Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 71 of 581)

Today is Stocking Stuffer Day in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide. All of today’s gift suggestions will be small, cheap and hopefully will fit in a stocking for your loved ones.

I will be pointing our suggesto-meter to websites where you can order these cool things so that you can stuff a safe and socially-distanced stocking. One of our entries will be for a website where everything is cheap.

Keep these ideas in mind, and be sure to order early so you have them in time for the holidays.

I first told you about Lights of Broadway Show Cards a couple of years ago in The PopCult Gift Guide, but we’re going to remind you of that gift idea today because they have just released a new series of cards and they have several exciting projects on tap, plus there is no better stocking stuffer for the fan of the theatre on your shopping list than these little gems.  With 2020 being such a devestating year for Broadway, and the performing arts in general, this is a nice way to remember that the shutdowns won’t last forever, and we will be able to enjoy live theatre again someday.

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.

Over at The Lights of Broadway website, you’ll find special deals where you can get packs of their new 2020 Edition, with dozens of new faces showing up in the series for the first time. You’ll also find deals on binders and starter kits (which include an illustrated binder and several packs of cards).

Single packs are only five dollars, and you can be a little more generious and get your giftee multiple packs. They’ll fit in a stocking, trust me. The 2020 Series was released in October 2020, the lineup can be seen here. Some cards are more rare than others and there are many super rarities to be found. Each pack contains five 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.

This is the perfect gift for the Broadway Baby and die-hard theatre buff on your holiday shopping list.

Today is Stocking Stuffer Day in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide. All of today’s gift suggestions will be small, cheap and hopefully will fit in a stocking for your loved ones.

I will be pointing our suggesto-meter to websites where you can order these cool things so that you can stuff a safe and socially-distanced stocking. One of our entries will be for a website where everything is cheap.

Keep these ideas in mind, and be sure to order early so you have them in time for the holidays.

Five Below

Our website recommendation for The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide Stocking Stuffer Day is for the true cheapskates among you. Five Below is a wonderful chain of stores that we do not yet have in the Charleston area. They are getting closer with a new store in Parkersburg, but instead of making the drive, you can now order online for the glorious cheapness that is Five Below.

Every item they sell is five dollars or less (except for a few things they call “Five Beyond” but those are still under ten bucks). You will find T Shirts, toys, books, make up, jewelry, decorations, candy, pillows, Snuggies, phone accessories, posters, workout equipment, and more. When I first wrote about Five Below in PopCult, for some reason, they sold a lot of poop emoji or just poop in general products, in the store. In fact, if you had a poop-obsessed person on your holiday shopping list, this was where you would find poop Nirvana. They had animated dancing, farting plush poop, poop emoji pillows that were puking rainbows, several sizes of fake poop, games you could play on the toilet, and poop emoji Christmas Tree ornaments. Since that time, they have tried to cut the crap out, but there’s still a little bit, around the edges, if you’re into that sort of thing.

For today, the important stuff is the items you can cram into a stocking, like art supplies, small journals, candy, small toys, blind-box items, make-up, jewelry, hand-sanitizer, facemasks, and tons of other stuff.

And it’s all cheap. You can find gag gifts and actual real useful gifts like lamps, bookends, stationary. Just go check out the website and see what all they have.

Today is Stocking Stuffer Day in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide. All of today’s gift suggestions will be small, cheap and hopefully will fit in a stocking for your loved ones.

I will be pointing our suggesto-meter to websites where you can order these cool things so that you can stuff a safe and socially-distanced stocking. One of our entries will be for a website where everything is cheap.

Keep these ideas in mind, and be sure to order early so you have them in time for the holidays.

Our next compact and inexpensive suggestion for The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide is perfect for anyone who loves toy cars. Boom City Racers brings back the zip-cord powered thrill of Kenner’s old SSP cars in a smaller size, with cool fireworks-inspired packaging and a nod to the current blind-box craze.

The cars are slightly bigger than a Hot Wheels car, but the flywheel works perfectly, and the bodies fly about into three pieces on impact. It’s a lot of good clean destructive automotive fun.

Boom City Racers are the collectable cars that rip out of their fireworks rocket launcher and explode apart on impact! With a super-fast flywheel inside, they are designed for speed! Watch the cars parts fly when they collide into each other or hit something hard! Then, simply click the parts back into place and your car is ready to race again! There are 24 cars to collect and race across Season 1. Build up a team of the hottest machines, take on the challenge and rip, race, explode to own the road.

