Okay, so I get really bored when I take lunch during work because I have an hour to kill with nothing to do. So I tend to drive out to the local mega-marts and just look around. Once a week I hit Wal-Mart just so I can pass the time digging though the $5.50 DVD bin looking for nostalgia treasures. Lately there have been quite a few, some that were on my wish list for years, I've just never wanted to pay the asking price. For instance, *Batteries Not Included is a fun flick, but I don't think I'll ever be so in love with it that I'd be willing to plunk down $13 or more for it. I mean its basically just Cocoon junior with cute little robots instead of helpful glowing pod people. Hell, I can't bring myself to spend $10 on Cocoon. But $4.88? That's a price that'll make me bite.

Anyway, on these trips to the $5.50 bin I keep seeing all these copies of flicks from the 80's that I feel should be in someone's DVD collection instead of lying under ten copies of Left Behind II or the Martial Arts Masters 5 Movie Set. So I've decided to do something about it. Potentially.

I'm going to try starting a contest, one a month for at least the next four months (because that's about how much I was willing to invest in this concept.) The winner of the contest will receive a brand new DVD of a movie from the 80's (always widescreen if I can help it and region 1 because that's where I live) postage paid and everything.

What is the contest you ask? Well I was trying to think of something fun and interactive I could do that wasn't just a matter of sending in an e-mail or answering a question (how can you stump someone who has the internet without asking a question like "What do I have in my pocket?") So I decided it would be fun to have a Coloring Contest! Yup that's right, break out your Crayola's, stick your tongue out the corner of your mouth and try to stay in the lines folks! I've decided to make a coloring book page from a book that never existed, the Little Shop of Horrors Coloring & Activity Book! (At least I don't think it ever existed, I don't remember it and I couldn't find one when I googled it.)

This month's DVD prize is of course Little Shop of Horrors starring Rick Moranis in the part he was born to play, Seymour Krelborn, the vivacious Ellen Greene as Audrey (oh to hear her say Doctor again and again), and Vincent Gardenia as an adequate Mr. Mushnik. Directed by the man who stuck his hand up Yoda's ass and made him talk, Frank Oz, not to mention the 6 million cameos by the likes of Christopher Guest, Bill Murray, John Candy, James "No, I'm not my brother" Belushi, as well as my favorite Steve Martin role as the Dentist with a penchant for shooting puppies with a B.B. gun.

So, what do you have to do to get your hands on this copy of Little Shop of Horrors? Click on the below coloring book page image to get a full size scan of my drawing, slap some color on it (crayons, markers, colored pencils, misc. food items, Photoshop, whatever) and either email me your masterpiece of coloring skills or post it online and send me a link to it (either in e-mail or in the comments section) with your name and address (so I can send the DVD if you win silly.)

The deadline for entries is Monday, October 30th, 2006 and a panel of judges including myself, my lovely fiancee, my beagle puppy, and the loudest cat in the greater Atlanta area will pick a winner. I'll post the winning entry on the blog on Halloween (hell, I'll probably post all the entries seeing as there will probably be like two.) Here's to hoping this idea works.

After finding out about that awesome Collector's Edition of the Complete Greatest American Hero TV series on DVD a couple weeks ago I've really been in the mood to watch the show as I haven't seen it in probably 20 years or so. I picked up the first season DVD's and have been watching them all week so I thought I'd take a minute to take a look at the pilot movie for the series.

The show was the somewhat reluctant brainchild of Stephen J. Cannell (the uber writer/producer who brought us Hunter and 21 Jump Street) who said in the special features that the idea of doing a Super Hero show was pitched to him in a meeting, but that he wasn't really interested at first. He kicked the idea around with some of his staffers and decided that it might make a fun show after all, but only if it was handled in a more down to earth manner so to speak. He wanted the main character to be an everyday Joe who gets his powers from his suit instead of just being imbued with power. He also wanted the characters to tackle smaller, more local problems instead of fighting for world peace against armies and the like (which is more of what the studio wanted to see.)

What I found really interesting after watching the pilot and the special features was how closely the show mirrored reality. For instance William Katt, who plays Ralph Hinkley, hated the suit just as much as the character did so in scenes where you see a pained expression on his face as he's changing he isn't acting.


Also, according to Katt in the special features, he and Robert Culp (who plays the FBI agent Bill Maxwell) did not see eye to eye as actors and had a very similar dynamic on the show. I think it was brining real emotions into the show like this that really made it work and not come off as hokey as it probably should have.

It was also kind of interesting that even though this was a TV show with a much smaller budget than most of the movies being made at the time, Cannell was determined to try and keep the special effects at a level that was close to the Superman movies in terms of the character flying. They didn't want to shoot Katt lying on a board like in the old Superman show, but to instead try and give him the greatest range of movement possible as Richard Donner did with Christopher Reeve. Though most of the shots are blue-screened in, which doesn't hold up all that well to DVD picture quality, they were top notch for the day and pretty much unheard of in TV shows.


