Spider-Junk. Spider-Junk. Friendly neighborhood Spider-Junk.
Yes, Spider-Man is the star of the figurative Marvel show, the guy they put on the letterhead, the man whose title is used to help (re)launch other characters into their own books. Concomitant with that a desire to cram him into as much merchandise as possible. Stuff like cars, and, as we see above, stunt cycles (to channel your inner Spider Knievel) and, God help us all, dune buggies. Read more…
The old-timey wrist radio picks up stations, but doesn’t do the one thing you really want it to do
The two smiling kids at the top of this ad get you all amped up for these wrist radios, thinking that here you have a genuine two-way communication device right out of a Dick Tracy strip. Look — there are lightning bolts connecting the two of them and everything!This surely signifies important communications about treehouse clubs, makeshift forts and information gleaned through decoder rings! Ohmygodgimmegimmegimme! Read more…
Hey, a bro/manssiere! For your back!
So suppose you’re a guy, and you buy yourself a Pi Peer(?) Shoulder Brace to improve your sagging posture and general shmooiness. Read more…
No Leprechauns for St. Patrick’s Day this year here on the blog, no four-leaf clovers or towering pints of foamy warm Guinness. Instead to celebrate the great Irish holiday we have the greenest hero of all, greener even than the Green Lanterns and Green Arrows of the world, guys that have the color sewn into their very names. Yes, today it’s the Incredible Hulk, the Green Goliath himself (well, at least when he’s green and not grey). Hulk like St. Patrick’s Day. Day when Hulk feel like he fits in. Day when puny humans don’t point and laugh at green skin.
And yes, as the cover promises, the Hulk gets bonked by his own shadow in this issue, a fate appropriate for a holiday known for goofy drunkenness. So get liquored up and read on! Read more…
Save money as you swing with the jukebox bank!
Does the surely limited repertoire of music played by this miniature bank/jukebox live up to the “swingingest” puffery? Read more…
Win this old Charlton contest and be magically whisked away to watch a movie that was never made not be filmed!
Many times you flip through an early 1960s Charlton mag and come across the ad above, for a contest that would maybe, just maybe send you to Hollywood to see an actual honest to goodness movie being filmed. Which sounds great. Hollywood! Stars! Tinseltown! Science-fiction movies! Every young boy’s dream!
That is, just so long as the movie gets made. Read more…
Peter Parker’s book gets hijacked by the Black Widow’s tight new duds – The Amazing Spider-Man #86
As comic book movies have taken off in the last decade, we’ve all been reminded of that simple element that makes the source medium so enjoyable: the crossover. There’s no other brand of fiction more historically open to mish-mashing than good old stapled newsprint, and watching casts and characters mix and mingle has long been one of the foremost joys of comics. If you want to get deep, you could almost say that there’s something Hegelian about it, a creation of conflict that generates a true essence. In this vein, wouldn’t the World’s Finest duo of Superman and Batman be nothing more than a melding of the thesis and the antithesis? Read more…
Sometimes the patterns of years repeat themselves, and old calendars that you’ve stuffed in boxes and closets and drawers are suddenly relevant again — a “cataclysmic compendium” indeed. Read more…
While it’s true that this old-timey set lets you have a monorail right in your house, let’s not forget: The Simpsons had the definitive last word on that miracle of modern engineering/needless boondoggle.
Oh, this isn’t for you. It’s more of a [pauses to let the coming taunt sting all the more] Shelbyville post.
If this Daisy truly “shoots as good as it looks,” then it must be a certified killing machine. Fun!
Are you a youngster who’s all fired up after the gun-infused Harlem Globetrotters comic we looked at a few days ago? Then the above Daisy air rifle — the Safari Mark I, to be precise — just might be the gun for you. Look at it up there — the perspective alone is worth the price tag. You’ll be halfway to being Lucas McCain as soon as the stock is braced against your shoulder. “Glorified G” indeed.
A while back I touted the merits of Red Letter Media’s two web-based review series, Half in the Bag and Best of the Worst. I’m pleased to report that the latter — which, as its title would indicate, takes painful, soul-searing looks at some of the worst movies you could ever imagine — has done the inevitable: tackle a few of the abominable superhero movies that have come out over the years. Read more…
True Detective, considered
We live in a new Golden Age of Television — if not the Golden Age. Yes, the airwaves (if such a term is still appropriate in this streaming world) are contaminated with a vast array of wretched, mind-numbing crap, firehosed at us from a billion channels. But scripted television, mainly on cable, has undergone a renaissance in the last decade, since The Sopranos ushered in a new wave of hourlong excellence — you can’t have wheat without the chaff. The recently wrapped Breaking Bad was one of the finest shows we’ve ever seen, and within the current primetime universe is a stellar selection of shows: the Boardwalk Empires, Sons of Anarchys, Americans and Games of Thrones of the world. They’re well-funded, well-shot, oftentimes literate, and at times they put their snooty cousin, cinema, to shame.
Most recently, HBO has done a great service to devotees of the boob tube, reinvigorating a once potent, long dormant format: the mini-series. Short-term seasons, the new quantity in high-quality TV, are tailor-made for the old-timey framework that gave us events as finely crafted as, say, Lonesome Dove. Enter True Detective, the triumphant, senses-shattering return of the mini. Read more…
Before people cluttered their Facebook walls with fake/”funny”/vomitous motivational posters, they were restricted to expressing their idiocy through more brick and mortar methods. Enter this dazzling array of hippie paraphernalia — all that’s lacking is patchouli-tinged body odor. Yes, always express the inner you with mass-produced tchotchkes. GET A HAIRCUT.
Dare you resist the (weak) magnetism of the official Johnny Bench Magnetic Baseball Game?
What’s that? Your kids are bitching about their video games, that they’re not good enough for them? Then go ahead, whip out this ad and show them the horrors that the youth of relatively recent yesteryear had to deal with, games that didn’t just stretch the imagination, but put it through the wringer. That ought to shut their yaps.
No offense intended to Hall of Famer Johnny Bench — no stranger to hawking crap — or his eponymous magnet game, but really, “Colorful grandstand” sounds like something a desperate real estate agent lists to drum up interest in dilapidated money pit property.
Spiro Agnew watch? Spiro Agnew watch.
Yes, for only $13.95 plus shipping and handling plus a time machine, you can have that wrist ornamentation you’ve craved for so very long: a Spiro Agnew watch. Read more…
Jared
blog into mystery 