Mego Super Heroes

When I was a kid, 10 years old to be exact, I was in a pretty nasty accident that included me on a bike and a Ford Bronco. The Ford Bronco won. While laid up in a hospital bed for an extended period of time, I was given a set of Mego Super Heroes from my parents and I was thrilled! The selection was astounding as Mego had you hooked to buy more and more.

Superman, Spiderman as well as Batman and Robin were perfect for entertaining oneself when you can’t get out of bed. They were great! Although, even as a kid I never liked the gloves they put on Batman and Robin. (I mean really, they looked like mittens and hindered using their hands for anything) Did I mention the selection?

What costs a few bucks back in the 70’s now can put you back 65 dollars or more for these action figures mint in the box. For remembrance of that awful time in the hospital and the joy these figures brought me, I have added Superman, Spiderman, Batman and Robin to my personal collection.

Mego also put out figures for Tv Shows as well. I had “Planet of the Apes” figures that my neighbor and I would play with. One could purchase Sonny and Cher, Happy Days with the Fonz as well as other celebs like Farrah Fawcett. We all remember what Farrah’s poster did to every male adolescence in America…

“Johnny, why is your door locked?”

Evel Knievel Toys

Evel Knievel

Evel Knievel was a hero to me as a kid. Who wouldn’t admire a guy who drinks heavily, jumps a Harley Davidson Bike and beats people up with a baseball bat?

That behavior actually killed his line of toys with “IDEAL” and that was a sad day. The Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle was certainly in about every guy’s top ten best gifts as a kid. They milked it toward the end with Daring Debbie and Robbie and the bikes kept getting lamer and lamer, but the original up to the 4th series was awesome!

The Evel One is no longer with us but his memory lives on: EvelKnievel.com

Six Million Dollar Man

The Steve Austin Six Million Dollar Man action figure has got to be one of my favorite toys I ever received as a kid for Christmas. I actually watched every episode of the Six Million Dollar Man recently. Talk about old school swag, Steve Austin had it. In every episode Steve got the lady much like James Bond. Arnold Schwarzenegger said to Lee Majors; “You were the first Terminator”. He was right! Every kid on the block wanted the Six Million Dollar Man action figure and it sold big time.

G.I. Joe sales were in the dumpster due to the hippie generation and the unpopularity of the Vietnam War and they had to come up with a new direction. GI Joe’s answer to the Six Million Dollar Man action figure was “Mike Power – the Atomic Man” and “Bulletman” (both will be covered in another section of Toys).

Do you remember this commercial from 1975?

Bionic Arm

Bionic Eye

However, Mike Power – The Atomic Man was like owning a Camaro and Steve Austin was like owning a Corvette. No comparison in pure awesomeness. In fact, calling Mike Power the Camaro is being generous, he was more like owning a Gremlin. Remember those?

Now I am not hating on the AMC Gremlin. My parents actually owned two of these (his and hers). If I remember correctly, one was yellow with black interior and the other was white with a blue jean interior (which was my favorite because it actually had a Levi tag on the seat).

Levi was the standard in 70’s attire along with growing a Marlboro mustache to go with it, and everyone was singing the Levi jingle that was on TV.

I strayed from the topic a bit there, must have been one of those mushroom flashbacks…

There are many really good websites out there that get into the “nitty gritty” of The Six Million Dollar Man action figure and in lieu of regurgitating that information, I would rather give them credit for their homework. A star on the forehead goes to:

Toys You Had

GODZILLA – Shogun Warriors

The only character that deserves a title in all caps! Everyone has seen a Godzilla movie; it was awesome as a kid and campy fun now. My daughter and I still love to watch them. Here is the SciFiNow’s Top 10 Best Godzilla Films. You probably reread that, yes, my daughter loves it too. I thought it was only a guy thing but after I gave her a few VHS tapes of Godzilla, she got into it! If you don’t know what VHS is, you are too young so go take a nap and let the big people talk.

