As *spoon* as Arch comes back from vacation Hepcat will still be Hepcat. 8 8

[ThreeSeas]

I had a version of the Creepy Crawlers Thingmaker. Oh that brings back memories.
I also had another similar type Mattel thing, but it used plastic squares that when heated up they would pop into dinosaur and monster shapes, and then when you wanted to change them back, you heated them up again in the machine and you used the machines press to make them back into squares. I can still see, in my mind, the Mattel trademark on the monster squares. Now going from memory of around fifty years ago, the squares were about an inch and a half by an inch and a half by maybe a half inch thick and you could buy the squares separately. It was cool to have back in the day. 

[Hepcat]

On 11/20/2019 at 4:57 PM, ThreeSeas said:

I also had another similar type Mattel thing, but it used plastic squares that when heated up they would pop into dinosaur and monster shapes....

 

Must have been the Mattel Strange Change Toy from 1968:

 

 

The "Lost World" sub-title was probably in reference to the 1960 fantasy adventure flick of the same name:

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Hepcat

[AJD]

Great to see you and this thread back Hep.

l liked the games. I didn't recognise too many of them, which is an interesting thing - I think youngsters today have a more globalised pallete to choose from. Any Australian list of a similar vintage would probably have to include this one, but I suspect it would have a limited market in Canada. I think my brothers and I wore out at least three of them!

[Krismusic]

I remember my cousin having a version of that creepy crawler one.. I think there was some where you could make them into gummy stuff and eat it... I didn't like centipedes so I stayed away and was grossed out when he ate them even though I knew they were gummy and edible... 

[Hepcat]

2 hours ago, Krismusic said:

I remember my cousin having a version of that creepy crawler one..

 

The Creepy Crawler Thingmaker sold so well after its introduction in 1964 that Mattel immediately started releasing multiple variants. Here are some particularly wild ones:

 

 

Quote

I think there was some where you could make them into gummy stuff and eat it... I didn't like centipedes so I stayed away

and was grossed out when he ate them even though I knew they were gummy and edible... 

 

Ahhhhh, yes! The Incredible Edibles from 1966!

 

 

Evidently they employed a substance Mattel labelled Gobble-Degoop. It was sugar free - meaning it must have been artificially sweetened with chemical sugar substitutes of some sort. You know, like the stuff in diet soda pop and those little packages of artificial sweeteners that women empty into their coffee these days....

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by Hepcat

[ThreeSeas]

13 hours ago, Hepcat said:

Must have been the Mattel Strange Change Toy from 1968:

 

The "Lost World" subtitle appeared to reference the 1960 fantasy adventure flick of the same name:

Oh..My..Gosh... That is exactly it! The Strange Change Toy. Thank you so much for finding that. Boy the memories. Making creatures, burning my hand once on it lol. I had that Lost World version with the T-Rex shown. I was five in 1968 so I cannot remember if I got it that young or maybe a couple of years later, but it was the same one pictured.

[Krismusic]

2 minutes ago, ThreeSeas said:

Oh..My..Gosh... That is exactly it! The Strange Change Toy. Thank you so much for finding that. Boy the memories. Making creatures, burning my hand once on it lol. I had that Lost World version with the T-Rex shown. I was five in 1968 so I cannot remember if I got it that young or maybe a couple of years later, but it was the same one pictured.

yeah hepcat is really good at finding these things.. respects to @Hepcat definitely happy I found this thread!

[Hepcat]

On 1/13/2018 at 5:06 PM, AJD said:

The Revell "Dambuster" Lancaster kept me occupied all of Christmas Day in 1973. It's dated now, but it was a fine kit in its day.

 

Yes, it was a great kit for its day and among the last three or so model kits I built when I was a young fellow. Here's the picture again:

Edited November 25, 2019 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

Repairing and re-entering a post from 31 January 2018:

It was fifty years ago this month that the Creeper debuted in DC comics:





An interesting detail was the mention of Commies in the very first panel of the story:





To this point of the Silver Age at DC there had been considerable reluctance to finger Soviets or Communists as enemies. Julius Schwartz's titles in particular would very annoyingly label spies as being agents of an unnamed foreign power. "Why not name the foreign power, Julie?"

