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06/02/2004: The Crash Test Dummies Oh!

Sorry about the lack of updates lately — I’ve got some stuff going on that’s eating away at my net time, but hopefully that’ll all be figured out soon. I’m vague out of necessity, believe me. Anyways, there’s a new article up, finally bringing the infamous Crash Test Dummies to X-E. Vince and Larry began their quest to make everyone on the planet buckle the fuck up nearly two decades ago, eventually branching out into more important avenues like action figures and video games for the Sega Genesis. Tribute includes their history, their pictures, their new toys, and a completely understandable intro about the Sectaurs cartoon. Also, got some new Kinder Eggs. Guess what’s inside…

Go on, guess. I’ll tell you tonight. Here’s two clues:

It’s but a letter away from rank
Which is to say foul
It has many eyes on its backside
And I’ve never heard one howl

You’ve seen this character before
Battling with whiskerface
Shares a name with the Superman-obsessed
Eating dairy in a tiny spot

I mean, isn’t it obvious? Give it a shot, I’ll post the results tonight.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 122 comments

First comment? w00t!

I have no idea what’s in your Kinder Egg, Matt.

Ghosted by Wes @ 06/02/2004 6:41 PM EDT

I don’t like where "Eating dairy in a tight spot" is going…

Ghosted by pulseczar @ 06/02/2004 6:52 PM EDT

Sooo glad there’s a new article up. Sadly, that’s the highlight of my day today. No offense Matt.

Also I don’t know what’s in your Kinder Egg either, riddles make my head hurt. Where did you get them anyway?

Ghosted by Stacey @ 06/02/2004 7:05 PM EDT

Yay ! Matt came back, I’m sorry for doubting you Matt.

God I loved those crash test dummies, one of my favorite figures. Also I remember I lost a leg off one of them which made me so sad that I rang the distributors to see if they had any spare – They sent me one free of charge, now thats customer care.

Ghosted by Pablo @ 06/02/2004 7:06 PM EDT

Sectaurs were cool, and I remember Matt covered them before.

Didn’t the Dummies have their own series? Maybe not, but I thought the local Fox station aired it here.

Beware of Max Headroom masks: "On Nov. 22, 1987, video hackers managed to override the Chicago PBS station’s broadcast of ‘Dr. Who’ for 90 seconds and replace it with a signal beamed from their secret location…" http://www.tvparty.com/unseenf.html

Ghosted by ME @ 06/02/2004 7:16 PM EDT

A letter away from rank?

Battling whiskerface?

Is the letter away "K"?
Is whiskerface Splinter?

Is it Krang?

Nah, I’m useless at riddles too… but at least I had a guess!!

Thanks Matt, you’re a genius! I remember the crash test dummies game as being absoloutley rubbish. I played it when I was a kid and I’m sure it lasted all of 2 minutes. my mate bigged it up saying it was "hilarious" when he lost his legs… I, unfortunately found it quite sad and not at all hilarious… I haven’t spoken to that particular friend since that incident.. although we did have a fight at school once, probably about which dummy was the best at losing limbs.

Ghosted by The Ross @ 06/02/2004 7:16 PM EDT

OK, I’m thinkin’ Frankenstein.

Frank is a letter away from rank

Seinfeld was obsessed with Superman

wiskerface could be the wolfman, I think they’ve fought before…

Ghosted by DrB @ 06/02/2004 7:32 PM EDT

Well, Egg 2 is Jerry from Tom and Jerry Fame. Egg 1 I don’t know.

Ghosted by goblin22 @ 06/02/2004 7:39 PM EDT

Whoo! What a comeback! This is the kind of article I love to read.

Matt- the Dummies are already making a TV comeback, at least on Fox. If you watch the FoxBox Saturday morning block, you can catch some Flash-animated shorts with the new dummies (Yes, they do have names). However, they lack any sort of safety tips, and they just plain lack Vince and Larry’s charm. A failed comeback, this is.

