This Toy Ads that Time Forgot let’s us take a look back at a highly successful toyline of the 90s, Toybiz’s X-Men line of figures. The toys came out about the same time as the amazingly good X-Men cartoon that aired on Fox. Mutant loving kids bought these figures by Toybiz in droves and they weren’t disappointed in their cool looks and awesome variety of action features.
My filthy fingers weren’t on the pulse of the toy collecting world at that time, because I was still on the bubble of wanting to play with toys while still knowing I was getting too old to do so. Collecting such things had never crossed my mind. However there was one exception. While reading a magazine, which I really want to say was Wizard because I don’t think ToyFare existed, I saw that the Wolverine seen in the above commercial was considered a “rare” figure worth about 25 bucks at the time. This resulted in me looking all over at whatever stores my mother would take me to until I eventually found this super rare figure. This Wolverine marks one of the first figures I kept “mint on card” and while he’s probably worth nothing now, I shall keep him MOC for the day when the museum dedicated towards me is opened as an example of my first shaky steps into the world of toy collecting.
There’s an “app” (what the cool kids call applications) on Facebook that is both infinitely useless and kind of neat for toy collectors. The app is called, “Star Wars Figures” and it’s pretty much what the name implies. It has a bunch of pictures of vintage Star Wars figures that you can “give” to your Facebook friends.
This is one of those posts where I again say that I don’t collect vinyl figures, but I do think a few select ones are cool blah blah blah blah. I don’t think it’s any wonder that these vinyl figures fall into my (more likely your) range of interests:
Ultra cute Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Sweet. My wife’s reaction upon seeing them was, “Look at those babies!” I have to admit that I had the same feeling, but I kept it to myself so I could keep up my cool, manly exterior.
Anyway, the artist who created these might as well just hang themselves now or at least go into a secluded retirement away from creating any more vinyl figures, because they’ve reached the highest artistic peak that they’ll ever achieve.
It’s my birthday today and I’m really hoping that your present is in the mail. If it is not, I will really have to reevaluate our blogger/bloggie relationship. Since it’s my birthday, I brought some virtual treats of things that are awesome.
While digging through my old picture files, I found a set of pictures that had been taken at Wizard World Chicago some years ago. The pictures are of a rather large G.I. Joe diorama that had been set up of Cobra attacking what looked like an oil refinery. The thing was fan-friggen-tastic and would have been a super cool piece to have in any toy collector’s home. Sadly, the pictures don’t do it justice as they are old and crappy, but I thought I’d share them here just for fun:
This last Friday I received a nice surprise in front of my door… my G.I. Joe Anniversary Operation: Rescue Doc mail-away Doc! I’m thankful that I live in an apartment complex where people don’t steal your mail that’s laying out. I’d rather not ever have to repeat the horror of my toys being stolen again.
The Playskool (i.e. Hasbro) Rose Petal Cottage is a set for little girls that contains a lot of things like a kitchen, washer/dryer, and a baby basket. The girl in the commercial looks like she is having fun with all her great play toys, but is she really? What may seem like an innocent playtime activity is this girl being subjected to the brainwashing of a sexist society that wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant… or something.
It’s hard to believe, but the company responsible for collectible table top games like Heroclix is gone. I know that this little bit of news hit this week and I realize that many of you probably had seen it already, I just wanted to put in my two cents.
I’ve got a quick couple of notes to send out this Friday. I don’t want to make a regular habit out of this, but sometimes I can’t justify making a whole post out of one line items.
Item: The Wizard Universe Message Boards (run by the company that publishes magazines like ToyFare and Wizard) is having it’s annual WUMBIE awards. I was nominated for two things, biggest nerd (of which I obviously don’t deserve) and in the “Outside Projects” for ToyBender. If you are a member of WUMB I strongly encourage you to vote for me, because I’m so awesome. I’d say don’t vote for Esbat, but you actually can vote a few times in each category so you can throw him a bone as well.
