When I was wee ladding, I had a Smurfs "bop bag" featuring none other than Gargamel himself. I guess the thinking was, since kids were going to be beating the holy fuck out of the bop bag, the company might as well have based it on a villain character. I loved that stupid thing so much. Me being the youngest and weakest of seven brothers and sisters, it was the only thing in the house outside of Sandy the unloved dog that I could successfully pin for the Intercontinental title. Gargamel always came back for more of my patented body blows, Bull Charges and Tiger Punches, because that's what any good bop bag does.
Bop bags came in all colors and sizes, and sometimes bop bags were full of surprises. In the very odd case shown above, the technology was bestowed upon the popular but not that popular Madballs franchise, run by those who were convinced that such classic characters as "Wolf Breath" were destined to become more than mere foam rubber balls, even if every attempt to move 'em into new territory blew up in their bankrupt faces. I don't know how many Madballs bop bags were produced, but I'll put the bank on the fact that less than five were sold. EVER. Not that it isn't an object of supreme excellence -- it is, but kids who were heavily into Madballs had probably grown older than "bop bag age." Three-year-olds weren't allowed to have balls with devil faces on them.
God, that was a bitch to blow up. I need to stop smoking and start nebulizing.
After blowing it up forever, the end results were pretty cool. "Aargh" and "Dust Brain" are the chosen representatives, conspiring to forge an "3-D" effect against a clear plastic background. There's nothing absurdly 3-D about it, but the box is convinced otherwise. For more information on Madballs, don't click here, click here.
Posted by Matt on 02/16/2005. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
You need to quit smoking