Retro Reading Corner: The Simpsons Uncensored Family Album

Originally published by Harper/Collins in 1991, the Simpsons Uncensored Family Album is a scrapbook through the history of the quintessential Nuclear Family through the eyes of it matriarch Marge Simpson. It is filled with mementos from Homer and Marge's years growing up in Springfield to the present day with their 3 children Bart, Lisa & Maggie. I love the way this book is presented through the characters viewpoint of events and how it incorporates classic scenes from some of the best episodes. I wanted this book back when I was a Simpsons fan in the 90's and I finally grabbed a copy at a used book store for around $1. Let's take a look inside and delve into the backstory of one of the most iconic animated families in television history....

I loved seeing these photos of Homer and Marge from before they had children. It really gives you a glimpse into the people they would become and how they got there. I may be getting too deep with this one, but it's always cool to see what your parents were like before you born. It gives you a deeper appreciation for them as people. Plus it's pretty surprising to see Homer's High School Certificate of Merit.

Here is where it all began. This was the start of the Simpsons clan. Baby Bart has finally arrived. I wonder if he got his name from the package shown on this page. Who would include that in a family scrapbook?

I included this page because of the El Barto Wanted poster. I always thought Bart was cool and strived to be an underachiever (and be proud of it). I gotta give Chief Wiggum some credit, he was pretty close with this sketch though.

"Bart's Dog Gets an F" was an early episode highlight for the Simpsons. It finally put the spotlight on Santa's Little Helper and the results were amazing. Who can forget when the family dog destroys Homer's new $125 pair of Assassins sneakers. Great scene, great episode & cool page in the Simpsons family album.

I just added this page because it reminds me of the day I first watched the Simpsons Christmas special when it aired on FOX 5 on December 17th, 1989. I watched it when it very first aired and I have been a fan of the show ever since.

This Simpsons Family Tree was especially interesting to me. If you follow the lines to the left you will see that Homer is actually related to Mr. Burns in some crazy way! Interesting stuff. I wonder if this book is cannon to the series? What a cool way to end this entertaining trip through the first few decades of the Simpsons Family History. Now enjoy where it all began with the first Simpsons short that aired on The Tracey Ullman show on April 19th, 1987.

Retro Reading Corner: TMNT ABC's for a Better Planet

Since this Sunday is Earth Day, I figured that I would bust out this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book from 1991 and give you guys a few pointers on how to help make the Earth a better place.

This book is chock full of great tips and ideas from the greenest guys I know on how to be a responsible inhabitant of our planet. Below are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

F is for Fast Food

I is for Ivory

L is for Litter

P is for Pesticides

R is for Remember to Recycle Rubbish

Hopefully these lessons will help you have an eventful Earth Day this year. Now get out there, plant a tree, enjoy the nice weather and always remember the lesson Ya Kid K taught us to be green and keep it clean!

Retro Reading Corner: Nickelodeon Magazine

A local book store was having a sidewalk sale. I dug through all the Little Golden Books and bootleg "Twilight" novels and finally found a bin filled with old magazines. I picked up a few old Sports Illustrated issues and this Nickelodeon Magazine from 2000 featuring a hot young talent named Britney Spears! You may have heard of her? Let's take a look inside!

First up is the comics section. This was always a highlight of Nick Magazine. I enjoyed the artwork and the humor that was funny on so many levels! Okay, maybe 1 level, but still good stuff! Why is that guy naked?

This issue was partly dedicated to celebrities and their pets. Spotlighted here are sports stars Kurt Warner, Warren Sapp and Teemu Selanne. Who knew hoops star Grant Hill's Mom wouldn't let him have pets as a kid? Poor guy.

As per Nickelodeon's educational responsibility to the public we have a page dedicated to facts about the elusive Giant Squid! The sidebar includes "Revolting But True" facts about why cockroaches eat panty hose and the drinking habits of the Sweat Bee!

Finally we get to the main feature of this issue of Nick Magazine, the exclusive in depth interview with Britney Spears! These respected and serious journalists dig deep into thought provoking issues with Miss Spears. Hard hitting questions like "Do you still live at home?", "Do you like cats or dogs?" and "What puts you in a bad mood?" are asked and answered. We really get a look into the core of Britney here.

