I linked to an old entry about The Revenger in a recent post, and today, the guy who actually invented the thing e-mailed me. It was one of those odd moments where you really believe that there's some kind of circular pattern built into the universe. Plus, now I have an extra resume bullet point to put under "quoted on the Ghoulies IV DVD box." It's getting to the point where I can write my own ticket.
I don't remember buying this, but I found a Kenner trade catalog from 1987 in one of my many piles of books, filled with excellent, professional toy photos that I may swipe and scan should I ever decide to do a full article on any of the featured lines. As the cover states, the catalog was given to buyers and press at that year's Toy Fair convention, meaning that everything covered inside was both brand spankin' new and of utmost importance to Kenner. (For those unaware, Kenner was among the largest toy distributors in the world until they were bought out by Hasbro in the early '90s.)
Expectedly, the catalog is a fun nostalgia trip, but what I really love is how they provided "Plan-O-Grams" for each of the featured toy lines — suggested setups for toy stores to display their goods. Below are a few of my favorites…
Most of the Plan-O-Grams were wishful thinking on Kenner's part, as even the largest chains probably weren't ready to roll the dice by providing eight feet of shelf space to Furrever Friends or Fluppy Dogs. On the other hand, this Real Ghostbusters "Ghost Center" seems realistic enough. The series was still in its infancy at the time, meaning that all Slimer-related doodads still bore the rare "Green Ghost" title.
Definitely the most successful of the many lines featured in the catalog, I had most of the stuff on that rack. Note the neat section dedicated to cans of Ecto-Plazm in the lower right. I still firmly believe that Ecto-Plazm was the best toy slime in history, and the breadth of competition is far wider than you might think.
I'm saddened to learn that there were Stay Puft and Slimer plush dolls available. I certainly never had (or saw) those as a kid. While it's nice to picture yesteryear's toy stores as being full of line-specific "Plan-O-Grams" such as this, the truth is, they weren't. Those dolls probably got thrown into the random plushie aisle, forced to make themselves seem attractive to a clientele of little girls who had little interest in ghastly spooks.
Gotta hand it to Play-Doh…the stuff has staying power. Many toy stores still keep setups just like this one, right down to the yellow "Fun Center" signage. In fact, while the specific properties Mr. Play-Doh chooses to team up with have obviously changed since then, the generalities of the toys shown here are really no different from what you'd see in stores today.
Look close at the middle shelf and note the three-pound (!!!) tubs of single-color Play-Doh. Definitely haven't seen those in a while. While my brain thinks that trying to sell that much Play-Doh in a single color was a fool's idea, my heart beams at the thought of a three-pound bucket full of even the shittiest color. (Which is PURPLE, in case you were unaware.)
The property-specific Play-Doh playsets included Silverhawks, Mask, and to continue tonight's theme, The Real Ghostbusters. The RGB set was particularly nice, including both a small-scale Ecto-1 vehicle and a canister of all-new glow-in-the-dark Play-Doh. I wonder if the glow-in-the-dark Play-Doh was still nontoxic? Having spent much of my life as a proud eater of Play-Doh, I would've been most pleased to have a meal that glowed in the dark. In fact, for however taboo, I'm surprised Kenner didn't just throw caution to the wind and promote it like that. You're telling me you wouldn't have been the least bit interested in eating something that glowed? I can't believe the Weekly Reader didn't cover this.
Not sure if any of you remember Sky Commanders, a line that helped establish an odd trend of action figures sized somewhere between M.U.S.C.L.E. and G.I. Joe toys. I guess you could compare their scale to MASK, another collection featured in this catalog. I'm overusing the italics tags and I sincerely apologize.
Whereas MASK relied on disguised, weapon-loaded vehicles for a gimmick, Sky Commanders relied on…green string. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. Most Sky Commanders sets consisted of a pinky-length action figure and a vehicle which could be mounted to slide across, up or down a green string. It worked really well, and I'll never forget the awesome sense of accomplishment whenever I sent General Summit flying across the room, four feet above the floor.
