Trade With Action Figs & Things – Part II

Tonight we have the 2nd part of the recent trade betweeen myself and Anthony from Action Figs & Things.

First up is a 1997 Zorro figure from Playmates Toys.  Research tells me that this would most likely be from the first Antonio Banderas as Zorro movie from 1998.  It’s got a cool little action feature where he swings his sword in his trademark style(sort of).  I’m not familiar with the movies or the line, so this guy is a pass for me.  But no worries!  One of my friends has already claimed him.

And right beside Zorro stands Nemesis Enforcer.  Nemesis Enforcer was part of a 3-pack of G.I. Joe villains who first appeared in 1987’s, G.I. Joe-The Movie.  And any old-school Joe is a welcome addition!  Unlike Transformers-The Movie, I don’t remember too much from the first G.I. Joe movie(and it’s been a really long time since I last saw it, we’re talking almost 2 decades).  But these figures for the 3 Cobra-La Figures are unforgettable.  NE here, is only missing his grey wing “back pack”, to be complete.  And from what I’ve read, it seems that Nemesis Enforcer never displayed the green tentacles that come with the figure, in the movie.  Crazy!

Part III will be up in a few days.

Finds From the Thrift Store

This past weekend, I was introduced to a new thrift store(new to me anyway).  Of all the thrift stores that I have been to, this one seemed to have the best selection.  They had NES games, Genesis games, toys, and lots of other cool stuff.  The best thing of all though, was that they were having a 75% off sale.  Video games and electronics were not part of this sale(they were 20% off), so I decided to check out the toy section.  There were a few TMNT figures that I already have, but there was one that I had never realled seeing before.

This is Antrax.  I know that there were characters for almost any animal that you can think of, but I don’t remember this guy.  I thought he looked cool, so I decided to buy him.  His original asking price was $8(way too high, I think), but with the 75% off, he only set me back $2.  He’s completely void of accessories, and missing his antennas, and mandibles.  Still, I’m glad I picked him up.

I was informesd, when I bought Antrax, that I found him in the vintage toy section.  There was another toy section in the back with more current toys, but other stuff had been found there.  So I figured it was worth a peek, and found this beauty!

It’s the Captain Power – Powerjet XT-7!  The box is still sealed on one side, and the other side has been taped shut.  The contents of the box is loose(and rattles around in the box), but I was assured that everything that was supposed to be in there, was in there.  I would like to get some adhesive remover to get the tape off of the box, and then I’ll have a peek inside(I of course, want the box to look as nice as possible).  Now most of the time, I’d be ripping into the box before I bought it, to make sure it’s all there.  But, with the sale, I got it for $5, instead of the $20 it was originally marked for.  I love when I can find 80s toys in their original packages for a price that I’m comfortable with(which seems to be getting to be a rare thing).  The box is nowhere near mint, but I still love the look of packaging.  I’ll definitely be going back to that store soon.

Visionaries & the $1 Nintendo 64

This past week I won a few auctions on Ebay, and they are starting to make their way to my mailbox(this will give me material to write about).  I’m pretty sure that I gave away what we’re going to see in the title.  But in case you didn’t catch it, I scored some Visionaries!

The blue guy is Leoric, and the red one is Witterquick.  I remember really wanting these figures when they were first released, but this is the one that got away, the one toy line I didn’t have anything from.

These 2 represent the good guys, and the only other one I have in my collection is a bad guy who is missing his chest hologram(along with everything else).  Each figure came with a weapon, a helmet and a holographic staff.  While none of their accessories weren’t included, the auction did include 3 of the holographic staffs!  I don’t believe that any of them correspond with the figures, but still pretty cool nonetheless.  A steal at 99 cents(+$4 shipping)!

And now to the $1 Nintendo 64.

But before we get to any pictures, let me set up the story of how I acquired such a thing.

On Saturday, myself, my wife, one of our friends and her son, went to go see if we could find any garage/yard sales.  It was a warm sunny day, so we thought that it would be perfect for sales.  We were wrong, but found a few.

