Picture Thread: Objects Of Small-You Desire

*goes and looks up Callisto on Friendster*

http://www.seibertron.com/cotm/200207/Jazz_t002.jpg

http://www.commercial-photos.com/original-batmobile.jpg

I wanted a sea monster for a friend.

http://www.emerchandise.com/images/p/SSM/pcSSM.jpg

I wanted to do something, who knows what, with Wonder Woman.

http://www.geocities.com/dudleynightshade/eerieeyes.jpg

I didn't have a very realism-oriented childhood.

fortress maximus. I heard he wasn't even available in the UK=>my plan for finally proving the existence/nonexistence of santa=>I never got it and could never decide if it was because there was no santa or because I forgotten about it by christmas.

http://www.eparent.com/toys/images/perfection.gif

When somewhat larger:

http://www.telespiele.de/atari/atari-vcs.jpg

http://theimaginaryworld.com/tic523.jpg

I also wanted to go to a Red Sox game

http://www.roadtrips.com/images/baseball/boston.jpg

("You're too young!")

And be a space chemist. (No image available.)

dengo, I saw the Snoopy snow cone maker in Kay Bee last year. You can still get it! Fulfill all your childhood desires!

#6380 VOYAGE TO GALAXY III SET
Copyright 1969--first year available 1970. Product never released.

This was one of two items listed in the 1970 Mattel dealer's catalog that has never been found. No proof or clues to substantiate its existence have turned up either. The catalog lists this as a gift set that includes Major Matt Mason and his Cat Trac, the Star Seeker and the non existing "Or" with his Orbitor from Orion. This set was most likely never produced.

PACKAGE DESCRIPTION:
Though no box is pictured the individual toys are. And the package is described as being 12" x 12" x 21 5/8".

http://cyclurba.free.fr/pbi/Atari%20console.jpg
(Cool kids had Atari. We had Pong and Odyssey^2, because my father was a professional nerd.)

I knew very quickly what I was destined to do:

http://www.kconline.com/kurtkelsey/toys/img/oven.gif

http://www.emuunlim.com/doteaters/breakout.gif
And my God, who didn't want their own arcade game in their bedroom?

Oh, that picture doesn't seem to be showing, it's the arcade version of BREAKOUT!

Never got one, neither.

Later, when I actually got one, she made me wait until the brick of water finally solidified into ice in our freezer, and this took, oh, a week or so. I think she was freaked out by the idea that the thing I'd use to shred ice could also concievably shred my tender pink flesh.

#6359 SCORPIO
Copyright 1969--first year available 1970

Scorpio was the last character introduced into the Major Matt Mason toyline. Unlike the other Mattel astronauts he is an 8 inch figure and is not compatible with other space equipment. Though he is also a "bendy" type figure, he is more like Captain Lazer being that he's unique in size and that he's battery operated.

One "AA" cell battery that fits under his head in his hard plastic torso powers a flashing bulb that illuminates his eyes and mouth. Of course he's really nothing like Captain Lazer with his looks of an insect -like being with "pink" skin and "purple" attire. Scorpio has a unique "green" colored plastic vest projector accessory that launches harmless Styrofoam search globes. Not a weapon but a useful knowledge seeking device operated by a purple air bellows that fires the globes throughout the solar system or your living room.

Yet his menacing looks give us the impression that he's an enemy or villain. According to the short story of Scorpio on the back of his 8" x 13" x 2" window box he is a friend and alley of Major Matt Mason from another far away galaxy. The box is dressed in "green" and "yellow" 1969 / 1970 graphics with scorpio visible behind a cellophane window in front of a plane "green" background wearing his "purple" arm and leg shields. The vest projector and bellows are hidden inside the other half of the box.

Scorpio is the toughest to find of all the Major Matt Mason characters. Being that he was made during the final year of the toyline there were very few of them as compared to the astronauts and other aliens. And good luck on finding him with any accessories, especially the arm and leg shields, these were easy to fall off and get lost.

Reprinted here for the first time on the web, is the complete legend of Scorpio that was included with the instructions for the figure. It's a large file but worth it!

http://www.majormattmason.net/gif/6359d.jpg

COMMENTS:
Scorpio is difficult to find loose, and almost impossible to find in boxed, mint condition. Examples have sold for well over $1,000 dollars making this one of the most sought after collectors items from the Matt Mason line.

(i wonder is that why i liked callisto so much — apart from the obvious lizardly hottness!! — cz i always had a thing for "companionship"...?)

Twenty years later, and I am still bitter.

I also got a kind of remote control robot w/ perspex dome on top and everything for a christmas but it never worked so it had to be swapped. for what I cannot remember. this is off topic but OK.

(I had dingbot, too.)

The hilariously-named "Erector" set.

Tep: I thought that was an Omnibot! Oh no oh NO!

