I’ve written about video game tie-in merchandise before, but it’s definitely a part of my collection that has grown steadily in recent years. I definitely like the fact that it gives a more tangible quality to the characters that have been trapped in our televisions and cartridges and – let’s face it – our hearts for many years. Let’s see what Mario Claus brought for Ben, shall we?

I grew up in the age of Nintendo, so arcade classics like Berserk and Zaxxon are a little bit before my time. However, you can’t deny that the graphics on these old Milton Bradley board games are amazing. There was really a passion that went into translating arcade games into two-dimensional boards while attempting to recreate the arcade action in the first place. My sister picked these up from a friend in North Carolina. They are both SEALED, which is incredible. It also makes me very glad I passed on an opened, incomplete, and played with version of the Berserk board game I saw at a flea market this summer for $40.

There was a time before Super Mario Bros. 2 when Luigi was just a green and white version of his brother Mario. Therefore, you can date something like this pretty easily to the time in between Mario’s release in 1985 and when Luigi developed his current look. This plush doll is humongous. My mom picked it up for me at a local community yard sale for ten bucks. I don’t have the Mario equivalent (yet), but I kind of like the fact that for the moment, Luigi will get the spotlight in my collection.

Who you gonna call? MARIO BROTHERS! I have actually had several opportunities to purchase this awesome vintage phone, but that’s only if I wanted to spend at least $80 on it. My sister pulled this at a flea market for ten bucks in the fall and it’s definitely one of the most awesome finds she made. And yes, I know it would be more appropriate if the Warp Pipe was in green instead of red. The color is irrelevant. You will look awesome talking on this phone no matter the color.

Street Fighter merchandise isn’t hard to come by…if you’re in the market for action figures. However, there are plenty of other merchandising tie-ins that are much more difficult to find. I’m not saying this pinball game is impossible to find – one just sold on eBay not that long ago – but it’s certainly not something I can say I see pop up that often. It makes sound effects from the video game, too! The artwork is key art, but it’s key art from when the art at Capcom really took a step up in terms of dynamic appearance. My sister found this at a yard sale for three bucks, and I KNOW it’s worth more than that.

Finally, we have something really weird. This is some sort of Sega counter display. I don’t know exactly how it was used. It comes with a pen that had a stretchy cord attached to it. I don’t know if this was for filling out a contest or mail information cards or something, but it’s clearly from the early 1990s and it’s clearly not something that was ever meant to be sold, which is the kind of awesome, interesting, and different piece I love to have to round out a collection and make it unique. If you know anything about exactly what this MIGHT be, be sure to contact me! This, of course, came from a flea market, because how could it not?

The post A Hodgepodge of Video Game Tie-In Merchandise appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Gumball Machine Monster Jigglers

So if you haven’t been clued in to the world of jigglers yet, let me bring you up to speed. Jigglers are toys made out of a springy and flexible rubber that literally jiggles when you move it. If you were a kid between the 60’s- the 80’s, you probably had at least one. Though they came into popularity in the 1960’s, you can still find toys made like this today. In fact, you can still find some of the same jiggler designs of 40+ years ago in stores if you look hard enough, but I will address that later. Russ Berrie is famous for making larger gift ware jigglers that were sold in novelty shops and gift shops in the 60’s and 70’s. Most of their jigglers are animal characters with plastic inset eyes. They are made out of an oily rubber that will stain anything it touches if you leave it long enough, but they still have a following today regardless. Ben Cooper also made some cool jigglers including Marvel and DC super heroes and Universal Monsters. Yes, this is the Ben Cooper that made cheap Halloween costumes, but they also did dime store toys in the form of rubber jigglers. The rubber used by Ben cooper is more like the rubber on the toys I am talking about today (less oily). With the success of jigglers in the 1960’s, cheap-toy companies decided to jump on the band wagon and create small jigglers that could fit into a capsule in a gumball machine. You could fold the flexible rubber into a capsule and it would spring back good as new when the toy was removed.  Many of them are in the form of bizarre monsters, and those are the jigglers I am discussing today.

Flat Monster Jigglers just like the ones I had as a kid!

Now I should make it clear that these jigglers weren’t only sold in gumball machines. Some were also sold bagged and carded, and you could probably buy them individually in your local dime store. I remember the ones that my mom gave out at Halloween came in a big bag filled with a couple dozen of them. They were cheap to produce and kids loved them. The ones above are like the ones I had as a kid. They are what I would call flat jigglers, and they were still producing them up through at least the 1980’s when I had them.

Finger Puppet Jigglers.  That sad red fella on the far right is totally a new Jiggler.

One of the most incredible aspects of these small jigglers is that some of these designs, or bootlegs of these designs, are still being produced today. They are often sold as party favors for kids birthday parties. That means that some of these toys have had a consistent run of production for at least 40 years. In many ways that puts them in a league with Barbie, Hotwheels, and G.I. Joe when it comes to longevity, but because they are small and innocuous we never see them that way. The finger puppet jigglers are still made today. Though the designs have changed a bit over time, the concept remains the same.

It can sometimes be very difficult to tell an older jiggler from a new one, but there are a few tricks to help you decipher age. One of the easiest ways to tell age is to look at the markings. This trick I am about to mention will help you date a lot of toys besides jigglers. If the jiggler is marked “Hong Kong” it was made 1985 or prior. If it is marked “China” it is made after 1985. Another way to tell is the rubber. This is hard for me to describe in a blog post, but there is a different feel to the older rubber. When you have a China jiggler and a Hong Kong jiggler to compare you will see what I mean. They feel different. Finally, not every design has been produced over and over for years. In general, the octopus jigglers or spider jigglers aren’t being produced today and probably haven’t been for decades. The frog looking ones are the same. The main two still being produced are the finger puppets and the flat jigglers.

