💰 Greed - 7 Deadly Sins - Living Dead Dolls - Series 7 💰

I bought this doll loose some time ago. I'd never thought that much of her prior to seeing her for sale - having only seen her as part of photographs of the series as a whole.

Apart from Gluttony, which my son bought me as a gift a few years back, the other "Deadly Sin" I coveted (see what I did there?!) was Vanity.

I find the whole plastic surgery for vanity thing to be a sad and very amusing concept - just think "Celebrity Plastic Surgery Disasters" and you'll get where I'm coming from.  

Don't get me wrong, I think the invention of Plastic Surgery as a medical corrective procedure is an amazing thing. My Son, has been under the care of a Plastic Surgery Consultant since early childhood following an accident. I just find perfectly healthy people having surgery to alter themselves to stay young etc very sad.

But I digress, this post is supposed to be about Greed so I better get back on track...

When I received her I was smitten, I love how her eyes are darting to the side, probably focusing on some soon to be acquisition. She is dressed in a lavish "Look at me, I have money" type of way, I imagine her dress and gloves are one- off Designer creations (another thing I find amusing). Her fingers are covered in jewellery. She also has pearl and gem earrings...

But the best thing about her are her chains - reminiscent of Jacob Marley wearing "The chains he created in life" through his love of money. From her chains hang her "Worldly Spoils" - chests with strings of pearls tumbling out of them and mini Piggy Banks.

She is a very good take on something that is symptomatic of one of the problems in Society today, in fact, the whole range of & Deadly Sins dolls are.

While, checking out prices on my other Living Dead Dolls, I checked out Greed and found the above listings and prices for her on Amazon.uk. This was several months back, so I guess prices may have changed somewhat, and as my doll came to me loose, she isn't worth quite so much. 

That said, I have recently managed to secure a spare box for her, which unfortunately came without the plastic cover and inner lining inserts. 

I made a new insert for the tissue paper lining and a name tag insert by tracing around Gluttony's and then decorating them as per some photo's I found online, then bought and lined the insert with yellow tissue paper so it resembles her original one.

I will also be making her a replacement Death Certificate soon,

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Gumby & Pokey Mega Mini Kit by Running Press

retrotvmemories.com

Gumby is a strange green humanoid created from Plasticine by Art Clokey in the 1950s.

 He is the main character of his animation shorts made using stop-gap animation, during which he goes on adventures and solves problems alongside his side-kick Pokey, an orange horse who talks.

Between 1953 and 1969, these shorts were aired on NBC as The Gumby Show, there was a revival of the show during the years 1982 to 1989 called The Gumby Adventures and was the subject of many reruns over the years.

In total Art Clokey made 220 episodes featuring Gumby and Pokey's adventures all of which have been shown on T.V in many countries over the course of the last 50 years since his creation.

It was also released on Home Video and there was even a film called Gumby: The Movie released independently by Clokey Productions in 1995.

Amazon.uk

The Running Press Mini Kit  features posable miniature Gumby and Pokey figures and a mini book which is crammed full of Trivia and information on The Gumby Story and his creator Art Clokey.

It's a perfect little set for anyone who loves these too funny little characters and wants to relive their childhood or even Gumby and Pokey's adventures themselves!

For more information on Gumby, Pokey and their creator Art Clokey check out his website at:

http://www.gumbyworld.com/

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🎃 Trick R Treat - Sam - Living Dead Dolls 🎃

cromeyellow.com/beyond-fest-vlog-trick-r-treat/

I've always had a thing for Portmanteau Anthology Horror Films, some of my favourites were made by Amicus Productions such as Asylum, Dr. Terror's House of Horror, Vault of Horror and Tales from The Crypt (not to be confused with the T.V Series). 

I love the way they tell the individual stories and link them together with a common thread. Amicus and Hammer Horror do this particularly well and unlike some, it doesn't seem forced.

