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07/31/2007: Summer Megaparty: Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos Toyzzz.

Reminder: The Summer Megaparty does not end tonight, as I've decided to extend it through August, give or take a few days. Let's celebrate the Summer Megaparty not ending with a topic that most certainly would not have been good enough to serve as its finale: Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos action figures.

I don't know if Internet meme-a-maniac Chuck Norris was ever realized in toy form again after this, but if he was, it's definitely been a downward slope since Kenner's awesome 1986 Karate Kommandos line, based on the cartoon of the same name. The show only had five episodes, but between its cult following and a recent revival on Adult Swim, it's as well known as the many other C-level action toons of the '80s. Somehow, the series spun its own toy line, which I was quite familiar with despite the fact that I didn't own any of the figures as a kid.

Remember that little entry I did about those old Consumers Showroom stores? I talked about the company's holiday catalogs in that entry — specifically, I gushed about the last few pages, which featured crazy clearance sales on a plethora of desirable playthings. The Karate Kommandos toys were consistently advertised at 49 cents a pop on those pages, and even as a kid, it was easy for me to do the math and figure out that Mom would take no issue at all with buying me a complete set of Karate Kommandos toys at prices that low.

As fate would have it, the figures were always sold out. I can't remember where I got the three shown above, but since I can firmly say that I've never actively hunted for them during my adulthood, I'm assuming they were lumped into some form of eBay boxlot that I purchased on a whim a few years ago. They've been laying in a tub full of other random figures since then, and now that I'm taking my first close look, they're kind of great.

Twice as tall as G.I. Joe figures and five times heavier, you didn't have to be into Chuck Norris or his silly cartoon to appreciate such a strange gallery of friends and foes. The purple dude is named "Super Ninja," likely because he felt that his Predator hairstyle and outrageous purple costume negated any need for an extra clever name. If you twist the figure at the waist, his legs move in what I assume was intended to be karate attacks, even though they look way more like calisthenics.

The real trump figure of the collection (and the one that always piqued my interest in those old Consumers catalogs) was "Tabe," Chuck's close ally and noted sumo wrestler, who brought a level of supreme awkwardness to every social gathering by refusing to wear anything more than a blue thong with someone else's initials printed over his dick.

Strangely, Chuck was the least interesting figure in his own line, looking more like some random dude who cobbled together a superhero outfit from a couple of pool tubes and exercise wear.

The toys had a quaint, generic quality about them, which worked in this case, because the world wasn't exactly set ablaze by the opportunity to fill its collective toybox with action figures based on five episodes of a Chuck Norris cartoon. The figures were just plain enough to be easily adopted into more popular lines. Tabe, for example, could lock horns with a Skeletor figure without anyone ever thinking that it was some harebrained crossover.

If you're in the market to start collecting some new random old things, give this collection a look. They're relatively cheap on the collectors' market, with packaged figures in the $10-$15 range and loose figures being readily traded for couch cushion change.

Seems like a good segue into a survey: What are some of the "lesser" toy collections that stirred your flames as a kid? If you were into Transformers, so was half the world. Name some of the toys that you seemed to be alone in appreciating.

Now that I look at him again, I'm kind of getting a William H. Macy JP3-era vibe from the Chuck figure.

The Inhumanoids and The Centurions were both played with by my brother and I just as much as Shipwreck and Skeletor..

NICE! Thanks, Matt! I love Chuck Norris, and 'Sidekicks' was a seriously underrated movie.

I was pretty big into Hook toys when I was young. Mainly because Peter Pan could "fly" via a string zip-line (that got all tangled after five minutes of use).

Inhumanoids were fantastic. Just fantastic. I loved that line to death. Even if the toys were junky, the concept was so unbelievably cool. But the toys were among the best I've ever seen, even by today's standards. I'd also lump Super Naturals into that echelon.

If I wanted to go into the real bowels, I'd pick lines like Food Fighters and Barnyard Commandos. Both lines were ridiculous, made on the cheap and more typically found in pharmacy toy aisles than a real toy store, but they had tons of charm.

And if I wanted to go below the bowels, if that's possible, I'd yank out a Tacky Stretchoid Warrior and call it a night.

I'm pretty sure you reviewed an animated Halloween special from the 1970's once. It was very stylized; the characters tended to be a solid primary color, and were drawn in a sort of big feet, thin legs kinda way. It was about a witch who turned two kids into what they wanted to be, a ghost and a werewolf, and their baby sitter became Frankenstein's monster. Shenanigans ensued. Do you, or anyone else on this board, have any idea what that was called? I have virtually nothing to go on to look for it on imdb or amazon, and google hasn't resulted in much.

Not to complain, cause I certainly had a fine life, but my parents never bought us toys that were very commercial. When I was older my mother told me she and my dad made a decision to but a house on a very large lot instead of buying us toys. I guess that's fine. We all kept ourselves occupied. However, I always did and still do want an Easy Bake Oven. Someday.

TOXIC CRUSADERS! I think I may have saw like 1 episode of that show ever, but for some reason I thought they had the coolest figures ever, and so they made it into my Ninja Turtles world frequently.

While it wasn't really a toy collection, I think I'm the only person on earth who had/has them. I think they were called Omegals (no idea on the spelling). It was a lot like a giant set of K-Nex, but many years before K-Nex came out. It's made up of long and short yellow tubes, various connectors, clips, 4 wheels and 4 orange plates that you could use to sit on.

I built all kinds of stuff with them, and invented countless new things that were not in the manual. And this wasn't little toy stuff, it was full sized stuff that you could use and play in/with. Everything from cars to forts I could build.

My parents always kept an eye out to see if there was another set for sale, but never did. It's like that single set was made just for me. I've never come across anyone else who ever even heard of them.

Matt, you're a diva and I thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for. Now, to YouTube!

And to contribute in terms of obscure toys, for me it was probably Dazzle Dolls. They were the same size as Glamour Gals, but for some reason no one from my generation seems to remember 'em. They're all over eBay, usually pre-owned, so obviously a lot of people played with them. But for some reason I never seemed to meet anyone who had any. I would have dearly loved to have had a tiny, tiny tea party, probably followed by a tiny, tiny cat fight. All of my games seemed to degenerate into drama pretty fast.

I was such a mainstream toy whore as a kid.
All Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtles, never any "lesser" lines. Although when I was about 7, I started collecting assloads of X-Men figures. It was maybe only a few months before the Fox Kids cartoon came along, so I did like them for a little while before most kids were aware of the X-Men.

MegaParty extention! That made me feel better now that I am on business staying in the worst room around. I am on dial up. I think someone is beating up the vending machine outside of my room. Either that or the snacks are so old they have mutated and are trying to break out. I think I saw a PB Max in there.