New York Times, August 31, 2003
I Don't Want to Grow Up!
By CHRISTOPHER NOXON

It's fair to say that the singer-songwriter who calls herself Gwendolyn never thought her band, the Goodtime Gang, would appeal to anyone over the age of, say, 7. A typical performance includes covers of the preschool standards "Bingo" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and original compositions that tackle topics like human anatomy, the importance of sharing and bugs.

So it was with some surprise that Gwendolyn, who is 28 and performs in a Raggedy Ann dress, cartoonish pigtails and knee-high socks, found herself one recent evening in a packed Los Angeles nightclub performing for a crowd of fans whose idea of a stiff drink extends beyond undiluted o.j. Many in the audience sat cross-legged on the floor, cocktails perched on bobbing knees. Some sang along.

The performance was part of a bill that began with an elaborate puppet show and ended with an appearance by the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, a "conceptual art rock band" from New York, which includes a 9-year-old girl on drums. For Gwendolyn, who has no children of her own but who says her songs for children are inspired by "a 4-year-old kid inside me," performing children's music for an audience of grown-ups was more than just a hipster lark — it was liberating.

"All the inner children of these adults are suddenly speaking up and saying, `Hey wait — what about us?' " she said. " `It's our turn to have some fun.' "

From childless fans of kiddie music to the grown-up readers of "Harry Potter," inner children are having fun all over. Whether they are buying cars marketed to consumers half their age, dressing in baby-doll fashions or bonding over games like Twister and kickball, a new breed of quasi adult is co-opting the culture of children as never before. Most have busy lives with adult responsibilities, respectable jobs and children of their own. They are not stunted adolescents. They are something else: grown-ups who cultivate juvenile tastes in products and entertainment. Call them rejuveniles.

Celebrated by market researchers and fretted over by social scientists, rejuveniles come in all ages but are mostly a product of the urban upper classes (free time and disposable income being essential in their lifestyle). Evidence of their presence is widespread. According to Nielsen Media research, more adults 18 to 49 watch the Cartoon Network than watch CNN. More than 35 million people have caught up with long-lost school pals on the Web site Classmates.com. ("There's something about signing on to Classmates.com that makes you feel 16 again," the "60 Minutes II" correspondent Vicki Mabrey reported.) Fuzzy pajamas with attached feet come in adult sizes at Target, along with Scoobie Doo underpants. The average age of video game players is now 29, up from 18 in 1990, according to the Entertainment Software Association. Hello Kitty's cartoon face graces toasters. Sea Monkeys come in an executive set.

And a big hit on Broadway this summer is "Avenue Q," which stars googly-eyed puppets grappling with career disappointment, maxed credit cards and failed relationships. Part of the show's pleasure — besides the puppet sex — is the "rediscovery of the real attachments we had to creatures like this as children," said Jeff Whitty, the librettist. "It awakens the kid in us."

No single word has emerged to describe the phenomenon, but a few phrases in the marketing lexicon describe some of its aspects. The San Francisco advertising firm Odiorne Wilde Narraway & Partners calls the resurgence of retro brands among 18- to 34-year-olds "Peterpandemonium." Toymakers now take aim at "kidults," defined by the Italian company Kidult Games as "adults who take care of their kid inside." Researchers at the MacArthur Foundation are studying "adultolescents," those 20- and 30-somethings who live at home and still depend on their parents for emotional and financial support.

While some marketers court rejuveniles directly — "Who knew you and your daughter would have the same best friend?" asked an advertisement for a revived line of Strawberry Shortcake dolls — others speak to the rejuvenile soul by simply selling to kids. The Honda Element, the Tonkalike mini-truck introduced by the company as a "combination dorm room/base camp for active young buyers," has been marketed mostly at extreme sports and surfing events, said Andy Boyd, a spokesman for the American Honda Motor Company. But the average age of Element drivers, Mr. Boyd said, is 40. "That's exactly what we anticipated," he said. "It's a new definition of the family buyer — someone who doesn't want to give up their individual character even though they're getting older."

While there is nothing new about adults reveling in kiddie culture — Shirley Temple, Roald Dahl and Pee Wee Herman all had plenty of adult fans — market researchers say an especially strong wave of childishness began about two years ago. Milk and cookies, macaroni and cheese and meatloaf began appearing on the menus of highchair-free restaurants. Puma, Converse and Keds sneakers leapt from the schoolyard set to the fashion-conscious crowd. And then there is Harry Potter, whose cross-generational popularity prompted the British publisher Bloomsbury to release an edition of the books with so-called grown-up covers. (Adult-friendly kid titles are listed in Booklist, the trade magazine, under "Crossovers: Children's Books for Adults.")

