Colorforms Castle Dracula Fun House Playset

It's taken me 30 years, but I've just finally replaced one of my all-time favorite childhood toys: the Colorforms Castle Dracula Fun House Playset. Considered by Colorforms aficionados to be one of the best sets ever created, it's also sought by vintage monster toy collectors, which tends to drive its price to truly horrific levels.

After several years of lost auctions, I broke down and bought this from a dealer who sells all of her sets in individual lots. That is, she sells every single piece in a set separately. The intent is to enable collectors who are missing a few bits to buy just the pieces they need, instead of another whole set. In my case though, this led to 20 minutes of frantic clicking and buying, particularly as this set has characters with separate tops and bottoms. I bought the Frankenstein monster's head and torso; would I manage to complete the purchase of his bottom half before someone else beat me to it? And the Wolfman was even worse: he had a top, bottom, and frequently-lost separate arm. The tension was unbearable as I raced to complete his three separate purchases, worrying that I would end up spending a small fortune only to have an incomplete set, full of monsters missing vital body parts.

Fortunately there were no other missing parts monster collectors looking at the same time, and I managed to get everything I needed. And the lucky dealer got enough from me to make her car payment, I would guess...but hey, I got my monster Colorforms back!

Vintage Weebles Haunted House Playset

Ah, Weebles, a favorite toy of my 1970s childhood. Seemed like we always had a weeble or two in our pockets back then. Remember their ad jingle: "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down!"?

Here's one of the most-sought Weeble sets, the Haunted House, just in time for Halloween. It originally came with a boy and girl with "scared" faces, a glow-in-the-dark ghost (still glows 40 years later!), and a witch with a removeable hat (usually lost and now very hard-to-find).

















Another great Halloweeny Weebles item was the purple Weebles Ghost Van. It's unclear whether it's a van for catching ghosts, or if it's a vehicle meant for ghosts to drive. The marketing storyline on this one was vague.

Speaking of marketing, though, I'll finish this post with a vintage ad for the Weebles Haunted House. Enjoy!

Vintage Fisher Price Haunted House Puzzle

Great graphics on this 1980s Fisher Price haunted house puzzle. For a haunted house, it looks very inviting!

Vintage Star Wars Toy Ads

I was flipping through one of my old copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland last night (the May 1978 issue) and found this Star Wars toy advertising insert at the back. How cool to see these much-loved toys of my childhood in what were surely some of their earliest ad appearances! Click on the pics for more details.

Martian Finks!

"LOOK! MARTIAN FINKS ARE INVADING!"

This was such a great gumball machine display card that I framed it. Who could resist its call to "take home a pocketful of Martian Fink Fun"? I have two so far. Martian Finks were inspired by Rat Fink, the hot rod mascot of the 1950s and 60s craze, but in my opinion they're much cuter.