Here at the Bat-Blog we totally love creativity, in any form. What we're talking about is when Batman Fans, inspired by the character, create fun objects or pieces of art that are Batman-related. It can be any activity like drawing, painting, or even sewing a costume! Check this out! Here is a "Fake" Reproduction of a 1966 BATMAN Kellogg's Cereal Box that they never made. Now, back in the day, this Cereal Company did do a few boxes that promoted the TV Show. But they were always presented as the actual cereal & "Batman Toys" were just a featured premium inside the box or one you had to mail-away for. But this "Fantasy Cereal Box", shown here, really focuses on the character. First off, the design is really incredible. It uses a lot of "Cereal Box" graphic elements that were in use around the 1960's: The diagonal stripes for sure. I like that it has the Kelloggs Cereal & BATMAN TV Series logos together. It also has a great photo of Adam West in costume. Plus, it's kinda cool that they printed it on card-stock & it's sort of like a real box. The person who made this did an extremely awesome job on it!
In the 1990's it was a great time to be a Batman Toy collector. I mean, you had all the movies going on, and then on TV, you also had the wonderful Animated Series Cartoon. Shown here are a few cool toys & 90's memorabilia pieces picked totally at random. The 1st item is a very RARE 1992 BATMAN RETURNS Ralston Cereal Store Display Sign. Kids would have seen this at the Grocery Store & then start begging Mom, ha! I really like the graphics on this thing. Speaking of the cereal, the next pic shows a few BATMAN RETURNS Cereal Box Premiums that were available FREE inside the boxes! These are 3-D Flicker Bookmarks, meaning, you tilt them & the pictures change from one image to the other. There were 3 of them in the complete set: Catwoman, Batman, and The Penguin. Now the next photo sort of gets away from the movies for a minute. This is a Plush Batman Doll from 1994 ( 16" Tall ) that was tied-into "The Adventures of Batman and Robin" Animated TV Series. I love the old cartoon logo & the packaging is interesting with the "open box" design. Last, but not least, is a RARE 1997 BATMAN AND ROBIN Movie Store Display Sign from Taco Bell. It advertised the contest they had going on their Pepsi Drink products. Well, does any of these items bring back any memories? I know back then I was totally about the cereal, ha ha!
Here are a few Vintage POST Cereal Boxes with cool graphics from the 1989 BATMAN Movie. They were made for the Canadian market & that is why the boxes have both English & French languages on them. They did the promotion on Honey Combs, Sugar Crisp, & Alpha Bits. Also, if you look at the back of the box ( 1st photo, right-side ), then you'll see that the free premiums available inside the box were some "3-Way Action Trading Cards"... AWESOME! Now, I never knew that they made these back then so I hope you're as surprised as I am.
First off, I gotta say that I'm really excited about these wonderful new Japanese BATMAN BATMOBILE Toys & I wanna thank our good friend Kuan for letting us know about them. OK, in Japan they have a popular beverage drink called "BOSS Simple Style Coffee" and it's made by a company called Suntory. The cool thing is that they have 15 different BATMAN BATMOBILE Premium Toys to collect! 10 of them are magnetic mini-cars & 5 of them are the kind of toy cars you pull back & release them to go. Also, the magnetic ones can spin around on your can of BOSS Simple Style Coffee! The vehicles are super cute mini versions of all the different Batmobile cars from all the Batman movies. Well, except unfortunately they didn't make the 1966 Batmobile, but you get the idea! Here's the deal: To collect the 10 Mini-Cars you have to buy the individual cans with the premium attached to the top ( see last pic ). To collect the 5 Pull-Back Toys you need to find the 2-packs. Oh yeah! Now the 1st two photos are pics of the actual product. The rest are the sample pics from their official website. These pics show all the different cars & I totally love them! ( Thanks again Kuan! )
I have a friend named Jim who writes a cool blog called TUGLEY WOOD. It's all about pop culture, comics, animation, etc... It's main focus is Vintage Disney animation history but he also posts a lot of different things too. Anyway, he recently scanned an entire comic book story that's really neat to read. Actually, it's not a "comic book", but it's one of those booklets that was a free premium give-away inside Kellogg's Pop-Tarts in 1966 ( Look at the original box packaging up above, drool! ). There were 6 different comics to collect. The one at his site is the Penguin story titled, "The Penguin's Foul Play". The vintage artwork is really great to see & it's also a fun read. So, check out this LINK, where you can read the whole thing.
