Mickey Mouse Games & Toys

Wall-E Wednesday: Toys!

The Wall-E merchandising invasion has begun. Books of all kinds (story, sticker, coloring, punch-outs, activity) started popping up at book stores a few weeks ago. Now the toys are starting to make their way to the shelves of fine retailers everywhere. I haven't seen anything at Wal-Mart yet, but at Toys R Us at the end of an isle full of Star Wars and Iron Man stuff there was one column jam packed with Wall-E goodies. The "action figures" come in two sizes. The collection you see above are traditional action figure size and most of them have a special feature. The Dance `N Tap Wall-E has a pull string that makes him wiggle and dance all over the place. The U-Repair Wall-E is basically a Wall-E where all the parts are removable (and therefore lose-able too.) We picked up the Cube `N Stack Wall-E where his front panel opens and you can pop out little cubes of trash. It comes with two cubes and you can make more with Play-Doh...a messy feature I'm not telling my kids about!

There's another set of figures that are smaller, about the size of standard PVC figures. They come two to a pack and feature many different scenarios from the upcoming film. They've also got a remote control Wall-E who is considerably larger than the other figures. One of the coolest items was a Wall-E gripper hand where you pull the handle and Wall-E's hand opens and shuts...it's kind of like those Robot hands you've seen at a toy store where you can pick stuff up with them...but this one is way cooler.

It looks like there will be more toy options with Wall-E than there were with last year's Ratatouille.

Here's the back of the packaging from the Cube `N Stack Wall-E.

The National Toy Train Museum

Last month we looked at Geppi's Entertainment Museum, in Baltimore, which is overflowing with Disney history on every wall of the building. The next stop in our "Disney Outside of Disney" series doesn't offer an overwhelming amount of Disneyana but it does offer a subject near and dear to Walt's heart as well as a few fun touches of Disney.

The small town of Strasburg, PA offers quite a number of world class railroading attractions from full size historic locomotives to the only officially licenced Thomas the Tank Engine Store. There's even a hotel where you can spend the night in an actual caboose. Strasburg is also home to the national headquarters of the Train Collectors Association and their National Toy Train Museum. The museum houses five detailed toy train layouts with plenty of buttons to operate trains and various other elements within the layouts. While the subject of Walt Disney and his love of trains is not a subject explored at the museum, where ever you find an exploration into pop culture you're bound to find a little Disney magic somewhere.

Here's some pics of great Disney items that me and my one track mind (pun intended) took while visiting the museum.

The name Lionel is synonymous with model railroading but in their early days they produced an assortment of children's playthings. Some of those items are on display at the museum including this vintage Mickey Mouse Club record player. If you look slightly to the left of the top of the needle arm you'll see the Lionel "L" logo.

Here's a wall of handcars featuring some famous friends of ours.

These Mickey & Minnie handcars debuted at Christmas 1934. They were produced in orange, red, green and maroon by the Lionel Corporation. They sold for $1.00 each which ended up being the perfect price for families who couldn't afford an electric train during the Great Depression. Sales of the handcars were so astronomical that Mickey Mouse is credited with saving the Lionel Corp. from bankruptcy.

One of the layouts has a train that travels into a mine. If you follow the tracks you'll find an opening in the side of the mine where you can spot this vintage Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs mine train set.

Last we have a few snapshots of some engines and cars on display. These are mostly from a large series of models produced in the mid-90's. At a nearby attraction, Choo-Choo Barn, you can see many of these pieces in action.

Simple Disney Board Games

Back in the day all ya needed to do was simply slap pictures of Mickey and his pals on a tried and true game and you had yourself hours of fun. I grew up learning how to play checkers with Disney Checkers. Each piece had a different Disney character on it. I spent hours playing that game with my family. Such a simple little joyful childhood memory!

This early 80's comic book ad plugs three very simple Disney games: Mickey Mouse Tic-Tac-Toe, Goofy Game, and Disney Checkers. Each one of these probably only a few bucks when they were brand new and you can still find them reasonably cheap on E-bay, although Goofy Game seems to be the most rare of the trio.