Animaniacs Merchandise, Part 2

As promised, here's a follow-up to my previous post showcasing another 5 items from my Animaniacs/Pinky & The Brain merchandise collection:

Item #1 is my most recent addition:
an official Six Flags Wakko Warner ball cap, circa 1997.

Paid $1.71 for it at a thrift store in Winder, GA:

And since I found the Six Flags Pinky hat in October, of course you realize what this means... Now I'll have to track down the others to complete the set. That's what OCD peoples do.

Item #2 is an Animaniacs coffee mug, featuring several
of the series' principal characters:

...Rita & Runt, Buttons & Mindy:

...Pinky & The Brain:

...the Warners -- Yakko, Wakko and Dot, and Slappy Squirrel:

This Warner Bros Studio Store exclusive item is dated 1994,

and my wife found it for $2 at a flea market near Athens, GA.

Item #3 is a decorative piece appropriately-titled "Bad Chemistry"

with P&TB trapped in a lab beaker:

This Warner Bros Studio Store exclusive was manufactured in 1997, and was a gift from my brother Jon (thanks again, Jon!). Designed like a snow globe, the beaker is filled with a water/oil mixture and when you shake it up the water looks like it's boiling. And in a case of art imitating...well, art -- the front even has a visual gag:

- Item #4 is a Pinky & The Brain crystal mug (circa 1999)

-- official Warner Bros Studio Store product

purchased for $6 in 1999 at a WBSS in Memphis, TN:

Buyer's regret: not getting four of these for a complete beverage set.

Item #5 is a Where's Waldo?-type
"Look and Find" (TM) children's book:

This book was published in 1996 through Warner Bros Family Entertainment Reading and Publications International, LTD. It was written by Tom DeMichael, illustrated by the late Jaime Diaz, and the cover was illustrated by Animated Arts.

I should have done a post just on this book, and if it weren't copyright-protected I'd scan the whole thing and post it online for fans who haven't seen it. It's a gem of a collectible. Unlike standard licensed fare for animated properties, those involved in this book seem to have taken great care to make sure it felt like the show too. To write and illustrate a book with details like this has you would simply have to be a fan already. The illustration style is reminiscent of the show's design (especially the DC Comics based on the show), and like the show this book is based on, it's filled with in-jokes, pop culture gags and references to several A!/P&TB episodes.

Just a few examples:

From "Pavlov's Mice":

"Puppet Rulers":

"When Mice Ruled The Earth":

And scattered throughout the book are hidden cameos by politicians (Bill Clinton, George Bush), Looney Tunes characters (Witch Hazel), celebrities (Country stars a-plenty in the "Bubba Bo Bob Brain" double-page spread), and even appearances by Animaniacs characters like The Godpigeon, Buttons, Hip Hippos and of course the Warners (a recurring gag throughout the series is repeated here as well):

And my apologies that I cannot provide better quality images at this time -- print materials don't photograph well with my dated digital camera, and my scanner isn't working.

This book originally retailed for around $10, and I'd recommend it to any fan of the show. You should be able to find a used copy online through amazon.com for around $5 (plus shipping). I found one for $3 at an antique mall in Brasselton, GA back in June 2010. There's also an Animaniacs version which I may cover the next time I feature five more items from my collection.

Thanks for reading!

Review: Beast Machines - Transformers: The Complete Series

The new series Transformers Prime officially premiered on The Hub (formerly Discovery Kids) in November 2010, and advance hype for the series used such buzzwords as "groundbreaking," "cutting edge," and "epic." Hasbro also described the show as an "intense... drama" with "heavy metal action" and "nail-biting suspense." Time will tell whether the series genuinely delivers such a big bag of promises, but I'll grant it's been entertaining so far. I'll review the 5-part mini-series event once the other three episodes have aired.

In the meantime, I thought I'd take a look back at an earlier Transformers' series which delivered all of the above in what I believe to be the most unique series in TF history since the original "Generation 1" (or "G1", as the fans call it) animated series first premiered back in 1984: Beast Machines, the continuation of the fan-favorite Beast Wars saga which helped to revive the Transformers franchise in the 90s.

This is one of my capsule reviews I pulled from Netflix after they dumped their community features. I might expand this review later with individual episode reviews, but the following is an opinion I find myself repeating often on Transformers fan forums -- trying to persuade both passive and devoted G1 fans to at least give the series a try. So many fans have dismissed it and even criticize it openly without having watched it, and some outright refuse to watch it which I find a little ridiculous. Like the saying goes, "Don't knock it until you've tried it."

