What-I've-Been-Working-On: ANOTHER CANDY VEND CARD

With the Memorial Day Holiday this week I'm switching the Baboon Bellows schedule a bit, today I'm showing another piece of artwork that I just finished for work.

Today's product is another Vending Machine Card (similar to the Bonz Vend Card I showed last week.)

This is a revamp of an existing card for a candy product called Ice Pops Candy. These are colorful fruit flavored candy shaped to look like popsicles. Here's a picture of the original card along with a photo of the actual product:



When I approached this revamp I decided to use a penguin as the character enjoying the candy. Because:
a) Everyone likes Penguins!
b) When possible, it's easier to use funny animals on candy & gum products, so you don't have to worry about the sex of the character, the skin color, etc... You'd be surprised how that can effect how the package is percieved by the consumer.

Here's the Penguin without the background:



This feature will return on it's regularly scheduled day, next Wednesday with more of my latest artwork.

Happy Birthday! (5/31/05)

This guy's credits are very short. Behind the camera he was a producer and writer for one of the funniest TV Shows in the late 1970's, W.K.R.P. In Cincinnati and while as an actor with the exception of a few forgettable movies his only notable role was that of Kirk Devane, Dick Loudon's habitual lying neighbor on the first few seasons of Newhart.


An obscure supporting character Happy Birthday to.....
STEVEN KAMPMANN!

The owner of the "Minuteman Cafe" is 58 today.

Today's Retro-review is: DRACULA LIVES! #1

It's 1973 and after two unsuccessful forays into the B&W magazine format (Savage Tales and The Spectacular Spider-Man) Marvel tries once again, this time with a publication featuring the Lord of the Undead, Dracula. While Gerry Conway and Gene Colan finished the first issue of The Tomb of Dracula at the last minute, Marvel decided to turn the book into a full color 20 cent comic instead.

It wasn't too long afterward though that (and this is taken directly from Marvel's editorial page) "It's our firm conviction that at least a sizable portion of the future of comics lies in a larger, more expensive, even more mature product than today's color market is structured to allow. In a day when Playboy and other magazines sell for a buck - in a day when a forty or a fifty-cent cover price is possible only to a magazine of tremendous initial circulation- we felt that, even though Marvel's popularity is at an all-time high, we'd be fools and klutzes not to experiment with other prices, other sizes, other formats."

Yes, that's what Marvel said in 1973. Of course that was long before the creation of Comic Book Shops and as for the future of comics as mentioned in that editorial.... well, that's for another day to discuss.

This is supposed to be about Dracula Lives! #1.

First, the cover. Much like the cover of Tales of the Zombie #1 we're once again treated to another painting by the prolific Boris (see picture above).

Inside the 74 page magazine (wow, 74 pages for 75 cents) this premiere issue contains 6 stories and 1 text feature. Our first tale is titled "A Poison of the Blood". An 11 page tale written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by Gene Colan & Tom Palmer, the same art team that handled Marvel's monthly color title, The Tomb of Dracula.

Dracula has just traveled to New York where he seeks Jackson Kubbard a founder of a "Mysticology" group, that he believes is in fact the reincarnation of the sorcerer, Cagliostro, his old enemy. During his pursuit Dracula needs to feast, unfortunately for him his victim is a heroin addict and the blood is so tainted that the vampire lord ends up in jail!

Actually this is probably the only interesting aspect of this story. Dracula strung up on drugged blood would had made for a different take on a vampire tale, instead his addiction is quickly discarded and the finale is pretty predictable.

Along with a pretty blasé script, I was disappointed with the art. I've recently read a few of the TPB collections of The Tomb of Dracula and I love how great Colan & Palmer's work looks in B&W, even though the original were in color. The art for "A Poison of the Blood", intended for B&W looks rushed and not up to Colan & Palmer's standards.



