RECENT DOODLES AND SKETCHES 7-10

I haven't been working on any big art projects lately but I'm usually doodling one thing or another so I thought I'd share some of the little stuff.

I was messing around with a lot of 80s characters and drawing up these little sketches to put in an 80sville type of small town that I had drawn up. I figured I'd just draw the town first and just plant them in later with photoshop but I ended up finding out a little too late that I added too much detail and the characters didn't look good shrunk-down and squeezed into the streets and windows.

The drawings are still pretty fun though by themselves.



Starting from top left and working our way down we have Monchichi the thumb/banana sucking fuzzy monkey. I was thinking it might be funny to have him sticking his thumb in another monchichi's butt. (childish but funny).
There is vomiting Odie or "Grodie". The gag is supposed to be a long gush of puke instead of the tongue.
A "Poochie" dog ripping apart a Cabbage Patch Kid.
Q-Bert and PacMan, a couple Smurfs and Strawberry Deathcake? A goth version that smells like clove cigarettes?





Care Bears bearing 80s logos I planned on scattering around town (too small to see the logos on their bellies).



Alphie II the reading robot helping kids learn to spell "FART" and other various 4-letter words.
More Strawberry Deathcake ideas with little pets and names like "Moonberry Gloom" smelling like formaldehyde.
Charlie Brown who was supposed to be exiting a building shaped like the Snoopy Sno-cone maker from the early 80s.
Garfield, Gloworms, Q-Bert, and Fisher Price Little People (rabid dog that bit little boy).



HeMan VS the Shirttales



A few Tomy robot sketches



Snoopy sitting on his shithouse



Cabbage Patch Kids "Koosas" the animal versions that were supposed to be pets.



Rainbow Not-So Brite picking on star sprites.

Here's another random drawing I did on the back of an old book.



And a couple of recent Garbage Pail Kids drawings (Shown with the original cards).













That's all for now.

DON'T EAT COLORFORMS

Lately I've been keeping my eye out for Colorforms at garage sales and thrift stores. I can remember getting Colorforms sets quite a few times during the 80's for Christmas or birthdays and they were a lot of fun until you lost all the pieces. A few years back I found a large amount of the 70s/80s sets all mixed up in zip-lock bags at a garage sale and I bought them just for the fun of it. Recently I've been finding quite a few complete sets, some of them never opened.



Here's a list of the Colorforms sets from the 80's. You may remember having one or more of these, they created a lot of sets based on whatever was popular for kids at the time.

1980
PACMAN PLAYSET
MISS PIGGY DRESS UP SET
MUPPET SHOW
1982
G.I. JOE
SHIRT TALES
E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL ADVENTURE PLAYSET
E.T. DRESS UP SET
1983
CABBAGE PATCH PLAYHOUSE
MARVEL SUPER HEROES PLATSET
BARBIE DRESS UP SET
A-TEAM ADVENTURE SET
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ADVENTURE SET
Q*BERT PLAY SET
1984
MICHAEL JACKSON DRESS UP SET
ROBOT MAN & FRIENDS
GREMLINS PLAYSET
MUPPET BABIES PLAY SET
SECTAURS WARRIORS OF SYMBION ADVENTURE SET
WUZZLES PLAY SET
1985
POUND PUPPIES PLAY SET
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE ADVENTURE SET
THUNDERCATS 3-D PLAY SET
1986
ERNIE & BERT PLAYHOUSE
SILVERHAWKS ADVENTURE SET
POPPLES PLAY SET
THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS PLAY SET
1987
MICKEY MOUSE PLAY HOUSE
BIG BIRD PLAY SET
THE CALIFORNIA RAISINS PLAY SET
LOVABLE DINOSAURS AND THE CAVE KIDS
PEE WEE'S PLAY SET
1988
ALF CARTOON PLAY SET
1989
COOL TIMES BARBIE

Usually the set contained a medium sized board used as a background. Sometimes a larger fold-out board for a bigger "adventure set". There were also dress-up sets which were more like paper dolls where instead of a background board you just applied the vinyl clothes and accessories to a particular character who was just a cut-out and could be placed upright with a stand.





