Toys
Supernaturals
Ooh, spooky! In the mid 1980’s, the BIG thing was holograms – they were everywhere, from napkins to cars. Yeah. Actually on a trip to the Isle of Wight a few years back there was a hologram shop where the residents of the island would get their regular holograms, so I suppose they must still be popular. Anyhow toy designers, driving to work in their holographic cars and wearing their holographic clothes soon decided that kids would love holograms in their toys. But how to do this…? A list was made:
1) Make the toys flat cards with holograms of toys! The possibilities are ENDLESS, my friend!
2) Make an actual laser-hologram maker, letting the children make their own, as well as blinding their siblings forever
3) Glue any old crap onto a plastic action figure.
Sadly, they chose number 3. Actually loads of companies did, since we got Visionaries AND Supernaturals. Now I’m sure everyone remembers Visionaries, since they had the cool cartoon. But what of their little (bigger) brothers, the supernaturals? Unlike Visionaries, the Supernaturals weren’t afraid to hide their holographic powers – Visionaries had little removable holographic chestplates, whereas Supernaturals mocked useless and outdated features such as “faces” – they WERE holograms!
Yay – original packaging!
The figures themselves, instead of faces and chests, had a holographic sticker that showed these features… and could CHANGE APPEARANCES! (Only in direct contact with the sun. And no, I don’t mean sunlight…) › Continue reading
The Ten Worst He-Man Toys
Whilst idly surfing on the internet one day, I discovered that Mattel were going to remake their He-Man line again! This time in a ‘we promise it won’t fail miserably way’. So they’re stocking them online ONLY hidden behind a secret link on their website accessable only between 2-3am.
One of the first people I told, good old Keith, was instantly suspicious of this change, hoping that it would be exactly the same as his cherished childhood memories:
“Is he still gay?”
Not knowing the full details, I was not qualified to reply to this, although the figure of He-Man doesn’t look as… geeky as the “New Adventures” He-Man (and to my shame, I had that figure) and so I can safely conclude that yes, the new He-Man is gay. Rejoice!
In celebration of this fact I finally produced a “10 Worst He-Man figures” article. Why celebrate He-Man’s greatness when I can criticise it, eh? I’m ignoring the “New Adventures” line, since if I didn’t, this whole article would be about it. And then I’d go insane.
1 – Whiplash
Oooh, first up is that famous villain, Whiplash › Continue reading
In Praise Of Polar Claw
My shelf is a strange place, with many different objects and creatures (such as my cat) trying to climb upon it to be ridiculed by everyone, instead of just me. One such recent addition to this shelf of mockery is none other than a Beast Wars Transformer – Polar Claw! But what has Polar Claw, a big fat polar bear, actually done to deserve such an honour? Lets take a look at him…
Here we can see Polar Claw in all his manly glory. And when I say manly, I really mean “like some fat guy wearing tights” › Continue reading
Superion Is Super!
When He-Man returned, all the He-Man fans were busy mocking those who collected Transformers (oh yeah, the inter-fandom network can be quite cutthroat), for He-Man had returned exactly as it used to be. And perhaps that was the problem, as kids nowadays are more sophisticated than just wanting an elastic band in the waist of their toys.
Hasbro with Transformers though, brought out products that were, too the horror of collectors, ‘kiddified toys’ (well IMAGINE!). But sprinkled liberally throughout there were homages to the classic series, but in new, updated forms. Perhaps the best of these was Superion.
When I was small, I collected Transformers. Every other week I would go down to ASDA with my mum shopping and spend my pocket money on them, I collected all the Aerialbots that way. As you can imagine they were planes, and combined to form the mighty robot Superion. He’s still at home, but below are some pictures of him, and please remember that when I was small these guys were impressive, though even I realised they were a little samey.
Silverbolt was the big guy. He had an hilariously tiny head though and looked like an old man › Continue reading
The Nine Billion Modes Of Scavenger
Recently, I acquired a Transformer toy. Whilst such things are not an amazingly rare and life-shattering event, this was a Beast Machines toy, something neon orange and green, something with no face and skinny legs, something… sinister. Despite the startling resemblance to my sister, the purchase was still made.
