Shortly after Funko started cranking out Pop figures, I had my heart set on ones based on my favorite Saturday morning cartoon, Thundarr the Barbarian. While I kept it in mind that they may never happen, over the years I figured they'd start running out of things people were nostalgic for and eventually they would come and they finally have...sort of.
Back in February, Funko announced all the exclusives for their Spring 2021 VirtualCon and among them were these three I had been waiting on for years. Yes, my most wanted Pops were coming but they were going to be an online exclusive. In the span of a few seconds I went from elation to presuming I'd never actually see these at a decent price.
A couple weeks later, I saw something about being able to register ahead of time to order the figures. The only catch was you had to have been signed up two weeks before I found this info. Like Thundarr, I was going to fight on ignoring any obstacles in my way!
Whether or not you've actually watched an episode, you've probably at least heard of Ben 10, Cartoon Network's smash hit sci-fi cartoon about a kid with an extraterrestrial device that lets him shapeshift into aliens. The show and characters have actually evolved since it debuted in 2005. Every few years, the show is re-branded with a new title, allies, villains, and plot arc. And on top of that, there have been numerous made-for-TV movies and video games, not to mention loads of toys!
This Saturday, Cartoon Network kicks off the latest incarnation with Ben 10: Galactic Monsters. And it looks interesting enough to at least get me to tune in again.
I was a big fan of the show since it started almost 9 years ago. Not only was it a great return to the Saturday mornings of my childhood but it had continuing plots, recurring characters and the main kids grew up over the years. But the most recent version, Ben 10: Omniverse, left me a little cold. After watching any show for 7 years, you've put in some time and want to see it through to the end. But after a few episodes, it felt too different, too....kiddie for lack of a better word. Odd thing to say about a cartoon for kids, I know. It was a sad day when I deleted my season pass for Ben 10.
Here's the official press release for the new series:
Monsters, mummies and werewolves may be taking over, but Ben has defended the universe from the worst of the worst. Now it’s hero time on Monster Planet! The spooky fun begins with “Something Zombozo This Way Comes,” when Ben and Rook must stop Zombozo and the Circus Freaks from turning everyone in Bellwood into zombie clowns. Tune-in to Cartoon Network every Saturday morning to see who comes out of the shadows next!
Other upcoming episodes are titled "Mystery, Incorpreal", "The Vampire Strikes Back", and "An American Benwolf in London". Ok Cartoon Network, you've got me at least for a couple more episodes!
The September Loot Crate theme was recently announced as "Animate" so we can be sure they'll deliver some cartoon related goodies this month. It might be too much to hope to get a little something from all the franchises on the TV screens above but if it's as good as the Arcade Crate from April, I'll be a happy camper.
Other members in the community are doing "Top 5 Animated" lists so I thought I'd join in with my own spin. Doing a general Top 5 animated series of all time would be a daunting task to say the least so I narrowed the focus to sci-fi toons from my childhood.
The assignment from the League of Extraordinary Bloggers this week are the three words that strike mortal dread in the very souls of children everywhere:
Back to School
While I'm sure that was true for a lot of kids, to me the phrase meant two awesome things: school supply Shopping and new cartoons! When I say "school supplies" I'm not talking about the everyday boring stuff like your writing implements. I'm a hardcore mechanical pencil .5mm lead user. Screw that .7mm noise! But the cool stuff, the stuff you walked around the halls with that showed how high your geek flag was flying.
I don't know about you, but shopping for a new lunchbox back in the day was like early Christmas, only you got to pick what you wanted! I
know I must have had more than two lunchboxes through grade school, but these I remember best:
I mean what better way to transport your food than in a non-rust proof
container that you could use to brutally beat someone over the head? And
then there was that one day in the cafeteria/auditorium when that one
kid dropped his Thermos and we learned there was glass inside that
plastic shell. We wouldn't know about the vacuum sealing/danger of
implosion until much later. Science! And how about those folding lunch
tables that had the sliding lock of death where you could pinch the
finger of the careless person sitting across from you? Good times!
When it came to more practical supplies, I never got very fancy. In
middle school I had a green Trapper Keeper and a few folders of
assorted colors. I think we all did the paper grocery bag book covers?
The ultimate in customization!