There's also an awesome shot of a spaceship that lands in the desert to deliver to suit to Earth that would be right at home in Close Encounters.


The pilot tries hard to not be straight forward and predictable, most notably because Ralph Hinkley doesn't want the suit that's given to him and he doesn't get power hungry or brash. The story revolves around a plot by a terrorist organization trying to seize control of the presidency at the same time that a race of aliens (referred to as the "little green guys") descends to earth to award a suit to a person who shows great potential for honesty, caring and intelligence. Ralph Hinkley is a school teacher who is in charge of the Special Ed class (read problem children in the vein of the Sweathogs from Welcome Back Kotter) who meets up with FBI agent Bill Maxwell in the desert while on a field trip.


After being separated from the kids, Maxwell and Hinkley are buzzed by a UFO which informs them that they come in peace to give a gift which is delivered by the dead space-zombie ex-partner of Maxwell (who we first see in the pilot opening being killed by the above terrorist organization.)


The UFO then flies off, leaving Maxwell and Hinkley to figure out how to use the suit. Maxwell ditches Hinkley in the desert where he promptly loses the instruction manual that came with the suit.


Another way that the pilot tries to differ from convention is with Hinkley's girlfriend Pam Davidson (played by Connie Sellecca) who early on finds Ralph in the suit. Most shows would take this opportunity to set up a verycommon sitcom convention of having Ralph hiding his super powers from her which would put him in a number of compromising positions, and of course hilarity would ensue. Greatest American Hero side steps this and has Hinkley tell her about the suit and powers in this first episode which is a very non-super hero thing to do as seen in practically every comic book ever. Very quickly Pam, Ralph and Bill become a team.


I also really dug how rich the back story of the characters was from scene one. Ralph, who's trying to gain full custody of his son from his model ex-wife, is dating Pam, his lawyer in the case. He's also already knee deep in problems dealing with his high school students, be it fist fights with Tony (played by Michael Pare of Eddie and the Cruisers fame) or carefully fighting off the advances of Rhonda (played by amazing Faye Grant who played Julie Parrish the rebel leader in the V mini series.) This is an approach that Cannell uses in all of his shows that really makes them interesting and watch-able even though they tend to have silly premises (I mean adult cops going undercover in high schools, c'mon.)

I also really like that the show centers on a very realistic approach to the character keeping things like where to change out of his clothes (gas station bathrooms) and how to master flying (by holding heavy objects to keep balance) in the forefront.




It's also nice to know that Cannell knew his target audience was mainly kids, but he didn't write the show down to them as much as other shows did. In fact the Greatest American Hero feels right at home next to shows like the Dukes of Hazzard, the A-Team, and Nightrider, all of which can just as easily be watched by adults as kids.

I think my favorite scene from the pilot is where Ralph has just put the suit on in public for the first time and is trying to fly to get to a custody hearing on time. He can't quite get off the ground until a kid steps up and lets him know that he's doing it all wrong, that he needs to take three big steps and then leap up like he would off a diving board. It only takes the wisdom of a child to get the Greatest American Hero up in the air.

Anyway, moving right along, the next Franky item on my list was rather disappointing. I’ve never bought into any of the grow-a-pet (or hand, heart, Peter Griffin from Family Guy, what-have-you) craze. You buy a sponge-like little shrunken thing, pop it in water, and days later it’s a much bigger waterlogged object that is somehow cooler. Okay, maybe that does sound a little cool, and that’s probably why I broke down and bought this little Frankenstein trinket at Party City. I wanted to grow my very own Frankenstein.


The package promised that my monster would grow 600% in size over three days. Well it was a little disappointing to say the least.


I broke out the biggest Rubbermaid container in my collection with hopes of my Frankenstein monster out growing it and taking his rightful place as the king of the rest of my toy stuff.


Well by day two he had hardly grown and he ended up looking like a little monster man with a case of boob sag that could only be rivaled by an episode of the Golden Girls.






After a week had passed this was as large as my monster got. Now this might even be 600% the size of the little fella that I first plunked into the pool of lukewarm water, but it was much less than I expected and not very impressive at all. My hopes of having him trample through my toy box knocking over Star Wars figures and dropkicking Transformers were dashed. Oh well, he was only a buck.

So as I mentioned in the last post, my favorite stuff for the Halloween blogging this year would probably be the various bits of Halloween on the cheap I've found in dollar stores and such. I was really surprised by how many different things you could get for a dollar.

I think over the next week I'll cover a bunch of different Frankenstein's monster related items that I picked up for a buck apiece. Though a growing love for the Creature might very soon beat him out, Frankenstein has always been my monster of choice not to mention one of my favorite movies ever, and this Halloween provided many opportunities to pick up cheap stuff with his likeness on it.