Beast Machines - Transformers: The Complete Series (1999) **** out of 5 asterisks
Produced by Hasbro/YTV/Mainframe Entertainment
Voice Cast: Garry Chalk, David Kaye, Scott McNeil, Ian James Corlett, Venus Terzo

You'll find mixed opinions on this series among Transformers fans, and unfortunately they tend to be largely negative. But as both a Transformers fan and long-time animation critic, I believe this series to be a shining example of great storytelling and characterization, and also possibly the darkest cartoon series ever produced for kids. It was, in fact, the most adult show I've ever seen made for kids as it included rich character development, philosophical themes, an overall dark tone, and it's an all-around high-quality production in terms of the voice cast, writing, and animation.

While there were elements of the show I didn't care for -- like the annoyance of Nightscream (TF's first emo character), a transforming flower (I'm not kidding!), and an ending that left my inner child dissatisfied and disappointed -- this series still captured my attention and kept me in eager anticipation all the way to the end. If you're a hardcore Transformers fan (aka "G1-er") AND you're a nitpicker, you probably won't like it. But I believe if you watch it as I did with an open mind as a stand-alone series, you'll find it epically entertaining. And even a decade later the CG animation still holds up too.

I've read many fan opinions on Beast Machines, and the other most common complaint (besides something in Cybertron's past that, to reveal it here, would spoil a major plot point for those who haven't seen the series) is that fans felt betrayed and confused that just within the first few minutes of its premiere Beast Machines changed... nay, challenged, revolutionized and even shattered EVERYTHING fans loved about Beast Wars. After all, the show's epic third season was incredible and a very tough act to follow.

And initially I dismissed Beast Machines for the very same reasons.

But then years later I found the DVD box set pre-owned for $12. Even though I didn't like what I'd seen of the show, it was too good of a deal to pass up. So I decided to give the series another chance, and this time try to view it objectively as if it were some sort of "Elseworlds" alternate-universe story that was connected to Transformers by name only.

And I was pleasantly surprised to find that -- despite its flaws and my fanboy tendency to nitpick -- it was really entertaining. I hope that other Transformers fans do too. If you can look beyond what fans have long perceived to be the series' core continuity problems, inconsistencies and character flaws, you might just be able to see the series for its compelling storyline, deep character development and overall entertainment value.

It's Time For Animaniacs...Merchandise!

The above photo is from the 2000 San Diego Comic-Con of me with Maurice LaMarche, voice of The Brain from Animaniacs and its spinoff series Pinky & The Brain. I didn't plan to wear that specific T-shirt for this photo-op that day, but it was certainly appropriate. I have a closetful of of T-Shirts like this one, and a garageful of related merchandise.

I've been told by fellow collectors of Animaniacs/Pinky & The Brain memorabilia that my collection is possibly one of the largest in the world.* It's a stunning thought, but not something I brag about, nor was that ever a personal goal. It's simply a hobby I love about a show I love, and I've spent a lot of money showing my love for it. In fact, before I got married in 2005 most of my disposable income went towards cartoon memorabilia.

In hindsight, maybe I should have invested in important things like a college education, future career and food, but I digress. Also, it's too late for regret -- I must pay the penalty for having OCD. I'm not kidding -- remember in the movie Conspiracy Theory where Mel Gibson says he doesn't "feel normal" if he doesn't buy a copy of Catcher in the Rye every time he sees one? And he had hundreds of copies of the same book? I used to be like that with A!/P&TB memorabilia.

...okay, maybe my buying habit wasn't that bad, but it was eerily similar.

Anyway, so I've got a lot of stuff. So much stuff in fact that I enjoy it by storing it in boxes in the garage. Except for a selection of my favorite items (like my Pinky and The Brain resin statues, which my wife refers to as "giant rats"), the rest is packed away.

And my friends on The Warner Bros Club at toonzone.net have probably given up on my promises to launch an image archive site of my collection. It was a project I started back in 2000 -- photographed hundreds of items and uploaded them to my PC, and logged something like 50 pages of inventory and detailed notes in multiple MS Word docs. In 2001, I took a job touring with a music group and forgot all about the photos and Word docs, and unfortunately lost them all in The Great PC Crash of 2004.