And on a sadder note, you know that one of the original duo was voiced by Lorenzo Music, right? Poor Mr. Original Garfield passed away a coupla years ago.

Ghosted by Behonkiss @ 06/02/2004 7:40 PM EDT

And looking at that previous post, I’ve just realized that I need to cut down on the use of the word comeback.

Ghosted by Behonkiss @ 06/02/2004 7:41 PM EDT

There was indeed briesfly a CGI CTD cartoon.

I also remember meeting a CTD at a thing they used to do here called Kids Fair. They had cartoon characters, mascots, and some celebrities signing autographs and giving away free junk.

Speaking of PSA’s, does anyone remember when NBC did cartoons they did this thing during breaks called "One To Grow On" where celebrities from NBC shows (Michael J. Fox, Jason Bateman, Mr. T, and the occaisional movie star) would show us a scenario, talk about, and show us the consequences. The one I remember most is the "Pick up your toys or your mom will fall down the stairs and break her leg." It did have cool music and animation too.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 06/02/2004 7:50 PM EDT

Ahh, I see. I posted before the split and thought each stanza was describing the same product. Egg 2 does definitely sound like Jerry.

I’d guess a peacock for the first… I’m not sure what else to make of the "eyes on its backside" comment. "Fowl" would be a letter away from "foul", if a peacock counts as a fowl… I dunno.

Ghosted by Wes @ 06/02/2004 7:53 PM EDT

Kamala pumps your gas?

Ghosted by Al @ 06/02/2004 8:08 PM EDT

Heheheh
I wanna know too
And I used to have crash test dummies when i was little…=D

Ghosted by Allie @ 06/02/2004 8:09 PM EDT

I fondly remember the Dummies when I was a child. I had some of the old toys. They were the kind that borke easily, I’m afraid. Except for the car, but I’ve lost it all now.

I remember them having a computer rendered TV special so they’d have an excuse to have villains for the toys and the video game. I believe that were made out of old spare parts or something.

Ghosted by Teirusu @ 06/02/2004 8:40 PM EDT

The CGI cartoon was only a single pilot episode. Aired twice on the Fox network. But the Dummy’s are back in more ways then one, as they’re now appearing on the new "Fox Box" lineup, only as interstitials though. Seems like most people think the Dummys are only funny for 1 minute at a time.

Ghosted by Mike C. @ 06/02/2004 8:40 PM EDT

JLAJRC, I remember the "One To Grow On" about peer pressure where the teenager is coaxed by friends to break an antenna off a car. He then finds out it was his fathers. The best one was when the kid made a Halloween mask out of a plastic bag. Those old NBC PSAs have mutated into the modern "The More You Know…" ones they have in primetime.

Ghosted by ME @ 06/02/2004 8:51 PM EDT

Oops, he finds out it was his father’s new car.

Ghosted by ME @ 06/02/2004 8:51 PM EDT

It’s Jerry.
You know, Tom and Jerry’s Jerry.

Ghosted by Discharger @ 06/02/2004 9:04 PM EDT

Great article! I remember these two suckers from their commercial and then more, uh, hyped cartoon as well. Enjoyed the Sectaurs too! As always, thanks for the new article and keep that nastalgia comin’!

~Ambition makes you look pretty ugly.

Ghosted by Mugzy. . . @ 06/02/2004 9:37 PM EDT

I had a boatload of the original Crash Dummy figures, including All the bad guys, two cars, two motorcycles, the dog and cat, the plane, the ATV and the fat one whose eyes bugged out. Spare Tire, as he was named.

Anyway, yes, smashing the figures repeatedly into walls did tend to break their delicate interior springs, meaning that their heads would never stay in again. This meant that, over the course of the series, we ended up buying about fifty figures. Also, as with every other toy I ever had, I managed to lose all the pieces.

