Hello, and welcome to week two of Thrift Store Thursdays! This week I've got a couple of new things I picked up this week, and a couple of things I picked up a month or so ago. Since I just started writing this column last week, I've got a bit of a backlog of toys to write about, so I'm going to be mixing up stuff I've found recently with stuff that I've had for a few months.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Power Board Game Box Art
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Power Game Board
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Power Game Pieces
My first neat find this week was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Power board game from 1987! When you buy a used board game at a thrift store, you never know what you're going to find inside. I've bought a couple of board games in the past at thrift stores that had weird stuff in them, One time, I found a $20 bill, and another time, I found a crusty old marijuana joint that had probably been in there for twenty years. Even if they don't have anything weird in them, there is no guarantee that they will have all of their game pieces. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that this game had almost twice as many pieces as it should have, like the pieces for two games got combined in one box.
Imaginext Super Friends Vehicles
Last week, I found an Imaginext Space Shuttle that I liked a lot. It got me thinking that I should start collecting more of these toys. Like a dumbass, I forgot that I already had several of them! Here are three of my Imaginext vehicles that I bought a month or two ago. From left to right, I have a Batplane, Bat Helicopter, and a Green Lantern Plane. I also have an Imaginext Batmobile and Joker Van laying around here somewhere, but I couldn't find them to take pictures, because my toy collection is REALLY disorganized. Hopefully I will get that sorted in 2013. When I dig those ones up, I'll put them up in a future Thrift Store Thursday.
Imaginext Island of Lost Creatures Dinosaur Skeleton, and Imaginext Robin
I was on the lookout for some more Imaginext stuff this week and I found some. I found this awesome "Island of Lost Creatures Dinosaur Skeleton," plus a Robin action figure! I'm contemplating giving this playset and the space shuttle from last week custom paint jobs, and turning them into a Batplane and a part of the Batcave. Now I really need to get an Imaginext Batman. The thrift store also had an Imaginext scuba diver, but he was mixed in with a bag of junk that I didn't want, and I didn't want to pay 4 bucks for one figure, so I passed it by.
10 Inch Action Figures
Here's some cool 10 inch action figures I've found. I didn't buy them all at once. The Aquaman I found about two or three months ago, the Batman about a month ago, and The Flash was about two weeks ago. But since they are all the same scale, I thought it would be fun to post them all together. The Batman might look shorter than the other two, but that's just because he has a wider stance. His wings fold up in the back, but they still show even when they are folded, and they only look good stretched out, so I'm not sure what the point of it is.
Penguin
Last, but not least (actually, it kind of is least, now that I think about it...) is another penguin for my Penguin Army. I really don't buy these penguins on purpose. It just seems like there is always one hidden in the bags of action figures I buy. I'm not sure what the deal with this one is. It kind of looks like it's dancing, or striking a pose. That's it for now,but tune in next week, for another exciting edition ofThrift Store Thursdays!
Starting
in 2010, Diamond Select began releasing a series of 8 inch Mego-style
dolls based on the Universal Monsters. Imagine what Mego's Mad Monsters
would be like if Mego had actually gotten the license from Universal
instead of making knock-off monsters, and throw in more modern looking
head sculpts and costumes as well, and you'll have an idea what these
are like. In 2010, they released Frankenstein and the Wolfman, and in
2011 they released Dracula and The Mummy. The current wave was released
in 2012 and consists of The Bride of Frankenstein and the Creature from
the Black Lagoon, and The Phantom of the Opera and the Metaluna Mutant
are on tap to be released later this year.
I think this line of
toys is great. I played with Mego dolls when I was a little kid, so
there's a big nostalgia factor in play for me with toys like this.
Plus, I'm a huge fan of the Universal Monsters, ESPECIALLY of
Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride. So I was really looking forward
to getting this Bride of Frankenstein figure. Unfortunately, she turned
out to be my least favorite in the line so far. Read on to find out
why.
Diamond Select's Universal Monsters Retro Cloth Figure The Bride of Frankenstein packaging.
