This August 21st Kidrobot has some swell Simpsons vinyl, mini-figures that they’ll be releasing. 24 characters in all, each vinyl toy stands 3 inches tall, includes a character sticker and comes blind boxed to preserve its identity. They’ll be sold separately (or can be purchased by the case) for $7.95. The Simpsons creator, Matt Groening, teamed up with Kidrobot to create these fun, little toy treats.

The mini Marge looks cute and so do Itchy and Scratchy, but if I could get all of them that’d be great. But 24 x $7.95 = $$$ I usually only buy a few blind boxes and hope that I don’t get duplicates. I know hard core fans barter and trade for their favorites to complete sets, but that can get expensive.

Nathan’s 2008 hot dog eating contest at Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York - Joey “Jaws” Chestnut beats Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi after finishing in a tie! They had to do a tie-breaker, where the fastest person eating 5 hot dogs won. Congrats Joey! This year they changed the max time to 10 minutes and each guy got 59 hot dogs! Who else is hungry for some tasty grilled hot dogs? I like mine with relish and ketchup.

Happy Independence Day people. Be safe and have fun.

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.

I don’t know if you’ve caught the new Hellboy II trailer/commercial on TV yet, but it looks sweet! The official production site for Hellboy II: The Golden Army has updated with a fourth TV spot for the July 11 movie release. The first movie was great and Ron Perlman does a super Hellboy! I can’t wait to see this one and I bet it’ll be better than the first. What do you think and will you be going to watch the movie?

Cubeecraft papercraft toys are free to download and some assembly is required. Each figure features interlocking tabs for construction so you don’t need for tape, glue or other messy adhesives. Just find the character you like, download and print on a standard piece of A4 letter paper, cut and fold. Lots of creative fun for all ages. Characters like Stormtrooper, Mr.Stay Puft, Kirby, Usagi Yojimbo, Dr.Zoidberg, Strongbad, Bender, Mega Man, 60’s Batman and lots more. With new ones weekly!

(via theBBPS)

It looks like more Futurama fun with the upcoming straight to DVD film Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs. This is great news if you’re like me and can’t get enough Futurama. It will be release June 24th, but you can pre-order it now. Perhaps you’d enjoy watching a storyboard preview of this upcoming Futurama masterpiece.

In what Fox is calling the most tentacle-packed Futurama epic, space itself rips open, revealing a gateway to another universe. What lies beyond is a mix of horror and love as the Planet Express crew encounters a repulsive, planet-sized monster with romantic intentions.

My world for a billion back scratchers!

First watch the video for this fun game. It’s similar to checkers as players move around playing pieces and attack their opponents. Each piece consists of a plastic ball mounted on a long springy thing, which you peg into holes in the board. You attack your opponents’ piece by pulling back on one of their own adjacent pieces and letting go, causing the plastic balls to collide. I guess it’s good that no pieces are blue…

No April Foolin’ - it’s true. Back in 1975 Mego created this board game. Would it have been as much fun if they called it Atom Smasher?

It looks like we’ll be seeing where G.I. Joe all began in the upcoming 2009 movie. The film is reportedly an origins story. Here’s yet another nostalgia film that I hope doesn’t disappoint. It’ll be hard to top the original 80’s cartoon that I watched so much of all those years ago, but I guess we’ll see. I wonder if Snake Eyes will stay silent throughout the movie. Ah well, I thought I’d let you know about this because… knowing is half the battle. (*The above image scan is from one of my old catalogs.)

Yup, you heard right, Futurama will be back on the air soon. I was watching Futurama repeats on Comedy Central last night and a commercial showed a mighty big Bender with text saying "Futurama - New Episodes March 23" on the screen. Yippie! As I said before, Futurama’s return is great news for all us fans. So be sure to watch the new Futurama episodes starting Sunday, March 23 on CC at 8pm! It’ll be great to see everyone in the 31st century again.

I thought you would be interested to know that two cult classics from The Jim Henson Company are now available for purchase and download on iTunes. This is very exciting for fans of Jim Henson! The complete first seasons of Farscape and Fraggle Rock are available now for $1.99 an episode. According to the company’s press release, the entire series should be available on the site soon.

Fraggle Rock was definitely one of my favorite shows. Dance your cares away; worries for another day; let the music play; down in Fraggle Rock!

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.

TV-signoffs is J. Alan Wall’s television station sign-off site, which full of videos for those of us that remember a simpler time. It’s a great trip down TV memory lane.

Back in the early days of television, stations weren’t always on 24/7 as they are now. Back before cable and satellite dishes, television was broadcast over the airwaves. So if you were lucky, you had an aerial on your rooftop and you’d watch programs that were “on the air”. I know it sounds archaic, but that’s how it was and we liked it.

I’ve always been an early riser and when I was a kid I’d come back from delivering newspapers door-to-door, get some cereal and plunk down in front of the TV. If it was early enough, all I saw was snow on the tube and heard a fuzzy white noise. Then, on the hour, the TV station would turn on. They’d show a grainy video, play the Star Spangled Banner tune and then your program came on. If you stayed up late at night, you’d see just about the same thing as the station signed off and went back to snow. Now we’ve got 24 hour news stations and infomercials - Yeah!

It appears that there is a new TV show coming to town. Wolverine & The X-Men, a new 26 part animated series from Marvel. From the trailer we can see Wolverine running the shots as the Brotherhood of Mutants causes havoc around town.

When an explosive event shatters the lives of the X-Men and takes away their mentor, the beaten heroes walk away from it all. But then they’re given a rare glimpse into the future, and see a world in utter ruin, ruled by giant destructive robots - a world that spiraled out of control because the X-Men had given up. So now the most legendary of all X-Men takes the lead: Wolverine! Reuniting these broken heroes, Wolverine embarks on the ultimate mission - to prevent the world’s destruction. To rescue us from ourselves. To save the future.

It stars everyone’s favorite mutant, Wolverine. Oh and the X-Men will be in the show too. (I imagine they’ll be playing cameo, so as to not take all of Logan’s camera time.)

As mentioned by Matt Groening at the 2007 Comic-Con Simpsons panel, not only is Ralph Wiggum his favorite character but Ralph Wiggum will be running for Prez in 2008. Ralph announced his candidacy on the January 6th episode of The Simpsons, entitled “E. Pluribus Wiggum”. For more information on Ralph’s candidacy, including his political platforms, check out Ralph’s campaign site.

You know he’s got my vote! If you can’t Wiggum, join ‘em!

Happy Festivus! It’s that time of year again to gather your family around the Festivus dinner table and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over the last year. Plus, no Festivus would be complete without an aluminum pole. No more of the Xmas tinsel to distract you. I just don’t think I’m ready for the Feats of Strength this year.