Show and Tell – Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation

Show and Tell > Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight Model

On May 22, 2013

My grandfather on my mother’s side was a Navy helicopter pilot. His favorite helicopter was theÂ Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight. He never took it into battle – the Navy was a bit squeamish about the prospect of being financially responsible for his seven children and widow – but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

My grandfather passed away in 2009. A few weeks back, my grandmother passed away as well, and my mother and her siblings began the bittersweet process of divvying up their parents’ belongings. My mom asked me if there was anything I wanted, and I remembered the helicopter model that had hung in their breezeway for at least twenty years (and is probably even older than that).

Show and Tell > An Amazing Find

By Poe

On September 24, 2012

In Show and Tell

There’s a mall near me that has one of the old-school little toy junk shops you used to find everywhere, but seem increasingly rare these days. I stop there every couple of weeks. It has an impressive assortment of action figures, from carded Playmates Dick Tracy toys to loose Kenner Ghostbusters and TMNT to a 12″ Mr. T. But recently I made a rather incredible discovery.

Show and Tell > Vending Machine Sci-Fi Toys

By Poe

On January 23, 2012

In Show and Tell

You’ll recall a few weeks ago I asked for help identifying a few toys. The success of that got me thinking about other toys I remembered as a kid that I couldn’t identify. The one that jumped to mind was a tiny, cheap plastic UFO toy I owned.

My memory was so vague that I could scarcely recall what it looked like–I couldn’t even have drawn a picture. Nonetheless, I went looking for it on eBay anyway. Three days of constant eBay searching for every combination of “ufo” and “flying saucer” proved fruitless, until I finally did a search for “vending ufo.” To my utter shock, I actually found the damned thing.

It’s the green saucer in the front, part of a 1980s series of gumball machine toys–what seems to have become known as “capsule toys.” What struck me about them was how similar they look to a lot of the indie toys being produced today for $10-$15 a set.

I can’t believe I actually found this. Crazy. Anyway, I’m going to be giving away most of these over the next few weeks, as will be explained in a post later today.

Show and Tell > McDonalds Muppet Babies

By Poe

On January 2, 2012

In Show and Tell

After seeing The MuppetsÂ earlier this week, it got me thinking of my personal favorite incarnation of the franchise, Muppet Babies. As I mentioned in my article last week, to me, Muppet BabiesÂ wasÂ Saturday morning. The show was well-written with lots of heart and good lessons for kids, but made it more palatable than a lot of kids’ programming with a healthy dose of pop culture references (who can forget the Star Wars episode?). Most importantly, the show didn’t just encourage kids to use their imagination, it practically exalted it as a concept.

Show & Tell > Eleven Best Finds at Church Fairs

By PrfktTear

On December 21, 2011

In Show and Tell

Every year starting mid-November to early December local churches and synagogues start having their annual holiday fairs. These bazaars are usually quite the spectacle, drawing people from all over. As a child I had fond memories of going to these fairs and I decided I wanted to try and capture that feeling once again by hitting up a few — but what started as something innocent turned into a full-blown obsession.

It doesn’t matter whether you go to the fair at St. Joe’s, St. Michael’s or Temple Beth Emunah, all the fairs all seem to follow the same formula. When you first walk in there’s going to be a strong aura consisting of baked goods, pine needles , old people, and chicken pot pie, but don’t worry — the nausea usually quickly subsides. You’re almost always guaranteed to find the same things at these fairs; bake sales, raffles, hand-made items, and vendors hawking Avon or Tupperware products.

Show and Tell > A few neat toy finds

By Poe

On January 31, 2011

In Random Stuff, Show and Tell

One of my favorite stores in the Boston area is Comicazi in Somerville. The back room of the store is filled wall-to-wall with MOC vintage toys, from Star Wars to Star Trek to Simpsons to racks and racks of old Marvel and DC stuff, plus plenty of old Kenner figures. I went in yesterday to pick up a MOC Kenner Aliens Bishop and the Kenner Alien/Predator set (mission accomplished, by the way, but more on that later). On a side note, Comicazi has a blog, the ToyNerd.

In addition to the MOC toys, Comicazi has bins full of loose figures, and even a big box full of baggies of random accessories. I nabbed a few of those and picked out four pretty awesome loose figures. Whom did I get?

Show & Tell > What’s on Poe’s desk at work?

By Poe

On January 25, 2011

In Show and Tell

(click for larger version)

Just for fun, here are the toys on my desk at work right now. (Apologies for the crappy cellphone pic.) From left to right:

Toynami Bender
DC Retro Action DC Superheroes Batman and Two-Face
MOTUC Skeletor
Funko POP Heroes Batman
Tower Records Exclusive Knuckle Bear
Batman Cake Topper (from my 30th birthday cake)
Samurai Leonardo
Glyos Rig

Two-Face’s pistol comes from the Disney Exclusive Indiana Jones figure. Didn’t I read recently that they’re going to be making another of those?

Show and Tell > Talking Santa Claus (Kurt Adler)

By Poe

On December 23, 2010

In Show and Tell

As you may recall, last year I posted that I was on the lookout for a Kurt Adler Santa Claus decorations from the 1990s. The reason I wanted it was that it was basically an action figure (you can read a review of it here).

Since that day last December, I had a saved search on eBay for it. For months and months, nothing came up as a result for “talking santa adler” except an auction for an 8×10″ hand-color tinted photograph of J. Robert Oppenheimer (I’m 100% serious).

Finally, this past September, I got not one but two results. On the same day! One was missing his sack, but the other was complete and soon, finally, Santa Claus was mine.

There’s not a whole lot to say about the figure–he’s articulated at the shoulders and waist and says three phrases. The voice actually comes out pretty loud and clear, and whoever they got to do the voice does a pretty good Santa. Kind of sounds like the Santa from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

In the spirit of the season, I’ve decided to gift you with MP3 files of his phrases, because why not?

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!

Have you been good this year?

And what do you want for Christmas?

Show and Tell > Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves

By Poe

On December 7, 2009

In Show and Tell

show and tell weed killer

While I was down in Florida last month, I visited a local flea market that I’d last been to a decade earlier. It’s not a very big flea market, but in those sort of places you can always find at least one stall with a bunch of toys. To my not-so-surprise, I think half the toys I saw in 1998 were still there.

Show and Tell > Tokka and Rahzar

By Poe

On November 19, 2009

In Show and Tell

TokkaRahzarTMNTMovie

While I loved it as a kid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze is not a good movie. It’s easily the weakest of the three live-action Turtles films,* and it’s incredibly dated by the presence of Vanilla Ice, who was already a living joke when the film came out. However, the film did produce three memorable action figures: Super Shredder and the subjects of this Show and Tell, Tokka and Rahzar.

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