With easy reassembly, simply click the parts back into place and your car is ready to race again.

Each Boom City Racer car is powered by rip cord, the harder you rip, the bigger the smash.

These cars are made for speed with their super-fast fly wheel.

Rabid fans can collect all 24 explosive cars across Series One. Including the Limited Edition ‘Cop That’ car with lights and sounds. You don’t know which car you get, but they’re all cool, and at around six bucks a pop, they won’t break the bank.

There are also more elaborate sets, but we’re pushing the basic cars as stocking fodder. You can find these almost anywhere toys or sold, or order them from Amazon, Walmart or Target.

Today is Stocking Stuffer Day in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide. All of today’s gift suggestions will be small, cheap and hopefully will fit in a stocking for your loved ones.

I will be pointing our suggesto-meter to websites where you can order these cool things so that you can stuff a safe and socially-distanced stocking. One of our entries will be for a website where everything is cheap.

Keep these ideas in mind, and be sure to order early so you have them in time for the holidays.

5 Surprise “blind box” toys from Zuru are one of the hottest kids collectibles on the market right now. They have innovative packaging, a small portable size and are priced just right for kids to obsess over. Among the popular lines in this program are Glitter Unicorn Squad , Mini Brands, Toy Mini Brands and Dino Strike,  as well as new series of 5 Surprise aimed at boys or girls (or you can switch ’em if you’re not hung up on the gender thing).

You can find these online at Amazon, Target, Walmart and Books A Million, among many other websites.

5 Surprise Mini-Brands hit stores before Christmas last year and while they flew under the radar of adults, they became an instant hit with kids, selling out almost everywhere and garnering over half a billion views for a viral campaign on Tik Tok and YouTube.

5 Surprise Unicorn Squad lets kids collect all 13 sassy squad members, from ballerinas to bubblegum babes and RARE golden unicorns. There is alos a glitter variety.

5 Surprise Dino-Strike lets kids build dinosaurs, who have missile-firing weapons. If the real dinosaurs had missile-firing weapons they might still be around.

5 Surprise Mini Brands are exact realistic miniatures of some of the world’s most loved shopping brands. Inside each package (more on that later) you will find tiny replicas of popular name-brand food items, candy, shampoo, deodorant and other household essentials. Kids love these because kids love miniature stuff. These are highly collectible, with some rare “chase” items featuring metallic or glow-in-the-dark highlights. Each package includes a checklist, which is cleverly designed to look like a full-color cash register receipt, and some packages include buildable extras like shopping carts, shelfs or baskets.

5 Surprise Toy Mini Brands take the hot miniature collectible trend to a new level with the introduction of Toy Mini Brands, a range of realistic miniature replicas of classic and contemporary toy brands. Through a partnership with Nickelodeon/Viacom, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, SpongeBob SquarePants JoJo Siwa are among the toy brands that will be miniaturized and hit store shelves across the globe this year. In addition, iconic and popular brands such as Classic Rubik’s, Crayola and Wham-O join the Toy Mini Brands portfolio. These are out now, and they’re pretty darned cool.

The 5 Surprise Pink (girls) and Blue (boys) series are filled with all kinds of cool things that kids will love.

The 5 Surprise line combines the thrill of old-school gumball machines with an upgraded sensibility that brings much higher-quality to the world of kid-oriented trinketry. These cool globes, a bit bigger than a baseball, will fit into a stocking and bring smiles to the faces of the folks digging into them. With plenty of different series and types of toys involved, you’re bound to find something perfect for your loved one.

The PopCulteer
November 20, 2020

It’s going to be a very short PopCulteer this week. After this post, there will only be six days left in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide.

As with everything in 2020, the gift guide has been a little unusual. I’m ending it earlier than ever because nearly every gift suggestion I make is available online, and with the rocky recent behavior of The Post Office, I don’t want anybody missing the shipping deadines.

Nobody likes to find “Your gift is in the mail” under the tree.

I’m not doing my usual bit of urging you to shop local because it’s not really safe. I’m not doing it this year, and I wouldn’t suggest you do anything that I wouldn’t. In the grand scheme of things, ordering something from Amazon instead of fighting the crowds at Walmart is not exactly the kind of sacrifice that you’ll tear up about when you tell your grandchildren about this year.