Octopus/ Spider Monster Jigglers.  These are some of my favorites.  Look at those crazy designs!

Frog Monster Jigglers.  Two eyes would just be too normal.  It’s either one or five with these guys.  The frogs are also some of my favorites.  I mean, just look at them.

One of my favorite aspects of jigglers is you can see their progression through time as different companies rip each others designs and make slight alterations. They shrink and grow, and they gain limbs and they lose limbs.   They come in different rubbers and plastics, and they change color as they go. As I find jigglers digging through bins at flea markets I watch them evolve over time, and I feel like a biologist finding a new species when I find a slight variation on a design. Flea markets are the Galapagos Islands of jigglers! It makes them particularly fun to collect. I never find the exact same jiggler twice.

The same jiggler can take on many forms.  Clearly these are the same design, but the one on the right has a horn.  Based on the rubber, the one on the right is also probably the older one.

These two have very similar faces, but different legs.  Another one of my favorite aspects of these toys is their evolution over the decades they were created.

These two may be the closest yet, but if you look carefully you will see that they are two totally different sculpts.  One is most likely a shameless rip off of the other.  They weren’t even trying to make it something different!

That tiny guy on the left was probably created in the 80’s and is clearly based on the guy on the right.  That being said, they made a lot of changes in the leg department.  What a crazy evolution!

I also want to take time to point out how weird and awesome some of these designs are. They are brilliant! As an artist, I love every one of them as these incredible and interesting sci-fi monsters. This is because many of these designs are based on work by well known artists such as Wally Wood and Basil Wolverton that were done for a line of Topps trading cards (the jigglers are clearly bootlegs). Others are based on other toy line such as The Outer Space Men by Colorforms, and some designs were done in house at the cheap toy companies based on these designs. Of course, as bootlegs of work by popular artists, these toys have garnered quite a following.

Does Barry look familiar to you? His doppelganger is in the top left corner of the photo of the spider/ octopus jigglers.

My fried Ed is in the top row second from the right.  You can probably thank Wally Wood for these nightmares.

Remember those multi-eyed frog jigglers?  You can call them Steve!

Finally Iris shares a striking resemblance to the rat bug jiggler in the next photo down.  This is the least obvious of the bootlegs, but the idea is still present.

These Jigglers are more figural.  Two monkeys, a bootleg of a larger jiggler line called De Horribles, and a rat bug.  I like the rat bug (but really, I just like them all).

Thanks to having a bag of flat jigglers as a kid from a Halloween party, I became hooked on monster jigglers. Their wacky and wonderfully disturbing designs intrigue me and keep me searching the depths of dirty boxes at flea markets to rescue them from obscurity. It is a worthwhile pursuit as far as I am concerned.

Some teeny tiny jigglers.  I put a big one in the back for comparison.  These guys are less than half the size of their counterparts, and therefore are even harder to find!  They are less than an inch long!

Finally, some really cool jigglers that probably weren’t in gumball machines.  These are probably from a dime store based on their size.  Still, these are really great and were well worth sharing!

The post The Amazing Variety of Gumball Machine Monster Jigglers appeared first on The Collector Gene.

(left to right) Crackarm, Hammertail…and that’s it! The complete set of Battle Brawlers!

Battle Brawlers were released in 1986 at a great time for monster action figures. High fantasy lines like Masters of the Universe and Thundercats were still going strong. That same year, Hasbro introduced Inhumanoids, a toy line based almost entirely around the monsters rather than the heroes. In all of these lines, the monsters kept growing and growing in size, which was great for a generation of kids who didn’t grow up with things like The Great Garloo.

Though they were figures, Battle Brawlers were in a sense more like a modified, monsterfied game of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Crackarm has arms that would try and punch his enemies from the sides, while Hammertail swings around his giant scorpion-like appendage to hit people on the top of their noggins. Conveniently, each character had buttons placed in their weak spots that corresponded to the other figure’s actions, so it was a matter of who could knock piece off of the other figure first.

What I love about the line is the fact that you could really use these figures in just about any toy line and they work. They tower above most fantasy figures, so they can serve as foes for He-Man and Lion-O if needed. They are basically just awesome monster designs wearing armor, and they are both very, very evil-looking, like something Les Edwards would have designed for old Games Workshop games.

The series only included these two figures, so if you want to collect the line, the only work you have ahead of you is finding them, which is not impossible. I found Hammertail at a toy show and later found Crackarm at a flea market. A word to the wise, though: the name “Battle Brawlers” is used by Bakguan toys, so if you go searching for these online, you might have to wade through a bunch of stuff you don’t want. However, they are absolutely worth seeking out for any fantasy or monster toy collectors out there!

The post Kenner’s Battle Brawlers: Awesome Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Monsters appeared first on The Collector Gene.

It seems as though every Happy Meal toy is a promotional tool used to get children to beg their parents to see the latest computer animated theatrical release or buy them the latest Mattel ™ toys. However, it wasn’t always like this. McDonald’s use to come up with their own ideas all the time so that kids would be sold on their love for Ronald McDonald and his friends at an early age.

The best promotion by far had nothing to do with Ronald and the gang. Instead, it had to do with transforming things, which was an inevitable recipe for success for toys in the 1980s. McDonald’s released Changeables, a series of robots disguised as your favorite McDonald’s meals. Sure, like all Happy Meal toys, they weren’t QUITE as good as their expensive, branded counterparts, but for FREE toys, they were amazing. We hadn’t seen anything quite like them. A hot cakes box and a French fry container transforming into robots?