The first is an item I overlooked at the dollar store the first time I stopped in (I was much more preoccupied with finding the mini monster figures and posters that Kirk over at his Secret Fun Blog wrote about in September, and which I'll talk about next week.) It's a weird amalgamation of a leftover dollar store product ventures that the manufacturer decided to cobble together to make a super fun game out of.


The game is a variation on darts (with a weird pin the human ear on a monster twist) where you use the provided mini plastic skeleton arm as a lacrosse stick to fling a gooey sticky severed human ear at a Frankenstein styled target board.


The ear that came with the set is probably the most impressive thing about it. It was hiding a rather gross bit of paint application on the back that freaked me out a little. I wasn't expecting it to be that realistic with a meaty exposed bit where you can even see a little ring of cartilage. Mix this with is really sticky nature and you've got yourself a winner of a dollar store purchase. The plastic skeleton arm is kind of cool, though it's molded in such a fashion that it's pretty useless outside of this setting, unless you have need of a mini plastic skeleton arm that looks like it's cupping something, which I don't.


Well when I said "super fun" above what I meant to say was that it was super fun for about ten minutes before the main source of fun, the ear, got all dirty and dust covered from hitting the floor and ceiling tiles in my office. I never realized how dirty the floor was, but it's all stuck to the ear now, so oh well. The game was actually not very fun as the target board is pretty small and it's almost impossible to aim with the skeleton catapult arm thing, so I ended up ditching it in favor of just chucking the ear at various hard surfaces to see how misshapen it could get on impact.

At the end of the day the whole idea of flinging body parts at Frankenstein was just sort of weird to me. I mean were angry villagers so pissed that they'd rip their own ears off and throw them at the monster? Or was it more the case that the monster would rip their ears off, pretend to talk into them (ala Reservoir Dogs), and then drop them at which point the angry villager would pick their own ear back up and throw it at the monster? The latter falls into my theory of the Law of Severed Limbs (and ears or whatever) where upon having a limb torn from a body it must then be used as a club or projectile. I don't know.

I’m going to switch back into Halloween gear this morning I think. I’ve sort of been running out of ideas of what to post about probably because I didn’t go into this with any sort of game plan. No focus I tell you. In fact it’s not until this late in the game that I think I’ve found some, but oh well. This year’s favorite moments so far have been finding and talking about some of the cheaper Halloween goodness I’ve found in local dollar stores and super markets. Today’s subject is by far my favorite, and it’s shaping up to be the best $3 I’ve ever spent on the holiday.

While rummaging around in my local Publix looking for decent chicken soup (coming down with a cold and I just want comfort food) I came across a new addition to their Halloween display (which was the weakest it’s ever been, just two feet of stuff on peg boards.) The product was simply called the Disguise Set and was described as “Fun for the whole family, Fun for girls and boys.�?


What caught my eye at first was the really cool packing art, two small paintings of a boy and girl covered in the disguise gear. It seems like anymore most packaging is either super slick with a lot of bad CG renderings or super simple, one color affairs with a very tiny silhouetted illustration or two, so this art really stood out to me. It sort of feels like it’s of a different era, and probably is, though I’m certainly no expert on stuff like this.


The entire set consists of 23 pieces of pieces of plastic (well, 21, two are actually stickers) that can be combined in six million different disguise variations. In total you get a pair of fake glasses, two glow in the dark bulging bloodshot eyes, a set of glamour eyelashes, two novelty sized ears, a “large schnoz�?, silly teeth love lips, a set of vampire fang teeth, an eye patch, 2 sticker scars, five long finger nails, and five distinctly different moustaches.


To tell the truth, I bought the set for the packaging more than the contents because I didn’t think most of the stuff would fit or work and honestly it just didn’t seem like that much of an impressive assortment. How wrong I was. After taking some pictures I cracked the packing open and sorted out the contents. I spent the next four hours making myself into so many different characters with completely different personalities that Lon Chaney gave me the thumbs up from the grave. For three dollars worth of plastic it sure as hell entertained me for a long time, and I even managed to scare the living crap out of my fiancée when I picked her up from work. I stuck the bulging glow in the dark bloodshot eyes in right before she opened the door to the car, made a Frankenstein growling noise as she got in and made her jump back out of the car with a very satisfying scream. My dog wasn’t nearly as impressed when I got home.

I took like six million pictures of myself in the various disguises, so instead of posting them here, I’ll give you a link (or you can click on that goofy looking bastard at the bottom) to a Flickr photoset for your perusal.