There was a Boy Scout troop having a rummage sale.  When we got out of the car, we were told that for $3 we could fill a plastic bag with as much stuff as we wanted.  Not more than 30 seconds after this, they reduced the cost to $1 per stuffed bag!  I looked at the toys and other stuff that had for sale, but nothing caught my eye.  Then I happened upon a box with an N64 control deck and 4 games!  I picked up the games, and then went and purchased my $1 bag.  These games didn’t fill up the bag, so I grabbed a few other thing out of the box to go with them.

So I grabbed the control deck, a PS1 memory card, the MAX controller and the 4 N64 for games for $1.  I definitely got more than I paid for!  I didn’t have any of the games, so that’s a plus.  It’s not the ultimate score, but very nice, all things considered.  I’m going to end up selling the deck and the MAX on the Bay because I already have these items.  I’ll keep the memory card though, as you can never have enough of them.  😉

The League of Extraordinary Bloggers – Holy Grails and White Whales

The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is a project that Brian from Cool and Collected started about 2 months ago(for those of you who are not familiar with this, click here for the scoop).  The topic this week is, as stated in this post’s title, Holy Grails and White Whales.

While I could go on and on with stuff I would love to get, the idea is what would we most like to find, and be able to take home with us.  There’s got to be  something that has eluded you, that you think you may never get, or get the opportunity for a chance at.  There are a few things that instantly came to mind.

I collect video games, among other things, so that’s where we’ll start.

What you see above is the very definition of Holy Grail, when it comes to the Nintendo Entertainment System.

I have many fond memories attached to the NES, which is probably why I have so much interest in the system itself.  I collect games for quite a few consoles,  but I have more NES games than all of my other consoles combined(200+).  If you are not familiar with the story behind these cartridges, I’ll give you a little history.

In 1990, Nintendo held a video game championship across the country(not unlike the one in the movie The Wizard).  There were competitions in cities across the nation, looking for the best Nintendo player in that city.  Then the “best” players from each age group would play against each other in the finals of the tournament to determine the winner.  I’m not sure just how these were distributed, but I do know that some went to the champions and finalists, and some were given away in a Nintendo Power contest.  There are only 90 of the gray cartridges, and just 26 copies of the gold one.

The games contained within are Super Mario Brothers(get 50 coins), Rad Racer(complete the first course), and Tetris(get the highest score you can).  There is a dipswitch on the outside of the cart, that you can use to adjust the amount of time to play.  Even though all the games are pretty common, the cartridges are not.  This is something I’m pretty sure I will never own, but it’s nice to dream of finding it a at a garage sale or flea market.

And there are a few toys that came to mind as well.  Now, there are a lot(tons), of toys that I would love to add to my collection.  There are plenty of lines that I collect, and others that I would like to collect.  But there is one line that stands above the rest, and that’s Transformers.  Or more specifically, Generation 1 Transformers.

The first of the two?

Transformers and I go way back.  My brother and I received our first Transformers on the Christmas of 1984 or 1985.  We got one each, and they were both Megatron.  Megatron is high on my want list, but Ultra Magnus is just a little more important to me.  You see, when I saw Transformers the Movie back in 1987, Ultra Magnus quickly became my new Favorite Transformer.  My older brother ended up getting it for me, I believe, for my 9th birthday in 1988.  For some reason I didn’t have it very long.  My stepmother, took him away for some reason(probably jealous that my younger brother didn’t have one), and I never saw him again.  I’m sure I probably cried my eyes out, because I really wanted that toy, and really loved it for the short time that I had it.  So, maybe, finally getting him again may give me some closure.

And the one I wanted, but never got.

Soundwave, is perhaps the coolest looking Transformer in robot mode(and a little dated in alt mode).  I knew a few kids who had this guy, and boy, did I want it!  There were quite a few times I would pick out cassette 2-packs(for Soundwave or Blaster), when we would ask if we could get a toy(you know what I’m talking about).  I have had a few chances to pick this guy up, but at the time(s), I just didn’t have the $40-$50 to spare.  But that may all change when the toy show comes to town on April 22!

Check out what has eluded Reis over at Lair of the Dork Horde.