Up next, also at 11 pages, is "Suffer not a Witch" by Roy Thomas, Alan Weiss & Dick Giordano. This story was.... lame. Dracula (for some reason) becomes obsessed with a young woman named Charity Brown, who lives in America circa 1691. While in his castle in Transylvania, Drac "calls out to Charity" across the ocean and brands her bosom with a vampire bat! (I ain't making this up) Of course this is America in the late 1600's and a woman is found to be branded with a "sign of Satan"- so I think we can all see where this is heading....

Making up for a lackluster story (Dracula pining for a mortal woman? Huh?) is Weiss & Giordano's artwork. Especially Giordano's inks, which are particularly strong. (geez, you'd think I would have included a picture of the art here.... d'oh!)

After that is the 2 page editorial, which I mentioned earlier, and then, the first of THREE reprints!! Now I'm a fan of the old 50's & 60's horror tales. Most are fun, short reads and rendered by a lot of great artists, but THREE reprints?? (in that editorial, it's mentioned that these magazines cost Marvel so much to make that they have to include all these reprints.)

The first reprint is titled "Zombie" (Which is not to be confused with Bill Everett's, "Zombie!", a reprint that was printed in Tales of the Zombie #1 . You see Bill's story has a "!" in the title, so it was more exciting) The artwork is by Tony DiPreta and is about as listless as the story itself.

Next is a two page reprint called "Ghost of a Chance". There are no credits for this story, which is just as well, since they give away the "shock" ending in the damn title itself!

Before the final reprint is a text piece written by Marv Wolfman, "What can you say about a Five-Hundred-Year-Old Vampire who refuses to die?" Despite the long ass title it's neat little, picture filled, 6 page history lesson about Dracula in the cinema. Well, Dracula's films up until 1973 that is.

The final reprint, fortunately, is better than the rest, thanks in part to the artwork by Russ Heath. It's called "Fright!" and the story is credited to Stan Lee. A seven page morality play that sees the bad guy meet his fate in the end.



Before I tell you about the last story I should mention that all these early Marvel B&W monster mags used the "photo-funny" technique to present each story. They'd grab some old monster movie stock photo, put in word balloons and have the characters say some (usually) unfunny stuff. What can I say, this was 32 years ago, they were simpler times.



We finish issue #1 with "To Walk Again in Daylight" by Steve Gerber, Rich Buckler & Pablo Marcos. This...... is a bad story. (and by bad, I don't mean good!) I've always been a fan of Gerber's work, but boy, he has NO handle on the character of Dracula here! The story involves Dracula searching for a cure for his vampirism (?) and he's written as desperate and pathetic whiner. Buckler here, early in his career, oddly enough doesn't look like a Kirby rip-off. He has some very sharp close-ups, and even though his Dracula at times looks more like Dr. Strange, it doesn't detract too much.

For some reason though, in this story and sprinkled throughout the magazine, the color red is added. Now this could be an effective technique, like how it's used in the panel below, but for the most part the inks were seemingly just thrown in and had no purpose (that I could see) in the telling of any of the stories.



To summarize this week's stroll down memory lane, I was disappointed with Dracula Lives! #1 (especially when I compare it to Tales of the Zombie #1 which I read last week). The main stories were mediocre at best and I was unimpressed with the reprints.

One again, for those who care, Overstreet lists a near mint copy for $60.

Hopefully next week's read will be better. Return next Monday when Retro-review takes on: Monsters Unleashed! #1.

Happy Birthday! (5/30/05)

No other info is needed except this list of voices: Porky Pig, Tweety, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian, Sylvester, Pepe LePew, The Tasmanian Devil, Mr. Spacely, Dino, Foghorn Leghorn and of course Bugs Bunny.

An animated voiceover Happy Birthday to.....
MEL BLANC!

The Man of a Thousand Voices would have been 97 today.

The Yellow Fedora Museum

For anyone who knows me I'm a HUGE fan of the classic comic strip, Chester Gould's, Dick Tracy. I didn't start reading it until the early 70's when I was a kid who loved reading adventure comic strips. Though as comic historians and critics will say, Chester Gould was well past his prime by then, but it didn't matter to me what they said, I thought the strips were great.

