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07/02/2008: X-E’s ‘08 Summer Megaparty: Blame Anonymous.

“My blog is going to give away 1000 dollars every day of summer. Make sure you refresh and visit multiple times. It may not be every day BECAUSE I’M POLITE AND DON’T PROMISE THINGS I CAN’T DELIVER.” – Posted By Anonymous.

Oh, please. I haven’t updated X-E’s main page since the Superbowl. Manipulating readers into refreshing for ad impressions has clearly been a long-term goal of mine. Besides, I’m not even late. “Once a day,” I said. I’m totally on deadline.

“Anonymous” must be punished, and my chosen method in punishing Anonymous unfortunately means that you’re going to be punished right along with him. I had a beautiful, long and interesting entry planned, but now I am SCRATCHING it, and instead, I am going to review the KAHEGA ACTION FIGURE. From CONGO.


You like that, Anonymous? Are you pleased with the fruits of your uncaring and unsigned comment? You’ve ruined it for everybody. I had GOLD planned for today…and now gold has been replaced with KAHEGA. And by the way, Anonymous: I’ve got a Karen Ross action figure just waiting for your next fuck-up.

Hindsight dictates that a Congo action figure series was a terrible idea, but I don’t blame Kenner for giving it a shot in 1995. It’s assured that they had to work out the licensing details and produce the toys long before they knew how well the movie would be received. This isn’t to say that Congo was a total flop, because it wasn’t. It just wasn’t a very important movie, with its scope of diehard fans limited to stoners who found humor in the concept of a gorilla talking through the magic of a hotwired Nintendo Power Glove.

Truth be told, it’s one of my favorite films ever, and I mean that with 100% sincerity. Congo was unfairly compared to Jurassic Park due to the Crichton connection, but when most reviewers were busy looking for the Spielberg-level storytelling wizardry and never-before-seen special effects, a small-but-elite force of moviegoers realized that any flick that featured Tim Curry getting yelled at for eating sesame cake before meeting his demise at the hands of an undiscovered camp of mutant gorillas was worth twenty times more than a T-Rex launching goat carrion.

I loved Jurassic Park, but it had nothing on Congo. Congo is the ultimate movie. From egotistical “Amy Monkey” christening herself as “pretty,” to the scene where the heroes use flare guns to displace heat seeking missiles, there is not one second in Congo that doesn’t stand toe-to-toe with any other second in any other movie.


Anyway, the toys tanked. They hardcore tanked. Congo was an action movie, but even I can’t argue that its characters weren’t exactly on-par with Indiana Jones. Kenner tried everything they could to make it work, but it was impossible. Remember Peter? The kinda dorky lead guy from the movie, whose only vested interest in the adventure was returning his talking gorilla to her safe homeland? Well, to make him translate better as an action figure, they fitted Peter with a shoulder-mounted missile launcher. But deep down, it’s still just the guy from Congo who blurred the boundaries of bestiality while picking leeches out of his crotch.

Still, at least Peter is a character people who’ve seen Congo would probably recognize. I’m not sure the same can be said for Kahega. If you don’t recall Kahega’s role in the movie, that’s your problem. I’d tell you, but I can’t. Because of Anonymous.


Kahega is easily one of the worst action figures in history. Whatever chance you stood to be reminded of the film version of Kahega is eradicated by the fact that the figure looks absolutely nothing the fuck like him. Indeed, the only thing Anonymous and I have in common is that we both look more like Kahega than his action figure does.

One of the worst-proportioned toys of the modern era, Kahega’s six-pack of abs is cut into a three-pack by the odd placement of his belt, which christens a journey down to a pair of legs that could not possibly belong to the torso that isn’t more than a half a centimeter above them. And I was barely past digesting that when I noticed that the sum mass of Kahega’s head is smaller than either of his feet.


Strangely, there’s a gaping hole on Kahega’s back which allows him to handsfree-carry the smaller of his two gigantic guns. Read that again, in case you missed the bit where Kahega mounts weapons inside a hole on his back. You really gotta feel for poor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. He had to be so excited when he heard that he was going to be immortalized as an action figure, and then he gets this. You also gotta feel for poor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje because text-to-speech programs really don’t know how to pronounce his name.

By the way…I have the full set of Congo action figures. Everyone from “Monroe” to “Blastface the Grey Gorilla,” who according to his package comes with “mutant fury.” “Mutant fury” was Kenner’s code-speak for “this figure does not come with anything.” I guess by the time they finished fitting the seventy-seventh action figure with the same shoulder-mounted missile launcher, they knew they were pushing it. My point? If Anonymous messes with me again, I’m breaking out the Amy action figure. The AMY action figure. Think before you leap, Anonymous. Adebisi lives.


Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

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Discussion Thread: 235 comments

i have all those figures also somewhere in storage…

Ghosted by brando @ 07/02/2008 11:57 PM EDT


Tim Curry is always yummy~

Ghosted by Neg @ 07/02/2008 11:57 PM EDT


Man, this really makes me want to go back and watch Congo again. I think I only saw it once and barely remember anything from it. Sounds fantastic though. And yeah, that is a shitty looking action figure.

Oh, I just spent the last 5 minutes making the text to speech thing say a bunch of dirty, perveted things as I sat here and chuckled to myself. If only someone else were here to share my immaturity. Well, there’s always you guys.

Ghosted by DJ D @ 07/03/2008 12:09 AM EDT


I remember watching Congo, the only reason I liked it was because Bruce Campbell was in the first 15 minutes of it, getting killed by the Mad Gorillas…

Ghosted by Delkon @ 07/03/2008 12:12 AM EDT


:warning: vulgar post :warning:

did anyone else make the chineese lady on the text to speech program say

“eat my steaming wet pussy” ?

just me then huh?

Ghosted by Axel Rod @ 07/03/2008 12:15 AM EDT


Evander Holyfield

Ghosted by WolfMan @ 07/03/2008 12:20 AM EDT


What if I posted as ‘Anonymoose’?

Ghosted by RandomInsano @ 07/03/2008 12:24 AM EDT


Great article Matt, I laughed my ass off at work. You gotta love those Trolls though, I don’t even know what he/she is guilty of.

Ghosted by Tector @ 07/03/2008 12:30 AM EDT


I’ll watch any movie/show if it had a Nintendo product placement

Ghosted by Aaron @ 07/03/2008 12:33 AM EDT


Aaron watch the Wizard with Fred Savage then. You’d LOVE it.

Ghosted by ULTRAMAN @ 07/03/2008 12:41 AM EDT


The full title of the Wizard should have been “The Wizard: A Feature Length Nintendo Commercial”

It did teach me how to get a warp whistle, though….

Ghosted by Shuanfu @ 07/03/2008 12:48 AM EDT


I totally remember the Pizza hut sunglasses! It was better than their mini basketballs for the final four in Denver. And another thing, I think bookit made me a fat gradeschooler

Ghosted by Bob @ 07/03/2008 12:50 AM EDT


The Wizard taught me to believe.

Ghosted by JoshC @ 07/03/2008 12:51 AM EDT


Fun Fact:

Contrary to popular belief, other than providing Super Mario Bros 3 (which had been out in Japan for a YEAR anyway), Nintendo had nothing to do with the concept and production of “The Wizard.” If you’ll notice, the characters never say “Nintendo,” they say “video games.”

That’s not to say they had anything against the idea, but it wasn’t a “Nintendo Commercial” as so many assume. That just happens to be the by product of the plot.

Really, taken on it’s own, The Wizard is actually a pretty good movie. As David Sheff describes it in his book about the history of Nintendo (A MUST read for Nintendo fans), it was like The Who’s Tommy…but for young kids.

CALIFORNIA!

Ghosted by Cameron T. @ 07/03/2008 12:55 AM EDT


I love the power glove. Its so bad

Ghosted by AdamB @ 07/03/2008 1:03 AM EDT


Cameron T. I didn’t know that Nintendo didn’t have anything to do with the movie, at least not anything OFFICIAL, accordin to you. STILL, that doesn’t make it ANY LESS of a giant Nintendo commercial in my eyes. I’m not saying I don’t like it, because I actually do.

Ghosted by ULTRAMAN @ 07/03/2008 1:14 AM EDT


I totally used that text to speech thing to say dirty words for about 10 minutes before I got back to reading the blog.

Ghosted by Mikeyspaghetti @ 07/03/2008 1:14 AM EDT


What’s with all the “fuck you” and “suck my balls” comments directed towards Anonymous? This is probably the only forum on the internet where no one attacks each other; and I sincerely hope it stays that way. I love how Matt “punished” us, and anonymous in a light hearted, hilarious fashion; everyone who’s cursing him out is missing the point.

Ghosted by scamp @ 07/03/2008 1:20 AM EDT


We used had a weekly trivia night at my bar, and I wrote a Video Game category one week with the question, “What movie contains the line, ‘I love the power glove. It’s so bad’?”

Out of twelve trivia teams of four, in which every member was a direct product of the 80s, not a single person got the correct answer. I almost got tears in my eyes while I was grading the sheets.

Ghosted by socialpariah @ 07/03/2008 1:27 AM EDT


I saw Congo when it came out, and do not remember a thing about it. I mean, beyond the angry apes thing. And I would have totally skipped the last several paragraphs of this blog if it hadn’t been for Anonymous and me hoping he/she would be mentioned further.
Also, I had the neon yellow and electric blue BTTF glasses. They were from Pizza Hut, I think.