Brian talks about the item he would love to add to his ever-growing King Kong collection over at Cool and Collected.

And Tim searches for “The Non-Existent” over at Flashlights are Something to Eat.

Yard Sale Finds #9

Before we get to what I was able to find at the sales this weekend, I want to share my thoughts on the latest Transformers movie.  For what it is, it’s a good movie.  I have realized that movies cater to the masses, and everything evolves and changes as time goes by.  If this helps get the newer generations into the property, that’s cool.  Of course it’s not exactly what I wanted to see, but I’m happy it’s come as far as it has.  It was entertaining and that’s the bottom line.  I could be selfish and go into how I would have made it the perfect movie, but that would only be my opinion.

Now that that’s over with, let’s get to what I was able to find on this past weekend’s excursion.

We left for the sales this weekend a lot later than usual (12:15pm).  This may have been a factor in why little caught my attention.  The best deals are to be had early in the morning.  But I did manage to score a few deals.

I bought the vhs tape, hoping that there might some old commercials on it.  I haven’t been able to screen it yet, so I don’t know if it was a valid purchase.  But it was only 25 cents, so it was worth a shot.  The Rubik’s Cube was a good deal at a quarter as well, being that it’s not in the greatest condition(but it’s an original).  The Halloween II dvd is in pristine condition and was a steal for $1.00.

Here we have a Muppet Babies growth chart(1991) and the February 1987 issue of Radio Electronics.  I am saving the growth chart for when we have a child of our own, and it was free!  The magazine was a dime.  There is an ad that I want to share for a later post, and than I want to donate it to a site that can appreciate it.  Here’s a full size shot of the growth chart(it’s pretty cool).

The items that you have just seen are the least interesting of what I was able to find.  Now you’ll see the stuff that I was more than happy to take home.

Each of these guides cost me a quarter each.  There was a stack of them that also included Animal Crossing and a few Star Wars games.  They were all either Nintendo Power or Official Prima Strategy Guides.  I have only played Super Mario Sunshine once, but you can never go wrong with Mario(i’ll get the game someday).  Wind Waker is my second favorite Zelda game(i know a lot of hard core gamers hate this game, but I love it).  I have beaten the game numerous times, but this will help me finish it 100%(getting all of the figurines is hard as hell!).

Each of these games cost only $1.00 each!  I bought Defcon 5 at the same sale I bought Halloween II at.  It doesn’t have the instruction manual, but it’s my first”tall box” PS1 game, and it only ran me a buck!  I found the 3 SNES games in a box of SNES games, but all of the games were sports games.  The 3 I bought(while still in the sports genre), were ones I needed and were the best of the lot.  At this sale, I also found Pokemon Red for Game Boy Color, and the guy running the sale gave it to me for free.  I tried to play it when I got home, and it instantly powers off when you try to turn it on.  If anybody knows why this would happen, please let me know.

And lastly…here’s the toys I was able to score.

From left to right we have a Burger King Capitol Critters toy from 1992(remember that show?).  I believe this is Max at the Jefferson Memorial.  Then we have Breakfightin’ Raphael from 1989, but his Wacky Action doesn’t work.  The Jawa is a Burger king toy from 2005.  Reptar has a sparking action(that works).  I don’t know where this specific Reptar came from, but he’s really cool(Brian also found him about a week ago).  The Stegosaurus has 2 things going for him.  1)- Dinosaurs are awesome and 2)- He glows in the dark.  Each of these items ran me a quarter a piece.

The Jawa has this neat feature.

Kind of creepy, huh?

And lastly, we have this.

I haven’t been able to identify the vehicle, which is stamped 1988.  The figure which is stamped 1991, is Bushido(version 2), who is from the Shadow Ninjas line.  Although he’s stamped 1991, this figure was actually released in 1994.  These figures had a cool gimmick that was a great gimmick in the eighties and early-to-mid nineties.  From yojoe.com….”When exposed to water and light, the figure’s color would change.”

Well, that’s all this time around.  Not too bad considering how late we left.

And before you go, I have a little poll for you guys.