And what a pretty boy Scavenger is, with his evil raisin-like head, and alt-mode of a…thingy › Continue reading
Monster In My Pocket
In 1990, Matchbox hit upon a great idea. Kids liked pretty colours, kids liked plastic, kids liked monsters and kids liked spending money.
So surely kids would like spending money on very small colourful plastic monsters?
And they did! I vividly remember seeing my first Monster in my Pocket when my friend Daniel brought home a four-pack of them after school. Soon I was buying the 12 packs, and then he was on the 24 packs. It was a race to collect all 48 of the little buggers, and now, 15 years later, well…
Yes, okay. I ended up collecting all of series 1-4. Here, I shall talk about series 1 and 2, as those are the ones people always remember, and the best. › Continue reading
King Of Knock-Offs – Landcross
I’m not a big fan of going shopping on the weekends. There’s the crush of people all clawing and shoving at each other, there are the legions of welfare mums with five prams each, and little old ladies doddering about everywhere in front of you. Sadly my work shoes exploded on me so I was forced to run the gauntlet of Birmingham City Centre to find replacements.
My shopping trip brought me to Poundland (no, I wasn’t going to buy shoes there, god). Poundland is a cheap UK shop where everything costs a pound, surprisingly enough. It is usually full of the lowest of the low, the chaviest of the chavs and, well, me.
Looking at their toy aisle for exciting knockoffs to write about, I was saddened to see that their ‘Armada Optimus Prime Squad’ line of toys was no longer in stock. What they did have however, was a set of gigantic Multiforce knockoffs! Wresting the chewed cards out of the hands of screaming children, I took my prizes and ran for the exit!
Multiforce was a line of Transformers released in Japan as part of the Victory line in 1989. Together they formed the gestalt Landcross. Now, Multiforce were small. Very small. So small in fact that they were pretty much Micromasters and indeed were sold as such in the reissue line › Continue reading
Extendar – Tower of Lameness
He-Man was always a cult thing with its weird and wonderful characters, from the guy who had the head of an elephant to King Hiss, the evil king of all snakes. Who looked like Sam Neill with a giant head. There were many others that were forgotten however, such as Clamp Champ, the man whose power was… he held a weapon! And Ninjor, the fiendish… ninja. It’s like they weren’t trying anymore. And that’s the epic background here.
Now, one of these later toys was Extendar. Someone I’d forgotten totally about until reminded by someone on the internet how much he sucks. Recently though I had all my old He-Man toys down from the attic (you’ll find out why eventually) and my dad came in (since I’m home from University). He immediately walked to the box, picked out Extendar, said “cool, Extendar”, and started to play with him. This was strange for two reasons – firstly my dad generally snarls at anything I have, even my crappy display of Transformers that I bravely put up on my shelf. And more importantly, I never realised that Extendar was such a cult figure that his name would still be remembered to this day by someone [EDIT] years old. It’s truly a mystery. But who is Extendar, and what makes him tick?
Collectible Connectables
Cars are popular with kids. At that age, you couldn’t drive (legally at any rate) and so had to rely on little toy ones to take you places, and dream of the day when you get your own keys and can loop the loop and zoom about on glow in the dark racetracks like your parents obviously do. What else are cars for?
But this was soon not enough for children! They wanted more – cars with robots inside them, cars with sticky patches that let them drive over windows, cars that lit up when you stepped on them. But then the suited execs came up with an idea to rule over all others – cars that snapped in half!
Here is my entire collection of… Connectables. › Continue reading
An Ode to Carnivac
I set out to write an article about the Pretender Beasts. There was a great chance that it would have turned into me wittering about Carnivac for 20,000 words. Then I woke up and read the old TF UK comics with Carnivac in. That chance then rose. Then I started fiddling with the Carnivac I recently got off ebay. That chance then broke the probability of ‘1′ and started rising… somehow.
So yeah. Carnivac
There is a good chance you remember the Pretenders. They were amongst the last lines of ‘gimmicky’ Transformers that were about when the line finally died, from 1988-1989. The idea was simple – you’d have your transforming robot still, but they would also have a suit of armour › Continue reading
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