Packaging: 3 Robots
The Bride comes packaged in a plastic clamshell. The backing card has
retro Mego-style art, featuring a bunch of heads in circles, like on
Mego's Star Trek and World's Greatest Super Heroes toy lines. The back
of the card has a photo of the Bride along with the Creature from the
Black Lagoon, who was released at the same time.
Cutting open the clamshell.
The clamshell is designed so that if you cut it open along the edges, it
is recloseable, so you can take the figure out, and then put it back in
the clamshell to store or display it when you are done. Once the
clamshell was cut open, the figure comes out easily. I'm not a big fan
of clamshells because they are hard to open, but if you are going to use
one, this is probably the best way to do it.
In my opinion, this is a poor likeness.
Appearance(Sculpt/Paint/Likeness): 1 Robot
This is the first area of real disappointment for me, because the face
looks nothing like Elsa Lanchester, the actress who played the Bride.
It's not clear to me if they tried to capture the face, and just failed,
or maybe it was some kind of production issue, like the faces didn't
come out of the molds right?
Elsa Lanchester as the Bride of Frankenstein
Or, maybe they didn't have her likeness rights? I know that Dracula
figures rarely look like Bela Lugosi because his estate is very picky
about who they will license his likeness too, but I've never known that
to be the case with Elsa Lanchester. I have several Bride of
Frankenstein action figures from Sideshow Toys and Diamond Select, and
they all have her likeness.
If they didn't have her likeness,
they would have been better off going with a generic "pretty girl" doll
head. It still would have been recognizable as the Bride with her hair
and makeup. Instead they went with a unique, but really homely sculpt,
she has sort of a "horse face."
Whatever the reason, it's a
very bad thing. The Bride was strange, and scarred, but still eerily
beautiful. This figure is not.
Aside from that, the figure looks
fine. Her paint job and dress are kind of plain and simple, but that
may be intentional to help give it a somewhat primitive retro feel.
Difficult to pose.
Articulation/Playability: 1
This doll has all the standard pints of articulation you would expect on
a Mego figure, but they don't work very well. Every time I would move
her arms or legs, they tend to fall part of the way back towards their
original position. In order to pose her, I would have to move her arms
about twice as far as I wanted them to go, so that when they flopped
back, they would end up being where I wanted them. It's not clear to
me if this is due to the body's construction, or if the movement was
being restricted by her costume.
The doll is incapable of
standing on it's own, no matter how you position it. I had to use a
Kaiser doll stand to stand it up in all of my photos.
An interesting way to portray her bandages.
Accessories: 2 Robots
For the purposes of this review, I'm going to consider her costume to be an "accessory."
This
doll's gown is very plain and "tent-like," and doesn't really do
justice to the more drape-like folds of the dress in the film. I wasn't
very impressed with it, but, to be fair, it may have been made this way
on purpose, to make it feel more like something Mego would have done in
the 1970s. Her dress is fairly easy to remove if you wish to, the
hardest part is getting her arms to point up so you can pull it off, as
they keep trying to move back down.
The bandages on her arm look
much better. They achieved this look by actually wrapping them in
shredded cloth. I'm sure if Mego made this they just would have given
her a cloth sleeve with a bandage pattern printed on it. The bandages
on the rest of her body are just suggested at with a wrinkly cloth
bodysuit, but it still looks fine, and it's covered by the dress anyway,
so normally you wouldn't even see it.
One problem with the
bandages comes in to play if you want to remove her bodysuit. You would
first have to unwrap all the bandages before you could take it off, and
then you would have to rewrap the bandages after you put it back on. I
wanted to remove her bodysuit so I could see if the problems I had
posing her were due to her body's construction, or due to her outfit
constricting her movement. But I wasn't confident I would be able to
put her bandages back on properly after I was done, so I decided against
it.
Cool Factor: 4 Robots
This has been a fairly negative review, and I honestly feel kind of bad
writing it. Despite my disappointment with this figure, I still think
it's great that Diamond Select is making Mego-style toys in the 21st
century, and I'm still looking forward to seeing what they come up with
in the future. Also, I really love the Bride of Frankenstein, and I'm
always happy to see a new toy of her. So I'm still giving this a
positive "cool factor" rating.