You guys know that Transformers is one of my favorite lines, right?  Well, over the past couple of months, I have accumulated a handful of carded figures from various lines(around 4 or 5), and plan on reviewing them all eventually.  My question is…which would you like to see?  I will not give their names, but I will give you a choice of different lines(please see below).

1)- Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2)- Transformers Animated

3)- Transformers Generations

4)-Transformers Universe

5)- Transformers: Hunt for the Decepticons

Some of these have been stewing for a little while, while others have been picked up recently.  Maybe I’ll do them back to back until I review all 5 of them.  If that’s the case, list the order in which you’d like to see them in.  Maybe a Transformers Week is in the cards?

Reminiscing With Old Comic Book Ads

Hello everyone!  I’m fully relaxed and back in action!  I just needed a little break from the computer.

As you all know, I have a decent collection of comic books.  While I am no longer a hard-core comic collector, I still like to look through my collection and remember the early days when I first got into comics.  I belie I started collecting comics when I was around 12, but I started reading comics way before I started collecting them.  As a boy, my father used to take us to Phil’s Barber Shop in Pleasantville, NY.  I’m sure the place is long gone, but I can remember reading comic books as my father or brother were getting their hair cut by Phil.  Not only did he have comic books for us kids to read, but he would always my brother and I a cookie before we left(the good ones, in the big round tin).  Also, right down the street was Archie’s Corner Store.  I used to love perusing the comics and candies, and my dad would usually get a pack of Chuckles(do they still produce those?), for us to share.  Alright, now I’m getting off track.

As you can tell by my little tangent, I was reminiscing.  All brought on by looking at old comic books.  I only scanned a few ads from a few comics that I have not yet filed away into the long boxes.  Here are the comics the ads were scanned from.

 

 

I’ve acquired all 3 of these comics within the last 2 years.  The Sectaurs and Silver Hawks comics were bought at a garage sale in the summer of 2009, but I’m not sure where I got the TMNT II movie adaptation from.  The Sectaurs comic is from 1986, Silver Hawks is from 1987, and TMNT is from 1991.  The ads contained within these comics aren’t the most iconic, but they all remind me of simpler times.

We’ll start off with the only ad that I scanned from the TMNT comic.

The only other ads in this comic were for Double Dragon III and a bunch of Arcie Comics stuff.  This ad is for the most frustratingly hard TMNT game ever made.  I didn’t know a kid who had an NES who wasn’t into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  That being said, almost every kid I knew had this game.  After getting through the under water bomb disarming stage(which a lot of people say is too hard), the game gets unforgivingly difficult.  I will be the first to say that this is one game I have never beaten.  I remember seeing this ad an awful lot.

Now we’ll take a look at what lies within the Sectaurs comic.

Nestle Quik.  Whenever this stuff was in our household, I used to like to eat spoonfuls of this chocolately dust.  I don’t remember this specific promotion, but how cool would it have been to win a complete set of Go-Bots?!  I was(and still am) a loyal fan of the Transformers, but what kid would balk at the chance to win a complete line of toys?  You don’t see promotions like this anymore.

This is an ad I remember clearly!  Most ads that had puzzles/games during this period stand out in my mind.  You don’t see to much advertising for these types of products these days, which is pretty sad.  Do they make other flavors of Newtons besides the fig variety these days?

If you’re a product of the eighties, there is no way you don’t remember M.A.S.K.(Mobile Armored Strike Kommand).  I loved this show, but only owned one toy from this line(my brother and I both had Jackhammer).  My favorite was Condor, while my brother’s favorite was Thunderhawk.  Looking at them now, I think they’re all pretty kick-ass!

Now we’ll see what lies within the pages of Silver Hawks #1.

I don’t really remember this ad, but I was a big fan of Disney and Oreos back in the day.  This seems like a pretty good deal.  I’m sure the just the Mickey ears set you back more than $5.95 these days(I wouldn’t know, I have never been to a Disney park).  And I’m sure I would look just as happy if Mickey mouse was eating Oreos with me.

