Hazzard County spirit shines bright at Tom Wopat's Christmas concert

It was such a nice time with friends, and a wonderful mix of Christmas music and original songs by Tom Wopat, longtime performing artist, Broadway star and our own Luke Duke of "The Dukes of Hazzard." Wopat presented a thoroughly festive concert last night for "A Hazzard County Christmas" at the Corunna United Methodist Church in Corunna, Michigan.

This holiday event was hosted by two Pastor Steves -- one who's actually the pastor of this church, and the other who pastors another church locally and was marking his third "Dukes of Hazzard"-themed event with Wopat in the past 12 months. In fact, the Luke Duke of his childhood is becoming quite a friend to this avid "Dukes" fan, Steve Rau, so much so that he's rather determined to make Shiawassee County into Hazzard County. And hey, this author will go with that; I dreamed of living in Hazzard when I was a kid growing up in this area. I've been joking on this blog (see the coverage from last year's Christmas concert, as well as the summer racetrack concert) about how Michigan seems to be becoming "Hazzard North," with these wonderful events popping up from Pastor Steve.

And just like last year's Christmas concert, fans were treated to a more-intimate setting for this event. We "Dukes" fans know that typical events can draw thousands, and you might be waiting in line a long time to get that photo or diecast car signed by a cast member. Here, though, the church pews were pretty full, but as Wopat signed items for fans at his table in the great hall before and after the concert, you had nice access and lots of time with this Duke cousin.

Wopat brought a couple different 8-by-10 photos with him -- one with his "Dukes" co-star John Schneider, and another of just himself with the General Lee -- along with two albums, a recent Christmas CD he cut with Schneider and the "Wopat" release.

Replicas of the General Lee and Hazzard County Sheriff's car were on hand again for this event, brought by Brian and T.J., as well as a yellow Road Runner like Daisy drove early on in the series, a monster truck and a Blues Brothers-inspired car.

 

They came from near and far to enjoy this concert; one fan drove eight hours from eastern Ontario, and another came from a block away! Thanks so much, Mr. Tom Wopat, as well as both Pastor Steves and everyone else who helped put this event together.

Merry Christmas!!!

Photos by Billie Rae Bates / BRBTV

Copying with credit is OK; a link would be grand

Terrific TV Toys: Batgirl Hallmark Ornament 2019

If it's the last episode of the calendar year, it has to be a Christmas episode, right? That's kinda how we roll here at BRBTV. And we're doing a cross-over event this month, with Hallmark ornaments of a beautifully Batty variety on both Terrific TV Toys and Terrific non-TV Toys.

This week, she's brand-new, fresh off the shelves this year at your friendly neighborhood Hallmark shop. This author waited in line, even. (It was totally fun; I'd do it again!) It's the Yvonne Craig Batgirl of the Adam West "Batman" series of the 1960s. She's got her purple sparkly outfit on, all ready to kick the tail of the bad guys this Christmas season. Or at least to save your Christmas tree from any villains or other miscreants. And she's got a partner, too -- you'll be seeing him on non-T3 in a week or two ...

Mego, Corgi, Ideal and anything in-between, the annual Kalamazoo toy show covers it all

The selection was so robust this past weekend at the annual toy show at the Kalamazoo, Michigan, fairgrounds that this author spent the whole morning texting photos of goodies to this person and that person. "Have you seen this?" "Do you want this?" Buddies Mike, Brian and Rob, my Bro -- there was just something for everyone this time around at this amazing and huge show that happens every Saturday after Thanksgiving. I always look forward to it. And I kept the economy alive, believe-you-me, between the purchases I made here and at the mall later that afternoon! Gotta love it. Anyway, here's the customary glance-in-pictures of what they had ...

Some of this stuff you'll see on future episodes of the BRBTV YouTube series Terrific TV Toys and Terrific non-TV Toys (and a couple items you've seen on past episodes). One particular item I now officially regret leaving behind (there's always something) because it represents one of my past places of employment. We've got Mego, Corgi, Ideal, other manufacturers represented here, a nice diverse assortment ...

Photos by Billie Rae Bates / BRBTV

Copying with credit is OK; a link would be grand

Terrific non-TV Toys: "Star Wars" Nexu figure

Sometimes a great discovery can come from a mistake. Is that the case this time? Well, you wouldn't exactly call this Nexu figure a great discovery, per se. But we'll make the most of it, now won't we.

