Today’s Wax Paper Pop Art is a wrapper from the 1980 Topps Weird Wheels sticker card set (discussed here.)

After reading Adam Eisenberg's Thundarr article from a 1980 issue of Fantastic magazine earlier in the week, I've been thinking a lot about the issue of violence and marketing in cartoons, and the whole debacle of Action for Children's Television in the early 80s.  9.999 times out of 10 there are usually only two reactions to the debate; people either tend to agree with A.C.T. and believe that merchandised cartoons are just 30 minute commercials that have almost nothing to offer children, or they disagree and don't see the harm in matching toy lines and feel that cartoons are either good for kids or are at least not doing harm.  It's easy to forget that even though the issue appears black and white, the world is always a weird gray place filled with all kinds of people (that 0.001 out of 10 people.)  For this Cartoon Commentary I'm going to take a look at someone else's commentary for a change...

Steve (the Evil King Macrocranios) over at the Roboplastic Apocalypse pointed me to a April 25th, 1985 Washington Post editorial by Jane A. Welch, a concerned mother of two who has the most unique (at least I hope so) opinion of the merits of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe property I’ve ever come across…

First off, though Welch's editorial reads like the semi-crazy ranting that tends to get buried in the lifestyle section of a local paper and is really yesterday's news on the day it sees print, the story actually caught on.  While doing a bit of research in trying to pin down the impact of Welch's rant I came across a number of other papers from all over the country that picked up the editorial, so this was most likely Welch's fifteen minutes.

So what is so crazy about Welch's commentary?  Well for starters she takes the unique stance that Filmation's He-Man cartoon has the potential to turn her then two year-old son into a bleeding heart pantywaist!  For once, a parent stands up and says that there isn't ENOUGH violence in a cartoon and that morality of avoiding fighting and violence is downright un-American.  Welch might just be a long lost relative of Roger Sweet, the initial creator of the Masters of the Universe toy line for Mattel, as she seems to closely mimic his feelings towards the Filmation version of the He-Man storyline.

There are a couple things that I find really interesting in the editorial including the idea that the cartoon and toy line differ so much in execution and tone.  Whereas the toys were designed in the image of fierce warrior barbarians with axes, swords, and rippling muscles, the cartoon, which uses most of the same imagery, all but ignores these violent aspects of the characters in favor of moralistic, fable-like storytelling where He-Man is more likely to thrown Beastman in the mud then physically harm him in any way.  Though this dichotomy is apparent in most cartoon merchandising, it points to the underlying issue that's really been bugging me about how my generation appropriates pop culture icons.

What I'm seeing is an issue of potential and the wish fulfillment of seeing that potential realized based on the idea of "how things work in the real world."  So when we have a character like Superman/Clark Kent who is ripped with an unstoppable alien musculature powered by Earth's yellow sun and very rarely unleashes the full brunt that he can dish out, it's understandable to want to see this potential released.   What's more maddening than a cocked gun that isn't fired, right?   People want to see Superman punch a fist-sized hole right through Lex Luther's head, because A) he's got it coming, B) Superman could totally do it if he wanted to, and C) in the "real world", if a Superman existed, he probably would do it for the "greater good".  I think the quest set in front of the writers of this type of fiction is how to balance character potential and relatable character depth without breaking the character.   As an aging audience, I think more and more we want to see these characters broken.  As children everything is still new to us and we’re content with going along on the adventures that have limitless possibilities, and this makes serialized stories and ideal experience.   As adults we develop a different perspective on life.  We don't see limitless possibilities, we see stark reality and the eventually of our own mortality.  Add to this the possibility of a long time familiarity with a character and it's easy to see how we can take them for granted and want to go to that next step, the step that changes that character forever.

For fear of standing up on a soapbox, I think I should get back to the crazy editorial.  Welch complains that a character that illustrates such obvious violent potential that is never realized sends the wrong message to her son.  The idea that her son isn't getting enough machismos, that he might learn to solve difficult issues with forethought and compassion actually scares her, which I think is so absurd it's hilarious.  Even more surprising is her apparent stance on politics of gender, in particular in how it relates to the dynamic between Prince Adam/He-Man and Teela.  She writes:

"And there's Teela.  At first glance she's not extraordinary.  He-Man's female companion has the round, full hips and tiny waist so loved by comic book artists.  The serpentine objects encircling her breasts might seem a bit much for preschoolers, but after all, cleavage didn't hurt Wonder Woman.

Teela is Captain of the guard.  She isn't just a soldier, but a leader of soldiers.  No kitchen duty for this woman.  More times than not, she rescues He-Man – or at least helps.  No damsel in distress here.

Again, how is this affecting children?   Young Americans might begin to think that men and women are equals – that sex isn't necessarily destiny."

At first blush I was taking this for sarcasm, that Welch was going to make a point about how even though she thinks He-Man is a bit of a emotional cream puff, at least Teela is handled as strong and independent.   But in re-reading it I don't think she's kidding.   I think she yearns for a more subservient female role model, which is strange since she brings up Wonder Woman, who's about as strong and independent a role model for women there is in pop culture (well, except for maybe Xena.)

I want to believe that the whole editorial is a joke, or more accurately that it was snidely disguised social commentary with a tongue firmly planted in the writer's cheek, but I'm scared that it isn't.  What's troubling is that in the version carried by some of the other papers, the editorial is edited, removing some of the more troubling exclamations about gender roles and at the time current American military skirmishes.  The above exceprt about Teela is reduced to the following when the editorial appears on May 8th in the Orlando Sentinel:

"…and his female companion, Teela, is a decidedly modern woman.  She's not only a soldier, she's a leader of soldiers."