Ghosted by kb @ 07/03/2008 1:28 AM EDT


I was always a huge Crichton fan, and I loved/hated how all of his books except the first Jurrassic Park and arguably Andromeda Strain translated into such god-awful movies. Congo not being the worste, but certainly the most notorious.

I totally forgot that was Bruce Campbell getting owned in the begining of the movie. If there is a Bruce Campbell action figure from that film it needs a review NOW.

I love plots that involve traumatized talking apes, and silver gorillas who still crush people’s heads for diamonds, generations after people stopped training them to do it.

I had three out of the four of those stupid sunglasses. Not because I wanted them or knew what the fuck they were, but because Pizza Hut was a great place for afternoons when mom and dad didn’t want to cook.

Ghosted by Justin B @ 07/03/2008 1:58 AM EDT


Wow, Cameron T., I had no idea about that. Thanks for the info. I guess cause it’s been so long since I saw the movie, but I never noticed that they never said Nintendo.

I’ve noticed on 24 (one of my favorite shows ever) that when they’re dealing with the leader of a nation that’s known for terrorism, they never refer to the leader’s country. I don’t think they’ve ever directly mentioned a country’s name in relation to who they’re trying to stop. They always refer to it as “your country” or “your people”. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe that they’ve ever mentioned 9/11 on the show. Makes sense though, because they’ve gone through 3 presidents already and none of them have been Bush, so you really could’t do a 9/11 show. The show kind of exists in this weird alternate version of America where terrorism is rampant, but 9/11 never happened, and they never mention the names of the contries the terrorists come from. Oh, and although it takes place in real time and an entire season takes place in one day, no one ever goes to the bathroom, eats, or sleeps.

socialpariah, I’ve only had the fun of doing trivia night twice but I had a blast both times. The first time I played it we came into the game way late but ended up sweeping it and beating everyone. I don’t think I could have a better trivia night experience than that one. The name of our team was “The Dishes Are Done, Man.” Out of all the teams competing, only one team really got the reference. It seemed like everyone on that team knew what it was from and afterwards came over and congratulated us and told us how funny our team name was. The announcer was just confused by it, and just called us “The Dishes” the whole time.

Ghosted by DJ D @ 07/03/2008 2:10 AM EDT


Wow, all of you are ganging up on Anonymous.

It’s a good thing your mothers aren’t here to read your comments. She would die of shame.

Ghosted by Mother of Anonymous @ 07/03/2008 2:13 AM EDT


DJD Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead is one of my FAV movies. My Momma LOVES it too. XD

Ghosted by ULTRAMAN @ 07/03/2008 2:35 AM EDT


DJ D: Yeah and that weird thing in 24 was never more apparent than in the most recent season. They should’ve figured out a better way to work around that in the scripts, because it was really awkward.

Ghosted by Matt @ 07/03/2008 2:35 AM EDT


DJ D: ya’ll shoulda just named yourselves the Kenny Crandell Skeet Shoot Authority or something. You can’t really shorten that.

Ghosted by socialpariah @ 07/03/2008 2:38 AM EDT


Actually, Kenner’s Jurassic Park figures were pretty bad too. I have the one of Ian Malcolm. He looks alright, even if a bit beefed up. But the lame thing is the giant backpack gun thing he has. I guess Kenner went through a stage where they figured play vaue for kids was more impoartant than film accuracy. Even the first new Star Wars figures in 1995 are infamous for presenting a beefed up Luke.

I just got a Heroes figure of Hiro a couple of days ago. He’s pretty cool looking. Mezco does a good job, althoug hthey always do heads a tad oversized. Like their Goonies line. I couldn’t find teh Claire figure, but she’s the only one on the pacakging that doesn’t have a very good face sculpt. Funny, I have the hardbound Heroes comic book, and she’s the least accurate character on the front too. Maybe she’s got a hard to capture face.

Ghosted by CMJ @ 07/03/2008 2:42 AM EDT


It’s 2:50 AM why isn’t there a new post yet? Matt must be busy being an alchoholic. X-E isn’t what it used to be. More like Megastupid.

oh god I’m logged in! noooooo

Ghosted by doho in the summer @ 07/03/2008 2:54 AM EDT


Oh Doho~

Ghosted by Neg @ 07/03/2008 2:57 AM EDT


Grrr. Could someone tell Wordpress to accept LessThan3’s?!??

I can’t live with out them ;_;;
I use them in almost every post, along with ^___^

There was supposed to be one at the end of that tilde, Doho :cry:

Ghosted by Neg @ 07/03/2008 3:00 AM EDT


I’m not sure what you was going to make.