Now that I think about it, how weird is it that
they made you cover the books?
I still have my high school notebook and in the interest of minor shame, here it is:
Bonus points if you know the other band name the GPK is spray painting!
I have no shame from the bands that I liked then (I still enjoy most of
them now) but more the "artistry" used to etch their names. Ugh, moving
on...
If you're old enough, you may recall a time when Saturday morning was a
blurry haze of sugar induced channel flipping, back when there were only
three channels that had anything worth watching. I don't think I was
really aware of the concept of regular shows (Ooooooo! Oops, wrong Regular
Show) having seasons. But damn skippy I knew the coming of school
meant new cartoons!
The Saturday morning preview specials were absolutely something I looked
forward to every year. (There's a bunch on YouTube!) Even with a TV Guide it could be difficult to
decide what to watch in any given time slot in the pre-VCR days. Heck,
even after we got a VCR it could still only record the channel the TV
was on! These preview specials were often the major factor in choosing
one toon over another. In Fall of 1981, you had to choose between
Thundarr and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, for the love of Glob!
Why would you force this kind of choice on a child?!
Honorable Mentions
Book Fairs & Scholastic catalogs (Book Nerd 4 Life yo!)
Vists from the Candy Man (sell candy bars, earn prizes!)
I'm very happy to have some free time to jump back into the League of
Extraordinary Bloggers this week. The topic:
Bring it back! What product or media property would you like to see revived, and how would you imagine it being different today.
Two properties immediately jumped to mind right away, both Saturday morning favorites of mine. The first was Thundarr the Barbarian but I didn't think it would be much of an interesting post. Beyond updating the animation, giving it an overall story arc, and on-going plot threads (much like the latest incarnation of Scooby-Doo), there isn't much I'd change.
Write a stream of conscious post listing the things you love and hold dear.
The length of this post vs how long it actually takes me to write it will probably be way out of proportion as I try to self-edit and keep myself from going on and on and on...
My parents and wife! They've been amazing as long as I've known them.
You, yes you there reading this! I had no idea how starting a silly little blog would change the way I interact with the internet and introduce me to so many great people.
Comments! I can see how many page hits a post gets but seeing comments gives me a little more validation that someone's interested in what I'm writing.
Star Wars! (even some parts of the prequels) Being able to escape to another place I know so well whether through movies, TV, games, music or other audio things...
Music! Oh my god, there is sooo much music I love. Stuff that's been with me forever and takes me back (Pac-Man Fever album), stuff that I listen to when I'm down (Trans-Formers soundtrack got me through some tough times), stuff that I blast when I'm pissed at the world (Calabrese, Zombina and the Skeletones and tons of other punk & metal) and stuff I put on to zone out to (anything relating to Tron).
Tron! If you've been reading for a bit, you know how much I love this franchise.
Halloween! The movies are ok but I'm talking about the holiday and the fall season. Bringing out the Salem Creep every year and scaring the pants off people. Having Trick or Treaters come to the door, especially when they're Star Wars or something else pop culture related.
Photography! There are few things I enjoy more than going to a cemetery alone, wandering the stones and taking pictures. I do like taking photos of other things too, as you might have seen. But, gravestones don't move around and try to be funny in pictures...usually.
Movies! Oh so many to list but I have a spot in my heart for the horror/scifi of the 50s, 60s and 70s. In particular if it features Vincent Price or something being a lot bigger /smaller than it naturally should be, I'm there!
Cartoons and Saturday mornings! Adventure Time, Regular Show, Gravity Falls, the Aquabats Super Show. Being able to revisit stuff I haven't seen in ages like Battle of the Planets (and the original Gatchaman), Thundarr the Barbarian, StarBlazers and StarCade.
Games of all kinds: board, card and video! As far as we've come tech-wise I still love the hell out of old school arcade and vintage games, especially my Atari 2600 favorite: Yar's Revenge.
And I'm going to wrap with toys! I always feared as a kid that I'd get too old for toys. Glad I was wrong! LEGO minifigs, action figures, capsule toys from vending machines, Halloween themed Playmobil figures.
I hope everyone had a great couple of days no matter what you were doing or celebrating. Christmas Eve we visited with my brother-in-law's family and my 3 year old nephew and 6 year old niece. They both got early gifts in the form of kid-friendly Nabi tablets.
