Sesame Street in 1970!

I found a stack of really pristine, hardcover Sesame Street books from 1970, when the show would have been turning 1 year old.  They have that great nostalgiac feeling of its early days, when there was a cruder, yet more exciting, feel to the show.  The Muppets had an enticing air of primitivism.  That surrealistic feeling of wonder always reminds me of my own childhood, and seeing these early segments still in rotation a few years later:

When there was Mr. Hooper.

And, Oscar was orangey-brown in the first season!

When Bert and Ernie were amazing.

When Cookie Monster was a Monster that ate Cookies (and sometimes lots of other things!)

And then there is this great moment that I found in the books:

THE CANTINA COMPENDIUM (5th edition, 2024)

Brand-new Fifth (and final?) Edition

The Definitive...and only...Work on the Star Wars Cantina!

The last thing I want to do to a work like this is "Lucas it;" in other words keep tinkering with it instead of just letting it lie.  However, a handful of new sources appeared that included material that really needed to be included.  So why not fix some grammar and wordings along the way? At any rate...I don't plan on messing with this behemoth any further! If you have any of the older versions, you will want to replace them with this one.

This book collects and collates all information from 40+ years about the Mos Eisley Cantina.  Sourced from everywhere, including books, magazines, documentaries, comics, websites, you name it.   All the way from Lucas' first ideas of a spaceport cantina, to what I have called "The Maclunkey Debacle."

So, why read a 300 page book about one scene of the original film? Not a bad question, and this is coming from somebody who rarely reads anything that's not comics....and certainly not anything without pictures (a double-major in English and History did that to me).  You like pictures, too? Well, if I said that it had more than 700 illustrations and photos, would that help?

Here are the included chapters:

1) The Evolution of the Cantina

2) The (two groups of ) Artists Who Made the Masks

3) Mapping the Cantina

4) Filming the Cantina (Twice)

5-6) Chapters 5 and 6 offer an encyclopedic look at every single Cantina customer!

7) Cantina Conspiracy 

Was the Cantina purposefully left out of early Star Wars marketing, and why?

8) A History of Cantina Toys and Playsets

9) The Star Wars Holiday Special  

Can it get any worse? Oh yes, yes it can...bios on all characters are also included!

10) Cantina Appearances In Other Media

Including TV, Comics, and much more

11) Detailed Bibliography and Required Reading

pages and pages, listing hundreds of sources

And all of this is free, free, free! I just give it away.  Why? Because I don't want to go to D****y jail, silly.

LINK (5th...and final?....Edition): the cantina compendium (5th edition, 2024)

FAIL of the Day: "SUPERHEROES" by BlockTech

I don't know why I find so many hilarious things in the "cheap section" at the front of Target stores, but I do.  This is funny on so many levels.  I almost spent the three bucks for it, but in the end I lost interest.  

The funniest part of this are the names:  Revenge, Smasher, Falconman, Metal Man, and Lightning Bolt (of course, some of these are actual comic character names, but we won't go into that).  I've mentioned what I call "Grandmother Toys" before, because these are the sorts of items that are made to fool elderly people who need a child's gift, but don't pay any attention.

In the end, though, you have to wonder if there's anyone else this company wants to irritate, since they will be angering both Lego and Disney/Marvel...which between them own most of the world.  Why don't we just make fun of the dictator of North Korea or something, and go for a trifecta? Maybe include some "Bill Cosby is Innocent" stickers? It was nice briefly knowing you, "Block Tech!"

NOTE:  Now you can see a full review of this set......be warned! It's not pretty!