Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 159 of 581)

The Lights of Broadway Show Cards

The final pick in today’s 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is a trading card set that I have grown quite fond of this year. The Lights of Broadway Show Cards feature the artwork of Broadway’s reigning caricaturist, Squiggs, and present the stars, theaters and shows of The Great White Way in trading card form. This is the absolutely perfect gift for the theatre fanatic on your holiday shopping list.

The Lights of Broadway Show Cards celebrate Broadway theatre. The stories and the storytellers, the art and the artisans, those who make it all possible and the community embracing it. Shows, actors, directors, writers, designers, and all else in the spotlight or behind the scenes who keep the theatrical world spinning.

This is the first time I’ve ever included something in The PopCult Gift Guide that I’ve also written about for Non Sport Update, but my editor said it was okay to spread the word on this cool card set, so I’m including it here. You can read more on the subject, including my interview with Justin “Squigs” Robertson himself, in the next issue of Non Sport Update, on sale in two weeks.

The reason that the timing is perfect to tell you about these cards now is that, next week they will start taking pre-orders on their next series of cards, Autumn 2018, but right now they are running a sale and you can find all sorts of great items at 20% off their normal price.

Over at The Lights of Broadway website, you’ll find special deals where you can get packs of their Spring 2018 and MegaMix cards for the discounted price. You’ll also find deals on binders and starter kits (which include an illustrated binder and several packs of cards).

If you want to go whole hog, you can find entire boxes of 36 packs, to shower your theatre fanatic with loads of great cards. You can even find single-show packs for Fiddler on The Roof, Fun Home and Dear Evan Hansen. They have everything from stocking stuffers to mid-sized gifts to BIG TICKET items.

The cards are beautifully printed and feature the amazing art of Squiggs. If you’ve got a theatre kid on your gift list, this is where you need to go. You can order directly from The Lights of Broadway Show Cards website, or go to New York and look for them in Schubert Alley and The Drama Bookstore.

STRESS MANATEE

Next up in The 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is a great little gag gift that’s perfect for the stressed-out person on your holiday shopping list who enjoys the idea of mangling manatees. The Stress Manatee from Archie McPhee is under ten bucks, and will let you take out all your aggression on this sweet, gentle, harmless endangered species. At this price, it’s a good stocking stuffer.

This manatee feels as squishy as a real manatee looks. Manatees have got it made. Constantly floating in warm water, not having to care how they look. Watching them makes all your stress melt away. Now you can get rid of all your anxiety by squeezing this soft polyurethane foam 5½” squishy while you read the affirming poem on the back of the package. I like to put the manatee on my shoulder and pretend that it’s whispering relaxing things to me. After all, a good manatee is hard to find and this one is a great one!

What you get is a A squishy manatee, 5-1/2” long, that you can squeeze and squeeze and squeeze in a relaxing, soothing and calming manner. It takes over 9 seconds to pop back into shape, which, if you know your stress manatees like I do, you know that means that this is one ultra-high-quality squishable mammal.

The folks at Archie McPhee have even created a video to show the Zen-like reclaimation of form by the Stress Manatee. See it at the bottom of this post. You can order the Stress Manatee directly from Archie McPhee, or you might luck out and find it at one of the stores that carry Archie McPhee products (like Taylor Books, in Charleston).

Matt Berry:Television Themes

Today’s first pick in The 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is a new album from Matt Berry, who has attained cult status as an actor on The IT Crowd, Toast of London and the upcoming What We Do In The Shadows.  Berry is also a singer/songwriter, which is no surprise to fans of Toast of London, which incorporates his music into every episode. However, his latest release is a nearly-instrumental album of covers of British TV show theme songs.

Television Themes is the perfect gift for the incurable Anglophile, or UK expatriate on your holiday shopping list, and is also a natural for fans of Matt Berry.

It’s sort of bizarre, and also pretty short (songs range from eight seconds to just over three miutes), but it’s also pretty damned delightful, even for Americans who don’t have the nostalgic connection to many of the songs included here.

Recognizable to us Yanks are themes songs from Doctor Who and The Good Life (known as “Good Neighbors” when they showed it on PBS). Less recognizable on this side of the pond are tunes like the Phil Lynott/Midge Ure theme for Top of the Pops or the short musical blips for London Weekend Television or Thames Television (although fans of Benny Hill will recognize the latter).

Even if they don’t punch your nostalgic buttons, the songs here are pretty cool, played using vintage synthesizers and running the gamut from neo-classical to smooth Jazz to experimental electronic and pure pop. A handful of the songs have vocals, which Berry tackles admirably.

