Finally, A Post About Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments

Folks, in case you didn't know... I loves me some Christmas tree decorations! Every year there are a few Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments that catch my eye, and I always intend to share them here and always forget. So this year I'm doing it, even if it's a little early for Christmas posts.

My favorite ornament this year is easily this really cool Caddyshack one. Mr. Gopher taking control of a subtley Christmas colored golf cart would make a fine addition to the South Family Christmas tree. This one is called "Pro Gopher" and it pretty darn cool. I don't think they've done a Caddyshack ornament before so that just makes this one all the neater. As every guy, I love that movie. When I was little, I used to keep my eyes peeled for it to come on regular TV so I could watch it because it was R rated and I just wanted to see that Gopher puppet so darn bad!



Last year, Hallmark did a National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation ornament of the Griswold's Home decorated with thousands of twinkling lights. When you push the button on it, the house lights up and it plays the Hallelujah Chorus. I was thrilled to score one as a gift last season and it's a fine centerpiece of our tree. This year, Hallmark captures the opening scene in the movie when Clark and family trek out into the wood and take home the biggest tree they can find. This keepsake also plays the theme song from the Christmas movie. In the end, you just can't go wrong with the Family Truckster immortalized in ornament form!

This is the other new ornament this year that I really like. I love when stuff is based off specific old Mickey Mouse cartoons. "Clock Cleaners" captures the iconic scene from the 1937 cartoon of the same name. This is one of the best vintage Mickey toons and this ornament is a real doozy. When you turn the little crank in the front, Mickey and Donald sway back and forth working on the clock while they whistle the same song used in the film. Goofy is on the back side, also animated. Really cool piece, but at $34.99 I don't see it being added to our tree this year.

Finally, this Smurfette ornament isn't necessarily all that exciting, but it's pretty cool that the Smurfs have been included in the line-up this year, and it's a real smurf not a 3D movie Smurf. Smurfette will only set you back $9.95 so she's a little easier to hang on your tree than the clock tower. Hopefully somebody else will put out a more gender neutral Smurf ornament. We ain't got a Smurf on our tree!

The End of the World is One Step Closer

This is a real toy. I saw it for sale in Target this weekend. The people who made this should be as ashamed as the people who are going to pay Casey Anthony for her movie/book rights. Ugg!

It's No Smurfberries

The other day I was pretty smurfed off when I went to not one but two grocery stores and didn't find a single bit of smurf merchandising for the new movie. I mean Smurfs are blue - that's like the big thing about them. How easy is it to just put out a blue version of whatever product you make and slap a Smurf sticker on the package and stick it out there!? Well, apparently there IS a Smurf cereal out there...I just haven't found it yet. Now I have to spend the whole weekend going to the other grocery stores in the area looking for it. Great!

The strange (yet cool) thing about this cereal is that's it' almost like Post Cereal is saying, "Hey! We realize the filmmakers smurfed up the design of the Smurfs."


"So flip the box over and here's the way the Smurfs are supposed to look!"



Well played, Post. Although If I were a cereal executive (and I so should be) I would have just put Smurfberry Crunch back out on the market. It too would be available in two versions: the kind that doesn't make your poop turn purple and the retro box which does do the trick.

Random Sweetness

Some random photographs that I've snapped on my journeys....




< An autographed photo of Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell on display at Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum in Orrtanna, PA.

Really cool Yogi & Boo Boo lollipops promoting the recent movie. I picked these up at an RV show from a Jellystone Campground booth.

I love when they do plush of obscure or forgotten about characters. The Disney Store has (among other great plush) Clarabelle Cow and Professor Ludwig Von Drake. Both of these characters were all but forgotten, but now kids know them thanks to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

How sweet would it have been to have this as a kid. It's a replica of Oscar Mayer's famous Wienermobile, but it's a kid's ride on toy. You would have been pretty darn cool riding around the neighborhood in that as a kid, until you got to the age where kids started making jokes about you sitting on a wiener.

A Wendy's Pic-a-Nic

Well, my life is now complete thanks to the release of Yogi Bear this past weekend. It was actually kind of sad how excited I was to see the movie. I'm happy to report that Yogi Bear did not disappoint. They made a nice family movie that really stuck to the spirit of the old cartoons. The new movie is funny, sweet and wholesome for the whole family. I even sprung for a 3D screening and the effects were really cool. Do yourself a favor and go out and catch a screening of the movie critics are calling "the crowning achievement since the advent of photography!" I should mention that said achievement grossed $16.7 million this past weekend and that said critic's quote was made up by me.