I miss going to local stores, but my will to continue living outweighs that.

Also in this year’s gift guide, longtime readers may notice that I’ve recycled a lot of reviews of books, comics, toys and music from earlier in the year. This was actually part of the plan all along. In previous years I have run myself ragged cranking out this guide, and I didn’t want to do that to myself this year. So I planned ahead. I enjoy assembling the gift guide every year, but I don’t enjoy just barely outrunning my self-imposed deadlines. Except for two days, I’ve had this year’s guide prepared at least one full day in advance.  Recycling the year’s best reviews made that possible.

It’s worked out pretty well, so you can expect way more reviews in PopCult in 2021, along with a couple of other major changes that I’ll tell you about near the end of the year.

I’ve done pretty well with my plan to cap the price of my gift suggestions at a hundred bucks. I’ve also gone out of my way to suggest things that aren’t listed in every other gift guide. The reason I didn’t suggest the Animatronic Child from The Mandalorian, aside from the fact that the little bugger is on back-order almost everywhere, is that…well…it’s the hottest Star Wars toy in decades. Nobody who would be interested in it doesn’t already know all about it. I like to tell you about things you may not already know about.

We have six more days of cool ideas for your holiday shopping, and Friday is going to be a special day filled with ideas for Stocking Stuffers. Everything we recommend today is going to be cheap, small and fun. We may have as many as five entries today, and they’ll start dropping around 11 AM EST, so check back for that.

Our last gift guide post will go live the day before Thanksgiving, and the day after Trukey day will bring The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide Master List.

There will be some kind of post on Thanksgiving, but I guarantee you that there won’t be much effort put into it. Next week will have some new programs on The AIR, plus a holiday programming stunt, and then, if all goes according to plan, a week from Saturday PopCult‘s regular features will all return.

Thanks for coming to PopCult, and thanks for making The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide the most-read ever (and that’s with six days left to go!)

Our final entry today in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide is an adults-only item for fans of great pin-up art. It’s a collection of “good girl art” by famed animator and cartoonist, Bruce Timm.

The Big Tease by Bruce Timm
by Bruce Timm
Flesk Publications
ISBN: 978-1-64041-041-1
hardcover $49.95
softcover $29.95

The Big Tease is an oversized new Naughty and Nice Bruce Timm collection, with an emphasis on “Naughty.”

Bruce Timm has been creating elegant drawings of women for over 30 years, and nearly all of these charming nudes were drawn purely for fun after-hours. This book collects his three Teaser collections—released from 2011 to 2013 and long sold out—plus Surrender, My Sweet from 2015. In addition, Timm has created new material especially for this collection and delved into his personal archives to share pieces not shown before. These culminate in more than 75 additional pages of material not reproduced in any of his previous Naughty and Nice collections. In all, over 260 women drawn in pencil, ink or color fill these pages. Timm’s art is reproduced at an impressive size and showcased in this oversized format.

Timm is primarily known for his work as the lead designer on Batman: The Animated Series, and subsequent role as supervising producer for much of DC Comics’ animated offerings. This book sees him letting his hair down and drawing what he really wants to draw…women, of the gorgeous variety.

Mature Warning: The Big Tease contains nudity throughout. This book is intended for ages 18 and up. Don’t give this to junior unless his parents are okay with that.

All hardcover pre-orders come with 2 free bonus 8.5 x 11” mini-prints that feature B.T. art found within the book. While supplies last. The Paperback edition comes with one print and can be ordered from any bookseller (without the Flesk bonus print). The hardcover edition can only be ordered from Flesk.

Chances are, you have somebody on your holiday shopping list who would love this.

Next up in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide we have a double-shot of gift ideas for the rabid fan of The Who on your shopping list, with bonus points if they also love vinyl. Note that one of these is a pre-order that will be released on December 11.

The Who Live In Hyde Park
Eagle Rock/Universal Music Group

Over the summer, this anniversary concert came out on three colored-vinyl LPs. Originally issued on CD and Blu Ray five years ago as part of the band’s fiftieth anniversary year, this recording captures the band performing their greatest hits live in London’s Hyde Park in front of a crowd of over 50,000 fans.

