There’s a metric ton of stuff going on in this Batman and Robin Hostess ad — including subliminal racism?
The classic comic book Hostess ads are usually one-note oddities, brief, quirky little “stories” (you have to use quotes) that hawk cupcakes and Twinkies and the like using the great superheroes of the day. Whether it’s Wonder Woman and “pussies,” Superman as fruity prankster, or the Green Arrow digging deep in his quiver for fruit pie arrows, you don’t usually have to hover over them all that much. Get in and get out.
Not so here. There’s a good deal going on with this particular prostitution of Batman and Robin. Read more…
Be a groovy 1970s dude and wear this bullet around your neck! Wait, what?
Nothing says “I’m just a mellow dude looking for love and hash” quite like a .45 caliber bullet dangling around your neck. But why not go all out and just run some thread through the ears of all your victims? Read more…
You gotta be f–king kidding – The Thing from Another World
John Carpenter’s The Thing is one of those modern classics that bombed upon initial release but developed a gradually augmenting reputation over the years, so that it’s now regarded not only as a classic of its genre, but a standard of the medium. Overwhelmed as its grotesque science-fiction/horror was by the cute, cuddly — and great in its own right — E.T., it fell like the proverbial lead balloon during its 1982 run. But subsequent airings on TV, Carpenter’s early track record of success warranting second looks, and an ensemble cast knocking it out of the park was enough to change the critical opinion in the ensuing decades. Now it’s often mentioned right alongside Alien, the standard-bearer of hunted-one-by-one-by-a-creature-from-beyond-the-stars specialty, as a go-to armrest-gripper. Read more…
Sunday Stupid: BraveStarr (or at least the intro)
Let me say that I have no beef with BraveStarr, a late-1980s product of the dying Filmation studio, as I’ve never seen a single episode in my entire life. It may be a paragon cartoon virtue, a credit to its medium and humanity in general. Indeed, it was a show that squarely put a Native American character at the forefront, as the titular hero no less. Saturday mornings have always been lily-white, Richard Pryor shows notwithstanding, and a little ray of diversity sunshine can’t be cast aside out of hand, especially when it’s at the top of the marquee.
But its song-and-action intro sequence — something every cartoon that wants to sell some damn toys has to have — has one of the goofiest moments I’ve ever seen. EVER. When I saw it, I exploded with laughter, which is about as literal a description of my reaction as I can offer. Read more…
Slingshot around the sun, travel back in time and get a head start collecting useless Star Trek junk!
If there’s one thing that rabid Star Trek fans love, whether you call them Trekkies or Trekkers, it’s tchotchkes. The more worthless, the better. And in this the above old-timey ad, from the relative youth of that unstoppable fandom, doesn’t disappoint. “Authentic Collector’s Items” indeed. Read more…
The Dragon Wagon lacks the quiet, restrained dignity of the Beer Wagon
Monogram certainly churned out some odd yet fun model kits back in the day. If the Beer Wagon — complete with an Iron Cross and kegs — wasn’t enough to sate your lust for parts, decals and glue, perhaps the Dragon Wagon would. Read more…
Just in time for Rosh Hashanah, a genuine Jewish superhero – The Legend of Shaloman #1
Some might argue that all superheroes are Jewish, thanks to their descent from the grandaddy of them all, Superman. But Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s spit-curled creation never wore any religion on his sleeve, and comic book heroes as a whole have never been all that overtly religious — with a few notable exceptions, of course. But yes, there’s at least one champion for the chosen people in the world of stapled newsprint sequential storytelling, a great hero in that field the same way Hank Greenberg was in baseball. Enter Shaloman! Read more…
Enter the Magic World of Surprises & Mystery (& Cigarettes)
A definite sign that this ad block comes from another time isn’t the mid-century flattop of the blond miscreant, but the presence of a cigarette-themed novelty. Fun for all ages! Read more…
Trading Card Set of the Week – Beavis and Butt-Head (1994, Fleer Ultra)
Like the improbable European Kojak cards from Monty Gum, that Beavis and Butt-Head, MTV’s spokesteens for a generation, filled out a set of trading cards is something to warm the heart. This would apply even if the quality of said product was less than desired, if it lived up (or down) to its subject’s low-brow aspirations. Yes, they were dumb, they were crude, they were controversial, but Beavis and Butt-Head were funny and great — and somehow endearingly unrepentant. The show was almost hypnotic, their trademark laughter the watch drifting back and forth before your eyes. Mike Judge’s other cartoon creation, King of the Hill, may have had a much longer run, and on network TV no less, but it never burned (Fire! FIRE!) as brightly as those two chortling idiots.