I guess I can't claim that random 1987 toy store Plan-O-Grams make for the most exciting subject I've ever covered, so to provide this entry with added oomph, I will end on a new Bug Joke.
Q: What did the wasp say to the panhandling beetle? A: Quit "bugging" me.
…and also with a picture of a bug.
…and then one of a boat.
…and then one featuring Thanos's possibly-maybe granddaughter, Nebula.
PS: Spellcheck has cleared "oomph" as an actual word. Yes!
My sister's family is in the process of remodeling their home, and they've spent the past few months dismantling their basement, parting ways with long-held artifacts of yesteryear.
In the process, she came upon a few letters which I apparently mailed to her when I was nine-years-old. (Or, more truthfully, letters I wrote, placed in envelopes, drew stamps on and just handed to her.) One of these letters may be a little too odd to keep to myself.
(click pic to enlarge)
My sister is much older than me, and was already in her own house by the time this letter was written. She'd gotten into the habit of bringing me packs of stickers whenever she dropped by. Though the untrained eye might believe differently, this seems to be a thank-you letter for one such set of stickers.
Largely just a mismatched pile of doodles, the core "note" section reads as follows: "I got the new stickers you sent me. They are cool! I also like the postcard with the monkey with gun. I hope you like this Corvette in Hollywood! Write back!"
Hmmm. The "postcard with the monkey with gun?" I do have some vague recollection of a photo of a chimp with an exploded gum bubble covering half of his face, and I can only assume that the "postcard with the monkey with gun" refers to this. Frankly, it's obvious that I only wrote words on the page to make it work legally as a letter. I was far more interested in doodling random bullshit.
And what doodles the are! The central piece is a pink Corvette in a Hollywood setting. I titled the car "Corvette '88 Super Star," for reasons that have been completely lost over the twenty years that have passed since this was written. Also interesting is my pathetic attempt at a palm tree, which looks more like a feather duster, or possibly several thousand palm trees superimposed on top of each other.
The top third of the letter is riddled with much more random scribbles, including a series of fake stamps and stickers. There's a stamp marked "N.Y. Lamborghini," which really makes me wonder if I was more into cars that I seem to recall. The three stamps at the top depict a boy with sunglasses, Earth with one of Saturn's rings, and a whoopee cushion? The hell? Why did I make a whoopee cushion stamp?
The phony stickers on the left are equally puzzling. One lists a bunch of video game consoles, while another reads, "I'm Not DEAF I'm Just Ignoring You." A final sticker simply says "Bug Jokes." What the fuck are bug jokes?
And just in case my sister wasn't clear that some of these doodles were intended to be stamps, a final stamp-shaped doodle reads… "STAMP."
The lower third of the page is the real money shot, featuring a scene from the old Rampage video game, with Lizzie being joined by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on a destructive romp in the Bronx. I loved crossovers.
Incredibly, she even kept the envelope. I assume that these random Halloween stickers were the ones I was thanking her for. Check out that swank Headless Horsemen, and the awesome space marked "PLACE STAMP HERE."
I don't remember being this weird. Now that I have proof of it, the course of my life is starting to make a lot more sense. I dunno, though. I can deal with most of this stuff, but it's pretty hard to reconcile the "Bug Jokes" thing.
Q: Why did Bumble Bob get detention? A: He wasn't "bee-ing" good.
Wait, wait, UPDATE: Someone pointed out that it doesn't say "Bug Jokes," but rather, "Bag O Jokes." Now I'm even more confused.
Writing the X-E Summer Megaparty has been a constant reminder that I haven't done anything remotely "summery" since the weather got nice. I intend to rectify that this weekend, so expect coverage of something that actually exists outdoors in natural light. Let's just hope I don't shrivel into ash while accomplishing this, but I'm prepared for the worst with the single most incredible Interview With The Vampire Dunst scream impression you'll ever hear. Seriously, I don't know why I'm so good at that.
