Year 5: November Update

Last year I posted a lot of food ads on the blog's Facebook page for the holiday but I don't think I have anything special for today, there or here. I did scan another Electronics Boutique catalog recently that I need to put into a post for the big shopping day tomorrow. Other than that, no videos are currently in the works. This month on the YouTube channel I played Ghostbusters on the Sega Master System to tie into the launch of the latest movie (the video is included in the previous post). Too bad I'm no good at the fast shooting/dodging final stage and so I couldn't show the ending. Although I'm a fan of the first two films, I never owned much Ghostbusters merchandise. Along with the game I have a children's book with stickers and a Ghostbuster II book with various activities that I did post a few scans of on Facebook last year in this album (look toward the middle between Garfield and The Flintstones).

On November 12th Disney announced a lot of new content in the works for its subscription service and the one that stood out the most to myself is a continuation of the X-Man animated series from the '90s. Being a fan of Marvel's mutants, that's one of my favorite cartoons so I'm looking forward to more episodes, not that the show will be out any time soon (scheduled for 2023) and it will probably have a new voice cast. As for games, Warner Bros. showed off MultiVersus, a Smash Bros.-like free-to-play title coming in 2022 that will feature characters from a wide range of properties, such as DC Comics, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, and Adventure Time. Last week Bandai Namco revealed an upcoming game called Pac-Man Museum+, a compilation of 14 Pac-Man games with a customizable arcade area to access each game from. I've never really enjoyed Smash Bros. types of fighting games so I'm much more interested in Pac-Man even though I've already played some of the classics that are included.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the original Xbox console and a couple weeks ago I joined a Xbox Fanfest trivia event to celebrate. I thought I'd do better than I did but the first few rounds had a lot of tough questions that weren't even necessarily Xbox-themed. However, I made the first cut which was for the top 2,500 and that was good for a $10 gift card to the Xbox gear store. Unfortunately, I didn't make it into the top 1,000 though I kept playing until the end for fun. There was never any indication of how many people were actually playing or where I ranked overall. I'm not a super fan of Xbox or of any one company or platform; well, aside from Sega back in the day. Coincidentally, I did get the first Xbox because of Sega as Shenmue II was only available on Xbox in North America and I had to play it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Jonathan

[YouTube] Ghostbusters

https://youtu.be/6QFBSBB8Mh4

With the new Ghostbusters movie upon us I've scanned old magazine coverage of console video games based on the 1989 movie and the sequel. There are a number of other games based on the franchise, including another in the '80s and '90s based on the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters, 2009's Ghostbusters: The Video Game which features an original story set after the second movie, and an overhead shooter that released alongside the 2016 film. I've played a fair amount of the Master System game which is more or less the same game that appears on many platforms and follows the first movie's story. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any articles on that one but you can watch me play it in the video above. I don't own the Genesis game but did rent back when it was new and most of the scans below are of this game. It was published by Sega and exclusive to the platform, and has a story set after the first movie. Although the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game appears to be below average, overall the Ghostbusters games tend to be decent to good, something most older movie tie-in games are not. Also worth noting, the NES game is called Ghostbusters II but is based on the first film whereas the Game Boy game is actually based on the second movie. 

Nintendo Entertainment System

Video Games & Computer Entertainment (VG&CE)
May 1990

Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) #10

Game Boy

Game Player's - October 1990

Sega Genesis

GamePro - June 1990

Sega Visions - Oct/Nov 1990

VG&CE - June 1990

Mega Play

Electronic Gaming Monthly #11

Electronic Gaming Monthly #11

Game Player's - July 1990

[YouTube] Tomy Art Sets

https://youtu.be/3gdTUcH4hKc

Back in 2017 I tried to jam all of my Tomy items into one video but it turns out I have a few more, including three art sets from the late '70s/early '80s. Being Halloween, the primary focus in the video is on the Mighty Men & Monster Maker set. This one was my toy when I was a kid along with the much smaller van set, whereas Fashion Plates was my sister's and I'm not sure I ever used it until I did for this video post. All three sets work the same way: mix and match plastic plates, put a piece of paper on top of them, and then rub a special crayon over the plates to create an image. Images can be colored with the pencils that were included in the larger sets or kids can use any other art supplies. The backs of some plates contain patterns that can add more detail to a creation during the coloring phase, such as scales on a monster's skin or a floral design on an article of clothing.

The Mighty Men & Monster Maker (1979) features a total of 18 plates with head, upper body, and lower body parts to select from. As the name suggests you can make monsters but also "mighty men" which are basically superhero types. Of course, since parts can be mixed users can place a human head on a lizard body or a monster head on a Superman-like body. Parts cannot easily be mixed between sets, however, as they are all different sizes. Fashion Plates (1978) offers 15 plates, and it has both individual head and upper body plates as well as combined head and upper body pieces to match with a lower body plate. 

Little Van Goes is a miniature set and I'm unsure of the year as I could not locate a copyright on the box or toy. The box still has a price on it so we can see it originally retailed for $4.95 at Service Merchandise and was discounted to $3.27 at the time of purchase. This set is about creating passenger vans by combining front, middle, and rear plates that are stored in a removeable tray. I'm wondering if Tomy chose the name to state that children who play with this are getting their start to become an artist like Van Gogh, or maybe not. 

Looking around eBay I found a few other related items. Tomy made a Fashion Plates add-on kit simply titled More Fashion Plates, a 1987 edition of Fashion Plates, another fashion related toy for making paper dolls called Kimberly Kut-Outs, and a greeting card set called Great Greetings. There is also Hot Styles Fashion Plates (1992) from Hasbro and five years ago Kahootz released Fashion Plates and Action Plates which are nearly identical to Tomy's. I'd guess that Hasbro worked with Tomy to bring new versions to the U.S. but I've no idea if Kahootz officially licensed anything. It might have copied the idea and made its own original plates or purchased the rights as it did bring back Spirograph and Lite-Brite in the last decade as well.

For the phots and scans you'll see I am missing the pencil box (and most pencils) for Fashion Plates and only have documentation for the Mighty Men & Monster Maker set. The box for Fashion Plates is a mess too as it spent a lot of time in a basement which shows. I was pressed for time and did a rush job on coloring so the images I made are sloppy but I at least wanted to provide some examples outside of the video.

Mighty Men & Monster Maker

Fashion Plates

Little Van Goes

Created in the Video