HAPPY TRAILS, ROY ROGERS

Roy Rogers passed away on July 6, 1998 but I, for one, will never for get the ever-smiling cowboy that made me want to ride a horse and save the day.  Roy Rogers was more than a cowboy, he was a hero and an example to all young boys of what it means to be a man.

A COWBOY TEACHES A FROG TO YODEL

The Muppets opened in theaters last week and it's Roy Roger Month here on DSTG! so it seems only appropriate we feature Roy Rogers on The Muppet Show from 1979.

A COWBOY IN THE COMICS

 
Roy Rogers was a hero on screen and in print.  Dell Comics created a comic book simply titled, Roy Rogers, starting in January 1948. August 1955.  The title changed to Roy Rogers and Trigger in August 1955.  The comic book finally rode off into the sunset in 1961.

PEZ-TASTIC!

As Roy Rogers Month winds down, it's only appropriate we feature Sheriff Pez Pal.  From 1977, this tin star dispenser sells for around $200.00 if you can find him.

BATMAN AS-SALT-ED

By Dan Piraro.

NERD NEWS ROUND-UP

Blastr has 21 rare behind-the-scenes Star Wars photos.

See what Thanksgiving dinner on the Death Star is like.

Check out an incredible Spider-Man collage.

See what Freddie Mercury built out of Legos looks like.

"Feed me" this delicious and amazing Little Shop of Horrors cake!

COLOR ME IN, COWBOY

Winners of the 1957 Houston Chronicle Roy Rogers coloring contest.

Found here.

MONKEY-FIGHTING SNAKES ON THIS MONDAY TO FRIDAY PLANE

Don't watch movies on regular television.  Besides Pan and Scan, commercials and deleted scenes, you also have to hear ridiculous re-edited dialogue.

MORE POPULAR THAN SANTA CLAUS

Roy Rogers received over 1.5 million letters a year.

Found here.

SWINETREK MEETS STAR WARS

Luke Skywalker fights Darth Nader. This isn't any worse than The Star Wars Holiday Special.

PEZ-TASTIC!

YEE-HAW!  Roy Rogers Month is still underway so today's featured Pez is Jessie from the Toy Story films.  Released in 2010, this redheaded dispenser is still available at local retailers and sells for around a buck.

ELTON JOHN SINGS "ROY ROGERS"

Roy Rogers was a hero to kids around the world, including one young Elton John.  From his 1977 concert in Wembley Empire Pool, Sir Elton sings "Roy Rogers" from his 1973 album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
 

Sometimes you dream, sometimes it seems
There's nothing there at all
You just seem older than yesterday
And you're waiting for tomorrow to call

You draw to the curtain and one thing's for certain
You're cozy in your little room
The carpet's all paid for, God bless the TV
Let's go shoot a hole in the moon

And Roy Rogers is riding tonight
Returning to our silver screens
Comic book characters never grow old
Evergreen heroes whose stories were told
Oh the great sequin cowboy who sings of the plains
Of roundups and rustlers and home on the range
Turn on the T.V., shut out the lights
Roy Rogers is riding tonight

Nine o'clock mornings, five o'clock evenings
I'd liven the pace if I could
Oh I'd rather have a ham in my sandwich than cheese
But complaining wouldn't do any good

Lay back in my armchair, close eyes and think clear
I can hear hoofbeats ahead
Roy and Trigger have just hit the hilltop
While the wife and the kids are in bed

ROY ROGERS TAKES QUIK AIM

Roy Rogers shows off his quick-shooter hat and drinking Nestle Quik.

CORMAN'S WORLD

I recently read Roger Corman's autobiography, How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime, which is not only highly informative of how Hollywood works but is also a fun read.  A new documentary is coming out, Corman's World, and it looks fantastic.  You get Robert DeNiro, Ron Howard, Pam Grier, Tom Hanks and Peter Fonda reflecting on working for Roger Corman, all with footage from his infamous movies.

PORTRAIT OF A KING

The King of the Cowboys, that is.  We posted this back in June and it's still one of our favorite images of Roy Rogers.  Artwork by Robert Rodriguez.

NEW AVENGERS BANNERS

New banners of The Avengers were released online today.  Hopefully we'll see a new trailer soon.  The Avengers smashes into theaters May 4, 2012.

MUSICAL COWBOYS

Roy Rogers singing "Get Along Little Doggies" from 1940's West of the Badlands.

