Top Hat Sasquatch

Reports have been coming in about the TMNT LEGO sets popping up in Toys R Us stores, but I haven’t seen any yet. Luckily, Amazon is starting to get them in stock. Right now, the Shellraiser Street Chase set is available directly from Amazon for $60. That’s good news for Prime members, the box of bricks could be at your house as early as tomorrow.

If my wife read the site I would hint heavily that this is my favorite of the TMNT LEGO sets and that it would be a perfect Christmas gift. Sigh.

I first met Spider-Man in the cheesy live-action segments of The Electric Company.  My first run-in with Superman was during his time as a member of the Super Friends, along with his super friends Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman (I think we can all agree that the less said about Aquaman, the better).  I yelled, “Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!” thanks to the Lone Ranger and Zorro serials that were broadcast on PBS after the Saturday morning cartoons were over.  I can remember where I met all of these superheros, but I have no clue where or when I was first introduced to Tarzan.

I have a feeling there are a lot of us who just seem to instinctively know who Tarzan is.  Since Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story of the ape man was first published 100 years ago, the character has become something of a ubiquitous icon, akin to someone like Uncle Sam.  We may not know how or when we were formally introduced to Tarzan, but we know that anyone in a leopard skin cloth swinging from a vine could only be one person.
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Last year I wrote about my favorite Christmas special, A Muppet Family Christmas, and it’s hard to not write an article about it every year. I love it so much I watch it about ten times each holiday, and it never gets old. It is full of charm, classic Muppet humor, plus Fraggles and Sesame Street characters. What’s not to like?

After watching it last night I realized that I would love to have all the songs from the hour-long special as a soundtrack in my iTunes library. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I decided to remedy that.

I ripped the audio from the video file I have (which has some parts you may not remember), separated all the songs, tweaked the levels a bit, then made sure it had all the proper MP3 meta tags and threw it in an Amazon S3 folder.

It’s ten tracks of pure Muppety Christmas Joy™, and you can download it at the snazzy link below. This is probably not very legal, but seeing as how Disney will probably never be able to release this amazing special again due to the rights of certain songs and the inclusion of the Fraggles and Sesame Street characters, I think I’m doing a public service.

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Straight from the mouth of Gravity Falls creator and executive producer Alex Hirsch comes word of new T-shirts. There are four exclusive designs to choose from at welovefine.com. I’m partial to the Mabel Grappling Hook one but also love the ambiguity of the rainbow-puking gnome.

Additionally, the site is running a design contest where you have the chance to create your on GF shirt and win up to $2,000. You have until Jan. 31, 2013 to submit your entry that will be judged by show creative director Mike Rianda and Hirsch himself.

If that’s not enough Gravity Falls goodness for you, be sure to check out the Gravity News Gossiper podcast. I recently discovered this gem of a fan show devoted to the Disney Channel cartoon. Hosts Chris and Eugene dissect the series and help us through this insufferable hiatus as we wait for new episodes of our favorite show.

Hey! Did you know we still have quite a few Top Hat Sasquatch shirts left? Well, we do, and to celebrate the non-holiday-but-cool-sounding 12-12-12, I’m selling them for $12 today only. That’s $8 off, and you’ll still get all the extra goodies I can cram in the package too.

Head over to the shirts page, enter your info and size, and $12 (plus $2 shipping) later you’ve got yourself an awesome shirt designed by Alex Deligiannis and a bag full of stickers, buttons, and trading cards.

I’ll ship them out tomorrow and you’ll definitely get them before Christmas, and there’s no limit on how many you can order so feel free to give them as gifts to everyone you know.

Sorry, shirts are sold out!