Trading Card Set of the Week – Saturday Night Live (1992, Star Pics)
It’s startling that Saturday Night Live is reaching one of the big round anniversary numbers this year, but it is. That venerable sketch comedy show, with its en vogue host of the week, musical acts, fake news and a finger on the pulse of up-to-the-minute satire, has been around for 40 years now. Forty. Four-Oh. And its big bash is tomorrow night, with a cornucopia of stars scheduled to help blow out the candles — they’re even getting Eddie Murphy back this time. For those of us who can clearly remember the 25th anniversary revels for Lorne Michaels’ brainchild, if not the very first episode, this is one of those clear markers that, yes indeed, time flies. Especially when you’re having fun. Read more…
Very white bread for children with very white teeth! (And Close Encounters cards!)
The Close Encounters of the Third Kind trading cards from Topps was one of the first sets we profiled here on the site, but we haven’t quite gotten to the Wonder Bread iteration — someday. And speaking of Wonder Bread, is it really that wonderful? Was jelly sogging through it such a selling point for the youth of America? (When I was that age it was always a sign of a ruined boxed lunch.) Has a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever made kids smile as widely as the ones we see above, with rictus grins that look almost painful in their extremity? (They look like they’ve been poisoned by the Joker.)
Back to Close Encounters — as a man who has its movie poster framed and hanging in my home, I think it’s safe to say that, had I been alive back then, that CE3K Skywatchers membership coupon would have been clipped and mailed in. Keep watching the loaves!
Spider-Man swings back into the fold!
Long rumored and longer desired, Spider-Man is finally coming to the shared Marvel movie world. The news broke last night that the most vexing of the properties that Marvel farmed out back in the day and has always wanted to get back will no longer be sequestered: Sony and Marvel have agreed to a partnership that will allow Peter Parker and co. into the Avengers-verse. And many hallelujahs rang out amongst fans of the spectacular/amazing one. Read more…
Marvel Boy, 3-D Man, Venus, Gorilla-Man and the Human Robot — the Avengers!(?) – What If…? #9
Marvel’s What If…? series was often a font for the joyously preposterous. From the Venom symbiote taking over Thor — and Thor’s hair — to Conan vaulted forward to the present day — and getting stuck there again — there was never a shortage of tangents for creative teams to pursue. The possibilities might not not have been legitimately infinite, but it sure seemed that way a lot of the time. What If…? was imagination stacked on top of imagination, and it made for some really fun reading for daydreaming kids of all ages — even when under normal circumstances you couldn’t care less about the character(s) getting the hypothetical treatment that month.
Today we have before us one of the more whimsical entries in this long-running series. It posits the question: What if the Avengers had been formed during the Golden Age of comics? What the what now? Read more…
The iconography of Star Wars characters has so tattooed itself onto the pop consciousness, it’s hard to remember when their every facet wasn’t internalized by all levels of the marketing machine. But yes, there was such a time. Read more…
As we’ve already noted, the first two major 1990s DC trading card sets had a glaring absence: Batman, in fact the entire Batman sphere, was nowhere to be found. This was because Impel had the license the broader DC world, while the Batman rights were bound up with the licensing associated with the Tim Burton film franchise. So as Impel jerry-rigged a couple of sets — Cosmic Cards and Cosmic Teams — scrubbed of the terrestrial bat-element, Topps was putting out things like the Stadium Club Batman Returns cards. To put it in all too current terms, it was a bit like Sony having the Spider-Man rights while the MCU spins along without its web-slinger frontman. And, to pilfer some of the old TV show’s alliteration, it was a baleful bifurcation.
But DC’s card output couldn’t be Batman-less forever. Read more…
Daredevil, daredevilling soon to a streaming device near you!
The upcoming Netflix wing of the Marvel screen universe is intriguing to say the least. Read more…
Whether or not Aurora’s “American Astronaut” model kit is superior to the Matt Mason toys is purely a matter of aesthetic preference. That and a measure of one’s tolerance for glue. But you have to grant this: one is certainly more dignified than the other.
Sunday Stupid: Brace yourselves for Indian Superman!
The 1978 Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve/Gene Hackman Superman is rightly considered a classic. It’s a film that combines elements of the David Lean epic oeuvre with comic book iconography, and despite its several flaws, it’s become one of the standards by which all other superhero adaptations are judged. Like all great films its merits transcend its genre.
The Indian take(s) Superman? Yeah, not so much. Read more…
Feast on the 50 Foot Woman, Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor/Howard/Whatever, and Twinkies!
The presence of bombshell-billboard-come-to-life Cooky la Moo in this Wonder Woman Twinkies ad means that we’ve got a collision of bondage and giantess fetishes — if we mashed it up with the old “Pussy” ad, heads would explode. But that’s not all that’s going on here. Read more…
They’re really milking this whole “I’ve Got No Strings” motif for all it’s worth, no? Read more…
A senses-shattering origin! (If you care!) – The Mighty Isis #7
Wonder Woman wasn’t the only female comic book character to have a television series in the 1970s. Besides the bouncy Linda Carter shenanigans, the distaff side of the DC Universe also featured a turn by Isis — though the latter’s comic run was concomitant with the televised doings, as she didn’t have decades of funny page adventures leading up to it. Another heroine out of myth who showed a lot of skin, Isis was perhaps a little too similar to her Amazon soul-sister (with a dash of ancient Egyptian Captain Marvel elements, fitting since he was her broadcast partner on Filmation’s The Shazam/Isis Hour), and hence the show didn’t last all that long: two seasons of twenty-two total episodes. The comic’s lifespan was even briefer, though it didn’t vanish into the ether before it could dish out that requirement of every book and character worth their salt: a senses-shattering origin. Read more…
Hey, there’s a Fantastic Four movie coming out this summer! And it might be terrible!
You know when the biggest credit that the trailer can offer is “From the studio that brought you X-Men: Days of Future Past,” there might be something amiss. They’re kind of forgetting that 20th Century Fox is also the studio that botched the first two Fantastic Four movies, you know? Read more…
Charles Manson, t-shirt purveyor?
I’m sure that Crazy David was a fine, honorable businessman, much like his fellow Crazy brethren — Crazy Eddie, et al. Read more…
Trading Card Set of the Week – Captain Scarlet (2001, Cards Inc.)
One trading card set fate has made indestructible — Captain Scarlet! Read more…
Jared
blog into mystery 