TARZAN'S BEST MATE

You may have come away from my initial musings on Tarzan with the opinion that I'm no big fan of the man, either with or without his apes. 



Upon reflection, you might be correct, as I'm struggling to think of positive superlatives about a character who I've never been massively enamored with; all that vine swinging, yodeling, chimp handling and animal thumping failing to float my boat.

Nonetheless, I've still got a fond recollections of watching his adventures as a kid - so there has to be something about the franchise that has kept me faintly fascinated. 

Whilst wittering on about the potential fate of his latest outing it occurred to me why the character has always seem obscured as far as I was concerned :

For me, when it comes to Tarzan, it's all about Jane.

Further to that, one Jane in one film in particular - 
Maureen O'Sullivan in 1934's Tarzan and His Mate.


Before we inevitably lower our already ground-level standards and get onto her still outrageous outfit, allow me to somewhat cleanse my conscience by explaining what, beyond the obvious, led my pre-adolescent crush on arguably definitive onscreen incarnation of the character.

First off the bat, Jane might not be wearing much, but she's got the proverbial trousers in this relationship. Subsequent Tarzan's relegate Jane to the role of damsel to be distressed - including the latest version if reviews are to be believed. 

Back when I first saw the film, one after-school showing on BBC2 many moons ago, she struck me as the boss. 

Tarzan may well be the man of the jungle, but that's by virtue of him being dumped there like some mutton-fisted Mowgli in the first place. Jane's the one who took a long hard look at this world made the decision to plonk herself in the thick of it. 

Of her own volition she's taken a permanent vacation from society's conventions, casting away the trappings of the Western world with abandon (both literally and figuratively), and making her home in the treetops. She's chosen a caring, tender but ultimately hedonistic existence rutting away like rabbits with her loinclothed lover, far away from the mundanity of modernity. 

Naturally, she's in constant danger of becoming a lion's light-lunch or crocodile chow but that's the price one pays for living it up in a backlot jungle.

All that's heady dream-state stuff for a country that suffering the depths of a depression, and had only let women join the voting club 14 short years before. 

We're in the midst of 1930s Pre-code Hollywood here, which for a few precious years placed women outside boxes they were rapidly shoved back into by the middle of the decade. Film after film from the big studios loudly proclaimed that women could be just as driven by conviction, ambition or indeed lust as their male counterparts.

Let's not kid ourselves that things were suddenly equalised between the genders after the Talkies took hold at the end of the 20s, and before the Production Code was enforced by the end of '34. In truth, it was economics that pushed the envelope as much as anything else at the time. Life was pretty horrendous once the depression took hold, and women made up the most massive part of the movie audience at the time. 

It more than made fiscal sense to reflect back at them powerful females who took charge, and took little of no shit from the ineffectual men around them.

So that's one of the main factors that makes O'Sullivan's Jane such as appealing character - she's unabashed in her passion, unwavering in her love and unafraid of the ridiculously perilous situation she's decided to stick around in.

Just take a look at the way the film was marketed when first released - not as kiddie-fare, or a boy's own adventure - but as a rip-roaring spectacle with something for the whole family. 



Action, adventure, cheesecake, beefcake and bags of sex-appeal (including the legendary, long thought lost, recovered and restored nudie swim, which we won't go into here).

Having made over $2.5 million on his first outing in 1932, MGM bet the bank on this one; no quickie status like later Tarzan's, but a two-year production and development at double the $600k budget of their original.

Now, briefly, to that outfit.

By the early 30s movie attendances had dropped by a third from their heyday in the 1920s. 60 million peeps a week were catching the latest flicks, which sounds marvelous until one mentions that was a significant drop from 90 million movie-goers a week a few years previous.

Movies were getting the whammy from the wireless, and the novelty of talking pictures had worn off - so then as now, sex was a vital ingredient in keeping the box offices ticking over. If Tarzan was marching around in naught but a pair of flimsy fabric pants, I guess the thinking was why shouldn't Jane be stepping out up in a shammy-leather bikini? 

Lest you think this is all grievously one-sided, take a gander at the scanty state of Johnny Weissmueller's get up in the film :

Briefs that define the term, with an ever present danger that his own personal vine might spill out onto the big screen and start swinging of it's own accord. 

I hope we can agree that there's a pretty level playing field here betwixt the genders in regards to the amount of skin on show.

That was 1934 - with the film being released just before the Production Code kicked into full metal gear. 