Sometime last year when I was shopping around for He-Man busts on Amazon.com I stumbled upon a book that looked pretty interesting, Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion Dollar Idea by Roger Sweet and David Wecker.  The blurb on the back of the book said that the book deals with the conception of the character and figure, including the office politics that influenced the development of the Masters of the Universe toy line, as well as the downfall of the line.  Cool.  I'd never really had the curtain pulled back on a toy line before.  I put it on my wish list and promptly forgot it was there until my parents picked it up for me on my birthday.



I just finished it and I'm not sure what I think.  Mainly Roger Sweet, a designer who put in 19 years at Mattel through the 70s and 80s mostly, and who claims to have created He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, wrote it.  I say claims because the entire book reads like a deposition in a court case where the creative rights to He-Man are in dispute.  And they aren't, which made reading this book very painful and the facts presented suspect when I don't even doubt that he created the toy line.  See the book is written in a very deceptive manner where the idea that there is a dispute as to whether or not Sweet is He-Man's creator is taken for granted.  It's not on either cover, and in the forward there is a brief bit that might foreshadow the dispute, but it's certainly not clear.  In fact it's not until the epilogue that Sweet makes this clear (well there is the preceding 200 pages of "he said, she said" that makes it abundantly clear, though it's the why am I reading this that I am waiting for) where he states, "As I look back on the Masters of the Universe, and my relation to all of it, one point strikes me: No one at Mattel ever thanked me for originating the concept..."  This needed to be the fist line in the book, hands down, bar none, and all those other cliched phrases of emphasis.

Underneath all of the bitterness derived from that one idea, that he wasn't thanked, there is a good story here, one that would make a great article, but not a great book, which is my other major beef with Mastering the Universe.  It's a fairly short read that manages both omit a lot of what should be in the book like pictures, sketches and other people's points of view (quotes, etc.) and yet be filled with a ton of redundant or off topic information.  For instance Sweet makes it a point to describe the physique of almost everyone he mentions in the book, including height, weight and build.  I mean does it matter if a woman working in his design group is 5'5" with a slender build?  He also repeats the description every single occurrence in this book at least once but sometimes two or three times.  I think he mentions the fact that in 1986 the MOTU toy line brought in 400 million dollars and then only 7 million the flowing year like four or five times and each time it's written like it was the first.  The entire first chapter, which deals with Sweet mocking up three He-Man prototypes for a presentation, is almost repeated verbatim in chapter four.  At the end of the day the book feels like it was padded a bit too much.

As far as Sweet's physical descriptions go, it's actually one of the more revealing things in the book.  Both his co-author, David Wecker (Sweet's nephew) and Sweet himself make it a point to illustrate how important a strong and healthy physique was to Sweet growing up.  He was a scrawny boy who was picked on by other boys and girls alike which prompted him to start a rigorous exercise routine that he's kept with to this day.  Every time he mentions the development of He-Man, particularly the first three prototypes he goes to great pains to mention that he felt giant muscles and a "ready for action stance" are what were lacking in the field of boy's action toys.  It gets to a point where it's pretty clear that Sweet is semi-obsessed with muscles and apparently has little or no respect for weak or frail people.

Another thing that bugs me is how Sweet comes off very smug while arguing his creative rights.  Twice in illustrating how successful his designs were to Mattel he quotes the exact amount of a bonus he received for his work.  There are also numerous instances where he relates all the praise that was lavished on him by quoting memos or in what he remembers overhearing when others would speak of him.  I can completely understand where he's coming from, in particular in an office environment where praise is often given by co-workers but never related to managers prompting that whole defensive "give credit where credit is due" mentality, but this doesn't belong in a book that is only in his voice, it just comes off very smug.  He's also fond of self-congratulatory boasts and remarks.  Here are two of my favorite examples: "...I came up with an unheard of innovation in model making..." and "In any case, It's my humble opinion that the Dragon Walker is the most creative powered toy vehicle ever created."

Sweet also gets a lot of facts wrong in the book which doesn't help support his cause all that much.  He repeatedly states that the 3.75 inch G.I. Joe figures were already on the market (and influencing his design) when he was developing He-Man, which is off by about two years with He-Man debuting first.  He also sites the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a factor in the downfall of He-Man during 1987, which is also a year or two off and not a factor in that years drop in profits.  The thing that hits home the most is the factual errors in the actual MOTU line.  He takes the time to describe a bunch of the figures in detail citing how creative the design was, yet gets a couple wrong.  He describes Webstor as having a string going through his head and coming out his hind quarters when he simply had a back pack with a string running through it, while he describes Kobra Kahn as having a detachable head that you filled with water that would act as a squirt gun, when in fact you filled his body with water and the head only detached to allow the body to be filled.  I know these are minor fanboy quibbles, but when he's trying to win over an audience of readers to the facts that his designs were so clever he should probably get them right.  It also doesn't help that he dedicates an entire chapter to the very crib notes version of the development of boys figural toys over the last two hundred years, that in the end just makes him seem like he's trying to be more knowledgeable on a subject than he really is.