Courtesy of neogaf.com

Who would have thought that you could have food containers transforming into awesome robots?

The Japanese. That’s who.

Yes, if you grew up in Japan in the mid-1980s, you had us Americans beat by a couple of years when it came to the transforming food objects market. That’s because if you grew up in Japan, you might have owned Telecoma toys!

This amazing artwork let's you know about the eternal food war going on in Japanese supermarkets.

These toys, affectionately known by American collectors as “Canned Food Fighters,” take containers of popular branded foods and meals in Japan and turn them into an army of food fightin’ warriors! Unlike Food Fighters, which definitely took their inspiration from the American military, Telecoma figures were more akin to Kinnikuman or M.U.S.C.L.E., where a wide variety of characters settled their differences in a stadium for mealtime dominance!

What I love about the toys is that they actually use real food products on their labels. When McDonald’s made Changeables, they didn’t have to worry about licensing their own food. With Telecoma, this was more like Computer Warriors using a Pepsi can in their toy line or Monster in my Pocket featuring Tony the Tiger, except on a much grander scale. The Pepsi can is certainly the most recognizable design for us Americans.

While most of what I write about it something that I know quite a bit about and feel the need to get the info out on the Internet, I can’t say that I know a whole lot about Telecoma other than they exist. My collection is rather small, and all of it has come courtesy of a series of Japanese online auctions. I learned about the line through the Little Rubber Guys message board and decided I would see what was out there.

These characters all resemble cans...

...and these are more bowl-based characters.

Two of the sets that I have fall into the “keshi” or little rubber guy category. I’m guessing one boxed set is one faction and the other contains the guys they fight with or something. They are packaged very similarly to most kinkeshi lines of the era. I don’t know if these two boxed sets represent a complete set of figures or not, but it must put me pretty darned close.

The third boxed set I own is a deluxe set of sorts. In addition to containing a handful of the kinkeshi figures, it also contains two of the transforming figures that are very similar to the way McDonald’s constructed its Changeables line.

These figures came in the above boxed set.

There is a whole line of these figures numbering almost as many as the keshi line, and I have seen a transforming shopping cart vehicle, which as you can imagine is amazing. This deluxe set comes with a wrestling ring, which is not quite as amazing as a transforming shopping cart.

Now, some of you might say, “Wait a second, Ben, I’m pretty sure I had these figures as a kid, and I never lived in Japan!” And you know what? You’re absolutely right.

Though I own one of these, this image comes from dinosaurdracula.com!

This is a card that would have been placed in a grocery store vending machine. As you can plainly see, the designs of these characters come right from Telecoma. Several collectors have documented finding these figures in a wide variety of colors, and a few of them have found examples with the stickers still attached, which feature more recognizable American food brands on them. Sadly, I have not stumbled upon any examples of Telecoma knock-offs at any flea markets in the couple of years that I’ve been on the lookout for them, but they are definitely out there.

While Telecoma has a much richer universe than the McDonald’s Changeables, it’s funny to see how East and West developed what is essentially the same idea. Throw in Food Fighters to the mix, and there’s no question that kids will never get tired of playing with their food.

The post Telecoma Canned Food Fighters by Takara (Yet More Mealtime Combat) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This was made all the more incredible by the fact that I grew up in a time where knowing how to properly skateboard inevitable made you the coolest person. Bart Simpson did it. Marty McFly did it. Wally Bear did it in an effort to warn you about the dangers of drugs. And by the time I had grown too old for cartoons and teddy bears telling me not to smoke marijuana, there was a newfound skateboarding popularity craze thanks to Tony Hawk.

It’s no surprise that toy companies tried to capitalize on the coolness of skateboards. One of my favorite toy lines of all time is Kenner’s Savage Mondo Blitzers, basically a hodgepodge of grotesque and wacky creatures who traveled in “gangs” on their skateboards. (The line was even called Skateboard Mania in Greece.) But an even stranger toy line appeared years prior, and in many ways, toys like these might justify why I never mustered the courage to really try and become good at skateboarding.

In 1986, Playtime Toys (not to be confused with Playmates Toys) decided to capitalize on the “gross out” craze that had made Garbage Pail Kids and Madballs into overnight success stories. They created a toyline called Skateboard Smack Ups. There is no accompanying storyline, so we’re not sure what the relationships are between these characters. The package simply states that these toys feature “Real SKATEBOARD action! Hi-Speed Wheels!” and that you should, of course, “Collect them All!”

This amazing collection was sold on eBay recently.

But then you take a closer look at the characters themselves. For example, Wally Wallbanger met with an unfortunate accident when he skated head first into a brick wall. Ouch! Then there’s Patty Plate Glass, who looks like she skated through a window and is still riding despite the fact that shards of glass have punctured her body and split her head open. While these injuries no doubt sent these children to the emergency room, none are quite as disturbing as Tammy Tailpipe, who not only has a tailpipe that went THROUGH her head, but she’s quickly billowing out as she gets filled with exhaust fumes. SHE SHOULD BE DEAD!

Collectors of these 80s curiosities love the designs because, let’s face it, a toy line like this probably wouldn’t get made today, although if you didn’t want your child to skateboard, I’m pretty sure he or she would be completely turned off from the hobby via these outrageous toys.

Because of their relative obscurity, obtaining a set is a difficult-but-not-impossible task. I was able to collect all 12 figures without too much trouble…assuming that those 12 figures were the only ones made. Little did I know a fortuitous set of circumstances would lead me to the rarest of all Skateboard Smack Ups toys.

