ThermO the Coffee Friendly Robot

It was a sad time in the kingdom as the Starbucks Empire started it’s decline as 600 cafe outposts closed their doors. But in a far corner of the galaxy a new hero arose to take on the ills of the uncaffeinated masses: His name was ThermO, the ice coffee friendly robot!

The clever and creative scientists behind ThermO are lockwasherdesign.com.

Tim Burton Toxic Boy Toys

I’ve always loved Tim Burton’s design sensibility. So when I found myself exploring one of my favorite toy sites these cute goodies caught my eye:

Tim Burton Toxic Boy PVC Set

“Inspired by “The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories” by Tim Burton. The Toxic Boy PVC Set includes three painted 4 inch PVC figures: Roy, the Toxic Boy, Mummy Boy, and Jimmy, the Hideous Penguin Boy.”

Wall-E: Our Top Five Fanboy Collectables

The Art of Wall-E Because Pixar preproduction artwork is always worth showing off on your coffee table.

Wall-E Robot Tin Lunch Box Case This looks like it would be fun to mod or to bring to work.

Super Technology iDance Wall-E Tech toys date the fastest, but they also best reflect the era that they were produced in — which makes them cool to show off in the years to come.

Wall-E PosterBecause posters are a well know inexpensive interior decoration technique for fanboys.

Wall-E Tattoos Show your co-workers how hardcore you are about Pixar.

Ultraman Limited Edition USB Drive

Fanboys of live action Japanese TV from the 60s will dig this limited edition Ultraman USB Drive which is produced by buffalo.jp. Each Ultraman will store 2 gigs and only 3,000 of these little guys will be produced,

Found via geekalerts.com and Geeky Gadgets.

Summer Fun: Sno-Cones for Fanboys

The Summer heat got me to thinking of the wonderful tradition of Sno-Cone toys. Shown above is a commercial for the Frosty the Sno-Man Sno-Cone maker which Hasbro first debuted in the 60s. Later in the 70s Kenner introduced their twist which was the IceBird:

So in 1979 Hasbro stuck back at Kenner with the Snoopy Sno-Come Machine (you can buy a reissued version here):

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Esther Pearl Watson’s UFO Inspired Folk Art

I came across some amazing paintings by Esther Pearl Watson, her style evokes the tradition of American folk art — however the twist is that many of her paintings feature a UFO theme which caught my fanboy eye. Shown above is Rudimentary Design and below is The Future. It turns out that Esther’s father was a fanboy hobbyist at heart, which is what inspires her artwork:

“Esther Pearl Watson grew up in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Her family moved often, since her father’s hobby of building huge flying saucers out of scrap metal and car engines didn’t always sit well with the neighbors.”

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Lost in Space: Giant Pez

This is for all of you Lost in Space fanboys who want to pop your Pez in style:

Lost in Space: Giant Pez

“The adventure fourty years in the making is now here at last! The Jupiter 2 finally reaches its original destination, Alpha Centauri…and the space family Robinson will never be the same again! Join the trusty B-9 Robot and the Robinson’s as they land, at long last, on the elusive Alpha Centauri. Theirs is a mission of peace, scientific exploration and the survival of the human race! The Lost in Space Giant Pez B-9 Robot is over 12″ tall and plays custom authentic B-9 Robot Dialogue and Sound Effects. Includes: three 1.5 volt batteries.”

Batman & Robin Bat Coders

I’ve got the signal, let’s go! The Batman & Robin Bat Coders are authentic walkie talkies, there are two in the set — one for Batman and one for Robin of course. The best unique feature of this toy was the switch for sending either an alarm or danger signal as shown here in a commercial from the late 70s:

9 volt battery not included!

Photo via toysfortheages.