The question I have is, are editorials edited by the paper's staff, or did Welch submit her thoughts to various papers in different iterations?  Either way, the clear message of useless morals and backward antiquated roles for men and women is absurdly hilarious and just a little bit frightening.  If the editorial was published as widely as it appears, I can only hope it made its way into the Filmation studios because I think I can still hear the laughter echoing from those hallways after 25 years, and it's deep, rich and "...sounds like Gary Owens in an echo chamber…"

Riffing on a idea that Jerzy Drozd (of the Art & Story podcast, as well as a co-host with my on the Saturday Supercast) mentioned on his new A&S Supreme content podcast, Thunderpunch Daily, I've been thinking about those (as he framed it) couch jumping moments we all had as kids.  A couch jumping moment is when you're watching or reading something so awesome that you can't help it and you use the living room furniture as a trampoline, jumping all over the place in excitement.  Now I know that I tend to reminisce a lot on Branded, and I honestly try very hard to provide a portal with which to "travel back in time" with the content of this site on a regular basis, but today I really want to take myself back to a specific moment.  Of the handful of completely vivid memories I have of my childhood, this is one of the fondest…

It's 1984 and I'm seven years-old.  It's around mid afternoon in central Florida on a Saturday, sometime in October or November.  I'd just recently moved from Tampa to the Orlando area, into a neighborhood that was a whole heck of a lot larger than the one I'd left behind.  My elementary school was just inside the subdivision proper, about a mile from our new house, and it and a near by 7-Eleven marked the edge of the area I was allowed to travel on my own.  I'd just made a pit-stop at the convenience store, filling my pockets with Nerds and Giant Chewy SweetTarts and grabbing a Big Gulp before heading back to the playground behind the school. Though I hated having to go to a new school, meeting new kids, and tackling division and multiplication in 2nd grade math, I loved the actual school building and the grounds around it. 

Though I doubt I thought much about it at the time, the sprawling octagon-shaped structure felt a lot like the architecture used by the Empire in the Star Wars flicks.  The outside had a lot of similar aspects as the shield generator bunker on Endor, and the inside was set up in a hub and spoke formation much like my mind's eye vision of the Deathstar layout.  Outside there were plenty of paved sidewalks and ramps that made for the perfect BMX obstacle course with plenty of curbs to jump and small sets of stairs to descend.  These lead to the back of the building which house a pretty sizable playground with two huge swing sets, a climbing net, a half-sized basketball court, a kickball field, three separate slides of various heights, a set of monkey bars, and three or four jungle gyms in the shapes of giant domes and rocket ships. On this particular Saturday I was alone on the playground.  It was still pretty hot even though it was fall, and there must not have been a cloud in the sky because the sun was blazing down making it hard to see because it was reflecting off of all the shiny metal slides.  

There was only one thing running through my mind that afternoon as I'd just come back from seeing the re-release of Return of the Jedi in the theater with my dad.   It was a particularly great experience as the theater had a bunch of employees dressed to the nines in very authentic-looking costumes.   There were a few skiff guards from the pit of Carkoon scene, where Jaba was sacrificing Luke, Han and Chewie to Sarlac, but the ones that really caught my eye were a couple of Biker Scouts in full armor.  Like a lot of kids, the speeder bike chase through the forest of Endor was the absolute peak of cinematic excitement in '83-'84, and ever single time I saw it I'd get completely jazzed, barely able to contain myself from going nuts in the theatre. I couldn't stop thinking about that chase sequence and one of my favorite things to do was to try and reenact it all over that playground.  I'd start off by running around the entire perimeter, imagining I was Luke and there were two scouts on my tail.  Fake yawning and growling, I'd try and mimic the noise of the speeder bikes as I zoomed around the jungle gyms and under the monkey bars making my way to the slides.  After careening down the slides a few times, burning my butt and the bottoms of my thighs on the white hot steel, I'd retire to the swing sets where I'd really try and get going at a decent clip, swinging higher and higher.  I'd do this until I got to a point where I was scaring myself, which meant that it was time for the big finale.  Remember the scene where Luke jumps off his bike sending it crashing into a tree, well that was the point I'd send myself flying off the swing, tumbling into the soft dirt under the set and trying to pop back up quickly to me feet so that I could extend my imaginary lightsaber to take care of the biker scouts bearing down on me.

There was some part of me that always wished there was a playground made up of equipment and vehicles from the star wars films, in particular ROTJ.  The idea of sitting on a speeder bike for real was intoxicating.  Though I wouldn't change my childhood play experiences for anything in the world, I never realized that at the time, that dream was a reality…

I found this ad the other day in an October issue of Woman's Day magazine from 1984.   At first I thought it was just a cool looking branded play fort, but after tearing it out and while preparing to scan it I noticed the single coolest swing set accessory in the history of mankind, a child-sized speeder bike swing!  How freaking cool is that!  I think my brain would have imploded had I known of existence of this Gym-Dandy Scout Walker Command Tower with Speeder Bike Ride as a kid. Heck, just typing the name of the play-set evokes Ralphie's Red Ryder BB Gun spiel from A Christmas Story.  "…with a compass in the stock, and this thing which tells time…"

And seriously, just how neat is this ad?  With the 2nd Deathstar, the Millennium Falcon, an A-Wing fighter, and a Tie-Interceptor floating in the night sky, while a bunch of kids play on the set; their trusty golden retriever at standing watch like a Chewbacca or Chief Chirpa.  Just too awesome.  The only thing that's a little weird about this play-set is that it's mimicking Imperial equipment, which seems a bit weird.

The one thing I can imagine trumping the coolness factor of this set is the idea of a BMX bike with the shell of a speeder bike wrapped around the frame.  I wonder if those existed…?

**UPDATE** Thanks to Paxton Holley from the aptly named Cavalcade of Awesome for pointing to this super cool speeder bike pedal cart!

