Bite Some Bubbling Brains!

Quite a find today. It took a minute for me to fully absorb what I was looking at, but once it dawned on me my arms suddenly reached out instinctively and reeled it in. Something I haven't seen in years...

Doctor Dreadful Freaky Food Lab (and a few extras)!

Lightning not included.

Please tell me somebody else out there remembers Doctor Dreadful. Along with Creepy Crawlers, it was one of the major toys I had as a kid. Both of them were similarly themed as scary-ish do-it-yourself playsets. Creepy Crawlers were fun to make, but seeing the squishy insects coming out of the oven probably made kids think of gummy snacks. Eating Creepy Crawlers wasn't something that they recommended on the box, though, and that's where Doctor Dreadful came in.

There were multiple Doctor Dreadful playsets. The Freaky Food Lab, which is what you see taking up the left side of the picture above, was the main one, and there was also the Drink Lab, some of which you see on the right of the photo. There was also some sort of Ice Cream Lab, but I never had it and neither did anyone else I knew, so I never tried it. Come to think of it, I don't think any of my friends had Doctor Dreadful, period. I must've been the only one. For this, I am blessed.

There are a few snacks that you can make with the food lab. There's foamy brains, gummy spiders, brains, worms, and wolfman, as well as monster skin. And the best part of the one I bought today? The packets of powder are still with the set! The same goes for the drink lab. The packets were outdated in 2006, which isn't so long ago, and I'm optimistic about the results I'll get whenever I'm feeling brave enough to attempt to create some "Frozen Foamy Filth" or other such concoctions. Some of them are opened, but have been sealed in Ziploc bags, so they're still powdery, and not rock hard. What's the worst that could happen, other than slow painful death?

There were also two unopened refill packets, located in the center of the picture, which also contain recipe cards. The price tags indicating them as reduced Wal-Mart merchandise are still on them. So let's get this all straight: somebody bought the Doctor Dreadful Food Lab. At some point, they also must've bought the Drink Lab, although it may have come secondhand because there are some missing pieces, the biggest being the battery operated pump for the beaker and test tubes. The Drink Lab pieces also appear to be from the original run, that is, the run from when I was a kid, while the Food Lab seems a bit more modern with a bit of stylistic differences. Also, the Food Lab packets are all sealed minus one, while every single drink lab pack is open and in a single plastic bag.

THEN the same people, despite not using the packets they already had, bought two refills packs, and again did not use them. Thus, 5-10 years later, everything gets stuffed into one box and brought to St. Vinnie's, where it is purchased by the Secondhand Savior. Then again, there's a Christmas tag on the outside of the box reading "To Jillian From Santa." Could Santa also have made a pit stop at Wal-Mart on the way over, just to make sure dear Jillian had enough Bubbling Brains to last through puberty? Unfortunately, dear Jillian was a bit of a shit, only sampling a single packet of brain powder before forever rejecting the notion of such a toy's existence. She buried it deep in her closet with everything else she took for granted and forgot about it. Once she was off to college, her parents dug it out and brought it to Vinnie's, probably still pissed that the god damn kid begged for this piece of shit, tried it once and dropped it. They looked to the sky and prayed that Secondhand Jesus would resurrect Doctor Dreadful from the plastic scrapheap.

Anyways, someday soon I'll be giving ole Doc Dread a whirl, so if I don't return with any more posts, you'll know it killed me. Call some paramedics so I don't decompose into the carpet.

Cost of Doctor Dreadful Lab Extravaganza: $2.44

Thppppppppppppppppppppppppp!

Treasure Hunting on a Thursday Morning

You'd be surprised how many people are shopping in St. Vinnie's at ten a.m. on a Thursday. For some, it's a social gathering, sitting along the wall and chatting to one another. For others, it's an opportunity to torture people, like the guy who kept whistling through his teeth and driving me fucking nuts. For most, including myself, it's a way to get the good stuff before some less deserving cretin comes along.

Today was a day of randomness as far as finds go. There were a good amount of things I picked up and put back down, that if I were a richer man might be mine now. However, a budget can be a good thing. It leaves less room for mediocrity. So without further ado, here are some random little finds I came across today.

Wizard of Oz Drinking Glass!

"Sorry Dorothy, but yo' bitch ass is too damn slow."

Everyone loves The Wizard of Oz. You'll love him even more when you take a nice cool drink out of this vintage drinking glass featuring none other than the Oz-man himself! Anytime I see a glass like this with some sort of painted image, I grab it and take a closer look to see who's on it. They made a lot of awesome glass sets back in the day, one of which this glass is no doubt a part.