Since then I've gone out of my way to track down any and all collections of the strip. From hardbacks, trade paperbacks and comic book reprints, if someone publishes 'em, I buy 'em! I've even bought an original piece of art, as this poor digital shot shows. I bought this strip that was originally published in 1963 and have it currently hanging on my wall of framed comic / cartoon artwork.



If you've never read the strip or had no interest in Dick Tracy the character I'm not going to try and "convert" you here. You either have to enjoy reading exciting story lines featuring bizarre, evil bad guys and perilous death traps or not (and please, don't judge the strip on Beatty's piss-poor 1990 movie, which has NOTHING in common with the original comic).

But if you do like Dick Tracy
you might want to stop by and visit this site I found recently. It's The Chester Gould Dick Tracy Museum.



I may have to make a trip to Woodstock, Illinois one day and check it out.

Happy Birthday! (5/29/05)

Beetle Juice, The Simpsons, Batman, Darkman, Dick Tracy, Mars Attacks! and Big Fish.
What do all these films have in common? They are just a handful of TV shows and movies' music that this birthday guy has scored.

So how about a Soundtrack Happy Birthday to.....
DANNY ELFMAN!

The man from Oingo Boingo is 52 today.

Eddie Albert 1908 - 2005

On this Memorial Day weekend I just heard the sad news of the passing of actor Eddie Albert late yesterday. He was 97 (though there is a rumor that he was actually born in 1906 and his mother, who was single at the time, had his birth certificate changed, so he would have been 99).

Eddie starred in a variety of films, most noticeably as the comic sidekick in one of the best romantic comedies ever made, Roman Holiday, and as the villainous warden in the original The Longest Yard (Which is a bit ironic as talentless hack Adam Sandler trots out his remake in the theaters this weekend)

Aside from his film work though, to me he'll always be the exasperated city lawyer turned country farmer, Oliver Wendell Douglas, in the classic TV show, Green Acres.

Without a doubt, Green Acres was one of the funniest, original and unique television comedies of all time. If you've never seen the show or can barely remember it from your childhood do yourself a favor this weekend and rent ( or buy) one of the Green Acres DVD collections. Trust me, this was a show well before it's time that comic creators of today, like Matt Groening of The Simpsons fame are often quoted as saying that Green Acres was one of the few shows that inspired them in their career.

And besides, you'll be watching and laughing at the comic work of Eddie Albert, and what better way to celebrate the life of this fine actor.

Happy Birthday! (5/28/05)

Yes I realize that the last few decades haven't been too memorable in the daily newspaper comics pages. As the comic sizes shrunk, continuity and dramatic strips vanished and the artwork became overly simplistic there were one or two gems that did stand out.
One such strip is For Better or For Worse. The family humor and sometimes dramatic strip created by this talented woman.

So here's a Patterson Happy Birthday to.....
LYNN JOHNSTON!

This Canadian Cartoonist is 58 today

The Many Lives of Elektra

When Frank Miller created this red clad, sexy martial art assassin in the pages of Daredevil (circa early 1980's), who could have thought that over 20 years later, not only would the character still be around, but she would make it into the mainstream of America's Pop Culture?

Especially since she was killed not too long after she was introduced in the comics.
............. luckily for her, she got better.

Along with her many Comic appearances (see picture above) she's been sculpted for statues:



Become a Barbie Doll:



Was featured in her own big screen motion picture (though,as I said here, it wasn't worth seeing):



And now she has truly become a name character for the mass audience. She made today's Nancy comic strip.



Awwwwe, isn't that cute! Little Nancy is playing a hired assassin!
I guess next week Dennis the Menace will be pretending to be Wolverine!

"Hey Mister Wilson!"
*Snikt!* *Snikt!*

In a Box of Lego's far, far away...

With The Baboon Bellows new schedule Friday's thru Sunday are "Wild Card Weekends" where anything and everything goes... blogwise.