I never figured out why they never made the current Godzilla movies with a Blue Oyster Cult soundtrack?

When it comes to Godzilla Toys, my pick for best one is Mattel’s Shogun Godzilla. It was the shortest of the Shogun Warriors, a line of transformer style toys, and they have a huge cult following here in the US. Here is the commercial for Shogun Godzilla:

Now a star goes on the forehead of This Guy who did his homework on Shogun Godzilla!

I just can’t leave you hanging without giving you what you want to hear:

Godzilla_Roar

Roller Skates

Roller Skates and Disco went hand in hand in the 70’s, it wasn’t just for car hops in the 50’s. Recently revisited in the movie “Boogie Nights” with Heather Graham as the Roller Girl also starring Burt Reynolds playing Jack Horner, a sleazy porn star director and Mark Wahlberg portraying Eddie Adams aka Dirk Diggler, a porn star, who had a triumphant rise and tragic fall as the advent of video tape changed the movie world (especially the porn industry) completely. Guys eyes popped out of their head with the nudity from Heather Graham and Julianne Moore but the last thing you seen as the movie closed was an enormous member whipped out by Dirk. I know I am straying off topic a bit, but isn’t that typical of me?

This was Roller Girl’s favorite song:

I can hear the song now back in the days (1980 to be exact) when I would lace up my skates at the roller-skating rink. I was getting better at roller skating, the big thing for me was the skating backwards deal. I wasn’t quite ready to do a triple salchow (pronounced sow cow) like Tonya Harding would perform on ice. I had my days of splitting my head open while Ice Skating, I figured the wood floor would be a softer landing… nope!

In popular culture Roller Skating was seen in the movie Xanadu with Olivia Newton-John, Roller Boogie with Linda Blair and many more movies. Roller Skates has been around for a long time, in fact it was invented in 1743. Although back then some of the designs were quite humorous…

Roller skates have evolved like the cell phone now smart phones. The skates I remember most had thick colorful rubber wheels with bearings.

Today, people associate skates with inline skates (all 4 wheels in the middle) and you need to have a Justin Bieber hairdo aka the “skater haircut”.

I love wearing Van’s shoes with the checkerboard design because you just slip them on and it reminds me of Jeff Spicoli from the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. My daughter is embarrassed claiming “Only skaters wear them Dad, you’re too old!” Bah! Old people hate laces, what is worse is the 2 Velcro strip deal, so the best option is the slip on style.

Strayed again off topic – I think my days of roller skating is over, if anyone was to see me on skates, they would think they were filming Jackass Part 6. At the very least, a spectator would be recording me on their smartphone and I would wind up on TV again, this time “World’s Dumbest“, where Tonya Harding would be cracking jokes about me.

For me the best memory of Roller skates on TV was “Roller Derby”. I never figured out what the purpose of the game was, I figured it was like the fake wrestling you see on TV like Hulk Hogan style. I think even the Fonz from Happy Days had an episode where he was on a Roller Derby team. But the best was the women’s teams…

I think that Roller Derby Girls should make a comeback and replace the WNBA that nobody watches anyway.

Notice I added a link to the WBNA? That way, maybe someone would click it and give them their first visitor.

The Ouija Board

The Ouija Board is a funny topic because I’m not sure if I should put it in with the Paranormal, Horror or Toy section. My choice is the Toy Section. Why? Please people this is no more of a paranormal item than “Shoots and Ladders” also owned by Hasbro. So many people including my own family tell me “Don’t get a Ouija Board, it will bring bad spirits!” They are not alone, many people believe that. Why? Because they don’t understand the science behind the game. This article will reveal the secrets behind the game, but even though I will debunk the reason why it works, people will still claim I am wrong.