BATMAN IS AS DUMB AS HIS VOICE

Batman meets The Riddler and answers don't come easy.

MINIMALIST ASSEMBLE!

Artist Matt Ferguson gives us a "60's vibe" with his minimalist poster for The Avengers.

WHERE EVERY STORMTROOPER KNOWS YOUR NAME

SPIDEY'S GOT A PART TIME JOB

Order your "Part Time Job" from Threadless Tees for only $20.

THE MUPPETS AUDITION FOR STAR WARS

Personally, I think Fozie Bear is a much better actor than Hayden Christensen.

PEZ-TASTIC!

Continuing the cowboy theme in honor of Roy Rogers Month, this week we feature Woody from Toy Story.  There are several Toy Story character dispensers currently available at local stores and sell for around a dollar each.

SAD FLASH

By Russian artist Lora Zombie.

THIS IS YOUR LIFE, ROY ROGERS

Roy Rogers is featured on This is Your Life in 1953.  Just try to keep a dry eye when he hugs his mom.

LIFE'S TOO SHORT

Liam Neeson asks Ricky Gervais to help him hone his comedic skills in Gervais' new show Life's Too Short.

THE WALKIE TALKIE DEAD

Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead doesn't know how to use a walkie talkie.

Thanks, Luke!

COLD STEEL AND A HEART OF GOLD

Roy Rogers played a hero on-screen and off-screen, displaying the noble qualities that go with the role.  He spent a lifetime caring for the less fortunate, adopted several children, visited hospitals and created the Happy Trails Children's Foundation for severely abused and neglected children.  Roy Rogers was always grateful to his fans who had made him a success and felt a responsibility to share his blessings, care for the needy and love the forgotten.  In Roy's own words,  "Who am I to be the beloved hero of millions of people?  I'm just a hillbilly, an ignorant hillbilly boy from Duck Run".

THE DARK KNIGHT 1966 STYLE

Happy Dragon Pictures created the opening of the Batman TV show featuring The Dark Knight.

ROY AND DALE MAKE IT QUIK

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans take a break from their adventures to pitch Nestle's Quik.

OUR 3-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

How time flies.  It's been 3-years since DSTG! first hit the internet.  We've posted lots of stories and had a lot of fun.  We're looking forward to many more years of preaching the good news about comic books, art, toys, movies, music and lots more.  Tell your friends about our site and be sure to leave comments and suggestions.

WNDR WMN

Australia is issuing superhero license plates, featuring DC Comics' characters Superman, Supergirl, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash and Wonder Woman.  The plates start at $200.00 and go up to $400.00, which is about what my car is worth.

A ROY ROGERS TRIBUTE

CommanderPutney at YouTube put together a tribute to The King of Cowboys with an Elvis Presley remix.  Now that's a perfect combo!

A LITTLE GOLD...ER

Artist Marc Basile gives us a Little Golden Book we all wish existed.

THE STORY OF GOLDEN CLOUD

Also known as Trigger.  Roy Rogers became a household name but it was with the help of a golden palimino, originally named Golden Cloud.  Roy knew that people loved Trigger as much as they loved him and quickly purchased the stallion, becoming one of the most-loved duos of all time.  Read the biography of Trigger at Roy Rogers World.

CANDID COWBOY

Photos of Roy Rogers from a public appearance in 1972 from The Fred Sopher Collection.

PEZ-TASTIC!

Since it's Roy Rogers Month here on DSTG!, it's only appropriate to select the Cowboy from 1973 as this week's featured Pez.  They're very rare and usually sell for over $150.00 bucks.  If anyone needs a Christmas gift idea, this would be a perfect addition to my collection.

WARRIOR WOMAN

By Marc Basile.

REFLECTIONS OF A DETECTIVE

By Joëlle Jones.

WHO, ME?

By Amilcar Pinna.

BIO OF A KING

The King of the Cowboys, that is:

Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, was actually born in the city. It was in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 5, 1911, that Leonard Slye (later to be known as Roy Rogers) was born to Mattie and Andy Slye. Years later, the building where he was born was torn down to make way for Riverfront Stadium (recently renamed Cinergy Field), the home of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. Roy liked to say that he was born right where second base is now located. But the Slye family was never cut out for city life, so a few months after Roy was born, Andy Slye moved his family to Portsmouth, Ohio (a hundred miles east of Cincinnati), where they lived on the houseboat that he and Roy's uncle built. When Roy was seven years old his father decided it was time they settled on solid ground, so he bought a small farm in nearby Duck Run. Living on a farm meant long hours and hard work, but no matter how hard they worked the land there was little money to be made. Roy often said that about all they could raise on their farm were rocks. Eventually Andy Slye realized that he'd have to return to his old factory job at the United States Shoe Company in Cincinnati if he was going to be able to support his family. Since his father would be able to return home only on weekends, this meant that even more of the responsibilities for farm chores fell onto Roy's young shoulders.