I should have gotten to this earlier, but we've been meaning to get around to Wendy's Yogi Bear Kids Meal. If you ask me, Yogi (and the public) really got ripped off when it comes to the Happy Meal department. I would have liked to seen McDonald's do a whole holiday promotion tied into the movie. The Happy Meal boxes could have looked like picnic baskets, they could have introduced some new Jellystone burger, and the whole restaurant could have been decked out in a red and white checker picnic theme. Oh well, what do I know. At least somebody had a Yogi kids meal, even if it was Wendy's - who never really seems to get the top notch properties for their kids prizes.

Wendy's is offering five different Yogi Bear movie prizes with their kids meals right now. The idea of the prizes is that they are supposed to be games and activities that kids and parents can do together. I would have preferred little toy figures, but good ol' Wendy gave it a nice try.

I stopped by my local Wendy's the other night and the kid behind the counter was nice enough to go back into the storeroom and crack open each of the cases and prizes and snag me one of each...well, he could only find 4 - but that was still awesome of him!

Here's what we got...

This first one ties into the movie nicely, even if it's execution is a little off. The Waterski Spin Top Maze tries to recreate a pivotal scene from the movie where Yogi tries to show off his waterskiing talents. In the movie, his efforts don't pay off and neither will yours trying to spin the tiny little top on this cardboard lake. The idea of the game is to maneuver the top around the various cut-out obstacles in the lake. It's a nice little memento from the movie, the top has a picture from the film on it - but as a toy/prize it falls a little short.

The Basket Fishing Game is pretty cool. It comes with a neat fishing pole with Yogi's picture on it and several little pic-a-nic baskets that you punch out of cardboard. Each basket has a different food item and points under it, so the idea is to take turns and see who can fish up the most points. Some of the food items are different Wendy's items, which I thought was a nice touch. Who doesn't want to use a fishing pole to snag themselves a delicious creamy Frosty!?

In the Feed Yogi game, you try to shoot different food discs into Yogi's mouth. You may have seen this disc launcher before, either as a prize in cereal of a birthday party goodie bag. I can tell you that this Wendy's version is somehow supersonic and we ended up shooting a Frosty into parts unknown on the very first try. We've still got the corn and the Jr. Hamburger though. Thank goodness!

The climax of the film involves the Baskit Nabber 2000, and this "3D Puzzle" is a pretty cool replica of the contraption Yogi builds. However, I have a feeling Yogi had an easier time building the real one that you...or any kid would have putting this puzzle together. It's basically a card stock paper model with one zillion steps to assemble. It literally took me an hour to put it together, but I gotta say it was fun and it now looks pretty cool sitting on my desk at the WWoB offices!

The last toy in the collection, that I haven't snagged yet, is the Yogi Basket Stack Game. It comes with a little Yogi figure with his arms spread out and you try and stack little blocks with food on it and hope not to topple Yogi over. This one looked the neatest and hopefully a return visit to the prize gods at Wendy's will secure me a Yogi Basket Stack game for my collection.

If you are interested, Wendy's will have the toys for a few more weeks before their Smart Links promo starts. You heard me, Smart Links???

McGood Times

The cast of McDonaldland characters is one of the great things that we all loved about the fast food chain when we were younger. The Burger King Kids Club crew, the Arby's oven mit or even Bob Evan's Bisquit n' Gravy - none come even close to the awesomeness of Ronald McDonald and his buddies. These toys are reproductions from a line of McDonaldland toys that came out in the 70's. What kid today wouldn't want to recreate the adventures of Capt. Crook trying to get his hands on a Filet o'Fish sandwhich?! I had the whole set of these when I was younger including the giant playset with a mat that took up the entire floor of our playroom. It's probably worth hundreds of dollars now and I bet we sold it at a garage sale for a dollar.

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Snoopy Comes to Kings Dominion

As I've mentioned, this year Snoopy and the Peanuts gang take over the duties as Kings Dominion's park mascot. The park has been promoting an all-new kids area called Planet Snoopy, which has also been introduced at several other parks owned by parent company Cedar Fair. From looking at other park's websites, it seems that Kings Dominion's Planet Snoopy hasn't quite got the same attention as Kings Island, Carowinds or any of the other Cedar Fair parks.