Panda-Z: The Robonimation

The minute I spotted the above photo I fell in love with the toy! The toy is from the 2004 kids anime series Panda-Z: The Robonimation which is a bit of a parody of giant robot cartoons from the 70s like Mazinger Z. Even though the show is no longer on the air Bandai is still pumping out toys and other goodies based on the series which you can find at the official Panda-Z website. Below is an official shot from their Panda-Z Goods section of their website of the toy that caught my eye:

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Tang: The Official Beverage of the Space Race

My parents loved me way too much to give me Tang, so I had to live with the hardship of drinking primitive orange juice every day of my earth bound childhood. The faux sugar fueled orange power was first sold over the counter in 1959 by General Foods. However the drink didn’t take off until 1965 when the above ad campaign tied it to the Gemini program which forced astronauts to risk their lives in more than one way.

Here’s a pre-space race commercial for Tang starring Bugs Bunny from 1959:

However this cute animated spot from the 70s is the one I grew up with (which came after the space race was over):

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Green Hornet Uniform and Equipment for Captain Action

We’ve got everything here: the official uniform, gas pistol, shoulder holster, hat, Hornet face mask, signal watch, string ray, gas mask, phone adapter, shoes and the official ring! So who is Captain Action? He was launched in 1966 by Ideal as competition to G.I. Joe — but unlike poor Joe the Captain had outfits so he could be Superman, Batman, Captain America, Flash Gordon and even the Lone Ranger. The Green Hornet version came out in 1967 and is one of the most in demand by collectors of the ill fated action hero series. Here’s a commercial from the original Captain Action sans his Green Hornet or Lone ranger uniform:

Photo via toysfortheages.

Other Worlds, Other Sounds

When you look at the science fiction from any previous era you get an insight to what they thought was modern and thus futuristic. You also get an insight into how they looked at the future itself: This RCA Victor album cover from 1958 views modernism as a moonscape (this was the dawn of the space age after all) and the dancer shows a certain amount of humor — and with a booming economy there was good reason to be optimistic at the time.

Cover found by Thomas Hughes of the Spinto Band.

Ruining Classic Characters

Just look at how American Greetings has ruined poor Strawberry Shortcake — don’t get me wrong she looked tacky back in the day (she was really a pink rip off of Holly Hobby) but this modern makeover has taken out all of the character out of the character. The modern version misses the point that a shortcake is a cake, and poor Strawberry must be allergic because her cat is out of site:

Beloved Characters as Reimagined for the 21st Century

“Strawberry Shortcake was having an identity crisis. The “it” doll and cartoon star of the 1980s was just not connecting with modern girls. Too candy-obsessed. Too ditzy. Too fond of wearing bloomers. So her owner, American Greetings Properties, worked for a year on what it calls a “fruit-forward” makeover. Strawberry Shortcake, part of a line of scented dolls, now prefers fresh fruit to gumdrops, appears to wear just a dab of lipstick (but no rouge), and spends her time chatting on a cellphone instead of brushing her calico cat, Custard. Her new look was unveiled Tuesday, along with plans for a new line of toys from Hasbro.”

And here is a berry blast from the past from 1980:

Quiet Yuki Nagato

Shown above is a wonderful photo by Inga P. of Yuki Nagato from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I love the way Inga set up this photo, and the cute touch of the cat makes the photo. Inga looks after the biggest English speaking Pinky:st community at pinky-street.com and she’s based out of Nottingham, UK.

The Batman Batscope Dartlauncher

Quick Robin! Stop him with the Batscope! Ah yes the good old days when for a $1.49 you could battle an evil doer with your never-miss powerful Batscope that shoots darts as far as 50 feet. My favorite part of the packaging is the back which features Batman and Robin taking on everyone from the Joker to a cute fuzzy monster:

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The Hakone Toy Museum

There’s something wonderful about the sense of both scale and chaos in this photograph of the Hakone Toy Museum in Japan.

Photographed by Louise who lives in London and has two cool blogs: Louise makes stuff and hole punch.