This Nexu figure was snagged at the Star Wars Celebration event in Florida a few years ago, while this author was on the hunt for a figure of another "Star Wars" creature. Can you guess which one I was actually looking for? You'll find out in the latest episode of Terrific non-TV Toys ...

Terrific TV Toys: "Star Trek" cars by Hot Wheels, 2013

A couple months ago, you saw on the Terrific TV Toys series a set of Hot Wheels cars celebrating the 50th anniversary of the original "Star Trek" series. Well, now, behold, another set of "Star Trek" Hot Wheels that actually dates a couple years earlier, featuring the same six characters of the original show but with different makes and models of vehicles ...

History repeats itself in such a lovely way: Thank-you, Mr. Dan DeCarlo!

Something really amazing just happened, and I am so excited I have to blog about it. Forgive me as this writer turns totally geeky. (OK, geeky is my default mode, really, but ...) I was doing a workout on the treadmill downstairs, and lightning struck for a second time, and I was flabbergasted. I was looking down at my name on the page of an Archie Comic from 2000. And I had no idea it was there. Wow.

 

Let me back up a bit. Back in 1999, I had the occasion to meet someone I really looked up to. I was helping my friend Rob cover the Mid-Ohio-Con in Columbus, Ohio, for his Comics Continuum website.  (The con was called that back then, at least -- it's since been rebranded.) Mr. Dan DeCarlo, longtime Archie Comics artist and a great talent in the comics world, was there along with his sweet and beautiful wife Josette. They did quite a few shows like this, bringing along the original black-and-white art from his comic book covers and inside pages over the years. He would typically offer an original cover for $75, inside pages maybe for a little less.

From that meeting, and a phone conversation, came a story I wrote for the Comic Buyer's Guide publication (a hard-copy pub, back then, chockful of great comics-related news). I really admired Mr. DeCarlo's work for Archie -- had seen it all my life, since I was a wee girl reading Archies, and I had come to know his signature look for Betty and Veronica. I jokingly referred to him as the Versace of Archie Comics because he always made them look so sexy, but never trashy. Always classy in a sense, for teenage girls, you know? But so feminine and beautiful. Mr. DeCarlo was truly a legend. And he was so cordial and kind to me, when we spoke. I purchased one of his original Archie covers for my brother, who is a big Archies fan, as well, who even named his daughter after Veronica Lodge. And Mr. DeCarlo gave me an additional piece of art that he signed just for me:

I had told Mr. DeCarlo how his character of Cheryl Blossom was my very favorite Archie Comics character, since she was the redhead and all. Cheryl had only come along at Archie a few years before, in the 1980s-1990s. So we'd talked a little about that, as well as the Josie character, another one he developed for Archie over the years, and whom he, of course, had based upon his wife.

So my story on Mr. DeCarlo story hit CBG in February 2000:

At the time, I was living in downtown Detroit and working at The Detroit News. I was a subscriber to the Cheryl Blossom title of Archie, since I intended to collect every appearance of the character. (For you millennials, that meant the paper copy of the comic actually arrived in the postal mail!) When I got the comic issues, I would put them on a stack in my apartment for reading in the workout room downstairs. One morning that summer or fall of 2000, I unsuspectingly grabbed the top couple issues off the stack to go downstairs and do my workout. While I was huffing and puffing on the stairstepper, I just about had a heart attack. There, staring me in the face from the cover of Cheryl Blossom No. 34, was my own name written right on the boogie board Cheryl was carrying:

Oh, my word, Mr. DeCarlo!!!!! I just about blew a gasket. Wow. I was so excited and honored, that this talented cover artist snuck my name onto that issue as a little "hello."

Unfortunately, Mr. DeCarlo passed away about a year later, leaving behind such a wonderful legacy -- more than 40 years with Archie Comics alone, as well as other work over the years. But to so many, he has always been the defining look for Betty and Veronica. After a while had passed, I decided to call Josette to see if perhaps she might have the original of that amazing Cheryl Blossom No. 34. She was still attending cons to promote his work. She looked for the original cover, and alas, it was not to be found. I am still on the hunt for it, but I have bought up several copies of the regular comic from comic shops and the Internet over the years.