Mattie Slye suffered from lameness as a result of the polio she had contracted as a child, and Roy always marveled at the way she was able to raise four active children (Roy and his sisters, Mary, Cleda, and Kathleen) despite her disability. Still, farm life agreed with Roy, who often rode to school on Babe, the old, sulky racehorse his father had bought for him. According to Roy, "We lived so far out in the country, they had to pipe sunlight to us." Living on the farm meant they had to make their own entertainment, since radio was in its earliest days and television was far in the future. On Saturday nights the Slye family often invited some of their neighbors over for a square dance, during which Roy would sing and play the mandolin. Before long he became skilled at calling square dances, and throughout the years he always enjoyed finding opportunities to showcase this talent in his films and television appearances.

It was also while he was growing up on the farm in Duck Run that Roy learned to yodel. Andy Slye had brought home a cylinder player (the predecessor to the phonograph) along with some cylinders, including one by a Swiss yodeler. Roy played that cylinder again and again and soon began developing his own yodeling style. Before long, Roy and his mother worked out a way of communicating with each other by using different types of yodels. Mattie would use one type of yodel to let Roy know that it was time for lunch, another to warn that a storm was brewing, and still another to call him in at the end of the day. Roy would then relay that message to his sisters by yodeling across the fields to them.

By the time Roy had completed his second year of high school, it was clear that their farm would never support the family, so he made the difficult decision to drop out of school and take a job with his father at the shoe factory in Cincinnati. Roy quickly discovered that factory work was just as hot, monotonous, and unpleasant for him as it was for his father. Since his older sister Mary had married and moved to Lawndale, California (close to Los Angeles), Roy and his father decided they should quit their jobs, pack up the car, and take the family out to visit her. Somehow their old car held together, and they eventually made it to Lawndale. (The old Dodge family car in which they made that trip is now on display at The Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum.) After a four-month visit the Slye family returned to Cincinnati, but by now the cold Ohio winters couldn't compete with the lure of California's warmer climate. A few months later Roy returned to Southern California, where the rest of his family soon joined him. Although the Depression was growing worse by the day, Roy and his father had hoped that jobs would be easier to find on the West Coast than they were in Ohio. However, California turned out to be just as hard hit as the rest of the country. Jobs were hard to come by, and they didn't tend to last very long. Roy worked at anything he could find, including driving a gravel truck on a highway construction crew until the truck's owner went bankrupt. In the spring of 1931 Roy went up to Tulare (located in central California's farm belt), where he picked peaches for Del Monte and lived in the same labor camps John Steinbeck wrote about so powerfully in his classic novel, "The Grapes Of Wrath".

To read the rest of Roy Rogers' bio, head over to The Official Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Website for the rest of the story about The King of the Cowboys.

DSTG! SALUTES ROY ROGERS

It's Roy Rogers Month here on Don't Stand There Gawping! Today is Roy Rogers' birthday, he would have been 100 years old.  Strong, handsome and a gentleman cowboy, he thrilled audiences on radio, movie screens and television.  With a career beginning in music, he had big hits with "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds".  It wasn't long before Hollywood took notice of the young yodeler and put him in the movies, with his first film appearance in 1935.  Rogers soon became a hero to children with his winning smile and integrity.  His religious faith and concern for the less fortunate only cemented his inspiration to kids throughout the country.  He openly talked about his faith and love for his family and country.  With over 100 films under his holster, he passed away on July 6th, 1998, leaving behind a world that needs more heroes like Roy Rogers.

THE ORIGIN OF FREDDY KRUEGER'S VOICE

Actor Robert Englund tells us how he created the voice of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

100 GREATEST HORROR MOVIE QUOTES

Sure, Halloween is over but that's no need to stop watching horror movies.  After all, they have some of the best lines.

MST3K PUMPKIN

Mystery Science Theater 3000 pumpkin found here.