I also found that as a whole the entire book was very manipulative in the way it described events.  In one paragraph Sweet would mention how during the first year He-Man was in production is was projected to make only 7 million dollars in profit, but ended up making 38 million and it seems that he is attributing this success to himself and his initial creative design.  Then in another paragraph he mentions how he wasn't involved past the initial inception of the design, that another team took over the work on the first year run (which he repetitively says was uninspired) and that, that first year's profits (the same 38 million mind you) was pretty darn weak.  This goes on all throughout the book.  In one paragraph he talks about how uninspired the first wave was, then in the next he's talking about how creative it was to repaint a basic He-Man figure blue and orange, slap on Skeletor's armor, and then to call the figure a robot.  That is pretty darn lame and isn't creative at all (though it is genius from a corporate "get 'em to buy the same figure twice" standpoint.)

He also pretty much lambastes the Filmation cartoon, going so far as to site them for creating new characters for the show, then charging Mattel a licensing fees to make action figures of them (when they are paying licensing fees in the beginning to make the cartoon at all.)  He states how he detests the concept of "Prince Adam", that it demeans the character of He-Man (though he goes to pains to make sure that everyone knows that before the cartoon came out he originated the idea of a character magically transforming from scrawny to muscled hero in a numbered internal Mattel document.)  He also gives the show little credit for monumentally affecting the profits of the toys after it began airing.  Well, he does mention it, though he makes sure to state that it's was his designs that made the toys so profitable, when it's clearly the show being broadcast into millions of homes on a daily basis that makes more sense.

The last nail in the coffin for me is that in the epilogue he repeatedly states that though He-Man was a "wild roller coaster ride", it's certainly not the most satisfying or memorable moment is his career or life (those honors go to working on both the Boeing 747 cabin and Downey fabric softener bottle designs), yet he put forth the effort to write this bitter memoir dedicated to making sure everyone knows who created He-Man.  I think it might be safer next time if I refrain from pulling back the curtain on a beloved childhood memory.

Well it sure has been awhile since I sat myself down and recorded a podcast.  Geez, what kept me?  Well, no time and the fact that it's been easier to blog I guess.  I do miss hearing how shitty my voice sounds to my own ears though, so I did one.

This one's all about school supply memories like mechanical pencils, Trapper Keepers and stuff.  Jerzy Drozd over at the wonderful Make Like a Tree Comics site (he does some great comics kids) suggested this topic, and I finally got around to recording it.  It's a little rough and not quite as filled with personal stories, but I need to get myself back in the swing of things.

Anyway, since I've been blogging about some of this stuff, here are some links to stuff that I've written about that pops up in this podcast, namely erasers, the Ideal Marvel books, and the Crestwood Monster series of children's books.

Also, as a request, does anyone know what the old Pentel mechanical pencils were called that I mention in this episode?  They were before quicker clickers and they were slim and you advanced the lead by clicking the back of the pencil.  They also had slim green erasers and came in various colors and I think only took .05 lead.

As always you can send me your comments, questions and concerns via email.  Thanks for listening.

I thought I’d take a minute during this season to pimp some of the blogs I enjoy reading that are on a temporary Halloween blitz. In no particular order…


Todd Franklin at Neato Coolville has a really great blog that visits all sorts of stuff from toys to vintage ads and even the occasional cardboard robot battle. This month he’s been posting a bunch of fun Halloween oddities from old magazines to a collection of seasonal scratch off lotto tickets.


Kirk Demarais over at Secret Fun Blog (a more wordy offshoot of his awesome site Secret Fun Spot) has decided to dedicate the entire month to featuring a plethora of Plastic Skeletons, from ex-earrings to cereal box premiums.


Nemo434 (ah, pseudonyms…) over at Plastic Pumpkins has decided to theme all his posts during the month of October with a seasonal bent. Don’t let the name of the blog mislead you, it’s more of a metaphor for life than a year-round Halloween-a-thon.

Break out your pumpkin carving kit, cover your face with greasepaint, stick the Universal Monsters Legacy Collection into your DVD player, and then sit back and read some great blogs.

I've been spending so much energy on Halloween recently that I've neglecting covering any 80s nostalgia fun.  Well Ho-ly crap!  I just saw this Limited Edition DVD box set of the Greatest American Hero the other day and I was pretty flabbergasted.   Anchor Bay has really gone above and beyond with this set including the entire series, a replica of the fabled lost instruction book (that even lights up) and a cool ass (well, in my lame geeky eyes) full sized cape.  Man, if I had that cape I might even wear it to work.   Well probably not, but I'd sure as hell think really hard about it.

