Narrowly managing to fend off the pen-and-pad-clad masses as I entered Toys 'R' Us with my newfound fame, I dodged the vile paparazzi hanging near the back-to-school section and made my way to the clearance racks.
Sadly, clearance racks aren't what they used to be. When I was a kid, I'd get things like the Wheeled Warriors accessory sets -- each with two rubbery "Monster Minds" brains -- for eight cents a pop. Whereas "clearance" used to roughly equate to "please get this shit out of our store," now it's just a clever way of saying, "this is on sale." It's a bit of a crapshoot, but sometimes, you win out:
These toys are so not my style, but I have to admit a certain appreciation for Boogaz, a gross-out toyline made by Moose Enterprises. Moose apparently has like twenty-thousand tons of sticky/slimy toy material, as this is no less than their eighteenth attempt to market toys that make use of such materials in the past few years.
The disgusting concept: Kids purchase plastic noses (or large picking fingers, which are pricier) that are stuffed with copious amounts of ooze, and at least one official Boogaz figure. There are 24 figures in all to collect, and some are rarer than others. Borrowing liberally from the Monster In My Pocket series, the figures are assigned point values to help us understand which are "common," "rare" or "glowing ultra rare." My kingdom for a "glowing ultra rare" Boogaz figure.
The fun's in the mystery. When you buy a nose, there's no telling which figure might be inside. The package also states that one out of every six noses has two figures lurking among the hidden ooze. Moving past the off-putting notion that this is a toy collection dedicated to snot, I kinda like the cut of its jib. Hope I pick a winner...
Damn. While "Sir Picks Alot" is worth a respectable nine points, he's still a common figure, delivering nowhere near the level of glory of, say, the forty point "Skummy Mummy."
Once you get the loose slime off (harder than it sounds), the figures serve as strangely-shaped Wacky Wall Walkers -- you can splat 'em against the nearest wall, and if the gods decide to take pity on you, they'll do their little gooey vertical catwalk much to the delight of dimwits and house cats everywhere.
The slime itself counts as a toy, and to really push the idea that it's snot, it's really watery slime. Much different from normal toy slime fare. There's really no way to get it all back in the nose container once you yank it out, and I eventually had to give up and wash my hands clean. I don't like it when toys create a need for me to wash myself, but since I'm getting to pull rubbery medieval knights out of noses, I'm gonna give this one a pass.
This is probably a minority opinion, but I like Boogaz toys. Gonna marry 'em.
Happy SNT.
Posted by Matt on 08/18/2007. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
Or you can watch the killer mutant turtles flick (that’s what they looked like to me, at least) “Humanoids from the Deep” on IFC tonite at 11:00 pm central.
Who’s Vanity? Name sounds sorta familiar but I can’t place it.