ever felt watching an actress on screen ever.)

Also, I'd like to reiterate just how much I love illustrations in ads, even airbrushed work like in the Right Guard advertisement above.  I wonder where the artwork for that piece is right now?  Probably in a landfill or something, which I think is a shame because it would make a nice piece of pop art.

Up next we've got a preview for a show that I've surprisingly never seen, the original Battlestar Galactica.  Of course it's making a resurgence these days, what with the uber popular reinvisioning that all of the geeks are aflutter about (and yet another show I haven't seen.)  Coming on the heels of the Star Wars explosion, the show (much like Buck Rogers) seemed like it was reaching for something it couldn't quite provide yet (at least not on a TV budget.)  I'm honestly surprised at myself for never taking the time to watch the show as I'm really into 70s sci-fi and Dirk Benedict.  My only real connection to BG were the toys that I saw floating around in the various comic book shops I frequented in the late 80s.  It's also the second time I've thought about Lorne Greene this week after reading about an awesome Bonanza View Master reel that he helped to goof up for the kids back in the day (in an article written by Brian Heiler of Plaid Stallions.)

At first blush I was going to pass up scanning the preview for Mary, but after reading the description I was intrigued.  It wasn't the toned-down, sketch-comedy approach Mary Tyler Moore was going to take at a variety show, but the cast she had lined up to help her out.  Along with some names I don't immediately recognize are Swoozie Kurtz, David Letterman, and Michael Keaton.  Really!?!  I'm dying to see this now as I've always wondered where Michael Keaton learned to hone his genius comic timing.  I didn't think he did stand-up (though you never know), and this would go a long way to explaining it.

Again, as I've mentioned before, I love these old TV Guides because of the wealth of Saturday Morning Cartoon ads they have crammed in them.  Above is the '78 ABC line-up featuring the debut of the Laff-A-Lympics, Challenge of the Superfriends, and Fangface.  Below is a really nice CBS ad featuring some cartoons I've never heard of like Web Woman, Micro Woman and Superstretch (though I have a sneaking suspicion that they're all part of the Space Sentinels cartoon.)  There's also Jason of Star Command, another 70s sci-fi show I've yet to see (but I'm actually excited about as it's a spin-off of Space Academy, which seems 10 times more action packed not to mention starring the one and only Sid Haig, also of Devil's Rejects fame.)

    

Rounding out the cartoon ads is the novel approach by NBC, which made advertising into a board game for the kids.  It's probably the worst board game in the history of the format, but nonetheless it's still interesting.  I've always been curious about the Godzilla cartoon, as it seems like such an odd character for a cartoon series (on the other hand, live action with a man in a suit is no problem.)  Same goes for the Fantastic Four cartoon, which eschewed Johnny Storm in favor of a robot sidekick.

The spot illustration on Us Against the World II is kind of cool if only because it's a prime example of the quick ad drawings done by Jack Davis in the 70s.  From the stories I've read, he'd whip out stuff like this in minutes all day long, getting the work of practically an entire agency's staff done in a day.

Now if there was one show that my parents never missed it was 20/20.  Growing up this was the one show that my parents never argued over, and it always signaled my bedtime as it tended to come on later in the evening during the 80s.  It also signaled the end of a lot of boyhood debauchery and fun as they always seemed to be right on top of the latest dangerous fads, dishing out the possible consequences to my parents before I even had a chance to try and convince them I was capable of handing what ever it was.  I can vividly remember agonizing over asking my parents for some nunchucks and a couple of Chinese throwing stars, and then completely dropping the idea when I walked in on them watching an expose on the dangers of these exact things.  I also never realized that Carl Sagan was a correspondent in its original incarnation.  I wonder if he and Geraldo ever did any stories together, like unlocking the hidden secrets of the universe (only to find a lot of concrete and nothing much of interest…)

    

This issue also contains the premiere and preview of Mork & Mindy (which has been finally getting more DVDs released) and Taxi, as well as the preview of WKRP in Cincinnati.  This reminds me of the review I did this time last year for the truncated WKRP DVD set that came out.  Though I still enjoyed getting a chance to watch the first season, I still wonder what it was like to watch it first run getting all of the original music, and in turn understanding some of the jokes a little more.

Walking right in step with the rest of the weird advertising in this issue is an ad for the Sunbeam Coney Island Steamer (being hawked by none other than Shirley Jones.)  Honestly, I'm not sure if I can think of a more useless and depressing appliance than a hotdog steamer, which only cooks 1-2 hotdogs at a time.  Talk about wasting precious counter space in the kitchen.  I'm going to have to side with Alton Brown when it comes to appliances like this; if you can't use it for ten other things, ditch it.

    

I'm pretty much unfamiliar with the rest of the previewed shows in this issue, though I recognize a lot of the stars (like Connie Sellecca, who would go on to star in the Greatest American Hero, or Scott Baio taking a break in between Happy Days and Joni Love Chachi.)  Coming off of his guest starring role in Soap yet before he was Spenser for Hire, Robert Urich was Det. Dan Tanna in Vega$, and after becoming a football legend Joe Namath tried his hand at acting in the Waverly Wonders.  All in all this was a really fun issue to peruse.

I'll be back next week with the 1982 issue (I still haven't found a copy of the '79 issue that isn't insanely priced on eBay.)

Well, I did a little bit of website maintenance this past weekend, most of which is geared towards making it easier to browse the archives.  Well actually particular portions of the archives like the Saturday Morning Cartoon ads and the podcasts I've out up.  I whipped up a couple new banners (which I've placed on the sidebar to the right) so the majority of my Essential stuff and columns (Hostess Ads, Cartoon Commentary!, Peel Here, Saturday Morning Cartoon Ads, TV Guide, etc.) are now more accessible.

While doing this I remembered that I actually found a new SMC ad from the 80s (which browsing through junk comics a couple months ago), so I thought I'd go ahead and post it here…



The ad is for the 1987 cartoon lineup in NBC Saturday mornings and featured some long running shows like Alvin and the Chipmunks, ALF, Foofur, the Gummi Bears, and the Smurfs as well as the cartoon incarnation of Fraggle Rock, and the New Archies cartoon.  It's basically in keeping with the style the NBC ads were taking since around 1985 or so and featured characters from these cartoons mingling with each other which I think is a pretty fun way of illustrating the lineup.  I also dig the half drawing of Don Johnson to the right.  Now why wasn't there an animated Miami Vice?

I'm glad I found this one because it helps to plug the three-year gap between the '86 and '89 ads in my collection.  Again, if there's anyone out there that knows of any ads (in particular ABC and CBS) from the late 80s please drop me a line via e-mail or you can leave a comment on the blog.  Pretty soon, after I've completed sharing my collection of vintage TV Guide Fall Preview issues, I'll go ahead and gather up all of the black and white cartoon ads for yet another Essential list.

