Tupa's Treasures

May the 4th be with you!

Ok guys and gals, here is my latest project:

A book about playing with toys.

What I want to do is collect the toy-playing stories and memories from our youth (and any youth actually). The stories we made up, the toys we made, what we thought and felt; both boys and girls.
This may seem kind of vague but I have posted a few of my stories at the end of this post for reference:

I want to capture these memories and share them with each other and with the kids of today. I love hearing about how someone made a Gi Joe base out of pillows and a cardboard box; or how someone else imagined his closet was a black hole and the SilverHawks went on missions to rescue his California Raisins figures. I think it would be neat to have these stories and to read about other adventures kids were having while I was having mine; plus the creativity of children is so dang inspiring.

I want this to be pretty open; any toys, any time period, any gender, age, whatever

I plan to offer it on kindle and any other formats I can get it on (smashwords, etc?) I will have to learn how to do that but it shouldn’t be a problem. There is also the possibility of getting a printed version if the demand is there.

I plan to offer the book for free … or for $1 with all proceeds going to a children’s hospital.

Each story/memory will end with the authors name and website/email (if they so choose)

So, if this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of send me your stories, however short or long

I’d like to have all the stories by the summer so I can get it all edited and formatted in time for Christmas.

No vulgarity or swearing.
If you know of anyone else who may be interested or any other toy forums to promote this on, then by all means feel free to or let me know and I will. The more stories, the better

Thanks!
Christopher Tupa

christophertupa@hotmail.com

Some of my memories (keep in mind these are a work in progress):

One Sunday night The Empire Strikes Back was on TV and while watching it I made my own Star Destroyer. For some reason we had a big flat box in the house so I took that and used it for the base and glued a few smaller boxes on top for the bridge and what not. I got a few Star Wars action figures out and played with them on top of the ship.  It was really lame and quick to make but I played with it while the movie was on, afterwards it got dismantled.

On another Sunday we were down in our basement and on the TV was a weekly Disney movie about Big Foot. In between watching the show and the commercials I decided to make my own AT-AT type toy. I made the whole thing out of cardboard and cardboard boxes; with if I remember correctly, toilet paper rolls for the legs. It didn’t last long but it was neat to make.

In the 7^th or 8^th grade I made my own SeaDuck from the TaleSpin cartoon. This one was made entirely from wood and I painted it yellow and red. It was pretty heavy to play with but it was fun to fill it up with my toys and action figures and fly them around the house on adventures. I made the back door out of cardboard I think and taped it on so it would open.  After a year or two I either threw it away or sold it in a garage sale.

Once, in the 5^th or 6^th grade I spent the night with a friend of mine and outside his house was a large pile of bricks, all stacked up in a giant cube.  His family was doing some remodeling or something and had the bricks delivered – I’m assuming this now but at the time I had no clue why they were there. But my friend had removed a few bricks and stacked a few others up in different ways to basically turn that huge stack of bricks into a fortress/base/castle for his toys. I thought that was so cool and even 20 years later I still remember that huge brick playset.

So I had this great idea: I would find an old Presto Magix transfer set and show my 5 year old daughter the lost art of pencil transfers. I used to love these when I was kid but at some point in time they disappeared. So I went on Ebay and searched through all the 80s Presto Magix. There was quite a great selection but also pretty pricey. I finally found a Return of the Jedi Ewok village set for $4.50 with free shipping: Perfect!

When it arrived in the mail I explained to my daughter how it worked and we opened it up. It felt pretty cool opening up a Star Wars product 30 years after it was made and as I took the plastic wrap off I could swear I was back in 1984. 
I showed my daughter how you have to rub the pencil on the back and the picture sticks the paper background.

So I tired one but it didn’t work. Hmm…Then I tried another, same thing.

Well, apparently the 30 year old transfers were too old and had lost their sticking power-bummer. Hard to show your daughter the magic of rub-on transfers when they don’t work.

 I was so excited to use these transfers; oh well, I gave it a shot.

I have been out of rotation for a bit and missed some great League assigments but I’m back with this weeks:

Besides the Batmobile, what is the sweetest ride cruising the streets of pop culture?

This one is pretty tough, there are so many awesome “rides” to pick from so I cheated and picked a few:

Of course the General Lee is a fave as well as any number of great Muscle cars that have been used in the movies and TV but here are a few different ones:

The car from Condorman! Not only is awesome but if I remember correctly it’s a boat too. I’d even wear the Condorman costume!

Bandit’s car! Oh man, this is one sweet ride! I live in a really small town and a couple years ago someone down the road had one of these for sale-man did I want to buy it…

And who wouldn’t want a speeder bike? Still one of my favorite parts of Return of the Jedi. These would be sooooo much fun to ride on. They’d also be sooooo dangerous so I’d even settle for the toy version, I would have loved to have had one of those as a kid, heck I still would!

