It's never too late to show some pics of great collectibles, and the TV-themed goodies definitely were in abundance at last weekend's Motor City Comic Con at the Vibe Credit Union Showplace (yes, it changed names again) in Novi, Michigan. This author was there on Sunday and enjoyed a hassle-free parking sitch (I got there an hour after the show opened) and breezed right into the convention hall without waiting in line. Which is delightful, since it was nice and HOT that day -- warmer weather had reached the Mitten State at last!
So what did we see at the show, in terms of Terrific TV Toys? I mean, what did we not see? The usual Batman and "Star Trek" to the hilt, but I try to shoot some slightly more obscure stuff whenever I'm at a show like this. So we've got some "Buffy," "Twilight Zone," "The Office," "The Muppets," "Dungeons and Dragons" (yes, it was a TV series), "The Tick" (the series star was at the con), "The X-Files," "Jonny Quest," "Welcome Back, Kotter," "Starsky and Hutch." As always, click on an image to see a larger version.
A "Mt. Rushmore" of beloved TV show characters? This vendor had an interesting idea, with "Star Trek," above, "The Golden Girls" and "The Simpsons" below, and a whole lot more.
This guy was good! I didn't even realize he was a Rodney Dangerfield impersonator when I first spotted him at the show -- I thought he was just another wild dresser at the con! I shot a vid short of him rattling off a few jokes, so check that out at the BRBTV YouTube channel.
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Photos by Billie Rae Bates / BRBTV Copying with credit is OK; a link would be grand
There are statesmen, businessmen, authors, and Congressmen. There are counts and countesses, lords and ladies. There are artists, museum founders, and America's Cup winners. There are actors, filmmakers, and musicians. There is someone who perished on the Lusitania. There is even a CNN anchor.
And at the heart of it all ... a railroad magnate.
But for me, at the heart of it all ...
a designer jeans icon.
And someone I have always admired.
And now for something completely different, as Monty Python would say ... I am a geeky girl, and I like to research stuff. At my heart I am a journalist, as well -- trained professionally, of course, with an actual degree in journalism and years of work in the field. I also happen to be a big follower (OK, fan) of Gloria Vanderbilt ever since I wore her designer jeans in junior high school in the early '80s. I have owned so many pairs of her jeans, cords and other pants over the years I lost count, and I have collected every kind of item she put out there besides -- other clothing, cologne, jewelry, dishware, art prints, whatever I could find on eBay, even a sterling silver bracelet once owned by her, which I treasure greatly.
I have catalogued on this very blog the appearances of her jeans I have seen as I've rewatched beloved TV shows from my childhood: "Three's Company," "The Facts of Life," and "Soap" (and I can tell you, Fallon wore them on "Dynasty," Mindy wore them on "Mork and Mindy," and Melissa wore them on "Falcon Crest" -- I just haven't blogged about that yet).
I own every one of Gloria's books (even the obscure poetry book), and I've read several other books about her and her family, most recently the "Vanderbilt" historical book by her son, Anderson Cooper. And honestly, I'm not even sure how this particular research project started, but I know why: It started because of that geeky girl thing I mentioned. I started compiling a family tree of the Vanderbilts. Maybe it was just to keep it all straight as I was reading through the books. But I thought, hey, why not; maybe there's not something like that out there, and I can contribute in some way to our culture's historical info? So I got geekier and geekier, and I dug and dug and kept digging, and I now have a first edition of what I would consider a moderately fluid family tree of the Vanderbilts, in Excel format.
At the center of all of this is Gloria, who passed away in her 90s in 2019, and my love for her, but there were (and are) so many notable people on this family tree. As Anderson Cooper writes in his book, the era of the Vanderbilts is gone and the dynasty they built has "fallen" (I guess, though I don't like to think of it that way), but there are so many people in this family line who have contributed a great deal to our country and culture.
So for whatever it's worth, produced after many hours of research and presented open-source and free to use in whatever way it could be helpful, is the ...
As mentioned, this is a fluid document. And it is compiled by human hands, not by AI. There are currently more than 720 blood Vanderbilts on it, and there are still some holes in it, here and there. So if you have any edits to it, I welcome them.
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Top two photos: Cornelius ("Commodore") Vanderbilt, produced by Mathew Brady's studio, restored by Michel Vuijlsteke, public domain. Gloria Vanderbilt, from a 1959 acting role on "The United States Steel Hour," public domain.