Last year, my sister and I acquired a large collection of Toy Fair catalogs from the mid-to-late 1980s that were given out at the International Toy Fair. These catalogs show what companies have planned out for their various toy lines, but because these are meant to showcase what will be produced if they have the means of producing them, they often serve as a showcase for several rare unproduced toys that simply did not see any time on shelves because toy stores didn’t order enough to justify it. One of the catalogs we obtained was the Playtime Toys 1986 catalog, which showed the Skateboard Smack-Ups line.

Imagine my surprise when I saw one I didn’t recognize: a deluxe, motorized one called Manny Manhole. Based on the image, this battery-operated toy was significantly larger than the rest of the toys in the line and therefore couldn’t have been packed alongside the other 12 figures in the series. I said, “Well, I guess they never produced that one!” and went about my day.

Since I had completed my set a while ago, I hadn’t thought about what the figures were worth, but I decided to take a look at what they were going for on eBay just to see if people were still interested in them. Imagine my surprise when someone had actually listed a boxed example of Manny Manhole! By gar, it was produced!

After being listed at a rather high Buy-It-Now price for close to a month, I contacted the seller about making an offer. Clearly, he appreciated the rarity of the item as much as I did. We came to an agreement, and while this item was on the expensive side, I knew the likelihood of me finding another boxed example was relatively slim.

In person, he’s pretty interesting. The box is fairly sizable to accommodate a figure that is at least twice as large if not three times as large as every other figure in the line. He’s also the only character in the entire line to have artwork created exclusively for his character, as everyone else was thrown on a generic blister card. Because he’s significantly larger than the other characters, Playtime Toys actually added stickers to his t-shirt. The back features the classic skull-and-crossbones design, while the front simply has the phrase “Trash” on it. Awesome!

The box also gives me a clue as to how this figure could have been obtained. There is enough price tag residue for me to determine that this had to be sold at Toy Liquidators. The toy soldier on the “alkaline batteries” sticker also gives it away, but I know enough about the look of various stores’ price tags to know that this was sold by Toy Liquidators and not Kay Bee Toys. The seller said it was obtained from a comic store that had acquired a large selection of “dead stock” toys, so while this toy is unused, it must have seen at least some shelf time.

It’s very possible I could have remained patient and found this toy for a much better price at a flea market or yard sale (and given my track record, it’s entirely possible). However, while I’m more a fan of loose toys than packaged examples, I don’t mind having a packaged example of old Manny here. If I found one loose, he probably wouldn’t work, and considering the stickers on his shirt are peeling even with a plastic bag keeping him all together, I doubt a loose example would have both of the stickers intact.

In addition to educating the public on Manny Manhole, I hope that readers found this page through appropriate means. While I encourage you to Google Manny to see that nothing really comes up, unfortunately, other instances of Manny Manhole are not so PG-13 in nature.

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Basically, anything that was released by Tonka after the initial two series of action figures is incredibly difficult to find. Series 3 contains a subset of figures known as “Jewel Lords.” These were still transforming stones like the previous series, but they were supposed to represent more precious rocks. Like the rest of the Jewel Lords line, the three figures were initially released in Japan. Over there, they were known as Amberman, Rubyman, and Diaman or Diamondman. Once they hit the States, they were known as Sunstone, Flamestone, and Solitaire, respectively.

Solitaire has a rather interesting history. She’s the only female character among the Good Rock Lords, and there’s no question she’s supposed to be a woman based on the physique of the figure. She’s also the only female character present in the movie Go-Bots: Battle of the Rock Lords, which was released theatrically to coincide with the release of the new toys, despite the fact that her toy did not appear until very late in the line. If any children actually saw and enjoyed the film, they probably questioned why they couldn’t get their hands on the toy when the majority of other characters from the film received figures in their likenesses. (She also had a bit of starpower associated with her, as she was voiced by Margot Kidder, who you might remember from her role Lois Lane from the Christopher Reeve Superman films and her heavily publicized manic episode in 1996.)

Here is my loose example of a Rock Lords Solitaire figure.

Lo and behold, she did get released, and while all three Jewel Lords are quite desirable, Solitaire is far more desirable a figure to be had than Flamestone or Sunstone. It took me a while to find one, but I did get one through a collection I found online. Sadly, none of my Jewel Lords have weapons, but the example of Solitaire I have is in very nice shape. I didn’t get a tremendous bargain, but I got her for what I believe to be a very fair price.

However, you might find yourself asking, “Wait a minute, Ben, didn’t you say earlier that Solitaire was released in Japan as DiamondMAN?” Yes, I did, and that’s not a mistake. For some reason, in Japan, Solitaire released as a male figure. I know action figures in general place a heavy emphasis on trying to appeal to boys, but female characters were often very important on a lot of cartoons that were designed to sell toys. And the sculpt is exactly the same, too, so the features that make Solitaire look clearly like a female Rock Lord are still present.

Diamond...man? Here's what Solitaire looked like in Japan!

However, unlike the other two Jewel Lords, Diamondman is quite a bit different than Solitaire. A different type of clear plastic is used to create the diamond effect. Solitaire has yellow eyes, Diamondman has red eyes. Diamondman also has a deep blue paintjob on his (her?) head, suggesting that the design is like a crown or helmet or something, whereas with Solitaire, it appears to be more of a feature of her character.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of both versions of Solitaire.

