Toy Bender

Thanks to the fine people at Krause Publishing, I snagged a copy of The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe 1982-1994 to give away to one fine Toy Bender fan (or ToyBendinite as you often refer to yourselves at the chapter meetings). That’s right, true believers! You could get your very own copy of the premier G.I. Joe collecting by Mark Bellomo. That’s a 26.99 value for free! I’ll be giving my impressions of the book soon, but here’s the quick and dirty version if you’re on the fence about entering the contest: It’s great and you should have it.

There are three ways to qualify:

1. Post a comment below stating what G.I. Joe figure or vehicle is your favorite toy from the line and why. Include your real email so I can get your address if you win.

2. Become a fan of the Toy Bender Facebook page.

3. Follow me on Twitter.

Each of the above items will give you an entry into the contest, so that’s up to three entries! If you already follow me on Twitter and/or are a fan on Facebook, send me a message to WinBigPrizesWinBigMoney@gmail.com telling me who you are so I can give you credit (sometimes nicknames don’t match up, so I can’t remember who is who).

One random person will win themselves a copy of the book! Winner will be announced July 17th.

Thanks again to Krause Publications, publishers of fine hobby books and magazines. They’re also located in Wisconsin like I am now, so Wisconsin pride… or whatever.

A special thanks goes out to Mr. Bellomo.

Well, it’s time to announce the lucky five winners of the uhh Snarf contest. I guess I didn’t name it so well. Here they are:

1. Goggles
2. Shogi
3. Shelly Wilkerson
4. Sam
5. Newt

Congrats to you and you’ll be getting your very own Snarf pencil gripper in the mail!

I also kind of went outside of the contest and decided to give reader Thundercat78 a Snarf. While I enjoyed all the comments, something really struck me about Thundercat78’s comment. Here it is:

“I am a HUGE ThunderCats fan and far and away my favorite ThunderCat is Cheetara. As a youngin’ I used to run circles around my house as fast I could while holding whatever pole or stick I could find to be my Cheetara staff. I would even try an imitate the brisk sound FX you hear on the cartoon when she runs! I loved the fact that I was blonde and had freckles because I felt maybe I would one day grow up to be a cheetah-like Thunderian myself. Instead, I just grew up to be a slightly nerdy, but agile and fit, gay man! I still love ThunderCats, and draw them all the time. (I’m an illustrator and I am sure the ThunderCats cartoon had a very large impact on me choosing this career path). I’d LOVE a mint Snarf pencil topper to adorn my pencil while I sketch more ThunderCats. Thanks for the great blog. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

Great stuff. I just love the idea of this kid running around pretending to be Cheetara. What does this go to show you? Well, that in a contest where you leave a comment do your best because you never know if you might get something extra. I also think that we learned that I’m totally ball droppingly awesome.

And remember this contest was sponsored by Dinosaur Toy Vault! Where you can totally buy your own Snarf if you didn’t win! We’re also now featuring more G.I. Joes and hopefully in the future it will feature even more toys. Speaking of which, is there any toy you guys would like to see on there?

Wes from Scary Crayon was the winner of the Beverly Crusher figure that I got from the hardware store a few weeks ago (if you haven’t read the article check it out at PoeGhostal.com). Well, Wes was kind enough to make a little comic featuring Dr. Crusher and he passed it along to me.

Thanks Wes!

I have all the Snarves (plural of Snarf). Don’t believe me? Well feast your eyes on this:

What you see there is 100 Snarf pencil grippers/toppers. Here’s an up close view:

Why do I have all these Snarves? Well, after selling some toys on Dinosaur Toy Vault I thought that I might want to find other stuff that I could sell. I ran across a wholesaler and I got a great deal on all the Snarf pencil toppers ever. I don’t think it’s crazy to think other people would want a Snarf from Thundercats pencil topper, considering the Thundercats was one of the coolest cartoons in the eighties. In fact, I think I should share my Snarf wealth, so I’m going to give away Snarves to friends and family as well as to five of you awesome readers!

