We Had That

Princess Leia hides the plans to the Death Star with R2-D2 As an adult, life has probably kicked us in the crotch enough times that we're not too surprised when things don't go as planned.  However, as kids we still lived in a world with hope and optimism. In those days. waking up on Christmas morning to find the wrong toys under the tree could sometimes be heartbreaking.  We knew Grandma had the best intentions.  She just really didn't know the difference between C-3PO and a Micronaut.  But kids are resilient.  After the shock of disappointment, we figured out a way to make it work and still played out our Star Wars adventure with substitute action figures standing in for the figures that we wanted!  At least for me, in some cases those replacement figures grew into being some of my favorites. C-3PO and R2-D2?  Um...Those actually weren't the Droids I was looking for. I loved Micronauts as a kid, so it was only natural that my Time Traveler would find his w

Masters of the Universe Classics: Count Marzo Count Marzo is a powerful wizard from the original 1980s Masters of the Universe cartoon who appeared again (with a much cooler look and story line) in the 2002 cartoon. Although the character was in several episodes of both the 80s cartoon and again (as a more prominent villain) in the 2002 reboot, a figure wasn't made for the character in either the vintage line or the 200x line.  However, Mattel's Masters of the Universe Classics line was so successful that they released figures for many characters from the mini comics and the cartoons who had never been made into figures before.  Count Marzo was one of them. Masters of the Universe Classics: Count Marzo This figure was (thankfully) modeled very accurately from the 2002 cartoon version rather than the original series version.  They did an excellent job of making the figure look like his cartoon counterpart. From his two-toned black and gray hair that was always bl

GI Joe RAH: Cobra Rifle Range Unit (Hasbro, 1985) From 1982 through 1984, I loved GI Joe toys!  I think I had every figure and vehicle for the first three waves.  I picked up every issue of the comic book and I sometimes watched the cartoon.  By the time the fourth wave hit the shelves in 1995, I was still a big fan, but no longer a completist when it came to these real American heroes.  Don't misunderstand, I was as at maximum excitement to finally have action figures of the Dreadnoks!  I had been reading about them in the comics and just thought they were the greatest.  Even with the fourth wave, I picked up almost all of the figures, but the vehicles and such just didn't grab me as they had before.  I did have the Bridge Layer (although I honestly don't know why) and the awesome Snow Cat!  I must have never seen the Cobra Night Landing raft in stores because that's definitely a piece that I would have liked.  However, for some reason, I ended up with the Cobra R

Vintage 1967 Smokey Bear Bendy 2019 is the 75th anniversary of Smoky Bear!  Since it's already December, I thought I'd better get this posted now because celebrating the 76th anniversary of Smoky Bear just isn't as exciting. Smoky Bear was character created to promote awareness of wildfire prevention during World War II.  Because so many of the men who fought wildfires were away at war, the fires posed a bigger threat than usual.  As a result, the United States Forest Service created Smoky Bear in 1944 as the spokesman for wildfire prevention with his famous slogan, "Care will prevent 9 our of 10 forest fires!"  Ok, so maybe they needed some time to work out a good slogan.  In 1947, the slogan changed to the much more familiar, "Remember...only YOU can prevent forest fires!" Vintage 1967 Smokey Bear Bendy figure Smoky Bear was so popular that merchandise with his likeness was made for decades.  Ideal  produced Smokey Bear dolls starti