And of course we have some great retro ads including a weird Cow tales one, the Nesquick Bunny and your chance to win an N64 from Kool-Aid! I don't care what the packaging, advertising or anyone says, to me it is still just "Quick" not "Nesquick". Am I the only one still holding onto this one? I tried Cow tales a long time ago and they were disgusting. The chewy outer part was fine, but when you mix it with the cream in the middle...not a good mix for my tatse buds! I wish Kool-Aid would run contests like this today. Maybe then I would own a PS4?

Retro Reading Corner: Garfield's Scary Tales!

 In the late 80s/early 90s no cartoon was hotter than Garfield. This Monday hating, lasagna loving, orange cat's rise to fame was due to the success of his Saturday morning cartoon "Garfield and Friends". I read all the Garfield comic strip collections during library time in grade school and when I saw the "Garfield's Scary Tales" book in the Troll Book Club form, I needed to have it! This anthology of spooky stories featuring Garfield is wayyy different than those comic collections. These are all new stories that have a creepy twist to them. I love the artwork in this book. It is much more polished than what was in the papers.

The first story titled "The Midnight Stalker" focuses on Jon, Odie and of course Garfield staying at the broken down Wary Inn. While there Garfield is confronted by a were-cat named Beezle!

The next story is probably my favorite of the bunch and is titled "Surprise Package". This is a story of revenge gone awry as the postman, finaly tired of Garfield's ambushes, leaves a special package for the fat cat. The package contains a huge, cat eating, nasty looking spider creature! Here's the best part, as the spider crawls up Garfield's back, he faints and squishes the creepy crawly under his own weight! This was crazy to see as a kid!

Next is the story called "Terminal Terror" this was my least favorite of the stories. It's something we've all seen before. A computer with a mind of it's own ends up controlling Jon. Then he moves onto Odie, who makes the evil computer explode due to his lack of a brain to drain.

"A Ghost's Story" comes next. Jon, Odie & Garfield go camping and start to tell scary stories. Already shaking from Jon's tale a stranger comes by and joins them. He tells them a tale of an axe wielding woodsman who goes crazy at the loss of his lady. Jon and the guys believe this story to be about their new acquaintance and run off. Leaving "Ol Zeb" to enjoy their meal! For some reason this picture of Zeb eating beans was always the one that stuck with me?

Lastly we have "The Closet Thing"! Garfield's attempts to help Odie go to sleep and reassure him that there are no monsters in their closet is a pretty short one. Odie is scared, Garfield looks in the closet to find nothing there, then at the end we finally see what has been keeping Odie up at night.

Overall, this is not a bad little collection of creepy stories featuring Jim Davis' greatest creation. I liked the stories as a kid and now my kids get creeped out by the sight of squished spiders and were-cats. It's a lot of Halloween fun for the young ones...and some old ones too!

Retro Reading Corner: Goonies Souvenir Magazine

The first time I saw the commercial for The Goonies on TV in 1985 I was hooked. The scene that stuck with me forever was when Mikey and friends were sliding down the tubes to get to the Inferno! I still remember watching that commercial with amazement.

Just like every boy who grew up in the 80s, The Goonies were a staple of my childhood. Who didn't want to wrangle up their friends, jump on their Huffy bikes and ride along into a great adventure filled with treasure, danger and cheerleaders? I watched this movie on VHS over and over again until it broke. Then we watched it at my friends house. My only negative memory of the film was that there were no action figures, no Happy Meals, no real merchandising for the film. There were some cool things that did come out though. An iffy Nintendo game, Topps trading card set, Cyndi Lauper song and this magazine!

 The Official Collectors Edition Goonies Souvenir Magazine was printed in 1985 by the good folks at Ira Friedman Inc. It is full of all the pictures and moments from the film we know and love. Like this one of Chunk doing the "Truffle Shuffle"!

 It also contains concept drawings, set designs and behind the scenes photos. The mag also reveals production secrets. On this page I found out that the FX crew created spiders out of singed pipe cleaners, a perfume expert created a scent that would make the set smell like damp caves and musty old rooms and the scene where the bats fly out of the cave was actually crumpled, black crepe paper shot out of an air-cannon! AWESOME!

 The next page I will share, shows the procedure actor & ex-NFLer John Matuszak had to go through to become Sloth. Reading this mag also reveals some deleted scenes! Like this one, where Sloth eats a frozen T-bone steak. Why would they cut this golden moment out?