Value: 2 Robots
I paid $22.99 (with free shipping) for this figure from Toys R Us's
website, and I don't think it was worth that much. I think I let my
excitement over getting a new Mego-style Bride of Frankenstein get the
better of me.
The Mystery of Witches' Hollow is the second Hardy Boys episode of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. It involves their hunt to find a man who has gone missing in the woods. The mystery involves a legend about a witch whose screams can be heard in the woods at night and her pet, a killer black mountain lion.
Beelzebub Has a Devil Put Aside For Me
This episode introduces two characters from the books; the Boys' best friend Chet, and Frank's sometimes girlfriend Callie. Chet's character, good-natured, food-loving, and just a bit of a coward, is the same as in the books. Callie seems like an intelligent young lady, but she doesn't do much to show off her personality, and there doesn't seem to be any hint of a romance between her and Frank.
The Knife Stalker
Despite the legend of the witch, this episode is not as weird and spooky as the first episode, it's more of an action/adventure. During the course of the adventure, the Boys get to jump on and off of a moving vehicle, wrangle a mountain lion, and escape from a burning building. Frank wrestles with a mysterious intruder, and Joe nearly falls to his death down a cliff. It's all fun, but still a little bland and predictable. At no point does it feel like they're in any real danger.
Thunderbolt and Lightning Very Very Frightening Me
To a certain extent, that's the nature of the beast with a serialized, formula TV show like this. No matter what happens, the characters have to come out unscathed and unchanged in the next episode. The best TV shows make you forget that while you are watching them, and the Hardy Boys Mysteries haven't achieved it yet. Still, they're only two episodes in to the series, and I remain optimistic that the show well eventually start firing on all cylinders. Unless, of course, my childhood memories of the show are not as reliable as I thought they were (heaven forbid).
2013 is going to be an exciting year for Batman 1966 fans. Last year, Warner Brothers and Fox finally ironed out their licensing issues, so that this year we are going to start seeing toys and other merchandise based on the classic TV series! Or maybe I should capitalize that: "The Classic TV Series." It is, after all, the greatest show in the history of television. Up to now, we've mostly only seen merchandise based on the Batmobile, as that was a separate license with George Barris. But now for the first time, we are going to get toys and other merchandise based on the characters from the show, as portrayed by Adam West, Burt Ward, and the rest.
They've already announced a line of 6 inch "Movie Masters" figures from Mattel, which I am SUPER excited about. I've been dreaming about Batman 1966 action figures since I was four years old! I fully expect to buy every figure from this line, even though I haven't seen any of them yet (please don't dissapoint me, Mattel!)
Hot Toys has also announced they have a license to produce Batman 1966 merchandise. So far they've shown a giant size Batmobile. I assume they will be making a hyper-realistic Adam West figure, and possibly other characters from the series as well, but they haven't officially announces that yet, as far as I know. I would love to have a Hot Toys Adam West, although Hot Toys figures are really pricey, and I don't know that I will be able to afford the 200+ dollars for one.
Today I learned of some other Batman 1966 toys coming this year. Funko have announced on their forum that they will be producing "Wacky Wobblers" and "Funko Pop" toys based on the series. The characters will be:
So, I "designed" this T-Shirt in 2011 when that Reverend Harold Camping (I think that was his name... too lazy to Google it right now) guy was predicting Judgment Day or the Rapture or whatever. Basically I just took a drawing of Mr. T that I made, and slapped some text on it. I wasn't sure if Zazzle.com (where I do my t-shirts at) would accept it or not, since it had an image of a celebrity on it. But they did, and I sold a few t-shirts. Weirdly, even after May 21st, 2011, people still bought this, the last one was a few weeks ago (right before that Mayan Apocalypse thing, now that I think about it. Coincidence?). Not that I sold a lot, maybe like 5 of them? Anyhoo.... Zazzle just decided today that it infringed on their content policy and pulled it from their site. So, if you haven't bought one yet, or where holding out for the next apocalypse, you're out of luck.