"We're seeing this phenomenon worldwide," said Debra Joester, president of an independent licensing company that handles Care Bears, one of the lines of discontinued toys and merchandise recently reintroduced in part because of pent-up demand from grown-ups. (Other resurrected brands include He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, My Little Pony and Rainbow Brite.) A 2001 market research study by American Greetings, the creator of Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears, showed that "purchase interest" was identical among women who wanted to buy a doll for their child and those who simply wanted to rekindle a love affair of their own.

"This consumer wants Care Bears in their life," Ms. Joester said. "And not just to share with their children."

In part, researchers say rejuveniles are simply seeking comfort in jittery times. Who better than a character like SpongeBob Squarepants to relieve free-floating anxiety? According to Nickelodeon, a full 26 percent of SpongeBob's regular audience is over 18.

Some social scientists, however, see signs of a deeply troubling trend. That so many adults expend so much time and energy pursuing the thrills of youth just proves how significantly "adulthood has lost its appeal," said Frank Furendi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent at Canterbury in England. "Adulthood has got nothing attractive about it anymore. That's actually quite sad."

Mr. Furendi began researching what he calls "the self-conscious cultivation of immaturity" after spotting college students watching "Teletubbies" in a university bar. The scene stuck in his mind, and he came to think of it as representative of a wave of infantilism sweeping Britain and beyond. What is happening, Mr. Furendi maintained, is a natural if extreme response to a media culture that equates being old with being square and being young with being relevant. "Today, the way you demonstrate your worth is the extent to which you still go to rock concerts, you're still groovy, you're still a player," he said.

But many of those who fit the profile best — grown-ups who wear Sesame Street T-shirts or skin arthritic knees on their motor scooters — insist they are not simply obstinate Peter Pans or connoisseurs of kitsch. Many describe a nearly frantic compulsion to remain playful, flexible and fun in the face of realities like fixed-rate mortgages or lawn care. Mitch Anthony, president of a branding and design firm in Northampton, Mass., is a full-fledged adult: he has children, a closet full of suits and a picket fence that cost $10,000. But as he approaches his 50th birthday, he sees "absolutely no reason to give up doing what I loved as a kid," he said. "I still bike. I still love to hang out with my friends and talk about sex. I still play in a rock 'n' roll band. Why would I want to stop doing any of that?"

Rejuveniles reserve their deepest respect for adults who manage both to take care of business and to make time for play. The skateboarding mogul Tony Hawk is 35 and the father of three, but he is a hero of rejuveniles everywhere for staying in sync with the "12.5-year-old suburban male" who represents his core audience, said Pat Hawk, his sister and business manager. "He's not trying to live in a fantasy child world," she said. "He skates for a living, and he gets to travel in a private jet. How cool is that?"

Still, it is one thing for a 12.5-year-old to idolize a guy like Hawk. It is another for his dad to pine for a life of nose grinds and front-side kickflips — as many do. (Ms. Hawk describes her brother's adult fan base as rabid.) Bryan Page, a professor of anthropology and the chairman of the department at the University of Miami, said: "Play has historically been about recreation or preparing children to move into adult roles. That whole dynamic has now been reversed — play has become the primary purpose and value in many adult lives. It now borders on the sacred. From a historical standpoint, that's entirely backward."

Many rejuveniles, however, reject the notion that their enthusiasms are childish in the first place. "I like Chipmunks records because they're funny, period," said Jacob Austen, 34, a Chicago writer and authority on music by Alvin and the Chipmunks, part of a genre of children's music fans affectionately call rodent rock. Mr. Austen, who also produces a children's dance program on Chicago public-access television, says the best entertainment for kids is universal.

Ironically, most actual kids could not care less about much of the stuff that enchants rejuveniles. Take "The Langley Schools Music Project: Innocence and Despair," a CD of Canadian schoolchildren that has been praised by the likes of David Bowie and John Zorn, who called it nothing less than "music that touches the heart in a way no other music ever has." Irving Chusid, the record's producer, said that what adults find haunting, kids find utterly mundane.

Mr. Austen said he understands that distinction all too well. While friends and family have come to regard his love of old kids' records as charming or sweet, children are less forgiving. "I get the most censure from little kids, definitely," he said. "I'll be playing a Chipmunk record in my car, and if a kid hears it, they get seriously weirded out."

Time to hunt and slay.

(Arguably the comfort food trend could be separated from a "return to childhood" trend, too, since it isn't limited to "children's food," but tends to focus more on middle American home-cooked food in general.)

Not that I'm actually arguing with the article -- people writing about trends often end up with a few extra fish in their nets, that's all.

I wanted the one on the right SO BADLY, but could never get it.

Alternately, I also wanted this:

http://collectingx.com/images/gpk5.jpg

This was the one thing that was absolutely forbidden by my parents, though. So naturally when some of my cousins got them, I would beg to look at them and would end up flipping through their collections constantly.