I found some time this weekend and scanned another Thundarr the Barbarian article.  This one comes from an issue of Fantastic from 1980, though for the life of me I can't remember which month.  It was written by Adam Eisenberg and makes a nice companion piece to the Fangoria/Buzz Dixon article I posted before, though it centers on more of the limitations and censorship the series had to overcome because of the imposed network standards and practices…

I know I tend to go on and on about this idea time and again, but I think it's interesting to note just how important the 1980-1983 timeframe was for modern action animation.  In the piece Steve Gerber talks a little bit about the collective intentions to bring the "action" back to action/adventure cartoons while creating Thundarr with Joe Ruby (of Ruby Spears.)   First off, though he was already working in animation doing production design for Hanna Barbera, Jack Kirby was probably hot on Gerber and Ruby's minds because of what he brought to the table for Marvel and DC comics.   I think it's really cool to see an animation production team playing to the strengths of their contracted talent instead of trying to force them to bend in another direction, which doesn't always bode well in network/studio environment.

At the same time, Gerber admits that even while shooting for the stars in terms of creating a thrilling action oriented cartoon they still had their hands tied to an extent where their barbarian hero couldn't "…throw a punch or…even hit anybody.  He can do all kids of acrobatic things, but he can't even trip anyone."  This kind of over protective standards and practices is equal parts infuriating and incredibly flooring.  Whereas it's frustrating to watch a cartoon that centers around a barbarian that you just know wants to knock the block off of every douche-bag wizard that he runs across (they are enslaving humanity you know), these limitations opened the door to exploring another heroic archetype, the strong non-violent hero (think He-Man.)  Though I know it's really easy to bag on the He-Man ideal for being too goodie good and unrealistic, this kind of storytelling is not always about focusing on the visceral and gritty realism.  Sometimes it's about fables and though I know this is obvious, morality.  This is what's really cool about a great creative environment, that there is room to explore both paths (and more), so you can have something more fist in the face like G.I. Joe, something more moral like Masters of the Universe, and something inbetween like Thundarr.

So this short period in animation is so interesting to me because it marks the beginning of the end of 10 long years of anti-integrity self-imposed studio censorship...

Similarly Gerber and Ruby found themselves challenged by another aspect of depicting violence in cartoons in that they weren't allowed to have any kind of traditional barbarian sword for the Thundarr character.  According to S&P there could be no sharp objects like knives or swords.  Though it could have hampered some of the design aesthetic on the show this limitation pushed them to create something interesting and new in Thundarr's Sunsword.   Trying to sidestep riffing too much off of Star Wars the sword was designed to have a blade forged from a bolt of lightning.   Again, even though they were hampered by network S&P the crew ended up treating this as a chance to bring something relatively new to the table, or at least they used it as an opportunity to tie in a different set of influences than a barbarian fantasy cartoon would normally lean on.  It's less Conan and more Norse god in look and design.  Again, this is certainly playing to the strengths of Jack Kirby who brought a taste of his work on characters such as Thor and the various 4th World creations for DC.

Here's another Gerber quote from the article that I love…

"The big thing that we've had to overcome is that the censors tend to treat children as if they're not just morons, but lunatics, potentially dangerous creatures."

I've been thinking a little bit about 80s era robot nerdom because of all the excellent research and work that Steve, over at the Roboplastic Apocalypse, has been putting into his Robo Force blog-a-thon.   Not only has he dug deep into the surprisingly interesting and exciting mythos behind America's favorite hugging robots, he's also provided a glimpse into a bit of very rare 80s animation, the one-shot Robo Force cartoon, The Revenge of Nazgar (Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3)!   As I sat and watched that long lost episode I had all sorts of thoughts running through my head, from how neat it was to hear Arthur Burghardt (the voice of Destro from G.I. Joe) as the main villain NazGar (not to mention that I've gotten to a point in my cartoon watching where I can recognize and name the actor for once), to how sad it was that this line of toys didn't strike a chord with kids back in the day.  The cartoon was actually really fun and exciting and the guys behind it managed to make the chunky R2-D2-esque designs of the Robo Force robots pretty darn dynamic.  It really makes the recent Robo Force Enemy find even sweeter...

Tangentially, I recently discovered a new set of sticker cards from the 80s (via eBay and Phillip over at Battlegrip.com) called Robot Wars.  These stickers, released by Fleer in 1985, were aimed at lovers of toy robots (released at the apex of toy robot dominance in the 80s) and they featured a surprisingly diverse selection of stickers and games.  Each pack of cards had a series of sticker cards and scratch-off game cards.  Unfortunately there wasn't an included checklist so there is no definitive number of cards, but I believe I've been able to secure what I think is the complete set of stickers…

These stickers are broken up into two sections.  The first consists of a series of eleven sticker cards featuring die-cut robot portraits.  With names like Battle Blaster, Megabot, and Lasertron they're sort of on the generic side, but the renderings are fun and I can imagine that I would have loved sticking these on my Trapper Keepers had I come across them as a kid.  In particular I like the diversity in the designs which highlight aspects of all sorts of robotic pop culture icons, from Robotech, Battle Tech, Transformers, Japanese Man-in-Suit movies, and even a bit of the vehicle design of the Buck Rogers TV show…

The second set (pictured below) were 22 sheets of mini stickers that were intended to be used to customize your actual toy robots.  I think this is an ingenious idea, even though I was just anal retentive enough as a kid to not want to put stickers on my toys.  This level of personalization and interactivity between branding kind of fascinates me.  I mean for kids who had no problem mixing and matching their branded toys during play had the opportunity to reject the established branding of say their Transformers and Robo Force figures, and to re-brand them with new logos and factions from these Robot Wars stickers.  Maybe Megatron could lead a crack team of robotrons in the Robo Karate league, or Optimus Prime and Cy-Kill would make a great Sniper Robot duo...

In addition to the stickers, each package also included three scratch-off cards in the vein of the Yes & Know Invisible Ink Game books you'd find in all sorts of Stucky's and truck stops around America.   There were four different games, the Robot Wars Maze, the Robot Wars Race, Robot Wars Rescue, and Robot Wars Laser Defender.  Basically you ended up scratching your way across the cards in an attempt to get points or to avoid evil robots and pitfalls.  Though a bit fleeting and random, the scratch-offs do seem to add a interesting level of interactivity with these Robot Wars wax packs that make them seem like they were a ton of fun back in the day.