Well, I finally got around to throwing a banner together for these TV Guide posts.  Makes it seem more official I guess.  Anyway, I was planning on getting to the 1982 Fall Preview issue, but I received the '77 and '78 editions in the mail this week, so I think I'll go ahead and get to them first.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I sort of have this odd Quantum Leap-centric idea about the time period I want to cover on this site (nostalgia and ephemera-wise that is.)  I like the idea of covering stuff that has taken place over my own lifetime, much in the way Sam could only leap (time travel for all those non-initiated Quantum Leapers out there) throughout the timeline of his own life.  Honestly, I think this was a coy way that the writers could keep the show relevant for the viewing audience's experiences, straying away from the idea of leaping into medieval or prehistoric times for instance.  It provides a bit of grounding I guess.  Anyway, it worked well for that show, and I think it'll do for me as well.

So with that in mind, I present the highlights from the 1977 TV Guide Fall Preview issue.  Again, the first thing I noticed about this issue (like the 1980 issue) is that the digest itself was folded and stapled instead of being perfect bound like a book.  This makes for very difficult scanning; well difficult while trying not to destroy the issue as well as trying to keep relevant pages together.

    

Also, as I've been noticing with these older issues of the Guide, most of the advertising is set aside for cigarettes and booze, but there are a few other odds and ends that are interesting.  I didn't realize that there was a deluxe version of Kraft Mac & Cheese available in the 70s.  Mainly I subsisted on ramen during my college days, but every once in awhile as a treat I'd pick up the deluxe Mac & Cheese dinner (in particular the one with bacon bits included, you know to simulate eating something a little more substantial.)  At first glance I thought the plated dinner in the ad looked a little weird with the two strips of bacon and the paltry makings of a BLT on the side of the plate, but right now it actually sounds pretty good.  I do have to say that it throws off the illusion of a quick and easy dinner though; I mean if you're going to fry up some bacon and slice a tomato, why not go ahead and cook?

I also dug the heck out of the Quaker Oats cookies ad.  First off I really love spot illustrations in ad work, especially when it's quality like this (are those watercolors?)  But I also love it when the company mascot is front and center without just using the familiar iconographic image (like the Quaker man on the boxes in the coupon.)  It's kind of interesting (and a little weird maybe) to see Quaker man fishing with some kid and his dog while enjoying a picnic of cookies and what I can only hope is milk in that thermos.  It's kind of nice to think that Quaker man enjoys relaxing in his off time with hobbies like this, though I think in this modern world it's a little creepy that he's off alone with a strange kid.  Heck, maybe it's his nephew or grandson, but then for continuity's sake I'd like to see the kid in a Quaker outfit as well.  Also, who developed the crosshatching pattern for peanut butter cookies anyway?  My mom always stuck to this tradition when baking them for our family when I was younger.

The Toyota Celica ad is kind of cool too.  I like that the designers were trying to ape the look and feel of a Mustang with the liftback version of the Celica.  Making them feel a little more American I guess.  Did you realize that car is 'hot'?  On the other hand we have what I believe to be one of the most annoying ads I've seen in a long time (barring TV and radio that is) for the Vivatar 603 pocket camera.  I get that the ad guys were trying to visually put a spin on the idea of other brands offering only 'half a camera' because the new Vivatar offers a build in flash, but because they cut the ad in half and shuffled with around like that on the page it's just annoying to read.

    

As far as the previews go for 1977, there sure are some whoppers as well as some weird ones.  Above we have a preview for a show called Operation Petticoat (based on a movie of the same name) starring John Astin and Jamie Lee Curtis.  I think it's kind of weird to have a sitcom set aboard the claustrophobic confines of a submarine (in particular with the main crux of the story surrounding the sexual tension of the crew vs. a bunch of military nurses that they are transporting.)  After doing a little research though it looks like this was truly a vehicle for John Astin as he directed the first few episodes as well as starred as the sub's captain.  I'm not sure how well the show did though as it only lasted for a season and a half, not to mention that Astin and Curtis jumped ship after the first season.

'77 was a very nautical year as the Love Boat also launched from port.  Growing up there were two shows that it seemed like my sister never missed, Love Boat and Fantasy Island, so I caught my fare share of episodes while hanging out with her.  Looking back, the concept of the show was just marketing genius.  Having the majority of the stories surrounding the plethora of guest stars that came aboard each show is almost a way of having sweeps episodes year round.  I wish the studios weren't being so stingy with the DVDs that finally came out this year though (only releasing half a season of a 31 year-old show and charging full season rates is absolutely piratanical I tells ya.)

The TV set in the ad adjacent to the Love Boat preview looks a hell of a lot like the TV my family had until I turned sixteen.  Same faux-wood box, and channel tuners.  I wonder if TVs are being built that can last 16 years like these old monsters did?  I doubt it.

I absolutely love the Camel ad in this issue.  It screams action, adventure, and maybe a little James Bond, though only if an actor that looked like a cross between Tom Selleck and Patrick Duffy played Bond.  I'm as interested as that bikini-clad assistant and the bearded seaman in what Camel man has found in the depths of the sea!  I am seriously considering picking up smoking now…

With these older TV guides I've certainly hit the Saturday Morning cartoon ad jackpot as all three major networks make a showing.  Above we have the line-ups for NBC and CBS including shows like The Adventures of Muhammad Ali, the New Archies and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Space Academy.  I really dig the illustration done for the Space Academy show as it makes it seem ten thousand times more thrilling and action packed than the actual Filmation show was.  It is kind of odd that the CBS ad is a truncated version of the ad they ran in comic books at the time (which you can see here in this post I did awhile back), and it really shows in how poorly it was translated to the digest size format of the TV Guide.  It's also sort of weird because the times the shows are listed to air are different.  It raises a question about whether comic book printings used to feature regional ads or if this was just a mistake.  I can see the line-ups jumbling around from city to city, so the different TV Guides might have slightly different ads, but I always figured comic books were distributed country wide with the same ads.  Anyone out there know?

    

Rounding out the cartoon ads is this beauty from ABC featuring one of my all time favorite shows, the Hanna Barbera Laff-A-Lympics.  I never seemed to catch this show at home when it aired in re-runs, but I swear, every single time my family was out of town or on the road it seemed like the only cartoon that I'd find on TV in the various motels we'd stay at.  It brings back a lot of fond memories of waking up to the show, and then off to the complimentary Ho-Jo's continental breakfast.  I could so go for some plain scrambled eggs, bacon, and corn flakes while watching Blue Falcon and Dynomutt face off against Yogi Bear and Quick Draw McGraw in a battle of river rafting right about now.  Also, I totally missed out on everything Kroft while growing up and I am dying to see the adventures of Bigfoot and Wildboy…

One of the best parts in picking up these old TV Guides is getting a feel for what a week in the life of a 1977 TV viewer was like.  I get a little of this watching shows like Freaks and Geeks (hearing Sam, Bill, and Eli pontificate on catching the latest Three's Company, Welcome Back Kotter, and Bionic Woman episodes), but it's really neat to see it for myself in an artifact like this.  Again, I put out a plea to studios everywhere, get over your stupid money grubbing rights issues and put some of these shows out on DVD!  I need to see Jamie Sommers and her bionic dog fight crime.  At least they finally started releasing decent sets of shows like Welcome Back Kotter (instead of the pointless 4-episode best of discs.)  The following page is just as exciting as the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew face off against Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein, while later on in the evening the Bionic Man is captured by Killer Sharks!  You never see stuff like this anymore.  When was the last time Meredith was captured by sharks on Grey's Anatomy?  When was the last time a bionic dog was introduced into a show's cast?  Makes me miss shows like Buffy as it was about the closest we got to stuff like this…

There was also an ad for an odd show called Lucan about a boy raised by wolves.  At first blush I figured this was a werewolf show, but I think it's more of a raised by animals deal.  I guess they should have thought twice before using the dripping blood font which just confused and unnecessarily excited me.


