Twinbrook-1, 0112, please…

As many may know, Mrs. Pinetar and I have moved into my grandparent’s home. My grandpa was a lifetime employee of “The Phone Company”, as it was known. He did allright, especially in the depression when they only cut him back a few days a week.

Because you asked for it: The Checklist

Bob, you had inquired about the checklist.  Here is the series 1 checklist.  One look at it and I’m in the second grade again.  Nixon is President and all those unopened Wacky’s are sitting in the box on the candy counter at the Spa in Franklin Lakes.  All is well… –fog

A modern day DaVinci : Norm Saunders

Apparently, Wacky’s were painted mostly by

Norm Saunders (1907 -1989)

FROM WakckyPackages.org Bum Chex, along with Choke Wagon, was pulled early and replaced by Windhex, making it one of the toughest titles in a complete series 1 to 16. Bum Chex also has the distinction that it is the only one that artist Norm Saunders actually signed. He slipped his signature in by signing one of the checks, the green one. He was not allowed to sign the works because Topps wanted to keep their artists top secret, so as not to have them stolen by other companies. Norm slipped his intials in various other places, but this is the only one known where he got the full name in.

This is my favorite from series 2: Run Tony. The story goes that Italian Americans looked up from watching The Godfather and complained that this made light of their ethnicity so it was pulled early in the run, thus making it scarce.

I DO recall it being hard to get but I’m not sure if that is the answer. Unless a company’s legal department was sending in a “Cease & Desist” order, they probably wouldn’t have just pulled it.

If you come across this book in a garage sale, buy it! On Amazon, there is one used copy listed at $250.00

Reprint anyone? –fog

Where have you gone, Paul Maul…

Here’s the secret to why you couldn’t get certain Series 1 Wacky’s.  A photo of an original, uncut sheet right from the printer.  Look at the middle row: There’s only one Lavirus, one Paul Maul, one Mutts and one glorious Band-Ache.  It’s funny how your mind plays tricks on you.  I only vaguely remember Mutts as being particularly hard to get or desirable but the other three were very tough, for sure.  Contrast those with the 6 Maddie Boy’s and 4 each of the Crust, Jail-O, Weakies and Duz.  Now that I think about it, Grave Train was also pretty hard to come by.

One other thing that didn’t catch my eye in 1974 is Paul Maul.  The slogan was “Where peculiar people congregate” and the insinuation is very vaugue but really is referring to “Paul” “Mauling” you.  I was buying these things I think the first grade, possibly second.  That’s awfully young to really even understand what that was getting at.  And, of course, today, if you google the phrase “Paul Mall” (without the “U”), you’ll turn up references to Pee Wee Herman.  With what all has transpired in the last 35 years, I doubt seriously, if they would be printing the Paul Maul card today. –fog

Bush Collected Wacky Packages

Saint Drogo (1105-1185), a Flemish nobleman who was reportedly able to bilocate, maintaining his presence in two locations at once. Witnesses claimed seeing Drogo working in fields simultaneously, and going to mass every Sunday. He is the patron saint of coffee and coffeehouses, we suspect because his peculiar talent for multitasking. This is from Neatorama and they pulled it from Mental Floss

Bilocation is central to a lot of magic tricks and there is a good movie out about just such a thing but I won’t spoil it…just pay attention if you see it.

And Drogo reminded me of one of my top ten all time favorite Wacky Packages from the 1970′s: Dr. Ono: Crackpot Brain opener; Causes Clots, Tough on Nerves

You know there was something about the artists who drew the old ones. They make new ones but they are not the same and it’s mostly the drawings. Well, that and nostalgia in general I suppose because it is the same with a new album by an old band that you liked: It never matches up! And that’s because the new one, while basically of the same ilk, doesn’t have the load of memories attached to it.