When I picked the glass up off the shelf, I couldn't tell if it was really scuffed up or just scummy. I picked at a spot with my fingernail and saw that it was flaking off, which was good news (I washed my hands when I got home). I turned the glass over in my hands a few times and saw that there were no chips or cracks, so I thought "what the hell?" When I returned home I gave it a good scrubbing (being mindful of the paint on the outside) and what do you know? A shiny, new Wizard of Oz glass.

There is very little wrong with this glass, which I am quite pleased about. The images and text is close to flawless, and other than a little minor scuffing on the bottom lip, it's quite perfect. So nice, in fact, that I'd hate to actually use it for risk of breaking it or wearing it down. This is the kind of glass best suited for a shelf.

I'm curious about this glass so I checked on ebay to see if I could find out any more about it. I found one immediately here for $10, which the seller calls "rare" and "vintage." I like those words, but they also mention it as being associated with the film, when to me it appears it's more likely associated with the book, as it says "c. Baum" on it. Here's another one that says it's from the 60's. I'm finding a lot more from the series as well, which I will link in case you're interested. There's Dorothy, Glinda, Scarecrow, Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion. Some of these are priced somewhat high, but whether they sell is another story.

From reading one of the ebay listings, apparently these are from something called Swift's Peanut Butter, which supposedly gave "more bounce per ounce." You can interpret that however you like.

Cost of Wizard of Oz Drinking Glass: $1.25

On a less serious note, what else did I find? Oh yeah.

Tamagotchi (Connection)!

 

A key-chain that lives, dies, and takes a crap.

I know some of you remember these things. They were the big thing on the playground for a while, after POGs but before Pokemon Cards. It was something I looked down on for a while, too low-brow for my 4th grade intellectual tastes. That is, until I visited the Toys R' Us in Green Bay and discovered they made a Yoda one, which I promptly bought.

Tamagotchi/Digi-pets/about a million other names and incarnations were basically little "life" simulation games where you raise your pet by feeding it, playing games, and cleaning up after it takes a dump. If you forget to feed it, it will die and forever scar your childhood with an image of a tombstone where your little friend now lies cold and dead. Of course, this led to plenty of kids getting in trouble for trying to feed their pet during class, which bears something of a similarity to today's 4th grade trend: sexting.

What I hold here is no ordinary Tamagotchi. According to the label at the top, this is a Tamagotchi Connection. Where the connection part comes in is an infra-red sensor at the top of the egg shaped casing. According to Wikipedia, the connection had a few capabilities to be used along with a friend's Tamagotchi, enabling you to 1)Play games, 2)Give presents, and 3)Have tamababies. Tamababies? You mean it's possible to get Tamagotchi laid? While the Tamagotchi may be a prisoner trapped in the key-chains of the human race, we don't mind sticking a couple of them together for a quick romp, which truly shows the lengths of human tenderness. I guess that gives a whole new meaning to Tamagotchi "Connection."

What surprises me is the year stamped on the back: 2004, long after Tamagotchi had fallen out of favor, at least on my playground. There's also a sticker on the back, reading, "CAUTION: Battery harmful if swallowed." Really?

What does Tamagotchi mean? Again, as claimed by Wikipedia, "According to Bandai, the name is a portmanteau combining the Japanese word tamago, which means "egg", and the English word "watch" (as in timepiece)."

Cost of Tamagotchi Connection: Unmarked, Cheap.

And last, but certainly not least...

Mario Shaped Ball! Or, Ball Shaped Mario!

Pure awesomeness. I uncovered this in a bin with a bunch of other random toys, grabbing it instinctively before my brain had a chance to fully process the greatness of such a find. Nintendo memorabilia is something I'm not sure I'll ever own enough of. It comes down to the simple fact that Mario rules, and if you don't think so, you're probably some sort of asshole.

Like the glass, I cleaned Mario up when I got him home and was much more satisfied with the purchase afterward. I did a little touching up on the black parts and the red M with Sharpies to enhance the spectacle of my Mario ball. He's looking pretty decent.

Apparently this was a Happy Meal toy back in 2006. Where was I and how the hell did I miss this? Oh right, I was a senior in High School. It wasn't cool to embrace my childhood yet.

I guess the most likely purpose of a Mario ball would be to throw at the wall after getting killed by the same damn turtle for hours on end. Just look at his face. He's ready for it.

Cost of Mario ball: Unmarked, >$1

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I suppose that about wraps it up for this week. As always, comments are encouraged and appreciated! Have a good weekend! Myself, I'll be turning 23 tomorrow.