Terrific TV Toys: "Dallas" card game by Mego

You know we love our "Dallas" here at BRBTV. We've done a fact book on the classic '80s primetime soap, which we just slapped a beautiful new cover onto by talented Baltimore artist Dale Cuthbertson (see last week's post about that). The original "Dallas" series that aired on CBS saw a lot of merchandise, which we profiled in the book. One of those pieces is the subject of the latest episode of the Terrific TV Toys web series. You saw the photo in the book, but here we take a muuuuuucccchhhh closer look at the pieces and parts -- even the rules -- of the game, which was produced by Mego back in 1980.

A tribute to two dearly departed Hoggs ...

Thanks to our friend Brian Lombard for snapping these photos ... There are several cast members of "The Dukes of Hazzard" that many fans never got a chance to meet, as they're no longer with us. One of them is our beloved Lulu Hogg, Ms. Peggy Rea, whose urn is located at Santa Barbara Cemetery.

Les Tremayne was Big Daddy Hogg, and we also know him and love him as Mentor on "Shazam!" as well. Brian tells us this one was hard to snap, as it was high up, but it's at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.

Photos by Brian Lombard; please do not copy without permission.

Terrific TV Toys: Natasha Fatale bendie from "Rocky and Bullwinkle"

She was sleek and sexy and oh-so pasty ... She had that accent that just drove you crazy, right? She was Natasha Fatale, lavender-clad partner in crime to the short and stocky Boris Badenov. So evil and conniving, that twosome was. What was it they had against poor Bullwinkle and Rocky, anyway?

This is all a cartoon series we're talking about, but hey, to us kids back then, it was pretty real! The latest episode of the Terrific TV Toys (*of a vintage nature) series takes you on a trip back in time to something indeed quite vintage, a bendie doll of our gal Natasha, manufactured by Wham-O in the early 1970s.

"Destination: Dallas" fact book gets a new cover and a Kindle update

Talented Baltimore artist Dale Cuthbertson has done it again, this time redesigning the cover of BRBTV's "Destination: Dallas" reference guide to the classic 1980s primetime soap. With likenesses of The Big Three -- Larry Hagman, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy -- gracing the front, along with the great state of Texas, and a highly symbolic oil well on the back, the new cover really captures the essence of the classic TV series. It also makes a neat matched set of the first four print editions of the BRBTV fact book series.

And if you pick up the new Kindle edition of "Destination: Dallas," you'll not only behold Dale's new cover but you'll also get the full added continuity of TNT's 2012 "Dallas" reboot series. Material has been added to the cast list, character guide, episode guide and credits for the newer "Dallas" series to make the "Dallas" universe of this Kindle edition truly complete!

    

Terrific TV Toys: Archie Comics dolls by Marx

Remember when everything was Archie? Is everything still Archie? Well, we're not sure how it is for everyone else, but BRBTV has had a longtime love affair with Archie Comics and its characters Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Jughead Jones, Reggie Mantle, Veronica Lodge and the rest. This author read the comics voraciously as a child and grew up with them, really, always loving anywhere else those characters appeared ... numerous cartoon series by Filmation over the years, a made-for-TV live-action movie in the 1990s, "The New Archies" Saturday morning cartoon around that same time, followed a few years later by the PAX-TV cartoon "Archie's Weird Mysteries." We've loved the novelizations of Archie's adventures, we've bought TV shirts of the characters, and we've loved the couple different doll sets of Archie characters there have been over the years.

In the latest episode of the Terrific TV Toys (*of a vintage nature) series, you'll see one of those doll series, the earliest one, produced by Marx Toys in the mid-'70s in a set of four, along with carrying case and various fashions separately sold. Marx made a jalopy for Archie and his friends to ride in, too. It's out there somewhere, in all its yellow and orange glory (not red like Archie's jalopy in the comics, for some reason). We haven't snagged that one yet, but we're still on the lookout ...