Planet Snoopy now covers the area formerly called Nickelodeon Central. Four attractions have been given an overhaul. Nickelodeon Space Surfer, a giant swing ride, has been given a new color scheme and rechristened Flying Ace. The water playground known as Green Slime Zone is now called Snoopy's Splashdance. A nice reference to a mid-80's Peanuts special, but just a new sign was added - nothing else. Paramount Showplace, which recently housed a live show featuring Nickelodeon characters and originally presented a dolphin show is now Peanuts Showplace where the show Camp Snoopy Day can be seen. (Except on Thursdays, which is when we were there.)

The most effort has been put into the Rugrats Turnpike which is now Joe Cool's Driving School. It's pretty neat...and we have enough pictures of it to share it with you tomorrow in it's own post.

This is Elias following Snoopy's footprints along a path leading to the Joe Cool's Driving School attraction.

An odd addition to Planet Snoopy is this giant moon bounce which isn't listed on the park's website or in the guide map at the park. It didn't look open when we passed by it, either.

One of my favorite spots in the original layout of the park was the old Hanna-Barbera toy store. Of course, that's gone now. But so is the lame-o Nickelodon store that was in the space for a while. Now the building is home to Snoopy Boutique, an awesome shop which I easily could have dropped $300 bucks in.

The outside of Snoopy Boutique is lined with these large comic strip frames. Great picture opportunities.

Among all the really cool stuff they have in the store, there are plush of all of Snoopy's brothers and sisters. Where else are you gonna be able to take home your own Marbles, Spike, Andy, Belle or Olaf? Well played Cedar Fair merchandising department...well played!
And look at this....Franklin and Pig Pen even get their own plush! How cool is that? Franklin never gets any love!

The strangest thing in Planet Snoopy is that instead of playing the jazzy Vince Guaraldi Peanuts music that everyone instantly associates with Charlie Brown cartoons, through out Planet Snoopy they were playing Hannah Montana songs. Schroeder would be mortified!

They are off to a good start with Planet Snoopy, but they need to keep going with the rest of the kids section and bring it all together under one Snoop! Some of the other kiddie rides need a Peanuts makeover. Perhaps next year we'll see the rest of Kings Dominion's kiddie section get the same attention as other parks in the chain. Until then...Good Grief!

Glass Toonagerie

I'm not in the market for any new glasses right now...but wait a few weeks and our son Joey will break a couple and we'll have room in the cupboard for a few more. Either way, I'm always taking a look at the cartoon themed drinking glasses that can be found at yard sales and flea markets. This past weekend I found not one...but two rare glasses that I haven't seen in my travels before. First, we have our good buddies the Shirt Tales. All five of the friends that appeared in the TV show are featured on this glass. They're all sitting around the big tree that, as you may recall, housed all their gadgets and computers to help the police commissioner solve crimes. Ah...the 80's! I'm not even sure where this glass came from, if it was from a fast food joint or somewhere online it was suggested that these glasses were a promotion with Hallmark Stores. Could be!?

The other glass has got on it a forgotten, but dearly loved 80's toon - Party Popple of The Popples! The Popples was one of the rare cartoon series that didn't have any bad guys...it was just a bunch of these little fur balls running around having fun. Yes, it was a great show. You don't see much of The Popples these days, but at one time they were popular enough to warrant their own Pizza Hut promotion - which is where this glass if from. I can honestly remember only going to Pizza Hut ONCE as a child, so I'm not surprised that I'd never seen this glass before.

I passed on buying either of this gems, but the guy who owned the stand at the flea market was kind enough to allow me to snap a pic for all my blog buddies!

Wuzzle Sighting!

The other day while I was checking out the used video tapes at my local Goodwill establishment, who did I see stareing back at me from one of the shelves but a couple of old friends of mine from The Wuzzles. What the heck is a Wuzzle, you ask!? They are perhaps one of the most obscure groups of Disney animated characters to ever come from the Mouse House.

But before I go on, let me just say this...I would never in a million years buy a stuffed animal from Goodwill (or a yard sale or any other type of thrift store for that matter!) I don't know why, but there is just something remarkably disgusting about owning someone else's stuffed animal. Stuffed animals are a personal thing. Once you are done loving your stuffed animal it should be taken out in the backyard and burned. 'nuff said!