I did also want the Snoopy Snow-Cone machine, but another cousin of mine had it and she let me use it a lot so I felt as though we BOTH owned it, sorta.

Oh I know, like I said, I'm not arguing with the article. I'd only really noticed it among women roughly my age or younger, for most of those things they list -- with guys it often seems to be "G.I. Joe was so cooool!" but fewer things that actually involve spending money. I kind of find lots of brands of cutesiness -- I'm counting G.I. Joe as cutesy, so maybe it isn't the best word -- off-putting, and I can't decide if they're all nostalgic/childhood-reclaimed oriented or not.

Yeah, in the 1980's. So is the current trend for comfort food trend retro nostalgia for the original one?

Garbage Pail Kids set to return to market

Gross-out stickers were popular in 1980s
By LUKAS I. ALPERT

NEW YORK - Long before South Park or Beavis and Butt-Head entertained kids with lowbrow toilet humor, there were the Garbage Pail Kids. Now, the grandfather of gross-out is making a comeback.

After being off the market for 15 years, a new series of the hugely successful stickers that entertained children in the mid-1980s with depictions of bodily functions will be released in August by The Topps Co.

Garbage Pail Kids still maintain a cult following, with several dedicated fan Web sites and an active trade on Internet auction sites.

But will the stickers, originally conceived as a spoof of the wildly popular Cabbage Patch Kids, find an audience among a jaded generation raised on the hyper-potty-humored Jackass and the sophomoric SpongeBob SquarePants?

"I think gross-out has always been and will always be of interest to kids," said Arthur Shorin, chairman of Topps, whose Manhattan headquarters is crowded with mountains of candy and collectible cards. "Garbage Pail Kids was a phenomenal fad - it really struck a funny bone - and we expect kids will still enjoy them because it's a spoof on real life."

The new series finds plenty of things to make fun of, like "Fartin' Martin," who gaseously propels himself on a Razor scooter, or the heavily pierced "Metallic Alec," who is pulled out of his shoes by a magnet.

They even take a shot at the bespectacled child wizard - "Harry Potty" - toilet plunger in tow, doing his business in the loo.

To help modernize the series, Topps also plans to launch a Web site in August that will let youngsters create their own Garbage Pail Kids and take a tour of a Garbage Pail Kid city.

Not all the ideas are new. About two-thirds of the series is made up of art drawn for stickers 15 years ago that were never released.

The maker of baseball trading cards and Bazooka bubble gum made millions of dollars on 15 different series of Garbage Pail Kids from 1985 through 1988, Shorin said. The unreleased art was drawn for the 16th series, which never saw print because popularity had waned.

Garbage Pail Kids suffered a backlash of sorts from parents who thought gross-out humor was detrimental to children - something that probably spurred their popularity.

"I would get letters all the time from parents saying, 'This is in poor taste.' Well, of course it's in poor taste!" Shorin said. "But it's not in wrong taste; we would never do that."

http://www.x-entertainment.com/pics/cula15.jpg

Oh how cool! Back to sully the brains of innocent young children. ;) (I'm so kidding, but that is probably what my parents thought at the time. "Oh no, we're not letting her have that. She'll get it and suddenly become rude and snotty." That sort of thing.) Also, thanks a lot for the article post! Sounds like they're going to do an update on the line, which is good.

OMG I *am* Donnie Darko.

My desire for Callisto was NOT television-generated. If Major Matt Mason was promoted on TV I never saw it. He was advertised in UK comics I think, but not really the kinds of comics I read much. If my memory is being honesty with me, I saw a ONE-PANEL half-page ad, just once (on the back of a cereal packet maybe?) (I picture it with me sat at my usual breakfast seat , the light behind me), for the Space Station set mentioned above (it may even have been that picture): that was what ignited the fire.

I don't think television CREATES the desire: I think this is reactionary (and in fact silly) thinking. I accept that television contributes to the belief that desire can be easily slaked (buy Mousetrap and shut the kid up!!) and thus set aside — but then so do articles like that New York Times piece. I accept that a kind of symtomatic fetishism operates round the lost utopias of these kinds of objects: but you don't dispel a symptom by saying "grow up" at it. "Now I am a man I have set aside childish things": are the "realistic" desires of achieved adulthood really so undeluded? I wrote as a half-joke that my desire for Callisto was no more than a youthful semi-gay yearning, based round my "thing" as a child for perfect (mathematically exact and equal) companionship. After I read it back, I thought "ULP GOLLY BLIMEY!! ": of COURSE I had a "thing" for companionship — apart from family and adults working with my mum and dad, I grew up almost entirely starved (accident of local geography) of friendships of my own age. I had lots of affection and attention, but it was the opposite of "mathematically equal".

very different.

Lego + stuffed animals + board games = practically all of my toys & "wish list" items from when I was a wee little tyke.