If any fictional duo deserved a decent tchotchke, it was them. And guess what — Beavis and Butt-Head had some of the nicest cards you could get your hands on back in the day. These weren’t churned out on cheap brown cardboard stock. Oh no. With a well-planned design under a prestige banner, they dazzled your eye, tickled your fancy — and scorched your nose. Read more…
Tap the housewife market by selling your ancient bodybuilding equipment door to door!
This takes the seeds/GRIT/greeting cards door-to-door marketing framework and moves it to a whole new level. Read more…
Sunday Stupid: Cop Rock
There are things that have to be seen to be believed. And there has to be some manner of visual evidence, so that when you sit down to regale your grandchildren with stories of old they don’t dismiss your yarns out of hand, consigning them to the realm of senility’s tall tales. Thanks to the internet, a lot of these difficulties have been overcome. YouTube and other sites have ensured that there are actual audiovisual artifacts for us to point to in our old age. Look! See? There it is!
Which is good, because we denizens of the previous century would have a hard time explaining Cop Rock otherwise. Read more…
Black Orchid meets the Super Friends, because why the hell not – The Super Friends #31
I’ve made no secret of my trepidation over the upcoming sequel to last year’s Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Indeed, it was the announcement of that bland, lame, focus-grouped-to-death title that spurred me to dash off a brief, frustrated post condemning the same — made me go public, as it were. I liked Man of Steel quite a bit, though I could see its flaws, and was very much looking forward to the follow-up. And then last year, when it was announced that the long-awaited Batman-Superman screen meeting would come in said sequel, I was as ecstatic as anyone else for whom World’s Finest was a comic of choice. But it’s been a never-ending string of underwhelming since then, so much so that the casting of Ben Affleck as the new Caped Crusader has to be considered a highlight. That title. Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, in it’s-not-inspired-it’s-lazy casting as a Zuckerberg-by-proxy. A scrawny Wonder Woman.
And about that last one — worst of all, Warner Bros. is watering down the Batman/Superman doings by cramming in other characters, in a desperate rush job to catch up with Marvel’s Avengers films. Princess Diana. Cyborg. Aquaman. Flash, if you believe some rumor-monger sites. I fear, and I don’t think I’m out of bounds here, that our comic book bromance for the ages will be consumed with fitting in all these moving parts. Don’t take it out on us that you’ve botched your shared universe up until now, Warner — that’s all I’m saying. Though I’m saying it too late, as if they were ever listening.
Which is a long, drawn out way of getting to the comic before us today. Since we’re getting Super Friends Lite in a year and a half, we might as well sample some of the real thing. And with not just Jayna and Zan as our minor characters du jour, but the Black Orchid to boot. Because, in the spirit of the times, why the hell not? Read more…
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II game had a Pizza Hut tie-in. Of course it did.
The nauseating Michael Bay reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is almost enough to make us forget that the heroes in a half shell were once cool, esteemed enough in the childhood zeitgeist to easily sustain comics, cartoons and oodles of video games. Read more…
Come spin the Super Friends carnival wheel, where every turn is a winner!
The Super Friends version of the classic carnival wheel has to be the most boring iteration of this game of chance ever conceived — i.e. one with every dollop of risk sucked out. Where are the smelly carnies? Where’s the little hidden switch that the seedy operator flips to make sure you don’t win the jackpot? Shenanigans! Pat Sajak and Vanna White scoff at this supposed Wheel of Fortune. Read more…
Trading Card Set of the Week (Dreamboat Johnny Depp Special Edition) – 21 Jump Street (1987, Topps)
Long before the 21 Jump Street film became a link in the chain of mimbo Channing Tatum’s inexplicable rise to Hollywood megastardom, there was the original show. A late 1980s staple of the then-fledgling Fox network, it, like its Tatum-infused movie successor/remake, focused on youngish cops going undercover to battle the crime of the week. It was a straight police drama though, with none of the outlandish comedy of the cinema version, and by far its most important contribution to the culture, for better or for worse, was launching the young Johnny Depp into his now decades long acting career. (Edward Scissorhands came out twenty-four years ago. Twenty-four!) Because of the show he became a teen idol back when the term really meant something, when Tiger Beat was still the New York Times publication-of-record for that unofficial status. There would be no Depp without Jump.
Surprise surprise, there were trading cards to go along with the show. Anything to capitalize on Depp’s handsome moneymaker. And, though they ostensibly covered the entire cast, they may as well have been subtitled 21 Jump Street: Johnny Depp’s Face and Crotch. Read more…
Jared
blog into mystery 