As with many classic toy origins, the beginning of Colorforms starts with an interesting story. In this case, Harry and Patricia Kislevitz were a married couple attending New York University together but who found themselves (like most students) rather low on funds; when their bathroom needed painting, instead of purchasing the more expensive paint they instead tried sticking thin, colored sheets of vinyl on the wall (probably as a proto-beatnik pop art happening). It didn't quite work out, but the Kislevitzes were interested to find that their houseguests were spending great amounts of time in their bathroom - playing with the colored vinyl pieces and the pair of scissors that had been used to cut them. Naturally, a money-making idea developed therefrom.

Purchasing rolls of vinyl in the different primary colors, the couple started trying to market their new toy idea to various local retailers, and soon large orders were being placed. The original toy (whose name simply referred to the 'color forms' the shapes of vinyl took) was meant to be primarily an educational one - small children could create their own unique, abstract art pieces with the little pieces of plastic. Nevertheless, it was an instant success, and soon the young couple moved their headquarters to a house in New Jersey - and later several factories in the area.

The big moment for Colorforms came, however, when the idea was conceived of actually using characters within the sets - giving children a more humanized, imagination-based play than the previous sets of shapes, numbers, and letters. Popeye was the first licensed character, starting in 1957; soon others would follow, including Mickey Mouse, the Peanuts gang, and various other movie, TV, and comic characters.

Colorforms continued to grow over the years to the point where over one billion box sets have been sold worldwide. In 1997 the Kislevitzes sold the company to Toy Biz, which in turn sold it to University Games the next year. Regardless of ownership, however, Colorforms are still being produced, in affordable sets and utilizing characters that kids love.

About a month ago I found two full sets of the E.T. Colorforms Adventure Set at the thrift store. Neither of them had been opened and were still sealed in the cellophane. I paid a dollar for both of them and opened up one so me and the kids could play with it. I was surprised at how something so simple could entertain not only my kids but a bunch of the neighbor kids too. Just goes to show how timeless the toy line still is. There's also a bunch of humorous youtube animations done using Colorforms I've seen lately.

Here's some scans/pics of a couple of my recent Colorform finds. P.S. (don't eat the blue ones).


1982 E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL ADVENTURE PLAYSET








1980 MISS PIGGY DRESS-UP SET

RECYCLING BIN FINDS 1/13/10

A while back I posted some stuff I found from a scrapbook in the recycling bin. Well, what do you know, I found another scrapbook a teenage girl put together in the early 80's.



The first part of the scrapbook was filled with typical awards and certificates mostly dealing with cheerleading and beauty pageants. There were awards from the young Miss America Pageant and a full-color booklet showing Miss America contestants from the 80's.

The second part of the scrapbook dealt with school and had the yearbook inserted so I got a look at the girl and her classmates.







After that there was a couple of pages dedicated to Cabbage Patch Kid dolls. The girl had saved not only the birth certificates from the dolls she had, but also the tags and receipt from purchase.





The following chunk of the scrapbook was all about Michael Jackson. There were clippings from newspapers, articles from magazines, and full issues of magazines with Jacko on the cover. It was neat seeing all the articles she had collected from various newspapers documenting M.J.'s recovery from the Pepsi commercial fire accident.













After the Michael section there was a couple pages about Motley Crue coming to my town back in the early 80's and parents trying to keep their kids from being corrupted. Obviously this didn't stop this particular girl from attending because along with the articles there was a ticket stub from the event and personal photos the girl took of the members of Motley Crue being led out of the backdoor of the Unidome to their van.



By this point in the scrapbook I was already thrilled. To find such a neat "treasure trove" of the 80's was excellent. Everything was from 1981-84. Next I came across 2 manilla envelopes. I could only imagine what was inside...



These both happened to be folders fuul of stuff from the Rick Springfield Fan Club. Rick was big in the early 80's best known for his hit "Jessie's Girl".

Inside was a ton of photos of various sizes, official fan club certificates/cards, posters, a letter from Rick and his dog, and a 7" record with a personal message from Rick. It is totally hilarious and totally 80's.







There was some other stuff in the scrapbook I didn't photograph. There was a folder from the Ford Drag Team press information which had tons of photos and car information, more Miss America stuff, and more concert tickets including Pink Floyd (who also played at the Unidome in the 80,s).

All in all a neat recycling bin find.