Thursday, October 11, 2012

This Blog Should Be on the Bookmarks of Every American Thursday!

Finishing up All-Flash Quarterly #4... where Jay forgets the inspiration for his costume:


Derp!  Maybe it's the winged helmet and winged boots on the super-fast guy that's got them confused.

Seriously, I went to Google images to find a picture of Mercury, and I couldn't find one where he wasn't wearing the same headgear.  

Jay's a scientist, you know.

This caught my eye.  It's interesting from a historical perspective, and also a little sad that kids couldn't really escape what was going on at the time:


Of course, we're in the middle of six wars right now, and I'll wager you'll not hear a whisper of any of them in any comic produced this year.  It's not funny, of course, but every once in a while something makes me ponder what a different America we live in than back when these comics were made.  I'm not saying either is better or worse - both have their strengths and shortcomings.  But it certainly is different.

For example, I don't know where I'm going to get my hands on a singing lariat these days:


This is another thing I tried to Google on The Google, and all I can find are references to it as a toy.  I presume there was a whistle or something that made a noise when you twirled it (or whatever it is they call it when you're whipping a lariat around), because you can't go wrong with making shrill noises where kids are concerned.  That, my friends, is universal.  I'm tempted to send in a coupon to these seed people and see if they make good on it.

I had more information on electric baseball games of 1942, but I couldn't find one that looked like this:


Since I wasn't able to find an exact duplicate, I can only presume that the claim "you'll never tire of playing" is an accurate one, because people have to be hoarding them.  If anyone recognizes this, let me know, because other electric baseball games from 1942 didn't look like this.

See you tomorrow!

5 comments:

MarvelX42 said...

I am going to take a stab at the electric baseball game thing and say that this is probably just a case of the picture on the box not quite matching what the actual game looked like. I further think that this was probably onea those games like the football game where you had little dudes kinda like army men that you sat on the board and that the board vibrated and the little guys just sorta moved around abit and fell over. I think that the pictures for the comic and the cover of the box the game came in were maybe even done before the game was even made. This is of course all just WAGing, but there ya go and there ya are.

Adam Barnett said...

I saw a few games called "electric baseball" that were made in 1942, and I think the illustration indeed got it wrong. The one I saw had an actual pinball flipper shaped like a baseball bat.

MarvelX42 said...

So how does this one actually work then? Is it like I guessed or like pinball or a combo? I could see the combo, cause the vibrating would just make them go all random, but vibrating with flippers, you could maybe kinda guide them. I think I saw a hockey one that was a sorta combo type, unless I am remembering incorrectly.

Adam Barnett said...

The hockey game I'm thinking of wasn't so much an electric version, but almost a form of foosball, only your players twirled left and right instead of up and down. There may have been an electric version but I don't remember it. I have vivid memories of the "thousands of pieces" football game you describe, though! They were still popular when I was a child in the 70's. The electric baseball game from 1942... well, you're not going to believe this, but I found it, so I'll be putting it up on tomorrow's post!

MarvelX42 said...

Coolski