**WIN A GIANT GREEN MONSTER!!!!**

Thanks to the good folks at Yoe Books and IDW, we find ourselves once again with a copy of Craig's latest book, DITKO MONSTERS-GORGO to be given away to one lucky reader! This time, though, ya gotta do a little work for your chance.

See the picture above? That's me reading MY personal favorite (aHeM!) Yoe book, ARCHIE: A CELEBRATION OF AMERICA'S FAVORITE TEENAGERS. In order to enter this contest, we're asking that you snap a shot of you with your own personal favorite Yoe Book! Use your cell, your webcam, a digital camera or an old-fashioned Brownie. We really don't care. Just attach a photo of YOU reading your favorite Yoe Book and send it off to me at booksteve@aol.com and you're entered! It's a way of rewarding loyal customers.

No additional purchase necessary but note that all photos sent become the property of Yoe Books and may (or may not) be used in future promotions for Yoe Books without any additional permissions or compensation. So don't go for a masterpiece here. Just a webcam shot like mine above will do fine.

The contest ends at Midnight EDT on April 1st so start clicking now and you can win this fun volume of giant green monster stories! One customer on Amazon said that the barcode alone is worth the price!

Comedy Movie Ads From Photoplay Magazine

The Wish Ring-1975

I love going through seventies Charlton comics because you quite literally never know what you're going to find there, such as this two page text story from a 1975 issue of SCOOBY DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? It's illustrated by the great fan artist Alan (Jim) Hanley and features one of his all-time favrite characters, Billy Batson. Well..not really. But it IS rather obvious that's who Hanley was drawing even if the story didn't call for it and Charlton certainly didn't have the rights. 

Rare Movie Cowboy Photos

Don "Red" Barry as Red Ryder with Tommy Cook as Little Beaver

Bruce Cabot, Kent Taylor, William Bendix, Barton MacLane, Richard Arlen and Lon Chaney, Jr--an AC Lyles cast if ever I saw one.

Jimmie Dodd went from "mesquiteer" to "mousketeer"

Early sixties shot of former movie Mesquiteers Max Terhune (with Elmer) and Ray "Crash" Corrigan.

Wild Bill Elliott, Bob Livingston, Don "Red" Barry, Roy Rogers, Allan "Rocky" Lane (later the voice of Mr. Ed) and Sunset Carson.

Alan Ladd in THE CARPETBAGGERS as Nevada Smith

Ken Maynard on TODAY with Jack Lescoulie in the early sixties.

Buck Jones with script.

One season replacement Ranger John Hart.

Buster Crabbe, Richard Arlen, Fuzzy Knight and the original movie cowboy hero, Broncho Billy Anderson!

Dora the Explorer and the Destiny Medallion Part One

Tried to embed the video but the right side goes under the sidebar and you can't reach the fullscreen button. But here's the link--My new favorite thing!

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6874662/dora-the-explorer-and-the-destiny-medallion-part-1

Peter Wyngarde

Peter Wyngarde has been in the news this week with the rediscovery of SOUTH, a British teleplay from 1959 believed to be the first gay-themed dramatic effort to air on television. If you're in the US, you may not be familiar with Mr. Wyngarde but he is a performer of some depth and renown in the UK. He sang opposite Lucille Ball in her LUCY IN LONDON TV special in 1966. He was the new Number Two in THE PRISONER. He appeared memorably in many well-known TV showsTHE AVENGERS, THE CHAMPIONS and even DOCTOR WHO, all the while maintaining a presence in the classier productions for which British television is known.

It was DEPARTMENT S, though, that made Peter Wyngarde a star in 1969. The series dealt with a secret Interpol group brought in to investigate "unique" crimes. Wyngarde's Jason King character was a mystery author who acted as a consultant to the group. The character stood out from the fairly standard look of the rest of the show by  nature of his poofy hair, Sgt Pepper-style mustache and increasingly flamboyant fashion choices.  He was a cocky, egomaniacal ladies man who ended up becoming popular enough to merit his own 26 episode spin-off series, JASON KING after two series of DEPARTMENT S.

By the time he got his own show, the character, although still played straight, seems increasingly a parody and is often said to be the basis for Mike Myers' Austin Powers character. At the peak of his success, Peter Wyngarde was mobbed in public by fans, had comics characters based on him and put out a bizarre and ultimately controversial record album!

Wyngarde's career was quickly derailed just a few short years after JASON KING left the air when he was arrested on a couple of "public indecency" charges which also served to reveal the star's homosexuality. Although widely known in the industry--Wyngarde had been a companion to fellow actor Alan Bates for a decade at one point--like many stars, he had kept the fact a secret from the public. While such a revelation today might not have hurt his career, at the time it led to two bankruptcies.

 

Ultimately stage work--both acting and directing--became his passion with the occasional return to television screens, the last time being in a SHERLOCK HOLMES story in 1994. Eighty years old as of this writing, he was last seen in special features recorded for THE PRISONER DVD's of a few years back. Surprisingly, with his landmark TV appearance in SOUTH in the news, he has not been publicly heard from. At least not yet.

Rene's Book Debut!

Wife Rene just received her contributor copies of CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL--RAISING KIDS ON THE SPECTRUM, due out on April 2nd.

As many longtime readers now, son bookdave has Asperger's Syndrome (and refuses to stop self-identifying as such in spite of the new DSM retroactively saying it never existed!). He's lucky in that he has all the positive aspects associated with it and few of the negatives--and none of the major ones.

For this book, though, Rene has written a brief memoir of a particularly precocious incident caused by our son's lifelong deep desire to learn. Let's just say he knew where babies came from when he started kindergarten...except for the part  about the Filipino tubes.

If you or someone you care for is on the spectrum, this book offers, in the time-honored CHICKEN SOUP tradition, more than a hundred uplifting and inspiring true tales of others who have been there and done that. You can order a copy at the link below or check your local bookstore (assuming you still have one near you) in a couple of weeks.