Item: I’m thinking of trying to get people to donate G.I. Joes to Toys For Tots this year, like a drive to get Joes into the hands of the younger generation. I wanted to do it last year, but there weren’t any friggen G.I. Joes around in stores. In order to encourage donations, I was thinking of running a contest. If you own anything Joe related that you think would make a great prize for a good cause, let me know, even if it’s just a spare figure in a package or some loose army builders or something. If you’re a retail store, you’ll get props and lots of plugs. Free plugs! Good cause! What more could you ask for!?
Item: Poe Ghostal has been putting up a cool toy pic of the day. So far it’s been pretty awesome. Go check them out.
Item: I’ve fallen in love with a new, non-toy related website. It’s Trophy Bomb and it’s a essay site of the type you’d read in the Onion… or something like that. Just go there and read. It’s got some hilarious stuff. I’d have to say I’ve been leaving some funny comments, so that enough should compel you to check the site out.
Item: If you own a website/blog and you’re a big fan of this site… well I’m sorry but I ran out of room to link to you. I only get so many links now and unless you guys want to battle to the death with someone who already has a link in the tiny blog roll section, have at it. This is all due to the fact that I only am allowed a short list of sites to add to my blog roll, because I don’t own this site. It’s owned by The Corporation. Now if you excuse me, I have a Death Derby game I must compete in.
FAO Schwarz has one of the coolest custom toy-like offerings I’ve ever seen. If you head on over there, you can custom order your own Muppet. The offerings are limited to more realistic people, so that unfortunately means no monsters Cookie or otherwise, but it’s still a pretty cool idea and a must for a Muppet fan.
With the memory this last Halloween fading and it’s crappiest candy on mega-discount, it’s about time to start thinking about the next major holiday. No, not Thanksgiving. That’s for losers. I’m talking about the big Papa of all delicious holidays, my birthday and after that the slightly less cool holiday called Christmas. It’s high time for my family and friends (ahem, you) to start thinking about what you’re going to give me for a gift for both holy days (or a tribute as it would be more accurately described).
For the purposes of this blog, I’ve decided to limit my wish list to toys. To make things easier for you to find the items I want, I picked toys that are more easily found in stores than items like my vintage wants that would require some hunting and extra effort. You can’t say that I’m not thinking about your best interests here. Seriously, it would be a little much to ask for a gift like the Terrordrome, although it certainly would not be undeserved.
Update: The Blogging Gods have smiled upon me today. Not only did I get a link from Great White Snark, but Topless Robot has linked to this post. Thank you both and welcome visitors from those sites.
Edit 2: Wow, I also got a link from Neat-O-Rama! Super sweet, I love that blog. Thanks for stopping by Neat-O-Rama fans!
Who asked for this Mickey Mouse Transformer? I know I certainly didn’t. On my my big old list of wants, a Disney based toy is nowhere to be found and they really can’t make one more appealing by dressing them up as Optimus Prime.
On Hisstank.com there were a series of posts depicting some really kick ass customs. They were all gathered together and even though Topless Robot beat me at highlighting these a few weeks ago, they still deserve some loving here. As you can see, three of the greatest action movies stars were customized in G.I. Joe form: Chuck Norris from Delta Force, Arnold Schwarzenegger from Commando, and Sylvester Stallone from Rambo 3.
What’s funny is that out of the three, the most likely to actually make it as a Joe would have been Rambo in a way. There were plans during the 80s of making a Sly Stallone as a G.I. Joe in the guise of Rocky, but Stallone backed out late in the game to sign his likeness over to the Rambo toy line. This line had some horrible action figures with some of the best action features around. Seriously, click on that link if you don’t believe me.
See that super awesome banner up there? The new banner comes from a fellow by the internet handle of krpykrwly of the WUMB. Thank you, krpykrwly, you rule. You get this:
Woot, it’s Friday! And while I may be out of items to post you and I’m working really hard at the moment (really, I’m just waiting for a report to run) I decided to do a mostly non-toy related post that is nothing at all like something Poe Ghostal does.
Welcome to Toy Bender, your source for maximum in-your-face to the extreme unleashed hardcore toy news and info. Toy Bender is updated at least five times a week with content so amazing that it could even give a woman a boner. Toy Bender covers both new and old toy lines, with a focus on anything that's totally radical. With all its mind blowing greatness, Toy Bender is your morning kick in the crotch of pure awesomicity
TAtTF: X-Men are Xciting and Xwesome. Wait...
This Toy Ads that Time Forgot let's us take a look back at a highly successful toyline of the 90s, Toybiz's X-Men line of figures. The toys came out about the same time as the amazingly good [...]
Facebook's Star Wars Figures
There's an "app" (what the cool kids call applications) on Facebook that is both infinitely useless and kind of neat for toy collectors. The app is called, "Star Wars Figures" and it's pretty [...]
Making your own Christmas Cards Ever since my daughter was born three years ago, we have sent out photo Christmas cards. This is a good way to send a recent photo of my daughter to family and friends who don't get to see her as [...]
TMNT Vinyl Figures This is one of those posts where I again say that I don't collect vinyl figures, but I do think a few select ones are cool blah blah blah blah. I don't think it's any wonder that these vinyl figures [...]
What's New from Burt's Bees? I simply love Burt's Bees and ever since their merging with the Clorox company I see the Beeswax Lip balm at almost every checkout counter I go to. I love seeing it there though, because it reminds [...]
Iz My Berfday It's my birthday today and I'm really hoping that your present is in the mail. If it is not, I will really have to reevaluate our blogger/bloggie relationship. Since it's my birthday, I brought some [...]
G.I. Joe Diorama Coolness While digging through my old picture files, I found a set of pictures that had been taken at Wizard World Chicago some years ago. The pictures are of a rather large G.I. Joe diorama that had been set [...]
Reprise of 6 Degrees So a bit ago I wrote about the 6 degrees of separation thing going on with me and a fellow knitter from ravelry. I mentioned that when she told me why she was coming to Alaska that I had asked her [...]
Christmas Crafts
I'm sure most crafters have begun working on their holiday gift list. I have and am feeling like I should have started in March. I've cut back on what I want to make in lieu of easier crafts so I [...]
Mail-away Weekend
This last Friday I received a nice surprise in front of my door... my G.I. Joe Anniversary Operation: Rescue Doc mail-away Doc! I'm thankful that I live in an apartment complex where people don't [...]
Hot Off The Press
Trish Stratus, "Hinting on WWE Return" and New Travel Show It pays to be Trish Stratus.
The seven-time WWE Women’s Champion found that out while traveling through India recently while filming her new travel/adventure documentary program, Stratusphere. [...]
Holiday Workout - Part 1
Holiday Workout - Part 1
Tis the season to eat with reckless abandon. That means you’ve got to get serious about your workout plan and tighten up the slack (literally and figuratively) in your [...]
Rihanna: Daring and Trendy in Red
If there is one word I would use to describe Rihanna’s sense of fashion it would probably be the word, unpredictable.
Why the singer never seems to seize on surprising us with every look [...]
Six months The baby turned six months old last week. The occasion was overshadowed by my mother’s field trip with the toddler but it was not forgotten. While the toddler wasn’t eating and the baby was [...]
Sarah Paulson, coming soon to a screen near you
For a while there, during the election season, every Google Alert I got for "Sarah Paulson" turned out to be about Sarah Palin and Henry Paulson. But now the actress is getting at least a few [...]
"Office" Actor Stand-Up In Philadelphia This Week
Craig Robinson, the comedian who plays warehouse supervisor Darryl Philbin on the NBC comedy, performs tonight through Saturday at Helium (2031 Sansom).
Robinson, who can be seen in theaters [...]
New Men on the Hot, Sexy List
Of the 15 or so hunks in People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive list for 2008, these are the new names and new faces who've made it to this year's list.
ZAC EFRON
As he gets older, the High [...]
Auburn Football Practice Report The Auburn football team returned to the practice fields behind the Athletics Complex Thursday morning, working out for close to two hours in shells as the Tigers continue to prepare for a Nov. 29 [...]