Here's a cool thing to check out.
On the Lego Home page they're showing the latest Lego Star Wars adventure, Star Wars; Revenge of the Brick. It's a really neat little feature film that, at times, puts Lucas to shame!
The ending in the Cantina with Obi, Anakin, Yoda and Chewie is priceless!
(you'll need Quicktime to view it)

Happy Birthday! (5/27/05)

During the height of the Hammer Films Studios horror films when a performer was needed to portray the villain only one actor could be called upon. Whether it was as Fu Man Chu in The Castle of Fu Manchu or as the Mummy in The Mummy and of course as Count Dracula in Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Dracula has Risen from the Grave and Dracula A.D. 1972 he was the personification of evil.
And how appropriate that his birthday falls one day after that of Peter Cushing's, his on screen rival in all those Hammer classics.

A Golden Gun Happy Birthday to Mr. Scaramanga ....
CHRISTOPHER LEE!!!

So, to round up our three Star Wars related Birthdays ( Frank Oz/Yoda on Wednesday and Peter Cushing/Grand Moff Tarkin on Thursday), we finish with "Count Dooku", who's 83 today.

Want some fries with that Hilton?

No, no bizarre sexual Star Wars related products today, but to keep within that same vein, so to speak....

By now you've probably heard all the hub-bub over the new commercial for Carl's Jr.s starring that "talented" starlet, Paris Hilton. (for those of you unfamiliar with Carls Jr's. it started as a west coast fast food 5th rate hamburger chain that purchased another little known 6th rate hamburger chain called Hardee's too become...... a 5th or 6th rate hamburger chain.)

So what do you do when you're light years away from the big three (Wendys, Burger King & McDonalds)? Improve the product? Offer foods that you can't get elsewhere? Slash your prices?

HELL NO!!!!

Grab a the latest hot chick that's known only for - looking hot, soak her up with soap, suds and water, and shove a massive hamburger in her mouth.



Haven't seen the ad yet? Check it out at the director's site here.

Damn, I don't know about you, but that's got me hungry for a Carl's Jr. Hamburger!!!

Well, no..............not, really.

Thursday's Comic Feature: FRESH PRETZELS! Part Five.

It's Thursday, and that means it's time for another visit to Fishtown, Pennsylvania with Jeff Kilpatrick's weekly dose of Fresh Pretzels! (click on the link to see this week's strip).
Since it's been a couple weeks since we presented Part Four, or if you missed the first few parts, you can start from the begining here.

Happy Birthday! (5/26/05)

Mostly known for all his roles in those great Hammer Horror Films like The Revenge of Frankenstein and The Brides of Dracula and since this week seems to have a "Star Wars" theme we'd be remiss if we didn't highlight his role as Grand Moff Tarkin.

So here's a "horrific" Birthday greeting to that original vampire hunter.....
PETER CUSHING!!!

If he hadn't passed on, the theatric Dr. Who would have been 92 today.

Today's Bizarre Star Wars Related Product.

OK, if you thought the Darth Vader Boxer Shorts, Darth Vader Thong and the Star Wars Condoms were odd, here's the most unique piece of Star Wars merchandise.

It's the Light Sabre Dildo!!!!
(and yes these actually exist...I'm not making this up.)

For the ultimate Jedi experience, it even lights up!




I wonder if these help combat the Dark Side of the Force?

*ouch*

What-I've-Been-Working-On: A CANDY VEND CARD

It's Wednesday so it's time once again to present some of the artwork I've been working on.

As Creative Director for Concord Confections I handle a lot of various projects from day to day. Whether it's Bubble Gum packaging, Candy catalogs, Convention posters or new product ideas, the variety of work keeps the daily grind from getting dull.

This product is a Vending Machine Card. You know the machines you come across in the front of grocery stores? These Vend Cards (as they're called) sit in the front of the machine letting the consumer know what lies inside (as well as the ingredients of the product).

This is a revamp of an existing card for a product called Bonz. Bonz are colorful bone shaped candy made with a variety of fruit flavors. Here's a picture of the original card along with a photo of the actual product:



When I approached this revamp I wanted to make the dog more animated, more fun and to show as clearly as possible what the product looks like. Here's a shot of the new dog without the background:



And at the top of this blog is the new completed card and how it will look outside your local grocery store.