Here’s the hype copy from his record label:

BAFTA award winning actor Matt Berry returns with Television Themes. Inspired by his youth, it’s a collection of TV theme tunes that have not only influenced Berry but undergone a fascinating and unique metamorphosis under his musical stewardship. Television Themes was recorded on his own and with his regular band The Maypoles in his newly built studio.

It includes favorites from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s such as Are You Being Served? and Rainbow alongside lesser known themes from Picture Box and Wildtrak amidst those that transcend the decades, Doctor Who and Top Of The Pops. Combining his love of music production and his passion for the ‘signature tune’, Television Themes sees Berry enhance his musical reputation following the success of his previous releases encapsulating Berry’s formative years as a viewer and paired with his boundless appetite for music.

The cover of the album enhances the retro feel of the project with line art that recalls British anthology records of the 1970s.

Matt Berry: Television Themes can probably be ordered from local record shops, or for the sake of expediency, you can also find it at Amazon on CD and Vinyl.

Sample the album with his cover of The Doctor Who theme below…

Hot Wheels Track Builder System Race Crate

Today’s final pick in The 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is suggested for the young, or young at heart who love Hot Wheels. The Hot Wheels Track Builder System Race Crate is a four-lane stunt set that can be configured three different ways to allow your giftee to race their Hot Wheels cars to their little heart’s content.

That includes adult collectors, too.

You can triple your racing fun and stunting thrills with this 3-in-1 pop-out raceway. This super-portable crate quickly transforms into 3 massive stunt tracks, so kids (or adults pretending to have kids) can launch into epic action at lightning speed. Will they nail the scary-steep drops, adrenaline-pumping jumps, and ultimate high-speed showdowns?

The Race Crate includes everything you need for 3 unique raceways and stunts. You can create challenges and obstacles with 8+ feet of track, 2 double slam launchers, a 4-lane loop and more. Parents can help younger racers transform stunts, and jumpstart family fun, or they can wait until the kids go to sleep and play with it themselves

The best part is that the crate with track on it folds up, and you can store everything inside when you’re not using it. It even had a handle for carrying. Parents will love this, and collectors ought to appreciate it, too.

The Hot Wheels Track Builder System Race Crate gives you a lot of bang for your buck. The set also includes two Hot Wheels cars, but the track can handle up to four, and with some many official configurations, you know that there ought to be lots of other ways to play with this set, or combine it with others.

This massive playset retails for fifty bucks and can be found almost anywhere that toys are sold, or you could snoop around the usual suspects online and find it at a considerable discount.

Check out the video…

Tex Avery’s Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection

Next up in The 2018 PopCult Gift Guide we have an extended body of work by one of the masters of gag animation, Tex Avery. Tex Avery’s Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection contains all 24 theatrical shorts that star Droopy Dog. That number includes several that were directed by lesser hands after Avery left MGM, but you still get plenty of primo canine cartoon fun.

Let’s check the hype copy:

A dog may be man’s best friend, but a cartoon fan’s bestfriend is Droopy, the diminutive basset hound created by animation legend Tex Avery. No matter the challenge, deadpan Droopy remains unflappable. Yes, there are jowly folds, but no flaps. Not ever.

Droopy speaks slowly but thinks fast. He moves slowly but pops up quicker than a dog can lick a dinner dish, anywhere he needs to be. He’s the ideal counterpoint to Avery’s trendsetting sight gags, extended reactions and hilarious unpredictability.

All 24 of the theatrical Droopy cartoons – with The Wolf and bulldog Spike joining the fun – are showcased in this one-of-a-kind 2-disc Collector’s Set. You’ll be happier than a flea in a doghouse.

This is the perfect gift for the fan of classic animation on your holiday shopping list. It’s also great for fans of Droopy, cartoon mayhem, and Ben Stein. You can find it online at Warner Archives, or for considerably less at Amazon.

Check out this random, unauthorized compilation of highlights…

Local Spotlight: Kin Ship Goods

Nestled comfortably on a side street in Charleston’s West Side, just half a block from Washington Street, we find a nifty little shop dedicated to providing cozy apparel, accessories, and home goods for you and yours. Our local spotlight in today’s 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is Kin Ship Goods.

You’ve probably heard of Kin Ship Goods, a brand of apparel, accessories, and home goods designed by Dan Davis & Hillary Harrison. They are based in Charleston, returning to their roots after having started their business in Louisville.

