Here at the Bat-Blog we totally love creativity, in any form. What we're talking about is when Batman Fans, inspired by the character, create fun objects or pieces of art that are Batman-related. It can be any activity like drawing, painting, or even sewing a costume! Check this out! Here is a "Fake" Reproduction of a 1966 BATMAN Kellogg's Cereal Box that they never made. Now, back in the day, this Cereal Company did do a few boxes that promoted the TV Show. But they were always presented as the actual cereal & "Batman Toys" were just a featured premium inside the box or one you had to mail-away for. But this "Fantasy Cereal Box", shown here, really focuses on the character. First off, the design is really incredible. It uses a lot of "Cereal Box" graphic elements that were in use around the 1960's: The diagonal stripes for sure. I like that it has the Kelloggs Cereal & BATMAN TV Series logos together. It also has a great photo of Adam West in costume. Plus, it's kinda cool that they printed it on card-stock & it's sort of like a real box. The person who made this did an extremely awesome job on it!
In the 1990's it was a great time to be a Batman Toy collector. I mean, you had all the movies going on, and then on TV, you also had the wonderful Animated Series Cartoon. Shown here are a few cool toys & 90's memorabilia pieces picked totally at random. The 1st item is a very RARE 1992 BATMAN RETURNS Ralston Cereal Store Display Sign. Kids would have seen this at the Grocery Store & then start begging Mom, ha! I really like the graphics on this thing. Speaking of the cereal, the next pic shows a few BATMAN RETURNS Cereal Box Premiums that were available FREE inside the boxes! These are 3-D Flicker Bookmarks, meaning, you tilt them & the pictures change from one image to the other. There were 3 of them in the complete set: Catwoman, Batman, and The Penguin. Now the next photo sort of gets away from the movies for a minute. This is a Plush Batman Doll from 1994 ( 16" Tall ) that was tied-into "The Adventures of Batman and Robin" Animated TV Series. I love the old cartoon logo & the packaging is interesting with the "open box" design. Last, but not least, is a RARE 1997 BATMAN AND ROBIN Movie Store Display Sign from Taco Bell. It advertised the contest they had going on their Pepsi Drink products. Well, does any of these items bring back any memories? I know back then I was totally about the cereal, ha ha!
Here are a few Vintage POST Cereal Boxes with cool graphics from the 1989 BATMAN Movie. They were made for the Canadian market & that is why the boxes have both English & French languages on them. They did the promotion on Honey Combs, Sugar Crisp, & Alpha Bits. Also, if you look at the back of the box ( 1st photo, right-side ), then you'll see that the free premiums available inside the box were some "3-Way Action Trading Cards"... AWESOME! Now, I never knew that they made these back then so I hope you're as surprised as I am.
First off, I gotta say that I'm really excited about these wonderful new Japanese BATMAN BATMOBILE Toys & I wanna thank our good friend Kuan for letting us know about them. OK, in Japan they have a popular beverage drink called "BOSS Simple Style Coffee" and it's made by a company called Suntory. The cool thing is that they have 15 different BATMAN BATMOBILE Premium Toys to collect! 10 of them are magnetic mini-cars & 5 of them are the kind of toy cars you pull back & release them to go. Also, the magnetic ones can spin around on your can of BOSS Simple Style Coffee! The vehicles are super cute mini versions of all the different Batmobile cars from all the Batman movies. Well, except unfortunately they didn't make the 1966 Batmobile, but you get the idea! Here's the deal: To collect the 10 Mini-Cars you have to buy the individual cans with the premium attached to the top ( see last pic ). To collect the 5 Pull-Back Toys you need to find the 2-packs. Oh yeah! Now the 1st two photos are pics of the actual product. The rest are the sample pics from their official website. These pics show all the different cars & I totally love them! ( Thanks again Kuan! )
I have a friend named Jim who writes a cool blog called TUGLEY WOOD. It's all about pop culture, comics, animation, etc... It's main focus is Vintage Disney animation history but he also posts a lot of different things too. Anyway, he recently scanned an entire comic book story that's really neat to read. Actually, it's not a "comic book", but it's one of those booklets that was a free premium give-away inside Kellogg's Pop-Tarts in 1966 ( Look at the original box packaging up above, drool! ). There were 6 different comics to collect. The one at his site is the Penguin story titled, "The Penguin's Foul Play". The vintage artwork is really great to see & it's also a fun read. So, check out this LINK, where you can read the whole thing.