Looking back on this I probably should have colored the dog a little lighter, but other than that, I'm pretty happy with the manic look on his face and how it turned out overall. Our company produces a lot of bulk-vending candies and bubble gum so we have many, many vend cards to create. Perhaps I'll have some new cards in upcoming Wednesdays.

Happy Birthday! (5/25/05)

He's directed such films as What About Bob? and Bowfinger. Had bit parts in The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000. But he'll always be best known as the man behind the pig ( Miss Piggy) and the Jedi Master (Yoda)

A Birthday Happy, it is, to ...
FRANK OZ!

The Muppet Man is 61 today.

Revenge of the Rubbers

It's time once again to display yet another bizarre piece of Star Wars related merchandise.

So, coupled with the pair of Vader Boxers and Vader Thong
we have, direct from Asia, a 7 pack of Star Condoms.

No self respecting amorous Jedi should leave home without them.

Today's Movie/TV Review: THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

So you're looking for a film to see this weekend? A film with humor and science fiction? A film based on characters and stories that have been around for over 20 years?

(and no, I'm not talking about Star Wars III; Revenge of the Sith , though I did talk about that particular film here.)

No, I'm talking about the feature film adaptation of the first of Douglas Adams' trilogy of books (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,Life, the Universe, and Everything and So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish) This very popular series had been adapted for radio and TV by the BBC already, but this is the first big budget screen attempt.

First, for those of you who've never read the books or have seen the earlier adaptions, here's a quick synopsis:

Arthur Dent, your typical downtrodden every-man, is rushed off Earth by his friend (and alien hitchhiker) Ford Prefect, just before the planet is demolished. To make way for a hyperspace bypass.
And from there, it only gets worse for Arthur.
He's smacked, whacked, insulted, shot at, sickened, rescued, thrown into space and reunited with the woman he loves.

I read Adams' books years ago when they came out and enjoyed them very much. But then again, I really like British humor and satire and these books are FILLED it. Adapting a series of books like these are quite a task. What comes across as funny on the written page, allowing the reader to formulate the look of the aliens in their imagination, are often lost when transferred to the silver screen.

Fortuantely here, it works.

First the casting. The choice of Martin Freeman (Tim, from the excellent BBC show The Office) as Arthur Dent was perfect. Freeman has that look, of a befuddled man (dressed in his robe and clutching his ever ready towel) thrust into this space saga, searching for the ultimate question while attempting to impress the woman he loves.
We, the viewer, can relate to Freeman's Dent, as well as we did while reading him in the original books.

The rest, Zooey Deschanel as Trillian (Arthur's love), Mos Def as hitchhiker Ford Prefect and Sam Rockwell as the flamboyant Zaphod Beeblebrox (nice job done here showing his two heads) are well cast. I especially enjoyed the added voices and voice overs by such British luminaries like Helen Mirren, Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman.

As for the film itself..... director Garth Jennings performs the near impossible here. He' s able to take this story which is crammed with visuals and characters and make it work. Yes, there' s a lot in the book that didn't make it on the screen (though the screenplay is credited to Karey Kirkpatrick as well as the late Douglas Adams, anytime the original creator/author is involved with an adaption of their work, you really can't bitch about cut scenes) and while the bulk of the visual effects are great, I'm not a big fan of the Hensen renditions of the alien Vogens. A Hensen creation always just looks like a big muppet, no matter how much they try to hide it.

The movie, much like the book, are filled with layers of satire and subtext. This is great for diehard fans who've not only read all the books but have watched or listened to other adaptions of this book as they've sprinkled in little nods to many of the other Hitchhiker treatments. The drawback here, I fear, are for audiences' who have no knowledge of the original work. They'll miss a lot of the small bits that would enhance their viewing.

Though perhaps the biggest stumbling block for this film is that the foundation work comes across as somewhat dated. What was hilarious and topical when Adams first put pen to paper back in the 70's may not have as much of an impact here in 2005.