Only eight days into the Megaparty, and already I've settled into a bogus 11 PM posting schedule. On the bright side, the second half of July is shaping up to be way less busy than this half. This half kinda sucks. Would it kill the working class to put everything on hold so I can blog with a clear head and eat lots of snowcones?
In tonight's entry: A Super Mario pinball game and a tiny, dirty dinosaur toy. Yeah, I've begun taking reader requests. Tomorrow, we'll talk about feet.
The Super Mario 64 Electronic LCD Pinball Game is something I picked up several years ago from a liquidating KB Toys that's since closed down. I thought it'd make for a killer article, but after spending five years with the thing and never once having the desire to write about it, I guess I was just suckered in by the handwritten "7.99" price tag. You always know you're getting a good deal when the price tag is handwritten. This phenomenon isn't uncommon within the many KB Toys establishments littering the globe. Is it just me, or do they train all of their employees to have the same exact penmanship? I've bought handwritten price tag items from more than two dozen KB stores across at least four states, and the price tag penmanship is always *exactly* the same.
If the above spiel felt like filler to you, I concede defeat. There just isn't a whole lot to say about this beast. As far as pop-themed pinball games go, this is a boring, barebones affair that I barely feel justified in having paid eight dollars for, let alone the original retail price of 34.99.
The main issue is that it isn't a true Nintendo product, but moreover just the pitiful result of a junky toy company getting a steal on the licensing rights. The game is totally "skinnable," meaning that if you swapped the stickers and cardboard "floor" with pictures from a different property, it'd work just as well. Take away those things, and this has absolutely nothing to do with Super Mario 64. The pinball elements are totally generic, while the electronic sounds are more akin to a battery-operated Revenger than anything that would've spewed from a Nintendo 64 cartridge. It's a real shame, because this whole mess would've been far more forgivable if I heard Mario's "WA-hoooooo" after sinking the ball through the mid-top pinball tunnel.
If you think I'm being too harsh, note that the functionality of the game is positively terrible. The toymaker who designed Mario Pinball evidently hated whatever clientele he envisioned buying it, as the layout makes it impossible to last more than a few seconds before losing a ball. (And the process of getting the ball back into the slingshot position is so convoluted that I won't even bother trying to put words to it.)
There are no action features to speak of. You just shoot the ball, and it comes back down. It may hit a few things along the way, but those things do nothing to alter the course of said ball. Hitting them only serves to trigger a series of obscene electronic sounds that I absolutely never want to hear again. I don't think it really translates in this video, but Christ, these are some awful noises.
I like the concept of a Super Mario pinball game, but I hate this version, especially because I had to climb over a lot of sharp shit to pull it out of our storage closet.
Moving away from pinball: After stealing my mother's eBay fodder for that Robo Force entry, I decided to drop off some of my old junk for her to sell. On my way in, I looked behind some bushes in the front of the house I grew up in, and I couldn't believe it. Barely visible underneath the sticks and dirt was a toy I distinctly remembered owning as a child. I didn't even have to look close to know that it was this weird little orange dinosaur figure that I absolutely loved toting around back in elementary school.
According to the text on the dinosaur's ass, I left him back there in 1987. Pretty incredible that he's survived every storm and squirrel to past through the front yard for over two decades.
It took me a while to remember what line the dinosaur was from, but a little Googlin' goes a long way. How could I forget Panosh's terrific line of tiny-sized, fruity-colored dinosaur figures? Hindsight tells me that Panosh created this as a direct result of Mattel's popular M.U.S.C.L.E. collection, which forced virtually every competitor to try their hand at a series of "little figures." Mainly sold in large multipacks, I was totally in love with these pocket-sized prehistoric pals. I definitely remember this orange dino being the last one I managed to hold onto, and assume that serious tears were shed when he got lost behind the bushes in the front of our house.
Still not sure how he got there. After numerous snake sightings, I was deathly afraid of those bushes and their surrounding area. Something's fishy.
On a final note, there was a recent comment from someone wondering if I kept that Simpsons Movie donut from last July. If I can retain a Panosh dinosaur for twenty years, I think I can manage a donut for less than one.