Let me tell you, for a "kid's" tablet, it looks pretty good under the hood!
My niece and I had fun playing Vs. Fruit Ninja.
Back in my day (pipe down old man!), the equivalent gift of the time would have been an Atari 2600. It's crazy to think how tech savvy today's kids will group up to be. Speaking of Christmases long, long ago, here's a Polaroid from 1980 of me opening a still mint in box 12" IG-88 action figure. If you squint really hard, there's an Atari 2600 under the TV back there.
Here's a little visual rundown of the goodies from this year...
An Adventure Time calendar to replace my 2012 one and lots of magnets! I have the large Finn and Jake ones on my car now but they're sun faded so I think I'm going to replace them with the one of them together.
A very cool Doctor Who calendar and pen. As you can see, this calendar is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Doctor in 2013. Each month features a large head silhouette of a Doctor containing images related to him. The month of December is a TARDIS silhouette with all the Doctors in it.
The Halloween Kid dons a mask to keep Trick or Treaters safe from monsters.
I talked back in February about Liō and I can't wait to go through his latest book.
The subtitle of The Stupidest Angel reads "A heartwarming tale of Christmas terror."
That Halloween book is a monstrous anthology weighing in around 520 pages.
Yay! I'm so excited to finally get to see Cartoon Lagoon! From everything I've heard it's supposed to be a great tribute to all things Saturday morning.
I'm equally thrilled (and chilled) to be able to dive into Spine Tingler! The William Castle story. If you follow my monthly movie recaps, you know I'm a fan of Castle's films. This guy was the P.T. Barnum of movies. There's also some footage from the premier of Vincent Price's The Tingler which should be interesting as well.
I've seen American Graffiti more than a few times and I love it. I have a crazy love of 50s/60s hot rod culture and music.
Ghost Castle is the newest in a long line of remakes of the game Which Witch? from 1970. I've had a thing for board games with traps since I picked up Superstition as a kid at a yard sale. I have a copy of the 1985 European release of this, also called Ghost Castle. You can read a history of the game's incarnations over at Monsterfink's blog. I'm sure I'll do a post in the future about this game and if I'm feeling ambitious, compare the two Ghost Castles.
EDIT: I just realized I forgot to post the stuff I got from my parents! Oops!
The Tales of the Red Panda books are based on the podcast of the same name from Decoder Ring Theater. If you enjoy old time radio shows of pulp heroes and hard boiled noir detectives, check out their shows. They're all free!
Zombie Pulp is an anthology.
The Logan's Run tv series will be interesting to check out after all this time. I'll have to see if I can snag the movie BluRay for $10 at Target now.
A couple weeks ago I posted about the 2012 Target Halloween Hot Wheels 5-pack. This is usually one of my favorite seasonal purchases every year. So why did I post it a couple weeks ago instead of waiting for October? The short version: the pack is horrible and barely Halloween related.
Luckily, a series of five carded Halloween Hot Wheels exclusives are being offered by Krogers's/Fry's this year. Good pal of the blog, Shawn from Branded in the 80s, picked up four out of the five for me. And I'm ok not having them all because that last one isn't one I really wanted.
Let's have a look at how you do Halloween Hot Wheels right!
Look at that gorgeous card artwork! It's a far cry from the Target box, it screams Halloween. This is the first of the pop culutre vehicles to get a Halloween makeover. Although I have to say, this Batmobile looks like Batgirl snuck it out of the Batcave and had it repainted to match her '66 costume color scheme. It has the Hot Wheels pumpkin logo on the trunk. It's going to keep on speeding down the road over to Brian at Cool and Collected who "doesn't collect Hot Wheels", but has a growing Batmobile collection.
Next up is the Ecto-1. I really like the black body with green windows, maybe the inside is full of slime? How can you not love that giant Slimer on the hood?
If AEIOU and Sometimes Why had an unofficial Hot Wheels mascot, it would be Fangula. I love this ride and have blogged before on its Halloween deco incarnation and how it even looks sinister when it's not Halloween'd out. Totally diggin the translucent purple roof.