Here's a brand-new Batman collectible item out there to find that I think is pretty awesome! For the BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD CARTOON Interview Panel at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con ( SDCC ) Warner Bros gave out these foam-rubber STARRO MASK premiums! Now, for everybody who has been watching this TV show for the last few episodes we know the whole STARRO thing has been a small side story deal that keeps building up. Remember, STARRO creatures stick themselves to people's faces ( like the face-hugger in the ALIENS movies ) & then control their minds. Anyway, I think the masks are totally great & since I didn't get to go to Comic Con this year I'm gonna be trolling eBay for one of these. I checked last night & they're going pretty cheap. That's cool, or as Aquaman would say, "OUTRAGIOUS!!"
OK, I gotta say upfront that this is a post I am very proud of. You see, I just recently got an e-mail from a Batman Fan who lives in Egypt! Yes, EGYPT...How cool is that?! Her name is Myret & she says she has loved the Dark Knight since she was around 9 years old. She is now 23. She was also kind enough to send some great photos of a few pieces of Batman-related merchandise she has found in her country. The 1st two photos relate to a Batman Food Product called "Halwani FUN Sausages". They are a Meat Snack & the box says, "They're Ready To Eat!" She said that as a free premium inside you get the Set of Batman Playing Cards that are shown in the 2nd picture. WOW, a whole deck! The last photo shows 2 Bags of Potato Chips that she said are a lot like ( American ) Cheetos. Now, their special premium prize were some Batman & Robin ( comic book version ) Puzzle Playing Pieces. I guess if you collect them all they make a neat image...WOW! Thank you so very much Myret for taking the time to shoot these nice pics. I really appreciate you sending them. These unusual pieces of Bat-Memorabilia are really GREAT!!
Anybody remember these BATMAN RETURNS Movie Cups from McDonalds? I do, I collected them all! I also remember being sort of upset that they were plastic because for a long time these Premium Promo Glasses from Fast Food Restaurants used to be high-quality glass. Then, I guess some moron sued them or something ( or maybe they became too expensive to produce ) so they all went to plastic. But, these BATMAN RETURNS Cups were still pretty neat & the graphics were really nice. The lids were actually a Mini-Frisbee that didn't fly very well, but looked cool. There were 6 to collect: Batman, Catwoman, The Penguin ( 2 ), Bruce Wayne, & The Batmobile. Now, I got the photos here so you can see the cups & that "Newspaper-looking thing" was the Paper Placemat used at McDonalds for the trays. I remember a HUGE Standee Store Display Sign that was in the store too but couldn't find a pic at the time of this post. But really the main thing are the cups & the video. Yes, the TV Commercial! It's down below so be sure to check that out too.
Awhile back I got an e-mail from a Bat-Blog Fan who took a few photos of her favorite Batman Toys. Well, actually they were mostly toys of the Joker, but you get the idea! Her name is Biadza & this is a photo of THE JOKER ( Heath Ledger version ) Cereal Premium Figure in her collection. The pic was kinda BIG so I thought it would make a pretty cool Desktop Wallpaper Background. This is the Free Toy inside THE DARK KNIGHT Cereal Box Promo that Nestle did when the movie was going on. Now the extra cool thing is that she lives in Paris. So, this is the European version of that toy. Like the ones in the USA, there were 4 figures to collect but there they were slightly different. Plus, they made one of The Scarecrow which was not even available here. Thank you Biadza for sending the pics. I plan to post the other ones later so keep an eye out for those. I want to invite other Bat-Blog Readers to share pics of their toy collections too. I always love to see what other people have, ha ha!
In 1977 General Mills offered a special mail-away premium on boxes of Cheerios Cereal called the SUPER HEROES MAGNETIC DART GAME. It came with a Target Game Board ( with a sheet metal backing ) & 4 "Superhero Magnet-Darts". The 4 playing pieces looked like Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin. The 4 evil super-villains, featured on the target game board, were the Joker, Penguin, Cheetah, & Lex Luthor. Now, if I did the math correctly I was in the 7th Grade when this cereal box came out & I don't ever remember seeing this. Oh man! I would have mailed away for this, the vintage graphics are really cool, ha ha! Thanks to Doug for sending us the cool photos. By the way, I think the artwork was done by Dick Giordano. Or, at least, it looks like his stock art.
