Sweaters : A child's worst enemy

Opening a sweater when you're eight is an odd experience, you couldn't care less about it but you know you have to be polite and thank your aunt for it. I still hate sweaters to this day but I now like it when I get socks for Christmas.

Well meaning grandmothers everywhere probably thought the entire family would love matching itchy sweaters, I mean the family in the catalog looks so happy!

I hope one of these is under my tree this year, that would be fantastic!

Ask Santa for these:

Energized Spiderman and his helicopter sure had a big marketing budget, that commercial ran during Battle of the Planets for months on end. It's weird, Spider-man didn't have a helicopter, nor did he need it but I really wanted one!

Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman and Donnie & Marie represent every show my sister watched back then. Jamie gets kind of the shaft when it comes to play sets though, a classroom?

Kringle Krap Again!

"Yeah Billy beat the crap Santa, now let's eat his guts!" Not to poop on someone's holiday traditions here but I'm bewildered as to why you'd want to beat the crap out of an effigy of jolly ol' saint nick. Frosty on the other hand I totally get, he can be a real pompous ass....

If you're going to give a religious message this holiday season, a blow molded light up plastic messiah is probably not the best way to go.

I've always wanted to put a life size Liberace on front lawn for the month of December, leaving my neighbors wondering what it's about and never directly answering their question.

Toys of Wish Lists Past......

Zoodles, the animal appliances! My neighbor's kid sister had these and I played with them when I was way too old to be doing so. Now, it's out there and I don't care who knows.....

Fonz Pinball looks like one of those gifts that Dad would buy for the family but secretly he just wanted a pinball machine. I still have the one my dad drug home.

More Tomorrow!

Kringle Krap Part One

This vintage giftwrap represents the dilemma of doing a piece on Christmas items. Christmas has always had one foot in tacky to begin with so even though this giftwrap comes from the era of butterfly collars and jumpsuits, i could swear that I unwrapped it last year.

Another thing that never goes out of style or changes, Fruitcake! That's because they actually stopped making it in 1976, people have just been giving each other the same one over and over again. Carve your initials in the next one you give to someone, you'll get it back. (I know it's a hacky joke)

Fruitcake is just slightly better than the sausage platter IMO, which I received from my grandparents when I was in college. It was like getting a card that said "Dear Brian, we know nothing about you, enjoy"

Toys of Wishlists Past

"Tobor is Robot spelled backwards" was the tagline in the commercials. The minute they started running this commercial, Tobor was forever ingrained into my psyche. I'm sure he made it on to my wishlist but my parents seemed to avoid stuff like this focusing on Star Wars and Micronauts. It's hard to be bitter.

Who the hell didn't want a Hoppity? I still want one! I'd like the Husky Gentleman version please, I'm big boned. I used to be an office manager, I swore if I'd provided these to my employees, production would triple. They all laughed at me!

Starting Tomorrow: Kringle Krap!

Just in time for the holidays, Plaidstallions will present a tribute to all those itchy sweaters, fruit cakes and light up plastic messiahs of days gone by. As an added bonus, we'll do a toy of the day, made up mostly of stuff I never got for Christmas!

Found a Magic Horn, A new car was born

Holy Mother Jumpin' Crud, they made a Wonderbug Peddle car! I am beyond infatuated with this piece, too bad they didn't make a schlep car to go with it.

Return of the Son of ManMates!

More splendid numbers from the Man-Mates selection, nothing beats a little festive green polyester for the yule tide season! Just watch your eye on the collars.....

Rescue Me

More Killer Fisher Price Adventure People Stuff, I never had these and I honestly remember pretending to like a weeny kid who did just so i could play with them.

Got any coke?

One can only assume that Disco became uncool after appearing in this catalog

Have a great weekend!

Lego Kingdoms

Pretty primitive compared to the Harry Potter Horwart's castle my nephew has but easily as charming, early lego castles are kind of expensive nowadays. Another "Christmas wishlist" toy that I never got, not that I noticed at the time.

Cher meets Farrah

Mego gunned hard for the girls aisle and put a real dent in Barbie's sales with their celebrity based fashion dolls. Cher was a huge hit and Farrah was also a best seller (Hasbro was no doubt ticked because of competition with their Charlies Angels line).

While Mego had a lot of success with these two, other celebrity licenses such as Captain & Tenneil and Suzzane Somers, were flops.