BUT (and this is a big but,....unlike a Baboon butt...which is red)

This is a good, fun film. (and having reread the book, it too is still a good read)

Really, if you're a fan of science fiction laced with barbed wit and intellegent satire and a fan of Pythonesque, British humor, by all means see this picture.

Just don't expect a light sabre duel
(though you will see several talking dolphins......)

I give this film a "decent cup of tea":

Happy Birthday! (5/24/05)

Not too extensive a resume for this guy. Numerious TV appearances on shows like The Love Boat, Love American Style and Match Game. But he doesn't need to have a long list of credits, he'll always be known for just one.


Raise a glass of grape nehi in a Birthday toast to...
GARY BURGHOFF!

The original Snoopy from the play "Your a Good Man Charlie Brown" is 62 today.

Today's Retro-review is: TALES OF THE ZOMBIE #1

To kick off the first of these weekly look back reviews, I re-read this weekend, Issue #1 of Marvel's 75 cent magazine line: Tales of the Zombie (1973).

Marvel had just expanded their comic lines into a series of B&W titles with it's other two monster related books Dracula Lives! and Monsters Unleashed!. With this, their third title, Tales of the Zombie was launched. This title was created, based in part from an old 1950's horror story called "Zombie" created by legendary artist (and creator of the Sub-Mariner) Bill Everett. Marvel took the main character from this story, zombie Simon Garth, and built a series around him.

The cover is a striking piece by the 70's #1 cover artist, Boris Vallejo. His version of walking dead Simon Garth is a bit too buff, but hey, this is Boris, so it's to be expected.
Inside we're treated to six comic stories. The first, titled "Altar of the Damned" (written by Steve Gerber, drawn by John Buscema and finished by Tom Palmer) is the origin of our "hero". The back story of the character first presented in Everett's 1950's piece.

Simon Garth, a driven businessman and the head of a coffee corporation outside of New Orleans, is kidnapped by his seedy gardener and "sold" to a local voodoo sect. The story opens with Garth about to become a human sacrifice under the knife of Layla, the Voodoo Queen.

The bulk of this 13 page tale shows the plight of Garth and the creation of the Zombie. The artwork is vintage Buscema. Dynamic panels with exciting camera angels and excellent story-telling. Palmer finishes the art with an ink and lamp black wash. His wash technique gives a swampy-feel look that really enhances the story.

On a personal note, I was 12 when I first bought and read this magazine and I have to admit that the 7 panel skinny dipping scene involving Garth's daughter Donna was something this young kid would "read" again and again and again and...



But I digress.

The second story, "Zombie!" is the reprint of Everett's original story. It's a beautiful piece by Everett, featuring strong visuals and clean inks accomplished during his peak years. The story itself, credited to Stan Lee, is your typical 50's horror morality tale.



Next is another 50's reprint, a five page Dick Ayers piece titled "Iron-Head". This is another "Bad Guy meets his deserving end" type of tale.

The next feature is a five page text story titled "The Sensuous Zombie" by Tony Isabella. It's the kind of text pieces I enjoyed from the 70's line of monster magazines (and when I was a kid I loved monster magazines!) Tony discusses the history of Zombies in the cinema starting with the 1932 film White Zombie and ending with the 1969 classic Night of the Living Dead. This feature is enhanced with various vintage photos.

After a Marvel editorial, is the fourth story, "The Thing from the Bog!". (by Marv Wolfman and Pablo Marcos) It's a fair story with some uneven Marcos artwork and a pretty predictable ending.

The next piece is a two page short by Tom Sutton that's ending is.....missing! I had cut out a order coupon on the page that backed the second page of the story (hey, I needed to order issues #1 & #2 of Marvels' Monster Madness. When I was 12, I didn't really care about mint or near mint).

Finally, the last story of this issue, "Night of the Walking Dead!" (By Gerber, J. Buscema and finished by Syd Shores) is in fact the third chapter of the Simon Garth origin (taking place after events of the Everett "Zombie!" piece).