Robert Kanigher though continued to be just as oblivious to what his fellow editors were doing on this subject as on every other. He did on occasion feature Reds as the enemy both in his war comics as well as in Wonder Woman:











For once I'm with Robert Kanigher here.

While Archie, Dell and then Gold Key were even more weak-kneed than DC when it came to portraying Commies as a menace, other comic companies were considerably less reticent. Ace for example published this Atomic War title just fifteen years earlier in 1952-53:


1




3



4




Fiction House, Standard and many others published a virtual riot of comics based on the Korean War:

Atlas published war comics such as these as late as 1959:







In fact Stan Lee showed no reluctance to portray the Reds as villains well into the sixties. Sue Reed's mention of beating the Commies in the space race features prominently in the origin tale of the Fantastic Four: 





Here are another couple of examples from 1962 and 1965 respectively:







The war comics at Charlton continued to feature Americans battling Commies right through the sixties:


24



26



21



26



51




And this was not just in the war comics but throughout the entire line:


2



1



17



21




22




Here from Space Adventures 40 is a page that's a particularly good example:



 

I read a beat up old copy of Space Adventures 40 at a friend's house once and only once back in 1962 but those few panels stuck in my memory for 55 years until I finally managed to pinpoint the precise issue I'd seen that day!

And over at Harvey there was this one published in 1966:





All very cool indeed in my opinion!
 
(The really large scans above are all from my own collection.)

[Get Marwood & I]

13 hours ago, Hepcat said:

Repairing and re-entering a post from 31 January 2018:

It was fifty years ago this month that the Creeper debuted in DC comics:

That's a great post Hep. I mean, it has Charlton's in it, so it's great by definition 

And whilst I always liked the Creeper cover (nice date stamp), it always slightly irked me that his mane partially obscured his face:

Typical Ditko. 

[Hepcat]

On 3/9/2017 at 6:10 AM, AJD said:

Those kits look to be in very nice condition. Nothing that a bit of glue and paint couldn't fix though.

 

I've got no idea about the market for monster kits, but I've noticed that the guide values for aeroplane kits are way above the actual eBay sales. I think there are more kicking around than is generally appreciated. That said, it's rare to see old kits in that state of preservation.

 

You know the model kit business has changed dramatically since my kit building days as a kid in the mid-1960's. Model kits were sold in all kinds of stores in those days, from corner convenience or variety stores as they were called in my neck of the woods, to hardware stores, to book stores, to five-and-dime stores, to toy departments of department stores and of course in hobby shops although dedicated hobby shops were few and far between and of course usually weren't very big. But other than in the hobby shops, the selection on display varied from less than a couple of dozen to a few hundred all produced by a handful of well known companies, e.g. Aurora, Revell, Monogram, Hawk, Lindberg, AMT and MPC. And only the most dedicated hobby shop or hardware store had a Pactra or Testor's paint stand as elaborate as this one here pictured on the back cover of Big Daddy Roth 3 magazine:

 

 

But!!! It didn't really matter. The selection was still more than enough to overwhelm the average kit loving kid anyway! Normally even the price of a single kit was hard to swing. But the fact that they were on display in so many stores meant that they became something to be desired, i.e. the stuff of dreams if a fellow could but put a few quarters together.

Now however model kits are found only in the occasional hobby shop, but these shops are massive compared with the ones I remember. They stock well over a thousand different kits and include exotic imports from the United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, Korea, wherever! And paints, a whole wall of different variants by assorted manufacturers! The selection in even my local Wheels & Wings Hobbies is overwhelming. But you know their target market is adults. Aging baby boomers. The kids aren't there. Quite simply kids don't have the patience to lovingly and carefully construct a kit these days since video games have them demanding instant gratification.

