Tag Archives: toys

The Weebles Haunted House

Close-up of a plastic toy haunted house.

I never had a Barbie Dreamhouse. I had a way, way better dollhouse. It was the Weebles Haunted House and I loved it. I still love it – so much that it occupies prime real estate in my office.

An office with hot pink walls and white furniture. A collection of toy or small decorative haunted houses sit on a low white IKEA storage cabinet.

Sadly, this isn’t the one I had as a weird 70s kid. It’s a yardsale find, but that’s ok. I was going to post more photos but this commercial, which appears to be from 1976, is much more fun:



All of that said, there’s a decent chance the haunted house is haunted. One day while I was sitting here with my back to it, the front door snapped open. The cap on the roof also fell off, but that’s not unusual because that thing never stayed on and you had to remove it to open the house anyway so that always struck me as a bit of a design flaw. I decided that whatever walked there was tired of walking alone, so I tracked down a few replacement Weebles for the ones I was missing and the house has seemed peaceful ever since.

Human cannonballs

cannonball
(Ringling Brothers promotional poster for the Zacchini Brothers Human Cannonball Act)

Sometimes I forget what a bunch of weirdos you all are. When I mentioned human cannonballs on facebook yesterday, that wasn’t a euphemism.

Mario, the last of the original Zacchini Brothers, passed away in 1999.

I found a trailer for a possible documentary on youtube:

My (admittedly short) search didn’t turn up any evidence that this project was completed.

In semi-related muppet news, how great is this Stuntman Gonzo Action Figure (with cannon)? Love.

Yikes!

I don’t believe I’ve ever neglected my blog for nearly a month, before. What can I say? Time flies. End of the semester. Lots of cookies to eat. Yeti movie marathon on SyFy. Stomach virus. Home improvement. Laziness. More cookies. Iowa Caucus.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

It’s cold and windy and suddenly winter here in Virginia. For no related reason, here’s the commercial for the Weebles Haunted House from 1976. This was possibly my favorite toy as a child.


[embedded video: Weebles Haunted House Commercial]

I wish I had one now, but people sell them for ridiculous amounts of money on ebay and I can’t bring myself to buy one.

alligator!

I was walking down the sidewalk last night (from stage left to right in this picture) and there was a large carton blocking the view of this part of the sidewalk until I was past it.

Not a nice thing to leave in the path of a floridian!

Consequently, I didn’t see the “alligator” until I was stepping over the tail and my brain processed what it was. Or wasn’t, as the case may be. It wasn’t a terribly large critter, but it was enough to startle me.