In 2007, I again began the task of logging inventory and photographing my collection, only to lose it all yet again in The Great PC Crash of 2009.

It makes one wonder if I just wasn't meant to do this. (Or maybe I'm just a moron who doesn't learn from his mistakes.)

But I assure you an archive site will happen -- the project will move forward at toonzone at some point in the future as a fan-contributed database. And I shall acquire a better digital camera for my own contributions to the project, and maybe this time I'll be wiser and backup my files online.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share five recent additions to my collection. (And I should mention that my buying habits inevitably changed after getting married -- I now look for flea market/thrift store/yard sale finds rather than entering bidding wars on eBay. So these were all really cheap finds.)

Item #1 is an official Six Flags Pinky baseball cap, circa 1997.

Found this for $1 at a thrift store in Winder, GA:

Item #2 is a plush doll I've dubbed "Dr. Brain":

This was manufactured Play-By-Play Toys & Novelties, Inc., and was distributed by ACE in 1997. There was also a Pinky plush released in the same outfit (which I also own but it's in storage). If I had the ability to provide a hi-res image, observant fans like the notorious Ron "Keeper" O'Dell would note the "ACME LAB" typo on the labcoat logo.

This was purchased for under $2 at a thrift store in Winder, GA, and it's a rare find when you consider its age and that it was in a dump bin filled with dozens of other plush toys, and yet it's still in great condition. Also rare for a second-hand store item to still have the tag intact.

Item #3 is a clipping of a newspaper comic strip:

This is from Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks (circa March 2000, according to the archive strip at GoComics.com) featuring an appearance by Pinky & The Brain. My mother clipped this from The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, TN several years ago, but didn't send it to me until years later. I wish mom had kept the whole newspaper instead, but that's just my inner fanboy whining that mom damaged this by cutting it out.

Item #4 is a Pinky & The Brain graphic tee, circa 1994.
(Frontal view):

Back view:

This is official Warner Bros. apparel, manufactured in the good ol' U.S. of A. I found it at a yard sale in Lawrenceville, GA. Naturally, I asked the owner if he had any others, but sadly he did not. When I asked him how much he wanted for it, he looked at the Animaniacs shirt I was already wearing and said, "Just consider it a gift from one fan to another."

Item #5 is a hand-held electronic game entitled

Animaniacs: Hollywood Hi Jinx!!

This handheld game from Tiger Electronics has two dates on it. On the front in small print there's a WB trademark dated 1994, yet on the back there's a 1990 copyright for Tiger Electronics. Since Animaniacs didn't premiere until 1993, I assume "1990" refers to when Tiger copyrighted the unit design style. Tiger apparently used that same design for many of their handheld games through the early 90s. [Thanks to astute Animaniacs fan "cognitofalcon" for pointing out the discrepancy in the date before I updated this post.]

Surprisingly, this game is still in working condition, and I may record video of the gameplay and post it on YouTube so you can see and hear how annoyingly repetitive it is. (I'm also not sure what the point is -- something about Yakko trying to catch flowers while trying to avoid being grabbed by Ralph the Guard. Over. And Over. And Over. And Over...) A big thanks to my brother Jon for picking this up for me at a thrift store in Memphis, TN.

I hope my fellow fans and collectors out there have enjoyed this, and I promise to add photos of 5 more items with each A!/P&TB merch post in the near future.

Footnote: * It's my belief that diehard A!/P&TB fan Kane Leung (aka "Narfcake") easily has a bigger collection than mine just based on discussions we've had comparing notes. (Kane is/was the official maintainer of the F.A.B.O.O. aka the Animaniacs Merchandise List.) And he for sure has a larger T-shirt collection than I do. Kane, if you're reading this, I'm still looking to replace that Six Flags Animaniacs shirt I traded you at Comic-Con 2003. I was okay parting with it at the time since you basically begged me for it, but I've never seen another one like it since and it was my favorite.

A Guide for Atlanta Fandom

The post previously published in this space
is now available as a separate blog: 

The Atlanta Fandom Guide

http://atlfandom.wordpress.com/

Ja-makin' me crazy T-shirts

Presenting popular cartoon characters as redesigned

by Jamaican souvenir T-shirt artists:

It's Dora de Explorah, mon!

Beavis and Butthead Do Jamaica

* Shirts photographed Jan. 2010 by Craig Crumpton at a thrift store in Duluth, GA.