Oh well. C'est la vie. If and when I ever retire, I'll start building model kits again myself. Who knows? In time I might get far more adept at painting than I ever was as a kid. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

Repairing and re-entering a post from 6 February 2018:

 

Scans of my two favourite Gorgo covers from my collection:

2

 

15

[Hepcat]

Repairing and re-entering a post from 1 March 2018:

After the draconian law banning pinball machines in Canada was repealed in January 1976, two particular machines acted to set me on the path to permanent pinball degeneracy. These were both to be found at the York Hotel in downtown London directly across the street from the CNR passenger train station. The first was the Wizard released by Bally in 1975:




 

 

A very well designed game, it sold over 10,000 units which smashed Bally's previous production record of 5254 for a pinball machine. I had the game completely mastered and built up a total of nineteen free games on a single quarter one afternoon before I succumbed to fatigue.

The other game was in the other room by the old fashioned greasy spoon lunch counter attached to the York Hotel. (How I miss those greasy spoons now!) It was the Royal Flush machine which Gottlieb released in 1976:




 

 

I had my best run ever on this machine late one afternoon. I'd hit everything and I had the machine lit up like a Xmas tree. I was already up to five or six free games but I wasn't even targeting the free game hole. My timing was so good that I was hitting the silver ball hard enough to propel it off the glass and I just wanted to keep hitting. And then believe it or not but a hippie watching me play with astonishment leaned on the machine so hard that he tilted it thus ending my best run of all time! I wanted to strangle him.  

So no, I've never needed drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Pinball and other assorted baby boomer kids' stuff including comic mags, bubble gum cards and monster and other model kits, muscle cars, and rock music and stereo equipment are all it took to set me on the path to ruin. And here I am today!

Edited December 2, 2019 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

Here are scans from my collection of a few infrequently discussed Gold Key comics :

1

2



1

[Duffman_Comics]

On 6/14/2017 at 8:06 AM, Duffman_Comics said:

I had a poke around the GCD, and AJD's memory is likely Superman Supacomic #104 with which, helpfully, the GCD has a big hole in its database.

I say #104 as the next (reprinted) issue here was #105 and that reprinted Adventure #353 - unfortunately, no GCD cover scan.

I say likely, but the reprinting of DC's here courtesy Murray/Gordon & Gotch was chaotic to say the least. Many multi-part stories were only ever partially reprinted, leaving readers in limbo many, many times.

Well, Hepcat's reaction reminded me of unfinished business.

Now, GCD may be lacking cover shots, but the local database Ausreprints is much better stocked.

Parts 1 and 2 were indeed in "Superman's Supacomic #104" Check the cover. No hint of the Legion story within:

 

[Get Marwood & I]

3 hours ago, Hepcat said:

 

Monumental mischief indeed! I was looking at a copy of this at the fair yesterday, coincidentally. Bonkers looking comic. Brilliant. And who wouldn't want an Owl cowl 

[Hepcat]

Here are three scans from my collection of Western Printing/Publishing titles based on Hanna-Barbera cartoon shows:

2

3

Edited December 3, 2019 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

Repairing and re-entering part of a post from 8 March 2018:

 

One of the loveliest train journeys I've ever taken was in the mid-eighties on the Agawa Canyon Tour Train of the Algoma Central Railway.


Agawa Canyon Tour Train


I picked a late September date to capture the fall foliage at its most spectacular:

Edited December 3, 2019 by Hepcat

[Foley]

16 minutes ago, Thicksicle said:

And this is comic related how?

And you're who?

[porcupine48]

On 12/2/2019 at 3:37 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Monumental mischief indeed! I was looking at a copy of this at the fair yesterday, coincidentally. Bonkers looking comic. Brilliant. And who wouldn't want an Owl cowl 

Such a hokey read  I love it,have the series.One of those days I just needed a fun oddball.