You can go nuts collecting certain action figure lines. I’ve found that many of the toy lines I enjoy collecting often have pieces that were released only overseas, so while flea markets, yard sales, and local toy shows are my primary means of amassing my collection, items that were never released here are much more difficult to find. For those pieces, the only thing I can do short of moving to one of these countries is buy them directly from other collectors and pay full retail price (which I justify since it’s less than the cost of a plane ticket and a hotel room). In other words, I never expected to own Diamondman, or at least get one at an affordable price. While one foreign exclusive piece in particular (the mighty Fossilsaurus) is on my most wanted toys list and has been for years, here I am taking pictures of the two figures side-by-side for your viewing pleasure. How did this happen?

Three days before Christmas, my sister and her boyfriend ventured to one of the local flea markets here in New Jersey. We were about to do a fairly normal person holiday activity together once they got home, but when they arrived, I got an excited call from downstairs saying, “Come take a look at what we found!” And there was Diamondman, staring at me. My sister knew well enough that she had found one of the elusive Jewel Lords, but she didn’t know she had found the Japanese exclusive variations. The figure was in a bag mixed in with a bunch of odds and ends that clearly came from Japan. It was not being sold by a toy dealer but rather a video game dealer who had imported a few games. Given the low, low price of ten bucks for the entire bag, my guess is that they were much more well-versed on the video game market than the toy market.

So yes, I have both versions of Solitaire, and the much more difficult to obtain version ended up being found for much less money than I would have expected. The lesson? Educate your siblings AND don’t underestimate your local flea markets, even in the bitter cold and right before Christmas!

The post Solitaire for Two (I’m talking about Rock Lords again) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This tenth anniversary issue of Life magazine shows the first issue with the famous Margaret Bourke White cover.

I’m sure my love affair with Life began when I was about ten years old. Unlike just about every middle class family in America in the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s, my family never had a subscription to Life magazine. However, my aunts and uncles did, and they would pass along their outdated copies to us when we came to visit. Indeed, I really looked forward to riding home with several stacks of magazines piled up around me in the back of the car. Life, McCall’s, Ladies Home Journal, and National Geographic were eagerly read by me even when I was still in elementary school. Sometimes I would cut the magazines up and put photos and articles in my scrap book. When I was about 13 or 14, I started making a gigantic collage of famous people’s faces, and most of the clippings came from Life.

Now you know what a weird kid I was and how my addiction to printed matter, especially magazines, began.

Early on, when Jim and I first started going to flea markets and into antique shops over forty years ago, I would be drawn to any old magazines that I saw, and if they were affordable (i.e. cheap), I would usually buy them. With thousands upon thousands of each copy sold during its heyday, old Life magazines were not hard to find. I could usually pick up nice examples from the 1940’s and 50’s, my favorite era because the magazines were bulging with fabulous advertisements and interesting articles, for fifty cents or a dollar. Once, about thirty years ago, I came upon a table at a flea market piled high with the old Life’s for a quarter each, and I bought a couple dozen.

However, that was nothing compared to what happened about ten years ago. Our county library holds a book sale a few times a year. When I first discovered this, I went crazy and was coming home with two or three boxes full of printed matter after each sale. This is not a good thing when we already have many, many boxes full of books and magazines in the basement. On this particular occasion, I was trying to behave by avoiding the sale, but Ben ended up checking it out. At lunchtime, he reported that they had “tons” of vintage Life magazines for ten cents apiece. Ten cents! Heck, that was the original cover price in the 1930’s and 40’s! The sale closed at 3 pm, so I hopped in the car and headed to the library. My willpower had crumbled.

Ben was right. Almost as soon as I walked in, I saw several piles of Life from the 1940’s and 50’s. Why they hadn’t all sold at that ridiculously low price was beyond my comprehension. Within minutes, my stack was an impressive size – and I’d only spent about $2.00. Then one of the volunteers at the book sale said the fateful words, “We have more magazines in the back if you’re interested.” Of course, I was. So I accompanied her to a large employee office/workroom, and there were about three or four eight-foot long tables just piled with Life magazines. I was stunned. It turned out that it was the entire archive that the library owned, and they had decided to get rid of it. There literally were hundreds of Life magazines from about 1937 to 1999. Obviously, it was not a complete collection. Certain issues had probably been lifted forty or fifty years ago. Others had probably been sold that morning at the book sale. Still and all, there were many, many issues from just about every year of publication.

Again, I dove in and started making a hand-selected pile, probably another $2.00’s worth. Then I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. “Would you be willing to sell all of them to me for one price?” I asked, knowing full well that if I bought them, Jim was surely going to kill me. In my mind, I thought that any price of $50 or less would be an absolute steal that I couldn’t turn down. Any figure above $50 would have caused me to hesitate and perhaps regain my sanity. Naturally, the woman said, “You can have them all for $50.”

And that’s how I came into possession of our county library’s Life magazine archive.

There was no way I could fit them all into the car on one trip. I took several boxes with me, and over the course of the next month or two, I would make a trip every week or so and pick up another five or ten boxes. Into the basement they went, and in the basement most of them still are.

Quite honestly, I have sold a few. I’ve certainly gotten my money back and then some. I’ve even given a few away as gifts. Life magazines are the perfect birthday or anniversary gift. It’s always fun to see what products were being advertised, what big stories were in the news, what the fashions looked like and what famous person might have been interviewed.

Whenever I go through the “archive” and try to choose a few magazines to get rid of, here’s what happens: First, I’ll see a great cover photo and be attracted to it.

Then I’ll see some ads that are colorful, nostalgic, or fun.

Then, invariably, there’s an interesting article to skim or scan or even read in depth. I swear to you that it’s a rare Life magazine that doesn’t have at least three or four different things going for it. And sometimes that’s what makes it difficult for me to part with some of them. They are like little weekly time capsules. Sometimes they capture an era with which I’m familiar – like the 1960’s or 70’s. More often, though, they bespeak a time that I either never lived through or was too young to remember.