So now we'll flash-forward to the present year, 2019. My love for Archie Comics has never waned, and as a part of a YouTube series I do on collectibles, Terrific non-TV Toys (a spinoff of Terrific TV Toys, LOL), I did a couple episodes on a set of Betty and Veronica fashion dolls released back in 2000 by Playing Mantis. I had kept them in their boxes over the years, not quite sure how to display them, and probably not really having the room to display them among all of my other collectibles anyway. But I decided now was the time to open them, on camera, for the series. Each one of the three Betty dolls in the set had a regular full-sized Betty comic book included in the box.

So I literally opened each one on camera, loved and admired it a bit for the episode, then threw the comics themselves onto a stack for -- you guessed it -- when I did my workouts. Now I am living in a house, so my workout room is in the basement downstairs. For the three comics that came with the Betty dolls, along with the ones on the Veronica dolls, I was pretty sure I didn't already own them. I have always had a lot of Archie Comics, but these issues, from the same year the dolls were released, 2000, didn't look familiar to me. Great, I thought, some new reading for future workouts.

So then ... there I am ... a few days ago, doing my huffy-puffy workout on the treadmill, and I am paging through Betty issue No. 89. There's a page of fashions for Betty ...

I absentmindedly scan the page. Oh, that's fun, I think. Great 2000-era fashions ... I glance at the bottom, where it credits the reader who sent in the fashion ideas ...

And there's my name again!!!! This time, it's my full name, though! All three names!!!! And not far above it on the page, the name of that wonderful Archie Comics artist, Dan DeCarlo! I could not believe it. I just about cried. I stared and stared at it, as if it would go away or something. As if I couldn't afford to believe I was actually seeing my full name printed in a comic book that had been sealed away in a doll box for 19 years ...

Now, you understand, of course, I have the kind of name you don't see very often. Because that's the first thing I thought, right? That maybe there was another Billie Rae Bates out there, in this case in Columbus, Ohio??? And she (or he!!!) was the one who'd actually sent in the ideas for this page of fashions. No, it couldn't be. The only other person I have known of with my full name was the pro-basketball star of the '70s, and he spelled his name with "y"s. No, I knew this was Mr. DeCarlo's doing. Sort of his sly little joke. After all these years, wow.

As I thought about it, flabbergasted as I was, and I sent photos of the Betty comic to my brother, I realized that Columbus, Ohio, was where I had first met Mr. DeCarlo in person, at that Mid-Ohio-Con all those years ago, and perhaps he assumed I was actually from that local area!

Or maybe he just put that city down, rather than my real city of Detroit, as our little joke! Whatever the reason, I am beyond words ... Seeing that, again on a workout machine (as weird as that is), after all these years (!!!) ... It was like a sweet message from a sweet friend, crossing the boundaries of time and existence.

Sadly, Josette has also since passed away. That was in 2012. The couple had two sons, and they also worked for Archie Comics, but they died even before Mr. DeCarlo did. Even the Comic Buyer's Guide publication is no more. So much has changed since that first year of the new millennium. Bummer.

But thanks so much, Mr. DeCarlo.

TGIF! How about a bevy of Batmobiles?

Our roving reporter Jason has been roaming the countryside and files this report just in time to celebrate the end of the week! As in Friday, and ain't we lucky we got 'em??!!!!

Jason was in Indianola, Mississippi, at a Love's truck stop. "Almost every GOOD Batmobile was there," Jason writes. "Not the Val Kilmer or George Clooney crappy ones, or the Michael Keaton, which is my most favorite, were missing. But still an impressive display of cool Batman stuff for $21.99 a piece."

"What really made me stop was they had the animated series car, which I thought was really slick. Loved that show and the sound that car made at idle. Note the Adam West car has the Batphone and Bat-emergency-turn-lever, if that was what it was called. It made the car do a 180."

"The Tumbler, my second favorite from the Keaton cars," Jason says. "It was difficult trying to open the hatch, everything inside is black but it did have a dash."

"The Ben Affleck car. This one was difficult to like," he says. "I don't dislike it, I don't think Affleck did a bad job at Batman; he actually did well in my opinion. It's the gun thing. The car had guns, not that the Keaton car didn't. I think it's just the scene where Batman was high on that crane holding a long rifle and when he was shooting with that automatic when he got ambushed. Batman shooting guns just ain't right in my eyes; still a good movie. Too bad Affleck is out now."

Photos by Jason G.; please do not copy without permission.

Share the flyer for Tom Wopat's Michigan Christmas concert, and snag your tix now!

