Hey there faithful readers, this isn't much of a post, but thought I'd let you know I've updated a couple of posts.
My popular Magic Wold Brochure post has been updated with firsthand accounts from reader's comments. Thanks again to everyone who has left comments.
My much less popular Old Chicago Brochure post has been updated with a full scene from Brian De Palma's The Fury (1978) which was shot at Old Chicago.
The pic above is an ad for the 1991 NBC Saturday Morning lineup which was basically the last year NBC ran cartoons. I never watched the Chip and Pepper show, but I always assumed they were a couple of LA radio jocks who got a show because some desperate TV executive thought they'd relate to the young viewers. The real story according to the Wiki is surprising, but not too much different than what I thought.
Just in time for Independence Day I bring you the Walt Disney World Bicentennial Brochure.
The year was 1976, and every day at WDW was like the Fourth of July with their very patriotic and lavish "America On Parade" parade.
I don't know if you noticed, but back in 1976 Disney was still on the ticket system. A 2 day ticket book for one adult cost $15 in 1976. Today just parking your car at Disney costs about this much!
BONUS STUFF: Hey look, it's an official "America On Parade" drinking mug. It still has its price tag, and cost $1.25 back in the day. I wonder how much it would go for on Ebay?
Hey look again, it's the official guide to Walt Disney World from 1976. It's compliments of a company called GAF - whatever that was...
This guide is about 30 pages long. So I'm not planning to scan it for this blog any time soon.
Trog-Lo-Dytes were a circular piece of milk chocolate packaged in a cartoonish cardboard wrapper called an "Action Pack" (package patent pending) manufactured in the late 1970's by the Pangburn Candy Company of Fort Worth Texas.
The back of the Trog-Lo-Dyte. Say kids, it's only 23 cents!!
The gimmick of the action pack is when you gently pressed down on the top of the package the cardboard would slide, and usually reveal some sort of joke. Well instead of explaining it why don't I show you through the magic of GIF animation...
They're pretty funny, but that last one with the magician I don't get. Was there supposed to be some sort of joke there?
From 1954 here comes a sampling of "That's Me Groucho" cocktail napkins. The novelty of these novelty napkins is that each of the 36 napkins had a different one panel cartoon printed on them.
The box I have has less than half of the napkins remaining, but from what I seen the cartoons are pretty funny. All the cartoons show Groucho in some sort of riskque or sexual situation - usually with a hot girl.
Well that's it. If anyone reading this would like to see more just let me know.
UPDATE: There are more Groucho cocktail napkins here.
Here are four of the possible 42 "Football Super Freaks" stickers printed in 1974 by Donruss. I would have happily shown you more than four, but four is all I have, and that's four more then you'll find anywhere else on the internet.
That's surprising because I would have thought someone would have posted the entire collection by now. The art work on the stickers is good, and looks like it could be the work of Jack Davis (or someone doing a very good imitation). Unfortunately, the "funny" text on the back of the stickers is not very good.
Here's another in a series of now defunct amusement park brochures.
Circus World in Barnum City, Florida was located only "10 minutes west of Walt Disney World,"and that might have been a reason for its ultimate failure. I don't know call me crazy, but unless you're some big media conglomerate like Universal, I don't think it's wise to open an amusement park in Disney's backyard.
Oh well, if you want to know more about what happen to Circus World you can read all about it here.
I hope I wasn't too presumptuous to call you Christian, but Mr. Bale just seems so cold and formal and I want this to be a relaxed and friendly.
Christian Bale
Anyways, congratulations on the whole movie career so far. I've just heard that you're going to star in the new Terminator 4, and of course everyone is excited to see The Dark Knight coming out later this summer. You can certainly consider yourself a full-fledged Hollywood movie star. This is no small feat. As you know, not every successful child actor makes the cross over to successful adult actor (see Macaulay Culkin).
A very young Christian Bale with Steven Spielberg on the set of Empire of the Sun (1987)
Yessiree, you've established yourself as a talented and bankable leading man which guarantees we'll be seeing you on the big screen for many years to come. With that said, I feel it's my duty to talk to you about a small issue that's been troubling me. I believe many others are troubled by it too, and some may have even brought this issue to your attention. I mean this issue is as plain as the nose on your face...
...or more exactly the mole on the side of you nose near your right eye. I'm not the only one who's noticed either (check out skinema.com ).
This isn't something trivial. If you're serious about your "craft" (and I know you are) you don't want anything that will distract from your performance, and that is exactly what this mole has become - a distraction. Seriously, when I'm watching you act I can't help to be drawn to the little lumpy thing sitting by your right brow.
But it hasn't always been this way, because from examining your body of work that irritating mole wasn't always there. Back almost 18 years ago, back in the 1992 film Newsies, the mole was in hiding, just waiting for its big day in the lime light.
And then four years later the mole burst onto the silver screen, and can be seen in the 1996 film The Secret Agent.
The mole makes it first (?) appearance in The Secret Agent (1996)
I'm no doctor, but it seems to me that this mole of yours is growing. I'm sure you've had it checked, and I'm sure it's not cancer or anything, but I think it's time you should really have it removed. I mean it would only be like a simple office visit to have it done. Hell, I don't even work as a film actor where folks gawk at my mug on screens 30 feet tall, but I would have had it removed a long time ago.
Maybe you've grown accustom to it, and resist changing your face with cosmetic surgery. Although I'd find that hard to believe since you've never been afraid to change how your body looks before.
The many bods of Bale
You got all ripped and buff for American Psycho (2000). You then got even more buffer for Reign of Fire(2002). Hey, I don't blame you since you were co-staring with Matthew McConaughey, whose favorite hobby is shirtlessness. Then you got super scary thin for The Machinist(2004), and amazingly within a year bulked up huge for Batman Begins(2004). My hat is off to you man. As someone who is trying really, really hard to gain muscle, and drop my body fat a couple of percentage points for the summer - I'm totally impressed and envious how you seemingly can take off and on muscle weight with such ease. I would love to hear your workout routine sometime, but I digress...
My point is you're not afraid to change body in extreme ways - dropping weight and adding weight for what ever role you're playing. So to remove this distracting mole should be no big thing compared to what you did to your body for The Machinist.
Enrique Iglesias
If you're still unsure about losing your mole, why don't you talk to Enrique Iglesias (I'm sure you can get his number). Enrique had a mole much bigger than yours on his right cheek and had it removed years ago. If you ask me I think he looks much better without it, and I don't think it's hurt his career one bit to have it removed. He's still making music, and selling his own personal cologne or something. Isn't he? (Maybe I should have Wikied "Enrique Iglesias" before I wrote this)
I'm sure Enrique is certainly having a better career than this guy:
Richard Thomas as John Boy Walton in "The Waltons" (1972) (FYI: I didn't add the white text to the picture, but it's obviously by someone who is as distracted by moles as I am)
When was the last time anyone has seen Richard Thomas? I rest my case... Ok, I just checked IMDb and Richard Thomas has worked fairly consistently up till 2006. But he ain't staring in any summer block busters now is he?
Hmmm, maybe I didn't make any points for my case with the Richard Thomas example, but please consider the other stuff I've written.
Don't make me have to write a best-selling, Pulitzer Prize winning story about an emotionally complex man with a ugly mole under his right brow, and whose life is dramatically changed in many unique ways when he has his mole removed. Which is then optioned by a big shot Hollywood production company, and so I then personally adapt my story into a dynamite script which is quickly geenlit. Because of my new found clout I demand that you play the protagonist because after all - nobody else could play this role but you, and that would eventually force you to have that bloody mole removed.
Well thanks for your time, and I wish you the very best of luck with your career,