Mego also made a Sonny and some rather weird outfits for him, more on that in the future......

The Magic Shirt

How can this guy miss? I think that shirt locks anyone within reach into deep hynoptic state, look away I tell you! Lest you fall under this guys spell of polyester!

Fisher Price Adventure People Safari!

I loved this set so much as a kid that it makes me a little emotional. Such durable toys that 75% of this stuff is still intact including my beloved Gorilla. What bargain at under $12.

Love is......

Wearing matching puke pattern shirts. I think I see some corn in there......

Space:1999

The Space:1999 merchandising explosion was a one year affair but some really cool toys made it out during that period. The pinnacle (for me, besides the Mego figures) is the Mattel Eagle Playset with figures, this was two years before Star Wars, nobody had ever done a space ship with 3 3/4" figures before.

I've owned this piece several times in my life, it's HUGE and doesn't really fit in with my collection, I always end up selling it and losing money. I saw one last month at a toyshow and came close to a "re buy" until i had a premonition of what my wife would say. Common sense sometimes doesn't apply in toy collecting.

I'm freaking out man!

This page reminds me of how much I've always wanted a color organ, not because it would go great next to my hookah or anything, like many small animals, pretty colors fascinate me.

These things will forever remind me of older brothers.

1974 Saturday Morning Schedule

This brings back memories as to how much channel flipping I did back in the day and why I never saw certain shows.

We'd start the day with "Speed Buggy", then segway into "Scooby Doo", flipping over to "Hong Kong Phooey" for 9 then my sister would overpower me and watch "Run, Joe, Run" at 9:30 because it had a dog in it. I hated "Run, Joe, Run" with a passion but she was bigger than me.

That would run into "Land of the Lost" and then we'd hop to "Shazam". If we'd already seen "The Superfriends" we'd watch Harlem Globetrotters and Hudson Brothers. I used to actually like "These are the days" but I havem't seen it in years, we rarely got to see "Fat Albert" because by that time ,our parents would boot us out of the house.

I tried explaining Saturday Morning to my four year old, he didn't seem to grasp the concept that only having one day of cartoons (and Sunday reruns) was somehow better than his current "on Demand" channel of Cartoons and DVDs. Dammit, they were special!

Space Lego Envy

I never had any Space Lego as a kid, it was the one that got away but I'd hang out with the nerdiest kid on the block for hours just to look at his collection. What wasn't to love? the ships with the little cars inside, the happy little spacemen, agh what bliss.

Nowadays, my wife collects this stuff, it's great to live vicariously through her....

Super Happy Flea Market Score

I ventured to the stinky flea market today with both kids (our coats are now outside) and scored this awesome Micronauts three pack of Whitman comics. I used to love these poly bags of reprints but this one is especially cool thanks to the screen printing and the BI-Way price tag on it. Bi-Way was a Canadian chain of "Bargain" stores that had some pretty killer toys in the 70's, they died around 1999.

I'm going to try and find the Star Wars and Charlton versions of these poly bags, I needed another obsession.....

My "O" Face

I really love the woman on the right, through out the entire Simpsons 76 catalog, she's making weird faces like this, she's a catalog model with a super model complex.

Da-nah-nah-nah-nah

Some more fun with Steve Austin before they added other characters. I love the Bionic Man big screen television, watch Steve while he watches TV! Get him some chips! The inflatable play set looks like it was fun and I love how they crow barred in that Empire Helicopter. Empire made Helicopters and Vans for what seemed like every character in the 1970's including logical ones like the cops from CHiPs and nonsensical characters like Mego Hulk.

Hey! Why isn't the Six Million Dollar Man on DVD?

More Pajama's of the Future!

After the little war, all the people of the city of domes will wear these snappy unisex numbers.

Bachlor Squad!

Lame catalog shoot or press photos from a failed pilot for a follow up series to Charlies Angels? You decide? The guy in the middle is my favorite, he's dreamy.

Barbie and Super Hero Hot Wheels

Finishing off the 1980 Mattel Catalog with the Barbie selection from that time as well as the cool ass Marvel Superhero Hotwheels. The Mattel catalog now will be a permanent feature at Plaidstallions.com

Mattel Shogun Warriors

Our coverage of the 1980 Mattel catalog resumes with one of the coolest toy lines ever, The Shogun Warriors featuring a couple of Toho classic Monsters. What kid didn't want these?

