Remco Earth Quake Tower

Earth Quake Tower has been mentioned before but it's a toy so of it's era and amazing I wanted to bringing it up again. An Irwin Allen movie for the toybox, there is no way in hell this would fly today and $17? What a bargain!

Leisure Fever

Many a man's last stop on the fashion train was leisureville.

Loving the Hut

I'm mildly smitten with this Pizza Hut merchandise like the oven but also the cardboard Hut. Although a more accurate representation of that  pizza hut play set today is to paint the roof and write "Chinese Buffet" on the top.

The Chained Bolero!

Yeah, like that crappy apartment door chain can contain all that testosterone bubbling within....

1981 Parkes Run Colouring Book Catalog

Hey remember those big colouring books you got on birthdays and Christmas? They were done by a company called Parkes Run and they made a lot of cool licensed stuff using licenses like Superman the movie, Popeye, Peanuts and the Marvel comics characters!

Adult Colouring books are the all rage right now but I'd settle for this one, which was given to me by my aunt Cathy in 1978!



Oh Man Wolf, where's your movie? 

 Anyway, check out the 1981 Parkes Run Catalog here!

Sport Coat Magic

These three are demi-gods in used car salesman mythology. Their exploits are shared to new generations at happy hours across this fine land.

Marvel Comics Multi Mags 2 for 99 cents!

As readers of this blog know, I have a fondness for comic multi packs especially the Whitman ones for things like Micronauts or the Shogun Warriors.

That's why this 1981 ad from coluring book publisher Parkes Run (more on them later this week) intrigues me. 



It seems that 1981, Marvel dumped Whitman in favour of Parkes Run and the format changed from 3 comics to 2, thanks inflation!



As a side note, my dad knew a distributor of these back in the early 1980s. I remember seeing a whole skid of these two packs in his warehouse. The man said to me "take as many comics as you want!" but my dad's face suggested that I should probably be happy with one.....

Bring Back Mystery Science Theater 3000 Kick Starter

Oh happy day.

Series Creator and former star Joel Hodgson is campaigning on KickStarter to create a whole new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 right now.

As I've mentioned here more than once, I'm a giant fan of MST3K in all it's incarnations and it runs in the background constantly here. It kept me from madness while creating "Rack Toys" and it's inspired me to try harder when writing.

There is already 1,000 backers on this thing and it's not even a day old, so i'm not alone.

You can visit the campaign here and it's ever made you laugh please back it.

Keep Circulating the URL.

Lego Police!

The Police Headquarters was not only my first Lego set but the toy designated to stay at my Grandmother's house for when i visited. I had a million fun hours with that thing and even though my kids look at the blank faced figures like they're caveman tools, so did they.

Sleep Tight....Kid Dyn-o-Mite!

No offence to Scooby Doo or the Liberty Bell (!) for that matter, but they don't hold a candle to the supernova of win that is JJ Evans Pajamas....

1975 Polistil Action Team (GI Joe) Catalog

There is nothing i like more an European Catalog for GI Joe Adventure team toys and this one from Polistil Italy is a lot of fun.

Here they are the Action Team and all science fiction is toned down in favour of a slightly more paramilitary look.

As always, the products and faces are familiar but the packaging and marketing have a nice foreign flavour.

Check out the 1975 Action Team Catalog here

Other G.I. Joe Related Links

Check out the 1975 Action Team Catalog here

Our toy wantlist

Shindana Toy Center

I love seeing stuff like this 1977 article and especially a  whole store display of Shindana merchandise like the JJ Walker plush, Wanda and of course, the amazing Slade Super Agent dolls.

Printed Knits and Photographic Prints

I would totally wear "paintings" by the great masters, do they have any hieronymus bosch?

MAC 1977

click for a bigger view

I am in awe of this awesome ad for Matchbox MAC toys from 1977. These two inch tall heroes were sort of an "International Rescue" type organization and one of my fondest memories as a wee lad.

More Mobile Action Command

Coat Season!

I think this season I will be going with the Emerald green, it matches my cadillac nicely.