    

I thought it was interesting that the editors at TV Guide were keen on getting feedback from viewers in the premiere of CHiPs, going so far as to provide a little mail in coupon.  I wonder why this show and not all of them?  Were they being paid by NBC to facilitate it?  Well if I could have at the time, I so would have written "Heck Yeah!" on the back and sent it in.  I talked about my love for this show when I shared my set of CHiPs sticker cards a while back.  I can’t wait to pick up the second season…

I was surprised to see an ad for the network premiere of the Making of Star Wars so soon after it hit theaters.  I'd have to say that for once, a crazy claim on an ad has actually stood the test of time as well.  I'd be willing to wager that Star Wars still holds the title as the most popular movie of all time.  I also thought it was cool to see an ad for the season opener of Wonder Woman which boasts the jump in time from the 40s to a modern setting.  I watched my fare share of this show in re-runs growing up and it never dawned on me that it was originally set during WWII.  Shows how on-the-ball I was as a kid.  Oh and lets all make sure not to miss the Muppet show (I really liked that the original owner of this issue circled all the shows they wanted to make sure not to miss.)

Much like my infatuation with the Rodeo Girl TV movie from the last post I made, I am now equally as intrigued by the disturbing ad for Curse of the Black Widow.  I am so speechless.  A spider-woman with huge boobs and creepy human appendages!  Wow!  I bet it has nothing to do with gigantic female spiders, but if it does, please somebody get me a copy of this film…

There's also another, much better though just as small, ad for Sha-Na-Na in this issue.  Again, what was the draw of 50s nostalgia during the 70s and 80s?  I guess it's no different than my current 80s obsession.  Also, on the facing page, what’s up with that weirdly sincere cigarette ad that's playing off of a cover of the Saturday Evening Post?

    

There were a lot of cool shows starting up in 1977, but the one I've probably watched the most of over the years is Soap.  My mom introduced me to this sitcom when we'd both stay up late on the weekends during the late 80s and 90s watching Soap in syndication.  I was hooked on all of the spoofy storylines and loved seeing all the actors who I knew from their later work in this earlier hilarious show.  I'm pretty sure I even watched its spin-off, Benson, before I realized that this show existed.

 

Last but not least we have a couple of previews for some more sci-fi oriented shows that debuted in '77, The Man From Atlantis and the TV version of Logan's Run.  Though I doubt it's as cool as I'm making it out in my head, I would really like to see TMFA as I've always been curious about the idea of a live action version of either Namor or Aquaman (though I'm completely un-interested in the pilot to the show that they tried to pawn off on us last year.)  Before Dallas and Step By Step, Patrick Duffy sported webbed hands and feet in four TV movies and finally this show, battling mad scientists and criminals.  Who'd of thunk it.  Also, on a totally unrelated note, I just realized that all of the preview pictures in this issue have a spotlight shining on the stars.  Nice design touch TV Guide...

Next week I'll be back, most assuredly with the '78 issue of the TV Guide Fall Preview…

*Update*  As you can see the banner is done.

I was thinking again about the dates on the lot of vintage issues I picked up a while ago, and like most wonderings I have concerning stuff on the site, I always seems to come back to that time travel concept from Quantum Leap where Sam can only leap around in his own timeline.  Last week for instance, I didn't have a whole lot of specific memories about the shows (or whatnot) in the preview issue because I was only four years-old at the time, spending most of my waking hours in front of cartoons or Tonka trucks.  But I kept thinking about it and I decided that this series of posts wouldn't feel complete until I found the issues from '77-'80, so I jumped on eBay and picked up a cheap copy of the 1980 Fall Preview issue, (and am currently bidding on the others I'll need.)

This first thing that jumped out at me when I received this issue in the mail, was that it had different binding that the rest of the issues I have (and am used to.)  Instead of being perfect-bound with glue, it's folded and stapled like a comic book, except it's like 3 million pages long so I have no idea how these things ended up staying so neatly folded.  If nothing else, it made the job of scanning in pages without destroying the copy very difficult, and in some places the images are a little blurry on the sides where the magazine wasn't pressed up close enough to the glass on the scanner.

    

For some reason the 2-page Marlboro spread on the inside front cover made me laugh a little.  I guess it's because that cowpoke is carrying an entire carton of cigarettes. I guess he just hit the local smoke-n-feed store while riding.  I also noticed that his belt buckle has a nice picture of a Midwest vista on it.  I bet the other cowboys are jealous.  Actually, this reminds me of another weird aspect to these old TV Guides, they're practically packed with only ads for cigarettes and booze.  Not being a smoker myself (or really a drinker for that matter), it's kind of weird to see so much advertising space taken up by tobacco and liquor companies.  I guess it says something about the Guide's target audience as well.

On the other hand, there are a couple of ads that I'm all about.  Take that Vivarin ad above.  I remember my mom used to eat Vivarin like candy, and when I got into middle school she used to cut one in half most mornings and give it to me with my breakfast to wake me up.  I was one of those foot-draggers when it came to getting up for school.  If I didn't have my little yellow pill, a bowl of hot soup and an episode of Woody Woodpecker or the Little Rascals playing in the background there was no way I was going to get up.  I had to stop taking these in college when I found myself working 50 hours a week (nights), while trying to take three classes in the mornings on weekdays.  I was up to two Vivarin and a 24 oz. Mountain Dew each morning, which was just way too much caffeine for my system.  Thank god it's not habit-forming…

That Toyota ad also cracked me up a little.  When are advertising agencies not extolling the virtues of 'more room for leggy drivers', and percentage benefits for new aerodynamic stylings?  Heck by now you'd think we'd be driving the equivalent of the spaceship from Flight of the Navigator.  Come to think of it, I could so use a roving mechanical eye on a hydraulic arm with the voice of Pee Wee Herman helping me to drive my car.  Who needs GPS when you have that handy?

There's also an interesting bit on the actor's strike of 1980 that feels totally relevant to the writer's strike we just went through (and possible actor's strike approaching.)  Even though they couldn't print concrete premier dates, TV Guide still had the chutzpah to run with the preview issue.  It's very 1930s newpapermenly of them. 

Last up in these first five scans we also have a K-Mart ad for one heck of a crazy audio set-up.  It's a five-in-one system with a stereo, turn table, dual cassette decks, 8-Track player, and even comes with two microphones, speakers and a nice looking set of headphones.  Crazy.  I think I could actually use something like this now, well if it had a usb port that is.  It's make for one heck of a podcasting unit with built in vintage vintage audio media capabilities.