If you want a groovy Snarf pencil topper all you have to do is leave a comment below telling me which Thundercats character is your favorite and why. If you’ve switched favorite characters throughout your life, I’d actually rather hear which one you liked when you were a kid. Five random, lucky people will get their hands on their own Snarf. Be sure to leave your actual email when you leave a comment!

The winners will be announced sometime next week. If you don’t happen to win, you could always buy one from Dinosaur Toy Vault for cheap. It’s not like I don’t have a lot of them…

This is a post in two parts. The first part can be found on Poe Ghostal’s awesome blog “Poe Ghostal’s Points of Articulation” and it details the amazing toy aisle in the Northwoods of Wisconsin that contains toys that are now at least a decade old. This post is the one where you can win your very own piece of insane toy history!

That’s right, I’m giving away a Playmates Star Trek:The Next Generation Dr. Beverly Crusher figure that had been sitting on a store peg hook for a grand total of sixteen years. Now she’s not exactly mint, I mean she’s been in a store for longer than most Twilight fans have been alive, but this is a rare opportunity to own your very own piece of toy history. How many other people can say they owned a vintage Next Gen figure that was bought brand new at retail in 2009? Nobody else, that’s who!

All you have to do to get your hands on this figure is to leave a comment below letting me know who your favorite Star Trek character is and why. The winner will be randomly selected. Be sure to leave your real email address so I can contact you to let you know that you’re the winner kid. Otherwise someone else will be selected. Thems the breaks!

So now get to it, kids. Who is your favorite Star Trek character? Mine is T’Pol. I’ll give you one guess why.

I recently got a case of Joes I ordered about three months ago that were delayed about four times and due to the fact that I’m not as excited about them as when I originally purchased them and I’m not hot on giving eBay an undeserving chunk of my change, I’d buck the system and simply give them away to you!

The winner will him himself (or herself) one Cobra Para-Viper or a Sergeant Airborne (your choice!). The loser will win a Pilot Scarlett figure. (Yes, the loser is actually second place, but I thought we’d put a fun spin on it.)

There are two ways to enter. The first is by becoming a fan of the brand new ToyBender Facebook page. That’s right, your favorite toy blog is now on Facebook like everything else these days. Once you become a fan, that’s ten entries to the contest.

But that’s not all! If you comment on this here site, you also qualify! Each comment is one entry and you can comment as many times as you want, on any post, and you can even comment multiple times in the same post. Please at least provide a little substance with each comment, though. I will ultimately judge if it fits into the “spam” category or not. Spam does not qualify.

So there you have it, comment and/or be a fan on Facebook and you can win free stuff. Life is grand.

Extra Deets: If for some crazy reason you wouldn’t want a free toy sent to you for doing practically nothing and you win, you can turn down the prize and the next person in line will get it. The deadline for accepting entries is 2/13/09. Winner will be picked randomly out of all entries received.

The winners of the 2008 Joes for Tots contest have been chosen and I’m pleased to announce them!

The first Grand Prize Winner is: Sean Hayes
Second Grand Prize Winner is: Chuck Topley
Third Place Winner is: Andrew Swan
Fourth Place Winner is: Miles Akins

Congrats to all! Watch your mail box for the incoming loot.

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I’m pleased to announce that the contest to benefit Toys For Tots is now over. All that’s left is getting the winner picks from the official number picker. In the meantime, I’d like to thank everyone who participated and anyone that linked to the contest in order to help the tots out.

One contestant that I’d really like to thank is Sean Hayes who goes by the name hrdwrkngXsoldier on several different forums. Inspired in part by the contest, Sean took it upon himself to organize a drive to donate to Toys For Tots. He first enlisted his work place and then got a local comic shop Comic Evolution to match donations. Overall, they gathered about 10,000 dollars worth of donations!

I asked Sean a few questions about his efforts:

TB: What kind of items did you gather? Anything other than G.I. Joes?