I’ve been thinking it might be fun to block out Fridays at Branded in the 80s for posting some of my favorite pop art, the super colorful simplified imagery of non-sport bubblegum card wax wrappers.  So for this first in a series I present the 1st five series of Garbage Pail Kids wrappers…

Series 1 1985 - (Which I've sort of talked about before here.)

All of these first five series featured Adam Bomb/Blasted Billy re-drawn by Tom Bunk…

Series 2 1985 - (Which I've talked about before here.)

Series 3 1986 - (Which I've talked about before here.)

Series 4 1986 - (Which I've talked about before here.)

Series 5 1986 - (Which I've talked about before here.)

Sometimes the most exciting aspects of nostalgia are those moments when I discover something that I never expected to exist.  There's a feeling I’ve tried to describe before, this jolt and tingling that I feel first in the pit of my stomach and then it travels up my spine when I see something that I had or loved from my childhood that I completely forgot about.  I get a similar physical reaction when I uncover something that just shouldn't exist.

So what is this thing that just should not be?   Basically it's the branding crossover.   For the most part, whenever you have a property, be it a television show, film, or toy line, it generally exists in its own universe separate from other brands owned by the parent company.   Matthew Broderick's Ferris Buller never had the opportunity to face off against Judd Nelson's John Bender (from the Breakfast Club), even though John Hughes wrote and directed both flicks.  That doesn't mean that there aren't exceptions though. In fact in the realm of comic books, crossovers are an integral aspect to a companies branding, and when ever one of the big two (Marvel or DC) got their hands on licensed characters from outside companies it wasn't uncommon for them to mash them up.   The first example that springs to mind is the Transformers Vs. G.I. Joe comics from 1987…

Though the two Hasbro toy lines weren't designed to be integrated, that surely didn't stop kids from staging mock battles with Cobra and the Decepticons teaming up against a convoy of Autobots and Joe artillery.  Marvel, who had a lot of their in-house talent wrapped up in producing licensed comics and helping Hasbro to build the back-story of their toy lines, saw this and gave kids an outlet for their fantasies with this four-issue mini series.

In the 90s we had comics to thank once again for another couple of franchises merging. Dark Horse had the licenses to a bunch of 20th Century Fox movie franchises, in particular the Alien and Predator films.  Naturally they produced a series of Aliens Vs. Predator comics and later on, when Fox was making the second Predator film the production design team took a cue from the comics placing an iconic Alien skull in the background of one of the Predator's spaceships.   Fans of the franchises that noticed this went nuts and for years there was speculation on the movie universes from these two properties combining to form one huge filmverse.

Even so, these mash-ups are pretty rare and it's pretty darn cool when one turns up.  A month or so ago I reviewed the Transformers Find Your Fate series of Choose Your Own Adventure style books and I pointed out a couple images in one of the entries that hit upon this kind of rare crossover.  The artist, William Schmidt, ended up using a couple of iconic Star Wars vehicle designs in one of the books, most likely because he also illustrated some Star Wars novels and had the reference lying around in his studio.

Well I found another example of this, though I haven't completely confirmed this insane crossover and I was hoping that someone out there on the internets would be able to conclusively help me solve a mystery!  I call it "Michael Knight and the Mystery of K.I.T.T. and the Blue Prowler!".  Recently while surfing around on eBay I found an auction for a Greek Knight Rider read-along storybook and tape set.  At first glance I wasn't all that interested in the set, but then the font used for the book title caught my eye.  There was something familiar about the shiny red and silver letters that I couldn't quite place at first, but then it hit me, it was very similar to the Transformers packaging font…

Here's an example of the TF font…

There were some more pictures in the auction, so when I was flipping through the rest I let out a little gasp.   Did I just see another storybook on the back that featured K.I.T.T. facing off against Prowl from the Transformers?!!!

Now the image file isn't the greatest quality and the picture I'm referring to on the back of the packaging is kind of small, but if there's one thing that's imbedded in my memory from childhood it's the silhouette of characters from their packaging art.  For some reason these have stuck with me, most likely because the packaging art was repurposed for a million and a half other bits of merchandise over the years, and I could swear that I was seeing Prowl blasting away at a speeding K.I.T.T.  When I looked up Prowl's original packaging art to confirm this, I was a little bummed because I apparently wasn't remembering it correctly…

It was similar but not exact.  But then I realized that not only did Hasbro re-use the packaging art all the time, they also took full advantage of repurposing (aka re-painting) the toy designs as well and it struck me that the Autobot Bluestreak also used Prowl's toy design.  A quick search reveled that Bluestreak's packaging art pose is almost identical to the one on the Greek Knight Rider storybook image even though it appears to have Prowl's black and while color scheme…

What do you guys think?  Here's a close-up of the image (in terrible quality, but I’m not a miracle worker…)

The right arm of the robot was brought down just a bit to fire the laser at K.I.T.T., but I'm not just seeing things am I? 

My quest now is to find a copy of this Greek Knight Rider storybook called POMIIOT ENANTION KITT so I can finally get a good look at this unlikely team-up.  I'm sure the person who illustrated this cover (and most likely the rest of the book) was just using the Transformers art as reference for a robot much in the same way Schmidt did on the Find Your Fate book for sake of ease.  But the idea of a Transformers/Knight Rider crossover is just too cool to let go.

Is there anyone out there that can hook me up with a copy of this Greek Knight Rider storybook?!?!

I've been getting pretty excited about the impending release of Warner Bros. Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1980s, Vol. 1 as it'll finally give me a chance to revisit one of the shows I never got a chance to see much of as a kid, Thundarr the Barbarian.   Granted, it's only a taste with one episode on this two-disc set, but it'll be better quality than the various youtube videos that have been satiating my hunger in the interim.  Besides, if this set is successful it might lead to more Thundarr on DVD.