Well I could do this all day so I’ll stop right here. That last one was a bit of a cheat but I had to include it.

Check out these other great answers from some of my League pals:

 Shawn at Branded in the 80s has some great, great picks! (I won’t spoil it!)

Haxbee has a great choice (hint: green) and some awesome photos

By now you probably all know that I am a huge Star Wars fan. So I decided to make a poster, but I made it in the style of the original trilogy toy card backs.  I had so much fun with this poster, especially trying to come up with different body styles and poses for each of the 24 characters depicted. The barcode and Proof of Purchase is actually scanned from an original card back.
This poster is just for Star Wars: A New Hope, if I make enough money to cover the printing costs I would like to make a poster for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi…and maybe the prequels too.
Each poster is 13″x19″ printed on 100lb gloss book and comes shipped in a mailing tube.

Get yours for only $7 + $3 S/H!!

A few things I picked up the past week:

Muppet Babies coloring book for $1. Looking through this has  inspired me to do some Muppet Babies fan art! I also found a Veggie Tales Star Wars book; should be a fun read!

We went to Fredericksburg, TX to do some hiking and I found these quarter machine toys on the trip. Two Marvel foam balls, a traffic cone and 3 tiny animal characters.

There was one store in Fredericksburg that was full of quarter machines and most were pretty old. I like the one with the chicken in it; you put your quarter in and the chicken starts “bawking” and then lays and “egg”. Pretty fun. The Elvis one was out of order; too bad I was hoping to see what it did.

I wanted to share with you a sneak peak of something really fun I’m working on!

This week’s assigment from the League of Bloggers is:

What media announcement had you throwing fist pumps and doing roundhouse kicks in the air? Did the final result live up to your dreams?

This one is easy for me: when they announced that Star Wars was going to be re-released in theatres with extended and additional scenes . I have not been that excited about any media announcement since then. I think I heard the annoucement 2 years before the first one was to come out and it seemed like an eternity until then. Nowadays 2 years flies by like nothing. Getting to see the Star Wars trilogy in the theatre was awesome! I vaguely remember watching Return of the Jedi in a theatre. I had watched the series so many times on TV and VHS that to actually sit in the theatre was fantastic. Plus, on opening day of Jedi I got a free exclusive Luke Skywalker action figure!

The best thing about the action figure- when I saw Jedi in the theatre as a kid they had stickers on the drinks and popcorn cups and if you mailed them in you could get a Luke as Jedi action figure- the same one I got for the re-release! Now the circle is complete!!

 I didn’t care too much for the extended and additional scenes but getting to see the movies again more than made up for it.

They did have some awesome poster art!

My runner up is when they announced Indiana Jones 4. But that movie didn’t make me too happy so we’re not going to talk about it…

We all went to the carnival this past Saturday and the kids had a great time. They really enjoy the fun houses and I didn’t notice it at first (I was too busy watching the kids) but the theme of this particular fun house was Star Wars! What made it even better was that I was actually wearing a Star Wars t-shirt! Here’s some pics:

And they had another fun house that was more like an obstacle course and it was themed after Harry Potter!

Brian over at CoolandCollected has started a new project called “The League” where various blogs post about the same topic and then we share with each other. Sounds like a fun idea and the first topic is:

What movie is, or was, your “go to” Saturday matinee — the comfort movie you always popped into the VCR on a rainy Saturday afternoon, the movie you watched over and over again, driving your parents crazy while you recited the lines along with the characters on the screen?

And so here is my answer:

I didn’t have a lot of VHS tapes growing up but the two I watched quite often were “Star Wars” and “The Goonies”.
Actually, every summer I would watch “The Goonies” on the last night before school would start or as close to it as I could get.

I always thought the ending of “The Goonies” was bittersweet; they found the treasure and saved their neighborhood but in all likelyhood they would never have another adventure like that again and their lives would become normal and mundane like the rest of us. So for me, that really stood out when the summer was ending and all the freedom and adventures we had were about to end as we headed back to life in the classroom.
Secretely, I imagined the Goonies going back into the caves for more fun and exploration at a later date.

I love the movie, and it came out when I was 9 or 10 and as I watched it growing up I was growing up too and the movie always reminds me of the great times you could have as a kid and the simplicity of childhood. The older I got the more important that became to me. I refuse to “grow up” and will always be a kid at  heart and have as much fun and adventure as I can pack into my life.

I enjoy “The Goonies” so much I have made quite a bit of fanart and even went to Astoria, OR on vacation:

Lots more Goonies art here!

One of my first Goonie pieces:

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