It doesn’t matter. I love Life, and that’s that. I have promised that I will begin parting with them more seriously, and I will keep my promise. But will I always have some Life magazines in my possession? Yes, without a doubt.

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Cosby’s career spans for decades, and the number of different roles he’s played over the years is seconded only by the number of different sweaters he must own. Depending on when you grew up, Bill Cosby was either a secret agent on I Spy, a wildly successful stand-up comedian, Dr. Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show, or a ubiquitous pitchman for Jell-O, Kodak, Coca-Cola, Texas Instruments, or any one of a number of companies that paid to have Cosby as their spokesman.

But there’s a lesser known part of Bill Cosby’s career that has developed a rather passionate fan base (and no, I’m not talking about Leonard: Part 6…how dare you even think that). In the early 1980s, Cosby took over the hosting duties of a program called Picture Pages. The program began as a children’s television show on a local Pittsburgh affiliate before being assimilated into the Captain Kangaroo program. The show was based on the idea that children would have workbooks with images that matched what was being shown on the screen, and the host would walk the children through these segments to teach them simple lessons about the differences between inside and outside, shapes and sizes, colors, animals, and a bunch of other lessons aimed at a very, very young and impressionable audience.

During Cosby’s time as host, Picture Pages was shown in the very, very early days of Nickelodeon on Pinwheel, which ran until 1989. Nickelodeon also used short segments from the show as filler in between their programs, and so segments of Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages were being shown into the early 1990s. In other words, there is at least an entire decade where Picture Pages was shown on Nickelodeon for a nationwide audience, and it coincided perfectly with Cosby’s tenure on his self-titled NBC sitcom, despite the fact that they were not being taped simultaneously.

As an adult, looking back on Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages has been rather interesting. Obviously, the show was done on the cheap side. Cosby has made it clear time and time again that believes in the importance of educating the youth of America, but in this show, rather than go about it with the kind of unbridled enthusiasm seen in most children’s programming, Cosby appears sleepy and possibly drunk most of the time, slurring his way through dialogue with the excitement of watching bananas rot. If you caught episodes in their entirety, he would do improvised transitions, most of which seemed to result in Cosby getting progressively more annoyed at an unseen gaggle of children imploring him to provide them with more Picture Pages. Also, I know it’s a show aimed at children, but you have to question the educational value of drawing lines from one thing to another. It’s the kind of mindless busy work given to nursery school and kindergarten students while the teacher grabs a smoke or quick glances at the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, not something that can be broadcast on national television for 22 minutes at a time.

I think a combination of vague but positive childhood memories of Picture Pages coupled with nostalgia buffs like myself who look for subversive, unintentionally hilarious vintage programming are responsible for a cult-like following of Picture Pages today. When you mention it to someone between the ages of 25 and 40, either you’re met with a look of utter confusion and no concept of what the show is like or a juiced up enthusiasm from someone who truly understands the nature of Picture Pages.

Now, not surprisingly, there is not a whole lot to collect if you want to start a Picture Pages collection. I discovered the program by stumbling upon VHS tapes at various thrift stores in the area, and you shouldn’t plan on paying more than a couple of bucks at most for each one. If you’re lucky, you might find one of the workbooks tucked in with the VHS tape. This is crucial if you’re hoping to follow to follow along with the program, especially when Cosby asks you to flip to page J-5 or something like that. The show works without the workbook and essentially because participatory in the same way something like Sesame Street or Blue’s Clues does, but Cosby references the book and the use of a writing utensil just enough to seem confusing to anyone that doesn’t realize a workbook is required.

However, one piece of merchandise in particular is very, desirable, and that’s a fun little character named Mortimer Ichabod Marker. Mortimer Ichabod (or MI for short) is an anthropomorphic bee or insect-like creature that acts as a gatekeeper between universes: our own world, and that of Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages. While crayons and pencils will serve just fine for drawing lines from object to object, MI was blessed with special powers. Specifically, he was able to make what has been described as a “doodly doo” sound, an ascending or descending scale of beeps and boops as the line was drawn.  To children of the 1980s and early 1990s, this sound was like the voice of an angel, soothing, familiar, gentle.

A company called Kusan was called upon to recreate Picture Pages’ closest thing to a mascot. In doing so, they created an object that is highly prized among collectors of everything 1980s.

Mortimer Ichabod Marker

This is the official Mortimer Ichabod Marker. If it seems big an unwieldy, that’s because sometimes, you have to make certain sacrifices to get things perfect, especially if it was the early 1980s and electronics were involved. MI takes one 9-volt battery, and then you insert your own pen, pencil, marker, or crayon into the tip. Press it down to a piece of paper, and the descending “doodly doo” noise will follow. So simple, yet so elegant in its execution.

I’m not the first person to document the rarity and the desirability of this little guy. One just sold on eBay a couple of weeks ago for $163, and that one had condition issues (although it did work). I’ve seen them sell for as high as $290 in nice shape, so clearly, this is a valuable item with a track record of high sales for what is essentially an electronic attachment for a pencil-shaped object. I think so few were saved because the show is meant for a preschool audience, and so once you are too old for picture pages, why save it? So how are you supposed to stumble upon one outside of something like eBay?

I guess you get lucky like I did recently. Very, VERY lucky.

I was checking out a neighborhood yard sale in South Jersey. Since I finished up earlier than expected, I decided to drive about 20 minutes to a local flea market. On the way there, I noticed that a mini flea market/community yard sale was being held by the Knights of Columbus. Since it was only a slight detour, I decided to pop on by.