Regardless, I've been thinking about the series lately and in a moment of kismet I stumbled upon a couple of Thundarr-centric articles while doing some magazine back-issue research on another project.  These articles are pretty cool considering they largely feature Jack Kirby's production artwork, not to mention a few Alex Toth model sheets.  I thought it would be fun to share one of them today; written by Buzz Dixon (of Sunbow animation fame) this article was originally featured in issue number 9 of Fangoria magazine back in November of 1980 (when the horror magazine felt a whole heck of a lot more like its sister publication Starlog.)

Since I haven't really seen a full episode of Thundarr since I was a kid, reading this article puts me right back into that mindset of speculation and hoping the cartoon will be as cool as it potentially can be based on this artwork and Dixon's enthusiasm for the project…

Like Blackstar, Thundarr unfortunately debuted right before the landscape of network and syndicated television was drastically changed in 1982-83.   Because of strict regulations and pressure from parent activist groups there were some crucial missing ingredients that kept most cartoons from reaching their true potential in the 70s and very early 80s.  In particular there was a ban on fully merchandising cartoon series, in particular releasing toys of popular shows, and I think this lack of product awareness hurt that instant recognition a good toy line has on kids.  When He-Man and the Masters of the Universe came on the scene it shattered all expectations of just how popular the combination of a well-designed toy line and thought out cartoon series could be.  Had Thundarr gestated in the minds of Steve Gerber and Ruby Spears just a little longer I think it had the potential to depose He-Man from the throne it seized in the early 80s. 

Not only was it similar in style, design and tone, and thus obviously a successful to the audience, Thundarr pushed the envelope of action animation much further as it was coming from the likes of Gerber and Kirby who were well steeped in comics dynamic storytelling.  The unbridled power that Kirby is well known for can be felt in every second of the animation, even if it's only a shadow of what he brought to the comics medium.  Add to that Steve Gerber's wackiness and biting social commentary and you have a powder keg just waiting to explode.   Again, there was so much potential in this series, and I truly believe that a toy line, even a mediocre one, would have ignited it.

If I get a chance I'll scan the second Thundarr article I found this past weekend, though I think it's filled with the same production artwork.   Now to go back to waiting, though it's just a couple more weeks before the DVD finally hits store shelves…

Just wanted to take a second and make a quick update about the upcoming Up! Fair.   I put together a facebook page for the event, so it would be super cool if you mosey on over there and took a look see. You can RSVP for the event, as well as chat us up.   I can't wait until November!  This is going to be so much cooler than Thanksgiving, even if I have access to a fried turkey.

Psychologically speaking, the urge to collect is a very strange thing.  As a kid I wanted to collect everything, and at one point or another I had had amassed stacks of all the usual suspects: stamps, toys, books, baseball and non-sports cards, comics, and stickers.  Anything that even somewhat struck my fancy became fodder for a collection though, and at times that meant Metallica pictures and clippings, old tickets to Disney World, and all of the Batman ephemera I could get my grubby hands on during 1989.  The most obvious hurdle as a child with a burning need to have as many G.I. Joe figures and Mark McGuire baseball cards, was money.  Though I was well versed in the black market of neighborhood trading circles, I was never all that crafty and ended up happily dumping entire collections in trade for a single dazzling item that caught my eye.  As an adult entrenched in and fascinated by the discussion of nostalgia, I curse myself all the time for my foolhardy ways as I have very little of my actual childhood treasures left.   I can still recall the moment when I traded away all of my Garbage Pail Kids sticker cards for a collector's case of Micromachines.   The tiny cars seemed so much more interesting at the time and little did I know that 20 years later I'd regret that decision.

What's weird is that as the years have slipped by my collecting habits have changed drastically.   Even though as an adult I've overcome hurdle of expense inhibiting my urge to collect, I've calmed to a point where I've been able to patiently wait in acquiring stuff.  The urge to have all sorts of stuff is still there, in particular in rebuilding the lost collections from my youth, but I've learned that just having the items is sort of hollow.  That doesn’t stop me from picking stuff up, the main difference is that I know that eventually I'll find most of the stuff I really want cheaply if I'm patient.  Such is the case with one of my all time holy-grail items, the highly coveted (by me at least) 2nd series set of Garbage Pail Kids released by Topps in 1985…

As a kid I started collecting GPKs around the time that the 3rd series was released and, as I've mentioned before, it was difficult finding cards in the area where I grew up.  My parents found cards for me at gas stations around town, but a lot of the stores that I frequented didn't carry them, or I never got a chance to really go to the ones that did.  I did happen upon some rack-packs of 3rd series stickers that had some 2nd series included (one of the three sections of cards contained a pack of 2nd series), but for the most part my only option for finding any 2nd series came through trading.   Kids were very cautious when letting go of this series (though there wasn't a moratorium on trading these like there was on the very rare 1st series cards), and I only ever managed to get a handful of cards from the set.

When I started reassembling my collection about a decade ago I knew that I'd be able to find the 2nd series cards on eBay, but the general asking price was always a little too high to justify.  I'd always keep an eye out though and after nine years I finally managed to snag a set of 2nd series GPKs for a more than reasonable amount., so I think it's high time to share them for this 100th Peel Here column!

Hands down these are my favorite stickers from the 80s.  Though I'd consider giving my left nut for a cheap set of series one stickers, I never really came into contact with them as a kid and years later I don't have nearly the same affinity for them as the second series cards, most of which I came into contact with as a kid.

John Pound was responsible for all of the paintings in this set, and in my opinion these are some of his best GPK pieces overall both conceptually and in execution.  To me this is what truly defines the look and feel of the classic Garbage Pail Kids stickers, highlighting their fun use of parody and iconic characters.   Later, especially from the sixth series on the concepts started getting darker and dabbled more in the land of envelope-pushing mean parody, which has never sat well with me.

Some of the stand out cards in this set include 45a&b (Messy Tessie and Leaky Lindsay) and 62a&b (Greaser Greg and Chris Hiss) who both went on to appear in the Garbage Pail Kids movie a couple years later.  Some other cards I always really dug are 44a&b (Sy Clops and One-Eyed Jack), 49a&b (Double Heather, Schizo Fran, and eventually Fran Fran who replaced the slightly non-PC Schizo Fran in later printings), 53a&b (Jolted Joel and Live Mike), 77a&b (Acne Amy and Ghastly Ashley), and 81a&b (Split Kit and Mixed-Up Mitch.)

