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Christmas Wishlist 1981

This past summer, my family sold the home that belonged to my grandparents, a place I spent some very happy Christmases in. I even wrote a blog post about it back in the fall. While it was obviously a sad time, it also had it’s bright spots. One of them was discovering the woman kept […]

Pod Stallions 58: The Star Wars Holiday Special

We’re back with a look at a much maligned (and let’s face it, it’s not great) chunk of our childhood, the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Look, we’re not going to take such low hanging fruit, the truth is, it’s not any worse than most of what was called “entertainment” in 1978. In fact, it’s […]

The Stretch Monster Kid Returns!

A wonderful thing happened today in the Facebook Vintage Toys group I manage with some friends. We got a visit from Mike, who is Mike you ask? He’s the kid on the Stretch Monster box! Mike’s gurning on that package is easily one of the most iconic 70s toy images out there. In fact, he […]

A Halloween Force

Star Wars pretty much dominated my Halloween experiences from ’78 to ’82, I can’t be alone on this. Vader, Storm Trooper, Boba Fett and Yoda were my choices as a kid.

Star Wars sale at Osco

Another newspaper line illustrated gem, this one from Osco. I never had the Star Destroyer Playset but recently discovered some collectors I know have this weird hate on for it. Was it a disappointing toy?

The Kenner Empire

It was around this time as a kid that I realized that I could never, ever “Collect Them All” when it came to Star Wars. Not that I had everything made leading up to this point but there was probably some child like naivete that I could catch up somehow. Fortunately for me, I was […]

Zayre Wars

I think this ad nicely captures the moment in time where my personal lust for all things Star Wars reached a pinnacle. As a kid I had all but two (never got a 12 inch Vader or R2) of the items pictured here. All of them got ruined not by neglect but by constant play.

Kenner Jedi

So instead of  Leia, this ad features slave General Madine, the most boring Kenner figure ever IMO (and the last figure I ever purchased, talk about going out with a whimper.) Even Jabba seems to be yawning.