Had a long day at work, so all you're getting tonight is a short story about frogs.
Growing up near the woods and several sewer drains meant that frogs were a big part of the summers of my youth. My friends and I were blessed, as the ecological balance in our neighborhood seemed to forge only the stupidest of frogs, which were incredibly easy to catch no matter how ridiculous our attempts may have been. (I do recall at least one instance of trying to scoop frogs out of a pond with a Mets baseball cap. That was the only time we didn't go home with frogs.)
I'm sure boredom and a general love of frogs had something to do with our obsession, but beyond that, these frogs always seemed to be taunting us. There was a sewer drain right across the street from my house, and whenever my friends and I were outside doing whatever it was we did, these spiteful frogs would hang out and make noises right on the grate, seeming to dare us to try to catch them.
We could never resist. Oh, the frustrated screams we'd bellow whenever we were this close to snagging one with our bare hands, only to watch the frog effortlessly dart into the dark muck. Recalling those awful feelings, I now know how people must feel when I play against them in Brawl as Pikachu.
Still, if we really wanted a frog, it wasn't hard to get one. They were everywhere. Before the city I live in became overstuffed with housing developments, forestal areas were pretty much at every turn. And they were filled with frogs.
That brings me to the point of this small, frog-centric entry. Whenever we caught a frog, we were happy, but we weren't exactly sure what we were supposed to do with it. It wasn't as if any of us had the foresight to pre-construct a special frog tank for such an occasion, so we'd usually puppet them like action figures for a minute or two before setting 'em free. I may be blocking out one or two memories of unjust harm done to frogs over the course of our many adventures, but I hope we played on the straight and narrow.
I know I did. Except for that one time.
See, I had gotten this hermit crab at the Jersey shore one summer. You usually don't buy hermit crabs at the Jersey shore without buying some kind of cage to go with it, and mine was this coffee can-sized meshy thing with a pop-off plastic top. After the hermit crab died and I settled its estate, it occurred to me that its former abode would've made for an absolutely perfect Frog Containment Unit.
On my next frog capture, I gleefully returned home, frog in palm, and introduced my earthy friend to his happy little hermit crab cage. He looked so awesome in there. Seemingly cognizant to the fact that he couldn't escape, the frog just sat right in the middle of the cage, puffing out its throat and being obscenely cute. I placed the cage on a little nightstand by my bed and drifted off into a slumber filled with froggy dreams and toad thoughts.
When I woke up, the frog was as dead as a doornail and dried to a crisp.
In the early 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission issued a "Care Labeling Rule" which mandated that all articles of clothing for sale had to include an instruction label for proper cleaning. I suppose that most of us spend our lives taking little things like this for granted, but it's true: The world once dwelled in befuddlement, not knowing what the fuck to do with silk.
Anyway, the FTC was evidently quite proud of the millions of dry-clean-only shirts that they saved from unspeakable horrors, and they wanted to let the world know. The only conceivable way to do this was with a public service announcement. So, they bought a little ad time to christen this dawn of a new era when all prior confusion over how to wash slacks CEASED to exist.
Had their public service announcement been even borderline sane, our story would end there. But it wasn't borderline sane. It was beautiful, but it definitely wasn't sane. Of all the misguided pitch meetings over the course of history that I would've love to been a fly on the wall for, none come close to this. How it is possible that someone persuaded the Federal Trade Commission to spread the word of their "Care Labeling Rule" with a public service announcement starring Frankenstein's Monster?
Clearly the work of the manipulative Senator Palpatine. In the twenty-second spot (I assume they left ten seconds open for potential future tags by local sponsors, so after you watched Frankestein flip the fuck out over laundry, you'd be invited to come meet him at Al's Steak and Tires on Route 28)….I've lost my train of thought.
In the twenty-second spot, Frankenstein's Monster yells at Igor for neglecting to read the "new care labels" and ruining yet another load of laundry. This particular version of Frankenstein's Monster is so over-the-top hilarious that it took me a few views to even notice how piss poor the Igor was. Like Nick Tortelli in a toga.