These Wacky’s were outrageously popular in the 2nd grade and maybe 3rd for me. I can still remember trading Kevin ***** a bunch of crap for the coveted “Band-Ache” (Windchester and Lavirus were also tough, tough gets). He took a few commons like 6-Up and DuzentDoNothin’s and maybe a Wind Hex or Minute Lice. Hey, he was happy. [I'm glad he was because I saw him in a poolroom a few years ago and he is as big as a refrigerator now--just immense--and I recall seeing him fight in school (he was picked on) and he could jab like Joe Frazier! He was such a nice guy--the nicest-- but if people hassled him enough....whap, whap...whap]

I had thrown all my Wacky’s away apparently somewhere along the line and that is a loss. But I came across an old Band-Ache in some drawer somewhere and threw it out on ebay and it was bid up to $125 bucks! Not in real good shape either.

My favorite of all-time? Hmm, it’s close but I’ll go with this one:

I’m sorry, that’s hilarious. –fog

PS – Now I’m on Wacky sites reading about the rarity of these things.  This Spit and Spill is the first version and the artist left the original product name on the top of the box.  It was pulled from production and a second one was substituted.  Collectors pay more for this one.  I just enjoy seeing the JPEGs and remembering how much fun I had with these things.

Light as Art

Some years ago, I built a gonkulator to display antique light bulbs. Antique bulbs look great because the old bulbs are unfrosted and you can see the filaments–which, if they’re old enough, are in some nice shapes. Here it is:

 

 

(I don’t burn these anymore and really only burned them in an apartment in Tuxedo Park where the utilites were INCLUDED. It’s big and I actually built it just for that mantle in Tuxedo Park)

I had bought the bulbs on ebay, one at a time, and got a good variety of filament shapes. I then bought a light vanity from Home Depot and some #14 wire and dimmers. I drilled and wired and set it up, so that you could could give each bulb just enough juice to burn orange and not be brite at all–it looked great. In fact, the whole thing put out a great orange glow like a big candleabra.

The weird thing was, if you listened real close, you could HEAR the filaments making a noise and you didn’t dare turn up the dimmers or you’d blow a fuse (I was careful and never blew one) because this thing was basically one big toaster.

The bulbs were all from the 19-oughts and 1910′s and are still burning brite (I never had one blow out). They really hadn’t built in the obsolensce yet and the thing that makes it work is that none of the bulbs are frosted so you can see right in and the filaments aren’t yet helixed, so they are long and you can see the loops or birdcage twists of filament, all glowing. I thought I was pretty good, until I saw this German guy below:

This guy is lapping the field. I’m thinking that they are pretty expensive (‘sehr teuer‘ in German).

Click here to see the Sprockets Light Art by Frank Buchwald from Berlin (where else?)

Tonka

Click here for Amazon link to a great Tonka book

From the used book store in Seattle: Elliot Bay Books: It’s a book called Tonka purchased mainly for the photos of all the old Tonka Toys that define childhood.  However, upon reading it, I found that there was much more than just photos. The authors (one is a former Veep of the Co.), tell an interesting story about a small toy manufacturer from Mounds Minnesota.

There are interesting profiles of Tonka employees and a detailed history of the company before manufacturing was moved from Lake Minnetonka to El Paso, TX. The company was bought in 1991 by Hasbro and although the Tonka brand still rings up millions a year, most of the manufacturing now takes place in (surprise) China. –fog

Spitball Came From Elm Trees

That’s right.  The old spitball came from these tablets of compressed Elm tree bark and sugar.  At least that’s what you read in the old books.  From the beginning of baseball, all the way up to the rule changes that made guys like Drysdale and Perry convert to Vaseline in the 1960′s, this product, a Victorian Era throat lozenge, was the thing that pitchers used to work up the moisture on the mound.

 Click to go to Thayer’s website

Of course I had to try it.  I think they sold it at Restoration Hardware up by the counter where they have all the goofy stuff like the telescoping forks.  I can’t believe that this was given credit for all the spitballs!  It tastes like wood.  Not totally unpleasant, but an aquired taste for sure.  It’s really mostly sugar.  And the idea that it creates a lot of, you know, spitballs?  That’s hooey.  A Jolly Rancher will work up more stuff.  In fact, Chuckles would probably do just as well. 