The recording itself is a fascinating document of the current state of The Who, with founding members Keith Moon and John Entwistle no longer among the living, but Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend having managed to not die before they got old.

With Zak Starkey on drums and Nino Palladino (Nine Inch Nails) on bass, and augmented with several additional musicians (including Townshend’s brother, Simon), the band does a fine job of recreating the sound of the original records, albiet with some transpositional adjustments to account for the aging of Roger Daltry’s still-amazing voice.

The recording quality is outstanding for a live, outdoor venue. The vocals are not buried, and all the instruments can be heard clearly in a crisp and bright mix. The song selection runs from the early days of The Who, through highlights of “Tommy” and “Quadrophenia,” and even touches on their early 1980s hits before coming to a close with “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” from their “Who’s Next” album.

True die-hard Who fans may also be receptive to the CD/Blu Ray release, because much of the band’s performance is visual, including several tributes to Moon and Entwistle, but for vinyl collectors, this delayed release is a real treat. You should be able to order this from any store that sells vinyl, or click on the title for the Amazon link.

Speaking of Vinyl Collectors and Who fans, this pre-order for a box set is sure to tug on their squeezebox…

WHO [7″ Singles Box Set w/ Live At Kingston
Interscope Records

The Who has one of the greatest rock legacies in music history, they’re one of the all-time great live bands, have sold over 100 million records worldwide. In 2019, Fifty-five years after they made their first recordings, The Who returned with their first new album in thirteen years entitled WHO.

The eleven-track album was mostly recorded in London and Los Angeles during Spring and Summer 2019. Singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend are joined on the album by long-time Who drummer Zak Starkey, bassist Pino Palladino along with contributions from Simon Townshend, Benmont Tench, Carla Azar, Joey Waronker and Gordon Giltrap.

On December 11 The Who will release a new version of last year’s album WHO featuring an updated version of “Beads On One String” newly remixed by Pete Townshend and acoustic tracks from the band’s only live shows of 2020.

The live songs on the CD with the deluxe version of WHO were recorded in Kingston on Valentine’s Day this year exactly 50 years to the day since The Who’s seminal show at Leeds which became the infamous live album `Live At Leeds’.

The Limited Edition Numbered 7″ Singles Box Set includes WHO pressed on Six 7″ Single LPs all with individual artwork, plus the Live at Kingston Bonus CD. You can pre-order it now at Amazon, and have it in plenty of time to wrap it and stick it under the tree.

I have a bit of a warning about today’s first entry in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide: some people may consider it blasphemous, especially to recommend as a Christmas gift. However, those people are wrong. Second Coming is actually more Christian than most comic books that claim to be Christian. It makes a great gift for the comics fan who enjoys offbeat stories, but it would also be a good gift for a theologian with an open mind.

Second Coming
by Mark Russell (Author), Richard Pace (Artist), Leonard Kirk (Artist), Andy Troy (Artist)
AHOY COMICS
ISBN-13 : 978-0998044279
$19.99 (discounted at Amazon)

The premise, God sends Jesus back to Earth to become roomies with a Superhero from another planet, may seem a bit odd, but in the hands of Mark Russell, Second Coming is a brilliant satire on life today and how society and religion cross paths.

Check out the blurb…

The book everyone’s talking about, by award-winning writer Mark Russell (Snagglepuss, The Flintstones) and artist Richard Pace (Pitt, New Warriors)! God commands Earth’s mightiest super-hero, Sunstar, to accept Jesus as his roommate and teach him how to use power more forcefully. Jesus, shocked at the way humans have twisted his message over two millennia, vows to straighten them out.

Second Coming is not a vicious satire. The satire is muted and thoughtful.  It’s a sweet and funny commentary on philosophy and how it works in the real world. Basically it’s Jesus and Superman in a buddy comedy. It’s cleverly-written and wonderfully drawn, and is one of my favorite comics published in the last couple of years.

God wants his son to be more assertive, and Jesus wants to do things his way. Surprisingly, this book does more to advance the word of Jesus than a jet airliner full of televangelists.

This book was originally supposed to be published by Vertigo, a DC Comics Imprint which has recently been shuttered. When DC brought in a new, more conservative, person to run the company, she decided to let the creators take this elsewhere. Luckily, AHOY Comics was willing to add this book to their impressive line-up of creator-owned titles.

This volume collects the original six-issue mini-series. The sequel is already in progress.