The stickers that always sort of represented this set for me were 79a&b, Sewer Sue and Michelle Muck, as these were some of the first 2nd series cards I ever came into contact with.

Anyway, I never thought it would take me three years and four months to get through 100 Peel Here columns, but here we are.   Though I thought I'd run out of stickers to share by this point, I still have some fun things to share, so who knows, maybe I'll still be talking about stickers three years from now…

Since I acquired a huge stack of Scholastic kid's magazines recently I've sort of been on a periodicals kick.  Kid-centric magazines from the 70s & 80s kind of fascinate me and I've been trying to find as many different publications as I can manage without going broke in the process.   I've mentioned a few on the site before including Stickers (later Stickers n' Stuff), Muppet, Dynamite, Arcade, Hot Dog!, and G.I. Joe, and now I have another entry to add to that list, The Electric Company Magazine…

This issue actually comes from my friend’s personal childhood collection.  It's the September 1985 issue featuring one of my favorite flicks, the Ghostbusters.  Electric Company monthly, like the Scholastic family of magazines, is very much in the Highlights vein in terms of layout and content, mainly concentrating on educational stories, activities and games.  Unlike Highlights, ECM is a bit hipper as it's not afraid to utilize popular branding in with its teaching materials as well as taking breaks from the education for just plain fun stuff like the following picture…

…which is the live action interpretation of the characters from the Junior Ghostbusters story that follows…

Honestly, if Ghostbusters 3 every gets officially greenlit I think the production designers should take note of the photo above for the designs of the new jumpsuits as a dark grey/black would look pretty damn spiffy (making the red and white logo really pop off the back and sleeves.)

Now, off to eBay as I try and locate the rare single issue of Maxx Steele's Robo Force magazine…

Once again, in the spirit of spring cleaning, I'm diving back into the stack of random stuff that I've picked up over the years to discuss on Branded.  For some reason a couple years ago I thought it would be a great idea to start up a column on 80s era coloring books, but after picking up a few I realized that I just didn't have all that much to say about them, so they were relegated to the bottom of a drawer and forgotten.   I unearthed the stack this past weekend and while flipping through them I found a few McDonaldland coloring calendars that I think are still pretty neat.  Today I thought I'd share the one from 1979, the Ronald McDonald Secret Solver Coloring Calendar…

Basically the "secret solver" gimmick involved a series of secret messages and images hidden within areas of the calendar that were printed in red and blue ink.  The messages/pictures are printed in blue ink and then obfuscated with a red ink overlay that creates a lot of visual static that makes it hard for the eye to interpret.  In order to "decode" the message you had to use the secret decoder paddle provided at the back of the calendar (basically just a piece of cardstock with a piece of red cellophane glued to it), which you'd use to hold over the colored ink area.  The red cellophane filters out the red ink leaving only the blue (much in the same way that the Transformers Tech Specs were hidden on the back of the toy packaging.)  I think it's pretty fun that, along with the decoder paddle, you also received a secret decoder membership card.  I can distinctly remember an urge to fill my childhood wallet with cards and pictures and any time I was offered a membership card it was proudly tucked away for safe keeping.  I wonder if any kids requested that their parents laminate their secret solver membership cards?

Like I mentioned, I initially picked these McDonald's calendars up because they were really just glorified coloring books.  Here's an example of one of the pages, along with the super hidden secret of filet-o-fish lake!

First up, I know this is old news, but the whole concept of McDonaldland is just super freaking creepy.   Why would anyone want to live, frolic, or just lounge around in a magically land full of anthropomorphic foodstuff with a clown and all sorts of villains who want to steal your food away?   The idea of filet-o-fish sandwiches swimming in a lake is the antithesis of appetizing in my eyes.  Wouldn't their buns be all soggy and gross?

Anyway, in the background you can see good 'ol Captain Crook, the pirate captain villain who specialized in stealing your filet-o-fish sandwiches.   He was phased out of McDonaldland in the mid 80s in what I can only assume is an effort to make the characters less confrontational and more uber friendly.   I suppose that's why they nixed Officer Big Mac as well, I mean you don't need a police force to protect us when there are no more villains around to steal our food.  Also, why were all the villains trying to steal particular food items?  The Hamburgler burgled hamburgers, Captain Crook wanted my filet-o-fish, and originally Grimace was envisioned as a four-armed villain who wanted noting more than to steal my milkshakes and frosty beverages.  I wonder why they never had a witch who wanted my fries…

In addition to being a coloring book, these calendars also doubled as coupon books (much like the Chick-Fil-A calendars of today.)

Lastly we have the coveted Certificate of Merit.  After the grueling task of helping Ronald McDonald solve the 12 back-braking mysteries of 1979 kids were rewarded with this wonderful memento of achievement.  As far as give-aways for participation in activities run and sponsored by clowns I think this ranks right below the highly coveted official spectra vision Polaroid picture taken with Bozo the Clown after the first ball is thrown in the Grand Prize Game (a feat I dreamed of for years as a kid and honestly as an adult too.)

I do have a question though.  Why is Officer Big Mac drooling a bit of mayonnaise/secret sauce at the corner of his mouth?  That is just weird…

Today's Peel Here dives back into a segment of sticker branding that I haven't much luck tracking down, video/arcade game stickers.  It's certainly not for lack of merchandising back in the 80s, it just seems like of all the 80s toys and brands, arcade game merch is one of the most highly coveted by collectors.  That's why I was so happy to find these stickers at a very reasonable price…

Q*Bert was introduced to arcade fans in 1982 by Gottlieb, and featured an iconic orange fuzzball with one heck of a schnoz and an intriguing potty mouth.  The game revolves around a pyramid of colored blocks that change color when Q*Bert hops on them.  The goal is to change the color on all the blocks before you either fall off an edge or run into one of the enemy characters (Coily the purple snake, Ugg & Wrong Way, Coily's perimeter purple henchmen, or Slick and Sam, a couple of green teardrop shaped guys who can revert the color on a cube.)   Q*Bert does have a couple of saving graces, namely two rainbow discs that he can use to float up back to the top of the pyramid.