Here's a brand-new Batman collectible item out there to find that I think is pretty awesome! For the BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD CARTOON Interview Panel at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con ( SDCC ) Warner Bros gave out these foam-rubber STARRO MASK premiums! Now, for everybody who has been watching this TV show for the last few episodes we know the whole STARRO thing has been a small side story deal that keeps building up. Remember, STARRO creatures stick themselves to people's faces ( like the face-hugger in the ALIENS movies ) & then control their minds. Anyway, I think the masks are totally great & since I didn't get to go to Comic Con this year I'm gonna be trolling eBay for one of these. I checked last night & they're going pretty cheap. That's cool, or as Aquaman would say, "OUTRAGIOUS!!"
OK, I gotta say upfront that this is a post I am very proud of. You see, I just recently got an e-mail from a Batman Fan who lives in Egypt! Yes, EGYPT...How cool is that?! Her name is Myret & she says she has loved the Dark Knight since she was around 9 years old. She is now 23. She was also kind enough to send some great photos of a few pieces of Batman-related merchandise she has found in her country. The 1st two photos relate to a Batman Food Product called "Halwani FUN Sausages". They are a Meat Snack & the box says, "They're Ready To Eat!" She said that as a free premium inside you get the Set of Batman Playing Cards that are shown in the 2nd picture. WOW, a whole deck! The last photo shows 2 Bags of Potato Chips that she said are a lot like ( American ) Cheetos. Now, their special premium prize were some Batman & Robin ( comic book version ) Puzzle Playing Pieces. I guess if you collect them all they make a neat image...WOW! Thank you so very much Myret for taking the time to shoot these nice pics. I really appreciate you sending them. These unusual pieces of Bat-Memorabilia are really GREAT!!
Anybody remember these BATMAN RETURNS Movie Cups from McDonalds? I do, I collected them all! I also remember being sort of upset that they were plastic because for a long time these Premium Promo Glasses from Fast Food Restaurants used to be high-quality glass. Then, I guess some moron sued them or something ( or maybe they became too expensive to produce ) so they all went to plastic. But, these BATMAN RETURNS Cups were still pretty neat & the graphics were really nice. The lids were actually a Mini-Frisbee that didn't fly very well, but looked cool. There were 6 to collect: Batman, Catwoman, The Penguin ( 2 ), Bruce Wayne, & The Batmobile. Now, I got the photos here so you can see the cups & that "Newspaper-looking thing" was the Paper Placemat used at McDonalds for the trays. I remember a HUGE Standee Store Display Sign that was in the store too but couldn't find a pic at the time of this post. But really the main thing are the cups & the video. Yes, the TV Commercial! It's down below so be sure to check that out too.
Awhile back I got an e-mail from a Bat-Blog Fan who took a few photos of her favorite Batman Toys. Well, actually they were mostly toys of the Joker, but you get the idea! Her name is Biadza & this is a photo of THE JOKER ( Heath Ledger version ) Cereal Premium Figure in her collection. The pic was kinda BIG so I thought it would make a pretty cool Desktop Wallpaper Background. This is the Free Toy inside THE DARK KNIGHT Cereal Box Promo that Nestle did when the movie was going on. Now the extra cool thing is that she lives in Paris. So, this is the European version of that toy. Like the ones in the USA, there were 4 figures to collect but there they were slightly different. Plus, they made one of The Scarecrow which was not even available here. Thank you Biadza for sending the pics. I plan to post the other ones later so keep an eye out for those. I want to invite other Bat-Blog Readers to share pics of their toy collections too. I always love to see what other people have, ha ha!