If you need proof any further about how bluntly the genie was shoved back in the bottle, compare not just the outfits but the embraces above and below, separated by two short years and a lot more loincloth.

Now, it's eminently arguable that losing the cheese-cake costume was a leap-forward; even though the latter-day me - proud father of two brilliant young ladies - might have a hard time convincing my 14 year old counterpart of that. 

What was gained in animal skin was lost in animal nature - with the production code neutering the lusty, strong-willed and adventurous side of Jane, stripping her back to a bystander behind the stove. 

More of the wholesome and less of the whole, essentially.


To put it bluntly, as the decade turned MGM decreed that the public at large wanted the Tarzan's to stop the fucking and start the family - Cheetah being no substitute for a genuine son or daughter.


Under the aforementioned code they clearly couldn't let the unmarried pair pop out their literary offspring - Korak, Son of Tarzan - so they studio did the only sensible thing possible to make the series fully kiddie-fied; in 1939's Tarzan Finds a Son!, he literally does just that.

O'Sullivan jumped shipped two films later, and since then, Jane's have been a mixed bunch - mostly following in the mold of faithful, tutting hausfrau, primed for a second act kidnap and a third act rescue. All a bit dull and uninspiring to say the least. 

Probably the closest depiction of the independent and strong-willed Jane who captured both Tarzan and my own heart was in the Disney version, magnificently voiced by Minnie Driver.

The opposite side of the coin was Bo Derek's soft-core interpretation of the role in the 1981 Tarzan the Ape Man, also released by MGM. 

Forcing Miles O'Keefe's fondle-happy Tarzan down the cast-list, and virtually off the screen at times - the focus was decidedly on the female side of things, but not necessarily in the most forward thinking of fashions, and certainly not with the female contingent of the audience at the forefront of the filmmaker's minds. 

At times in seems Tarzan and Jane were less in a relationship, and more in a chest-off to which the Ape-man came consistently in second.


So, in conclusion, what have we learnt? 

Well, for one thing progression isn't as simple as cut and dry as 'then bad, now good'. There's a helluva lot that's distasteful to modern eyes in Tarzan and His Mate, and I can't see me taking my girls to a matinee of that film any time soon. 

However, it presents a version of Tarzan's Mate we've not really seen since - and possibly the only time both Jane and Tarzan's onscreen relationship really rang true. That's down to an utterly brilliant performance from O'Sullivan that makes her character completely compelling and captivating. She absolutely sells the act that Jane's love for the Ape Man will conquer all and she's given it all up to pair up with him, because - let's be honest - it's not for the comfort of it.

And that's another reason why the new version is most unlikely to swing off with £12+ of my hard-earned pocket change. 

According to reports, Jane is back to purely being a plot device to get Tarzan going. If that's not the case with, the trailers aren't doing the greatest job of getting it across. 



We certainly can't place the blame for that interpretation at Margot Robbie's door - the intended audience and ambitions for the latest film are completely at odds with the wider net cast by the very first MGM films.

If it's wrong to want more from Jane other than her simply standing around slack-jawed in a damp dress, waiting to be saved, then I don't want to be right. 

They may not have given O'Sullivan's Jane much to wear back in 1934, but dammit - they certainly gave her a whole lot more to do.

TARZAN'S LOST APE-PEAL

How do - Poptique here; back from a long and deafening silence to drop yet another bad pun for a title. 

I've been awoken to muse upon the mildy tragic sight of another icon-of-yesteryear hobbling onto the screen to fall flat on his proverbial.

This year it's the turn of Tarzan, the original king of the swingers and proper superhero prototype; but a character now so sadly dog-eared that it almost seems unfathomable a studio should take a $180 million throw-of-the-dice on there still being life in the old tree-dweller.




Whatever way you trim the 104 year-old-character, he's outlived his era by a substantial margin. 

Even in the 60s, his films were being shoved to the lower half of double bills in support of the latest Jerry Lewis buffoonery, so what hope does the barrel-chest beater have now? 

Great names associated with Tarzan over his most popular decades - from creator Edgar Rice Burroughs and initial onscreen actor Elmo Lincoln, to legendary comic-strip artist Burne Hogarth - seem like a roll call from a period even more distant than the century-plus the Ape-man has been swinging from vine to vine.

