Sesame Sheets

OK, I'm convinced that catalog photographers just used refridgerator boxes as a substitute for kids' beds, the corners on that thing would cut children. That being said, there is nothing cooler than old school Sesame Street merchandising art, I miss it.

Paint By Numbers Coolness

While a paint by numbers kit alone isn't that exciting to kids, Hasbro amped up the cool with the licensing. I'd have trouble deciding today what to choose let alone as a five year old. I'd probably go with Star Trek but the idea of painting Aquaman is really tempting....

The Nascars

Your pit crew for romance, their lovemaking is sponsored by Skoal.

Shaking hands with the Boy Wonder

Cat sent in this "1970something" shot of him shaking hands with none other than Burt Ward in full Robin regalia at a Rockford Car Show. Ward still looks like he jumped out of 1966 here, so it really must have been to meet Robin live and in person like that.

Send me your mall appearance photos!

Matchbox Fighting Furies Gallery

In 1974, Matchbox toys ventured into the action figure market with the Fighting Furies, a series of well-made Pirate action figures that had piles of adventures to choose from. Fighting Furies is often forgotten when discussing 70s brands and that's a shame because it's really high quality stuff.

Thanks to the generosity of Bill Frost, Plaidstallions now hosts one of the most comprehensive Matchbox Fighting Furies Galleries on the web:

In addtion to having the 1974 Matchbox Fighting Furies Catalog, we also have galleries devoted to the packaged figures and outfits:

Boxed Figure Gallery including the neat Ghost of Captain Kidd figure

Outfit Gallery

Did you know there was a second series of Fighting Furies Cowboy figures? No, that's because only European kids got them!

Ad Archive featuring Mason Reese plus rare foreign ads, store displays and even shots from Toyfair 1974!

Other Figure Galleries:

Bump N Go Caped Crusaders

I'm pretty sure I had this as a kid, mostly because of the disappointing weird, chubby Batman and Robin figures that are at the drivers seat. As a kid, if you couldn't take the figures out of something, I had entirely no use for it. I was totally spoiled thanks to the good people at Fisher Price and Mego.

As an dult, I kind of think it's a wickedly cool toy, funny how that works...

Captain Fancypants Returns!

In this adventure, he and the Electric Merry men had to go undercover to expose a counterfeit bingo card ring.

Breaking: Some Mego-Rific News

Tune into PS's sister site: The Mego Museum today for an incredible scoop about Bif Bang Pow! I'll give you a hint, some time this year you can have your Mego Captain Kirk get scared by a gremlin on the wing of the enterprise and your Mego Superman can finally go toe to toe with Brock Samson.

It's a good day to be a 70s kid.

Read it all at the MEGO MUSEUM.

Filming a Big Jim Commercial

Just found this cool still of behind the scenes of filming the Big Jim P.A.C.K Beast commercial, you almost never see stuff like this but the main reason I like this is that it means there are commercials for Big Jim's P.A.C.K out there!

One of these days I will track these down, mark my words...

More Big Jim Goodness:

Some Vintage Hot Stuff

Happy February from this Sexy Disco Mama, you can't buy that kind of sass...

Cool Collections: Dan Bru

Dan Bru, a graphic
designer/artist/blogger living in West Paris, Maine dropped me a line this week with some peaks at his uber cool upstairs office. Dan muses on comics, art and pop culture on his very own blog 3-d monster.

That Brianiac figure is one of Dan's own creations, which reminded that I used to know him as "DangerDan" waaaaaaay back on the Megomuseum forums.

Lots of Japanese toy love here.

Shogun Warriors are always a sign of good taste.

Lunch pails, classic toys and comics, no wonder, as Dan admitted, that he spends more time than his wife would like in this awesome workspace.

Thanks Dan! You have an enviable place to create.

Send in your cool collection

Apes Attack Part 2

As promised last week, more of the Apes visiting Plymouth Hoe circa 1977. Again, I cannot begin to explain how wonderfully cool and trippy this all is.

Check out Derek's awesome blog dedicated to Plymouth local histoy and stay tuned for much more coolness from him.

General Urko plans to whip humans here I gather.

The only good human is a dead human!

Send me your mall appearance photos!

The Martian Chronicles Toys by Larami

In the late seventies, Charles Fries productions (the same people who brought you the TV version of Spider-Man) undertook an ambitious project, bringing Ray Bradbury's acclaimed book of short stories "The Martian Chronicles" to Television as a 6 hour event.

The names involved were a Science Fiction fans dream, Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay and it was directed by Michael Anderson, director of Logan's Run. The cast included genre veterans such as Darren McGavin, Roddy McDowell, Nicholas Hammond (TV's Spider-Man), Barry Morse, Bernie Casey, Jon Finch, Michael Anderson Jr (Doc from Logan's Run) and the series was tied together by the character Col. John Wilder, played by Rock Hudson.

The mini series premiered 30 years ago this January (yikes!) and was met with mixed reviews, the harshest critic being Ray Bradbury himself but personally, despite it's slowness in points, I think overall it's a terrific attempt and I love it's style.

Still, I find it weird that Rack Toy Manufacturer Larami decided that this was the property to go forward and make some action figures with. To my knowledge the company hadn't delved there before. Despite the fact that Star Wars figures were all the rage, Larami chose to go the Mego route and produce three 8" figures all based on the Martian designs. Going so far as to rip off the an outfit from the Mego Star Trek aliens line, these little touchs give the line a mid seventies feel.

The Martian figures have no names but all are based on mask designs the Martians wore in the series, the figure above isn't really a Martian at all. In the first installment, Col. Jeff Spender "goes native" on his landing party killing them off while wearing this Martian battle mask. So really what we have here is an action figure of Bernie Casey.

This is the second, let's call him the "Pink Martian" this mask appeared in the second episode and only briefly as Darren McGavin's character shoots him!

Click Here to see more of the Larami Martian Chronicles line

Visit the Larami Rack Toys Gallery for More

The Ugly Shirted Gentleman Strike Back!

They're back and this time, they're out for revenge. The guy at the bottom seems to wearing one drawn by Jack Kirby.

More Azrak Hamway Monsters

Some great new variation figures added to the AHI Monster Gallery today, cataloging these is a bigger chore than I imagined, below we have wrist jointed Dracula:

Man he looks pissed that someone stole his shoes! These jointed wrist versions are the closest things to Mego, but for some reason they all have the Wolfman's hairy chest (gives the figures a little bit of a Sean Connery thing going on) and their clothes are really susceptable to dry rot. Hard to find them in good shape.

"Vere is my shoe?" This is a cupped hands variation of Dracula, I'm not completely on solid ground here but I believe these may have been the very last monsters to surface. I've heard everything from them being released in baggies to these not even being official AHI merchandise (That seemed to happen a lot) but four figures were released in this series. If you have pics, please send 'em.

Here is the jointed wrist wolfman, the only figure that the hairy chest makes real sense.

On the Jiggler front, the Creature from the Black Lagoon finally makes an appearance:

Now, if I could only get him to stand for a picture...

I've spent a little time upgrading and organizing the growing AHI Monsters section of the site, check it out.

Status Symbols

The home bar craze in the 1970s (ours was orange with a white and gold speckled counter) is something I fondly remember but I have to wonder how many folks had to stare at this day in and day out.

I have nothing against Anheuser Busch (partially thanks to them I don't remember much of my frosh year) but if I think having this in the living room says a lot of things about you, not all of them good.

Signs You're Being Raised By Circus Folk

Bonus points for topping off that outfit with the most gender neutral haircut devised M'aam/Sir?. Unless you have some rum in that bag, this is going to be an unpleasant morning.