toy
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
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
Just How Indestructible IS Captain Scarlet?
The works of Gerry Anderson were some classic stuff, that’s nothing that can be argued. He did things from puppet shows to puppet shows to tv shows about actors who LOOKED like puppets (such as UFO)
When asked, everyone mentions Thunderbirds as his pinnacle. That’s utter rubbish however – Captain Scarlet takes that honour.
Captain Scarlet worked for Spectrum, › Continue reading
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