The bad guys were kinda neat looking, being made up of old car parts and abandoned Dummy limbs, but they didn’t pop apart, so, really, what was the point?

Anyway, yes, I remember the CGI Dummies show, as I had it on video. I have no idea where we got it; probably it came with one of the figures. I used to watch that thing all the damn time.

It still takes me a few seconds to remember my phone number, but I can sing the Crash Dummies theme song: "When there’s no hope in sight, the crash crash dummies will make things right…"

Ghosted by The Waffle Man @ 06/02/2004 9:45 PM EDT

Jesus, that brought back recently resurfaced memories. We had to watch a movie on trafic safety (not one of those crappy outdated Driver’s Ed ones with celebrities from 10 years ago, a network television-quality one) for a science 24 unit on physics (cleverly disguised as "Driver Safety"). The movie, near the end, had a voice-overdubbed copy of the classic ads. I knew that everyone in my class remembered the ads, they were just too afraid to admit it. It made my face turn bright red.

Ghosted by G. Tubman @ 06/02/2004 9:50 PM EDT

Whatever is in those eggs can’t possibly be better than Frostor, the Kinder Warrior from whom I take my name.

Ghosted by Frostor @ 06/02/2004 10:12 PM EDT

Yeah, I recall the CGI cartoon. If I remember right, it was about an evil crash dummy that steals the body of another Crash Dummy. See, the Crash Dummies lived in a society in a strange world where crashing cars was fun. Hurray!

Ghosted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 06/02/2004 10:14 PM EDT

I never got into the Incredible Crash Dummies toys,as they were a little after my time (I was in high school when they came out,IIRC). I do remember a Crash Dummies doll being seen in the movie Airheads,when Steve Bushemi and Adam Sandler are in a Toys R Us.

I remember those ‘One To Grow On’ PSAs NBC had,also. One I remember the most was Charlotte Rae (Mrs. Garret) telling kids not to eat so much.

Ghosted by Overlord @ 06/02/2004 10:21 PM EDT

Yea, but the "More you know" PSA’s are aimed at the adults (read to your kids, know who their friends are, go to their conferences, etc.) The ones aimed at kids are more fun to watch.

The one PSA’s are fricking hate are the TRUTH ones about smoking and cancer. Those are annoying as heck.

Ghosted by JLAJRC @ 06/02/2004 10:49 PM EDT

Ah I remember my crash dummies toys. The most memorable was the crashable taxi, which is better than the toy you got sans the screaming death noise part. When those old Dummy toys exploded it wasnt just a "fold back toghether" thing like with what you got there, you had to get parts from all over the room, and sadly sometimes they got lost. But thats part of the fun. I also had the dummy airplane, which I believe came with a VHS tape of the original CG-Cartoon, with ol Junk Bot as the badguy, whom I had a figure of, sadley he didnt explode or anything but you could take him apart. I also had the crash test center, which was basically a big flat piece of plastic with a opening wall you could crash through, and a solid wall that measured how hard you could fuck the vehicle up. I loved those toys, as for figures, I can only remember having Junkbot, Jackhammer, Tad..Tod something like that, and I think Vince, for whatever reason Larry didnt make it to the cartoon, I remember the themesong and how much it rocked, unfortunatley Larry was not mentioned but VInce was, I think his new buddy was named Spin or something along those lines. Hmm.. I remember way too much without actually still having any of this stuff. BTW Great article Matt, do you have any recollection of those monster truck toys that like… turned into fucking monsters? Had like a lever in the back if you pushed it the front of the hood opened iwth a mouth full of sharp monster truck mad teeth. I had like one of em, wonderin if anyone else was more of an enthusiest.

Ghosted by Mr. S @ 06/02/2004 11:07 PM EDT

I <3 kinder eggs. And crashtest dummies.

Ghosted by Erin @ 06/02/2004 11:08 PM EDT

I love your articles and glad you’re finally back.. and I know it’s nothing you can help, but some of those pics blurrier than an old magnavox.