In 1977 General Mills offered a special mail-away premium on boxes of Cheerios Cereal called the SUPER HEROES MAGNETIC DART GAME. It came with a Target Game Board ( with a sheet metal backing ) & 4 "Superhero Magnet-Darts". The 4 playing pieces looked like Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin. The 4 evil super-villains, featured on the target game board, were the Joker, Penguin, Cheetah, & Lex Luthor. Now, if I did the math correctly I was in the 7th Grade when this cereal box came out & I don't ever remember seeing this. Oh man! I would have mailed away for this, the vintage graphics are really cool, ha ha! Thanks to Doug for sending us the cool photos. By the way, I think the artwork was done by Dick Giordano. Or, at least, it looks like his stock art.
The Bat-Blog is pretty popular for displaying some cool Vintage Batman Toys. I mean, it's the main reason I started this website really. As a toy collector I just totally drool over older hard-to-find bat-memorabilia. Here's a few good examples & historically, by year, they are all over the place. The 1st two pics show the front & back of a packaged Batman Toy from 1977. This was a SKY HEROES Airplane Glider Toy made by Marx Toys. This one has a lot of fond memories for me because I totally remember having the one of Superman & flying the thing around the front yard as a little kid. The retro graphics are now totally awesome! The next photo shares a RARE set of 1960's premiums. These were Batman Rings made out of rubber. I'm sure that every kid who saw these in some vending machine back then went totally nuts! The one that is "bat-shaped" pop-up sometimes on eBay but you NEVER see those weird ones of the Batmobile Car or Robin, they're extremely rare! The last photo is also a favorite. It's an obscure item from the days of the BATMAN RETURNS movie. It's a sealed Display Box of Candy-Filled Batman Bust figures made by the Topps Co. I completely remember when these were sold in retail stores. Today, I go totally goo-goo over display boxes like this. I guess because they get thrown away & are really rare. Plus, I always love the graphics. I guess the last thing I wanna say is that if you, the reader, have any cool vintage stuff like this then please shoot us a photo. Our e-mail button is ALWAYS on the top right-hand side of this page & this site is really all about sharing the love of collecting this kinda stuff. I look forward to seeing what you guys send in!
OK, for people following this blog they know that every month we have at least 1 or 2 Bat-Blog Contests where you can win wonderful prizes! Yesterday was the final entry time to enter our latest contest & last night, at midnight, we randomly picked 5 lucky people who will now receive a free copy of THE GOTHAM TIMES ( German Edition ) NEWSPAPER. This was a promotional premium at German movie theaters during The Dark Knight Batman movie & is actually very hard to come by here in the USA. To me, that made these prizes extremely cool! Also, these awesome set of prizes were donated by a very generous Bat-Blog Reader named Guenter, who lives in Germany. So, first & foremost I wanna thank him for making this fun contest possible...THANK YOU GUENTER! I also wanna thank everybody who joined in on the contest. OK, here's the deal. I have five of these newspapers to give away & the list of winners are as follows:
Jonathan T. of
Bensalem, PA.
Andrew E. of Parker, CO.
Matt M. of Omaha, NE.
Ryan D. of
Albertville, AL.
Richard P. of San Antonio, TX.
We want to congratulate all of the latest Bat-Blog Contest Winners & tell them now to look for our confirmation e-mails very soon. Also, we wanna thank Guenter again for making this awesome event possible! For readers new to this blog please be sure to stay tuned because we promise to bring more contests in the near future & YOU could be on our new list of winners!!
Our friend Zdravko took some really great photos showing the 2 Batman Cereal Boxes in Bulgaria! Of course this was for the recent THE DARK KNIGHT movie promotion. The 1st picture is an advertisement out of some magazine, very cool! The next 3 photos show the actual cereal boxes with 1 pic showing the back. There were 4 premiums there that are all different than the American ones, especially the Scarecrow figure! Be sure to check out Zdravko's website for other foreign goodies.
Awhile back we received some really great photos of some new products featuring THE DARK KNIGHT that were from Brazil. We posted most of them but this one sort of got lost. They were sent in by our friend Marcio & this is one that, like a moron, I forgot to publish. But, the picture is pretty cool. In Brazil they have Batman Cheetos Con Surpresa Potato Chips, ha ha! I mean, how cool is that?! It looks like there are a lot of free premiums to collect. They look like Disc-Launchers & there's about 11 of them to hunt down. I like that & I also love the cool graphics on the package. Thanks Marcio for sending the great pix, I appreciate that!
A friend to the Bat-Blog, named Andrew, wrote that he was excited to know that The Dark Knight had finally hit France ( he lives near there ) because he saw this ad in a French Newspaper! It shows some of the Batman Action Figures & the Tumbler Batmobile with Bat-Pod...very cool! The next picture is a TDK item from the Philippines that was sent to me by Billy, a friend who lives in my hometown. He won this item on eBay. It's a really neat "Tumbler Batmobile Cereal Bowl with Batman-Shaped Spoon" you can get as a give-away premium in a Nestle KOKO KRUNCH Cereal Box. I'm gonna have to get one of those...the box design is really cool. Thanks guys for sending these wonderful photos, I appreciate that! I want to invite ALL Bat-Blog Readers to do the same, no matter where you live!
Recently at the Bat-Blog we featured photos of all the new DARK KNIGHT Batman Kid's Meal Toys that will be at Burger King in Germany. It's a total shame we won't have any fast food toys here in the USA but these are still kinda neat! Well, here's the TV commercial that's being shown there. The cool thing is that it's in German!
Recently at the Bat-Blog we shared the information about there being a set of 4 cereal premium figures of THE DARK KNIGHT ( 2 Batman, 1 Scarecrow, & 1 Joker ) that are "foreign" because they're from Brazil. They're put out by Nestle which is a division of General Mills. OK, just to revamp, General Mills has 4 figures in cereal boxes for the USA & Nestle has 4 figures in Brazil. When you look at the figures on the backs of the cereal boxes, & even in photos, the figures from Brazil look exactly the same except for Scarecrow ( obviously ) & a "Double-Punch" Batman. So, I thought there were only 2 figures that were different. Well, our friend Eric got a set of them recently & ALL FOUR of the foreign ones are different! They are a little bit taller & a lot thicker than the US ones. So, thank you Eric for the information. For the rest of the story, & some amazing photos, please be sure to check out Eric's website. It's called TOYRIFFIC!
A new friend of the Bat-Blog, named "Escoteiro", sent us these amazing photos of some new TDK merchandise from Brazil. Here are some Nestle Cereal Boxes with The Dark Knight promotion. The 1st photo is my favorite because it shows 2 boxes that each have different graphics with 1/2 a face & when you put them together they form a complete picture of Batman's face....very cool! This is the Nestle Crunch cereal & it's prize was a "buy one movie ticket get one free" coupon ( the 2nd photo shows the back of that box ). The 3rd photo is Nestle Estrelitas ( honey-flavored ) with 4 different Batman Disk Launchers, just like the ones given away here in the USA with General Mills' Cheerios. The 4th photo is Nestle Nescau, which looks like chocolate Cocoa Puffs, and it's premiums are the 4 small figures of Batman & The Joker. Now, these are just like the American ones except they have an exclusive Scarecrow figure & one of the Batman figures has "2 arms" double-fist action. The last photo shows what the premiums look like out of the boxes, very cool. I wanna personally thank "Escoteiro" for sending these great pics. I know that it must have taken a lot of time to do them & I really appreciate that. They're wonderful, thank you. Plus, it's so cool that they are from another part of the globe, that's exciting! If there are any other Bat-Blog Readers who have pix like this to share then please send them to us. The Bat-Blog is ALL about sharing information about the toy collecting hobby we all love.
OK, The Bat-Blog has been covering the events with the line of General Mills U.S. Cereal Boxes with THE DARK KNIGHT Batman Movie Promotion but this is something totally new! In countries like Singapore, New Zealand, & the UK (among others) another division of GM, called Nestle, have released 4 new Batman Cereal Boxes that have 4 figures to collect. The interesting thing is that 2 of the figures are totally different than the ones here in the USA! The 2 that are different are a "Double-Punching Batman" & a "Scarecrow"! Here. we have a Batman Figure that has 1 moving arm but there they have a 2-fisted version. Plus, the Scarecrow is totally new. The cereal that they are featured in is Nestle KoKo Krunch & Nestle Honey Stars. The name of the promo is "Bring The Batman Action To Breakfast". Oh man, I really really want these!!