Sean: I actually tracked all of the GI Joe Stuff, we got 15 Vehicles, 10 DVD packs, 20 Comic Packs, 6 combat heroes, 40 single carded joes, 2 sigma six 10 inch style Vehicles, 10 Sigma six figures, and a complete set of the Walmart exclusive 12 inch joes, 2 Dusty 12 inch and 1 Snake eyes versus red ninja. 2 Firefly vs Green Suits, 1 Air command Set. There were also donations of sports equipment, barbies, Hannah Montana stuff, even some Army Men. (I did see 1 Corps figure) Comic Evolution in Puyallup that matched us with our donations included more single carded Joes, tons of Spawn Figures, Marvel Legends, Spider man, Iron Man, DCU, and Hulk Figures. He also had some cases of Polly Pocket playsets and Dolls for the girls.

TB: Was it hard to find others to help you toward your goals?

Sean: It wasn’t hard to get support at all. When I was looking for a local shop to match my clinic, I called a couple of the owners I knew and Chuck at Comic Evolution was very glad to have his customers and his store participate. It all started with just my small clinic, but the word had gotten around to everybody in the department and we gained the support of the rest of the Dept of Family Medicine Clinic.

Sadly here in the Seattle-Tacoma Area we had a bit of a snow storm that made it hard for people to get around. We aren’t used to snow up here and don’t have the equipment or crews to maintain the roads. Many people also take leave for the holidays. I think if we had started earlier and the weather was friendlier that we could have done at least twice as much.

TB: Do you think you’ve made anyone into new collectors?

Sean: I know for sure I did. This whole thing started because I was a collector and desperately wanted to have a chance to win the GI. Joe Extreme conditions sets. So I have GI Joes in my office at work here on Ft. Lewis. I just decided that I could do something bigger. I remember when my co-worker was helping me make the donation boxes people asked us about what was going on. I would take a minute and explain that GI Joe has come out with a re-release of most of the 80’s toys in a super articulated style and that I think the less fortunate people of our military community would like to have a GI Joe at home, especially with so many children in the area that wont get to see their life size Joe during the holiday due to deployment missions.

I would bust out my Snake eyes, Breaker Para-Viper and custom Peyton Manning to show them off. There was a great consensus among the soldiers I serve that they needed to get some for themselves or for their children. I know on Special Forces medic that I work with went out and picked up some Lt. Falcons for his two kids. Two to keep sealed and two for his kids to play with. I’ve even had people ask me what figures are out there with their MOS (military specialty) and inquire about customs.

Lots of stores here had shipping problems due to the weather, but the PX, all the Wal-mart and Targets are still pretty empty in the GI Joe section. I created competition for myself that is for sure.

That’s some awesome work by Sean and Comic Evolution and it’s more than I could ever hoped for when thinking up this thing. If you combine Sean’s amazing effort and the other entries I received, I’d have to say that this was all worth it and a lot more kids had a good holiday season because of this. I’m hoping I can do this again next year, only bigger and better. Oh yes, I have plans…

I also want to thank the sponsors again, 80sTees.com, Big Bad Toy Store, Brian’s Toys, and Sideshow Collectibles. Without their prize donations there wouldn’t have been any prizes to give to those kind hearted souls out there.

Finally, be sure to check out the following links if you haven’t already. I promise the sponsor spotlights are actually entertaining to read as opposed to painfully boring like you’ll find on lesser quality bloggidy blogs.

80sTees Spotlight
Big Bad Toy Store Spotlight
Brian’s Toys Spotlight
Sideshow Collectibles Spotlightt
Pictures of Some of the Contestants

It’s come to my attention recently by a Mr. Poe Ghostal that if you donate for Toys For Tots online you get an email receipt that doesn’t give any personal information away (except for your name and address which you’d need for the contest). Well guess what? I’m opening up submissions to include a monetary donation to Toys For Tots at their website. So that means if you donated to Toys For Tots online this year and still have a copy of the online receipt pass it on to winbigprizeswinbigmoney@gmail.com.

