Monkey Business

They don't in the least resemble those baneful beasts from The Wizard Of Oz, but they fly. And scream. What more do you want from a toy? From Playmaker. Propel them up to 50 feet via their patented Flingshot technology! 2 sizes; the big ones have little black masks. Monkeys not your cup of tea? There's ducks, frogs, cows, chickens, and naturally, pigs. Curious, George? Buy them here.
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Clean-up in aisles 22, 38 and 45

Two men with handguns shot and killed each other at a crowded Toys "R" Us in Palm Desert, Calif., on Black Friday, officials said. Witnesses said the confrontation happened after the women with them got into a violent brawl. A police official said the fight was not over a toy.

The victims were identified as Alejandro Moreno, 39, of Desert Hot Springs, and Juan Meza, 28, of Cathedral City. No one else was hurt.

Palm Desert is a resort town about 120 miles east of Los Angeles.
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airsoft guns

Show and Mattel

Sorry, folks, been on a HUGE freelance design project and have neglected my blogs this week.

Toy giant MATTEL's been around for 63 years. Headquartered in El Segundo, CA, you may know some of their minor product lines...Barbie. Scrabble. Matchbox cars. And let's not forget the never-wrong Magic 8 Ball. Fortune Magazine and the Los Angeles Business Journal named Mattel a "Best Place To Work" in 2008.

Since its inception, Mattel has been in acquisition mode, scooping up smaller companies like Fisher-Price. And General Aniline and Film, known more commonly by its acronym, GAF. As in View-Master. I owned one in the early 70s...the closest thing I had to Internet search. I recall one disk in particular, the 7 Wonders Of The World...it had a miniature vinyl audio disk attached to it, providing appropriate narration for each slide. Here's a commercial from 1971, starring Jodie Foster and Henry Fonda:



And I STILL have my Mattel Electronics hand-held two-player video football game, fully operational. One 9-volt battery and I'm good to go. Who needs PlayStation. Millions of units sold. I use those same thumb reflexes for texting now.

Hot item this holiday season: Disney's High School Musical action figures!
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Side-To-Side Ride

The Powerwing™, from Razor®. Looks like fun. Doesn't even come close to my childhood Big Wheel, but at $129.99, the price is right for this "drifting cast scooter" that'll get you out of the house and fulfill your daily cardio quotient.
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Shop for Video Games at ToysRus.com

Wacky is Topps!

OK, I promise every post won't be a flashback, but here's a gem from way-back-when that is STILL available today! Yippee!

Wacky Stickers (aka Wacky Packs or Packages) gave me endless hours of giggles as a pre-teen. Bought them by the truckload at Tom's Market across from Putnam Avenue Elementary; a bunch of spoofed-consumer-product adhesive cards (and a stale-tasting powdery stick of gum which I always tossed) in a wax wrapper. Along with watching Darrin Stephens on Bewitched, Wackies definitely guided my career path into advertising and design...that Norm Saunders artwork remains unsurpassed. Always wondered how they got away with such spot-on parodies...and if they ever got sued/injunctioned.

Wackies have had a sporadic publishing history. Produced by Topps (the baseball card peeps), the original series ran from 1967-1979, followed by reruns into the mid-80s. 1985 and 1991 saw some new cards, and then another series began in 2004. But nothing beats the originals. I had most of them, until I got the brilliant idea to wallpaper my buddy Jimbo's treehouse with my entire collection (which I'm rebuilding from scratch, starting now)...


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IN THE BEGINNING...

In the 70s, in Hamden, Connecticut. No Facebook. No cellies. Just a neighborhood library, adjacent to my grammar school, where I spent the majority of my weekends and afternoons as a child. When I wasn't at the Whitney Theatre (saw Star Wars there 24 times) or the Hamden Plaza's video arcade (Galaga and Battle Zone still rule).

I'm gonna be writing alot about the toys of yesteryear, cuz nothing even comes close nowadays. Today's featured relic: STRETCH MONSTER, by Kenner!

Begged my parents for this one. Stretch Armstrong's nemesis. Grab an appendage, pull, and the limb would stay elongated for awhile. Regrettably, the lifespan of this action figure was short...a few misplaced-aggression yanks, and limbs would fall off, oozing a reddish-purple goo. Kewl, actually. I understand they fetch a pretty penny on eBay.
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