This is the last ad we’ll be looking at today.  Cocoa and Fruity Pebbles had great advertising in the eighties and nineties.  This ad is almost like a Mad Libs.  Their commercials are memorable(who could forget the classic Christmas commercial?), and when they had free toys or prizes in the cereal, they were pretty good!  Not to mention that the Pebbles cereals taste really good.  The Flintstones seem to have all but vanished these days(what happened to all of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons?).

There were other ads in these comics, but I only went with the ones most would remember(if you read comics back in the day).  This may be a good topic to revisit, and I have plenty of material to pick through.  Would this be something you would like to see covered more?  Let me know in the comments.

Finally! I’ve Always Wanted One of These.

This is an item I have wanted, but have never had, since it’s introduction.  I cannot really explain why I wanted this though.  You’ll see what I mean.

A Couch Potato!  These were released by Coleco back in 1987.  I think the presentation is great!  Making it’s package look like your everyday chair was a great touch.  The guy who I bought this off of had a $20 price tag on this guy.  Now, I have always wanted one of these, and I likely wouldn’t run into one of these again.  I just checked, and these guys in their box run in the $50 range.  So I guess $20 dollars was a deal.  But anyway, I asked him what was the best he could do.  He said he would take “ten bucks for it”.  You can’t argue with half price(plus that’s the number I had in my head).

They made these for everyone.  I’ve been everyone of those potatoes.  I don’t know what I could have possibly been thinking I would do if I got one of these back then.  I don’t think the potato’s burlap sack would have been very comfortable to cuddle with.  I want to think it was made more as a gag gift.  But this was the same company that had the ALF and Sectaurs licenses.  But I’m happy I now own one.

There is actually an old Coleco factory about 30 minutes from where I live.  I wonder if anything was left behind there?  Anyone else remember these?

Yard Sale Finds #5

The yard sale season is finally upon us.  This is when others’  “junk” becomes our treasure.  In the coming months, bordering towns/villages, will hold village wide garage/yard sales on the weekends.  It’s not every weekend, but only one village wide garage sale will be on any given weekend.  This weekend was the town of Esperance’s village wide sale.

I found a bunch of stuff, but came home with very little in the toy department.  I spent around five dollars for everything you will see here today.

It was an overcast day yesterday, but still warm enough to be outside in a t-shirt.  I woke up at 7:30am(on a day I could sleep in), but I didn’t head out until about 10:45am.  This was probably the reason that I didn’t get a lot of cool toys.  It could also be that I have been hitting the annual sale in Esperance for the last 4 years!  There’s only so many old-school toys in a single location, but I’m with the same train of thought as The New York Lottery….”Hey, you never know.”

I came across some really great deals on books.  I came home with six really cool books, which cost me a grand total of just .95 cents!  And the books came from 3 different sellers!  Here’s the first 4 I found yesterday morning.

From 1979, we have Mercer Mayer’s “Little Monster’s Alphabet Book”.  I remember thinking that the little monster on the cover was a cool looking character when I was a kid.  While this book came out the year I was born, I remember liking this Little Monster series in my early years.  Then we have Sesame Street’s “The Little Red Hen”.  This came out in 1983.  I don’t remember this specific book, but the Sesame Street books that came out in this period were great books for their target demographic(the best Sesame Street book is “The Monster at the End of this Book”, in case you wanted to know).  Lastly we have “Like, MAD” and “Fighting MAD”, from 1960 and 1961 respectively.  These came out many years before my time, but if you’re a fan of MAD, your a fan of their complete works.  Don Martin is my favorite of all MAD artists, and you can see some of his early work within these pages.  It’s not exactly the work I remember from the 80’s, but it’s cool to see some of his early work, as it was kind of rough(but you would still know it was his work).

And here are the other 2 books that I purchased.

From 1963, we have 2 books from the LIFE Nature Library.  The first is a book called The Sea.  I have had a fascination with animals since I can remember.  My obsessions when I was a kid(besides toys and cartoons), were animals, dinosaurs and outer space.  I still retain interest in all of those categories, and the sea is a great place to find some of the weirdest life forms on earth.  Secondly we have The Forest.  While not as cool as sea animals, this is very informative for the life that lives in the world’s forests.  A damn good deal at .25 cents a piece!