Even though the set is a bit pricy at $100, it's not that bad considering that's almost the price of the three season sets separately.  See, this is DVD marketing to a fan base that I can get behind, unlike the Brisco County Jr. DVDs that are almost the same price for just the 27 episodes minus anything as cool as that light up book or cape.  I mean they could have at least thrown in a strap-on Bruce Campbell molded replica chin or something.  At least when Anchor Bay did special editions of the Evil Dead flicks they put out those two versions of the creepy fun Book of the Dead.

I was actually thinking about TGAH the other day as I was reading some news on the upcoming Iron Man movie.   I think this is what's missing from the rash of super hero flicks that have been inundating the theatres for the last five years.  All that's being made are semi-serious super hero origin movies, and that formula is getting pretty stale.   If Hollywood is going to adapt an existing property they need to vary their choices a bit and throw in some more comedy.  Sure there was Sky High, which wasn't that bad of a flick (it did have 2 Kids in the Hall alumni, Bruce Campbell, and Linda-Freaking-Carter after all), and there's that Super Ex-Girlfriend flick that everyone seemed to hate, but I think there is already an audience built in for a good Greatest American Hero movie.   I really need to watch some GAH episodes again; it's been almost 20 years since I've seen them.  Oh man, now the theme song is gonna get stuck in my head...

Anyway here are a couple more shots of the Collector's Edition set that just came out to drool over:

Last night I did some quick research on Hot Wheels and Matchbox die-cast cars and I was surprised to find out that Mattel Inc. owns both brands. Has this always been the case? I mean there is a very obvious difference in quality between the two products and neither really has anything different to offer. Well the Hot Wheels brand doesn’t have any cars or trucks that come with nifty plastic monsters, but they do make cars shaped like nifty plastic monsters. Their price points aren’t even different at around a buck apiece. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just more of the same thing that large corporations do when they buy out the competition yet keep the branding in place for people like me who tend to be brand loyalists.

Anyway, today we’re taking a look at my favorite combo in the monster/vehicle line that Matchbox has out right now, a toy that I was very surprised to find. It’s basically the Creature From the Black Lagoon and a kick-ass van that harkens back to the one the A-Team used to liberate the downtrodden the world ‘round.


Since these aren’t marketed with official names (the packaging just says “Unleash Your Imagination�? and “Monsters�?) I guess this could be the gill-man/Creature or just as easily a Chupacabra. Either way it’s pretty darn cool and has a surprisingly decent amount of paint application that makes him all that much cooler. The van he comes with, the Swamp Runner, is also pretty bad-ass with huge wheels and a fun amount of olive drab accenting. This is one Matchbox car I can really get behind.




This combo also comes in a larger set that also has a trailer rig to the van, and two little plastic guys, a movie cameraman and a little Tarzan looking dude with a trident (?), but the creature figure that comes with it isn’t painted and ends up looking too neon green. Over all I am really happy with this slimmed down set and a new creature to add to my very slowly growing collection.


There are four monsters in this series, the abominable snowman I shared yesterday, a giant squid, a T-Rex skeleton (which is pretty lame, I mean T-Rex skeletons aren’t very animate and not all that scary in terms of monsters and stuff), and a grizzly bear that I mistook for sasquatch, which would have been worlds cooler. There’s also an expanded set that has a neat Mummy, though it’s a lot smaller than the creature and snowman figures and not nearly worth the $5 asking price, and two super deluxe $20 sets that have either a mega giant snowman or Mummy for your Matchbox cars to fight and ultimately run from because that’s was toy cars do they drive.

I hope they come out with a second series because I’d love to see some more cryptozoology creatures brought to life in little plastic molds. Can’t you just see the Nessie play-set complete with little plastic lamb and a rickety old boat? How about an ogopogo? What about space creatures! I mean aren’t we supposed to be releasing our imaginations here?  Oh wait, they do have a Space Creature set.  Why isn't it at a store near me!?!

I have most assuredly got the bug for buying all sorts of craziness during this Halloween season. Since my vision is in serious monster hunting mode, that's typically all I see and it's always a happy site when I do. In particular I've been suddenly obsessed with the Creature From the Black Lagoon. Is that because it was the first of about 40 horror and monster flicks that my fiancee and I are watching? Is it because it was the main theme in a series of articles in the new issue of Horror Show Magazine? Is it because C. Martin Croker did a fun feature on Creature stuff on his blog Arglebargle!? Is it because I drew a weird picture of him recently? Heck if I know, but lately I can't get enough of the gill-man.