I totally dig the fact that the FTC smoked triple-laced crack cocaine before picking a TV script from a pile of several candidates, but it's just so odd to see official government business handled with such a light touch. Then again, we're just talking about shirt labels, here.
Actually, the classic movie monsters had a huge, huge resurgence in the early '70s. Pretty much every boy's toy on the market had something to do with Dracula or our friendly laundry addict. If the target demo for this PSA was the youth of the nation, I guess it almost maybe hypothetically made sense. But what did ten-year-olds care about clothing labels?
My mother moonlights as an eBayer, which is likely a byproduct of watching me support myself that way when I still lived at home. Her walk-in closet is perpetually littered with garage sale finds, and has that familiar, dank aroma that can only be caused by the trash of seventy families conglomerating into a small, enclosed space.
I haven't had much time lately to go garage sailing myself, so I kinda live vicariously through her. I got fed up with garage sales once everyone became vaguely familiarized with eBay and marked their used salt shakers up into the double digits. Still, if her purchases are any indication, there's still plenty of good, cheap crap just waiting to be plucked for couch change.
On my most recent visit, I couldn't believe my eyes. Somehow, someone held onto and sold a boxed Robo Force "Command Patroller," apparently unused, and it only cost my mother fifty cents. Back when I was still hunting, these were the kind of finds I dreamed about.
She said she bought it a few weekends ago, and the fact that I didn't even bother asking for permission before loading it into my car probably explains why she didn't mention this to me sooner. Her fifty-cent investment bought me a blog entry, and for this I am eternally grateful.
If you don't remember Robo Force, it was a mid-'80s series of robot action figures with Pop-Oid style arms and suction cup bottoms. Though obviously created as a direct result of Optimus Prime's popularity, Robo Force toys were nothing like Transformers. The series wasn't exactly a huge hit, but despite its obscurity, everyone who ever had a Robo Force toy remembers it. Robots with Pop-Oid arms and suction cup asses…not easily forgotten. There are some things you just cannot unsee.
I've already reviewed the largest toy in the series, the impenetrable Fortress of Steele. This Command Patroller was the second largest, and actually, it was the only vehicle in the entire Robo Force line. Why don't we see what it does?
Right off the bat, the toy comes with the plus of being ridiculously gigantic. It's bigger than it needs to be, sure, but that doesn't falsify its size. Even shitty toys seem wonderful when they're big enough, so if this thing has any cool features at all, I may have to ask it out and buy it lilies.
I just realized that this particular Command Patroller is missing several of its originally included plastic guns. That's odd, considering that all of the cardboard was still in the box and the stickers weren't even applied. Why would someone ransack the box for a few cheap guns? This is clearly the end result of a drunken dorm-wide scavenger hunt. I hate kids.
The weird shovel thing in the front…I'm not really sure what it's for, and the description on the box nor the included instruction manual is helping to clue me in. I would assume that it's intended to "scoop up" another Robo Force figure, but that seems like a pretty weak central offense for a vehicle large enough for me to hide inside.
There are two "revolving airlock bay doors," which allow you to alternatively hide and reveal random Robo Force figures. The bay doors don't lead anywhere, so all the robots can really do in there is wait for the right time to push the door open and yell PEEK-A-BOO at unsuspecting comrades. If that line didn't read funny enough, remember to use your robot voice when you get to "peek-a-boo."
Also of note is the "telescoping robot lift arm," which is a longer way of saying, "claw." The "claw" narrowly succeeds in holding single figures above ground, and I guess that was the robots' way to imprison spies until they could be properly set on fire while their enemies engaged in ritualistic dances around them. If these guys would go through the trouble of building two gigantic, revolving doors that lead nowhere, voodoo sacrifice could not have been beyond their scope of interest.
Finally, there's a big door that opens to reveal a fairly large compartment in the back. It isn't big enough for the figures to fit inside (well, not without smacking them in sideways with some kind of metallic gavel), so I suppose that the robots use the hatch for weapons storage.
