Author Posts

Circus World: The Toy Store in the Mall

I spent the weekend with friends cruising the Chicago toy show (expect photos from that tomorrow) and one of the cooler things I got came from my pal Charlie’s basement (which has been subject to a couple of blog posts) and not the show itself.This clipping from June 4th 1980 (Click here for a bigger […]

Saturday Morning 1977

Recently I came across a TV Guide I’d saved since I was a kid, I don’t know why I saved it. It has a Quincy on the cover and while I enjoyed that show (and now love comedian Jim Norton’s “Jimcy” rants on the radio)it doesn’t explained why I kept it. I am glad I […]

G.I. Joe in Germany: Action Team Catalog

While we were busy playing with our Mike Power Atomic Man figures, German kids were enjoying the Action Team, a variation on G.I. Joe but with more of a paramilitary flavour. Characters like Tom Stone and John Steel seemed like soldiers of fortune and while they had a lot of the same items North Americans […]

Plaid Stallions enters the “Terrible Twos”

It’s hard to believe that it’s been two years since I started this blog, primarily to fill the time one afternoon while my baby daughter napped. It’s a strange feeling, it seems like yesterday although I can’t remember a time when this didn’t exist. I had no idea what I was doing when I made […]

Random Marvel Mania

I’ve mentioned this before but Bop Bags truly confuse me, why would you want to beat the crap out of your favourite character? This Captain America Bop Bag is ever worse, isn’t he the sentinel of liberty? Isn’t throwing a punch at old cap a bit like punching the flag? If you had one of […]

Sesame Street Swag

Found this neat picture in a catalogue recently, just a cool spread of Child Guidance Sesame Street toys mingled with the “original cast”. That unknown dude in the middle? That’s some sort of “Build a Muppet” that CG was selling at the time. Expect another Sesame Street Week this May, it’s long overdue.Links of interest: […]

Colouring Book Theatre: Bernie Wrightson’s Monsters

Turning over the reins to the ever talented Rob Kelly, creator of the Aquaman Shrine among many other awesome comic related blogs such as All in Black and White for Seventy Five Cents which explores Warren publications, which is what we have here today. Take it away Rob!Will Eisner’s The Spirit Coloring Book wasn’t the […]

Thwip! Chemtoy Spider-Man Webmaker

This is a cool rack toy I picked up recently that brings back lots of happy memories. My Dad brought this back with him from the 1978 Toy Fair and I immediately cracked it open and made a huge mess on my desk. It maybe lasted a day tops but what a cool item with […]

Mattel Donny and Marie Catalog

Donny and Marie were TV superstars in 1977 thanks to their Sid and Marty Krofft (yes, the Land of the Lost guys) produced variety show which I watched an awful lot as a kid. Girls loved Donny and looked up to Marie so it only made sense when Mattel Toys snapped up the merchandising rights […]