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

[Get Marwood & I]

12 hours ago, Hepcat said:

There's no such thing as too much Gorgo.

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

23 hours ago, Duffman_Comics said:

Gorgo fan here, and although this isn't part of the eponymous run I still think it counts:

 

Konga...

[Hepcat]

Konga was also quite the ladies man himself:

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

I've always been a fan of Shari Lewis and her puppet characters with my two favourites being Wing Ding and Charlie Horse. Here are some pictures of Shari and friends:



















And here she is with Ed Sullivan and Topo Gigio:





Here are some shots of my Shari Lewis and Friends thermos:


  

  

  

  




And here are a couple of photos of my Shari Lewis & Friends Colorforms set:

 

[frozentundraguy]

 

I was wondering if your cats were hungry. Seems we have some really stupid turkeys around here, plus they are a hazard on the local roads.

[Hepcat]

Stupid, yes, but ever so tasty as well!

[Hepcat]

After the draconian law banning pinball machines in Canada was repealed in January 1976, two particular machines acted to set me on the path to permanent pinball degeneracy.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 March 5, 2018 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

 

Marx produced a plethora of play sets from the fifties to seventies. Testament to their popularity with kids was not just the variety of these that Marx produced, but the fact that Marx didn't feel the need to advertise these play sets on television. There just seemed to be a ready market for this type of item at the price point Marx charged.

Among the most popular play sets were the dinosaur ones. The Prehistoric Times play set Marx issued in 1957 was the first of these:  



Here's a picture of the contents from Bigbud's collection:



Marx reissued somewhat smaller versions of this play set in various boxes until 1963:



 

Marx reissued a variant of this play set with cliff terrain pieces in 1970 under the name One Million B.C.:



I believe the Prehistoric Play Set then followed:





And the Prehistoric Dinosaur Play Set:



And then Prehistoric Mountain:



And finally Giant Prehistoric Mountain with even taller cliff terrain pieces:

 

[Hepcat]

As well as being a comic and other baby boomer kids' stuff collector, I'm a big train buff.

My first train trip(s) were from London, Ontario to Windsor and back on CN Rail to visit my uncle's family across the river in Detroit. 

My longest train journey was back in 1983 when I travelled from Vancouver to Toronto on VIA's Canadian.

My most frequent train trips have been commuting to the office in downtown Toronto on one of these double decker GO commuter trains which I've been doing since 1979:





It's not only quick but is ever so convenient. From where I live now it's a leisurely five minute walk to the GO train station, a stress free twelve minute ride downtown and then an unhurried twelve minute stroll to the office. And the trains run every twenty minutes or so during rush hours. At other times service is every thirty minutes five days a week until midnight and once an hour on Saturdays and Sundays.

My favourite train trips have been entirely different though. The very best train I ever rode equipment wise was the VIA Rail Turbo. The Turbo operated between Montreal and Toronto in the 1968-82 period. I took it between Toronto and Montreal or vice-versa five or so times in 1981-82. 

The Turbo is still the fastest production train ever produced in North America. The Turbo achieved a top speed of 170.8 mph during trials in New Jersey and regularly hit 120 miles per hour in service between Montreal and Toronto. With stops at Dorval, Kingston, and Guildwood, the fastest scheduled Turbo only needed 3 hours and 59 minutes to travel the distance between downtown Montreal and downtown Toronto with an average speed including stops of 84 mph. It was also very durable with an availability rate of over 97% in the 1973-82 period.

Best of all was the interior. In those halcyon days I would always book first-class, just because I could. Hey, I was young and wanted to play the big shot! The first-class cars were outfitted with huge leather seats into which one could sink back and just watch the world zoom past. Moreover, one could also sit on the top level in huge swivel leather chairs right behind the engineers driving the train enabling a person to watch the train hurtling down the track through the front window! It was an incredible delight.

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.







Another noteworthy train trek I've taken is Ontario Northland Railway's Polar Bear Express which runs northward from Toronto up to Moosonee on the southern tip of James Bay:

 

My favourite excursion, a.k.a. tourist, train is operated between Port Stanley and St.Thomas, Ontario along the route of the old London & Port Stanley Railway, which started up in 1856, by a group of rail fan volunteers calling themselves the Port Stanley Terminal Rail. The L&PS did a thriving passenger as well as freight business since Port Stanley was both a lakeside resort and an industrial port at the time. Passenger travel along the 23 mile route reached a height of 1.1 million in 1943! Traffic, however, declined precipitously after the war ended and passenger service was terminated in early 1957. Very sad.

Canadian National Railways bought out the L&PS in 1966 and abandoned the portion south of St. Thomas in 1982 after a portion of the track was washed out during a heavy rainfall. The Port Stanley Terminal Rail was formed by a group of rail enthusiasts to purchase the abandoned line from CN. The perseverance and hard work of the volunteers resulted in passenger service being restored in stages over the next several years between Port Stanley and St. Thomas. A murder mystery dinner train is one of the excursions now offered along the line.


Port Stanley Terminal Rail website 

I have a vague recollection of having taken the L&PS to Port Stanley for the day with my mother and sister in the mid-fifties and gazing longingly at the french fries being sold from the window of Mackies as we were boarding the train for the return trip.  Being a sensible sort, my mother could see no reason to spend money on potatoes which we could have at home.
 

Edited March 17, 2018 by Hepcat

[AJD]

My now adult daughter caught a nostalgia bug and bought my dog a Lambchop soft toy. Unfortunately, the dog seems to have been watching The Godfather when we weren't looking...

Sorry to have to break the news like this hep.

[Hepcat]

Further evidence that priceless collectibles aren't that well-suited to double as dog toys.