Ghosted by The Blue Meanie @ 06/02/2004 11:08 PM EDT

Man, it’s about time someone notices the CTD comeback. And Matt, your just the one to do it. I remember I was at a yard sale, and I was picking up some Ghostbuster toys, and they also had this whole table covered with CTD toys. They had the cars, the little dummy figures, pretty much everything.

Oh, by the way, this is my first time posting.

Ghosted by Vinz Clortho @ 06/02/2004 11:27 PM EDT

I found some unidentifiable toys in my closet and am happy to now know they were Sectaurs. Mine was a handpuppet spider-thing with a torso (back-side, I think a bug’s torso is his ass) made of what looks like and feels like real hair.

Ghosted by Hork @ 06/02/2004 11:27 PM EDT

the wings on the sectaur bug mounts broke too easily. because of this wack workmanship the coolest toy i have ever owned lasted a good day. i had forgotten how depressing that was.
thanks for ruining my day. if it weren’t for those psa’s i’d go take a drive without a seatbelt now.

Ghosted by brendan @ 06/02/2004 11:36 PM EDT

kinder eggs suprise I have no idea. When I was in honor society the supervising teacher had the group participate in a "saftey fair" and she would get 2 kids to dress up as the crash test dummies. Their costumes were worse than the ones Matt showed. They looked like a low quality verson of the CTD halloween costume that was made in the mid 90s.

Ghosted by pikachulover @ 06/02/2004 11:53 PM EDT

If Kamala pumps your gas, does Kimchee wash your windshield? It’d be a shame of he doesn’t. I hate nothing more than seeing unemployed masked safari leaders.

Ghosted by King Shazbot @ 06/02/2004 11:55 PM EDT

Do you remember the Car Crash Dummies TV movie? It was done in really crappy CGI. Something about a mad scientist…

Ghosted by Lucky Cat @ 06/02/2004 11:58 PM EDT

O.o i think teh first one is spider… and teh second one is jerry from tom and jerry… my thoughts lol anyways first time posting here matt your a genius ^^ you deserve an award and your own god damn tv show. X’D

Ghosted by Majin @ 06/03/2004 12:32 PM EDT

For the first one I’m gona guess a skunk, although that’s 2 letters away from rank, but it does smell foul.

Ghosted by Bright Noah @ 06/03/2004 12:35 PM EDT

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!I have been killing myself trying to remember the name of the human/insect guys (the guy that came with the flying glove critter, another bad guy with a shiny round green head, and a good guy wearing blue and white with his legs broekn off and rubber banded to him) for a week now! I just found three of them mixed in a bag along with some old She-Ra’s, rubber bands and shower curtain rings (don’t ask) in a duffel bag in my closet.

Ghosted by Dragon @ 06/03/2004 1:00 AM EDT

I so remember that one to grow on ad with the kid wrecking the antenna. Kinda weird but its one of those things thats stuck with me for a long time and I’m reminded of it every once and a while. I think it was the bad acting

Ghosted by SuperStar @ 06/03/2004 1:12 AM EDT

I had one of the Crash dummy airplanes. It was one of my favorite toys as a kid. Unfortunately, I lost one of the engine cover pieces, and it’s just not as much fun anymore.

I remember the figures being REALLY trigger happy. Any slight movement would cause them to fall apart. Really a poor, cheap design.

Ghosted by Cameron @ 06/03/2004 2:15 AM EDT

Yes, the monster trucks that changed into weird animals were called "Attack Pack". The story was that a bunch of monster truck drivers were hit with a meteor (Or toxic waste, or gamma rays, or whatever) and bonded with their monster trucks, as well as with an animal. Apparently they liked to drive around the Serengheti in monster trucks.