Let's be honest - the romantic sweep of an industrial age babe growing up at one with nature and becoming it's master, has unavoidably morphed into the seat-shifting uncomfortable story of the homo-superior - a member of the aristocracy raised by apes to become some sort of white-god. Plus, post the poetic sight of David Attenborough snuggling up to a whole heap of gorillas, it feels distasteful to see some greasy-haired dude running about with and/or beating the shit out of computer generated primates.

The star of over 200 films - both official and knocked off - Tarzan was born out of pulp magazines into an Edwardian world ebbing steadily towards the end of colonialism, still unavoidably choc-full of patriarchal white-supremacy - which just makes the whole concept seem a bit odd plastered all over billboards in 2016.

Pop onto Netflix and out of those 200+ films you'll find exactly zero available to stream. Whilst Netflix is no serious barometer of cultural taste, it's still a sober indicator of how massively Tarzan has fallen off the radar.



Do kids today have any name-recognition beyond the pleasant Disney adaption from 1999? They certainly didn't turn up to the few cinemas that screened the ill-advised 2014 CGI version of the tale. In fact, every live action outing for the loincloth clad adventurer since 1981's decidedly saucy Tarzan the Ape Man has been a significant financial failure - making this latest version all the more inexplicable. 



It's a long way from the days when the character graced competing movie-franchises, radio shows, comic books, and popsicle wrappers. 


From my own perspective, growing up in the 80s, the Ape-man was still hanging high on TV - whether it was the stilted animated Filmation series or the summer-holiday schedules littered with Johnny Weismullers and Lex Barkers.

 
Back then, one was much more open to the sight of some poor old moth-eaten animal being wrestled to a stand-still by a stuntman. I'm not sure I could stomach too much of that today - not that the new version doesn't come with it's own self-destruct time-bomb in the shape of CGI effects already dated by the time they hit the big screen. The sight of 1000 very similarly rendered wilder-beast busting up the town kind of pails compared to a troop of real-live Elephants genuinely trashing up the place - despite the unfortunate addition of paper-mâché ears, required to turn MGM's inhouse Indian elephants into genuine African examples.



So does this mean that the inevitable failure of the new film mean the end of Tarzan's big screen adventures? 

Time will tell - as although Netflix is no home for his back-catalog, they do plan on airing an all-new series entitled Tarzan and Jane which updates their adventures to present day where a claw-footed '16 year old Tarzan returns from Africa to a London boarding school where he is a fish-out-of-water and challenges conformity'. 

Let that just sit there and percolate for a bit....


What this does mean, is that ol'Poptique has blown the fuller's earth from his keyboard, cricked his ever-more creaking fingers and will be pumping out a small series of highfalutin features on the King of the Jungle. 

Why? Because there's a slim chance this most recent outing for the Ape-man might be the last on this scale for some considerable time...

Who's Yehudi?

Flying violins, star burst effects, out-of-this-world choreography, and obscene day-glo leather jumpsuits held together with gaffa-tape?

Here's something to delight and offend your ears and eyes in equal measure...



I expect you're no doubt you're champing at the bit to find out what sort of plot is draped around solid gold musical numbers such as that? How about one that kicks off with the love-lorn lead (Kamal Haasan) attempting a mountain-top suicide with his current squeeze (he survives, she bites the biscuit) and climaxes with the same chap driving off into the distance with the beguiling Srividya, who's been chasing him the whole picture, in an exploding car.

Good stuff the producers of this 1986 Tamil romance that mixes Romeo & Juliet with Fame and Staying Alive decided to stick some eye-popping fun in between two such downbeat bookends.



I'm not a big fan of post-70s Bollywood - give me trumpety RD Burman over composer Ilaiyaraja in synth-mode anyday, I'm sorry to say. But, it's still quite beguiling to see the versitile Haasan, here looking like a cross between a Nighthawks-era Sly Stallone and Al Pacino in Carlito's Way, glide around to what sounds to my illeducated ears like the soundtrack to a Sega Megadrive game...

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Slappy New Year

Happy New Year to all visitors past and future to old Poptique!

What indeed does 2012 have instore for us..?

As long as the world doesn't conk it, as the Mayan's supposedly reckoned, I think we should be in for a goodun'. (plus, since the Mayan's failed to predict their own conking, I can't see why we should take their word for anything...)

It's come to my attention that the Christmas message I thought I'd posted didn't actually get onto this site in the end. Had you been witness to my epic struggle to cut the thing together and send out around 40 odd unique cards to various personages on Christmas Eve afternoon, when I should have been making merry instead, you would be more forgiving of my festive tardiness.