    

Above we have five of the new shows premiering in 1980 including a television adaptation of the film Breaking Away, Hill Street Blues (another 80s staple that I have never seen a single episode of), a drama starring Lorenzo Lamas & Linda Hamilton (which is advertised for those who love soap operas but are sick of Dallas), a goofy looking buddy cop show starring Hector Elizondo, and a show that had me terribly excited until I realized that it was a non-fiction animal expose show.  I mean c'mon, look at that picture!  Priscilla Presley, Burgess Meredith and a chimp?  Why wasn't this the TV adaptation of Every Which Way but Loose (Burgess can so pulled off a wizened old Clint Eastwood)?

    

On of the aspects to these older TV Guides that I've really fallen for is all of the illustration work in the advertising.  This is something that I've taken for granted for years and it's been only recently that I've really started to miss this type of practice.  The fringes of pop culture, in particular advertising, is always going to shift with technology towards the fastest, flashiest way of getting people to notice their products which means ditching illustration work for more Photoshoped or CGI fare.  It just looks more modern which is what people tend to respond to.  In particular I noticed this trend recently when General Mills reused some vintage packaging on Honey Nut Cheerios and Lucky Charms.  The characters looked so much more appealing to me at first blush, and I think a lot of that has to do with them not looking so slick.

Anyway, a lot of the interior advertising in this TV Guide (be it the more random products or the show adverts) features illustration work that I'm really digging.  For instance the Kraft ad above that has artwork that looks like it was ripped from the pages of Highlights magazine.  On a side note, I distinctly remember my mother trying to hook me on veggies with some sort of sour cream based dip for after school snacks (doing her best to wean me off of Chef Boyardee or a bowl full of Cheez-Its), and now that I think back on it I'm kind of glad I didn't go that route.  One serving of that dip above probably had half of the daily recommended fat, 90% of which is saturated, which would turn eating veggies into the equivalent of eating large hunks of cheese wrapped in bacon and deep-fried.

There's also a nice piece of advertising from the network premiere of Foul Play (with a little more Burgess Meredith), as well as a small advert for an episode of That's Incredible, a show I remember watching all the time, though I don't have an specific memories of episodes.  Next up there's a small ad from the show Kids are People Too featuring the young Jodie Foster and Matt Dillion.  I don't remember this show, but I'm curious.  I suppose it was like a daytime talk show aimed at teenagers?

Last in this set is a horribly misleading ad for the ultimate in sweat suit technology, the Second Skin, the space age slenderizer.  The ad boasts the loss of five pounds in as many minutes, and getting rid of five inches from your unsightly waist in as many hours.  The basic premise is like having a self-contained sauna in a metallic looking rubber body suit.  I'm sad to say that I witnessed the use of one of these suits first hand.  My father was always on the heavy side while I was growing up, and he was always trying to do his best exercise-wise.  He'd jog and hike, but he never seemed to loose any weight and at one point he invested in some variation of one of these suits.  I remember he'd go out jogging in it and then about 15 minutes later he'd come back into the house all winded and reeking of sweat.  I'd always find the thing draped over the bathroom shower bar totally drenched.  Shudder.

    

Also in this issue there's a fun little ad for a Dukes of Hazzard movie, which I think is just a two-part episode aired back to back (though I'm not positive.)  It's kind of fun to see an ad that doesn't feature the General Lee prominently front and center.  There's also a great ad for a movie I'm now dying to see, Rodeo Girl.  Cow roping action mixed with the potential for soap opera-esque baby loosing drama is one heck of hook in my opinion.  It's like Lifetime and the original TNN got together and did a movie of the week.

    

If you'd asked me last week if Ted Danson had a starring role in a futuristic spy thriller facing off against Christopher Lee before moving on to Cheers, I would certainly have laughed and said no, but there's the advert for it above.  Again, where are these movies on DVD?  Also, in the K-Mart ad above, is that the most expensive clock radio ever?  Who paid $40 in 1980 dollars for a clock radio?

    

Though I don't have many first hand memories of much of what's contained in this issue of TV Guide, I have to admit that it contained a ton of surprises.  Take the above preview for the Dukes of Hazzard spin-off series Enos for example.  Though I practically grew up on DoH, and have had an interest in the mythology most my life, I have never heard of this wacky gem.  Enos, in California?  Really?

There are a couple of other fun previews including Too Close For Comfort, Magnum P.I., It’s a Living, and one show out of all of these that I actually watched the living heck out of once it hit syndication, Bosom Buddies.  Tom Hanks was the example by which I judged and defined comedy for a large portion of my childhood.

Finally, on one of the last pages of this issue there is an interesting section devoted to other shows that the Networks have waiting in the wings so to speak, one of which I've never heard of and I am dying to see called Mr. & Mrs. Dracula.  The relevant portion is highlighted in the above scan, but basically it's about the Dracula's emigrating from Transylvania to America so they can raise a family in more suitable environs.  Wow, how Munster's is that premise?  Why have I never heard of this show?  Maybe it never actually aired, or maybe I have a bit of Youtube homework to do tonight.

Anyway, next week I'll be back with yet another highlighted issue, most likely the 1982 edition.

I thought I'd do something a little different for this week's Peel Here column. Though I'm still going to post some stickers, I'm also going to throw out some long lost food memories that sort of tie into the stickers (as well as some others that don't.)

Something that I don't have nearly enough of in my vintage sticker collection is food premiums. If stickers fit the definition of ephemera, that stickers which were only available as prizes or extras with either prepackaged or fast food should (in my mind) be a great example of ultra rare ephemera. I've talked about this before, but the idea that full sheets of stickers from 20-odd years ago are still floating around on the secondary market is just amazing to me considering they were designed to be peeled and stuck to things. For me, the disposability of a sticker premium is just tripled. Not only are these stickers blatant advertising from the product purchased, but also it's not something chosen by the owner.

Who buys a box of cereal just to get some stickers? Okay, as I typed that last sentence I realized that there are actually a lot of kids (and grown-ups) who might do just that, but even so aside from sticking them in a sticker book or on the side of a bureau or shelf, who is keeping these mint on either their original backing or in the cellophane they came wrapped in?

Regardless, sticker premiums seem pretty rare to me, at least in the 'finding them on eBay' department. I only managed to find a couple of sheets, one of which is a horrible scan (I screwed up while messing with the DPI and image size and didn't realize I fuggled it up so bad.) First up we have a sheet of stickers that were originally found in a box of Cap'n Crunch's Choco Crunch (from sometime in the mid-80s.)





Though I have very fond memories of this cereal in general (it, along with the Crunchberries variety, were some of the only good cereals my mom would let me have growing up) I don't remember actually liking the chocolate flavored bits mixed in with the regular Crunch cereal.

Next up we have a sheet of stickers that were originally found in a package of Giggles cookies (again, from sometime in the mid-80s, I'm not sure what year as the stickers weren't dated.)