In a rare event, I actually found a couple of video games at such a price, that it wasn’t necessary to haggle!

At one dollar per game, I thought it was a hell of a deal!  Spawn The Eternal is from 1997, The Die Hard Trilogy is from 1996.  I haven’t played the Spawn game, but I remember playing the Die Hard Trilogy on the PS1, as well as the arcade version.  Despite being hard as hell at times, The Die Hard Trilogy is a blast to play.

If you’ve read some of my other yard sale posts, you’ll know that I’m a sucker for old-school cups and glasses.  And this weekend proved to provide a nice assortment of vintage drink receptacles.

The Far Side mug will now be my mug of choice when I’m drinking coffee.  I think everyone can relate to this.  Where I live, there are plenty of dairy farms, so I see my fair share of cows.  I’m pretty sure that when 99% of people drive by and they see a cow, they let out an audible “Moo”.  This mug depicts the reversal of roles, and I find that hilarious!  In the middle is a McDonald’s “Mac Tonight” collector’s cup from 1987.  I don’t know why we haven’t seen more of Mac, but I will enjoy drinking out of this cup.  And on the right, is a McDonald’s Garfield collector’s glass from 1978.  I now have 4 of these(3 different, with 1 duplicate).  I love Garfield, and if you don’t, you have no soul.

Let’s wrap this up!

From 1995, it’s a “BK Kids Club Cooler”.  I can only remember Kid Vid and Jaws.  Research tells me that this “Snaps”.  Kid Vid is obviously the chaser.  If any male my age says that Kid Vid was not their favorite, they’re a dirty liar!  Totally worth the dime the seller was asking.  That little wizard guy appears to be hand made, and there’s no date of any tell tale markings of being a production piece, so I’m guessing it was made by a student or in a craft class.  Two quarters was all it took to make it mine!  The black tray is a Discover card check tray(?).  It is shrink wrapped and does not appeared to be used.  I got this from the same seller who sold me the Snaps Cooler, for .10 cents as well.  For a nickel, my wife found that neat little Pepsi Cola truck.  While I have nothing against Coke, and I drink it from time to time, I come from a Pepsi family.  Now, I finally have one of these cool Dark Knight figures found in boxes of various General Mills cereals back in 2008(this is the one with the uppercut action).  The hunt was fun, and I made out okay, so I can’t complain.  I love to go garage saling, as it’s a defining activity of my summer.  And you can bet we’ll see more as the weather gets warmer.

Jboypacman is the Epitome of Awesome!!

Today, I was expecting a package from Ebay, and was pleasantly surprised to also find a package from Jboypacman(see his blogs here and here).  I originally planned on doing a quick post of the little item from Ebay, but the contents of the box Jboy sent, totally eclipses it!  I was expecting the package…I just wasn’t expecting a toy lot of this size.  I’ll let the following photo do the talking.

So much awesome was packed into that box!  I broke it up into a few pictures, so we can get a better look at my Christmas in March.  We’ll start with Lt. Ripley(with face hugger) from Kenner’s 1992 Aliens line, Iron Man from Hasbro’s Marvel Universe line, a T-700 from the Terminator:Salvation line and Dr. Claw and MAD Cat from Tiger’s 1992 Inspector Gadget line.

And that’s just the beginning!  As you know, I’m a huge TMNT fan, and Jboy sent me not only a Raph PEZ dispenser, but he also sent 4 Turtle figures.  Three of which I didn’t have!!  We have Wacky Action Michaelangelo, 1988 Raphael(hard head), one that I believe is a Wacky Action Leonardo(I thought he was the only one without a Wacky Action figure, but I could be wrong), and a Leonardo figure(with arm action at the press of a button) from 2004.  Looks like I’ll be ordering more pizza.  🙂

But, wait there’s more!  He sent 4 sweet Transformers!  First, There’s Electrostatic Soundwave, with Ratbat.  Then there’s Decepticon Bludgeon(I just bought one this past weekend!  Now I’ll have one MIB).  Standing next to Decepticon Bludgoen(damn copyrights), is Tracks(1984 Takara).  And lastly we have Snapdragon, who is a 1987 Headmaster(missing his nebulan component, Krunk).  He also sent a Thor comic book that I forgot to photograph.