It comes to you courtesy of myself and Persistent Peril - hope you had a very merry Christmas!

Kismet Dun Met It's Kismet

Long time visitors to Poptique will know that any film that's "lost" gets a big fuck-yeah thumbs up from me. It consistently quivers my conscience that a piece of work, toiled over many months, and enjoyed (or indeed, otherwise) by thousands across the globe has crumbled into powder, gone up in smoke and vanished into thin air.


Therefore it's also a shocker when something ridiculously obscure and unimaginably rare appears on Youtube for it's millions of users worldwide to roundly ignore, and for a tiny handful of contrary nostalgia nuts like myself to gawp at.

Take this seemingly innocuous behind the scenes footage from the set of the 1930 version of creaky operetta Kismet.



Opulent was the word for this grand 65mm widescreen, two-colour technicolor extravaganza that traveled the world wowing audiences in the dark days of the depression. How can a tiny tease of home movie footage be all that survives of the blighter? Very mind boggling - if, like me, your mind is boggled by the now essentially pointless debris of cinematic history.


Pity poor Otis Skinner - this legendary figure of the American stage had been famously plying his trade as the lead in Kismet for over 20 years when the film was released in 1930, having already recorded the performance for posterity for First National back in the 20s. Posterity gave old Otis the figure however, as both have been swept away like the sand from the sound stages upon which they were lensed (how's that for a lovely bit of poetic prose?).


The sets and costumes from Kismet probably appeared in a quite a few films we're familiar with - one I wasn't, that has been positively identified as a prime example of recyclisation (an exciting word I've invented just for this article) is the 1932 Joe E Brown laughfest.



These days Brown is remembered almost entirely for saying "Nobody's perfect" to a dragged up Jack Lemon at the end of Some Like It Hot, but in the early pre-code 30s he starred in hit after ribald hit for Warner Bros with his sassy, big mouthed act. I can honestly say I've never sat through a single example - but one day I'll have to wallow in a brain-straining Joe E Brown festival, most likely when I'm incapacitated and in a masochistic mood to push myself over the edge.

Truth be told, Operetta's are far from the top of my list of films I'd gladly endure, so Kismet is far more alluring due to it's long lost status to add the the Eastern allure of it's rumoured pre-code sauciness (the unreleasability of which supposedly helped hasten it's ultimate destruction). Should another lamentably misplaced example ever appear - The Rogue Song from the same year - my finger would be near-constant addition to the fast-forward button to get me to the from each Laurel & Hardy guest spot to the next.

Should I be forced to watch the musical numbers my expression would be very similar to the gent to Stan's left...

LIQUID TELEVISION HITS 20

To whole-heartedly half-inch a line from the opening of a doddery old Beatles album, it was 20 years ago today that MTV unleashed Liquid Television. Good ol'Cartoon Brew has alerted Poptique towers to this, and it's brought back a flood of televisual memories from the days when television was a hot-bed of unpredictability, and opposed to the bedraggled flower-bed of mediocrity that large portions are today...


Aeon Flux, Dog Boy, Dangerous Puppets et al - the whole point of the show seemed to be Forest Gump's idiot-philosophy of "never knowing what 'chu gonna get", but with the chocolate box kicked firmly into the poor boob's face, then smeared all over his blank visage.

It was always fun waiting for your favourite segment - mine, unsurprisingly, being the low-fi, high energy Stick Figure Theatre, recycling classic (albeit public domain) droplets of Hollywood history:









Liquid TV was screened in the UK as part of BBC2's post-tea time DEF II "yoof tv" strand, back when I should have been outside playing off my frozen food din dins, instead of being inside vegetating in front of the goggle-box. And just look at what rubbish my mind has helpfully erased - allowing me to wallow in glorious memories of non-stop TV brilliance from days-gone-by:



Ah well, either way - Happy Birthday Liquid TV - we may never see your like again!

Block Party

Let's be honest - much like the red squirrel, and well-mannered children, the high-concept movie is rarely seen alive and well on our shores any more.

This great nation once spent the best part of the 20th century knocking out naughty nudge-nudge comedies, Gothic horror movies, super spy epics and the like. The high class of our studios, staff and tea led us to become the address of choice for the average Spielberg-Lucas popcorn purveyor during the initial age of the blockbuster, especially since the studio system in Hollywood had thrown in the towel and their dream-factories largely plowed into parking lots.