Their shop is filled with clothing and mugs and other cool things of their own design. In their words, “Our goods are inspired by starry nights, peeling paint, vintage keepsakes, imperfections, labors of love, and early mornings.”

Their products have been featured in major magazines, and have been seen in television shows and movies. Their brick and mortar shop is located at 613 Tennessee Avenue, in Charleston, just around the corner from Gonzoburger and Fountain Hobby.

Kin Ship Goods is currently closed for a couple of days as they’re gearing up for Black Friday, when they’ll be releasing nine new designs, and bringing back five classic designs. They’ll also kick off their biggest sale of the year, with 25% off everything from Friday, November 23, to Monday, November 26. This is in their store and at their website (and the website is still open).

All weekend long, at the store, Kin Ship Goods and Base Camp (the printing company next door) will have new products, sales, giveaways and snacks. On Black Friday they will be open from 11 AM to 7 PM. Small Business Saturday (November 24) sees Vandalia Donut Company set up outside the store, and the first 100 people at the door receive a free goodie bag, plus they’ll have in-store giveaways. The store isn’t usually open on Sunday, but for this sale they will be there from 11 AM to 7 PM. Cyber Monday (November 26) sees the sale wrap up, with a few bonus items sneaking online.

Kin Ship Goods is a great local source for gift ideas from T Shirts to mugs to sweatshirts and more. You’re bound to find a great gift here, or you can just purchase a gift card, in store, or online.

Reefer Madness Comics
edited by Craig Yoe
comics by Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Frank Frazetta, Jerry Robinson and more
Dark Horse Books
ISBN-13: 978-1506702278
$19.99

Wrapping up Monday in , we have the perfect gift the advocate of cannibas and CBD Oil on your holiday gift-giving list…if they have a healthy sense of humor. I reviewed this book earlier this year for PopCult, but it deserves another pass around, as a gift suggestion.

Master comics historian, Craig Yoe, has gone to pot…literally. This new collection of comics brings together some of the most hysterically dramatic and unrealistic portrayals of the dangers of marijuana that you’re likely to ever find. Reefer Madness Comics may very well be your gateway drug into the world of vintage crime comics.

It’s not all presented for laughs. Yoe’s introductory essay touches on the power of propaganda and how the comics medium was used to help villify marijuana, only to see the same tactics of junk science and ethically dubious evidence used against the comics industry in the 1950s. It’s a meaty topic and one well worth considering now that we seem to be living in the golden age of misinformation.

But beyond that, the real attraction in Reefer Madness are the comics. Comics that, no matter how skillful the creator, or how sharp their storytelling abilities, are solidly rooted in an almost total ignorance of their subject matter. These comics are uproariously entertaining because they are so spectacularly dumb.

The comics reprinted in Reefer Madness Comics (which takes its name from the classic and now campy propaganda film of the 1930s) read like Jack Chick Comics on drugs.

Mostly gathered from crime comics of the 1940s and 1950s (with a few exceptions), these comics are so over-the-top in their presentation of pot as being the most dangerous menace to society ever that they rise to a sublime level of ridiculousness.

With titles like “Satan’s Cigarettes,” “Hopped up Killer,” “Dope Menace” and “Monkey On Her Back,” you can be assured that you’re in for an epic unintentional humor contact high.

Evidently written by people who had absolutely no firsthand experience with marijuana, these cautionary tales are filled with wild behavior that no educated person would ever associate with the use of pot. There are murder sprees, robberies, prostitution and everything they could imagine. The Jack Kirby story (that’s a panel at the bottom of this post) is about a serial rapist/torturer/arsonist/murderer who is driven to kill when he doesn’t get his reefer!

Your reader will need to have a fine appreciation of irony and the absurd, and enough knowledge to determine how mind-blowingly silly these comics are, to find them as entertaining as I do. However, if you’re looking for the absolute perfect gift for a pothead or pothead sympathizer, you’ve found it. Processed through the mind of someone who, in their day, may have “smoke too many pot,” Reefer Madness Comics may elicit a manic giggling fit not unlike some of the bizarre antics seen in this book. You should be able to order it from any bookseller by using the ISBN code, or check Amazon for a sizable discount.

Moonage Daydream: The David Bowie Songbook

Today’s local pick is one that’s been a long time coming. For years Ryan Hardiman, accompanied by Mark Scarpelli and a crew of Charleston’s top musicians, as been performing songs from The David Bowie Songbook as part of Charleston’s New Year’s Eve “Good Night” concert series.