Back to the Future: Own a Flux Capacitor

As much as I hate Huey Lewis he must have been on to something as it’s now over 20 years later and I still can’t get the theme song from Back to the Future out of my head. Of course the film was a true classic — in fact I may be wrong but I recall another blogger Twittering how that was his favorite film of all time. And I have to say I count myself as a fanboy of that film, so if you’re like me here is a chance to own your very own Flux Capacitor:

Flux Capacitor Replica

“You’ll have to pump in your own 1.21 gigawatts (pronounced and written in the script as “jigowatts,” which was the accepted pronunciation at the time) to actually travel in time – and that’s up to you. Or you can be content to just pop in 3 AA’s and use the two knobs to adjust the lights. One adjusts the sequential lights behind the temporal firing pins and the other adjusts the flash unit in the middle where the spark of chrono-spacial displacement occurs. Details down to the warning messages from Doc Brown stuck to the front door will awe anyone who sees it.”

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Please Don’t Do Your Makeup on the Subway

I got a real kick out of this graphic poster from a subway in Tokyo I’d love to own a copy! Here’s a description of the artwork from the photographer who goes by the name TenguTech:

“It seems that too many Japanese do their makeup in the train. And Tokyo Metro train line want to discourage people from doing it. Must be a way to make use of all time available. ”

Hello Kitty Hole Punch

This is purrfect solution for making Kitty confetti! What makes this item special is the fact that the punched out paper is in the shape of Hello Kitty, which is a very nice touch to what might be just another cute collectable sporting a logo.

Found via kittyhell.com.

My Hat Totoro

It’s amazing for me to think that My Neighbor Totoro is now twenty years old! I guess that’s a tribute to the staying power and quality of Hayao Miyazaki and the team at Studio Ghibli. So if you’d like to tip your hat to Totoro, here’s a cute way of doing it:

Totoro Plush Hat

“This hat features Totoro’s face and toothy grin, along with perky ears which contain plastic to keep them upright. This is perfect for convention attendees who don’t want to go all-out on a costume or for folks who want a little extra cute for puttering around town.”

Kiss Bearbricks

I’m sorry but I grew up hating Kiss! They always seemed just a little too manufactured to me, as opposed to say Led Zeppelin which was a “real band”. Although decades later I’ve learned to accepted the campyness of the 70s into my heart, even including * cough * disco. And so it was with this in mind that the Kiss edition of the Bearbricks designer toys caught my eye. It manages to turn the Kiss stage personas of The Demon, Starchild, Space Ace, and The Catman into something iconic and collectable.

Found via toysrevil.blogspot.com.

Too Cute: Clamp in 3D Land

At this point in time I’ve seen too many cheesecake anime model kits aimed at fanboys, so it was a nice break for me to see something aimed more at the fangurls for a change. Shown above is Clamp in 3D Land Vol. 7 which features five ever so cute heroes and heroines. For those of you who don’t know Clamp too well, they’re a collective of manga artists and and many of their projects have become anime (a good example would be Cardcaptor Sakura). The characters shown above are:

– Kamui Shiro (translation: Power of God) from X
– Su from CLOVER
– Nokoru Imonoyama from CLAMP School Detectives
– Hikaru Shidou from Magic Knight Rayearth
– Sakura (Princess of Clow Kingdom) from Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

House Of Liu Babies

What I like about this limited edition of House Of Liu Babies (produced for the Taipei Toy Festival 2008) is that they harken back to vintage black-and-white cartoons while retaining a very modern minimal look — yet still keeping that special sense of cute.

Found via toysrevil.

Lunchtime at Fanboy.com: Japan ala Italia

While exploring Books Kinokuniya (a Japanese bookstore here in NYC) I came across an amazing find: An Italian cook book! But what’s funny about this book is that while all of the recipes are Italian, that the presentation of the food is very Japanese to say the least. The name of the book is Vegeta VegeITALIA (Japanese title: 野菜がおいしいイタリアン) and the author is Hiroshi Satake — and its available from Amazon Japan. Below are just a few examples of some of the lush photography that the book is packed with:

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