New Photos Added: Woodstock Jewelry, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, Mattel Hot Wheels, THE LONG GOODBYE, Godard’s CONTEMPT, Toys, Cindy Crawford and Aurora models

May 10th, 2008 by Scott Marks

The curse of “Adventure Comics”: First Marilyn, then JFK. Will Jerry be next?

Cartoon All-Stars
Let’s Rap With Superman! Take this groovy 2 page survey and see if you and the Man of Steel agree on everything from astrology and pollution to “black people” and “other problems.” Part 1 and Part 2

Celebrity Endorsements
Pat Boone for Pat Boone Magazine, 1959

Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) - 5 Lobby Cards & 6 Photo

Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963) - Added 11 Photos

Cindy Crawford - 7 Photos from Fair Game (1995)

Jerry Lewis - 3 Action-Packed Comic Books!

Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) - 8 Lobby Cards

Smoking is Sexy
Kate Beckinsale in Snow Angels (2008)
Michelle Forbes in Kalifornia (1993)

Hey Mom! This Christmas give your kids the gift of Columbine!

Vintage Magazine Ads
Aurora Glow-In-The-Dark Monster Model Kits, 1969
Another ad for Daisy Toy Guns
Destination Moon Revell Model Kit, 1967
Mattel Hot Wheels, 1968
Skittle-Bowl by Aurora, 1968
Tijuana Taxi Monogram Model Kit
Woodstock Jewelry, 1971

Tags: Aurora Models, Bizarro Superman, Brigitte Bardot, Cindy Crawford, Comic Books, CONTEMPT, CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS, Daisy Toy Guns, FAIR GAME, Hobby Kits, Hot Wheels, Images, Jean-Luc Godard, Jerry Lewis, JFK, John F. Kennedy, Kate Beckinsale, Marilyn Monroe, Mattel, Michelle Forbes, Model Kits, Pat Boone, Photos, Pics, Pictures, Revell Models, Skittle-Bowl, Stills, Superman, THE LONG GOODBYE, Toys, Vintage, Woodstock, Woodstock Jewelry, Woody Allen

Filed Under Image Blog

Complete 1964-65 Bargain Town U.S.A. (Toys R Us) Toy Catalog

March 10th, 2008 by Scott Marks

I want this one and this one and that one…

Bargain Town USA, founded in 1957, was a small chain of stores scattered across Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit that lasted through the 1960s. Around the same time, a similar chain of stores named Toys R Us started up in the east coast. In the early 1960s, Bargain Town U.S.A. and Toys R Us formed a deal allowing the two chains to buy in larger quantities and offer their merchandise at discount prices. In 1967, Toys R Us was purchased by the retail giant Interstate Stores, Inc. Two years later, Interstate also bought Bargain Town U.S.A. and eventually the two chains merged. After Interstate went bankrupt in the early 70s, the chain lived on under the name Toys R Us, and eventually won over 25 percent of the huge U.S. toy market.

Etch-A-Sketch

None of the kids on my block ever went to Bargain Town. It was too expensive. Shopper’s World (affectionately nicknamed “Hocker’s World” for it’s high rate of shoplifting) had decent prices, but it was impossible to find a toy still sealed in the box. Their toy department resembled a third world day care center. Wanting to browse in peace, parents would frequently drop their kids off in the toy section while they wheeled their shopping carts around the store hunting for bargains. The wide-eyed tykes would gut every box and turn the aisles into makeshift playrooms.

Cocktails sold to minors. Never too early to train sonny for Vietnam

Their was also Minky’s Bicycles just west on Devon Ave. Minky’s toys and games were as overpriced as the eye-catching Schwinn Apple Crates he sold. Minky was the biggest goniff in Rogers Park. His toys were more expensive than anywhere else and the selection small. Minky’s was still the in-place if for no other reason than the pegboard on the back wall filled with novelty items. It was here where I was introduced to an encyclopedic world of cheap practical jokes: joy buzzers, itching powder, plastic ice cubes with flies in them, latex vomit and of course, the Whoopee (nee: Poo-Poo) Cushion.

Urban legend had it that Minky would send a van with a couple of his goons to the Lincoln Village Theater during a crowded kiddie matinée to do a little side work. They would find where the kids parked their bikes, cut the locks off the rack and bring the desirable ones back to the store so the boss could resell them. (Minky had his own metal logo that he fastened to the front of each bike he sold.) Fact or fiction, it was enough to keep the gang from ever again frequenting the store.

The Niks

My toy store of choice was Cut Rate Toys located on Devon just west of Western Ave. in Rogers Park. They had the most competitive prices on the north side, but it was run by Marvin Hecht, a devout tempermentalist who displayed a deep rooted mistrust for children. If a kid so much as wrinkled a header card, Marv was on them like a cheap Ben Cooper Halloween costume.

It was the first store of any kind that I remember being equipped with surveillance cameras to prevent adolescent shoplifting. They were located at the check out and you can bet your life that the only ones that ever touched the store’s cash register were Marv and his wife Renee.

Marv was a clenched little Jewish guy who sported the most blatantly hilarious, ill-fitting toupee this side of Rip Taylor. He wore half glasses and smoked cheap, stinky Garcia Vega cigars. Occasionally a kid who felt wronged would stand up against menacing Marv and call him on his noggin schmate. Rest assured, Marv stored a mental picture of the wise guy’s face and banished him permanently from his sacred toy house.

The Cleveland made Barbie & Ken Steamers

Marv had an ineffectual stooge in his employ whose job it was to keep watch on potential seven-year-old shoplifters. We generally laughed in his face. Once you’d been tongue-lashed by Marv, all other authority figures pale in comparison.

After years of being ripped off, Marv adopted a new tactic. When you walked in the front, it was now necessary to enter the shrine through a gated door upon which hanged a big handwritten cardboard sign that cautioned: CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 17 MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADULT. The world’s only R rated toy store.

We were zany kids. There was nothing funnier than going to Mr. Marvorium’s Paranoid Emporium, finding the Etch-A-Sketches and writing filthy words on them for others to find. One aisle of the store was devoted to beauty supplies and assorted drug store items. This was long before tamper proof packaging and I can’t say for sure whether or not I ever neatly unwrapped a Nestles Crunch and substituted it with an identical bar of Ex-Lax. For weeks I was a hero on the block, but for the poor kid who fell victim to my enlightened comedic resourcefulness, N-E-S-T-L-E-S made the biggest mess.

Marv’s new digs further east on Devon in Forest Glen

As an adult I returned to Cut Rate in search of Pee-Wee Herman toys and sure enough Marv and his sugar bowl toupee were still manning the counter. “You know,” I bravely said, “you used to scream at me when I came here as a kid.” “Keep it up,” Marv said chomping on the end of his cigar “and I’ll do it again!”

Cut Rate Toys is still around, possibly being run by Marv and/or Renee and/or their daughter Jackie. According to a 2001 Chicago Sun-Times article the then 73 Marvin Hecht was still going strong, working every day after almost 50 years in the store. I thought of calling to see if he was still behind the counter, but was afraid that Marv would answer the phone and yell at me.

That’s toy biz!

I may hate sports, but I was a whiz at Bas-Ket.