Come down and see Mike at my show on Sunday! I promise you it’ll be a blast! Santa is even coming through in the morning!

It’ll never stop being funny that one of the biggest rap songs of 1992 was a bunch of “Your Mom” jokes (Centre Daily Times, State College, PA, 12/4/92)

Burger King play food sounds so awesome (The Republican, Springfield, MA, 11/18/87)

“Plot Dark Strategies”? Way to give five year olds ideas, Elder-Beerman (coolest department store name ever, btw) (Cincinnati Enquirer, 9/23/84)

The Mutant Hall of Fame was heavily pushed by TRU and Toy Biz at Christmas of 1993, with the big selling point being the otherwise unavailable Professor X. What nobody told kids or collectors was the figures weren’t poseable and permanently attached to that trophy base🙁 (Kalamazoo Gazette, 11/7/93)

Kermit’s feeling a bit deflated (Philly Inquirer, 11/29/91)

It’s Gator Season at Roy’s🤘 (News Journal, Wilmington, DE, 12/5/90)

A hodgepodge of ads for the bottled version of Lifesavers Soda from 1995. I’m lucky enough to own one of these crazy rare bottles, and while I have it on eBay for an equally crazy price, I don’t *really* want to sell it😁

Big up to Ewoks: The Battle of Endor on its fortieth anniversary. A neat bit of trivia is that Lucasfilm was angry about ABC scheduling the film against Amazing Stories (Newsday, Melville, NY, 11/24/85)

He may not be my favorite He-Man variant (that’d be the Battle Armor variety), but it’s hard to argue Thunder Punch He-Man isn’t the *coolest* version. Fill his back with circular caps and every punch packs a boom (Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, WI, 8/18/85)

Albert Pyun’s Captain America actually had a “blink and you’ll miss it” theatrical run in the UK. Check out his director’s cut if you’ve never seen it. Whole different movie and *so* much better (Evening Telegraph, Derby, Derbyshire, England, 12/15/90)

The elusive GREEN BOGLIN

Some Oh Lantern Family ads. One of the highlights of being dragged to the Acme with my parents in ‘88 was getting to see a massive display of Oh Lanterns

Classic

Nothing screams 1989 like Toy Biz Batman and the TMNT game for Nintendo (Morning Call, Allentown, PA, 5/4/90)

Trick or Treat pro tips from a veteran beggar (Akron Beacon Journal, 10/28/90)

Toxic Crusaders on sale at Child World (Journal News, White Plains, NY, 11/29/91)

Here’s a swell write up on the creator of the “Laser Glove”, the Freddy Krueger glove with “blades” that light up. These were a big deal at Halloween for a couple years (The Oregonian, Portland, OR, 3/29/90)

Memory unlocked. These skull keychains were at every flea market in the early nineties, usually with the same vendors selling knives, swords, throwing stars and “ninja masks”

Toy Biz was feeling the Halloween vibe with their Ghost Rider action figures! Demons, vampires, glow in the dark fire accessories…killer stuff. Love those stunt bikes too (Mississippi Press, Pascagoula, MS, 11/23/95)

Cloneheads was a neat idea: costumes with extra shoulder mounted inflatable heads. I feel like this one may have influenced the original Karate Kid just a smidgeon (The Record, Hackensack, NJ, 10/23/83)

Imagineering licensed Terminator 2 in 1991 and blew everyone away: check out their cyborg mask and make up kit with blinking T-800 eye! (Buffalo News, 10/10/91)

Return of the Jedi costumes were some of the biggest hits at Halloween ‘83 (TampaTribune, 10/28/83)

Few artists’ entire body of work have meant as much to me over the course of my life as Drew Struzan’s has. With his gift every movie felt epic & important whether the artwork was framed in the movie theater lobby or sitting on the video store shelf.

Only in 1990 would Freddy, Jason and an Elvira impersonator handing out McGruff safety bags to kids in a shopping center be a thing😁 (The Argonaut, Marina Del Ray, CA, 10/25/90)

You don’t say (Austin American Statesman, 3/15/87)

Star Wars on clearance at New Years ‘86 (Detroit Free Press, 1/1/86)

More Weng Weng! Here’s a newspaper ad for Da Best in Da West playing at a Filipino theater in California! (The Californian, Salinas, CA, 5/22/82)

That would be quite a lot of 🍦 (News Journal, Mansfield, OH, 5/16/78)

RNA breaking the internet once again! Not really, but here’s a never before seen photo of Weng-Weng and an ad for him performing “feats of strength” at movie theaters during a 1984 tour of Guam (Pacific Daily News, Agana Heights, Guam, 10/30/84)

I need to mail this off immediately so I can get my CREEPSHOW pin, poster and membership card! #CREEPSHOW

Journey Into The Beyond was a German occult Mondo film adapted for US audiences by adding John Carradine as a narrator. It’s interesting to see the various ways it was marketed in different parts of the country. There’s actually some legit gruesome stuff mixed with obviously hoaxed “miracles”

Empire’s 1984 film Dungeon Master may not be a lost gem, but it’s pretty fun. Richard Moll hams it up as an evil wizard and the hero trips through different “genre worlds”, like a slasher movie world and a Mad Max world, each made by a different director. It also had at least three different titles

Oral B used the Jedi ghosts as an exclusive to sell three packs of Return of the Jedi toothbrushes in 1984. Far as I can tell it’s the first use of them on merchandise, predating the Anakin Skywalker action figure offer by a few months (Chicago Trubune, 11/1/84)

Sold

Really neat to see the line art for the three Mego “space” lines. Only the Buck Rogers figures sold well, so it made sense for retailers like Caldor to link the Star Trek TMP and Black Hole lines to Buck in hopes of giving them a boost (Tarrytown Daily News, Tarrytown, NY, 4/12/80)

Directly under this print ad for the 1982 opening of the legendary Kung Fu Zombie was an ad for a revival of Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks. In 1982🤯 Newark was popping (Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ, 4/30/82)

Fairly certain I’ve shared this Halloween coloring page before, but it’s worth a second look because those ghouls are *gruesome* for a kids contest (Tallahassee Democrat, 10/21/85)

Man, I looooove photos from old school haunted houses! Unbridled creativity (Reedsburg Times-Press, Reedsburg, WI, 10/25/84)

Color Them Spooky🎃(Santa Ynez Valley News, Solvang, CA, 10/25/84)

Caldor was straight up cooking with this Halloween spread! Love those Mars candy buckets soooo much. And while New Adventures was a flop, I remember the role play swords being everywhere (Boston Globe, 10/21/90)

[The Cincinnati Enquirer; Ohio - 10/28/1990]

Speaking of those ceramic Turtles… (Carroll County Times, Westminster, MD, 8/5/90)

Sign me up🥷🐢

Another fantastic Hicks Halloween ad. Look at the hatching on that Jack O’Lantern! (Newsday Nassau, 9/21/95)

I got a bat.