My, my, that's quite a lot of Picture Pages videos!

The first thing I noticed at the first table I checked was a box of seven of the VHS tapes with the original sleeve that was clearly designed for them. As I alluded to earlier, I collect the VHS tapes when I find them cheap. I asked how much the set of tapes were, and the seller said two bucks. I said, “Sold.”

These Picture Pages workbooks are worth it just for the Coz's various insane expressions on the covers!

I found a few other things, and as the seller was getting ready to bag them, I noticed that they had a pile of the Picture Pages workbooks behind them. They said they would throw those in with the two bucks I already spent. Again, I don’t consider these to be terribly valuable, but it’s nice to have them.

So I asked them if they had “the pen” (I didn’t want to look like too much of an obsessive Picture Pages fan), and they said they didn’t think so. Just as I was about to leave to look around at the other tables, the seller said, “Hey, look what I found!” And sure enough, there was Mortimer Ichabod Marker, in fantastic shape, in the original clear plastic sleeve he had been shipped in so many years ago. The battery cover was intact, and when I got home, he worked perfectly.

The box that brought everything together

After I got home, I noticed that the VHS tapes, the workbooks, and Mortimer all fit in rather snugly in the seemingly random cardboard box the seller had given me. That’s because it turns out it was in the original mail away box, complete with an image of Mortimer Ichabod on the shipping label (ah, the effort companies used to put into packages for kids), and in the bottom of the box was a mail away form with Bill Cosby’s visage on it if you wanted even more Picture Pages tapes. Sadly, the former owner did not ever use it, but instead, they left me with a piece of ephemera that I’m pretty sure is not all that easy to find.

One of the most interesting details about this box is that it was shipped in 1992. While Picture Pages was still being shown, I’m a little shocked that the mail-in offer was still valid that late into Picture Pages history. Then again, The Cosby Show was still on, so why not continue to capitalize on the rather fortuitous association? While it’s shocking, I did find advertisements that said the Picture Pages tapes were still available in 1994.

In other words, Mortimer Ichabod is clearly not easy to find, but he also seems to have been available for several years, so with enough persistence, patience, or just plain ol’ dumb luck like what I had, you may be fortunate enough to add one to your own collection, and when you do, it will truly be time to let Bill Cosby do a Picture Page with you.

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I love monsters.  I always have ever since I was a kid.  They are colorful, creative, weird, and interesting.  The great thing about growing up in the 80’s and 90’s is that there were all sorts of cool monster toys not only in toy stores, but floating all over the flea markets and yard sales just waiting to come home with me.  “Gross” and controversial monster toys found a market during my childhood in the form of Mad Balls, Weird Balls, Savage Mondo Blitzers, and all sorts of other smaller toy lines that caused a stir with concerned parents, but kids couldn’t get enough of.  I was lucky enough to have parents who didn’t see the problem with ugly and disgusting monster toys, so I had many of them.

When I walk down the toy aisle of my local departments stores I have to say that I find myself a little bit disappointed.  It is great to see some of the classic toy lines of my youth still thriving and exciting kids today, but there is hardly anything new and interesting happening in the mainstream toy world.  Small toy companies hardly exist as the giants buy up as many licenses as possible to cut out the little guy.  No one wants to take a chance on the next big idea when they can just re-market the same things year after year and make money at it.  I grew up in an era where everyone wanted to find the next big thing, and they would throw out any idea that sounded interesting to see if it stuck.  Then the small companies would make weird copycat toys to capitalize on those popular lines, and it was awesome.  Creativity was everywhere, and whatever you were into as a kid, there were plenty of toy lines capitalizing on your interests.

Recently some dealer friends of mine asked me to identify a toy line.  They are very knowledgeable on 80’s toys, so I was surprised that there might be something I knew about that they didn’t.  I certainly don’t consider myself to be an expert on the 80’s, but they knew I liked weird stuff so they thought I might have come across this toy line before.  I hadn’t.  I was just as stumped as they were.  We showed the toys to a few other very knowledgeable dealers in the room, and no one knew what they were.  This is a very rare occurrence as even a lot of the obscure and weird toy lines from the 1980’s are fairly well documented and researched among the collector community.  All I knew after seeing these bizarre plastic figures was that I wanted them for my collection. I needed to own these things.

The only information we had to work from was a toy company name and a date on the bottom of each figure.  They were marked “Creata 1986″.  If you haven’t heard of Creata, it is because they were a very small company that didn’t make much.  They capitalized on other successful toy companies by making knock offs to fool grandmothers and weird aunts who had no idea what the kids in their lives were really looking for.  Mostly what you will find if you do a Google search on Creata is a Gem doll knock off that they made.  Now, hopefully, since I am writing this article you will be able to find this incredibly weird toy line that they created called “Ugglies”.

Is this a full set of ” Ugglies”?  As far as I can tell, it is not. According to the card back for the Ugglies, there are twelve in the set. Since these are the first I am seeing, I cannot tell you for sure whether or not every single figure was made, but if they were it will most likely be a long a tedious task for me to try and hunt the rest of the set down. The carded examples I am showing below were sent to me by another fan of the toy line. The figure examples they show are all among the figures that I bought, so until I see examples of the other six in the set I can’t be completely sure. It is not uncommon for toy companies to show toys on the back of a blister card that were never made. If anyone has any of the other figures I would love to share them with the world, and if you ever want to part with them I know a good loving home you can send them to.

Here are some individual shots with names so you can get better acquainted with the Ugglies that I was able to obtain.