Anyway, I recently stumbled upon some neat monster toys in the last place I would have thought to look, the Hot Wheels car aisle in my local Target. I actually came across these a little while ago but that was before monster-hunting vision set in so I didn't think to look past the mini-giant squid toy I found (it came with a horrible hovercraft that I has since hidden in the ceiling at work on top of one of the ceiling tiles):


Well now that my eyes have adjusted I saw this pretty sweet Matchbox abominable snowman and truck set:


Though this isn't my favorite of the series, it is still pretty darn cool. I mean how often do you actually see abominable snowmen toys nowadays anyway. I also really dug the packaging, which had some pretty cool art, though most kids are gonna tear these open so fast they'll never even see it. It's actually pretty subtle as the blues and blacks sort of meld together and then fade to grey:


One thing that I noticed about these toys was how cheaply made Matchbox cars are compared to Hot Wheels. I mean Hot Wheels feel like they weight half a pound while the Matchbox truck I got with this snowman was light as a feather and didn't drive straight worth a damn.


If nothing else, the figure is awesome and it's pretty detailed for a little plastic add on. It's even got a little bit of paint application on this version. I think the entire series (there are five in all) also has an upscale version that comes with a second vehicle and a couple little plastic people though for some reason the monsters in these more expensive packs aren't painted.


All in all for $2 you can't go wrong, though I did end up giving the truck to some lady at work for her kid.


Tomorrow I'll cover my favorite figure/vehicle combo in this Matchbox Monsters series.

So today’s Halloween blog entry is all about candy. See I don’t really have a sweet tooth, I’m more of a salty/crunchy kind of guy, but around this time of year I get unnatural cravings for all things tooth decay and I pick up one mega bag of candy. When I do lean towards candy, I typically stay in the fruity, gummi, hard candy family, though I’ve been developing quite the taste for seriously dark chocolate (the woman went nuts when out local farmer’s market closed and put all their merchandise at 50% off, she bought like $25 worth of dark chocolate.) Every once in awhile though, I do like the smooth, creamy, oh-so-chocolate-y delights that the season has to offer, so this year I opted for a mixed bag of all of the above.


I thought this would solve all my candy issues and seeing as there are 80 pieces it’ll probably set me till Christmas. I was pretty excited to find this particular mix because of all the fruity candy, Twizzlers and Jolly Ranchers are my favorite, and if I had to pick only on chocolate item to eat for the rest of my life it would probably be Take 5’s. Now I know it’s not regular Jolly Ranchers, but I’m all up for trying something new.


I broke open the bag in a fit of excitement at work and was immediately taken aback by the powerful waft of candy air that soon filled my entire mailroom. Pretty strong stuff. Not that great of a smell either. I was beginning to wonder if my perfect mix was anything but, so I unwrapped my first piece, a Kit Kat and took a cautionary bite. Capitol G-ross. Apparently all the gummi/fruity flavor had seeped into all of the chocolate in the bag. I even tested the Take 5’s that are sealed a little more air-tightly. Nope, even they were a noxious mixture of cherry & green apple Twizzler Pull-n-Peel. Ugh. $7.50 down the tube. Well not quite, the gummi portion of the bag is fine, though the green apple pull-n-peel’s are made of stuff from underneath the devil’s couch (I still can’t get that noxious aftertaste out of my mouth.) Well at least the Jolly Ranchers are good. What’s the moral of the story? Stick with individual bags, or at least segregated mixtures, it’s just safer that way.

So yesterday when I was out at lunch I decided to hit my local basic American food style buffet place because you can take out by the pound and so my lunch ends up only costing like $2 instead of $8 like what most of the places around here charge. One of the things I love about this buffet place is that they have a claw machine in the lobby area that’s well stocked, which I believe is the secret to mastering claw machine techniques. I never really came across claw machines until the last 10 years or so. None of the arcades where I grew up in Florida ever had them, or any of the Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz Pizza places for that matter.

Well when I stopped in I was hoping they had loaded it with plenty of Halloween goodness but there was pretty slim-pickens in the seasonal department. As I was about to leave I saw something out of the corner of my eye that got me excited. There was a Homer Simpson plush in a black leotard with a skeleton painted on it, just like Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kai wore to the school dance in the first Karate Kid. Holy crap I wanted that doll. I checked my pockets and came up with six quarters. Three shots at winning what must be the best claw machine prize ever (well until the next time I see one with Pac Man ghosts, but that’s a story for another time.)

I plunked in my first two quarters and checked his position, on his side, on top of a heap of Care Bear knock offs, primed for the claw. I took my shot and of course I missed getting him. Grabbed him around the head. That’s a beginners mistake as any seasoned claw machine junkie will know that all the weight is in the torso and you need a good balance to snag the prize. Plunked in my next two quarters. I had him this time. The claw picked him up under his arms, but he was on his side and he was just slim enough to fall halfway to the prize shoot. Crap, though he did fall on his stomach this time making for a wider target. Only two quarters left. Some where in the back of my mind I knew I’d get more quarters after I paid for lunch, but none the less I was done to the wire. I needed to prove my mettle or some such non-sense. I wanted that Cobra Kai Homer figure. I shot my last two quarters into the machine and positioned the claw so it would grab him under his arms again. The claw grabbed him, picked him up and as it reeled back in it shook for a moment. But only a second, and then it was whisked toward the prize shoot and this time he stuck. Winner! He is mine, all mine. I had to carry him around as I scouted the buffet for lunch, but it was worth the weird stares from all the uptight business people and off duty cops (who freaking flock to this place.) I was triumphant.