I saw the "Michael" movie a week ago, and my head has been in Michael-land ever since. I fished out a couple thin paperback books I got back in the day, amid the mania over the "Thriller" album, which I also bought, in addition to then buying "Off the Wall." My mother got me a Michael Jackson doll, and there were lots of other things I bought back then, in the glorious '80s, as one of the zillions of teen girls crazy about this singer who had come up out of the famed Jackson Five.
These books were quickly produced to capitalize on the super-stardom at the time. I'm reading them now for the first time -- back then I looked at the pictures, mainly, and didn't really read them. But they offer a perspective that is so interesting, and it is very similar to what you see in the movie. The books were written in 1983, released in 1984, so they cover much of the same time period as the movie: His childhood through the "Thriller" album. I found it intriguing that the movie, coming from Michael's family, chose to end his story where it did. I'm glad it did, because it reinforced to me who Michael truly was. I mean, that's the question we all ask, right? Who really was Michael? And I don't believe that Michael was all the stuff that came later -- the allegations, the rumors, the masks, the changing appearance, the stunt marriage to Lisa Marie (OK, maybe that's just my opinion), the whatever. So I'm good with the particular ground they covered in the movie.
I believe Michael was not homosexual, bisexual, or really even heterosexual, so much. And he definitely wasn't pedo-sexual. He was asexual. He was like a child, and he related better to children than adults. He loved animals. He never really grew up, just like the Peter Pan character he admired. Or maybe he never really had a childhood. Both books discuss that, from the 1983 perspective, one even noting he had mannequins that he would talk to in his room at the family's house in California. He was often lonely. One book includes a quote from him about going to the schoolyard when he felt down, to watch the kids play. That would be an emotional lift to him. He truly loved children. But a celeb wouldn't say that these days, would they? This world has become a different place, but Michael is still the same person.
I will never forget when Michael came to town while I was working at The Detroit News in downtown Detroit. It would have been sometime between like 1998 and 2001. It became known in the newsroom that he would be doing an interview at the NBC affiliate, Channel 4, WDIV, across the street from our building on Lafayette. But no one out there knew it. We had an eye out for him, and when his SUV entourage arrived, I forgot I was a journalist. I was glued to the window of our department on the second floor of the old News building. I was telling the others, he's here, he's here. They might have gathered at the window a bit, but they didn't go all fan-girl like me. We watched him and his people get out of the vehicles, go into the building. No one else was around. Then we watched for them to leave again, which wasn't all that much later. When they came out and got back into the vehicles and pulled away, there I was, the teen girl again, watching excitedly. I couldn't wait to tell my mother later. I got to see him. Live. The legend, Michael Jackson. My teen crush.
But then ... as the SUVs pulled away on Lafayette, a window rolled down. And a gloved hand reached out. And waved. I totally lost it. How did he notice that crazy girl up in that window? Maybe Michael really was always all about the fans.
I will forever love that moment. I am somebody who has covered a lot of events and interviewed a lot of celebs in my career. I got a wink from Robert Conrad across the room at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con in Maryland. I got genuine hugs from Yvonne Craig and Grace Lee Whitney at the Motor City Comic Con (I interviewed both of them for The News). I opened and drank the can of orange juice Lou Ferrigno left on the table after a Q&A session at a con I was covering for a comics website -- maybe it was in Atlanta? -- just so I could say I drank the Hulk's orange juice. I got "the hand" from Lindsay Wagner at her table at the Motor City Comic Con when I tried to ask her a question as she was signing the photo I was paying for. I got called a "cheap f*ck" by novelist Harlan Ellison at his table at MegaCon in Florida when I asked him to sign something but wasn't interested in buying the book he was promoting at the time.
But that wave out the SUV window ... now that was a moment.
C'mon, any haters out there. Let's get real. Michael was not a Diddy or an R. Kelly. Michael was a unique individual who I believe genuinely wanted to make the world a better place, and he believed he could do that through his music. He wanted to bring people together. He wanted to give the world some joy. He was tremendously talented -- people sometimes forget that, and I'm glad the movie reminded us. In my view, the only crime he committed was in being different. In not fitting everyone's mold or expectations. I can relate.
She was part of the Marvel family decades ago in Fawcett comics and in the 1981 Saturday-morning Filmation cartoon series "The Kid Super Power Hour with Shazam!" Her character has even been featured on the big screen more recently. She's Mary Marvel, and this is not the first time she has starred in an episode of Terrific TV Toys. A few seasons back we took a look at an original production cel from that same Filmation series. Now we're getting up-close and personal with an action figure of Mary from that oh-so divine Figures Toy Company, because they're so skilled at helping us relive those Mego glory days of old.