Take a gander at our present day multiplexes, and that era seems to have existed in another world, let alone another generation. Aside from a handful of recent examples, genre flicks are a thing of British cinema's past - unless you consider "Po'boy loves ballet instead of working down t'mine" a prime example of high conceptuality.

To a great extent what remains of our "film industry" has spent the better part of this generation like a NOW compilation, replaying recent hits by spewing out one unwatchable mockney-gangsta scuzzfest or posh-chap pratfaller after another in the vain hope of a winning roll of the dice.

So the idea of someone in the UK getting the opportunity to make sci-fi horror that plays like the Warriors versus Alien seemed a bit more far fetched than the film's concept itself, which isn't to suggest in any way, wasn't a doozy in the first place:


Inner City versus Outer Space. An example of fine genre thinking in a nutshell.

Well guess what - against all odds, that film has been made, and by a someone who has proved to be the titanic cinematic talent they have long since threatened, but were far too lazy (in his own words) to be - Joe Cornish.

In a genuine case of believing the hype - Attack the Block is the movie we all wanted it to be - if, like me, you were wanting it to be genuinely flipping marvellous.



Paying tribute to the genre classics of our youth without plagiarising, Attack the Block goes toe-to-toe with American action movies whilst remaining a resolutely British film - bereft of the pathetic pandering to overseas audiences that immediately cheapens any movie. This is cinema to celebrate.

Jumping off from a genuine experience of a late-night mugging, Cornish's film asks the question of what exactly would happen if aliens landed on a South London estate, and how the tabloid view of aggressive, violent, feral and territorial teenage gang members would fair against extra-terrestrial adversaries who reflected those facets back at them (with the addition of massive mouths full of day-glo teeth, to boot).

It used to be that genre film was the de rigueur outlet for up-and-coming film-makers to learn and ply their trade, since exploitation movies could be made for six-pence-ha'penny as long as they included blood, bullets and a few boobs. Since producers cared not a jot what else was included alongside these sleazier aspects, the low budgets of these films would allow some of the finer film-makers license to introduce a touch of social commentary into their work - something missing in these days of contemptuous direct-to-dvd crap featuring shitty CGI-octopuses.

With a cast and crew featuring many first timers, Cornish utilises them all to create a work that at once seems fresh but familiar, showing an astute understanding of the give and take relationship between film-maker and viewer when it comes to what you do or don't show. Rather than spray a CGI money-hose on the proceedings, clever use of in-camera effects and on-set aliens creates an energy and immediacy seriously lacking in the majority of by-the-numbers big-budget bloat-fests we're presented with these days.

Taking a leaf out of the films gorged on in his youth, Cornish has produced a worthy successor to the likes of Gremlins, Goonies and Ghostbusters - a home-grown, rollicking roller coaster that - like last years Scott Pilgrim - deserves to become a cult classic for this generation. It'll be a crime if the poster from this film doesn't immediately start to adorn student bedroom walls up and down the nation.

Kind of makes me wish I was 14 again so I could experience that rush of inexplicable, all-encompassing joy from an adventure that could happen just around the corner. In truth, it's fantastic that someone from my generation of video-shop drop-outs has produced a film that takes a great concept and runs with it, whilst thoughtfully dealing with some very real issues with aplomb.

You should already be aware by now that Adam & Joe are kings of all media - but Attack the Block proves Cornish has the potential to become one of the genre film-makers of his generation. It's no-joke that our film industry desperately needs a few more people who want to make great entertainment, as opposed to just wanting to "make films".

Boot Sale Bonanza

It's that exciting time of year again, when every weekend morn the green and pleasant fields of England ring to the sound of hard-nosed bargaining, the rattle and rustle of cold hard cash or crisp pound notes changing hands, not to mention the wailing of snotty-nosed kids decrying dropped ice lollies.

It's Car Boot Sale season, which means a bonanza for those of us who foolishly like to pick up the shite others wisely discard. For the pleasure of spending a morning offloading clutter long since past it's usefulness sellers obtain extra space and spare cash, whilst I gain the exact opposite. I do this for no apparent purpose other than force of habit...

Growing up in the countryside, the occasional Car Boot sale was always welcome distraction, but with the parents controlling the purse strings via the tactical deployment of tiny amounts of pocket moment, one was somewhat hampered when it came to the amount of crap one could reasonably escort home.