Even though his mask doesn’t really fit him, I don’t care, ‘cause unless Mr. Miyagi’s stunt double leaps over a fence to save the day, my Homer can kick the living crap out of Ralph Macchio any day.

Day 2 of my October Halloween blogging fun. As you can see here I am pretty darn near super psyched for the season this year. Well today’s post harkens back to that older post with a very similar set of items. Today I’m taking a look at more cheap plastic thing-a-ma-bobs suspended in colorful goo encased in a clear plastic coffins, you know, for Halloween.

As I said before, I didn’t want to open the skeleton in the blue goo because I was afraid it would lose it’s airtight seal and might not look as cool. Well I’m a dope, so sue me. Lucky for me though, Target put out more of these silly things, this time in the Halloween section proper, and packaged four at a pop for only twice the price. That’s like 50% off if I bought four, and who knows why I would want to do that. But I was suckered in because these were spiders (well actually they aren’t as cool as glow in the dark skeletons), and the goo was different colors, and I just plain wanted ‘em.


These four come in much more Halloween-y colors, well except for Mr. Magenta over there. It should have been blood red, but at $1.99, I’m not gonna complain.


It’s kind of funny, because as neat as these look (especially when compared to the other fare that was on the same end cap like themed flat erasers, silly straws, and plastic lizards?) I expected the fun factor to be next to nil. I mean, it’s a cheap plastic 1 cent spider in goo. In actuality, these were pretty damn fun. Here’s what it looked like when I cracked one open.








The goo has a very interesting consistency that lies somewhere between the stuff that used to come with one of those He-Man play-sets and Silly Putty. It’s very non-slimy though it looks like it is, and no matter what you do to it, it will go back to its shiny consistency within a matter of minutes. It bounces pretty well too, though nowhere near as well as a super bouncy ball.

I figured I’d try and experiment to see what the mixing properties of this goo is like by combining the colors. As you can see below I’ve got a lime green/magenta mixture, a purple and orange mixture, and a suicide all color mixture going. Maybe if anything interesting happens I’ll revisit them at the end of this Halloween blog fest.

So even though I've started a little early with the gratuitous Halloween blogging, here is the first October entry in my month long look at all things creepy, crawly, scary, and just plain fun.

Today's item is something I've pined for, for over 20 years (a common thread in this blog) ever since I saw one in an ad in the back of Fangoria magazine (see this entry.) Well not exactly that past entry, but that was the same company and type of ad. See, ever since I was a little kid I've had this weird fascination with gore and the latex equivalent. It started when I'd go to the mall with my mom during the Halloween season and we'd inevitably end up in Spencer Gifts where there was an entire wall of gross and gory latex, plastic and rubber masks. I loved this stuff before I even saw my first horror movie, and some part of me has always been enthralled (not disgusted) by gore.

For whatever reason, severed body parts were the ultimate example of this in my little brain, and ever since I saw the ad in Fangoria I've wanted a realistic severed limb. What would I do with one when I could finally afford one? Who knows, but I'd of put my money on odds that it would be good and fun.

Well this is the year when all of the factors converged to place an awesomely realistic, yet not overly expensive severed arm in my, um..., hands.

See, it's not that I haven't come across rubber severed limbs before. Heck there were fake severed arms akimbo at Wal-Mart and the Spirit Halloween store last year, but they were all kind of goofy. Either they were more of an "arm trapped in a door" kind of gag with a bit of shirt stapled to them or the color was just all wrong. In fact, I've found more hot pink severed limbs than you can shake a stick at. What I wanted was realism, and from everything that I've seen, realism comes with a mighty high price tag (like $100 a limb.) I'm not cheap, but I do have bills and responsibilities and at the end of the day I just couldn't look my fiancee in the eyes knowing I blew a C-note on a silly rubber prop, no matter how much I think it fills this gaping gore hole that I've been carrying around for the last 20 years.

But this year, as I've said, the forces of good came together like the Monster Squad at just the right time to deliver me into the newly re-stocked sprit store where the first thing I saw upon entering was this:




I was speechless. As I lifted it off the rack to see how much it was I went from speechless to making silly happy chirping noises while dancing in the aisle. It was only $10. Ten Bucks! Purchase justified by that alone. So since I've picked it up I've made sure to find at least a hundred things I can do with this great severed arm. Like pretending I'm a zombie at work.


I've even found that both of our pets love it as a back-scratcher, which is the equivalent of crack to them.


So until tomorrow, here's my severed hand extended to ya.