It's very rare that I find a modern film in this genre that gets it right most have one or two stories which really leave their mark on me and the rest are just at best so-so or worse absolutely crap.

                             

So it was a nice surprise to discover how good Trick R Treat is, although not scary it is one of those films that I can happily watch again and again, it never gets old for me, and has many concepts and is so aesthetically pleasing that it really gets my creative mind going.

The stories in the film are tied together in a very unique way, time wise, the characters are shown in the background (starting their own Halloween stories) as another story is the focus by the end of the film all the fragments and stories tie together perfectly.

One recurring character is "Sam" he appears in each of the film's five stories, taking the form of a Trick or Treater until his real purpose is revealed.

He wears an orange footed pyjama suit with a burlap hood covering his face, carries a burlap sack to hold his "Treats" and is often seen with a pumpkin shaped Lollipop which he holds in his little hand as he wanders around, taking note of the film's events.

Sam is the keeper of the customs of Halloween and punishes those who he deems to have broken the rules of the holiday for which he is named. Throughout the film there are many instances of people committing these indiscretions and being punished by Sam because of it.

The Rules of Halloween:

1) Always give sweets to Trick or Treaters - Sam has a sweet tooth!

2) Always wear a costume - Sam hates people who don't get into "the Halloween Spirit"

3) Never extinguish the flame of a Jack-O-Lantern before Midnight. This rule includes destroying pumpkins - Sam has an afinity to pumpkins, you'll find out how later!
4) Always Respect The Dead.

The Living Dead Doll depiction of Sam is 10 inches high and wears his trademark grubby romper suit. It comes with a removable mask made of burlap, a mini Lollipop with bite mark in it and his "Treat sack" exactly as he appears in the film.

My Son, knowing how much I love the film and Sam in particular, bought me this adorable little man for Christmas 2016.

The only difference between the film version and Mezco's version is his hands, which sadly are plain white on the doll but look like normal children's hands wearing burlap finger less gloves in the film.

I will be fixing this on my Sam as soon as I get the chance!

His mask is removable and once removed reveals Sam's true face; his creator Michael Dougherty describes him as being "a cross between an embryo and a pumpkin". 

For me this is the perfect description, the more I look at him, the more I see the merging of both, not only in terms of his face, but the whole of his head.

He is just as cute from behind too, not least because his romper suit has a little bum flap but you can also clearly see the pumpkin shape of his head too!

When viewed from above you can see his little head even has a little stalk on top of it just like a pumpkin. Although unlike a pumpkin his head is not bright orange and the stalk is not green, this not only adds to the "realism" of him but is also very much inline with the film character which he represents.

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Tetris Board Game by Tomy - 1989

http://vadim.oversigma.com/Tetris.htm

Created in 1984 by Russian Computer Engineer and Video Game Designer Alexy Pajitnov while working at The Academy Of Science in Moscow, it quickly became one of the best known and most loved games in existence not least because it was available on every home computer (Commodore 64, Spectrum, P.C etc) as well as Arcade Machines and hand held consoles. 

http://vadim.oversigma.com/Tetris.htm

The premise is extremely simple, the player must rotate and fit one of 7 different coloured, randomly generated Tetrominoes into a grid as they fall from the top of the screen. The aim is to make a complete line across the grid, each time you do so that line is removed from the grid. 

 As the game progresses the Tetrominoes fall faster - if you aren't able to make enough complete lines and remove them from the grid, the Tetrominoes will pile up higher and higher until they reach the top of the grid. If this happens the game is lost.

In 1989 Tomy released a board game version of the well known game which works on the same principle. The grid is smaller as unlike the computer version of the game you play against another player.

To begin you move the central dividing slider to dead centre of the board and then press the button at the side of the board.

This generates the shape of the Tetromino and like the Video Game its entirely up to you which way you rotate it and where you place it in the grid.

When a player completes one or more lines, they move the central slider towards their opponent the  number of lines indicated by the key on the side of the board. The game continues until one player runs out of room on their side of the board.

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