Why I Oughta...

These are a couple of the KotBT's toys (that thanks to my BTTF-loving spouse) exist in our house. They're sitting in his room right next to my vintage wrasslers .   There's a WHOLE LINE of these from Playmobil including the Delorean, Marty's pickup, the hoverboard scene and (apparently?!?) an Advent Calendar.  Go here to see all the sets . All that we have is Marty with his guitar and Doc Brown with his brown gloves and a copy of the Save the Clocktower flyer.  They're super cute, right?   And...just to be clear: while these are supposed to be kid toys, they're clearly aimed at suckers like me, right?  I mean...just look at the detail on the back of the flyer (below) showing what Jennifer wrote to Marty in the movie: Feels like once these go thru the normal kid play cycle and they get shelved, I'll glom on to them and keep them on my desk.  That's the right thing to do, isn't it? I mean...I did go to the 25th anniversary showing of the film and p...

If you look closely at the Marshall Field's Macy's State Street windows you'll notice a little bit of corporate synergy showing.  Or corporate strategy at least.  In one of the window scenes you that you can see above, you'll see Santa in the midst of his North Pole glory with what I think is an Elf and a bunch of presents.  Right next to the center 'tube' is a little dog.   Zoom in and you'll see his collar.  Says "F. A. O. Schwarz".  Struck me as odd. So, off I went into the Web to find out why.  Does Macy's own F.A.O Schwarz?  The answer?  Nope.  But they're working together.  This NYTimes story from 10 years ago points to the partnership .  Apparently, I haven't been paying any attention. Two of New York’s most venerable retail brands, Macy’s and F. A. O. Schwarz, are teaming up for a risky experiment: bringing toys back to the department store.  F. A. O. Schwarz will open shops inside 685 Ma...

All of the childhood feels with this one.  I've posted other LJN World Wrestling Federation Wrestling Superstars here on the blog.  Here's a Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake one that is mint-on-card, too.  And another of Nikolai Volkoff that my kids now play with as part of their toys. This one is of Jake "The Snake" Roberts and isn't one that I played with as a kid, but do have as an adult.  Weird, right?  This one has French (I think?) on it, so it was sold in Canada, maybe? Off you go to a good home.  While collectors like me have disposable income.  Don't want to become the Model-T of action figures, right?

Last Christmas, my parents moved out of their home down in Frankfort that I grew up in and lived all the way through my post-college years.   As part of that move, a bunch of items that my Mom had been 'keeping' for me came out of their attic and closets and ended up at our current place (and some in our storage unit).  Mixed in amongst the youth soccer trophies, press clippings and other artifacts of my childhood were a bunch of my 'wrasslers'.  That guy above - Nikolai Volkoff - is one of them. These were my most favored toys in my entire childhood.  Like....nothing came close to them.  Until the Sega Genesis.  But before that, these things captivated me like nothing else.  More than Legos, more than even GI Joes.   It was these bendable wrestlers from the WWF.  I had so many of them and loved them. And now, they're in the mix there amongst my kids toys.  I stick them in with their toys in their rooms.  The King of the Ball...

For the King of the Ball Tosser's 2nd birthday, I gave him a collection of three different vehicles including this Police Cruiser from Candylab Toys .  I came across these guys on Kickstarter and have backed them with their latest project featuring some mid-century cars like a stationwagon and a few race cars. But, they also had earlier projects that were backed featuring cars that they billed as "heirloom" toys that included this cruiser you see in the box above . The latest cars are set to come sometime before Christmas and they had more than 1K backers and raised more than $120K to launch the new line .  So, we'll soon have six of them knocking around our house. After opening up the cars including the cruiser, the kids all tooled around the floor with them (briefly!) and then quickly moved on to other stuff.  Isn't it always that way when there's a pile of presents on the floor awaiting to be opened? These are, seemingly, pretty special toys and ...

It can't all be Joy, amirite?!?  After watching the Disney - Pixar movie Inside Out, the Babe wantedwantedwanted Joy the doll.  So...we got Joy the doll.  She had her arm broken off by a restaurant chair incident and that caused all sorts of pain and agony and handwringing. But, we promised the Babe that we'd replace Joy.  But being a savvy terrorist, she up'd the ante:  she not only wanted a new Joy, but she also wanted Sadness. Sadness was - besides BingBong the #2 character in the film.  ( Don't ask about our family and  BingBong and his cotton-candy-smelling-belly.... ) Being a softie, I picked up a new Joy and at the same time bought a Sadness doll and hid her at home.  It took...maybe....45 minutes before the Babe figured out where she was and got her little hands on her. So....now, emanating out of the top bunk in the girls room as they fall asleep, we get to hear Joy AND Sadness having little funny conversations back and forth. ...