Ghosted by doho in the summer @ 07/03/2008 3:04 AM EDT


Anonymous can eat the smegma from Adrian Adonis’ ever rotting corpse.

Was….was that too over the top?

Ghosted by Loneman1 @ 07/03/2008 3:10 AM EDT


Adrian Adonis was a bit obscure at the very least.

Ghosted by doho in the summer @ 07/03/2008 3:14 AM EDT


Yea, I guess that was a bit too far, nasticity(is that a word?) and obscurity-wise. My bad.

Ghosted by Loneman1 @ 07/03/2008 3:16 AM EDT


Too soon!

Ghosted by Matt @ 07/03/2008 3:18 AM EDT


:( I know, that was wrong. Let us never speak of this incident again. ANYWAY……BACK TO CONGO!!!! YAY!!!!

In all seriousness, I never saw the film, or read the book. I do vaguely remember the figures though. The whole premise seemed pretty cool. Alot of people I knew that read it said it was fairly decent, but as mentioned, was always compared to JP.

Ghosted by Loneman1 @ 07/03/2008 3:21 AM EDT


I’ve never seen Congo either, it amazes me that there’s been so much to say about it.

Ghosted by doho in the summer @ 07/03/2008 3:22 AM EDT


It does tend to show up in the strangest places doesn’t it? Now after reading this MegaParty post, it will inexplicably show up within a few days somehow.

Ghosted by Loneman1 @ 07/03/2008 3:25 AM EDT


AAAAND I totally misread your post Doho….I think sleep may be in order…a little too much MegaParty type celebration went on tonight.

Ghosted by Loneman1 @ 07/03/2008 3:29 AM EDT


I never knew Bruce Cambpell was in Congo ! Then again, iv’e only seen it a few times and he’s only in it for about 15mins.

Ghosted by ULTRAMAN @ 07/03/2008 3:32 AM EDT


Hmmm … didn’t Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje play Mr. Eko on Lost?

Also, I haven’t seen Congo yet, but I fully intend to. How can I not see a movie that has the Nintendo Power Glove, mad gorillas, missiles, Bruce Campbell and Tim Curry? Those last two alone are reason enough.

Ghosted by Frakkyfire @ 07/03/2008 3:35 AM EDT


Frakky, if you need more ammo, Ernie Hudson is in a starring role.

Ghosted by Matt @ 07/03/2008 3:37 AM EDT


I still enjoyed the article. Haha I’m bored.

Ghosted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 07/03/2008 3:37 AM EDT


Ernie Hudson! The best Ghostbuster.

Ghosted by doho in the summer @ 07/03/2008 3:40 AM EDT


Yup, Frakky, he was indeed Mr. Eko. At least thanks to LOST he got a much better likeness eventually in figure form.
I haven’t seen Congo in years so I didn’t realize that THING was supposed to be foxy Mr. Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Weak sauce, Kenner. At least my Ian Malcolm figure looked vaguely like Goldblum.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 07/03/2008 3:47 AM EDT


Well, hell, now I’m totally sold. I don’t understand how this movie wasn’t a smash hit. :)

Ghosted by Frakkyfire @ 07/03/2008 3:49 AM EDT


And on top of that it has extremely vicious mutant gorillas in it . Plus their grey. =D

Ghosted by ULTRAMAN @ 07/03/2008 4:07 AM EDT


ULTRAMAN, I heard about the Wizard, thanks to a certain AVGN. If I can, I will rent that, Congo, Ghostbusters, and original TMNT movie and call it movie night! Sad thing is I’ve only seen TMNT (old), and maybe Ghostbusters a long time ago. Thanks for the advice.

Ghosted by Aaron @ 07/03/2008 4:19 AM EDT


Matt, Exactly! I had actually never even noticed it until my dad pointed it out. He got me hooked on the show at the beginning of Season 4 and I haven’t looked back since. We made a point of watching the most recent season together every week. It was kind of our ritual because it’s his favorite show and probably my second favorite. Anyway, he pointed that out and I had never thought of it before until then, but yeah it was really awkward during the last one. I can’t wait for Jan. to get here so we can have some more 24. It’s been way too long. Another thing I noticed one season was Chloe got fired, then they called her and told her to come back to work. About 15 minutes later she shows up. Now, unless she lives in the basement of CTU, I find it hard to believe that she got from home to work in that amount of time, especially since she wasn’t exactly expecting that phone call, in LA traffic. In their defense, I think read somewhere that the time during the commercials counts as time on the ticker thing. If you notice, they take into account that sort of lost 2 minutes, so who knows what happens then that we don’t see.

Ghosted by DJ D @ 07/03/2008 5:13 AM EDT


I’ve never seen Congo, but it seems it should be on my list of to do.

Ghosted by DC @ 07/03/2008 7:02 AM EDT


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