Though my mom didn't buy sweets on a regular basis (at least not for the whole family – she always had a stash of Milano cookies for herself), we did have our fair share of Oreos, E.L. Fudge, and Giggles cookies in the cupboard (as well as some other exciting cookies I'll get to in a minute…) Though I remember the silly happy face shaped cut into the cookies and the fact that they were basically just Oreos, I'm kind of cloudy on the rest of the details. I seem to remember that they were available in Vanilla, Chocolate, and a mixture with both on one cookie, though I can't back that up. Also, for some odd reason my memories of these cookies are also tied to the short lived Quackers snack crackers (which were a variation on Cheez-Its or Chicken in a Bisket crackers but were flavor blasted with either Ranch, Nacho Cheese, or Sour Cream and Onion powders.)

Last up today I'm going to point outside of Branded to something I stumbled upon a few months ago that left my mouth agape for a minute or two. I recently ran across Jason Liebig's Flickr account and all the wonderfulness contained within including scans of old T-Shirt Iron-Ons, as well as a plethora of stickers, candy packaging scans, and other great bits of ephemera. Included were some amazing scans of some old Return of the Jedi Pepperidge Farm cookie packages that hit me in the gut like a cold fist. (Click on the images to be whisked away to Jason's Flickr gallery)







I remember eating the living heck out of these as a kid and I was so happy to find these images on the internets. In addition to Jason's great Flickr gallery, he also takes part in a fun project preserving old Christmas Wishbook catalogs from the past, so if you're bored and have a few hours to kill you'll find a ton of great stuff to look at.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Of course I was all over the Saturday Morning cartoon ads in the TV Guides I bought. These make wonderful companion pieces to the ads I've already posted from the various comics books of the 80s. This one above fills in the 1981 ABC gap in my original post. There was also a tiny ad for one of the ABC Weekend Special cartoons which I vaguely remember catching every once in awhile…

      

There was also a nice Solid Gold ad (featuring Andy Gibb and Olivia Newton-John, who has been a crush of mine every since I saw Xanadu this past year.) For some reason, though no one in my family really seems the type to have watched it, I remember having Solid Gold on in the background on the weekends while we had our big family meals (typically either steak or burgers.)

      

Now there's a show that I have weird memories of, Sha-Na-Na. Actually, my memories are all fragmented and for some odd reason seem to be getting mixed up with both Scott Baio and Hee-Haw of all things. I remember the weird song they'd sing where the one dude was pumping his guns and twisting his wrist and fist outward and inward. Again, why aren't there compilations of stuff like this on DVD. I don't need a season of Sha-Na-Na, just an episode to stir up some more truthful memories. Sigh.

Also, we have another Saturday Morning cartoon ad, ah, excuse me, a Saturdazzle ad. Man, to wake up early on a Saturday morning to catch Fat Albert on Saturdazzle, tizzle my dizzle and the hippity hoppity and junk. Anyway, you can find a different version of this ad from a comic book here.

Above we also have yet another show I'm sorry I missed and is now sadly gone (though I bet there's stuff on youtube), Fridays. Would you look at that young afro-clad Larry David! I wonder what hyjinks Andy Kaufman was getting into that week? Btw, I love love love Mark Blankfield, he was great in the Incredible Shrinking Woman…

        

Above we have some more fun preview pages showcasing the beginnings of the Fall Guy, Gimmie a Break, a running try at a series by Joel Higgins (who would later cement his fame in Silver Spoons), and a last ditch effort by Gabe Kaplan (who should have known better than to try and follow up Welcome Back Kotter with anything.) There are also a few fun ads, including one for Dial soap with some fun illustrations, a very conniving cigarette ad, and some old packaging for Nuti-Grain cereals.



Last but not least, we have a preview for Open All Night starring Bubba Smith (who was making a name for himself acting-wise in the Police Academy movies), and George Dzundza (who I believe was partnered with Chris Noth on the first season of Law & Order.)

Anyway, that basically the highlights from this issue. It was really cool to get a look at the listings even though they weren't my particular local stations growing up. It was cool to see what re-runs were playing at the time as well as all of the cartoons and such. Hopefully I'll be showcasing another issue each week until I've made my way through the rest of the 80s (and I might hit a couple from the 90s just for good measure.)

I thought I'd take a moment and talk about my current nostalgia obsession. I've been spending the last three or four months scouring my local used bookstores for all the Choose You Own Adventure style books that I can find. I only had a handful growing up, most of which were books from the actual Choose Your Own Adventure series, but there were a couple others that I read and re-read a few times including a Marvel Super Heroes Gamebook featuring Wolverine, and one of the Which Way series of books starring Batman. Though I loved both of these latter books because of the characters, I always sort of thought of them as CYOA knock offs because they didn’t have that branding.

Well, when I first started buying up all of the CYOA books I could find I was getting a little discouraged because I wasn't finding all that many. In fact, without resorting to eBay I only managed to find about 20 (there were something like a hundred and fifty or so I think), and another 5 that my friend has had since he was a kid. One of the reasons that I wanted to track these books down was to get some more material for the site as I’m getting towards the end of my sticker collection (I have a good 6 months worth of material left, but I've sort of tapped that reservoir), and 25 books just isn't going to cut it. Then I remembered the Batman and Wolverine books and it got me thinking about what other CYOA style paperbacks were available in the 80s. Let me go on record as saying that there were a ton, and I've been buying them left and right. I was sort of blown away when I started taking stock of the books that are stacking up on my shelves. I've found no less than 20 different series that range in branding from generic/original (like CYOA, Find Your Fate, Which Way, Your Amazing Adventures, and Wizards, Warriors and You) to a ton of popular 80s properties (including Marvel, DC, D&D, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, Jem, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Star Trek, and even Blackstone the magician.) I've even discovered the world of paperback gamebooks (including stuff like Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy, and Sagard), which are basically one player role playing games that act a lot like CYOA style books except you use dice and make decisions based on what weapons and spells your character has amassed.

What's kind of crazy is that I'm currently about a hundred or so paperbacks in to a collection that I think might just be gargantuan. The good news is that I should have plenty to talk about when I finally tackle how I want to approach these books. The bad news is that since there are so darned many of them I'm not sure where to start. I guess there are worse problems to have though. Anyway, I thought I'd share a few cover scans to give an idea of the kinds of books I've found and what's going to come up eventually on Branded…

First up we have an entry in the Twist-a-Plot series (I don't have the date handy as I type this.)  I was completely unaware of these books growing up and though I've been scouring the kids section of used bookstores for years I never paid any attention to these because they're kind of light on the page count. I have a couple that are around the CYOA standard (which is around 110 pages), but most seem to be around 50 to 60.

Next we have book one in the Lazer Tag series published by TSR (again, don't have the book in front of me so the date escapes me.) TSR, the publishers of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game system, seems to be the second largest publisher of CYOA style books (next to Bantam who were responsible for CYOA, the Time Machine series, as well as the Be An Interplanetary Spy series.) Not only did they publish about 50 novels in their D&D branded CYOA series called Endless Quest, they were also responsible for a series of Marvel Super Hero books and the above Lazer Tag books.