Now, long since unhindered by any sort of immediate restrictions I can happily buy any old rubbish that takes my fancy - only to suffer repercussions after the event due to dwindling shelf space and ever decreasing support for this type of behaviour from Mrs Poptique...

I used to "do" eBay full time, over ten years ago when I temporarily left the exciting media whirlwind to pursue bric-a-brac and distribute it to all four corners of the globe. Those glory days of easily coming back from a Boot Sale with carload of collectibles are also long gone. Firstly, a large majority of potential Car Booters now regularly offer their discards for sale online without the need of a go-between.

What gems remain offline and do become available in fields up and down the nation are almost immediately hoovered up by the joyless, blank-faced Hawks who pounce the second carboots are unlatched. With nothing but Amazon hit-lists and a vague notion of what's worth what, the Hawks seem to sweep down with the dawn and soon scurry away, bags bulging, back to the desktops from whence they came.

The only thing I genuinely have against these hawkers morally, and personally, is they really don't seem to take any enjoyment from picking up the assorted rubbish I still take great pleasure from. The somewhat pathetic joy I experience when chancing by a random silver age Marvel comic, a beautifully boxed NES game, or super-strange print, combined with careful consideration of the journey that item has taken before arriving in my grubby hands seems completely lost on the trolls who trawl the opening moments of Boot Sales these days, looking only for recognisably collectible commodities to shift on.

Of course, I'm being ungenerous and arrogant in the supposed superiority between the "Collector" and the "Hawker", but balls to it - this is my blog so ya boo sucks to the lot of them. Those buying for fun rather than pure profit will also take precedence on the respectometer as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, that preamble leads me to the point of this entry - to alert readers regular and irregular alike that every now and then I'll post a bunch of images from recent boot sale finds in a similar, flag waving, "look what I got" fashion. To this end, here's a bunch of bits and bobs I recently acquired and bought home to scorn and loud discontent - very much like a tatty cat innocently dragging in a half-deceased toad or two...

Is it possible to have too many Corgi Batcopters? Yes.

The sculptor of this wee Corgi Jnr Wonder Woman car might well have been a misogonist - having given the Star Spangled Amazon the body of a builder on benefits and the face of an uprooted Easter Island head...

Lucky me - I picked up a stack of Smash comics from the mid-60s, the first publication in the UK to feature reprints of silver age Marvel characters - in this case the Hulk and subsequently Daredevil. Due to the success of DC's Batman show, the caped crusader got cover duties, with sparsely coloured repastes of his newspaper comic strip adventures. A rare case of DC & Marvel super-heroes co-existing in the same book!

A little bit further on I also nabbed some self-published Marvels from the early 70s - including the first edition of the long-running Spider-man Comics Weekly. Woo, and indeed, hoo. In the same stack was a few things dating back 60 years - including a nice copy of Adventure from 1950 (and not to be confused DC's Adventure Comics, either..!)

Battered and bruised, but still working like a charm, this is a 1965 Tom & Jerry music box, or jack-in-a-box. Turn the handle and Pop Goes the Weasel chimes along until a ragged Tom jumps out.

Highly amusing for at least 30 seconds.

What makes this a particularly attractive addition to my collection are the jaunty Chuck Jones era illustrations that adorn it's tin sides. I was never a fan of Jones' version of Tom & Jerry during the constant rotation their entire output was given on the BBC when growing up, but these are pretty nifty.

Here's Jerry being a right bastard to a happy-go-lucky Tom. As seen below, 60s Tom would rather spark up a biffter and smell the flowers - good lad. Sadly for him, 60s Jerry is a complete shit.

Cleaned up I'm sure this will make a nice addition to my desk area - especially since placing it elsewhere in the flat would most likely result on instant banishment to some out-of-sight location...

What's this nasty pile of stinky vinyl?

Surely it can only be one thing...?

It's that smarter-than-the-average-bear, Bilko rip-off Yogi Bear - in the guise of a 60s inflatable Bop Bag. Who'd what to bop good old Yogi though? Not me.

A face only a mother could love.

And here's Yogi's rapidly deflating rear-end. Made in Scotland - a long way from Jellystone Park.

And just incase you start to feel sorry for Mrs Poptique, having to put up with such dreadful items dotted around her abode, then have a gander at the rather nice fencing French fillies I picked up to appease her...


Not a bad haul at all, if I do say so myself...