But moving on...The Wuzzles were a group of animals that were part of one animal mixed with another. Pictured above are Bumblelion who is part Bumblebee and part Lion (he was very athletic and liked to work out) and Eleroo which as you could now guess was part elephant and part kangaroo (he was very worrisome too!) There were others like Moosel and Rhinokey and they all lived on The Isle of Wuz where they got into all sorts of wacky adventures.

The TV show came on Saturday mornings on CBS in 1985 and was one of the first shows on in the morning. The 8 and 8:30 shows were always kind of like hidden gems because not everyone was up and watching TV yet, so they weren't as widely known. My Saturday mornings always started off in the 7:30 show...sometimes earlier so I was just a huge fan of this new Disney cartoon that nobody knew of. At the time, Disney animation had been pretty quiet for a number of years and they had never done an animated series for television. As a young Disney nerd, it was all pretty exciting.

The Wuzzles not only had their TV show, but there were books and action figures and of course the plush toys seen above. Thirteen episodes were only ever made of The Wuzzles, and they reran them for two years over two networks - I'm sure I watched each episode at least 5 times. Then the Wuzzles disappeared as quietly as they arrived under the radar. The Wuzzles however paved the way for Disney's The Gummi Bears, Ducktales, Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers and all the other great cartoon shows Disney put out for the next decade!

Yes, I can keep going...

According to Wikipedia, there were characters that appeared in the books and as toys but never made it to the television show. They include Pandeaver - part panda part beaver; Dragonpus - a dragon octopus mix; and Ladyfish - half ladybug half swordfish (I don't even think they were trying with that one!) Perhaps it was a wise decision to leave them out of the cartoon show. I suppose somewhere in the history books of The Isle of Wuz there are tales of a time when the inhabitants of Wuz went on a wild crazed sex binge and species of all sorts mated without regard of the consequences. It was a dark time for the Isle of Wuz, I'm sure!

Vintage Cereal: Inside and Out

We like to think of ourselves as big cereal fans here at WWoB. And of course, we love all things old school. So, we were pretty excited to get a heads up on these new...or should I say old, cereal box designs that General Mills is rolling out exclusively at Target this month. They are indeed pretty cool and a extra warm, fuzzy way to start off any day. We didn't receive much information beyond the time and place, but the picture provided above does indicate that they are also throwing in some retro prizes inside these specially marked packages! The cereal premium has been a dying art form for many years and perhaps General Mills is on to something that some good ol' fashioned free prizes might jump start sales a bit!

I'm very anxious to see what goodies are in store with a box of Cheerios. Besides the fact that I've pretty much regulated my daily morning diet to a bowl of Cheerios and some yogurt, the Cheerios box features their one-time spokesmoose Bullwinkle J. Moose! Bullwinkle used to appear in commercials for the cereal as well as make often appearances on their box. A Bullwinkle themed prize would be the cat's meow...don't you think.

You'll also notice on the Honey Nut Cheerios box there is an Atari 2600, the greatest video game system of all time. My Internet research indicates that it's actually the new Atari Flashback 2 which is pictured. It's a new Plug n' Play system that duplicates the look and feel of the old Atari with 40 games programmed into it. Honey Nut Cheerios is running a contest where you can win one of these old school retro Ataris as well as a pretty neat looking Atari prize pack. Keep your eyes open for details on that!

Another interesting sidenote that I discovered about these boxes...while the art work and design is retro, by law the photographs of the actual product on the box must be up to date. So you might be looking at the 1950's Trix Rabbit, but he's eating a bowl of 2010 cereal. As long as the cereal inside isn't from 1950...it's all good!

Foodles...for Me and Yoodles

Everytime I go to a grocery store, besides the two I frequent, I always find all kinds of goofy and/or cool blogworthy items. Last week while shopping at a gigantic new store in town I spotted these kiddie food trays from afar. I noticed that the shape of the tray resembled Mickey, and then when I got closer I saw some familiar faces staring back at me!

There's several different varieties of Disney Gardens' Foodles, all of which contain a combination of three different healthy snacks in kid sized portions. You might think that $3.49 is a lot to pay for 1/3 of an apple, a handful of pretzels and six grapes...but did I mention that the package is shaped like Mickey!?!

Seriously, it's a pretty neat little treat for kids. And you have to give Disney some credit...they could slap their characters on sugary-sweet breakfast cereal or potato chips (and they have) but they are trying to make a move to associate Mickey and the gang with good food choices for kids. Now, if we can just get somebody to make Batman Broccoli, I might get my kids to eat some veggies!