Topps Shock Theatre Trading Cards

I'm not a huge gum card guy but Monster cards are an obvious exception that's why this set of cards sent in by Matt make me smile, I'll let him explain:

Given the fact that the great Christopher Lee passed away this last year, I could think of nothing more fitting than this for my final Halloween item-- a superb bit of 70s monster goodness: Hammer Horror trading cards from Topps released in 1976!

Yes, believe it or not, Topps released a set of Shock Theater trading cards based exclusively on Hammer films. I am not a huge trading card guy, but I go gaga for monster cards, and these are some of the best.

Comprised mostly of stills from "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave", "Horror of Frankenstein", "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed," "Taste the Blood of Dracula," "Scars of Dracula," "Dracula AD:1972", and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula," feast your eyes on some of the most gory cards ever marketed to 70s kids, complete with Cracked Magazine style jokes:

Close up of some cards. Completing a set of these is an expensive proposition, but well worth it. 

Here are a pair of card backs with jokes on them... Shocking Laffs indeed!


Thanks Matt, now I'm off to Ebay!

Pod Stallions 36: Horror Comedies

A special Saturday episode of PodStallions to celebrate Halloween. We actually lost our Halloween episode due to a computer glitch, so like champions we recorded a new one yesterday.

Episode 36 is dedicated to the lighter side of horror as we tick down a long list of horror comedies and give our thoughts, everything from Abbot &Costello to the Lemon Grove kids to Young Frankenstein and even more modern classics like Beetlejuice and the academy award winning Jekyll and Hyde...together again.

Happy Halloween everybody!

PS Joe Flaherty is a genius

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Aurora Monster Scenes Store Display!

We've got an incredible treat this Friday before Halloween in the form of this incredible Aurora Monster Scenes store display, courtesy of my pal Matt, who will take over from here with the editorial.

This was actually assembled and painted at the Aurora factory, and then shipped built up to hobby stores.

Frankenstein doesn't come with the set. He is a vintage one from my childhood



There is little I can say about the Monster Scenes that hasn't already been said except that, in my opinion, they are the single greatest monster toy line to come out of the 1970s. 

They surpass even the Ahi monsters, as far as I'm concerned. If ever a toy line typified the early 1970s, this was it. 



Only in that decade could you get a model kit that was an action figure with a diorama that you built in order to reenact scenes of torture. 

No other decade would dare market a toy to kids rated "X" as a double-entendre. No other toy was made in that decade that so simply and directly tapped into that pre-adolescent boy mindset-- that transitory period where one is on the verge of transitioning away from loving "kids stuff" like monsters, and starting to think about girls... 

No one else has ever released a toy with that same cheerful mix of innocence and sadism. One would consider such a feat to be near impossible. But Aurora did. And it was the rock upon which they sank.


 
Here is the set with a random assortment of boxed Monster Scenes-- including the rare package variant "Victim" renamed as "Dr Deadly's Daughter" for Canadian markets. 


Thanks to Matt for being so awesome and sharing this piece of 1970s gold. Happy Halloween Everyone!

Cousin Eerie Halloween Costume

Well here is something I've never seen before, thanks to my buddy Matt for sharing. This is a Ben Cooper Cousin Eerie Halloween costume based of course on the mascot for the Warren magazine Eerie.that ran for nearly 20 years.




And it's a great costume too! Nice mask and smock action here.


According to Matt, there is a costume for "Uncle Creepy" as well but it must be rare as he doesn't own one. 

   

Lincoln Monsters in the 1976 Galoob Catalog

It wouldn't be Halloween without me waxing poetic about my favourite monster toy line of all time, the Lincoln Monsters.

This year I came across one of my absolute grails, in the form of finding the 1976 Galoob toys catalog. Although Galoob was later known for licensed items  and things such as Micro Machines, 1976 saw them as more of an importer of Hong Kong novelties including items produced by Lincoln International.



Here they are featured among the Lincoln Action Soldier toys and other Rack Toy merchandise. Galoob was definitely the the company that got the following memorable Montgomery Ward's catalog spread from 1976:

More Lincoln International Monster Love here: