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04/12/2006: A Bad Case of Worms!!!

A Bad Case of Worms is in all likelihood the earliest toy I can remember specifically asking for, and praise Nord the Barbarian, it’s in my arms again.

God, how I loved these. People call you a liar when you say you remember things from when you were 4 or 5, unless you arbitrarily decided you were kidnapped or molested as a child after catching a Melrose Place rerun. I swear to you, I remember getting these. I remember getting these from the KB Toys in the Staten Island Mall, back when it was called “Kay-Bee Toys,” and back when there was a McDonald’s next to it filled with lightweight tin ashtrays with the golden arches etched in. The ABCOW tiny toy briefcases were stocked near the register along with all of the assorted candies and other impulse items, and every time my mother brought me to the mall, I got a new ABCOW toy. I cannot express the joy I found in these things, but I think I can explain it. I was really young. Maybe young enough to still have some lingering traits from that whole animism period all children go through. To me, these sticky and impossibly cute rubber worm figures weren’t rubber worm figures at all — they were pets, alive, ready to party and needing me.

For almost twenty years I sat by candlelight every night trying to remember what the fuck the toys were called, and it was actually an X-E blog poster who shed light on the mystery back in January of 2005. After that, I researched the holy hell out of ABCOW toys, not finding much outside of a few old marketing articles retelling the success of the toys’ ad campaign. I have no idea if I wanted the toys because of the cool commercial or just because they were there, but after finding and reviewing the TV ad, the sight of bad cases of good worms made my mission clear: I had to find them again. And, as you’ve seen above, I have!

Each small plastic briefcase opened to reveal a pair of sticky (like, sticky for crawling down walls kind of sticky) worm figures in various colors, and because God loves me this week, the pair I found are greens, which was my favorite as a child because it was harder to roleplay faithfully with neon orange worms. The figures look much more like snakes, each with the most adorable facial features you’ve ever seen, including a smile that will make the day my parents die not as bad as I’m thinking it will be. Though the whole idea behind ABCOW toys was in their supposed “gross factor” and the idea that you could throw them at stuff and watch them creepily crawl down, I never saw them as anything but my own cute little pets. I treated them like gold, carried them everywhere and never once gave into the obvious temptation to turn their briefcase house into a coin purse. When you’re five-years-old, every container is a piggy bank waiting to be had.

I purchased them recently at a price so ridiculously overblown that I’ll never confess what it was, but that’s the only ABCOW toy I’ve ever seen for sale since the line’s retail days. If you’re thinking what I was thinking, stop thinking it, because the chances of you finding A Bad Case of Worms toys are about as good as the chances of me living past 40. In other words, I’m here to brag and I’m here to spite you: I got worms and you don’t, motherfucker.

Use the comments section to talk about some of the weirder, lesser and more obscure toys you worshipped as a kid. And get your damn hands off my worms.


Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

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Discussion Thread: 193 comments

Holy Crap…I’m first?!

And I must bow down to your search-a-tude to these things, man.

Reason #213 why I love this site so damn much.

Ghosted by Invader Norbert @ 04/12/2006 1:23 AM EDT

Damn it Norbert, you invaded my first post!

I remember those worms and now I am jealous. Mom never let me have them because she thought they would ruin her new carpet.

Ghosted by Fishstix @ 04/12/2006 1:26 AM EDT

I never had any worms, but I do remember the moment someone shed the holy light on what those things were called, right here in the blog. :)

Hmm, the first thing that came to mind for the more obscure toys was … ok lemme explain this, because it wasn’t really a toy. It’s just something like a family heirloom now. It’s one of those little tiny gumball machines that are about 3 inches high, and you open up the little flap on the front and tiny candy balls came out. I don’t even think they were gum. Well, anyhow, I had one of those and my dad drew a face and body on a peanut still in it’s shell. Yeah it was kinda like Mr. Peanut but way more crazy looking. He gave it to me and guess where I put him? Yes, inside the gumball machine. He fits right in there, and has been there for over 20 years. I have him in the desk drawer right beside me, and he’s still intact. :) But, as far as an actual toy, I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I must go to bed!

I’m glad you got your worms, Matt! :D

Ghosted by Ryane @ 04/12/2006 1:42 AM EDT

I had a hand-me-down toy I liked donated by some neighbor. It was a plastic guy with some kind of Union Army? or Cavalry? outfit, but best of all he was roughly Barbie-sized, and he came with his own plastic horse with moving joints. So the usual play story was that he and Barbie would ride off on the horse and have sex in a field somewhere. I guess I was a pretty messed-up kid.

Ghosted by Welsh Rabbit @ 04/12/2006 1:45 AM EDT

Let’s see… I doubt anything is going to be really obscure on /this/ site, though. Boglins, MIMPS, RGB figures and light guns, and Dino Riders were always in my toy bin. As I grew older I got into the first big waves of Nerf and Super Soaker. Those were a lot of fun. Super Soakers were kind of lame because theyd always leak and there was the problem of if your friend had a bigger gun, it was subsequently better. That wasn’t really the case with Nerf, though. Sometimes having a small dart gun could wreck someone faster and more efficiently than a large bulky crossbow or even missile launcher. Especially in the dark. I think my absolute favorite Nerf gun was the "Eagle Eye" because it was at the beginning of their new futuristic model designs and it had a killer laser site. I also thought toys like Talk Boy and Yak Bak were really awesome because you felt like James Bond when you had it in your backpack.

Ghosted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 04/12/2006 1:45 AM EDT

Obscure toys….hmm. I’m not recalling anything that was REALLY obscure. I am remembering plenty of weird things, but they weren’t rare.

What’s coming to mind is the Dukes of Hazzard set of View-Master reels and Etch-A-Sketch overlays (Trace the General Lee! And Daisy’s curves!)

What’s unusual about that? Well, I’m a late 80’s–early 90’s kid. I have NO IDEA how I wound up with those. No idea where they came from, and when I used them, I had no idea what they meant!

Ghosted by Mars @ 04/12/2006 2:04 AM EDT

I know this is a little behind, but I had a lot of Illusionaries as a kid. In fact I still have two of the smaller ones. One’s a wizard that turns into an owl and the other in an invisible man that removes his bandages.

Ghosted by mnpchan @ 04/12/2006 2:29 AM EDT

And by ‘Illusionaries’ I mean ‘Super Naturals’ Illusionaries don’t even exist, I was thinking of the Visionaries. Anyway, yeah, I have Super Naturals.

Ghosted by mnpchan @ 04/12/2006 2:36 AM EDT

Well let’s see…
-Army Ants
-Super Naturals (just the ghost figures)

Also, when I was really into virtual pets, I had a cheap one of a fish. The thing about it was it not only needed food and entertainment, but you also needed to adjust the tank temperature, dress it for the weather and read to it.

Ghosted by RewolfJ @ 04/12/2006 3:04 AM EDT

Ryane’s story prodded my sluggish memory to cough up one of the finest, weirdest toys of my childhood–the Mr. Peanut Peanut Butter Maker. It was a thing of sick genius–a huge plastic-and-metal Mr. Peanut figure with a hopper in his hat. I think it was made in the late 60s and early 70s, and involved enough whirling-hopper-blades action that it would never be allowed today. Peanuts went in the hopper; eager, grubby hands turned the crank in Mr. P’s right ear; and, if you didn’t flip him over with your lack of advanced motor skills and complete failure to understand the ramifications of Newton’s Third Law, the mushed-up peanuts would ooze out of his left ear onto a tray he helpfully held up to it.
The appeal of earwax-colored goop that actually came out of a cartoon character’s ear is obvious (The defense calls upon Shrek as an expert witness), but there was also the fact that it was one of the few things my younger brother and I could do together without turning it into a two-man scrum–which meant Mom never refused to let us have the thing, even though it meant a ton of cleanup for her later.
Ah, Mr. Peanut…I see from a quick search that he’s going for about 12,000 Yen these days, which I believe converts to about $140…so it’s unlikely I’ll have one again anytime soon. But that was a great toy.

Ghosted by Hodsthorn @ 04/12/2006 3:35 AM EDT

I saw that Mr. Peanut thing featured on Disturbing Auctions.

Ghosted by RewolfJ @ 04/12/2006 3:37 AM EDT

hmmmn… i can vaguely remember a random furry toy worm that was attached to a piece of ‘invisible’ string. I think the idea was to pull it around so it looked alive but i just kept one as it felt kinda hairy’n'nice – also doubled up as a great killer snake monster to battle my SW figures… ooh, according to Googglees they’re called Squigglees.

Ghosted by Toeknee @ 04/12/2006 4:08 AM EDT

not obscure, not wierder, but one toy that ruled my childhood was the Real Ghostbusters ghost trap. That thing was amazing, and I still love it, have since thought about bidding above $40 to pick one up on ebay when I can barely afford to pay rent. I remember my little brother and I saving up for a new one for two months because ours broke, and then finally going to Toys-R-Us to buy a new one, and then finding out that they discontinued all the traps, and one had some of the slime guns from GB2 movie. We were crushed. oh my god, I’m going to start crying if I think about it for too long.

But yeah, Ghostbusters Trap.

Ghosted by danglad @ 04/12/2006 4:31 AM EDT

I don’t know if this toy is really so rare (judging by ebay) but it was certainly not very popular for long… The Galoob Star Trek TNG action figures circa 1988.

http://members.aol.com/RDBousquet/Galoob.html

I only had a Picard and a Worf and my sister had a Geordi LaForge but the adventures they went on.
I know the Playmates series that replaced those little guys is superior in almost every way but my heart still goes out the the original series… of erm the Next Generation, shit now this is getting confusing!! heh heh.

On that note here are some bootleg Star Trek toys that are pretty funny:

http://www.bootlegactionfigures.com/ startrektng.html

Actually the WHOLE site is worth a look.

Ghosted by rockasoo @ 04/12/2006 4:42 AM EDT

Ryane: With smells-like-peanut action?

I think the weirdest toy I had growing up was probably a stick. No, seriously. It was a squared-off log about a foot long and maybe two inches to a side, with a knot coming out of one side about halfway off center. It was usually pressed into service either as an aircraft carrier for my green army men to assault or as a gun/truncheon to get my cousin and I seperated for the rest of the day. I kept it in my toybox for years, and when the time finally came to pack my toys away, the Stick went with them.

Of course, I lived on a farm complete with our own junkyard, so I spent a great deal of time playing with scrap metal and fence posts, and my first secret clubhouse was a gutted combine harvester, but still. The bonds between a boy and a stick should never run that deep.

Ghosted by Jedoc @ 04/12/2006 6:36 AM EDT

Ok, I can think of three obscure toys

1. Mexican Jumping Beans – those were really cool to see in the store and even more fun once you got home and put them on a heat pad.

2. Spiderman webs – it was this glue like substance in which you could make webs. It was a mess and lasted about 2 hrs before I had put so much webbing up my mom nearly killed me

3. Spiderman webslinger – it shot a suction headed dart attached to some string. It was very cool but I think I like the silly stinger webblasters better.

Ghosted by Greg @ 04/12/2006 7:00 AM EDT

Nothing wrong with a stick. I stand by the opinion that a refrigerator box should have been number one on I Love Toys.

Oh, I’m all about obscure toys, but mine lean toward the girly persuasion. Wish World Kids were three inch high dolls with little playsets that transformed into a different playset. For example, one had a chair that transformed into a car, one had a bathroom that transformed into a bowling alley, and yet another had a desk that turned into a rockin’ keyboard, I think. There were tons of them, and they were SO AWESOME, with great accessories.

Even more obscure were my favorite toys: teeny tiny dolls and horses with a sprig of hair called Cutie Club and Cutie Colts. I could stuff a handful of them in my pocket whenever we went somewhere and have a whole array of toys to play with. I still have about 80% of them, and that’s a lot considering their "easy to lose" value.

Ghosted by Julie @ 04/12/2006 7:57 AM EDT

Well. Purr-tenders, but I think they did hit mainstream when BK made mini versions. There’s always Sweet Secrets of which I only own the MIP Crystal Bright, though hoping to add on to the collection. I had a thing for puzzles, too. My mom used to order me the odd ones that they used to offer in the back of the Avon catalog. Cupcake Dolls, Lady Lovely Locks…. I dunno. I’m a chick, most of my toys are kinda obscure. Damn male dominated internet.

Ghosted by Mystie @ 04/12/2006 8:07 AM EDT

Favorite obscure toy ever? Back when NO ONE was making 12" figures, in 83 I got a 12" super articulated Ninja action figure. No idea what line it was from, but I LOVED that awesome Ninja.

Second place? Spiral Zone baby! 1987′ey goodness…awesome plot, 65 episodes and I bought every toy in the collection on clearance. Woooo Spiral Zone! Check out Spiral-zone.net for more awesomeness.

Ghosted by Terror Claws Cole @ 04/12/2006 8:14 AM EDT

It’s not a toy, but does anyone (would probably have to be a girl) remember those little rectangular tins of lip balm that were flavored like strawberry or watermelon and they slid open? I would always have one of those on me when I was about 6 or 7. It seemed all the little girls had one.
Also, the boat happy meals. Where the whole meal came in a plastic boat. LOVED those. I’m gonna go on ebay and look for one right now.

Ghosted by kb @ 04/12/2006 8:15 AM EDT

I remember the lip gloss. I don’t know why. I had an older brother so I mostly had to play with boy toys. for some reason, i remember loving these little plastic/rubber monsters. they were a little bigger than a quarter and came in a bag of a million. i think we got them at the dollar store. and don’t make fun, Pittsburgh in the early 80’s was not exactly booming.

Ghosted by bitchpants @ 04/12/2006 8:24 AM EDT

I remember I had a stretch armstrong style Junkyard Dog (the wrestler) figure. Over time I punctured his skin to reveal his weirdy goodness inside.

Ghosted by Geoffinsanity @ 04/12/2006 8:28 AM EDT

I have a few. I remember the boat Happy meal but more importantly the toys thta came with them. For some reason, I was never allowed Legos (I later found out why at about 2am during a cussing fest after my father stepped on one). but Happy Meals came with Construx. They were these little plastic girder things, and they had little eight sided joints to hold them together. Made all kinds of crazy stuff with those.There were also Stompers, little battery powered 4wd cars that inevitably lost their battery doors and therefore usefulness. And then there were these one things, and for the life of me, I have no idea what they were called. But they were like little balls with round "ports" coming out of it like on each side of a cube. Some had gears in them, some had driveshafts, some had differentials, some even had little electric motors. You could build all kinds of stuff with them, moving cars, boats helicopters, but mostly, implements of death and dismemberment.

Ghosted by mndsm @ 04/12/2006 8:39 AM EDT

The most random thing I remember as a child were these little dressed up mousies. There was a store at our default mall called "Let’s Pretend" which was the type of place that sold Playmobil, dress up costumes, dollhouse furniture, etc…one of the items they sold were these teeny fur mousies, very similar to the fur mousie cat toys, except these mousies were upright, had teeny pipe cleaner arms, and were dressed in a variety of crazy outfits. I had SO MANY of these and I absolutely loved them. I forgot about them until last year. I asked all my friends if they remembered them, and only one of them did…I learned they were made in West Germany at the time and just called "real fur toys." I ended up buying one on eBay last year and he is my desk mascot…you can see him here:

http://www.geocities.com/scarfire2001/Bertha/skimouse.jpg

Ghosted by B-Dawg @ 04/12/2006 8:58 AM EDT

One of my favourite things was the bizarre ‘tank’ thing that He-man and
man-at-arms used to bust around in, the cockpit would slide from one end to the other and the back part would switch over, to allow the cockpit to slide forward again … it looked pretty cool .. but it would have taken ages to get anywhere in it, and youd probably vomit before the end of the journey.

Ghosted by MgwR @ 04/12/2006 9:02 AM EDT

Hmm… Well, many a night in my household was spent listening to Mr. Gameshow spew bad insults at us.
Also, I greatly enjoyed ROB from the original NES package. You were supposed to use him with Gyromite and such, but I just played with him. Spinning his tops, moving him around… (Sigh)
Oh, and lest I forget, parachute guy. I didn’t even own this thing personally, but whenever I would go over to my best friend’s house I would want to play with this thing. It was a stupid little plastic army guy with a really nice plastic parachute. We’d go to the third floor of the spiral stairwell and drop him between. Good times. Of course my friend always wanted to watch TV or play some Star Trek role playing game he just made up. Meh. I tried to get my own parachute guys, even make one with a shopping bag, but they were never as good. Grass is always greener, right? On the plus side, I did manage to make a really sweet boat out of soda cans.

Ghosted by Rhino @ 04/12/2006 9:05 AM EDT

Wow… i don’t remember McDonalds next to Kay-Bee, and i was born in ‘79. Some weird SI Mall kay-bee toys I remember gteting were Return of the Jedi Presto Magic, these action figures shaped like food with guns (i think they were called Food Fighters), GUTS, and these little rubber guys (not totaly unlike MUSCLE- just bigger and painted in multicolors) that would come in a trashbag… you didn’t know which one you were getting untl you went home and threw the trashbag in water- it would disolve and reveal the figure inside.

Ghosted by Lou @ 04/12/2006 9:11 AM EDT

Something I inexplicably treasured were these lil’ rubber kung-fu guys from a 25-cent machine at the local grocery store. Going to the grocery store was great, because it almost always meant getting a couple more Rubber Kung-Fu Guys.

But the odd thing about them was that they all looked exactly like characters from the Kunio (River City Ransom) series of games – except this would have been circa ‘85-87ish, a couple years before Renegade started the Kunio franchise. Though Renegade did come out in ‘87, but I doubt the game was popular enough to inspire bootleg Rubber Kung-Fu Guys.

Also, Renegade sucks. Technos hadn’t got it together quite yet, it’s like Double Dragon’s down-syndrome older brother.

Ghosted by lugnut @ 04/12/2006 9:26 AM EDT

BDAWG
That mouse is freaky!

Ghosted by kb @ 04/12/2006 9:28 AM EDT

Wow. I remember seeing the comercial for these one saturday mourning then going to a store here in Canada called Wilco or something, forget the spelling but they where bought out by walmart 15 years or so ago, and going straight for the toy section to get them. Mine made many trips down the wall. I also got one of those ocotpus sticky toys the next day froma box of cereal and he lived in the container with the worms.

I found the container a few years ago at my moms, but the sticker was ripped of the front, so i forgot the name until now.

Thanks again Matt.

Ghosted by Hudak @ 04/12/2006 9:34 AM EDT

Z-Bots!

Ghosted by Tommy @ 04/12/2006 9:38 AM EDT

mndsm: Capsella! I used to have a set of those. My greatest triumph was using them to graft a working propeller onto this big giant floating air craft carrier the kid down the road owned. We spent the whole summer sailing our Ninja Turtles around ponds and stock tanks. Until it capsized, sending Mondo Gecko and Antrax into Casey Jones’ Locker, never to be recovered.

Now I made myself sad.

Ghosted by Jedoc @ 04/12/2006 9:50 AM EDT

He’s not freaky! He just likes to ski!

Ghosted by B-Dawg @ 04/12/2006 9:51 AM EDT

When I was four or so, I love love love loved Penguin Race. Though I just did an ebay search and found out that they’re now somehow connected with Baby Einstein, they were freaking mesmerizing. And I played with it in the bathtub.

Ghosted by Jessica Marie @ 04/12/2006 9:55 AM EDT

"I remember getting these. I remember getting these from the KB Toys in the Staten Island Mall, back when it was called "Kay-Bee Toys," and back when there was a McDonald’s next to it filled with lightweight tin ashtrays with the golden arches etched in."

I miss the old Staten Island Mall. Back when McDonald’s was were Disney Store is now. I can remember going with my grandma to Kay-B-Toys and scouring the place knowing full well I’d walk out of there with nothing. But itemizing each and every toy I wanted in my head so that come my birthday or Christmas I could tell my mom and dad and grandmothers exactly which ones I wanted. Of course, come Christmas the Sears Wish Book would hit and whatever lists I had went out the window. I do remember the ABCOW briefcase Matt. Something I wanted but never came to own. :( I envy you.

Ghosted by Double G @ 04/12/2006 10:00 AM EDT

One word: Snailiens. I bought a few of them when I was a kid because KB was selling them for cheap, but I’d pay a lot for them now (if I had money, that is).

Though they have a following of some sort, (I guess – there’s not much evidence of them on the net) if you don’t know what they were, they were these 2" tall rubber figures which had snap-on armor, little sidekicks, and large rubber versions of those little domes that you press down on and they launch into the air. This was a safety issue, I think, which may have contributed to their downfall. The heroes were named Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, and were yellow. The villains were the "Lunar Ticks" and they were purple aliens with the same gimmicks, but more evil-looking.

Ghosted by Frostor @ 04/12/2006 10:00 AM EDT

"…back when there was a McDonald’s next to it filled with lightweight tin ashtrays with the golden arches etched in."

LOL I worked at McDonald’s in high school and I remember having to put those metal ashtrays on every table and clean them off when they were full of cigarettes. It seems so long ago that now if you saw someone smoking in a McDonald’s you would have a heart attack.

Matt, have you thought about making a MySpace page for XE so that all your loyal readers could join?

Chachi

Ghosted by King Chachi @ 04/12/2006 10:07 AM EDT

That green snake in the last picture is staring at me as if to molest me…

Ghosted by Reid @ 04/12/2006 10:07 AM EDT

I don’t know if I had any obscure toys per se, but I do remember having obscure toys from not-so-obscure lines. I had those little Ninja Turtles marble shooter things, I had EVERY Ghostbusters toy ever made. Ever. And I also remember having a plushie koala bear that I used to love the ever-loving hell out of, but it either got lost or thrown away somewhere.

I also had a few obscure video games like Kickle Cubicle and the like for the NES. Those were some good times.

Ghosted by potato_bucket @ 04/12/2006 10:33 AM EDT

Thank you Jedoc! That was them I loved mine too, but then they went for one too many testing sessions in the laundry sink and that was the end of that.

MgwR-

I still have my He-Man tank. And my Battle Damage He-Man and Skeletor. I loved that crap. I wish I could go get it right now, but it’s packed away.

Ghosted by mndsm @ 04/12/2006 10:37 AM EDT

I could recount the exact details of the day of its purchase, but one of my most favorite toys as a kid was my Star Studio (there are none on eBay, so either it was really obscure or, like mine, none could live into the 21st century.) It was a double deck tape recorder with a little microphone. The gimmick was that you were supposed to put your favorite tape in one side, and record yourself singing with it on a blank tape in the other side. Then you were supposed to impress all your friends that you sang with your favorite star. Most of my vocal collaborations were with Kids Incorporated, but I still have Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth (with my enhancements) around here somewhere. There are tapes everywhere of just me recording my own voice because I could. By the way, mine also came from Kay-Bee.

If we’re talking dirt cheap toys that gave you the most enjoyment for the pennies you paid for it, I have to go with those "dress-up" kits that are standard in every grocery/drug store toy section. They’re just plastic accessories on a bubble card, but I had the bride and the executive. The executive was the most fun because it came with all these fake office supplies. I remember setting up my office on the window seat in the living room and punching numbers on the fake calculator. My grocery store still sells the exact bride set that I had 20+ years ago.

Ghosted by Lori @ 04/12/2006 11:00 AM EDT

The BCOW worms are freaking adorable!
They certainly weren’t obscure at the time, but they seem to have been largely forgotten now so I’ll go with Magic Nursery Babies. Never had a Cabbage Patch Kid, but I was obsessed with the whole Magic Nursery gimmick: buy the doll, reveal the birth certificate, see if it’s twins! I only had the pleasure of getting one new but I did get one of the "toddlers" secondhand as well (the baby’s name was Elizabeth and I named the toddler Chrysanthemum ’cause it sounded fancy). I’ve looked on ebay a few times to scope them out but I haven’t seen any where the "reveal" hadn’t already been done…I wonder if it would even last this long without disintegrating. With the toy revival I figured they’d bring them back, but no dice so far.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 04/12/2006 11:13 AM EDT

I had a complete collection of those "Food Fighters" mentioned above, although I can’t verify that name either. Having gotten rid of them at some point is one of my greatest regrets.

Ghosted by mtrox @ 04/12/2006 11:24 AM EDT

Obscure Toys? Hmm, as a current employee of KB Toys, I’ve seen my fair share of weird stuff.

Like an eBay board game. I’ll leave it at that.

But stuff I had? Eddie mentioned Yak Baks way up there, and I had a later model called Yak Bakwards (or was it kaB kaY?), where it was the same deal as a regular Yak Bak, there was now a button that played your recorded message backwards! 5 hours of Twin Peaks fun right there.

Ghosted by Invader Norbert @ 04/12/2006 11:31 AM EDT

Another obcure toy, perhaps a variant of food fighters-

McDonalds issued a Happy Meal toy that was a cross between a Food Fighter and a go-bot. They were cheeseburgers and egg muffins that transformed into really garbage action figures. I still had them all, and played with them well beyond their real useful ages.

Ghosted by mndsm @ 04/12/2006 11:38 AM EDT

My little collection of Japanese TransFormong Robots would not be complete without an odd obscuro item or two. I have one of those McD’s robots, a McNugget box. And, bought at the local weekly swap meet for 50 cents, a robot that turn into a Claratin logo. And quite a few knockleg bootoffs of various combining/transforming robots, including a horrible version of RiD Megatron that can barely manage four modes. Forgive me, Darth Galvatron, my addiction to cheap crap robots knows no bounds.

Ghosted by kingklash @ 04/12/2006 12:12 PM EDT

First post here! Yeah me!. One of my favorite obscure toys was the Six Million Dollar Man Bigfoot doll. That scum-bum was awesome! He had spring-loaded arms that could bitch-slap Steve Austin (or my 10" Hulk doll or 12" Boba Fett, whichever he was fighting at the moment). He had a chest plate that would come off when you hit him in the groin! Well, not really his groin but darn close. On second thought, that’s all he did. It kinda sucked. But it was freakin’ Bigfoot! Where the frak is The Six Million Dollar Man on DVD? sigh.

Ghosted by freudguy @ 04/12/2006 12:26 PM EDT

mndsm – Yay! I LOVED my Construx! I made this kickass crossbow that could fire a metal pole through a piece of wood (if it had a hole in it).

Hmm, obscure toys. I spent a lot of time creating dioramas with my Daleks and Cybermen from Dapol’s Doctor Who range (if we could change the meaning of diorama to ’standing things up on a brown towel’).

And I had loads of these little model knights from a range called ‘Knights of the Round’ – clearly named by a narcoleptic copywriter (that or Arthur’s lawyers stepped in). Little 5cm high guys, you could get mounted ones and even a friction action dragon that could glide along, apparently without moving a muscle. Anyone remember these? Maybe they were only around in Britain . . .

Ghosted by Candle Snuff Fungus @ 04/12/2006 12:35 PM EDT

luv bud. she was a tiny doll that came with a plastic rose, whose petals opened to reveal this tiny doll inside.
a macgyver, plastic swiss army knife.

Ghosted by m @ 04/12/2006 12:43 PM EDT

YEA MATT! You got it! Man, I know that feeling. I had the hardest time finding this game for like 15 years, Satan’s Hollow. I remember describing it to people.. no one ever knew what I was talking about. In retrospect it wasn’t the best game but memories count for much.

I remember Air Raiders being a toy that I still have a vehicle for and some of the soldiers. If you haven’t seen the toys before, eBay them up. Some of the larger models came with 10 or so figures.

Ghosted by Coltyhuxx @ 04/12/2006 1:54 PM EDT

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