The Hyper Mite is a little bit of a misfire. You can see what they were going for but the shape of the car breaks up the jack o'lantern face a little too much for me. It's even hard to tell looking at it straight on because of that large black area in the front. Have to give them points though for using black, orange, green and purple!
For the curious, the fifth exclusive is the motorcycle, W-Oozie. It was also done up for the 2006 Highway Horror series.
While not a Halloween exclusive, Hot Wheels also released another ghost bustin ride...
Enter below for your chance to win a Hot Wheels Mystery Machine,
These topics get more difficult every week, forcing me to choose favorite things over one another and inevitably toss something beloved by the wayside. It's like having to choose which of your zombified children to shoot first.
You’ve been hired to program the ultimate Saturday morning experience for kids across the nation–create your own ideal Saturday morning cartoon schedule.
I still remember the excitement of watching the network's Sneak Peek shows that showed off what was coming Saturdays in the fall. I realize the traditional heavily promoted time slots didn't start til 8 am but I had to squeeze all this in one morning! So rub that sleep out of your eyes and grab a giant bowl of sugary cereal!
6:00 am - 7:00 am WB Power Hour
Start your morning off right with classic Looney Tunes. Not this newer stuff, not even the '80s stuff. I'm talkin good ol fashioned, cross dressing, lipstick wearing, Elmer Fudd kissing, Bugs Bunny! I'm sure these must still be in rotation on cable somewhere but I feel today's kids are missing out on them. I can't tell you the number of times in my life these have been quoted.
Followed by a half hour of Animaniacs and Freakazoid shorts. They were both ahead of their time in terms of writing and gone too soon.
7:00 am - 8:00 am Hero Time
Challenge of the Superfriends
Arguably the best incarnation of the Superfriends, the episodes featuring the Legion of Doom are certainly among my favorites of the series. Unfortunately, they wouldn't introduce one of my favorite DC heroes, Firestorm, until the Super Powers toy commercials...er, episodes.
Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends
It was a tough call between these two, so I included both. Spidey introduced Firestar to the Marvel Universe and had a lot of great guest star episodes. I nearly lost my mind during 7 Little Superheroes when Dr. Strange showed up.
8:00 am - 9:00 am Fantasy Land
Dungeons & Dragons
I had just started exploring D&D around the time this started airing so this was extra special for me. Hank's bow is awesome but I really wanted Sheila's cloak. Just about everytime I play a computer RPG I'm some kind of thief. This is one of those shows that really needed a toy line. While there was a D&D toy line, they never made action figures of the kids.
Thundarr the Barbarian
One of my absolute favorite cartoons. Magic, super-science and sorcery in a post apocalyptic setting. What's not to love? Also sorely needed a toy line during its original run.
9:00 am - 10:00 am Super SciFi Slot
Space Stars
Honestly, this slot was originally going to Space Ghost. I totally forgot about Space Stars until I started poking around Wikipedia's Saturday Morning schedules. Space Ghost AND Herculoids? I'm in!! I kind of liked Teen Force too. It didn't hurt that they had an occasional crossover episode.
Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
There will always be a place in my heart for Battle of the Planets, which was something I played with my friends a lot. But since being exposed to the original, unedited, not cutsified for round eye kids version, there's really no going back. The original would never fly on Saturday morning in the '70s/'80s due to its violence, mild profanity and transgenderism.
10:00 am - 11:00 am G-G-G-GHOSTS!
Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated
The modern day version of those meddling kids has elevated the series beyond the monster of the week formula. Not only is there an over-arching plot to the series, but the main characters actually have personal lives and are growing and changing. There's also plenty of pop culture references and the occasional cameo of characters from other toons. I never would have imagined anyone could take the Scooby gang in this direction.
The Real Ghostbusters
What better companion to Scooby-Doo than the Real GBs?
They came, they saw, they rocked our Saturday morning.
11:00 am - 12:00 pm Monster Hour
Land of the Lost
Wow I forgot there was even a '90s version on Nick. As dated as this looks now, it was some of the best writing on Saturday mornings. It was like Lost of kids! I think the time is right for this to make its way back to TV. Kids always love dinosaurs and Sleestaks. And I'm going to go right on pretending the movie was a drug induced hallucination.
The Aquabats Supershow
Originally, this slot was going to be Krofft Superstars featuring rotating sci-fi shows like Electra-Woman & Dyna-Girl, Wildboy & Bigfoot, Dr Shrinker, Far-Out Spacenuts and the Lost Saucer. Then I remembered this show. It sort of encapsulates all that plus some Power Ranger crazy-ass-ness. Why not combine the original idea and put Land of the Lost in the rotation? Because it's just that important to me.
12:00 pm - 12:30 pm The "Aww, I Don't Wanna Go Outside Yet" Slot
Starcade
Nothing to do with wrestling or the CBS cartoon block.This..is..STARCADE! If you're around my age, this was the game show you wanted to be on. Playing arcade games for achance to take one home? Yes, please! Unless it was one of the crappy non-A list games.
Well, there you have it! I think I did my inner kid proud by including the Saturday morning staples: classics, superheroes, fantasy, sci-fi, ghosts, monsters and video games. Now if we can get smash those all together, we can run that show all morning long.
Of course there's still hours upon hours of stuff I didn't touch on: Trans-Formers, GI Joe, all the relatively recent DC animated shows, HB greats like Yogi Bear, the Banana Splits Show, live action like Isis and Ark II, any of the Force Five...Oy!
Here's what other Leaguers posted
That Figures has a few of the things I dropped from my line-up
Friday Funnies is taking a break this week to bring you the League of Extraordinary Bloggers...
This week, the League of Extraordinary bloggers tackle the question:
Besides the Batmobile, what is the sweetest ride cruising the streets of pop culture?
Like most assignments, this one is hard to pin down because there are so many cool answers. And really, if you asked me this in a month or a week my answer would probably be different.
In honor of May the 4th Be With You day, I'm going to come at it from a Star Wars perspective. That, and I think if I didn't blog about Star Wars today my geek cred would take a hit.
Sure the obvious choice is the Millennium Falcon, the pimpmobile of the Star Wars galaxy. I even like Luke's landspeeder and almost went with speederbikes because let's face it, they rock.
"I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters." - Luke Skywalker, A New Hope (or as I call it, Star Wars)
Here's a shot of the T-16 Skyhopper from the movie. Luke is holding a model of it and you can see the full sized one parked in the garage behind R2.
While Luke's landspeeder is more like a station wagon, the Skyhopper is the hot rod you work on in the garage and go racing in with your buddies. It was featured in the Marvel comics series and it also "appears" in the radio drama where Luke is racing it through Beggar's Canyon. It just seems like it would be a fun vehicle to mess around in, especially if you're stuck on a desert planet!
To come back to more Earthly rides, there's a plethora of TV/movie vehicles. Heck, just the 80s' has enough to dedicate an entire blog to. I'm going to go with something a little more recent because I hardly ever use the words "damn sexy" to describe an automobile...
The 1967 Chevrolet Impala from Supernatural, aka the Metallicar
Runner up from cartoon land is the Chan Clan van. You can see it in action here
Inspired by Monsterfink's recent post on Sid and Marty Krofft's Bigfoot and Wildboy, today I bring you another 70s Saturday morning show: Doctor Shrinker! I say inspired by but I was having trouble coming up with something to post about today and I can always find something to talk about from childhood. One of the great things about episodic TV is that everything you needed to know was given to you in the show's intro...
Ok, almost everything. Why were three kids flying in such bad weather? Why did Shrinker shrink them? He had to test his new device on someone. That's why he's desperate to get them back, so he has living proof and can sell his weapon to the highest bidder.
Two of the kids are brother and sister, Gordie and BJ respectively. You read that right, the girl's name is BJ. Gordie is the less svelte of the two guys. It was the 70s, of course the two "good looking" kids wouldn't be related and the heavier guy would be the brother/comic relief.
As far back as I can remember I've always enjoyed horror/scifi that involves something being larger than normal (Them!, Tarantula, Attack of the 50ft Woman) or smaller than normal (The Incredible Shrinking Man) and it may have all started with Doctor Shrinker. I don't think I started watching Creature Double Feature for another year or two, so it's possible!
I don't remember a whole lot about the show itself other than Shrinker trying to catch the kids, the kids trying to find a way to get back to normal to escape the island and encountering now-giant sized things.
Sadly I think only one episode of the show has made it to DVD in a Krofft compilation.