I never had a copy of the game for my Atari 2600 system, and I never seemed to run into it at the arcade very often so I think I've only played the game a handful of times over the years.   I loved the character design though, and was jazzed to see the game turned into a cartoon as part of the Saturday Supercade (alongside Frogger and Donkey Kong.)  The show always reminded me a bit of the Archie's and Happy Days as Q*Bert cartoon design was sort of the amalgamation of Richie Cunningham, Archie, and an orange tennis ball.

As far as these stickers go, they were released in 1983 by Mark 1 and are much larger than your typical sheet of Hallmark stickers.  The full package is around 7"x12", and the paper backing on the stickers is actually a thicker cardstock, which is a little strange.  I really dig that the sticker company (as well as Mylstar, who acquired the property in the Coca-Cola buyout of Columbia Pictures in '83) decided to go with production art instead of straight up game graphics as they make fore more dynamic stickers.   I'm also glad they stuck at least one speech-bubble of profanity laden symbols on the sheet so that you could use it to make some other sticker in your collection curse.  I think it would fit perfectly hovering over an R2-D2 puffy sticker actually…

The wife and I have recently been culling through our collections of various things, trying to free up some room and make our place look a little bit neater.   In the quest to let go I came across what's left of my meager collection of VHS tapes, movies that haven't been released on DVD (or at least hadn't when I choose to keep them) and I just can't seem to part with.  Throughout the 90s and in to the 2000s I had amassed a ton of VHS tapes while working at a local grocery store.  I was a night manager in the drug/gm department which was over our in-store video rental kiosk, and because I was a burgeoning movie freak I always got first dibs on previously-viewed sales stock.

When DVD came along I started the laborious and expensive process of replacing my collection, and to help bolster that project I sold off most of my tapes on eBay when you could still get a decent amount for them.  Even so, there were a few tapes that I decided to hang onto because I figured they'd never get released on DVD.   It's been fun over time as some of these titles have become available and I've been able to throw away a tape here and there (like my two Tick cartoon videos, MTV's the Maxx series, Buckaroo Banzai, Goonies, and my Thundercats and Transformers the Movie convention bootlegs.)  Well, the collection had shrunk to about ten tapes, a few of which were gifts (I have a hard time parting with gifts), and a couple more which I just hadn't thrown away yet (I finally bought a copy of the Die Hard DVD last year.)  I thought it would be fun to share some of the straglers…

First up we have the 1988 anti-classic Hot to Trot starring Bobcat Goldthwait, Dabney Coleman, Virginia Madsen and the voice of John Candy as Don the talking horse.   I loved, loved, loved this flick as a kid (it probably didn't hurt that Nick at Night was coming into it's own at the time and I was getting introduced to a massive amount of Mr. Ed re-runs.)  First off you have Goldthwait who was becoming my favorite stand-up comedian with his coke-induced sweaty, garble-mouthed HBO specials and his role as the unpredictable and loving Stork brother Egg in One Crazy Summer, not to mention his really fun turn as Zed in the Police Academy movies and his suicidal turn as Eliot Loudermilk in Scrooged.   I think this is sort of the high point of his career as the goofy funny guy with one of his only starring roles.  In a few more years we get the sort of straightened out and much more seriously crazy Goldthwait with Shakes the Clown and his firebug antics.

At the same time I sort of felt that Coleman was reprising his 9 to 5 horrible boss character, which was a role that I loved him in.  He could also sort of do-no-wrong for me after playing dual roles in Clock and Dagger alongside Henry Thomas.  If there's one thing this film is really notable for, it probably as the beginning of the end of John Candy’s career.  There were a few promising moments here and there (Uncle Buck, and I actually enjoyed the Delirious flick), but for all intents and purposes it was all downhill after Hot to Trot.   It's kind of sad…

Debuting the next year ('89) was the insane comedy Big Man on Campus…

…which featured an early performance from the Office's Melora Hardin, as well as Corey Parker (best friend and one-time step son of Patrick Dempsey), Cindy "Shirley" Williams, and Tom Skerritt.  The star of the flick was an unlikely Allan Katz playing the hunchback Bob Maloogaloogaloogaloogalooga ("One Malooga, four looga's…")   Katz was the writer/producer on shows like M*A*S*H, Rhoda, Roseanne and Blossom, and his one big film was Big Man on Campus which to this day I content is utter comedy genius.  The film is silly re-telling of the Hunchback of Notre Dame set in present day California on the UCLA campus with Bob living in a click tower and fawning over Hardin's Cathy from afar.  When he sees Cathy in trouble while she's defending her boyfriend (played with amazing comic-timing precision by Parker), Bob swoops down to protect her, outing himself in the process.  At first considered violent, the university decides to study Bob, appointing Parker as his keeper/roommate, and it's from here that the film really takes a weird turn.

Though it could have stayed pretty much to the obvious stock story, Katz imbues the flick with some much comedic life in all of the zany little details.  There's all sort of left-field one-liners in the film that I still find myself uttering to this day.   At one point in a mall Bob is asked what he wants from a fried chicken stand (legs, breasts, thighs, you know where the joke is going), but instead of making it overtly sexual and hum drum, he asks for "…two faces."  On top of the well written script, Katz brings an amazing physicality to the character that's half John Belushi, and half Harold Lloyd.  I'd plotz if the flick ever came out on DVD…

Next up we have an obscure Billy Dee Williams flick from 1995 called Secret Agent 00 Soul…

The flick is excruciatingly bad and it must have been a favor to a family member that got Billy Dee to star in this.  I haven't even managed to make it all the way through the film, and honestly I don't think I ever will.   My favorite character from the Star Wars flicks has always been Lando, and that's more or less why I’ve been hanging on to this tape (it was a gag gift from a friend.)  My favorite aspect is the post-production design work on the promo materials.   Look at that cover!  Have you seen a worse photo-enhancement job in your life (that is Billy Dee's head, but it ain't his body.)  Oh wait, there is a worse job than the cover.  Take a gander at that back cover…

Yup, Billy Dee's head pasted onto a white man's body (doing a bad impression of Roger Moore from the flick For Your Eyes Only, though it might even be Moore's body.)  Classic.  If you ever find a copy of the flick, look for an early guest star appearance by Tiny Lister Jr.