Second Coming may just be the one suggestion in this gift guide that really celebrates the true meaning of Christmas.

Today’s last entry in The 2020 PopCult Gift guide is another double-shot suggestion that ties in with today’s episodes of Curtain Call, on The AIR.  This afternoon at 3 PM on The AIR you can hear an encore of Mel Larch’s three-episode tribute to musical theatre icon, Stephen Sondheim, that first ran to celebrate his 90th birthday earlier this year.

To tie-in with that, we have two book suggestions that will thrill and delight any fan of the Maestro…

Into the Woods
by Stephen Sondheim (Author), James Lapine (Author), Hudson Talbott (Illustrator)
Skyhorse
ISBN-13 : 978-1510754577
$27.99 (discounted at Amazon)

Finally Back in Print in Over a Decade is the Lavishly Illustrated Story Book of Into the Woods, one of the Most-Performed Musicals, by Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine

Based on the Grimm Brothers’ most popular folktales, Into the Woods is a reimagining of what can happen when beloved fairytale characters are thrown together in increasingly dramatic and humorous ways. The Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning team of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine bring their cherished musical off the stage and onto the page with the help of Hudson Talbott’s enchanting illustrations.

Re-published for Stephen Sondheim’s ninetieth birthday, join Cinderella, Jack (of beanstalk-climbing fame), Little Red Riding Hood, the Baker and his Wife, and more on their quest to find “happily ever after.” Along the way they meet Rapunzel, the Big Bad Wolf, terrifying giants, lusty princes, and their own destinies. But after their journeys are done, the real question remains: what comes after “happily ever after” and will the prices paid for it be worth it in the end?

This is a special storybook adaptation that tells the tale of the musical with beautiful illustrations in just under 100 pages. It’s a work of art that any fan of the musical will love.

West Side Story: The Jets, the Sharks, and the Making of a Classic (Turner Classic Movies)
by Richard Barrios and Turner Classic Movies
Running Press Adult
ISBN-13 : 978-0762469482
$28.00 (discounted at Amazon)

This book is a captivating, richly illustrated full account of the making of the ground-breaking movie classic West Side Story (1961). The musical that put Sondheim on the map, West Side Story is a timeless classic that has and will endure many interpretations. This book looks at the first movie incarnation.

A major hit on Broadway, on film West Side Story became immortal-a movie different from anything that had come before, but this cinematic victory came at a price. In this engrossing volume, film historian Richard Barrios recounts how the drama and rivalries seen onscreen played out to equal intensity behind-the-scenes, while still achieving extraordinary artistic feats.

The making and impact of West Side Story has so far been recounted only in vestiges. In the pages of this book, the backstage tale comes to life along with insight on what has made the film a favorite across six decades: its brilliant use of dance as staged by erstwhile co-director Jerome Robbins; a meaningful story, as set to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s soundtrack; the performances of a youthful ensemble cast featuring Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, and more; a film with Shakespearean roots (Romeo and Juliet) that is simultaneously timeless and current. West Side Story was a triumph that appeared to be very much of its time; over the years it has shown itself to be eternal.

Any fan of Sondheim, Bernstein, the movie or musicals in general will love this fascinating document of how the movie made the jump from stage to screen.

Next up in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide we have a website recommendation for a West Virgina company that makes and sells hand-crafted wood and glass toys.

The Mountain Craft Shop Company, located in Proctor, West Virginia, sells products that are collectively known as American Folk Toys. These are reproductions of toys once made at home and handed down from one generation to another.

Most of their toys are made of native hardwoods, such as poplar, walnut, cherry, beech, or maple. The toy names may sound strange like “WhimmyDiddle” and ‘FlipperDinger,” but they are the traditional names from years past.

At their webstore you will find dolls, mazes, puzzles, games and more.

The Mountain Craft Shop Co. uses local products such as the marbles in many of their items (Musical Marble Tree, Marble Chute, TicTacToe), which are made in Paden City, WV at the Marble King factory. Marble King is one of the last remaining marble factories in North America.

Mountain Craft Shop Co. is in it’s sixth decade, and you can find their products in gift shops at museums and historical locations all around the country, but now you can also order online, and that’s what I’m suggesting you do.

You can expect to find a terrific assortment of traditional wooden games, which could make the perfect gift for kids of all ages.