This year finally saw the recording and release of an album by the group that grew out of those concerts. Moonage Daydream: The Bowie Songbook spans the constellation of Bowie’s brilliant career, performed with vocals, piano and string quintet by Ryan Hardiman, Mark Scarpelli, Alasha Al Qudwah, Joseph Cevallos, Jeff Lipscomb, Dean Pauley and Eli Chambers.

As anyone who’s witnessed the concerts knows, this is not only a loving tribute to the music of David Bowie, but it also stands on its own as a high-quality interpretation of some of the finest music ever written.

You can find hard copies on CD or Vinyl in local record stores, or download the album from Amazon, iTunes or other online services.

Moonage Daydream: The Bowie Songbook will be performed live at the V Club on Friday, December 7.  Doors 8 PM, with the show starting at 10 PM. There will be $10 cover and copies of the new album on vinyl and CD will be available. You can take your gift recipient to the show, or just go and enjoy it yourself, picking up the album while you’re there. Either way it’s a great gift.

This is the perfect gift for the music lover, Bowie fan, or supporter of the local scene on your holiday shopping list. Check out a sample below…

The Best Of SHOCKED AND AMAZED! – On & Off the Midway
by James Taylor
Available directly from the author
$25 (plus shipping, signed paperback)
$35 (plus shipping, signed hardback)

Our first pick in today’s 2018 PopCult Gift Guide is a collection of articles from a legendary journal devoted to sideshow entertainment, The Sideshow Collectors Edition of The Best of Shocked And Amazed!–On & Off The Midway. It’s perfect for fans of sideshow entertainment, who to be honest, don’t have too many gifts targeted toward them.

Over 15 years ago, The Best of SHOCKED AND AMAZED! burst onto the show biz scene as the fitting capstone to a decade of our publishing the world’s only journal devoted to sideshow in all its manifestations and all other “weirdness as entertainment.” And now, it’s time for the author to top even that.

Newly published is the Sideshow Collectors Edition of James Taylor’s SHOCKED AND AMAZED! – On & Off the Midway. In the Collectors Edition you’ll get all of the original Best of S&A! in a new, re-designed format – and with over 100 pages of new content!

James Taylor (seen below) has been called “the world’s foremost authority on sideshow.” His Shocked and Amazed! On & Off the Midway was the world’s only journal on contemporary and historical sideshow, novelty & variety exhibition and “weirdness as entertainment.” He has been covering “the other entertainment” for over two decades and has been featured in all major broadcast and print media worldwide for his work in that field from the Baltimore Sun to the New York Times. He is also the co-founder of Baltimore’s American Dime Museum and Washington, DC’s, Palace of Wonders and Red Palace. And, as the sideshow spirit moves him, he writes for the Huffington Post and has been a frequent broadcast columnist for Ripley’s Radio.

James Taylor’s Sideshow Collectors Edition of Shocked and Amazed! showcases the very best of the old-time business – collected from nine volumes of the journal – a journal that’s become iconic in the realm of the strange, the bizarre, the weird, the odd and the unusual. From the last (and sometimes only) interviews with the likes of Percilla the Monkey Girl and Jeanie Tomaini, the last of the Half Girls, to essays on famous women in sideshows and the Man With Three Eyes, it’s all the world’s weird… in one book. You want to know the true origins of the entertainment madness that is the show biz nowadays? It’s all here, in James Taylor’s SHOCKED AND AMAZED! On & Off the Midway – Sideshow Collectors Edition. Without it, oh, you’re just not “with it.”

You’ll find articles and interviews with and about conjoined twins, bearded ladies, pickled baby empressarios, monkey girls and aligator men and other denizens of the unusual novelty acts midway.

All copies are signed – if you’d like your copy personalized or a special message for the recipient of your gift,  that will be done at no added charge. Just check out the website.

The Best Of SHOCKED AND AMAZED! – On & Off the Midway would make a great gift for the fan of eccentric and offbeat carnival entertainment, or for fans of the “Freakshow” season of American Horror Story.

This week’s artistic wake-up call is a quick digital painting I did that was inspired by a Chinese Dragon I saw on the “Wall of Nine Dragons” in Chinatown in Chicago. It’s Impressionistic, or sloppy, depending on your point of view. Click to see it bigger.

Over on The AIR, Marathon Monday brings you Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. You can hear 12 episodes of our popular New Wave Music program, presented by legendary London DJ, Sydney Fileen.  You can tune in on The AIR website, or on this rather ingenious embedded transistor radio thingy…

And don’t forget to check PopCult later this afternoon for three more entries in The 2018 PopCult Gift Guide.