Batman Autographs

I was looking over my autographs the other day and I realized I had a good portion of the cast of the classic Batman TV show of the 1960's. Of course, no Batman collection would be complete without the one true Batman, Adam West.



I believe the first cast memeber I met was Yvonne Craig, who was the beautiful Batgirl in season three.



You can't have a Batman autograph collection without at least a couple of the dastardly villains the Caped Crusader took on during the series' run.





I think this is a pretty good start. Hopefully the local comic convention can get Burt Ward at a show soon so I can get both halves of the greatest TV crimefighting team of '60's TV.

Disneyland Home Movies 1958

I can never get enough of watching old 8mm footage of Walt Disney's playground in its prime. This particular footage is from 1958, the third year the park was open. The park was much smaller then and had that great 1950's charm to it that a lot of the park lacks today. Enjoy!

We got em!

I was thrilled a couple of days ago when my cousin, whose great blog about young adult books you can check out here, got tickets for the tour of the year, U2's 360 Tour. The closest it's coming to KC is Norman, OK October 18, six months from today, so it's going to be road tripping time. The tour promises to be great. I've always loved the spectacle of stadium concerts and it's good to see them in stadiums again. The stage is state of the art. Here's an artist's rendering of what it's going to look like.



Needless to say it's going to be a long six months. The tour starts in Europe in June so at least I'll have bootlegs to tide me over until then. I hope it's warmer than when I saw them on the same date in 1992 in KC. It was freezing then. If it's cold though, once the boys hit the stage all that will be forgotten. Can't wait!

Harry Kalas R.I.P.

I was saddened to learn yesterday of the passing of broadcasting legend Harry Kalas. While he was the voice of the Philadelphis Phillies since the early 70's, I knew him best as one of the two voices of NFL Films. Along with John Facenda, Harry was the quintessential voice of those awesome NFL documentaries that were on all the time when I was a kid. He had a unique voice that was instantly recognizable. This clip from a feature on him from NFL Network paints a great portrait of a man that millions of sports fans heard and enjoyed through the years. He will definitely be missed.

Max Fleischer Superman

I just picked up the remastered 1940's Superman cartoons done by the Max Fleischer studios. Warner Brothers did a good job cleaning up these classics and they look better than ever. These shorts had been in the public domain for years and didn't look all that great. Watching these again made me realize how groundbreaking and ahead of their time they were. They're simply amazing. Any animation fan needs to have this in their collection. Here's a taste of what to expect.

U2 Elevation Tour 2001

I was going through some photos not too long ago and found some shots from when my cousin and I saw U2 in Minneapolis in 2001. The show was great and we were really close. I wish I had had my digital camera then instead of a throwaway. This shot of Bono and The Edge was the best one of the group.



Another friend of mine went up there too and took some shots from a little further back that turned out much better.





We're going to head out to Norman, OK to see them this fall and I'm excited to get better shots of the spectacle with my digital camera. It should be a good time for all.

The Scottish Dark Lord

I love this excerpt from the documentary Empire Of Dreams dealing with the problem of Darth Vader's voice during the filming of Star Wars. Actor David Prowse's voice was, shall we say, not menacing. Fortunately George Lucas had no plans to use his voice. It would have been a totally different movie if he had.

General Mills Retro Cereal Boxes

Target has just come out with exclusive General Mills cereal boxes celebrating the great cereal characters of my youth. I managed to pick up the great Cocoa Puffs box above and this really cool Trix box. Both of these are replicas of boxes dating from the late 60's/early 70's.



There are also Lucky Charms and Honey Nut Cheerios boxes. As the ads used to say, collect them all.

Retro Star Trek Figures

In the past year or so I've been collecting the new Mego style Star Trek figures. The attention to detail on these is amazing. They look just like the Mego figures of my youth. I first picked up the big three and was thrilled by how good they looked.





The thing I was most excited about when I heard about these new figures was that they were going to release exact replicas of the classic aliens, including the fantastic Romulan and a new style Gorn that actually looks like the character instead of the Lizard in Klingon clothes like the original Mego figure.





Probably the neatest thing about this series is that there were characters made which Mego never did for whatever reason. My two favorites are Space Seed era Khan and Mr. Sulu. They have that great 1970's look and feel about them.





If any of you are into Star Trek or classic action figures, this line is definitely for you. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.