The first run had three normal sized good guys (Who turned into a Tiger, a Scorpion and a Tarantula) and three normal sized bad guys (Who became a Rat, a Bat, and a Hyena with a face on its tongue. I don’t quite remember what the rationale for that was), as well as two super-sized vehicles, one each for the good guys and the bad guys. The good guy super vehicle had a crane that it could use to put bad guys in a little jail cell on its back, but I don’t remember what gimmick the giant bad guy had.

For some reason the leader vehicles on both sides were the lamest, having no gimmick except for being trucks with mouths. The other guys had things like bat wings or scorpion claws or a tongue with a face on it.

Anyway, for a while there that was all there were, but eventually the line did well enough to include airplanes and spaceships, who as I recall had bonded with plants, rather then animals.

Anyway, despite being popular enough to be included in a Happy Meal, they don’t really seem to have any kind of presence at all on the internet.

Ghosted by The Waffle Man @ 06/03/2004 2:32 AM EDT

Oh, also, my recollection was that the lead Dummies in the cartoon were called Slick and Spin rather then Vince and Larry.

Ghosted by The Waffle Man @ 06/03/2004 2:35 AM EDT

I had that original crash test dummies car. It served as an excellent vehicle for when Lando Calrissian, and Cobra Commander hit the sauce a little to hard and should have called a friend, handed over the keys, or taken a cab. It served as a solemn reminder to those Joe and Stormtroopers that Alcohol and driving, while exciting, shouldn’t be mixed.

Ghosted by Former A1C Pete @ 06/03/2004 2:52 AM EDT

I’m glad someone besides me notices their short cartoon skits on the fox-box. I REALLY hope that there doing that to build popularity so they can return to doing safety messages. I know the era of weird PSAs is over, but It would SUCK to have the dummies back without them returning to their roots.

Speaking of which, Matt, Is there any chance that the old "dark" Crash Dummies PSAs will make their way on your ’80s commercials section? I loved those as a child and, I’d REALLY love to see those again.

Ghosted by Tetsu Deinonychus @ 06/03/2004 4:08 AM EDT

I just bought at my local wal-mart a crash test dummies figure!!!It’s very similar to the original(you can press a button and explode them) but they’re more cheaply made.But hey,who cares?THOSE ARE THE FRIGGIN CRASH TEST DUMMIES!!!!!!!

Ghosted by paul the wine guy @ 06/03/2004 6:24 AM EDT

I had the Crash Test Dummies toys! I wish I still had them as they were some of the cooler toys for me. There was nothing like crashing a car into the wall, having it crunch up, and watching the dummies fly through the windshield with their limbs popping off. Good stuff.

Ghosted by Lauren @ 06/03/2004 6:29 AM EDT

I loved Sectaurs when I was a kid. I had both of those puppets with the flapping wings. The wings broke a lot, but I still had fun with them.

And I remember the crash test dummies as well. I love toys that you can take apart and put together again, even if you’d keep losing parts like I would with the dummies. I also remember a radio ad where Vince and Larry did their own rendition of "On The Road Again" which was pretty funny.

Ghosted by Number5 @ 06/03/2004 6:38 AM EDT

To anyone who enjoyed VH1’s I Love the 80’s miniseries- Guess what? I Love the 90’s is coming July 11th. Get the tapes ready.

Ghosted by Behonkiss @ 06/03/2004 7:24 AM EDT

The new ones are a lot cheaper. Also they have weird faces. The new ones are gay.

Ghosted by zombone @ 06/03/2004 8:07 AM EDT

I remember going to… I think it was fair, and they had the Crash Test dummies there. I was only about 4, and I was curious. I thought, they being dummies, NOTHING could hurt them. So I walked up to one of them randomly and pretty much punched him in the stomach. My punch wasn’t tough enough for an adult, so he seemed painless. So I tried on the next dummy. This time, a kick in the danger zone. SUCCESS! The dummy was in pain. *sigh* goodtimes.

Ghosted by Chachi_Danger @ 06/03/2004 9:14 AM EDT

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