Archive for the 'E.T.' Category
E.T. Fun Art Set (Placo, 1982)
Published April 10, 2015 E.T. , Posters/Poster Art/Poster Pen Sets/Paint by Number Leave a Comment
Battery included, people. Just slip it over your finger and go to town. Are you fucking kidding me, Knickerbocker?
What looks more like a dildo, the E.T. Finger or LJN’s Dune Sandworm?
Knickerbocker went out of business in 1982, by the way. Hard to say why.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Quicklatch Rug Kit (Craft Master, 1982)
Published September 1, 2014 '80s Decor/Design/Fashion , Arts and Crafts , E.T. 11 Comments
Quick-latch rugs were a thing in the late ’70s and early ’80s, but I’m not sure why. There was a general crafts resurgence, and I remember going to various stores with my mom to buy the rug kits and figurines to paint—there were E.T., Return of the Jedi, and D&D paint-a-figurine sets, among others, and a company called Craft Master was the leading producer. Craft Master was also a leading producer of the Poster and Pen sets unique to our generation.
The rug kit came with a color coded template and a latch instrument, and you would take the appropriate strip of yarn with the latch, run it through the correct square, tie it off, and so on until you died from boredom. When finished, the rug was very unfortunately made into a pillow or hung on the wall. I may have completed one of the things before I realized that I was being duped and went back to my action figures and D&D Basic Set.
Licorice Pizza Ad, 1982
Published December 5, 2013 Ads , Christmas , E.T. , Records (LPs) and Cassettes 2 Comments
Men at Work’s Business as Usual and Michael Jackson’s Thriller are the first two cassettes I bought. Almost every album advertised here is now a classic:
Missing Persons’ debut, Spring Session M (“Walking in L.A.”, “Destination Unknown”); The Clash’s Combat Rock (“Rock the Casbah”)—I bought this one too; Marvin Gaye’s Midnight Love (“Sexual Healing”); Foreigner’s “best of” compilation Records; Culture Club’s debut, Kissing to Be Clever (“I’ll Tumble 4 Ya”, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”); Led Zeppelin’s final album, Coda.
I also see Neil Diamond’s Heartlight, which I got (with my dad’s money) my mom for Christmas that year. The title track—inspired by E.T.—is easily one of the worst songs ever recorded.
(Image via The Daily Mirror)
LJN Toys: E.T. Collectibles and Spaceship Playset (1982/1983)
Published November 20, 2013 '80s Movies/TV , E.T. 3 Comments
Much more interesting than the novelty figures is what I found in the 1983 LJN catalog below: an unproduced spaceship playset.
Not a great picture, but you can see how big it is (10 lbs!), and I’m impressed by the imagination that went into it—I always wondered what the inside of E.T.’s ship looked like. I don’t think the set would have sold, not even in 1982, because there were no action figures to go with it. Elliott shows up only once in the line, and he’s attached to a silly bicycle toy. By trying to appeal to the whole family, LJN lost the boys.
Articulated figures of Elliott and his friends with accompanying race bikes (BMX was huge at the time) and jump sets might have done some damage. For bad guys, throw in the dude with the keys and some FBI agents with shotguns. (Not walkie-talkies, Steven Spielberg—shotguns.)
2 Warps to Neptune 