Batman and Superman knew that Muppets were cool before Sesame Street ever aired.

My oldest son, who is not yet two, loves Sesame Street so I occasional sit down and watch it with him. I know that I used to love Sesame Street when I was a kid, but it wasn’t until having kids of my own that I appreciated the show for what it is.

According to Wikipedia:
“Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them”. Sesame Street was the first children’s show that structured each episode and made “small but critical adjustments” to each segment to capture children’s attention long enough to teach them something.

I don’t know if Sesame Street deserves partial credit for my love of comics because it featured Batman and Superman when I was a kid, but I do know that the show has helped my son recognize letters and build his vocabulary. My son loves to read and loves Sesame Street, so it’s only a matter of time before he and I are debating the differences between Superman of Earth1 and Superman of Earth 2.

Last week in Trinity #9 Batman pulled a spare Utility Belt from a compartment in a tree behind Wayne Manor and it made me wonder “How many utility belts does Batman have?”

While pondering a possible answer to my rhetorical question, it reminded me of an ad in a 1978 Marvel Team Up comic I recently read. This was an ad for “Spidey’s Utility Belt.”

I don’t remember Spider-Man ever really having a utility belt. I do remember his belt buckle working as a giant spotlight that would shine a likeness of the Wall-Crawler on thugs and goons iliminating them for attack or running away. I can also remember Spiey storing extra web-cartiges on his belt but never anything that resembled this:

I don’t remember Spider-Man having all of these gadgets,
but for less than $6 that one hell of a deal.

In 1978 I was only three years-old and didn’t remember Spider-Man having a utility belt other than what I mentioned above. I decided to look around the ‘net to see if I could find any more information about Spidey’s Utility Belt and soon found out that he was not the only mainstream super-hero in the late 70’s to have a utility belt. Both Spider-Man and Batman had utility belts, but it seems that both Superman and Captain America had a utility belts too.

Based on this image it seem that not only did Spider-Man, Captain America, and Superman copy the idea of the “Utility Belt” from Batman, they also copied the items found on the belt.

Each belt comes complete with:

• A belt buckle with the hero’s logo/name
• Decoder glasses (or Kryptonite Detector Glasses)
• A watch
• Handcuffs
• A City Decoder Map that corresponds with each hero’s city of operation.
• An Identity Card
• And an important Secret Message

That is a lot of cool stuff found on a utility belt that only costs $5.19 plus $0.60 shipping. Too bad this is a Throwback Thursday post because 30 years later the price of Spidey’s Utility Belt has skyrocketed from $5.79 with shipping to $314.99 with shipping.

If you are interested in purchasing any of these utility belts check out Cloud City Collectibles’ Ebay store, but be forewarned that the original utility belt that started the whole trend will cost you over $500.

With the price of gas and the state of the economy I present you a possible solution from 1978:

This comic book ad deals with issues that are still relevant today:

• 1978: What if I am laid off?
  2008: “Employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and employment services” (THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JUNE 2008).
• 1978: Will automation take my job?
  2008: Will outsourcing take my job?
• 1978: Can I learn a new skill? and Will my job ever pay more?
  2008: Will an online degree be taken seriously for employment?

The fact that this 1978 ad reminds me of a pop up ad for The University of Phoenix, but I can easily read between the lines and do the math:

Last night while looking through comics for Friday Night Fights I found this ad that made me wonder why not change the text at the bottom:

Growing plants to represent hair must be a popular concept, look at the Chia Pet success.

This I would buy!

A Mr. T Chia Head

I have it all wrong I have been getting all my Comic related “throwback” t-shirts at Target and Steve and Barry’s. For only $2.25 I could have ordered a one-of-a-kind t-shirt with the cover to Action Comics #1!
Damn those large corporations making me pay around $10 each!

Right now Sara is proofing a paper I just finished and have to turn in tonight for my graduate class. I am a procrastinator, but I do have a liable excuse for waiting until the last minute to write my paper. For my excuse I will copy what Sara put on her blog:

Without a wedding to plan and with only Fred in grad school now (my classes are over until January!  Woo Whoo!) We had too much time on our hands, so we took up the living room carpet.

The floors, like we thought, are un-repairable.  They have so many deep, dark stains that are not going to come out with sanding and re-staining.  Bummer, ’cause some spots on the floor are perfect, but the high traffic areas are awful.

We sanded, scrubbed and sealed the floor to get ready to put down the laminate floor.

We also took down the paneled wall.  Fred was afraid that the paneling was glued to drywall, but we lucked out, it was only nailed to a nice painted wall.

With the lack of opinions we received about flooring options, we did some research and decided to go with laminate flooring (sorry, sand and tires wouldn’t be right with all our pets). We’ll do that over Christmas break.
Now, of course, we’re going to put the furniture back for now (or some of it, the couch is in the middle of the kitchen, blocking the walk way.) But we’re also going to paint the walls (probably next weekend) and hang some new curtains.

See I don’t even have enough time to make my own post, instead I stole it from my wife.
Tomorrow evening check back and I promise that “Last Week In Comics” will be posted.

This seems has all the making of a great selling ad:

1. Famous sports star – “Big Joe”
2. Heroic Act – Saving of a damsel in distress
3. And, a seemingly common boy ending up fitting in with the cool crowd.

But… 

…I think though that this heroic act by Jim Driscoll was staged, and this was not a true heroic act.

If Chrissy is Big Joe’s sister and Big Joe is an established a football superstar, shouldn’t she know not to walk onto the field during a game?

Secondly Jim Driscoll is wearing the same exact pair of pants as Big Joe, coincidence? Jim tries to play it off as if every high-school and college kids wear them; I think its part of the whole conspiracy.

This ad proves that there is something fishy going on whenever any male wears tight pants.*

* Rock-stars excluded

September 10, 1983 I was about a week away from turning 8 years-old… So why do I not remember some of these shows.

I remember Pac-Man, the Moonchhices, and of course Scooby Doo… Menudo is another story for another time, but the Rubik’s Cube had his own show?

I love the Rubik’s Cube and the math behind its solution amazes me…  Check out these links:

• Info on Rubik the Amazing Cube
• Wikipedia’s entry on the Rubik’s Cube
• Wikipedia’s entry on how to solve the Rubik’s Cube (math included)

from Mystery in Space #68 1961

Yea, I am probably intoxicated, making this image even more funny, because Friday Night I left for my bachelor party in Put-In-Bay Ohio. It’s the Bourbon St. of Ohio! I’ll be back Sunday… and probably wont post anything until Monday.