Ol’ Blue Eyes

Ol’ Blue Eyes is one of my favorites, though it is very hard to pick a favorite. I think with the overalls he is wearing that Creata might be trying to make Ol’ Blue Eyes out to be a child? What a weird and wacky toy!  Also, he has a bolt in the back of his head.  I just wanted to make sure you noticed that.

James Gag-Me

I think the name of this figure simply comes from the fact that the creators felt very clever for coming up with the name “James Gag-Me”. I love the eye in the back of his head. It kind of makes the figure for me. Also the fact that he has one giant foot.  These things are great!

Fly Speck

This figure is a little more basic and a little less gross than the first two, even though it is eating bugs and has worms for hair. You know a toy line is weird when one of the “less gross” figures is eating bugs and has worms for hair.

This is another one of my favorites. I go back and forth over which one is my favorite. Clearly I can’t choose. I am pretty sure Reject will haunt your nightmares. That poor cat.

Split Head

This one is most gross in concept, yet most simplistic in execution. For a second I thought all of these were supposed to be children, maybe knocking off of Garbage Pail Kids more specifically, but this one is wearing a business suit. Maybe I am over thinking the Ugglies a little bit…

Phoul Pharoah

You might be thinking I spelled “pharaoh” wrong in the name there. Well, Creata spelled it wrong on the package. Maybe they did that on purpose, but I doubt it. A mummy isn’t exactly a creative concept compared to the other figures in the line, but I think this guy has a great design.

Creata managed to reference all sorts of great gross-out and monster images in these weird toys.  They are a little bit Garbage Pail Kids, a little bit Mad Balls, a little bit Weirdos, and a little bit of a whole bunch of other interesting monster ideas from the 1980’s and the few decades prior.  I think these things are so cool and I am so lucky to have been able to obtain such a large group in one shot.  Now that I have met the Ugglies I am definitely obsessed with them. Now that you have met the Ugglies, you are probably at least a little bit obsessed with them, too.

The post Meet the Ugglies! appeared first on The Collector Gene.

As a kid of the 1980s, I was inundated by product after product of all the various popular movies, television shows, and toys that a kid had to choose from in terms of entertainment. I didn’t have to see the movie Gremlins to know what Gizmo looked like. His adorable furry mug was plastered on a wide assortment of toys and plush dolls.

But Gizmo was a Mogwai. Those Gremlins (the creatures Mogwai transform into if they eat anything after midnight…I’m assuming Eastern Standard Time) terrified me. Ugly scales, sharp little teeth, evil red glaring eyes…to me, wet little monster puppets are far more realistic than anything anyone will ever be able to recreate with CGI these days. And because I was so exposed to entertainment as a kid, it was difficult for me to differentiate between reality and fantasy. So I knew that if I avoided watching either of the Gremlins movies, I wouldn’t have to fear them when the lights went out at night.

Here’s the thing: my fear of Gremlins is exactly what the filmmakers of the 1984 movie wanted me to experience. Not just anyone can create a piece of cinema where you can completely lose yourself in the moment even though you know that you’re watching puppets. As such, Gremlins holds up quite well today.

Several toy companies are churning out Gremlins collectibles in large quantities, and they’re all quite popular. In many cases, items that were released as collectibles in the last 15 years (as opposed to items contemporary to when the movies were released in 1984 and 1990) are quite a bit more valuable and desirable than their vintage counterparts.

However, my eyes have been focused on finding vintage Gremlins toys in the last couple of years, and there is some truly amazing merchandise that was made for the two movies. I would say a good 90-95% of the merchandise is based around Gizmo, and that makes a lot of sense, since he’s literally the cutest fictional character in a horror movie ever and easily marketable to children.

Today, I’m spotlighting a pair of plush toys that, as far as I can tell, were only available in the United Kingdom. It’s a set of plush dolls of Mohawk and Daffy, two of the evil Mogwai that were spawned when Gizmo gets wet in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) and the first Gremlins movie (1984), respectively. Like I said, the vast majority of Gremlins merchandise was based around Gizmo with a couple of items based on Stripe from the first film, so it’s nice to see Gremlins toys based on other Mogwai. There are an awful lot of plush Gremlins out there, so it’s not as though these are standouts, right?

Wait. Bear with me. It gets a whole lot better.

See, according to the rules established in the movies, if you feed a Mogwai after midnight, that’s when they transform into the titular Gremlins. Even though these are plush toys, you can pretend that these little guys got out of hand by literally pulling them inside out and exposing their true, horrific nature.

Yes, these plush toys are reversible, which allows you to transform Mohawk and Daffy back and forth between Mogwai and Gremlins. These. Are. INCREDIBLE. I was simply doing a search for vintage Gremlins toys on eBay and these popped up. I had no idea they existed. The auctions for the two plush dolls were both were in the United Kingdom, and as far as I can tell, every other example of these that I’ve been able to find has only been for sale over there, leading me to believe they’re an overseas exclusive. Much like the Japanese JUN Planning toys from the late 1990s, it seems like the best merchandise is never available in the market where it makes the most sense.

Plush toys are a tough call in the collecting world, since they’re not something that can easily be displayed on a shelf. However, once I knew these existed, I knew I had to own them, proper display space be damned. To my knowledge, they are the only transforming Gremlins toys ever made, and in this case, it makes perfect sense. The “action feature” of these toys is built around what happens to Mogwai in the films.

To my UK readers, be thankful that you have a pretty easy shot of getting these. For everyone else, time to add a saved search to eBay!

The post Reversible Plush Gremlins (Mohawk and Daffy) appeared first on The Collector Gene.