Last up is a film that has actually come out on DVD, but it's a tape that's been so loved over the years it's impossible for me to get rid of it, the one and only Monster Squad!

This tape has been watched and rewound at least two hundred times (personally) not to mention all of the viewings it had at the video store where I picked it up.   I just can't get rid of it.  I even have a swanky bootleg cover that matches this original cover for my official DVD release (since I hate the new cover artwork so much.)  I think I'd get buried with this VHS (if I were planning to be buried that is.)  By the by, does anyone know who the poster artist is for the Monster Squad?  The art on the cover is signed Craig, which looks like a familiar signature, but I'm not sure who it is…

One of the most vivid sense memories I have from when I was a child is of lying on the floor and trying to pry apart two short, flat Lego planks (2x2s) with my teeth.  The tips of my fingers kept painfully slipping off of the bottom piece as my incisors clamped tight on the other, but I needed these separated desperately so that I could finish my masterpiece, a replica of the Airwolf helicopter.  When I finally managed to get the two bricks apart (opening just enough space between them to pry them loose with a fingernail), I can still remember unceremoniously spitting out the one between my teeth as I affixed the other to the undercarriage of the helicopter's cockpit section which helped to secure a section of unstable bricks.  Though Lego bricks weren't the only toy I played with as a kid, they were the one constant that I've always found myself going back to from around the time I was five, up until today.

When I first saw Jonathan Bender's book, Lego: A Love Story, I was hoping that he managed to tap into my lifelong fondness for these universally loved bricks, and I wasn't disappointed in the least.  It seems that when it comes to writing about nostalgia laden topics, two extremes seem to dominate the landscape, the overly saccharine sweet or the dismissive, snarky and sarcastic.  Both show a level of fondness, but both are also hard to plow through as any extreme viewpoint can be.  It’s a battle I fight every time I sit down to write something for this site and it's sort of rare that you can find someone who can actually manage an evenhanded voice when writing about nostalgia.   Bender has done just that with his first book in which he reacquaints himself with Lego brick building after having put the toys away as a preteen almost twenty years ago.

Though I'd hesitate to call myself an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego), it seem that there hasn't been a time in my life when I have had at least one set worth of Lego bricks hanging around the home or office.  I feel like I have a decent handle over the general history of the toy, yet Bender manages to uncover all sorts of interesting tidbits of information, from the split between Lego traditionalists and the customizers, to the rules, habits and vernacular of the dedicated Lego fandom.  Did you know that gluing pieces together or painting them is a cardinal sin to some purists?  But it's not just about the hardcore fans.  Through his own experience dipping his feet back into the world of Lego, Bender does an excellent job of relating to the common fans by sharing his childhood building stories as well as showcasing new attempts at building his own creations (called MOCs, or My Own Creations by the fan community.)

One tidbit that stuck me was that feminine hairpieces for the mini-figures tend to be rarer because most of the figures are geared towards boys and men (like most toy-lines actually.)  It reminded me of a good friend I had back in high school who used to customize his Lego mini-figures to look like Marvel comics characters (way back before Lego started putting out so many licensed sets) and he'd always have to make female character's hair out of hot glue (which he shaped while it was hot and then painted later to get the likeness just right.)

I found it fascinating that Bender approached the bricks so apprehensively, where he seemed almost ashamed of sharing his creations for fear of rejection by the experienced fans and masters he's met while researching the book.  It's also amazingly heartening to find out that so many of these master builders don't think twice about Bender's novice status, applauding his multicolored delivery vans and biplanes and encouraging him to build bigger and better stuff.  This is the wonder of Lego in that at it's core the toy is about creating and learning and it attracts (for the most part) a legion of fans who completely believe in these principles.

At the end of the day Jonathan Bender has done a wonderful job of showcasing Lego in a way that I think anyone would find interesting, from the kid who packed away their bricks when they were twelve to the hardcore fanatic that thinks they know every fact and facet about the toys.  It's personable, funny and interesting, not to mention taking an honest and thoughtful look at the nostalgia for Lego without slipping into the too-sweet or too-jaded that we tend to see in similar books, articles and homages.

As a quick follow up to yesterday's Dynamite magazine post, I thought I'd also post the flips side of that Mr. T issue.  I'm not sure how many issues of Dynamite were set up this way, but this one was a flip book where the opposite side of the magazine featured another mini-magazine called Arcade (Fun and Games for the Computer-Age Kid.)

Unfortunately my copy was kind of sparse as the original owner decided to tear out some of the articles (as well as what I'm assuming is an awesome Dragon's Lair poster), but there were still some interesting tidbits.

First up is an article about the crossover between movies and video games which features some commentary on how the E.T. Atari game sucked, how Tron, Star Wars and Star Trek were dominating at the arcades, as well as some pretty accurate guesses as to the future of the gaming industry…

Mimicking the layout of Dynamite there were also some comics, parodies, and activities…

So, my burning question after reading Blips is what ever happened to the cut diamond font?  Seriously though, the comic was written by R. L. Stine and it features a rather quaint punch line, don’t you think?  If he'd only known just how realistic and crazy video games would eventually get… 

I figured this would also be a good opportunity to share an excerpt from the June 30th, 1984 issue of TV Guide which featured of all things a video game review section.

I can't believe the editors gave Choplifter a 2!  That was one of my favorite games…