Now where else are you going to get the hard hitting news like this?  –fog 

 

GI Joe you can shave

The recent Six Million Dollar Man Squad 51, Station 51 post brought up the whole action figure thread and when you think about it, these things are a little strange. For the most outlandish, there’s no question for me. It’s this:

GI Joe Torture: Shaving at Abu Ghraib

The recent Six Million Dollar Man post brought up the whole action figure thread and when you think about it, these things are a little strange. For the most outlandish, there’s no question for me. It’s this:

The Dr. Zaius action figure. Oh yea, they made all the Planet of the Apes action figures: Cornelius, General Aldo, even Heston.

As a parent, (early 1970′s) seeing boys play with dolls might have been a little unnerving, but ape dolls? Forget it. In fact, I can recall when my brothers and I got on board with the GI Joe craze, some kid razzed us, “…hey you play with dolls…”

I didn’t know what to do. This upset me for an instant. I thought, “hey, he’s right, they ARE dolls!” But I guess I got over it. I was the youngest, so I was following the older guys pretty much no matter what. I mean, they probably could have had Liberace dolls and I would have said, “cool! A sequin piano! Can I play?”

Still, I don’t remember us actually playing with them as much as talking about what guy you had and what accessories you had and “…yea, I want the jeep that shoots the missiles”. It was typical guy talk: wishing for equipment that they didn’t need. When you get older it’s cars or computer gadgets.

So it was always comparison stuff. And one day we compared the lifelike, peachfuzz beard and mustache that the doll had. My brother’s didn’t, and mine did. So somehow, I got the idea that it would be cool to SHAVE my guy’s beard off. How do you shave a doll? I found a razor blade and carefully (I thought) cut his face into a little pointy wedge—but there was no more facial hair! I win!

Until my brothers saw this and just tooled on me for cutting my guy’s lower face off. I wish I had photos of this (What I wouldn’t give). So then I was crying because I willingly ruined my guy and every time we got these things out, everyone took one look at my guy and said, “WTF is wrong with your guy?”

“I shaved him, check it out”, I would defend.

That never worked, he had a pointy face. And the jokes would start all over again and I would end up bummed. And these were expensive enough toys that my mom was not getting me a new guy. [Mom, to my older brothers] “Why did you let him shave his doll?”

My older brothers would say, “but Mom, he didn’t tell us he was shavin’ his guy!”

I just wished I had saved some of this stuff because there are entire conventions of collectors out there who pay good money for the vintage Joes and the stuff that went with it.

I’m not kidding, click here for a GI Joe Convention site I googled up

[Leonard Nimoy voice] “Is this the face of the man who shaved his guy?”

The real fun toy for me was the regulation, plastic “army guys”, as my nephew calls them. We would set those things up (with the blocks of course) for hours. Our set was so old that we had real authentic looking German guys.

Here they are, I found the exact set that we had:

I recall that the crouching shooter was very hard to knock over, so you liked that (especially if the brother-on-brother, knock-over rule was in effect). Also the guy running like a dork with the big Bazooka was not valuable in the army man scheme of things. His Bazooka was not pointing at anything! So you’d try and lay him down on a block, you know, and aim it at your brother’s stuff. It went like this:

“Hey, you can’t lay him down or he’s dead!”

“Why not? He can shoot like that~”

“Can not”…

In fact, those army guys are still at my folks and one day recently I joined my nephews who were playing with them. As they were setting the men up, I said, “Ok, are you guys ready for the Germans? Oh, hey, wait a minute, you have the Krauts mixed in with the American guys!”

They said, “Who are the Germans?” (and thought, “Uncle Foggy is weird”)

I thought, “I feel old”. (But not too old to help them set up the guys)

– fog

Addendum: Someone said they probably make Liberace dolls and free enterprise being what it is, we found them. Can’t make this up: