Galaxy Ghoul: October 2008

Sunday, October 26, 2008

"The Dummy" short from USA Night Flight 1981

For Halloween, a old short that used to scare the living crap out of me as a kid.

"The Dummy" 1981

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Disney's Halloween Treat

This one's near and dear to my lizard heart, Disney's Halloween Treat. Aired off and on in the 80s and has some great halloween/scary themed Disney clips and shorts.

Monday, October 13, 2008

More Children's Palace/Child World goodness

I got some more cool pics from former CW/CP guru, Bernard

Bernard also sent along a Child World video from youtube

Some other CW/CP videos

Lost Retail: Venture stores

Here's some background culled from the various online sources:

Venture Stores, Inc.
A former chain of retail stores that operated in the American Midwest. The company operated over 90 stores, and was based out of the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon, Missouri.
Opened: 1970 in St. Louis, MO
Headquarters: O'Fallon, MO
Employees: 18,000
Website: www.venturestores.com (archived at Deadmalls.com)

History
1970: First store opened in in the St. Louis suburb of Overland (location became a Kmart and is now a Home Depot).
1976: Expanded to 20 units.
1978: Venture purchased 23 Turn Style locations in the Chicago area from Jewel food stores, and expanded to over 40 locations. They were the largest discount chain in Chicago with inner city locations other than Zayre/Ames.
1985: Over 50 stores, most of which were in Chicago and St. Louis.
1990: Venture became a private corporation, operating in eight states: Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Indiana.
1995: 115 stores in 9 states, having expanded into Texas in 1993.
1998: Bankruptcy. Stores closed in late April

Laura, a Venture fan and super-friend of the blog was kind enough to share some of her cool Venture collectables to help me round out this post

Ad from Oklahoma Cit, Christmas 1984

Venture's advertising slogan during the 1980s was "Save With Style." In the 1990s, Venture used two other slogans; the first was tied to the remodel and
restrategizing to be like Kohl's and that slogan was "See What's New For You!". By the time they closed they used the slogan "See What A Little Money Can Buy".

Bankruptcy
By the late 1990s, the chain found that it was unable to compete against other retail chains, such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Kmart. Venture tried to return to its founding principles as an upscale discounter and remodeled most of its stores. While facing vast competition Venture made a fatal mistake trying to expand into Texas instead of protecting its core markets. Venture sold the Texas stores to Kmart in 1996 and closed its distribution center in Corsicana, Texas. The company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy on January 20, 1998, and tried to operate with a smaller number of stores. The effort was not successful, and the company announced its closing on April 27, 1998. Most of the former Venture buildings were absorbed into other chains, such as Kmart, Kohl's, ShopKo, and Burlington Coat Factory

Sunday, October 12, 2008

TV Guide Halloween show ads

I'm a full-on vintage TV Guide junkie. It's probably one of my dumber geek-obsessions. I just love looking through the old one. So, here's some Halloween themed ad scans. I'll do my best to include the location, station and years.