[Hepcat]

I think I'll jump start this old thread back into action with this pic of a Hammer Horror hottie, Yvonne Montaur!

Edited December 11, 2019 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

The Fox and the Crow are still after all these years #2 on my list of favourite cartoon characters. The pair were introduced in The Fox and the Grapes cartoon Screen Gems produced in 1941. In all Screen Gems produced a total of 21 The Fox and the Crow theatrical cartoons that Columbia Pictures released between 1941 and 1949. UPA then produced three more for Columbia between 1948 and 1950.

DC licenced the Fox and the Crow, Flippity and Flop, and Tito and His Burrito from Columbia Pictures for comics publication in 1945. The Fox and the Crow appeared in the following DC comics over the years:

Real Screen Comics 1 (Spring 1945) - 128 (June 1959)
Comic Cavalcade 30 (Jan. 1948) - 63 (July 1954)
The Fox and the Crow 1 (Jan. 1951) - 108 (March 1968)
TV Screen Cartoons 129 (Aug. 1959) - 138 (Feb. 1961)

Here's an early house ad for comics in which the Fox and the Crow appeared from 1951 or 1952:
 

The artwork for The Fox and the Crow as well as for the bulk of the other DC funny animal characters was handled by the Jim Davis Studio (no relationship to the Jim Davis of Garfield fame).

DC's licence to publish comics based on Columbia's Screen Gem cartoon characters came to an end in 1967. That's why DC was desperately looking for other characters/ideas such as The Brat Finks and Stanley and His Monster into which The Fox and the Crow title could transition. I don't know whether Columbia had decided not to further licence the Screen Gem characters for comics or whether DC was simply unwilling to pay the price Columbia was asking but the days of The Fox and the Crow feature that I liked so much were numbered by early 1966. That was most unfortunate since I much enjoyed the antics of Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow.

If you're going to try to pick up really nice copies of comics featuring the Fox and the Crow, good luck! I've been picking them up wherever for nearly forty years and I don't have many.  Here are scans of some of the ones from my collection:

 

[Logan510]

I liked your old thread, why not ask them to unlock it?

[Hepcat]

Good idea! I'll ask whether it can be moved to Comics General, lock stock and barrel!

[F For Fake]

51 minutes ago, Hepcat said:

Good idea! I'll ask whether it can be moved to Comics General, lock stock and barrel!

I think you should definitely get the old thread opened up, but also keep this one open and just post pics of Hammer Horror babes.

[Krismusic]

1 hour ago, Hepcat said:

The Fox and the Crow are still after all these years #2 on my list of favourite cartoon characters. The pair were introduced in The Fox and the Grapes cartoon Screen Gems produced in 1941. In all Screen Gems produced a total of 21 The Fox and the Crow theatrical cartoons that Columbia Pictures released between 1941 and 1949. UPA then produced three more for Columbia between 1948 and 1950.

DC licenced the Fox and the Crow, Flippity and Flop, and Tito and His Burrito from Columbia Pictures for comics publication in 1945. The Fox and the Crow appeared in the following DC comics over the years:

Real Screen Comics 1 (Spring 1945) - 128 (June 1959)
Comic Cavalcade 30 (Jan. 1948) - 63 (July 1954)
The Fox and the Crow 1 (Jan. 1951) - 108 (March 1968)
TV Screen Cartoons 129 (Aug. 1959) - 138 (Feb. 1961)

Here's an early house ad for comics in which the Fox and the Crow appeared from 1951 or 1952:
 

The artwork for The Fox and the Crow as well as for the bulk of the other DC funny animal characters was handled by the Jim Davis Studio (no relationship to the Jim Davis of Garfield fame).

DC's licence to publish comics based on Columbia's Screen Gem cartoon characters came to an end in 1967. That's why DC was desperately looking for other characters/ideas such as The Brat Finks and Stanley and His Monster into which The Fox and the Crow title could transition. I don't know whether Columbia had decided not to further licence the Screen Gem characters for comics or whether DC was simply unwilling to pay the price Columbia was asking but the days of The Fox and the Crow feature that I liked so much were numbered by early 1966. That was most unfortunate since I much enjoyed the antics of Fauntleroy Fox and Crawford Crow.

If you're going to try to pick up really nice copies of comics featuring the Fox and the Crow, good luck! I've been picking them up wherever for nearly forty years and I don't have many.  Here are scans of some of the ones from my collection:

 

wow awesome I saw that crow before in a cartoon.. was he also in looney tunes or a similar crow with that hat? 

i was reading your old thread earlier this morning very cool.. I will definitely be following your thread.. 

[Krismusic]

damn these forums I think i will have to start expanding my collection from silver age super heroes to horror, funnies, golden age stuff definitely wanting to read some of these.. 

the buying never ends... 

[Hepcat]

Quote

wow awesome I saw that crow before in a cartoon.. was he also in looney tunes or a similar crow with that hat? 

Hmmmmm. I know of no Looney Tunes crow. Are you perhaps thinking of Buzzy the Crow who first appeared with Katnip in the Paramount Pictures cartoon Stupidstitious Cat in 1947? 

 

 

Buzzy would appear in a total of eight cartoons from 1947 to 1954. Buzzy would also beginning sometime in the 1950's appear in several comics such as Harvey Hits and as a backup feature in Harvey Giants:

 

(Not my comics.)

Harvey would in 1959 purchase the rights to all Paramount's cartoon properties including Casper, Little Audrey and Baby Huey as well as Buzzy.

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by Hepcat

[lizards2]

5 hours ago, Hepcat said:

 

 

If you ever want to sell this copy, I might by your gal.