Last up today is one the rarer series (well at least in suburban Georgia), the Heart Quest books, which were also published by TSR and took place in the D&D universe. These were aimed at girls and I believe are more in the vein of romances (which ought to be a trip to read.) They even have die-cut covers, so that when you open the book you get a full version of the picture on the cover. Classy. Anyway, I thought I'd throw these up on the site since I haven't made an update in awhile. Hopefully I'll get back on schedule with more Peel Here columns next week.

I thought I'd take a second to note the passing of Steve Gerber. Initially I wasn't going to write about this as I feel that I'm the last person in the world that is qualified to comment on either Gerber or his work. I didn't know him personally (or even impersonally for that matter) and I'm only beginning to become familiar with his work in cartoons (and though I've owned Essential editions of both Howard the Duck and Man-Thing for a while, I've only read through a little.)

Then I got to thinking about how I came to be introduced to the man. I guess in some way I've been familiar with his work ever since I started collecting comics in the 80s. I am one of those people that can proudly admit not only that I enjoyed the Howard the Duck movie, but also that I saw it in the theater when it was first released. Granted, I realize that this isn't the preferred incarnation of Howard, and if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that Gerber wasn't all that pleased with it (there's a quote to that effect on the HtD movie wiki page, but, well it is the wiki page), but it made enough of an impression on me to get me excited about the character, if only in the most general way concept-wise. I've also been vaguely aware of the character Man-Thing (yeah, I realize Gerber didn't create him, but he sure did put his stamp on the character throughout the years), and I know I've watched a bunch of the cartoons he wrote, even if I didn't realize it at the time. Honestly, that's the reason I'm putting this up. Toward the end of last year I began taking a closer look at the cartoons I grew up loving. My goal was to stop and smell the roses if you will, taking the time to find out about the people behind the scenes, the writers, producers, voice talent, etc. I decided to start with the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon and one of the first people who really stood out to me in terms of their writing style was Steve Gerber with his one credited writing contribution to the series.

Long story short, I really liked that episode, realized that he worked on other shows that I loved and made it a point to pick up some more of his comics so that I could get a better handle on his writing.

I'd also recently started keeping up with his blog, and it came as a pretty big shock on Monday to read of his passing (on yet another blog I discovered via researching the D&D cartoon, Mark Evanier's News From Me.) Again, I didn't know Mr. Gerber personally, but I was getting to that place where I was becoming familiar with his world, his words, and his characters. If nothing else I'm glad that the long battle he was fighting with his illness is over, and I hope that if there is another place where people move on to he doesn't have to fight anymore (as I've been reading he seems to be a guy who was always willing to fight the good fight.)


Steve Gerber from the 1982 San Diego Comic Con.
Photo used with permission, was taken by, and is copyright Alan Light.

I guess what I'm getting at is that if there's anything at all to take away from my post, it's that if you get a chance check out some of his comics or cartoons and maybe it'll lead you to some stuff that you really enjoy (either his own or through the people he worked with.)

Well, I'm starting to feel a little better about my posting habits after the holiday season. I know it's only a couple of posts a week, but it feels like I'm building up a little head of steam anyway. What I really need to do is to get back to my Cartoon Commentary posts, but all in good time. Anyway, here we are again at the end of the week, and lately that means another edition of Peel Here, and if you've been paying attention this month, or care to scroll down the page you can see that I've been sharing my collection of Garbage Pail Kids sticker sets. Today I'm going to keep plowing through the collection with the complete 5th series that was, like the last two, release in 1986.

This was the series that I remember marked the height of my collecting. My mother surprised me one day by bringing home an entire box of packs that I spent the rest of the evening opening and sorting on the living room floor. Not only was this the first time that I received so many cards all at once, it was also the first time that I acquired an almost complete set of the stickers. Whereas the 4th series seemed hard to complete because of the rarer triplet cards, and the 3rd was difficult because we had a hard time finding any, it was pretty darn easy with the 5th considering I had a whole set plopped in my lap. I was however, missing a couple 'sister' cards, and I never found either variation on card 180, which always bugged me. How could I still be missing cards even after getting an entire box of packs? Well to my young mind it seemed like a travesty. Well years later with the power of the Internet and eBay I've finally managed to secure a complete set which I'll now share…



Like I mentioned last week, this set seems to mark a changing point in the overall tone of the GPK series, which seemed to become a little more vicious with each new set. If you compare the concepts in this series to the last you see that there are more stickers depicting self-mutilation, cannibalism or violence. Now before this seems like I'm on an anti-GPK rant here, please don't get me wrong. I don't have a problem with this tonal shift and I don't think it's all that much of an issue socially, I just think that it's interesting to note that conceptually the series started to get a little more vicious and disturbing. I think the this is illustrated in the concepts, where in the first four sets it was relatively rare to see characters doing disturbing stuff (as opposed to having it wrought on them), yet with series 5 and on there are more and more instances of characters causing the violence. For instance there are two relatively disturbing images in the second series that feature characters getting shot (57 a&b and 82 a&b), again by outside forces, yet in series five the two most disturbing images (personally and violence-wise) feature one character shoving a sword down his throat and out the back of his head (167 a&b) and another hanging himself (181 a&b) (again characters actively being violent.) Again, I'm not trying to come off prudish, it's just an observation.



For this series the designers opted to switch from the wanted poster card backs of the last two series to a very G.I. Joe-packaging-influenced file card concept featuring characters from the 1st and 2nd series stickers. Again, Tom Bunk drew the card backs, while the art duties on the card fronts were split between Bunk (12 paintings) and John Pound (28 paintings.) The designers also decided to go back to having two different puzzle posters on the card backs.



Something else that I thought was kind of interesting was that I noticed that a lot of concepts were being done again and again. This series contains six concepts that were almost note perfect for cards in the 1st and 2nd series sets. There seems to be a lot of repetition of the following concepts: Baby with horrible teeth, a doll with it's stuffing coming out, a character puking up all sorts of nastiness, a character playing with their own snot, a character getting electrocuted, a character as a trash can of some sort, or a characters that is either a toilet or is swimming/sitting in/etc a toilet. Just a thought. Also, we get to see another character above (Windy Winston) that made it into the GPK movie.









In the above scan we can also see one of the more common error cards, the off set printing (180b) which ends up having the image shifted over too far to one side.

If I had to pick a card that I thought was the most disturbing in this set, I think I've have to settle on sticker 185 a&b. There's something that just screams wrong about a tiny named GPK slathered in mustard and put on a bun like a hotdog. Is it just me?



















Next week I’ll finish off January with the complete 6th series. Next month we'll hit 7-10 which will finish off my collection of GPK stickers completely.

I almost didn't make my Peel Here deadline this week, but I did plenty of last minute scanning at the zero hour so here we go.

In the continuation of my two-month long celebration of my Garbage Pail Kids collection I present another complete set of stickers, this time the original 4th series. Well, almost complete set of stickers. When this set first came out there were a few cards that had their names changed in future printings (my assumption being it was for legal reasons as the changes were all of proper names, three of which were almost if not unchanged from the source), which resulted in 4 sets of 'triplets'.