You already knew from the August 1 post of this very blog that Tom ("Luke Duke") Wopat, star of "The Dukes of Hazzard" as well as various great Broadway productions, is returning to Corunna, Michigan, this December for another good-ole Hazzard County Christmas concert. It's almost like we're becoming Hazzard North up-in-here (coo-coo-I-love-it-I-love-it!!!). Now, event organizer Pastor Steve Rau has finalized the flyer for the event:

 

Share this with all your friends, and run -- don't walk -- over to the Eventbrite page for the event. Tickets are only $20, a terrific deal considering this is a smaller "Dukes" event. This isn't the mile-long line you expect from the bigger "Dukes" events of old (oh, it was a grand era indeed, 'round about 2006!). Nosiree, this is a more-intimate gathering, like you walking right up to Mr. Wopat's table before or after the event and chatting while he kindly signs that item for ya. And, as with last year's event, you can get your picture taken with a General Lee and a Hazzard County Sheriff's car. There will be a meet-and-greet starting at 4 p.m. that day.

Kimberly Rogers also has a Facebook page for the event, along with many other upcoming appearances for Tom linked from her fan club page. And BRBTV has video clips of last year's concert, so you can get all warmed up for what you'll see live and in-person this December 7. The holiday spirit will be in abundance; come on out!! 

Yeee-haaaaa!!!!

Terrific non-TV Toys: Snoopy pet toy and Funko figure

Weeeellll ... you were going to see a "Star Wars" item this month on the Terrific non-TV Toys series, but then a couple adorable Snoopies fell into the lap of this author. One, I just couldn't put down when wandering through the Halloween aisles at Walmart; the other was a gift from the Mysterious Claw-Game Avenger Who Shall Remain Nameless, who is responsible for the many, many great claw-game prizes you've seen on Terrific TV Toys (and perhaps even non-T3) over the years. This figure is an Astronaut Snoopy, and it is a 2019 summer convention exclusive by Funko, though it was snagged at Barnes and Noble. As you'll hear below, it comes on the heels of the Snoopy toys in McDonald's Happy Meals that feature Snoopy as an astronaut, a partnership with NASA.

Terrific TV Toys: Scooby-Doo plush by Gund, Applause

It's been a little while since we've talked Scooby plush, and we had a couple stragglers to show since the series of episodes you saw on Terrific TV Toys a few years back. (Well, that's because we got them more recently, both in 2016.) So here are a couple cuties, courtesy of pal Andrea. One is ready for Christmastime, actually, rather than Halloween, and the other is sightseeing in some exotic place, we just know it!

And we thought the manufacture year was unknown on these two, but in later review the year was discovered on Tourist Doo's tag -- 2001 Also, the stamps were issued in 2018, not this year. PLUS ... special thanks to Wendy, who provided a year for Tiny Tim, as well! "On the green tush tag, the (s02) is the date," she says. "So he came out in 2002. A lot of Scooby merch has that same style of dating: (s19) would be 2019, etc." Mystery solved!!! :)

Yabba, dabba, doo -- it's an inter-view!!!!

It was so much fun cosplaying the Flintstones at the Monroe Pop Fest a couple weeks back for Andrea, Don, and this author! And many thanks to Crazy Mark of Crazy Mark TV, who did an interview with us at the scene, following the costume contest. You can see this video now posted on Crazy Mark's Facebook page. Bummer that we can't embed it here! But go check it out and hear all about how we put this animated trio together!

https://www.facebook.com/CrAzYMaRkTV/videos/337738723667729/

More appearances scheduled for Tom Wopat

Thanks again to Kimberly for being our go-to for the appearance schedule of Tom ("Luke Duke") Wopat of "The Dukes of Hazzard." Kimberly has added a few dates since our August 5 post:

30th New York Cabaret Convention
October 28, 2019
Jazz at Lincoln Center
60th Street, 5th Floor
New York, New York 10019
Tickets

Batesville, Arkansas (will be updated with more info soon)
November 8-9, 2019

Happy Hazzard Holiday
December 28, 2019
Leo and Leona's
W1436 Highway 33, 12 miles east of LaCrosse
Bangor, Wisconsin
http://www.leoandleonas.com/

Hazzard Fest 2020 presented by 96.3 The Possum
May 8, 2020
Volunteer Speedway
14095 W Andrew Johnson Hwy
Bulls Gap, TN 37711
Tickets