When I first popped down the big door, I found a neat Robo Force mini-comic hiding inside. It said PEEK-A-BOO. I haven't gotten around to reading its substantial eight pages yet, because I've had enough fun this Fourth of July weekend and really don't deserve to have more.
Okay, so it isn't the most amazing toy in history, but as a fifty-cent garage sale find, it's a roof-raiser. I would've paid more than quadruple that for the box alone, which would've then been cut up into tiny pieces and reformed into a beach-scene mosaic. I'd start doing that now, but even I know that I'd be pushing into a dangerous territory if I made a mosaic out of a Robo Force box on a Saturday night.
Happy SNT, the first of several for the Summer Megaparty!
Why don't we try a totally unrelated survey? I honor of my recent cruise, discuss some of the worst vacations you've ever taken. I'll post a few of mine in the comments later tonight.
Correction: I said that this was the only Robo-Force vehicle in the series. That was a huge lie. There were two. I was testing you.
I spent my Independence Day watching and rewinding the scene where Randy Quaid yells "alien assholes" at a giant spaceship before blowing himself up, and I think that's about as good as a Fourth of July can get.
Fireworks are illegal here, but I sure am hearing plenty of them. Actually, all I've really heard all day are bunches of firecrackers going off directly before a single bottle rocket. Not sure what's up with that, but it sounds like a monkey cheering at the sight of a package of Jiffy Pop cooking on the stove. The cops around here are usually pretty lax about the fireworks laws, so I expect to see bright lights in the shape of urchins, stars and vulvas filling the sky any minute now.
I wanted to write about something distinctly summery today, and in lieu of actual fireworks, I'll turn on the waterworks.
Many of you will look at the above photo and think, "big deal, it's just a Super Soaker." Oi. In fact, that's one of the first Super Soakers from 1989, which I had and loved right in the prime of my water gunning years. It's nothing special today, but back then, owning a Super Soaker was a ticket to instant superstardom.
I was never good at any of the things the old neighborhood kids competed against one another in. The biggest regret of my childhood is that I lived two blocks from a schoolyard with an attached grassy field, dictating that every weekend would be full of football, baseball and other words that felt like four-letter ones to me. Even when we had a good ol' fashioned dirtbomb fight, my aim was so terrible that I had to scratch all offensive maneuvers and focus on using dirt to mound up a defensive wall.
It was the same deal with water gun fights…until I got a Super Soaker. It'd be a gross understatement to say that those who were still warring with regular water guns were unprepared to match wits with a Super Soaker, and my friends could barely wipe the "HOLY SHIT HE GOT ONE" looks off of their faces before I aqua-pummeled them into the forty-seventh layer of Hell.
Despite its cool name, loud colors and possibly exaggerated size, the Super Soaker wasn't just popular for its glitz and glamour. It really was the most powerful water gun on the planet, or at least, the most powerful one that underage folks could legally carry. I went from being an inconsequential moving target to the absolute star of the neighborhood, and if people weren't kissing my ass to get my Soaker-enhanced talents on their water gun team, then they were kissing it in the hopes that I'd let them try shooting the thing. It isn't easy to purchase popularity for around twenty bucks, but this did it.
Course, my run on top was short-lived. Within a few weeks, every kid in town had a Super Soaker. It went from being a luxury item to something completely mandatory. Even with my Soaker-enhanced talents, I still had bad aim, and I still ran as if an unseen investor was paying me to run poorly. It was fine when I was the only one with a Super Soaker, but once the streets were full of them, my shine turned to shit.
Over the years, Super Soakers have only grown bigger and more intricate, making the originals seem like baby toys. Still, for a few weeks back in '89, I was the ruler of the universe, and my constant edict was to saturate every fucker who ever dicked me over with an unholy barrage of H2O.
As mentioned in past entries, the woman and I share our apartment with several cats. If you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go see if any of them are currently engaging in unfavorable activity. If they are, I know just the thing to do.
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
Posted by Matt @ 10:04 pm [Permalink] [122 Comments]