What Goonies article would be complete without mentioning the famous "Octopus Scene"? I swear I saw this scene as a kid on a tape that was recorded off HBO by a friends Grandma? Anyway, this scene was deleted from the theatrical release, but was still included in many marketing materials and even at the end when Data tells a reporter about it! What the hell was that all about? Eventually the scene would be included as a Deleted Scene feature on most recent DVD/Blu-Ray releases. We really weren't going crazy as kids. Thanks a lot Spielberg!

One-Eyed Willy was the first Goonie according to Mikey. So, even though his skeletal remains were pretty scary for a young kid, you had to show respect to this guy for trying to protect his rich-stuff with mind boggling booby traps. These parts of the movie were the ones we talked about the most as kids. "Did you see that guy that had the knives in his eyes?", "Data almost died when he fell down that cave!" We loved stuff like that.

 Towards the end we get a bit of "Bonus Material". The story has been told, now we get to dive into the characters and actors themselves. Here we find out that Corey Feldman started acting at age 3 and enjoys horseback riding. Who knew, right?

 We've finished our Goonie adventure, now let's all take the Goonies oath and wind down with a hot Cyndi Lauper jam:

I will never betray my Goon Dock friends,

We will stick together until the whole world ends,

Through heaven and hell and nuclear war,

Good pals like us will stick like tar,

In the city or the country or the forest or the boonies,

I am proudly declared one of the Goonies.

Cyndi Lauper: The Goonies 'R' Good Enough (1985)

Retro Reading Corner: Masters of the Universe

I was lucky enough to stumble upon this almost perfect copy of the Masters of the Universe read along book published in 1983 at a local thrift store. I believe I only paid about $0.50 for this book and let me tell you it is gorgeous!

The book contains 2 stories, "The Power of Point Dread" & "Danger at Castle Grayskull". Like I said the artwork in this book is amazing. It looks exactly like the drawings you would find in the old Masters of the Universe mini-comics that were packaged with the toys back in the 80s. The renditions of the characters are a bit off from what you would see in the Filmation Cartoon. I don't prefer one over the other, I enjoy both of them as separate universes.

The action in these books is a little more aggressive and way less cartoony than the show, but it still has a little humor in it. Just look at Trap Jaw getting a bucket of water to the face! But just like in the cartoon, He-Man and company triumph over Skeletor and his evil minions at the end of each story.

Another great addition to this book was the advertisement for Masters of the Universe toys on the back cover. These types of production art work take me back to the day when you would buy a new toy, rip the toy open and then stare at the card back to see what else you could get to build your army of Heroic or Evil Warriors. Time to get my old man on and say, "They just don't make them like this anymore!". Are you wondering if the record was in the book?

YES IT WAS! Wow! I don't have a record player to listen to the stories, luckily someone on YouTube does and they posted the audio for all to hear. Take a listen below and take the time to enjoy this literary masterpiece with a loved one today!

Retro Reading Corner: Simpson Mania (1990)

Simpson Mania was released in 1990 through Publications International Ltd. I purchased this book originally through the fantastic Troll Book Club while in the 4th grade. This was a must have for any Simpsons fan, and at that time everyone was a fan!

This came out during the height of Simpson craziness and all the kids on the school yard black top poured over every image in the book and all our minds were blown when we read how the voice of Bart was really A GIRL!!! This had been the source of rumor around school, but now it was finally confirmed and worlds were changed.

I recently found a spiral bound copy of Simpson Mania at a local thrift store and didn't even think twice about grabbing it up. Looking back through the book, I loved the 90s artwork and layouts. It made me remember how big the Simpsons really were. Everywhere you went there were bootleg and official Simpsons shirts, buttons, video games and posters. It truly was amazing!

Of course I owned some of these items and remember the backlash of the whole "Underachiever and proud of it" merchandise. A friend of mine received this poster for his birthday and his mom promptly confiscated it. This only led to us wanting more of the Simpsons as a rebellion against our parents. If they didn't approve of it, we wanted it!

Overall Simpson Mania does a good job of giving information on how the Simpsons went from a series of Tracey Ullman shorts to world wide phenomenon! It also contains profiles on the characters & voice actors, show summaries and lots of cool pictures...oh and TRIVIA!!!!