I remember freaking out a little when I noticed this as a kid. I guess I was still a little wet behind the ears and hadn't yet realized that there was such a thing as rarity or errors in products. This is actually the second time that Topps tried replacing an already circulated card, as there was a variation on the 2nd series Schizo Fran card (which was turned into Fran Fran, again assuming, but this time for reasons of taste.) So even in the age of the internet I've yet to finally complete my 4th series collection as I'm missing 3 of the four triplets rare cards.

Though I started collecting with the 3rd series, it wasn't until the 4th was released that I really became GPK crazy. It was also the first time that I ended up seeing GPKs in stores. Before I was reliant on any stickers my parents managed to bring after visiting the local gas stations, which I never seemed to be present for. My mom would take me with her while she did her weekly grocery shopping and I always made my way up to out local 7-Eleven, but neither every carried the coveted sticker cards. It wasn't until my mom happened to take me on a trip to our semi-local Woolworth's that I spied my first box of stickers by the registers. I specifically remember my mom giving me a couple of dollars to pick up a handful of packs, which I almost didn't buy.

While browsing the store I also found a bunch of GPK school folders, which featured artwork from the (to me) extremely mysterious 1st series. In my trading with friends I managed to score a few cards from the 2nd series as well as getting a chance to see the majority of the set, but no one I knew had any 1st series cards (I wouldn't see any for another ten years, not until my first comic book convention.) Anyway, I really wanted the folders, but I only had two dollars and had to choose between the two. I ultimately chose the 4th series packs because it seemed more important to not only have the actual sticker cards, but also to get my hands on some that my friends hadn't seen yet.



As I mentioned above, there are some triplet sets in this series, the first of which was the original B card in this set named Woody Allen. What I've found kind of weird collecting these again as an adult is that the whole gimmick of the multiple names is pretty much lost on me. Though I've made it a point to try and find both versions of each card, ultimately it seems kind of silly to seek out and spend money on an additional sticker that has the same art and only a different name. It never occurred to me as a kid that this was totally a gimmick to keep kids buying packs of cards long after they'd completed a set just to get each name variation. It's not like all Cabbage Patch Kids were twins right.

Anyway, this has been the biggest stumbling block in tracking down the rare triplet cards in this series it just seems way too completist. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I seem to remember having a lot of trouble trying to explain the twin concept to my mother when I was younger. I'm sure she was thinking the same thing I am now. Now if I could only understand her mindset when she'd step all over my mint condition comic books and not seem to care…



Anyway, the set came out in 1986 and featured 42 different pieces of artwork with a total of 86 different name variations. There was also one less puzzle poster on the card backs, but it consisted of 21 instead of 18 cards. Also, returning after the last set were more Wanted Posters, most of which were again reworked from the original 1975 Topps sticker set, yet with two new Wanted cards that hadn’t been produced before.



This time around John Pound still handled the majority of the front card art duties clocking it at 25 paintings. Tom Bunk again helped to share the front art duties (though he only contributed 9 pieces) as well as doing all of the art for the new Wanted Posters. This time a third artist came on board doing paintings for the card fronts named David Berg (with 8 paintings). I'm not sure but this might be the Berg that worked for MAD magazine. You can see on the checklist at the bottom of the series 4 entry on Barren Aaron's GPK reference page which artists did which cards. All of the above cards were painted by John Pound, who (as I said in the last Peel Here) is probably my favorite GPK artist, if not flat out my favorite artist.





Though my favorite cards tend to be some of the ones with more horror themed artwork, I found that I'm also enjoying a lot of cards that I didn't like all that much as a kid. For instance, in the above set (again, all done by Pound) I really didn't like 134 a&b as a kid, probably because it's a little more muted with a lot of earth tones, not to mention that the beatnik joke was completely lost on me. Now though I'm sort of astounded by the level of detail in the background, while not jam packed, it's pretty rich compared to a lot of the other cards that are pretty space on BG. I also dig the Walt Witless pun-y name and still can't believe that the character is smoking a hand rolled cigarette (or a joint, take your pick.)




Again, as a comparison to my interest in the concepts of these cards as I've grow older are cards 135 a&b and 137 a&b. As a kid my favorite card in the set, bar none, was 137. Not only was it bloody and feature a skull, it was also very simple. Of course, it didn't hurt that I also found this card in my elementary school library stuck in a copy of Bunicula that I check out of the library (yea, free sticker!), so it's always had a fond place in my memory.

Growing up though I'm more drawn to card number 135 as I've become a huge fan of both Rocky Horror and the idea of grown men (I'm working on the idea that he's older because of all the stubble) in drag, ala Monty Python, et al. Again, as a kid this card was completely lost on me. I think it's truly awesome that the designers and artists were brave enough to do this, to plant ideas in these sets that they knew would go way over the heads of most of the kids buying them. To me this is a sign that they were hoping that kids would come back to these later on and develop a whole new appreciation for them. Heck, if nothing else, it has worked for me. It can also be kind of subtle too, as with card 138. Most kids are going to like this because it has a kick ass alien on it blasting a ray gun into to air. On the other hand it's also a reference to Topps' roots and their Mars Attacks! card set.





Something that I found a little interesting in this set was that Tom Bunk was losing some of the plastic rigidity in his art, softening up the faces and shapes a little (you can see this in his art on card number 141.) As for David Berg, he has a style that is very close to Pound's, though there's an aspect to them that makes them feel a little off to me. He did cards 142-147 here and below. I can't tell exactly, but it feels like his pieces are a little flatter, as if he wasn't quite getting the same softness because he isn't blending the colors quite the same way as Pound. This isn't to say that I don't like his artwork; in fact it's probably some of the better 'on-model' work in the series as a whole. In particular, I really like the art on number 147 at it gets to the softness I like in my GPKs.

In the above scan you can see a spot for a missing card.  This is where the variation on card number 158b would be.  The triplet card is named Crystal Gale.

Again, above there should be a triplet for card number 164 (b), which is named Salvadore Dolly.

I'll be back next week with the complete 5th series, which marks a turning point in the tone of the GPK stickers. From that point on the cards start getting a little nastier and a little more violent.

I'm back with my second to last round of Hostess comic book ads from the 70s and 80s. I know that there are about 50 or so more ads than what I've been able to locate in my collection of ads, so sometime this year I think I'm going to have to do some serious $0.25 bin diving to find the rest. I thought I'd share my last round of DC comics Twinkie ads today…

Batman and the Mummy 1975


Well, I've actually been waiting for a while to get to this one. I believe this is one of the first (if not the first) Hostess comic ads back in '75, and right from the get go these ads didn't make much sense. Granted, this comic is relatively straight forward, but there are some crazy wow moments like when Robin pulled the Mummy Ray-Gun out from nowhere. Now what is the point of a mummy ray gun if it doesn't have an effect on mummies? I suppose Bruce was just humoring Dick when he gave him that last Christmas. Anyway, this ad also features a little bit of a history lesson thanks to Robin's exclamation of surprise in the first panel. Turns out (and I certainly had to look this up) that Cheops was a 26th century B.C. king of Egypt and builder of the pyramids. Nifty. The only other thing I'd like to point out (besides the Daring Duo's amazing bolder moving strength) is that in this ad the Twinkie filling is referred to as 'creamy' instead of creamed. I wonder if there was a creamy vs. creamed lawsuit at some point?