I've been planning on starting to collect Mr. T toys in 2013. Actually I all ready have a couple... here's a blurry pic:
Naked Clubber Lang and Clothed B.A. Baracus
I've had these toys since the 1980s. Recently Neca has come out with an awesome new "Clubber Lang" action figure as part of their Rocky line:
Neca's Clubber Lang
I really want to get one of those Clubbers, they look amazing! After that I think I might want to start tracking down other Mr. T and A-Team toys. I think Mr. T is a worthy character to add to my toy collection, along with the Batman and Frankenstein toys I collect right now.
Hello! Welcome to the first edition of Thrift Store Thursdays! Every Thursday, I'll be showing off the neat used toys, games, and other pop culture stuff I find at thrift stores, flea markets, yard sales and other places. This week, everything I bought comes from the Savers thrift store near my house. It's where I get most of my used toys, because it's within walking distance of where I live, so I go there a lot. But one of my goals for 2013 is to find more cool places to buy used toys here in Las Vegas. For instance, there is a big swap meet in town every weekend, but I've never been there, because I used to work on the weekends, so I never really had enough time. But, lately I've been getting Sundays off, so I hope to go check it out soon. Especially now that the football season is coming to a close, I won't have any excuses to stay home and watch TV.
Batman Action Figures
Action figures! They are probably my favorite thing to find, especially Batman action figures. From left to right, we have some weird looking 1990's (?) cyborg Batman, a Blue Beetle figure from Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Bane from the Dark Knight Rises, and a Batman figure from the "The Batman" cartoon series.
Superman Action Figures
Where superheroes are concerned, I mainly collect Batman figures, but I'll branch out to other DC Comics characters as well, when I find a good deal on them. I'm guessing that these Superman figures are from the Justice League Unlimited line, but I'm not really sure. From left to right is Superman, Brainiac, and some variant costume Superman.
Superman Pinball Machine
This was a neat thing to find: A Superman pinball game. There is a crack in the plastic, but aside from that it is in good shape and working condition.
Millennium Falcon Cockpit Thing
Millennium Falcon Cockpit Thing! What is it? I don't really know, it has buttons you can press, that make little rods pop out of the bottom, and it has a strap on it. I'm guessing it's one part of a larger toy or game. I bought it because I think it would make a good diorama piece to display Star Wars or other sci-fi action figures in front of. And it was only 49 cents!
Another one of my goals for 2013 is build some dioramas or other displays to show off my action figures in. Right now there just lined up randomly on my shelves, or they're in boxes (that's no fun). My number one goal for a diorama or display is a Batcave. I've already bought a few things for that, and I'll probably show them off in a future Thrift Store Thursday post.
Plastic Ray Gun
This came in a baggy with some of my action figures, but once I got it out of the bag, I thought it was pretty cool. It makes ray gun sounds, and the piece under the transparent plastic lights up and spins. What I really like about it is it's "retro" style, like something from an old Buck Rogers comic strip.
Annie Oakley
Now this is cool. An "Annie Oakley" action figure, still in the box! It's from Accoutrements Toys. I've been noticing their toys online for awhile now, they seem to make some really fun and unusual toys, such as action figures based on historical figures, but this is the first thing from them I've owned.
Fisher-Price Imaginext Space Shuttle
This is a fun Space Shuttle toy. It lights up, makes various space sounds, has wings that expand outward, a cargo hatch that opens, and a cockpit that opens up. In a cool coincidence, one of the plastic baggies full of Batman and
Superman action figures I bought had an Imaginext figure in there as
well, so I have someone to fly it! I've been thinking about buying the Imaginext Batman toys for a while now, and I think after seeing this Imaginext toy, I'm going to do it.
Penguins
When you buy action figures in thrift stores, they usually bundle them together in baggies, and you get one or two cool figures, and the rest are weird happy meal toys and stuff. I've got a big box full of reject toys that grows bigger and bigger every week, that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with. One thing I get a lot of, for some reason, is toy penguins. But I just realized that getting an army of little toy penguins could be pretty cool, because I can use them as props for Batman's enemy "The Penguin," so now I'm happy whenever I find one of these in my bags.
Alright! That's it for "Thrift Store Thursdays" this week. Hope to see you back next time!