This story, tends to lay the groundwork of what Gerber has in mind for future Garth adventures. Much like his current Man-Thing series at the time, Gerber seems to excel at writing the silent, hideous creature who inadvertently becomes entangled with the lives of those around him.

In this chapter, the magic amulet (that controls the Zombie) is passed on to Simon's daughter Donna, but soon falls into the hands of a murderous mugger. Eventually though, this gun welding punk confronts our title's star and meets up with a just end.

Overall I enjoyed rereading Tales of the Zombie #1. Thirty two years ago when I first bought it, I'm sure it had more of an impact. Now, since then, having read a multitude of comics, magazines and books as well as watching a ton of horror flicks, the stories seem like a "been-there, done-that" feel. But in my opinion the artwork of J. Buscema and Everett make it worth owning this book.

For those who care, a mint copy of Tales of the Zombie lists at $35 in the Overstreet Guide. (of course since my copy has a coupon cut out of it, it sure the hell isn't mint)

Stop by next week when I'll reread and review another of Marvel's 70's B&W magazine; Dracula Lives #1.

Happy Birthday! (5/23/05)

What can you say about a guy whose career includes films like One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining and Linda Lovelace for President as well as TV Show appearances in Chico and the Man and The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island?
Well, it sure was diverse.

So for the Transformer "Jazz", here's a Happy Birthday to.....
SCATMAN CROTHERS!

Hong Kong Phooey would have been 94 today.

Today's Star Wars related clothing item is...

Yesterday I showed you the pair of Darth Vader boxer shorts.

Well, as Revenge of the Sith racks up another several million dollars today, for the female fans out there why not see the film while attired in these sleek (and I'm sure comfortable) pair of Vader-thongs.

Happy Birthday! (5/22/05)

Feeling too happy? Need to feel down? Grab your CD player or ipod and give a listen to his tunes, like, Girlfriend in a Coma, Shoplifters of the World, Bigmouth Strikes Again or Suedehead. And that'll prompt you to slash a wrist or two.

Frankly, Mr. Shankly, let's wish a Happy Birthday to...
MORRISSEY!

This depressed brit is 46 today.

Vader-wear

Is it a profound statement on the quality of the films or just another piece of geek-wear?

Either way, who wouldn't look good protecting their naughty bits in this pair of silk Anakin boxers?

(just be thankful it's not a pair of Jar-Jar Binks panties.)

Happy Birthday! (5/21/05)

In his career his roles "stretched" from that of bad-ass boxer Clubber Lane in Rocky III to bad-ass soldier of fortune B.A. Baracus on The A-Team.

OK. It wasn't really much of a stretch.

I pity the fool who doesn't wish a Happy Birthday to...
MR. T!

The man with the mohawk is 53 today.

Happy Birthday! (5/20/05)

In the few short months that I've done this blog I've tried to post daily birthday greetings to obscure and relatively unknown people.

So here's a big Birthday shout out to a real unknown.

Me

(and yes, I know that this is an older picture of me, but hey, it's my blog and in this picture I had hair.)

I'm 44 today. (so send your cards, presents and money to....)

Topher as.... Venom??

It's just been reported that Topher Grace, former star of That 70's Show, has joined the cast of Spider-Man 3. Here's the news:

Grace joins Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and James Franco, all of whom starred in the first two films. Thomas Haden Church ("Sideways") also has been cast.

"Spider-Man 3" directed by Sam Raimi, is scheduled for release May 4, 2007. The "Spider-Man" film franchise has grossed more than $1.5 billion worldwide for Columbia.

The rumors have run wild with which villains have been selected for the film. Since Haden Church's casting, word has been leaked that he'll be playing The Sandman, one of Spidey's oldest villains.



If that's true, it's my guess that Grace could be playing fellow Daily Bugle employee, Eddie Brock, who, in the comics, is possessed by the evil symbiote, Venom.

(personally, I hope I'm wrong since I find Venom to be pretty one-dimensional and boring.)