Shazam fights the Minerva Menace 1975


I'm not all that familiar with Shazam, but he sure does seem to have a way with words. All he has to do to unravel all of that dastardly brainwashing is to tell those kids what's what with a pointing finger for emphasis. I love the non sequitur plot point of the kidnapping of Billy Batson. I guess this is where my ignorance of Shazam really sets in. Is the whole Shazam thing secret? I'd assume no one (except maybe a dog or an uncle or butler) would know that Billy could turn into Shazam…

Aquaman Twinkies and Kelp 1976


Ha, he said Kelp twice. Seriously, sometimes I really wonder about the prowess of Aquaman. Again, I didn't grow up on DC comics, but from what I'm gathering in these ads, and from his stand-alone cartoon, the guy is mostly harmless. He never seems to do any of the heavy lifting when it comes to fighting villains (he usually gets the creatures of the sea to do it for him), and in strips like this the writers make him out to be a sort of over reacting blowhard…

Batman Twinkieless Gotham City 1976


Man, the Penguin sure gave up that Twinkienapping caper pretty darn easily. I guess a little whining from a leisure-suited henchman can go a long way…

Wonder Woman Kookie La Moo on Broadway 1977


You know, I don't know if I'd classify a 60 ft. tall blonde bombshell as grotesque. I thought it was kind of funny that the ad wasn't copy edited as Steve Trevor is referred to by Giant Cooky as Steve Howard.

Green Lantern in Half the People Here 1977


Thank goodness Hal Jordan still had the ring on the right half of his body. Whew. I actually really like this ad, even for it's zany half-witted plot.

Aquaman in That Dirty Beach 1977


Um, on the one hand I'm really glad to see Aquaman step up and sok a bad guy in the mouth once in awhile, but on the other I'm kind of lost in the horrible message of this ad. So let me get this straight, the answer to stop all the pollution humans are causing is to take a bribe of Twinkies? Right.

Superman in an Unbeatable Power 1978


Well now that wasn't a great plan by Big Dome if it required him to keep his hands on the controls the whole time he had Superman trapped. It's kind of hard to take over a planet when you've got to baby sit a powerless Superman. Sigh, I miss the Captain America Hostess ads, there was a lot more punching.

Aquaman and the Imperiled Sub 1978


Granted, I know it's hard to get it across in a one-page strip, but that is one of the sorriest looking tidal waves ever. I think I've come across larger waves in the bathtub. Sigh, again, not one of the more exciting Aquaman strips.

Wonder Woman in Dilemma 1978


Superman in the Rescue 1979


I don't have much to say for these last two though I love it in the last Superman strip where the writer thought it was pertinent to show the kids on the mountain watching the disaster unfold even though in the previous panel it was pointed out that the UFO and Superman were traveling at the speed of light. Those are some darn observant children.

I really, really can't wait until the holidays are over. Bah humbug and all that rut. Well, there are a million things to do around the actual house of Branded right now, so to almost complete this month of mostly un-in depth sticker postings (I'll probably have one more quick one next week) I'm going to toss up some scans of the weird over sized Garbage Pail Kids stickers that I have in my collection.

This is more or less a teaser for what's to come in January and February as I'll be spending those months sharing my collection of 80s Garbage Pail Kids stickers (probably my favorite stickers of all time) in the Peel Here columns. So without further ado, here are a few of the large stickers reprinted from the 1st series of GPK's…



The biggest difference between these and the original normal sized sticker cards (besides the size that is) is the fact that there is no die cut line and they aren't numbered on the front. I also believe these didn't have twin stickers either (for those who are unfamiliar with GPK stickers, all of the stickers come in sets with two different names, in essence making the characters twins; there were also a few sets of triplets as well, but we'll get to those next month.)



Instead of being numbered on the front like normal, these are numbered on the back. I'm not sure if the rest of the card backs are different than the original series, but I wouldn't be surprised.





There was at least one set of these oversized stickers that came out in 1986, but I think there might have been at least a second (I'm way too lazy to look it up right now.)






Though these are much easier to come by than the normal 1st series GPK's, I've always resisted buying them because I'm a stickler and I'd rather have the original cards than these reprints, even though they're almost as old, and the art is at least three times larger and much clearer. I think I'll probably eventually break down and buy this set of large stickers if only so I can finally get a good look at all of John Pound's awesome artwork for the set.


So anyway, in case I don't get a chance to post next week, I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season, and let's all hope we get what we want in the war of gift giving.

Again, I suck. If it's not lightening frying my modem, it's work getting stupid busy and taking up all my blogging time. Sigh. I did take part in a round table discussion on Christmas memories last night with Jerzy Drozd and Hoover on the Saturday Supercast podcast. We talked about all things gift related as well as going on many fine tributaries (which I do have to admit that I am a fan of tributaries.) You can find the podcast here (it's number eleven.).

So for Peel Here this week I'm going to throw up some more quick stickers, Shirt Tales stickers to be exact. I chose these because we talked a little about them on the podcast last night. I watched a decent amount of the show growing up, but I was almost completely oblivious to the fact that they originated as a series of Hallmark cards, stickers, and trinkets. I think there were also a series of stuffed animals as well. Anyway, here are a couple of sticker sheets to peruse…

So I'm a little in the dark here, what is the deal with the little tags hanging off all of their shirts?

Hopefully I'll be getting back on track with a more semi-daily posting schedule soon.

I'm taking part in recording a new episode of the Saturday Supercast podcast tonight at 7 p.m. EST, and you are all invited! Join myself, HooveR, and Jerzy Drozd as we discuss some of the best X-mas mornings of our respective youths. This episode is designed for any reader (of Branded in the 80s or of the Sugary Serials comics) to attend, with no cartoon geek card required.

What was the best X-mas present you ever received as a kid? What was the lousiest?

It's easier than ever to participate. Here's how you do it:

Option 1 - Call in via phone:

Dial: (724) 444-7444
Enter: 38795 # (Talkcast ID)
Enter: 1 # or your PIN (No worries if you don't have a PIN. Just hit 1 and the # key to enter immediately.)
Regular phone charges apply, though! So if you don't have free long distance/minutes after 7 p.m., please stand warned.

Option 2 - Call in on your computer:

Become a Talkshoe Memeber if you aren't already.
Download the Talkshoe Live Client.
Go to the Saturday Supercast Talkshoe page and click the "Join Now" button at 7 p.m. or after. Once you've launched the Talkshoe Live client, click the "Shoe Phone" link to dial in and talk on the show. You will need a mic and headphones to participate this way. However, you can instead use the Talkshoe Live client to listen live and participate in a chat room. We will respond to any thoughts and questions posted there. So you don't have to "go on the air" to participate.

I know it's on short notice, but I hope to see some of you there.