Disney Gardens has a pretty nice website, featuring games and kid-friendly recipes.

Taylor Swift in a Box

It always cracks me up when actual human-type people become lines of merchandising. So now joining the ranks of Britney Spears, Jeff Gordon, Larry The Cable Guy, the Spice Girls and so many others we bring you country/pop crossover superstar Taylor Swift and her new line of dolls. As with most dolls, they look just like Barbie in a box that doesn't say Barbie. But if you push her tummy she'll belt out a few seconds of one of her hit songs.

The selection at the Wal-Mart I saw these at was pretty picked over, yet there were still about 5 different outfits that Taylor came in. Plus, as with any good doll...you can buy accessories! Taylor Swift needs a shinny silvery chair to sit in!

I guess in some respects, Taylor Swift is a better role model for little girls than Barbie. She's shaped like a real person and she's worked hard to get where she is today. That's not to say Barbie hasn't worked hard! You can't just be a teacher/veterinarian/doctor/mountain climber/astronaut without a little grunt work.

The Juice of Miley

First it was a breakfast cereal and then it was her muffins and now Miley Cyrus takes over another portion of your balanced breakfast with her very own juice! Hannah Montana Juice is 100% juice because Miley wouldn't just lend her name to any ol' product! It has to be only the finest 100% juice for Miley Cyrus to slap her face on the bottle. This beverage comes to us from the folks at Langers, the #9 name in bottled juice!

I don't post these pictures because of some crush on Hannah Montana, I just think it's hilarious how much stuff they'll plaster her face on. Every once in a while a property will come down the pike that gets merchandised to death...I don't think New Kids on the Block, Pokemon, or Britney Spears ever had their own line of juice. Miley Cyrus is a trailblazer, folks!

Retro Joe

The line of G.I. Joe action figures (i.e. dolls for boys) was first introduced in 1964 then later again released in 1982 and most recently within the last year on the heels of the movie G.I. Joe The Rise Of Cobra. I've never really been a fan of G.I. Joe, but I appreciate their place in pop culture plus I'll have a toy gun held to my head to watch the new movie when it comes out on DVD soon. My younger brother had quite a few figures and vehicles and we would spend hours building elaborate "mountains" for them by taking sheets and covering layers of boxes and different toys. We'd take cardboard paper towel rolls and use them as tunnels and we'd hang kite string all over the place for the Joes to slide in on. I don't want to brag but it was pretty darn awesome! Anywho...we found this old flyer for the second line of toys floating around my mom's house. There's even an order form to join the Official G.I. Joe Mobile Strike Force. Sounds important!

click on the images to enlarge

DJ Chocula In The House...or Castle

I found this pretty cool looking CD in the Halloween section at Target the other day. Spooky Sounds From Count Chocula Castle looks like it might be a bit more fun than your average Halloween sound effects CD. The cover features breakfast cereal legend Count Chocula along with his sidekicks Franken Berry and Boo Berry. There was a listening station as part of the CD display rack. The very brief snippet of the CD didn't reveal if this was going to be a quality product or not. It also doesn't reveal if there are cameo appearances from Fruit Brute or Yummy Mummy. Unfortunately at $9.99 it's a bit out of my "I'll blow seven bucks on this just to see what it is" range. No worries...I'm sure I'll be able to pick it up next year for three dollars at Ollie's Bargain Mart. Until then I'll have to make do with my "Fox Family Channel 13 Days of Halloween" CD I got off a box of Count Chocula about 9 years ago!

Classic Commercial Sunday - Underwear That's Fun To Wear

Let's face it, life just didn't get any better than Underoos! For those of you out of the loop - Underoos were underwear for kids that looked like the outfits of several different popular cartoon characters and super heroes. Fruit of the Loom debuted the product in 1978 in three test markets. Here was the first commercial...

I had a sweet Mork & Mindy pair that looked like Mork's uniform from Ork.

If I was a girl, you could bet I would have had these cool Flintstones ones...

I think we can all agree that the Underoos brand started to go downhill when they started making sets that looked more like regular T-shirts. We all loved The Dukes of Hazzard, but a Dukes T-shirt was not as cool as looking like Superman!?!

The Underoos brand name is still around but the kids today just don't get as excited about them as we did back in 1978!