If you haven’t given to the program or have and would like a chance to win (you didn’t take a picture of your donation), then head on over to the Toys For Tots website now and donate a little cash to the cause. I’ll be extending the contest deadline until 1/4/09 to give you a bit of extra time.

Remember if you want some of this:

And don’t want more of this:

Donate to Toys For Tots and send in a contest entry.

Also be sure to visit our sponsors 80sTees.com, Big Bad Toy Store, Brian’s Toys, and Sideshow Collectibles.

It’s still not too late to send me your entries for the Toys For Tots contest (but it might be getting too late to donate), but I thought I’d share a few photos of some of the people that have sent me entries so far just because I thought it would be fun.

After donating the toys, this fellow was savagely beaten to death by the Tusken Raider.

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Have you gotten in your contest entry for the Toys For Tots contest? Why the hell not? You better get on that, Mister or you’re going to miss the chance to win sweet toys and help a child in need. And speaking of sweet toys, not only did 80sTees.com, Brian’s Toys, and Big Bad Toy Store donate to the contest, but Sideshow Toys did as well. Let’s check out their stuff!

Sideshow is known for having high end merchandise. They truly make “collectibles” and not “toys”. Okay, they totally make toys, but you can’t find them at the local Toys R Us or Wal-Mart. Their G.I. Joe line is particularly interesting to me and here’s the full reveal of their Cobra Soldier:

Hot Pants! Good God Y’all!

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Dear Deadbeats,

You haven’t donated to Toys For Tots yet. What’s up with that? Get off your pimply rear and start dropping toys into a Toys For Tots bin like a member of G Unit makes it rain at a strip joint. Time is running out to make a difference between a bitter and disappointing year or a happy wonderland of joy for some kid out there.

Sure I’ve got a lot of nice contest entries, but I need yours. I’m guessing you haven’t sent one to winbigprizeswinbigmoney@gmail.com because you haven’t donated yet. I can’t imagine that you donated and didn’t enter the contest. That’s insane! Well listen here, Partner. I think it’s finally time to get down to brass tacks. As the song says, “No more Mr. Nice Guy. No More Mr. Green Jeans.” If you don’t donate a toy to Toys For Tots this weekend and then send me a picture of it by 12/31/08 I’m converting this blog into a “Littlest Pet Shop” fansite.

Yep, not more witty commentary. No more pictures of dinosaurs hanging out with Christian deities. No more horrible grammar mistakes. No more me talking about how awesome my wife is or how poor I am. Nope, none of the things that you like will appear on this site again. It’s going to be all Littlest Pet Shop all day, every day. As you can see, I’m not above extortion or running this site into the ground.

You don’t want that do you? I didn’t think so. Go out and donate to Toys For Tots today!

Yours truly,

Paul V. Rudolph

Big Bad Toy Store stocks a lot of cool ass stuff and they were both generous and super nice to donate two fifty dollar gift credits to the big Toys for Tot contest. Let’s take a look at some of the cool stuff I’ve found on their site:

Optimus Prime’s Little Buddy

MP Optimus Prime Roller. Seriously, this is so bad ass that it hurts me to look at it. If you’re lucky enough to have the MP Optimus Prime and trailer combo, you’d be a fool not to buy the Roller parts to go with it. A bloody fool!

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Well folks, Christmas is almost upon us and that feeling of joy that the season brings has infected my household like a nasty virus… or maybe I just have a bad cold. Anyway, I thought I’d take a moment to post the long delayed image of all the awesome prizes you can win with ToyBender’s Joes for Tots contest:

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You know what’s great? Helping others. This time of the year is the perfect time to help the less fortunate, because there are a lot of kids out there that might not be able to have a good *insert religious or secular holiday here* this year. That’s where Toys For Tots and ToyBender come in. If you donate a toy(s) to Toys For Tots, you’ll have the chance to win some fabulous prizes!

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