Take a gander at this sweet collection of vintage toys that TCM Hitchhiker (aka Jason Jerde) has up on flickr. He’s got a spectacular set of photos of vintage Mego toys (which includes Star Trek, Marvel, DC and even KISS), some Remco Universal Monster figures and even some the 12″ Joes, all from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s! It’s a classic toy overload!

I’m a big fan of vintage toy figures. If you like this post perhaps you’ll like Superhero Pajama Party!

Star Trek: In Theaters May 2009. It’s the eleventh Star Trek film and I’ve seen them all. It’s got Zachary Quinto as a young Spock and Leonard Nimoy reprises his role as the old Spock. Shatner wanted to be in the movie, but it’d be a bit tricky since his character died in a previous movie. He should have used his Negotiator powers.

From director J.J. Abrams and screenwriters Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman comes a new vision of the greatest space adventure of all time, Star Trek, featuring a young, new crew venturing boldly where no man has gone before.

Anyone else getting pumped about this movie? I wonder what Wil Wheaton thinks about it?

Well, Hello Wall-E! If you enjoyed the funny romantic comedy Wall-E, you’ll be glad it’s now out on DVD! Wall-E is a great family film with it’s most impressive aspect being the depth of emotion conveyed by a simple robot. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. If you have seen it, I know you’ll want to watch it again. (I know I want to.) It’s “Buy n Large” the best animated film of the year. Pixar will keep you and the kids captivated with Wall-E.

It’s on my Xmas list, why not put it on yours? Go buy your copy today!

All I want for Christmas is Doctor Who… I saw this at the San Diego Comic-Con a few months ago, but it’s airing in England now. You can watch it on the BBC site if you’re in the UK, otherwise check it out on YouTube. It’s a one-minute long trailer for the Doctor Who Christmas special and there are spoilers! Cybershade attack!

As you might have heard, David Tennant has announced that he will leave the award winning BBC drama Doctor Who when he has completed the filming of four special episodes which will be screened in 2009 and early in 2010. I for one will miss the Tenth Doctor’s quirky ways and messy coif.

Did you catch the recent episodes of the animated Clone Wars TV shows on Cartoon Network? I did and they weren’t all that bad. I’m not a Star Wars nerd and I’m well above the target demographic, but if these episodes are any hint as to what we can expect, then I’ll continue to watch. I mean it was cool seeing Yoda fighting and dismantling tanks in the first episode. The animation was well done and very fluid. I didn’t expect to enjoy it, but I did. I’ll be watching it again next Friday @ 9pm.

You also might have noticed the huge displays for The Clone Wars toys at your local store. If not, it is located right behind the massive swarm of people. I saw an entire section and endcap covered with the stuff, including loads of captivated fans.

It was one of the greatest TV shows of my childhood and I couldn’t remember what it was - until now.

Thirty years later and here I am, up until yesterday, trying to solve the mystery. My memory kept telling me it was Voltron, but that didn’t make it to the U.S. until the 80’s. The only thing I could really remember from the show was the five heroes and their various sizes, colors and shapes. I guess if I had just kept searching or asked a crowd at Comic-Con, I would’ve had my answer years ago.

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Here is some great news for fans of the Doctor Who shows:

More fun news for the San Diego Comic-Con, Underground Toys (booth 3949) will be offering exclusive 5″ action figures, which you’ll also find at the BBC Shop (booth 3635). The exclusives figures are a) Time Crash Twin Pack which includes the 5th (Peter Davison) and 10th Doctor (David Tennant) and b) 9th Doctor exclusive variant. Each figure has been specially commissioned in limited numbers (3,000?) for SDCC and each is individually numbered.

All figures are expected to sell out quickly, so be sure to not miss out! I’m really interested in the twin pack of Doctors and not so much with the Christopher Eccleston figure. Plus popular science-fiction television writer Russell T Davis and actor John Barrowman (Jack Harkness) will be at the show, making fans jump for joy.

Let me start off by saying that for most of my life I’ve been a fan of Wil Wheaton. I’d first seen him in the movie ‘Stand By Me’ and was instantly enthralled with the movie when Wil regaled his friends with the pie eating contest story. My friends and I howled with laughter and proceeded to rewind the tape and watch that part a few dozen times more. (The part with the leech in his underwear had the opposite effect on us, but we still watched that part a lot too.)

Like many people I grew up watching Star Trek:TNG, with a young Wesley Crusher on board the Enterprise. Whenever he would help out Data with his human endeavors, I always had to laugh. The two of them made quite the team. Even as a kid among adults Wil handled the situation deftly and with a boyish charm, which reminded my mom a lot of me. (Being compared to Wil was quite the compliment, even if it comes from your mom.)

Well, over the weekend I was fortunate enough to meet Wil Wheaton in person. He came to a local brewery promoting his most recent book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives. It’s a collection of fabulous stories about him growing up as a geek in the 70s and 80s. He dazzled the adoring group as he read through parts of his book, pausing occasionally to enjoy some tasty Arrogant Bastard beer.

Afterwards we had a Q&A session. He was asked how he met his wife, how he got into acting, how it was like working with River Phoenix and many other questions. He was open, down to earth and eloquent with his responses and was quite entertaining. I took some candid pictures of Wil at the event for posterity’s sake. A big thanks to Wil for chatting with me and signing my copy of Happiest Days! His book is quite entertaining, as is he; check it out. (I look forward to seeing him at the San Diego Comic-Con again.)

CBS has got a good thing going on with their online videos of classic TV programs. The first two seasons of The Twilight Zone, the entire original Star Trek series, the first season of Hawaii 5-0 and even the first season of Macgyver! These can be viewed online for free as part of their new Audience Network. Wow, this is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy some old favorites!

I’m going to watch the Twilight Zone episodes first! Those stories twist your brain.

If you like family, animated adventures with robots then this new Pixar movie called WALL-E, will knock your socks off! The Pixar animation in these movie trailers are just fantabulous. Doesn’t this film look sweet? A brief synopsis for this film is:

What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off?

It’s succinct and gets your mind-a-wondering. This will be a great movie if you’ve got kids. Plus if you bought them the Finding Nemo DVD, which they’ve watched a million times, you’ll appreciate a new movie for them to fixate on. It’s sci-fictiony and there is plenty of robots to enjoy and everybody likes robots. It comes out June 27, 2008, so you’ve got a few months to wait.

A big shout out and thanks to lamartherevenger for reminding me about this movie! Congrats again on your new baby boy, Alex!

Note: Just like Google, if Pixar offers you a job, take it!

Now back in the mid 80’s I was a big Star Wars fan. I can’t recall when I first saw the original three movies, but I had it bad for the Star Wars action figures and the comics. I still have all of the stuff and enjoy looking at it from time to time. Here’s a comic ad from the 80’s for a bunch of Star Wars merchandise including comics, calendars, sketchbooks, buttons and t-shirts. They even gave you the option to get the iron-on transfers so you can make your own cool Star Wars tees. (We older folk did that sort of thing back then for some reason.)

It’s hard to believe we’re at the 30 year mark and Star Wars is as popular as it ever was. Although I’m a purist and enjoy the original untouched flicks, it’s good seeing kids still enjoying the story today.

The Jedi sized, full page version of this ad is right here, padawan. (And yes I still do the “Luke, I am your father” bit while speaking into a spinning fan.)

If you’re a fan of ASCII and you like Star Wars check out this Star Wars Asciimation. This looks like a ton of work and it’s still being updated. This is dedication.

(via Retro Thing)