As I said when I opened the package, WOW!  Thanks again Jboy!  You put a big smile on this big kid’s face!  🙂

On a closing note, here’s what I got from Ebay.

It’s Cool Cat from the Puppetland Band, you may remember from Pee Wee’s Playhouse!  I would like to get Chicky Baby and Dirty Dog as well.  These guys don’t come up loose, often.  Pee Wee’s Playhouse is one of my absolute favorite toy lines, which explains why I paid $4.69 + shipping for this little guy(I wasn’t losing this time!).

I still have a bunch more stuff to talk about this week(as well as some packages on the way).  I’ll get another post up in a few days.  With the exception Cool Cat, Tracks is my favorite addition to the collection.  Which figure is your favorite?

Skateboard Action

Well, I just found out how to work my scanner.  And that’s good news.  Because, now I can spotlight a great piece of literature I thought would be best shared with you.

Let’s take a trip back to 1987.  Robocop gives us a new futuristic hero.  Michael Jackson let everyone know how Bad he was.  And Snapple just began to offer us drinks made “from the best stuff on Earth”.  But, even more epic than that, Willowisp Press gave us Skateboard Action!

This right here is a gem of a find.  I went with my fiance to visit her great grandmother, who lives at at senior living facility.  On the way into the building there is an old library cart with books for sale by donation(you decide what you want to pay).  I was browsing the old romance novels and 60s-80s suspense novels when I happened across a magazine(or book fair book?), and I had to own it.  This was before I had a blog of my own, and I wanted a review of it.  Originally I wanted to submit this to x-entertainment for review, but things happened and it got tossed into the closet a.k.a. “The Vault”.Then, I started my own blog and this immediately popped into my head.

For your viewing pleasure, I present to you…Skateboard Action!  Click on any picture for a closer look.

This made for some informative reading.  I dabbled in skateboarding in my pre-teen years, but the guys within these pages were insane thrill seekers with a flair for fashion!  Just take a look at the guy in the main picture.  Those tube socks are pretty rad!  Wow!  Did I really wear socks like that?  Yes.  And check out the skateboards.  Compared to the boards you see nowadays, these things look like a boogie board with wheels.

Now the next picture I will display for you is quite interesting.  When I first saw it I thought Darlene’s boyfriend, David Healy was in a cheesy 80s skatboard rag.  Here, have a look for yourself.

Check that shit out!  I think I remember having a similar pair of shorts(jeez, I hope they weren’t that tight).  There were no X-Games back then, this is how “professional skateboarders” competed back then.  I’m sure these guys weren’t making anywhere near as much dough as Tony Hawk or Bam Margera rake in.

Next, we’ll look at some fashion-concious boarders.  I’ll just tell you that Vision Street Wear was big with the skate community, and Lucas(“I love the Power Glove.  It’s so bad.”).  Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.  These guys show you what was hip in 1987.

To these guys, “skateboarding is a way of life”.  They take their craft seriously!  You’re telling me that Corey Haim(not really), sitting on his skateboard with his flipped up painters cap doen’t look like he should be taken seriously?  The guy without his shirt on looks like a guy who would’ve beaten me up and taken my lunch money.  And those wonderful “jams”.  I didn’t know a kid in my age group who didn’t own a pair.

The next and last part I will show you is my favorite part of the whole publication.  It is The Glossary!  Now I am only going to show you the first page, but there are some useful terms.  Maybe we can bring some of the slang back!

My favorite of the lot is “dwid”.  Dwid- One who is not and cannot ever become “rad”.  That is their definition, I kid you not.  Let’s try to work that into our everyday vocabulary.  “That Tim, doesn’t he know he is a total dwid?  C’mon let’s try it.  The worst that can happen is people will think you’re retarded(Sorry Bill!).  I know this was no Reading Rainbow, but hey!  It was a labor of love!