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Flash Gordon meets Mork and Mindy

A two for one today, the uber cool Flash Gordon toy line based on the Filmation cartoon and the Mork and Mindy toy line which is made of 100% recycled ideas!

Mattel 1980 Catalog : Monster Toys

This week is going to focus on the 1980 Mattel catalog, which has a great deal of hold over products from the 1970's. I even am working a Barbie section, seriously!

Today's feature are some of the cool and creative Monster toys produced by Mattel, including Slime, Gre-Gory, Suckerman and the ever popular Creepy Crawlers thingmaker.

Dressing Alike kills Puppies

Well Maybe not but please next time, don't chintz out on the patches.

Next Week: We take an indepth look at the 1980 Mattel Catalog.

I repeat : Couples shouldn't Dress Alike

Unless you're in some sort of band, it's not cool to wear matching red denim outfits. When a guy willingly starts doing stuff like this, his friends can kiss him goodbye. Trust me, that's the expression my buddy had when I last saw him, it's been two years......

Sleep Tight!

When I see stuff like this, I'm always reminded of the trips to New Jersey I'd take with friends and some of the lovely "by the hour" places we'd stay in. I swear this is what we'd sleep in only the all the pictures would have broken glass. One friend of mine (who I know is reading this) slept fully dressed one night (including shoes) on top of the bedspread (which is the thing they never wash Brian, watch some CSI!)

My favourite motel is in Clarence NY, it's a series of little cottages next to a cemetary.

I'm a miserly type, so I continued this practice well into getting married with a decent job, that was until my wife instituted the "Holiday Inn or better" policy of '02.

The Dynamic Duo of Furley-Wear

More Man-Mates for a Tuesday, these guys look smashing but what's with the little tiny guys in the foreground?

The Gramma Gym

I kid you not, both of these items are in my grandmother's basement. She still swears the "belt massager" or as I like to call it "the Ass Jiggler" helped her lose 10 pounds. The thing is hilarious, you stand there and it massages your butt. When we were kids my sister and I would sit in it like a swing and the other would turn it on, it was like a mechanical bull.

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The Floral Nightmare

My Eyes!

The Worlds most Handsome Man

That face and that shirt? A deadly combination baby!!

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Hasbro Super Joe Rarities

I recently found this page of unusual pieces from the Hasbro Super Joe line, I love the repackaging of the earlier Adventure team set "Danger of the Depths". It seems kind of crow barred into the Spacey world of SuperJoe.

As an added bonus, I've dug up a couple of cool Super Joe commercials, here is the first Super Joe ad:

And here is the ad for Super Joe villain, Darkon. I really remember this as a kid, I can't believe I never noticed that Darkon is just Super Joe painted green. Way to recycle Hasbro!

Me vs Big Jim

Being injured sucks but it did finally give me the time to find this cool clip of me destroying a boxed Mattel Big Jim, hands right through the cello window. No wonder I collect toys.....

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More Vintage Toy Store Pictures

After the great response to our previous feature on 1970's Toy Stores I decided to try and find some more images and it turned out better than i hoped.

Check out a pile of cool images from stores like Woolco, Macy's, Kuhn's Big K, Jeffersons and more. Toys include Star Wars, Mego Micronauts, Charlies Angels, Tonka Trucks, Fisher Price just to name a few.

See if any of these stores are where you bought your toys.

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The Original Dirk Diggler

Director Paul Thomas Anderson must have a 1975 JC Penney catalog tucked away somewhere because in the second page of the dreaded ManMates section, is the original Dirk Prototype.

Either that or Marky Mark is a witch of some sort.......

Sending you to other sites department: Benjamin has posted another cool Mego Blog on his site Worlds Greatest Toys, it's about the upcoming Mego Superheroes book from Twomorrows publishing. Today's subject is Mego Tarzan

Dawn of the Man-Mates!

When you buy a vintage catalog, sometimes you get duds, no good toys, respectable clothes, it's a real downer. Other times, you strike comedy gold. The discovery of the "Man Mates" was the equivalent of striking oil, diamonds and uranium all at once

Not only is this line of clothing woefully named but it's also the tackiest, most infamous clothing line to ever grace the small screen, why is that you ask?
Because Man Mates is known better by another name, perhaps you've heard of it

That's right, the worlds most famous bachelour stepped off the fashion train wearing Man Mates and history was made! I'll won't be releasing this all at one, no we must savour, it's that good.

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