The girls are really into 'blind bags'.  You know...those toys that come in little packages and are part of a series but you don't know which one you'll get until you open it.  Between Shopkins ( which I've talked about here ) and My Little Pony, they like to open the little bags and get surprised.  Kind of like toddler gambling or toddler toy roulette. Recently, we were at the Toy Store in Elmhurst and they spotted these Simpson mini figure Lego blindbags .  The Bird got Hans Moleman.  The Babe got Groundskeeper Willie. They've quickly fallen out of grace in favor of ponies and unicorns with both girls.  Too bad for them.  Good for me I guess, as they're now adorning my desk. I was saying "Boo-urns....".

Have you heard of these little things called Shopkins?  You haven't? Well, let me tell you:  they're the devil.  My daughter is obsessed with them.  Seriously.  O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D.  They cause the biggest smiles AND the biggest tears in my house.  Yet, I can't divorce myself from them totally.  I keep enabling her with them.  For shame, Jake.  For shame.

We were in the Toys r Us over the weekend trying to get our hands on some Shopkins when I saw a whole aisle of these white-boxed Pixar-branded toys.  If you know your Pixar movies, you'll know that there are guys from Nemo and Incredibles in this photo.  There were also the robots from Wall-E, Monsters from Monsters Inc and even some guys from Up and Bugs Life. What struck me as odd, however...is that these things are branded and packaged in all white packaging with just the Disney Pixar branding on them.  Further down the aisle, there were ToyStory toys like Buzz packaged up in Toy Story-ish boxes.  But...not these guys. Seems strange, right?

We picked up these guys (and Rudolph!) at Menards over the past few weekends.  They each have a belt buckle that you can push and make them say their catchprashes (like..."now....this won't hurt a bit."). There are four of them in total that you can purchase: Hermey, Rudolph, Yukon and Santa.  We had three, but not Santa. The issue?  Inside each of the boxes is a 'puzzle piece' that you put together and get a special order code for a exclusive Bumble figure that you have to mail away to receive. Think of this as kind-of a new-age "D-R-I-N-K  Y-O-U-R  O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E". We *had* to get the Bumble.  *Had* to. So...off to Ebay I went.  Found a Santa for a bit more than they sell them at Menards and I pulled the trigger.  We're waiting on him to arrive (hopefully today!) and then the girls and I will assemble the puzzle and see how we can get the Bumble.

With the demise of Elmhurst's "My Favorite Toy Store" plenty of folks around town were pretty bummed both because everyone loved the store and tried to support it as a local merchant but also because it was leaving a gaping hole right in York Street. The good news is that it appears that we won't have that hole in our City Centre as there are now signs in the empty storefront for a place called Main Street Candy and Toys.     You can find them over her on Facebook .    They posted a 'we're expanding' note you can see here. Post by Main Street Candy and Toys . We're excited to see them come to town and hope they open up quick.  We'll be one of the first in line to support them!

On Saturday afternoon, we stopped at a garage sale near the old hospital in our neighborhood in Elmhurst.  Nat was after some baby stuff, I think.  All the way in the back of the garage was this thing:  a 1968 Rowe/AMI Jukebox that is chocked full of disco 45s. After a little bit of haggling, I was rolling this thing down her driveway, across the 10 blocks it took to get to our house, down our alley and into our garage.  Yep.  We're now the proud owners of a (mostly working) late-60's jukebox!  We already had - with the Babe - our first dance party in the garage on Saturday night. The amazing thing is that it works and it works well.  The action on both the flywheel and the record arm are amazingly smooth for having sat in this garage for the better part of 30 years.  Sure, there are a few quirks, but I'd expect that for something that is more than 40 years old.  I've already scouted out a bunch of classic 45's that I can pick up on Cra...

The Babe came out the big winner on our recent trip to the Antique Mall in Coloma.  She scored herself a vintage Wonder Walk-R-Ride Horse for all of $8.60.  Based on some searches on the web, these things go anywhere from $15 all the way up to more than $100 - based on the condition and age. I'm guessing that this thing is the exact same as the one touted here as "from the 1950's" and selling for $75.  Pretty good deal if that's the case. We didn't go home empty handed, though.  I picked up a few vintage Christmas smalls - that I love.

Someone gifted the Babe this set of bath-time toys from Infantino when she was born.  They're pretty cute and have gotten a good workout these past few months.  For whatever it is worth, they (the toy experts!) say, that you're supposed to throw out bath toys periodically - to avoid mold build-up - so these are probably on their last legs.  Apparently if you don't drain them very well, they'll just trap water and get all gross on the insides.  They'll turn into about the last thing you want your baby to be playing with during their baths. Each one of the specific toys has a blowhole where you can suck in water and squirt it out.  On some they're in their mouths, but on this whale it is right where it is supposed to be - his blowhole. He looks pretty cute and normal, right? He's just fine.....until you take a close look at the tail - all by itself. Seriously?!?  How did something like this get past the quality control folks.  You have t...