the sphinx
7/11/24
SHOGUN WARRIORS Promotional Iron-On with Godzilla & Rodan (Fall 1979)
6/29/24
GODZILLA vs. BIONIC MONSTER promotional stills! (Cinema Shares, 1977)
Here are scans of some newly-acquired, awesome movie stills for GODZILLA vs. (THE) BIONIC MONSTER, very soon after to be changed to COSMIC MONSTER. Ironically, we looked at the "Cosmic Monster" version of five of these stills on this very blog, ten years ago!
6/21/24
Prism Home Video Preview Tape: GORATH, HUMAN VAPOR, INFRA-MAN & More! (1985)
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Also, this is one of those "wrap-around" boxes with flaps on both sides! |
6/10/24
KING OF THE MONSTERS / RODAN Handing Store Display (Vestron, 1983)
On the flip side, another film receiving the same treatment, at the same time, RODAN! Vestron went great guns with both releases, offering them on VHS, Betamax, CED....AND Laserdisc! You can see these individual releases in our Godzilla American Home Video Guide, which you can download a PDF of for free at this link which you can download a PDF of for free at this link!
6/3/24
Movie Monster Mazes (Tempo Books, 1976)
And right there in the middle are the original big three--Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan! Lots of vintage books like this might throw in a Godzilla maze, but to have all three of these is unusual indeed!
And now here for your printable enjoyment are...well, the photos of my Ebay seller, but I have cleaned them up as much as I possibly could. The mazes are still plenty workable! Enjoy!
5/15/24
Columbia Record and Tape Club Magazine (January 1978)
Lots of people use the word "scam" in the same paragraph when talking about the Club. I was lucky enough to find out ahead of time that they begin sending you albums each month--that you didn't order--and then expect you to pay for them because, hey, remember? They gave you some free (or 1 cent) records for joining? Otherwise I would've been one of the unsuspecting teenagers jumping on board. (Wikipedia tells us that this business practice is known as negative option billing.)
What I didn't know was that they sent out a monthly catalog, and here is one with a cover promoting the hugely-selling STAR WARS soundtrack! Going through this catalog is interesting, because while there is stuff you will know (some of it kept on life support over the years by "classic rock" radio), there's also a quite a large amount that you will not know! You will hear yourself saying "who in the world is that?" quite a bit.
Here are the highlights, and I left the order form in there so you could sign up if you wish (just kidding; the Club is now long defunct, and I got dizzy keeping track of the number of times the company has been sold or absorbed...see aforementioned Wikipedia page for the full story!)
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Huh. Neil Diamond in the "Rock" category... |
5/8/24
Video Game Board Games [part2]: PITFALL! (Milton Bradley, 1983)
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Admit it, the vine-swinging fanfare just played in your head! |
Right? Actually, no...this board game is really more closely based on this:
5/3/24
The Jay Ward Gypsy Bugle Corps & Madrigal Society - A SALUTE TO MOOSYLVANIA!! (1962)
4/29/24
Video Game Board Games [part 1]: PAC-MAN (Milton Bradley, 1982)
Collectors are a weird type of people. There are psychological forces that drive them that would require many, many posts just to scratch the surface, written by people smarter and more boring than me. One thing that has always interested me about collectors is that some people only collect one specific thing, while some have lots of interests and sub-collections.
One sub-collection for me is vintage video game items, specifically from the golden era of video game mania in the early 1980's. I try hard to keep it to a minimum, but I am absolutely incapable of walking away from any vintage Pac-Man item that I run across, or any board game based on a vintage video game.
Pac-Man, of course, was the poster child for arcade games. He was also merchandised to the hilt, which was a separate phenomenon in itself. To a grade-schooler back in those days, Pac-Man was quite simply the coolest thing in the world. Then word came down that we would receive a "proper" home version, for our Atari 2600's, that we could play at home. Excitement hit a fever pitch...until the game came out, when disappointment hit a fever pitch.
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If you were there, then you haven't forgotten either. |
People wanted to be able to enjoy the fun of arcade games in their homes, or at least a reasonable facsimile, whether it was a digital watch, an LCD game, a crappy Atari cartridge, a Saturday-morning cartoon or...a board game!
Now, this was an idea that had potential--a playable version of your favorite video game, that you could play at home, with your family or friends. And, once again, Pac-Man led the way.
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And the turquoise Pac-Man was never seen again! |
Milton Bradley wisely went the extra mile by designing a game that actually allowed all players to be Pac-Man (of four different colors!) that went around the maze eating dots (well, the instructions only refer to them as "marbles,"...come to think of it, there was never a clear universal term for them. In the cartoon they were all "power pellets," but it seemed like every iteration called them something else). This was accomplished by a clever design, wherein your Pac-Men could chomp up marbles as they landed on them, storing them inside themselves as he went. You were supplied with a container of matching color to dump them into after each turn, as the object of the game was to be the player who had accumulated the most marbles.
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Instructions, found under the box lid! |