I got a lot of hand me down toys as a kid being the youngest. I remember having the Chuck Norris action figure from this line. I never knew it was Chuck Norris until I was a bit older. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Super Ninja was one of my favorite toys as a kid, but I never had Chuck to beat him up with. Eventually, Super Ninja lost a leg while under my care. =(

On one of the many trips to toysrus to buy my little brother yet ANOTHER ninja turtle figure, I got a Cupcake Doll, you know, her hat was the icing, her skirt was the cupcake wrapper…flip her skirt over her head and voila…doll in cupcake disguise!!! I also had a strange obsession with the dolls who when you wound one arm up and pulled the other her hair would grow and grow…kind of creepy and really only mildly entertaining. Playing with my brother's Pizza thrower and using the turtle van as one rollerskate to get around the house faster was much more fun.

p.s. while we're on the topic, I had this one doll that for the life of me I can't remember the name of in order to track down, but it was about the size of a cabbage patch doll, but made of harder plastic, she could stand on her own with shoes on, blonde hair, and her gimmick was that if you gave her a hug (ie push thebutton in her back) the crown on her head, the bracelet on her wrist and the heart on her chest would light up and flash and i loved this show much I would stall going to bed by seeing her light up 'one more time'. I think her name was Crystal, and that's all I remember…anyone else?? she was then replaced with my wicked cool Magic Nursery baby and I never saw her again

The Gobots. Yay for Tonka made generic transformer ripoffs, spawned from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show Challenge of the GoBots!

I LOVED LOVED LOVED and would beg my mom for anything from the "Quints" toy line…hardly any of my friends remember it but the song still plays in my head sometimes "Quints, quints, 5 times more fun, I love taking care of every one!" and they all had numbers on their bums so you knew which one was which…brilliant. probably also around the same time I had those toys that when used with a magnet key came to life by dancing on some kind of platform.

We definately had the Chuck Norris figure. Probably got it at a garage sale along with alot of other loose figures. Never really played with it.

I don't know if these count as "lesser" toys. But they're definately toys I've rarely seen talked about (at least on sites like this).

Batman, Legends of the Dark Knight. Basically, Batman from a freaky scary parrallel universe. I got the entire collection hanging on my wall. It made the coolest Bat-villains ever (especially Scarecrow, Clayface, and Man-Bat) and the sexiest Bat-Girl figure ever).

JLA and Total Justice lines- These were basically updated versions of Kenner's old Super-Powers line. Besides the old standbyes (Superman, Batman, Flash, etc.) they also made figures of people like Black Lightening, Zauriel, Huntress, and Huntress, etc.

Captain Planet. Just the right size for ninja turtle crossover action. Plus a big blue guy with a green mullet.

My good friend down the street had a huge box of those same things. Mostly we just used them to make crutches for playing Hospital, but once we built all these platforms in this apple tree in her backyard. It was just about the most dangerous tree "house" ever, but we somehow survived without falling to our doom on her driveway.

I was also into those cupcake dolls mentioned above. Cheaper than Barbies and they smelled delicious.

Mostly, though, I loved whatever I found at the pharmacy in town. This included stuffed animals where their tummy's were actually those cloth-covered jelly-filled balls and random Super Mario Bros hard rubber figures. I wish I still had them, but I'm pretty sure my attic ate them.

I was pretty mainstream, sticking to Polly Pockets and my older sister's hand-me-down My Little Ponies.

While it is on the brain, Mega Force and this toyline called GERMS. They were little mosters with descriptions of their diseases. Very cool, but no one ever knows what I'm talking about.

I know GERMS. Came in little plastic test tubes. The figures were neat, but the test tubes were neater.

Hmm, I was fairly mainstream, too. I guess the only "toys" that I had that weren't mainstream were/are Model Trains, starting withG Scale LGB stuff when I was little and gradually getting into N Scale (read: tiny) when I was a kid. Trains are still in my blood!

Not that obscure but a lot of people who I talk to don't seem to remember Battle of the Planets…
And Gem - she was truly outrageous, I still have her and her earrings still work

Right on!!! That is it! I made the mistake of taking them to school and they never returned home with me. Now, when ever I try and describe them to someone it sounds as if I am an advocate for biological warfare.

My most obscure toy was a line of action figures based on the movie Beetlejuice. They were super cheap, so I could usually talk mom into getting me one as a consolation prize for not making a fuss when a new Ninja Turtle or Ghostbuster proved too pricey.

They were great, morbid stuff. You had a Bettlejuice that you could stick swords through, one that had a shrunken head underneath his removable normal head, and one who's head spun around exorcist-style when you moved his arm.

I was also fond of the Toxic Crusaders. One figure had a hole in his head where you could pour fake snot and have it drip out his nose. Bodily functions are the epitome of wit when you are eight. And every one in the line came with some sort of glow-in-the-dark accessory. Cool stuff.

I remember the figurines that would dance on the platform when you wiggled the magnetic key underneath. It was one of my favorite things to play with.

One Christmas some distant relative gave me this small pink refridgerator that opened up into a malt shop and had a small doll inside. I don't even know what it was called, but it was really cool. If I still had it today I would display it prominently on a shelf.

I think I went through a Centurions faze there for a while, and I know I was big into Visionaries. I still have 2 or 3 those.

On the slightly more mainstream front, I still have 3 M.A.S.K. vehicles in their original boxes, and I devored anything and everything to do with Batman, and still do. I still have my plastic Batman shaped piggy bank that came strapped onto a box of official 1989 Batman cereal. Just wish I could get my hands on a box of that cereal again.

Hey Matt, I seem to remember having something that I believe was part of the Mad Scientist line, but I could be wrong. I BEGGED for this thing for Christmas one year. It was sort of a Frankenstein type monster that you could disect. I believe it's outer skin or shell was just clear plastic and you could open it up and inside were all these "organs" that you could take out and it was all filled with slime. You could take all the parts out and then put him back back together again. Anybody know what I'm talking about? I have no idea what it was called.

Also, I know it was a little popular, but I think I was the only kid I knew that had a My Pet Monster.

Dac: I loved Monster Force. The line had a really great take on the CFTB Lagoon.

i was into these helicopters and boats called "Expanders" or something like that. they would open up to let out smaller vehicles. they were pretty great. i think i still have them.

I loved "Food Fighters" they were quite obscure and relatively simple, but for some reason I fell in love with them at first sight. Also on par if not slightly above Food Fighters was the Barnyard commandoes, who were even more simple, but more badass looking.

Why is one of his legs a different color than the other one?
I remember thinking Purrtenders were cool but they were never close to Popples in terms of popularity. Looking at them now I realize now it was probably with good reason.

Skeleton Warriors! A couple of years ago I used to go to this little mom 'n pop video store that was still about 90% VHS and they used to have a couple VHS collections of Skeleton Warriors cartoons. I don't remember the line but I checked out the cartoons anyway cause it looked like something I would have watched back then anyway. I guess it just slipped past me back then.

Much in the way that I had never seen A Princess Bride until about 3 years ago when my girlfrend at the time sat me down and FORCED me to watch it…..it was as stupid as I thought it would be. Sure wasn't no Neverending Story, that's for dang sure.

MATT if I remember correctly the Creature was hard to find,I had never even seen Frankenstein either.I had Dracula, Wolfman,the Creature,some blue guy with a gasmask,and some gold guy with an arm that would extend.

Ok, Matt you were right, it was Monster Lab, and it was called "Dissect an Alien", yet another link…

The Skeleton Warriors toys were cool, but the show seemed pretty boring for the younger audience.

Byrd Man & Matt–Holy Crap! The "Dissect an Alien" is totally it! Thanks for posting that link. That really brings back memories…

son–yeah, those cartoons were a bit on the C-lister side compared to what else we had to choose from.

Anyone else remember a cartoon about a race of small robots that each had weapon protruding from their chest? I think one had a drill and some others had guns and things. There was also a big red T-Rex shaped robot that shot these yellow discs out of his mouth. My cousin still has that guy. You had to load them in to the top of his head I think. I think he was also supposed to be blind.

I remember having a bunch of toys shaped like a monster's head. The one I remember specifically was shaped like a skull, and it opened up and formed a little world. It also came with tiny figures, it was quite detailed. They were really small, they would easily fit in your pocket, kind of like a Micro Machines set, but I know they weren't part of any MM set. They were made in the early to mid 90's

Sorry for rambling, I just remember having a ton of these, but have no clue what they are.

My kid brother had that dissect a monster set. He loved to take it apart, and then would give it to me to put back together. I found it soothing for some weird reason.

I think I have an answer now. Anyone remember the Trash Bag Bunch? The concept was pretty cool. Little rubbery plastic figures were inside garbage bags that you had to drop in water to dissolve. I think they were a by-product of the great eco concern in the 90s. I remember buying a lot of those at the local dollar store. I almost had the whole collection.

Matt–Hmmm..I just Googled both those and I don't think it was either one. These ones you could wind up and the weapon in their chest would move in some way, like the drill would spin or the gun would move in and out. I think the big red T-Rex was supposed to be their main enemy or something.

am i the only one who remembers visionaries? pretty standard figures, but with holograms on their chests/weapons.

Matt: That's it!! I remembered the name when I read it. I don't know how popular they were, but I remember having quite a few of them. I think I'll check ebay to see if they have any.

For the uninformed: They were from a cartoon series that was basically 4 Troll dolls that had superpowers, based on the stones that they had. And they had a rock band. The stones on the toys lit up. And it was typical 90s "X-TREEEEEME!" as I remember 3 of them:

-One, the leader, was a sonic scream. He was the frontman
-Another one had super strenght
-One of them skated, but forgot his superpower (maybe speed?)
-And I forgot what the other one did.

I had the one who could scream and the one that had super strenght. A friendship I had with a boy across the street from me basically ended when he accidentally dropped the Super Strenght one off the top of his play fort thing onto the ground, which at the time was covered with a sheet of ice, and it broke apart on impact. I never really talked to him after that (and he still lives there and his fort had been dismantled many a year ago since he & his brother grew out of it) and I was so heartbroken I kept the broken remains of the figure, perhaps to this day.

And besides that, I loved GoBots, but I was too young to get the toys. My cousin had all the major ones, though, and he got rid of them a long time ago and didn't think of giving them to me. I'm still bitter over that one.

I don't know if they ever made any toys of this, but I used to love me some Turbo Teen and Beverly Hills Teens.

I always liked the minature toys.. like Mighty Max.. and there was one called "War Planets".. I never had any War Planets toys but they always looked SOOOOO cool.. Plus.. there was another toyline whose name escapes me.. but they were like Mighty Max except they were all made of internal organs.. My friend had the Brain and the Brain and the stomach. All the "villian" figures were diseases that were attacking that organ.. The internal organs were all vehicles .. anyone got anything on that?

Aza, you have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that there is someone else out there who's seen them. I think what I used them most for was building DeLoreans. I got so much milage out of those things.

Don't know what the hell they were called, but I had two sets of little plastic fantasy figures, demons and gargoyles and such. No articulation, no paint they were like toy soldiers with a fantasy theme. They came in plastic containers that looked like castle towers.

Also I had a bunch of small rubber japanese-style monsters of various colors, I don't remember if they were actual movie characters or just generic. One was sort of an upright-walking beetle, I also remember a Godzilla-ish one. They looked sort of like pencil-toppers but without the hole in the bottom. They also came in a plastic container, about the size of a soda can. Nobody I mention these to has the slightest idea wtf I'm talking about.

Cuddles–Visionaries! Yes! Man, that line never got the credit it deserved. I still have a couple. The hologram on their chest matched the one on their staff thing, and it was an image of like their token anmial or whatever and they could summon it to jump out.

Invader Norbert–GoBots occasionally would have something going for them. I've still got the one that turned into the porche and also their big base thing that kind of looked like an AT-AT Walker. When you stood it upright it had an elevator that ran up the center. You could put a battery inside the head to make the eyes light up. God bless 'em, they tried. They really did.

The robots with the weapons in their chests were called Starriors. They were made by Tomy, the same company that made Zoids, and had similar looking cockpits, down to the little gold pilot inside.

Invader Norbert—Totally remember Street Sharks. For some reason, it also reminds of me C.O.P.S. Remember that one?

Also, there was something else. I remember the cartoon. It was about 4 races of creatures and each one was based on one of the 4 elements–you know–wind, water, fire, and earth and all that. I remember the opening titles of the cartoons showing fire destroying wood and I think at one point you saw a giant long falling down to stop a flood of water. I can't remember if the 4 groups would fight each other but they could call on their respective element in battle. Can't remember the name though.

Braindumber….Yep, that's the one. Thanks loads. I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was called. I just googled it and it turns out it was just water, wood and fire, no wind. You rub a thing on their chest and it reveals a symbol to tell you which element they were.

I think they were called Dragon Flies, or something. You propped em on this stand thing, pulled the rip cord, and they flew like mini helicopters for awhile. Fun times.

D'oh! I just realized I typed Braindumber instead of Braindumper…sorry bout that.

Braindumper - Battle Beasts did have an elemental theme.. Like rock-paper-sissors except it was wood-fire-water.. Holograms on their chests..etc. Matt did an excellent review of them.

No sweat. Hell, given the amount of time and energy I obviously spend obsessing about old toys and other pop-culture detritus, it may even be apt. I guess I can think of worse ways to burn off excess brain cells though…

And not only was the frontman the guy who could Scream, he was also a Samurai. I have no clue how that counts as a superpower, but I had that figure. I remember buying them at the KB Toys I later worked at, and later closed.

As for GoBots, it turns out that I managed to get one of the Series 1 Super Gobots (named "Psycho") in that box of transformers I got around a year ago from a flea market. I just found out what it was and its name not too long ago.

Invader Norbert the only reason I remembered the rock climber was because I had a figure of him, I also had one of the villians he wasn't the main villian but the sidekick lackey I think he was yellow.

ben: Xpanders were some of my favorite toys in the interregnum between the last releases of the original Transformers and the creation of Generation 2. I remember I had a lotta those… I even still remember the commercial. "They Expand at your Command!"

Anyone here remember a line called STARCOM? They were sorta like Xpanders, but more sci-fi-y and magnetic. The smaller vehicles would collapse into little block-things, and there was one bigger ship that had an extendable arm with a magnet on the end that could pick up the ship-blocks…

I was also into a few of the other lines, most notably Trash Bag Bunch and Z-Bots, and one more that I can't seem to find any info on… I remember that there were big action figures, GI-Joe style, and each one came with a vehicle/suit of armor that could be transformed from one form to another by takign it apart and reassembling it. I also know that it was possible to combine the armors from two different guys to make new and cooler ones, but that's pretty much it.

Punisher Bass I had those, only the tubes were white. Omegals doesn't sound familiar to me, but I could be wrong. I'm calling my brother tomorrow to ask what they were cause not knowing is going to bother me. Those things were friggin awesome.

Alright, kids…it's been fun but I gotta get to bed. Got another round of cubicle torture tomorrow.

It's been fun giving my 2 cents here. I've been reading this bloody site and the comments for about 3 years now and it's only in the last week or so that I've decided to start chiming in. I'm digging it so far. Later!

Not to sound like a copymatt,but my favorite unloved lines were Barnyard Commandos,Food Fighters,and Army Ants. I actually used to make the B.C. characters speak in pig latin like the box claimed they did.

Oh crap, one more thing before I go..I just remembered…Captain Power! Anybody else have this?

Everytime you got hit the cockpit of the ship would pop open and the guy piloting it would be violently ejected out. I used to LOVE that crap.

Man, all the lines I was going to mention were said already. Namely, Food Fighters, Barnyard Commandos, and Z Bots.

Awesome topic. I'll give my suggestion very shortly for most under-appreciated action figure line of the '80s, besides M.A.S.K. that is.

Just to make this even more awesome I will describe, in detail, the ingredient list of the ultimate hamburger later tonight, at approx. 11:00 PM EST, in this very thread. I will be having this burger for dinner tomorrow night. It will be great, I hope. If not I am sure you'll all get over it quickly.

I have a single Animorphs toy. At least I think so. I found it in an old chest in my closet and it's some half-fat-lizard half-boy thing with "Scholastic" written on it in fine print. It might be from a Happy Meal (or some equivalent) or from a book order form… My other action figures, TMNT and Star Wars, weren't exactly hard to find in people's toy chests.

Oh yeah, I also had a couple Dick Tracy toys, a single guy (fat clown man?) from the movie Spawn (the guy sucked, btw. He just stands there, being fat and ugly), and some of the mutant… junk yard…. ooze that has nothing to do with turtles… line. Can somebody possibly fill me on on this? The other popular line I had was Jurassic Park.

I loved the Expanders figures. The vehicles were average, but the little (~2cm) figures were super detailed like I had never seen before. They came in only about 5 poses, but they had tiny details like boot knives, radios, and extra magazines. I could get my friends to wage epic wars with those figures. We didn't even use the real vehicles. The black ones would ride in hovercrafts (ashtrays) and try to take over the tan ones fort (a Lay-Z-Boy chair).

The realistic military details really stood out from the M.U.S.C.L.E.S. and Lego men I usually played with.

Punisher Bass I was thinking of Playskool Pipeworks, maybe not the same thing you were talking about.

DJ D: Sorry I missed you before you ran off for the night, but I know EXACTLY what you are talking about when you mention the "Mad Scientist" toy where you had the empty alien cavity that you filled with different colored alien organs (and slime). You used the plastic scalpel to dissect it and pull the goo-covered organs out onto your dining room table and pray your mom didn't yell at you for getting the slime on her fine oak wood. Or maybe that was just me.

Something else I remember about that toy. You all should feel honored as I've never told this story anywhere else (for real!!!

). My cousin was born in 1986. My aunt had brought the tiny, diaper-covered tot to our home for an afternoon visit. Since we didn't have any "baby" toys around the house my mom (and his mom) let him play with a few of the bigger, colorful organs from my alien. Maybe not safe for a one-year-old, but it happened. After the kid left I went to clean up the toys off of the living room floor and discovered that a few vital organs were missing. I informed my mother that my new cousin had decided to steal a few of my toys and that she needed to get them back, but she laughed it off and told me I was imagining things, that there was no chance a baby had taken my belongings. I knew better, but I tried to let it go.

Of course an hour or two later my aunt called my mother to let her know that when she got home, and attempted to change the kid's diaper, she found a few weird little plastic toys in there. She didn't know what they were, but were sure they were mine.

It was at that moment that I realized my mother didn't always know the truth and that my newborn cousin was a klepto.

After the pieces were returned I never felt right about putting them back into the alien's "body cavity". It never felt sanitary.

Oh, I also had that thing where you shaped the monster's body around the skeleton-thingy and dropped it onto the tank to watch the flesh get eaten off. God I loved those toys. Honestly I would buy them again, right now, if I could. Just so I would have them ready for my son in a decade or so.

Favorite random/almost unknown toy line? Sky Commanders, hands down. I loved to wrap the strings and belt 'road' things from chair to chair or in the trees around my house and watch them go.

@Invader Norbert: my brother had the all of the stone protectors. my favorite was the wrestler guy with the mohawk. i loved that mohawk. a couple of years ago i found a vhs episode of the cartoon show. we never watched the cartoon but we loved the figures. it was weird watching the cartoon after all those years.

my un-mainstream toys were the wee wilds. they were small dolls with bright neon hair. each one came with a vehicle or something, like a bed or a vanity, or a car, or a horse. there were bigger playsets, like a piece of birthday cake that opened up into a birthday party, or a shoe that opened into a beauty parlor, or a hamburger that opened into a restaurant. they were fairly small, the dolls only about 3 inches. i think i had every single one they made, even the limo that folded out onto a house, complete with swimming pool and movie theatre. they are still packed away at my parents house. i will keep them forever.
my other absolute favorite was the lady lovely locks dolls. i had the dolls, the books on tape, the bowl and mug set, it was insane. those were awesome too. i think all those are at my parents house too. i remember being mad because my mom wouldnt buy me the villan girl. she is the only doll that i didnt have, and i wanted her so badly.

i also remember the quints, and the dolls that grow hair when you crank thier arms.
i played with my brother's toys a lot too. he had the robin hood figures from the movie with kevin costner. basically, kevin costner in a robin hood costume. so cool. he had alan rickman and morgan freeman too. i still love that movie!

i just remembered another one my brother had, these vehicles that you could change the wheels and various weapons and things…i dont remember the name, but there were good guys and bad guys. i remember a giant buzz saw that you could attach to the bad guy's car… we used to mix and match them, bad stuff on good cars, etc. the bad guy was a slug-brain like thing, you could take him out of the cockpit…i cant think of what it was called…now it is gonna bug me.

There were action figures based on the live-action Super Mario Bros. movie. Beat THAT for obscure.

other than an unholy obsession with lego sets the toy lines I had that were obscureish were z bots and these really small transformer types like a little bigger than a micro machine. I had a couple of cars and a couple of jets. Pretty sure they weren't official transformers. Also had Captain Power. I had the main leader and main villain as well as an ass load of the cassette missions.

That line was crazy it was like laser tag before that was invented and the videos were missions you would fly and you actually had to maneuver the ship in your hand to avoid getting hit. The ship even kept track of your score. technology abound and the animation on the videos was amazing.

It was all about Remco's AWA wrestling figures for me.Funny enough, Tabe from the Chuck Norris line was one of the few non-wrestling action figures I had that crossed over into my wrestling federation. After a monster push which led to him beating Flair for the title, his career was cut short by the loss of his arms after a particularly savage beating by the Road Warriors.

Man, I can't even remember really being into any particular toys when I was a kid. I had a bunch of different ones, but I can't think of any that I needed to collect a ton of. I did think of this stuffed bunny I had- it was white, and the whole thing would glow in the dark. I know that they made a few other animals, too. I really liked it, but one of my best friends liked it more, so I gave it to her. Now I kind of wish I kept it.

OK, I am asking for help here. When perusing my organic databanks for '80s toys I remembered a… a… thing… but I don't know what it was called or what line of toys it was from.

Please help me. I know someone here can nail this and ID this monstrous memory and give it its proper name.

It was a toy from probably Christmas 1988 or 1989. I know this because somewhere, in my parent's sparse self-recorded VHS collection is a clip of me, at ten-years-of-age, playing with this toy on my grandma's couch. I think. I haven't seen it in a decade, but I know it exists, and I can get it if need be. Or at least a picture. I've seen this.

It was a part of the "enemy" line of the toys. It obviously wasn't one of the good guys from looking at it. It was plastic, around twelve inches tall. The face of the creature resembled the skeleton of a bird or a dinosaur. An elongated beak and the face was white, like a bleached skull. It did have a tuft of blond (or maybe brownish hair) protruding from the back of the skull. Not a full head of hair, but more like a ponytail. The hair wasn't thick, or full, but it was there. Some of it anyway.

The arms and legs were a pinkish/burgundy color. It was meant to resemble a human body with the skin stripped off, like it was muscle. If I actually had to pick one color to describe the overall tone it would be "peach". Scary… I know.

Maybe the most recognizable trait was the chest. The forgotten toy featured an interactive chest where the rib cage would actually swing out, so you could put something in there. The rib cage was that bleached white color, just like the hellish looking devil-bird face. I don't remember why the chest swung outwards like that, but it did. It must have been important.

Half the world was into Transformers? NEWS TO ME! It seemed like I was the only kid on the block / in the class who liked those sissy robots more than the hardcore military action of G.I. Joe. I didn't get friends to talk Transformers with until I moved to another city; and this was still three houses after discovering TFs, so it wasn't just my wrongheaded neighborhood.

The toy I liked that no one else had, though, was Rocks & Bugs & Things. This was a quasi-transforming line of rocks and bugs, each of which came with a thing, identified as a Mordle; these were their food.
The idea was that you let your Bug sneak up on the Mordle, or had the Mordle idle in the right place around the Rock, and then either squeeze the Bug's abdomen or pull a lever on the Rock, and SNAP! Mordle all gone.
These were illustrated by little comics on the back of the box, all of which went in this pattern. "A hapless Mordle idly approaches a harmless pebble. WATCH OUT! It's Eat-You-Up(TM)! *ENGULF* But the horror doesn't end here…!"
I never met anyone else who had these, but I got plenty of them through Kay-Bee's autoclearances. In my own toy adventures, most of them found work as bosses and traps for plastic-based video game scenarios…

There was also this series of action figures that were small rubbery snails contained in flimsy plastic battle armor suits which I had a few of, but the name escapes me now. The line was short-lived enough to completely elude my friends when I told them to buy the rest of the figures so we could have…epic…snail-in-robot-suit battles?

G'Tron: You wonderful SOB, you are absolutely correct. A quick websearch showed me that you nailed it… THANK YOU! What other website would have a poster that could ID something this obscure within ten minutes.

Im not sure how popular they were in the states (or even if they were released?) but Manta Force was a biggie for me, hundreds of tiny purple guys launching comparatively huge plastic discs at hundreds of tiny yellow guys, oh and what seemed at the time to be gigantic ships, days went missing twanging rubber bands at those guys while they were perched on the surface of an inhospitible planet (my dresser)

I hope I still have my Gobots Command Centre in the back of the closet somewhere.

My big, big, HUGE obsession for a while was the Captain Power stuff. I remember target practicing with the (Beta!) videos long after the show was cancelled. My younger brother got the Captain Powert jet and I got the bad guy tank, which was fine because it was so much cooler. So by default I got bad guy stuff, and bro got good guy figures.

We had an inordinate amount of outlet/dollar stores in the area (southern New Hampshire), though, so we had at least a few representatives of pretty much every toy line that came out in the 80's. Between the two of us we got the the entire Sectaurs line the Christmas after it was cool (including the Hyve!), and Battle Beasts regularly went up against Army Ants for control of the Fortress of Fangs AD&D playset (which, do I even need to tell you, was SO much cooler than Snake Mountain?)

Anyone remember a plastic construction toy which I think was called "Zax"? I used to love building the "strider" and the little head things which you could open and close the mouths of. If only Zax was still being made today.

Wow, great set of comments. I always thought I had Gobots, and was miffed I never got any transformers…but looking at pics online now realise I actually had an *even cheaper* rip-off of go-bots. My memories of what I assumed was Spay-C suggest it was smaller, cheaper and black. go figure.

OK, as an aside, more 'games' than action figures etc, but you're still probably the group to ask. I have vague memories of a game, possibly Tomy, around 1989, 1990 that a friend once brought into school. I remember it as being similar to those cheap table-top air hockey games with flippers (the ones like an air hockey/pinball cross), only instead of a flat puck and air cushion, it used a metal gyroscope/spinning top thing that shot out of the side. The gyroscopic nature of it meant that it was more fun, if slightly more erratic than, air hockey, as the 'scope bounced off the flippers at odd angles. I've tried every search variant of 'Tomy late 80's gyroscopic metal spinning top horizontal pinball flippers air hockey doodad', and am about to decide I imagined the whole day - which would be a shame because I had fun. Anybody reading this and thinking "oh yeah, I had one of those!" ???

I think this shows how young I am (or rather, how old I was when I was still into stuffed toys), but I was mad into (among other things) "Meanie Babies" as a kid. They were twisted versions of Beanie Babies, which I also collected, and it seemed every store I found them at (which was an adventure in and of itself), even at the peak of their "popularity", marked them down to ridiculously low prices, like one or two dollars. Even now they're no more than 99 cents on ebay, making completing my collection all the more easier.

well when I was really little the only ones i can think of that were semi-obscure would be the Dungeons & Dragons, Secret Wars and Super Powers toys. I think I might have had the whole set of super powers, including some little vinyl promo record that i think had an audio story on it

Dude, I want an Alan Rickman action figure. Metatron and shit. I could get the Jay and Silent Bob inaction figures, but I'd rather pump resources into finally getting that Selphie I've been needing.

I didn't think I was overly girly as a kid until I started to think about this one… I was obsessed with Charmkins. They were little plastic figures that were supposed to have food/floral scents, but they really only smelled like plastic toys (you know the smell I'm talking about). You could play with then or wear them on charm chains, etc… but they were really only good for hurting your feet when you stepped on them. I remember my neighbor got the Charmkins house when her parents had another baby… man, I wanted that house. I think I remember trying to plot a break-in to make it mine!

I think that was the one thing I really collected a lot of because they weren't that expensive.

Ok I played with He-Man, GI Joe, I had the bucky ohera toy, which was part of my huge cross over, plenty of GI-Joes, and remember that Ghost Busters cartoon, not the real ghost busters but the one with the ape, I had the bad guy, I think his name was Prime Evil. I remember he and Shredder were the master bad guys in my toy universe.

Inhumanoids were my favorites! Redsun was my absolute favorite action figure as a kid. The 3 things I really miss from my childhood toybox was my Atomic Powered Talking Robot (if anybody remembers these I'd love to hear about it), my Creepy Cralwers set and all the creatures I created with it, including the brownish ones where the colors ran together too much, my Zap-It gun (anybody remember those?), and my Redsun. I know this sounds weird, but I can still remember how it [Redsun] smelled.

Not sure if you saw my response in the other blog, but yes, I am also addicted to Engadget. I am still loving the Wii in all its 480p glory. My current obsession, still, is Super Paper Mario.

I really need to brush across my posts before I submit them. That should be 4 things, not 3.

Squeek, it almost sounds like you're talking about getting caught up in the Crossfire but I'm not sure. Matt's got an article out there on it if so.

Anyone remember C.O.P.S. action figures? I was really into those for the short time they were around. I had a bunch of the figures and their cool-ass vehicle. They figures were great because they were over-sized, and extremely high quality for the time, with lots of articulation and detail, and lots of weapons and accessories. I watched the short-lived cartoon religiously, and I even had some C.O.P.S. comic books (gulp).

Captain Power was another short-lived obsession. I loved the ultra-cheesy TV show, and I fired at it with my Captain Power spaceship. Those figures were also very nicely done.

There was this series of toys that I'm pretty sure Matt has mentioned on the site, but I can't remember the name. They were vehicles with removable parts so you could snap all sorts of accessories to them, with little flip-open cockpits and they came with very generic little figures to put inside. I think they had "wheels" in the name. Anyway, I really dug those, too.

Ah, non-mainstream toys! I have been waiting for this one as I need some help remembering it fully. The toy line was based on military gear and it had play sets inside them I think. For example, one was an army canteen that had some type of play set inside of it and it all folded up to look like a real canteen. I believe the line was called ARMY GEAR but I am not sure and I can't find anything on line. HELP XE!

How about the Last Action Hero toys? I had a couple different versions of Slater, as well as his awesomely everyday looking convertible that I used for all my toys. Oh and Monte, Koopa from the Super Mario Movie line for some reason was the toy I probably played with the most.

I used to love that Chuck Norris action figure. I had it for a long, long time. People pretty much named all the other ones that I liked; Stone Protectors, Food Fighters, Toxic Crusaders. I also got this thing for Christmas when I was a bit older called Monster Face. It was awesome. Check out the commerical:

I loved my canteen!! You are right though, these toys were called Army G.E.A.R.

I had a brief fascination with the Crash Test Dummy toys. Obviously I owned the car and the two main CTDs (Vince and Larry or whatever their names were). My brother had the CTD riding lawnmower and at least one of the BAD GUYS that was featured in the animated Crash Test Dummies television show.

Also, I had some fun with my array of Bone Age toys. And those rather large space cowboy toys with LASER LIGHT SHOOT-OUT technology. I don't remember what they are called, but I still have the creepy bad guy that looks like a cross between Skeletor and the Tall Man from Phantasm.

Although the Crash Test Dummy toys weren't my absolute favorites, I did love my CTD toys. I also owned the car, but the only CTD I can remember owning was "Spare Tire". Toys you were SUPPOSED to destroy, what a world we grew up in, eh?

Not sure if it was mentioned already but when the troll doll craze hit awhile back they released a line of "full sized" figures with crazy hair capes. Their gimmick was when you brought their arms down the jewels in their chests sparked. Anyone remember these?

My brother and I had this chuck norris. Our dad made fun of it being chuck norris often. We also had Food Fighters and Army Ants

Its nice to know that I was not alone in my love of Food Fighters and Barnyard Commandos. I had the whole Food Fighters set and most of the Barnyard Commandos. I kind of miss them…

Lesser figures I collected were Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures toys, Bucky O'hare, and Toxic Crusaders.

Thank you fistpittingnork for the confirmation. Does any know where I can find info on this toy line? I would love to see them again, maybe even purchase a few. I will check ebay too!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned my second-favorite line of all time: Dino-Riders. I'm not sure if Matt's written about them before, but my god, what fantastic toys. Dinosaurs piloted by humans, aliens or smake men, and all dinos were strapped with a ridiculous amount of weapons. Had a cartoon, comic, and everything. Check 'em out.

Also really loved Remco's line of ripoff G.I. Joe figures called American Defense. These were mostly available at K-Mart when I was a kid. And if anyone can help me out: Their own version of Storm Shadow was this totally badass translucent ninja whose name escapes me, but he had a red dragon painted on his chest, I believe. Probably would've been in stores around 1989-90. Any clues? I was never able to find him as a kid (one of my friends had one and gloated about it incessantly), and I must have him. Ebay and Wikipedia seraches have turned up nothing.

I also liked Remco's Mighty Crusaders line of figures, based on the rather unpopular Archie Comics superhero characters: The Shield, the Fly, etc. Anyone else ever have any of these?

My wife and I keep a few random loose Food Fighters figures in our freezer. They're always a good conversation starter during parties when guests go looking for ice.

squee4242 - thanks for that, but 'fraid not. Unless my mind is warping it beyond belief, the game had a single 'puck' which was a spinny gyroscopic thing, the alien pucks don't ring a bell..although it does look kinda cool

For me the toy that I had no one else had was TYCO Dino-Riders. It was based on a cartoon or vise versa (but the cartoon was on like at 530 on a pre-wb/upn/cw 6th local chanel. There were good human type people, and bad shark people. They were fighting in space but crashed on a prehistoric earth. The humans befriended the dino, but the evil guys brainwashed them. The toys were awsomely detailed. The bigger dinos would walk on battery power, and the smaller ones would have things like button activated flapping wings or weapons.

Shpontiac: Yeah, another Dino-Riders fan! Forgot about the bad guys brainwashing the dinos…and I guess all the bad guys were aliens, right? Just a mix of snake, shark and frog dudes?

I loved the Last Action Hero toys. I had a few figures and the convertible, which was awesome.

I loved Bravestarr and Silverwings. Silverwings were a little lame cause they didn't really come with cool weapons, but there was something fascinating about chrome-clad warriors with wings and useless bird that attached to their arms. The Supernaturals were weird too.
Aaron

mpkalypso the toys your referring to are from the Wheeled Warriors line. They had a cartoon and everything! The catoon was Jayce & the Wheeled Warriors. It wasn't the greates but the toys were cool as hell!!!

I wasn't big into the toy lines, unless were recreating Civil War battles with G.I. Joes (I was an odd, odd child). But I loved Connex (Connectx?) toys for building things.

But I think the best all time non-mainstream toy was the Over The Top Armwrestling Table. I think there was about six months there were all me and my friends did in our spare time was armwrestle.

Sorry for the above post, they were not Silverwings, they were Silverhawks. Shame on me for forgeting the name of some obscure, lame-to-everyone-but-me action figures.
Aaron

Wheeled Warriors! That's it! Thanks! I googled them, and man, even today, I still think they're badass! Here's a site about the toys:

Thanks for the link Tanta! I loved those things when I was younger. I had a few of them but they sold the expansion packs so you could get more weapons and wheels so it was a never ending collection that my parents just didn't understand. And Aaron I knew the toys you were referring to. I used to watch that cartoon as well.

Since we're going obscure and c-list. Does anyone remember Astrosniks from McDonalds? They were released around the time that everyone was crazy over Smurfs. I used to drive my Mom nuts to go to McDonalds once a week to get the newest one.

After reading this thread I went digging through some stuff and found a bunch of old Turtles toys, including a really old looking Splinter and one of the rubber ones that let you remove the head, limbs, etc. I also found Panthro missing an arm, Toxic Crusader missing a head, He-Man, and some old Ghostbusters toys.

One of the Ghostbusters is Ray, complete with his hair popping off and ears shooting out when you squeeze his arms. The other was a motorcycle bad guy that you can literally pull the face off of to reveal some sort of inside-out cyclops with a really long tongue.

The Rat King figure from the Turtles is pretty bad-ass looking. I found him, too. Ha.

The Mysterians are one of my favorite obscure toylines from the 80s. They were robots that transformed into geometric shapes. Doesn't sound very exciting in itself but the robot modes were very odd and fun. I wish I could find more of the Mysterians and the missing parts for the ones I have. I wrote an article on the Mysterians, which you can find on the front page of detectivefork.com. I couldn't find an article on the Mysterians anywhere, so I had to write one myself.

As far as toys go:
-The Incredible Crash Dummies
-Snailiens
Those were my favorite toy lines that none of my friends bothered to collect!

I had the Chuck Norris figure, but none of the others, and I'm pretty sure I never watched the cartoon. I think I just picked Chuck because he looked cool (my idea of cool was obviously skewed back then). I remember there was also a car you could get for Chuck that I really wanted, but never got.

…but for a short time (I dont remember what they are called) There were these… Ghost things that had a hard plastic outer body but their front was a hologram of like…a skeleton or a demon or something.. those were cool too

*raises Cravex's staff of Fear above his head*
"O mist-filled pits
Dark, dank, unclear.
Touch all 'fore me
With frost-fingered fear!"

Sounds so much better when the late, great Chris Latta did it with the Starscream/Cobra Commander voice.

My most obscure toy that NO ONE seems to remember is a "Spektra" Doll. Did anyone else have one? They were like a Barbie with metallic bodies, shimmery clothes, and glittery multi-colored hair!

Can anyone remember SPY TECH stuff? This was in the 90s. They had all these awesome things you could use to spy on people. Even older kids could get away with having them because they were pretty novel. I had a camera that was disguised as a real Good N Plenty box, a real one with the real brand name. We also had a fake hollow rock that you could put things inside of and somone wth a remote control could make the rock chirp and find it. We also had a dissappearing ink set that i think had a speical (black?) light to read it. There were lots of other things and the more expensive ones seemed better.

For the life of me, I can't remember the name of this toy line. But, it consisted of human action figures that rode on dinosaurs…and they could communicate/control the dinosaurs through some sort of headband device. Of course, there were good guys and bad guys…just like any other toy line.

My favorite, somewhat obscure, line of toys had to be the Rambo figures produced in 1986. I remember that our neighbor's dog loved them too and he dragged a couple figures from our garage and chewed them up. The neighbors agreed to replace the figures, and they finally did… around three months later. That is an eternity to a kid! At least after that I did have double the weapon arsenal since the dog didn't get to those.

Anyway, here is an ebay auction that shows off a few of the figures in case they don't ring a bell.

Monster Make Up!! You got to mix this really smelly latex powder with water and pour it into a mold that looked like a Frankenstein's monster scar or a bullet hole or other misc scars. When it was set you could stick it on your face with Spirit Gum and then use the other make up provided to make it look realistic. There was flesh colored make up and red blood and all kinds of stuff. The problem was it was really messy. The latex would melt and hang off of your face and it was almost impossible to get the Spirit Gum off. But it was great!!! Such Fun!

Earth's most powerful soldiers fight the SPIRAL ZONE! Man I loved that show. Had EVERY figure and toy! Mostly cause they were 2 bucks on clearance. Watched the show religiously. And I'm in seminary. Believe me, my devotion to that show is legend. Just check out spiralzone dot com to see reviews of the episodes. Written by me. Ohhhh yeaaah!

I always referred to the smaller, less prominent toy franchises as the B-lines. Kind of like B-movies, the B-lines were often made and distributed on a smaller scale, had a lot less publicity, and were generally not given the same attention as the top shelf toys. But they were often be surprisingly excellent, sometimes far exceeding the A-list toys in quality, playability, and concept.

Wheeled Warriors, StarCom, Rock Lords, and Starriors were my all time favorite b-lines, although I was never sure if Starriors really deserved the b-line status; I was the only kid I knew who loved them, but their ads and comic books gave the impression that the line was as successful as G.I. Joe.

Of the four, StarCom was heads and tails above the others. It was a damned impressive line of toys. To this day I still love them, and I still have every StarCom toy I've ever owned. I even joined the StarCom fan club, which I'm pretty sure was the only time I did such a thing as a child. I remember how excited then completely crestfallen I was just days after I had joined, when I got my first - and last - package in the mail. It was a form letter stating that the entire StarCom line had been canceled and the club was shut down. At least they included some StarCom stickers to help soften the blow. Still, it sucked. First time I tried to join a fan club, and they shut it down as I'm walking in the door. AND there would be no more StarCom toys. I still have the letter and the stickers. It's strange how vividly I remember it all. That was a shitty day.

Clash of The Titans figures. I think they're were only 4 or so. Charon the skeleton boatman was the best. Never could find the giant Kraken toy.

I was also into Sgt. Rock figures. They also had a very generic quality to them, even though most of the figures had the same exact body.

Geez Matt, I just found an article you wrote on InHumanoids. Is there anything that you haven't written about? Amazing.

Not sure what Astroniks are, but since you mentioned Smurfs, I did have some Snorks if you remember what those were. Little under the sea creatures who had snorkels on tops of their heads, making them look like turnips in a way. They had a cartoon I watched, I always wanted to zip through the water like they could using their snorkels. Snorks are on the same side of the table as Smurfs.

Wow…I had a couple of Starriors, and I had completely forgotten about them until I read Chris' post. This site is making me realize that I had a a pretty wide, but shallow toy collection as a kid. In other words, I had a lot of various toys, but usually only one or two figures from any particular line (He-Man and G.I. Joe being the exceptions).

I had never heard of Spiral Zone before. I looked them up, and holy crap! Those look like some cool-ass figures!

Another line that I thought was great as a kid was Fisher Price's "Adventure People" series. Lame name, I know, but they were little adventure playsets with lots of vehicles and accessories and lots of unique figures. I liked the Aero Marine Search Team and Alph Probe sets the best. Here's the link:

They were called Super Naturals?.. Wow, You've got a good memory Matt. Thanks for clearing that mystery up in my mind. It's been a long while since I've even thought about those things.

You only mention one article, he's written two. One over the cartoon and toys together, and one just on the toys themselves, here's the link to both in case you've only discovered one.

Toy section of the first article, 3rd row of pictures, 1st picture in the row. Best Inhumanoids toy ever! Even though in the article it's labeled as "Redlen" when it's actually "Redsun".

Off-Topic, but totally appropriate for this website, a link to a page on the Top 20 Ads with commercials. While there are some surprises (A Reagan and George H. Bush campaign ads, the lack of restaurant commercials with the exception Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" line) nobody should be surprised.

Holy shit, you knew about Tacky Stretchoid Warriors too? I thought I was the only one in existence who knew about them. How very esoteric of me, but I swear, no one else seems to know diddly about them. I loved those guys. Awesome, just plain awesome.

Army ants of course were cool, I loved Inhumaniods, and I really liked Sectaurs, Visionaries, Starriors, and last but not least, Jayce and Wheeled Warrios. All of them failed…

I was thoroughly convinced that the only Inhumanoid figure that I had was D-Compose, but after reading your old article, Matt, I now know I am wrong. Seeing the pictures brought it all back. I know I had the figure of the guy in the yellow, puffy suit. I still can't get over how small the heads were on the human figures. I also had that "tree guy" who, when twisted, became taller.

I was so inspired by re-discovering this series last night that I bought the Amazon.com UK DVD of the series. Of course now I've read the review here at X-E that trashes the series (not the toys). Oops. That will be money well wasted then. Oh well, it will be neat to check it out after twenty years.

I wish I still had my Starriors, I read the comics and had the figures too. My fav was Deadeye, he was a giant T-Rex shaped one that shot discs out of his mouth when you clicked the little pterodactyl shaped control that came with him. And Fistpittingnork I do indeed remember the Snorks. I never had the figures but I watched the cartoons

Magic Toy — I was needlessly harsh in that very old review of the cartoon. Blame it on youth. It really isn't that bad.

The best part about Inhumanoids was D-Compose. What's not to love about a giant zombie/dinosaur/monster with an exposed rib cage? I used to have him terrorize all of my other figures as well.

Little Sara, I know Spectra! I did a very short blog entry about it once. You'll probably enjoy the picture much more than my theory about the line's demise (my blog really isn't intended for general interest. That's why I never link it.) You can click my name if you're interested though.

I'm bringing the estrogen! The first toy line I thought of was Sylvanian Families. They were out around the same time as Maple Town, but I thought Sylvanian Families were much better. I had the house and the entire gray rabbit family (minus the grandparents and one of the babies) that I got for my 8th birthday. I remember that I wanted to preserve the packaging because there were collectable cards and stuff inside and I was yelling at my sister or my cousin or whoever was opening the boxes to be careful. My dad got on my case about being too bossy and mean. Looking back, I believe I was perfectly within my rights. Any kid who's going to take it upon his/herself to open another kid's birthday presents should expect to get yelled at. I also remember that my sister got the brown bears for her birthday and made the mistake of getting one of them wet. The fur came right off.

Sorry Squeek…I had a pretty good feeling Crossfire wasn't what you were looking for but I figured I'd throw it out there just in case. Plus I couldn't resist referencing what might have been the greatest jingle ever. Crossfiiiiiiiya!!!

Man, between the Extended Megaparty and the LOST Luau over on LJ August is shaping up to be way more awesome than the usual "dear Christ, it's so hot, when will it end?!?" ordeal. And that's not even accounting for Shark Week or the triumphant return of Meerkat Manor.

Tigerhater1: They were called Dino Riders and they were effing awesome. Had a few of those too.

Rambo and the Force of Freedom, those toys rocked. Farily well detailed with lots of weapons!

Now I must run to YouTube to watch the "Crossfire" commercial- DAMN, that was a great ad.