One of my goals for this blog in the new year is to start posting features on a regular schedule. I already began this on Monday. Every Monday, I will have a review of a cult or retro TV episode, and I am beginning that by reviewing all the Hardy Boys episodes from season one of the Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries. I also created a new Television tab at the top of my blog that will show you all of my TV reviews in one spot.
Starting tomorrow, Tuesdays and Thursdays will be dedicated to action figures and other toys and games. Every Tuesday will be "New Toy Tuesday," where I'll be reviewing new action figures and other toys. Every Thursday will be "Thrift Store Thursday," where I'll be showing off all the neat action figures, games, and other stuff I find for sale used at thrift stores, flea markets, yard sales, or on ebay. I've also created a Toys and Games tab at the top of my blog, where you can easily find all of my toy stuff.
I've got more plans coming up for Wednesdays and Fridays, and will probably be announcing them in the next couple of days, so stay tuned!
Join me as I write about a cool Batman toy I won in a contest online, as well as expose the dark secret that cereal pusher Cap'n Crunch would prefer to leave buried in the sands of time...
"I Won a Funko Pop Batman!"
A couple of weeks ago, I entered a contest on Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation to win a Funko Pop! Dark Knight Rises Batman from Superheroden.com. I didn't really expect to win, because I NEVER win cool contests like that. Actually, I take that back, there was one contest I won, when I was a little kid...
Behold: The Face of Evil
As a boy, I once won a contest from Cap'n Crunch cereal! The prize was a TREASURE CHEST full of 100 games! The picture showed a giant wooden treasure chest full of board games. I was so excited! I mailed off my winning prize pieces to Quaker Oats, and then waited, and waited... then one day, a manila envelope arrived at my home from the Quaker Oat Man himself. I opened it up, expecting it to be info about my treasure chest of games...
And it wasn't info about the chest, it was the chest itself. A "treasure chest" made of cardboard that I had to fold and assemble myself. And then there were a few more pieces of printed cardboard, which were my 100 games. For instance, there was a cardboard checker board, and instructions on about 30 different "games" you could play on a checker board. They didn't even include the checkers, you had to provide those yourself. Then there was a tic-tac-toe diagram, and instructions on about a dozen games you could play with tic-tac-toe. There were three or four other generic games in there, with instructions for variations on the play of those to round it up to 100 games. 100 games, and a treasure chest, and it all arrived inside a plain manila envelope.
Needless to say, little-kid-version-of-me was crushed. Why, If I couldn't trust Cap'n Crunch, who could I trust? It's probably the reason I grew up to be a long haired weirdo with an anti-authoritarian streak.
So, anyhoo, I saw Poe Ghostal's contest online, and it looked like fun. I didn't really expect to win, but I entered anyway, and I was looking forward to reading the "Bat Libs" from the other participants. Even when I saw there were only, like, 13 entries... meaning my odds were pretty good, I didn't expect to actually win. Then, a week later, Poe announced the winner, and it was me! Woo-hoo! Last Saturday it arrived in the mail, in a cardboard box, NOT a manila envelope. Yes!
So, let's take a look at this thing:
The Packaging
The packaging is great. It has a simple bold design with white borders that remind me of comic book panels. Just like the Funko Beavis and Butt-Head toys that I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, the box is not sealed with tape, and it is designed so that the toy can be easily removed from the box, and can be placed back in it when you are done. I really like that feature, and I wish more companies would do that. Normally toy collectors have to decide whether they are going to leave the toy in the package to preserve it's collectability, or take it out to play with it. With these toys from Funko you can do both.
"Hi There! I'm Batman!"
The figure itself is a lot of fun. It doesn't really have any articulation, except for it's head, but it doesn't need any. It's not designed to drive around in a car, or hold a weapon... all it has to do is sit on your desk and look cute. I don't normally collect modern Dark Knight toys. I grew up with Adam West and the Super-Friends, and I tend to collect the more colorful Batman toys, but the "cute factor" of this toy is enough to overcome the darkness of the movies he's based on, and I think he'll fit in quite nicely with my other Batman collectibles.
Note: I'm not dissing the Nolan movies, I think they're great. I'm just not into collecting stuff from them. I tend to collect stuff that reminds me of when I was a kid.