First a bit of history. The Ouija Board was created by Elijah Jefferson Bond, an American inventor and lawyer, in 1890. the Ouija board was regarded as a harmless parlor game unrelated to the occult until American Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I. Then patents were bought and sold, it wound up in Parker Brothers hands and eventually sold to Hasbro, who now owns the patents. If you want to really go deep into this area, see: museumoftalkingboards.com

Basically the name “Ouija” came from Charles Kennard in 1850 who formed the Kennard novelty company, with two business partners, which produced these boards, he called it the “Ouija”, he thought this meant good luck in Egypt, but later found out this was not true. It is probably of a combination of the French word oui and the German word ja both meaning “yes”.

What makes the pointer move? An effect similar to that which occurs in dowsing, known as the ideomotor effect. This is a fancy name for involuntary/unconscious movement, such as a dowser’s hand flicking enough to move his stick when he passes over an area, he knows has water. The basic point is that your muscles can move without your consciously thinking, move to the word YES. Suggestions can be made to the mind by others or by observations. Those suggestions can influence the mind and affect motor behavior.

What is purely physiological, however, appears to some to be paranormal. In other words, if you believe this stuff and are trying to get the spirits to answer questions proving that they are all-knowing, and you ask a question that you already know the answer to (for example, “What’s my father’s name?”), odds are that your own hands will do the rest by spelling out your answer. That’s where trying it blindfolded comes in (provided you haven’t memorized the board, obviously). If it’s spirits, they should be able to guide your hands no matter whether you can see or not. But if it’s you doing it unconsciously, the blindfold will screw things up.

I can hear the people fuming and getting ready to send me hate mail now. I know this because the Ouija board told me so…

GOODBYE

Mattel’s Trash Can of Slime

You are probably expecting an article about lawyers or nightclub promoters, but this is a story about “gross out toys” from the 70’s and in particular: Mattel’s Trash Can of Slime.

Produced in 1976, with a trademark green trash can, Mattel’s Slime was the rage in gross out. What kid hasn’t made fake snot come out of his nose with this stuff at least once in the 70’s?

Cold and clamming and wet to the touch (again we are not talking about nightclub promoters) this green snot like substance would slowly pour out of the can up to a certain point, then it would plop itself on the table. Slime would look as though you needed a Bounty paper towel to clean it up, but it actually would hold together and keep the surface dry when you picked it up. It would ooze between your fingers.

Your Honor, my client is innocent!

If you slapped the pile of green goo, it would jiggle like Kate Upton running on the beach!

The 70’s were really big on slime and without it, would we have the “Ghostbusters” franchise? What about “Nickelodeon“? Without Nickelodeon, there would be no Sponge Bob! It would be anarchy and chaos on the streets! Who knows what else in the world would have changed if Mattel didn’t put this green ooze in a can?

You can’t find the original Slime anymore, and I’m quite certain that all the originals have dried up into a rock (much like the Cool Whip way back in my refrigerator).

Speaking of Cool Whip, I’m sure Topp’s Wacky Packages made a “gross out sticker” parody of them.

Remember Wacky Packages stickers?

wacky packages

Are you still with me?

There are many headboards and notebooks covered with these in the 70’s and trash cans filled with the lame dried up gum that came with it. No one wanted the gum Topps! All we did was dust off the gum powder from our sticker treasures! They were sneaky too, they would include duplicates so you were forced to trade with your brother. Believe it or not, there are many people who buy, trade and sell these stickers now. That’s all this world needs is another Wacky cult.

A Gold Star on the forehead for the best homework on Slime goes to: Retro Land

If you want to wheel and deal in Wacky Packages, I suggest you see these guys first: Topps

Mr. Microphone

Hey Everybody! I’m on the radio!

Who can resist to hear their voice on the radio?

Hey good looking!! We’ll be back to pick you up later.. Hours she waited, but Mr. Microphone never returned.

Professional entertainers use Mr. Microphone! I did wind up on radio later in life as a disc jockey, sorry Ronco, I never used it professionally. I preferred a nice Shure model.

Mr. Microphone was great for the person holding the mic and pure torture for anyone within listening distance. TESTING TESTING TESTING – HEY HEY – CHECK CHECK!!

The guy who hocked this plastic microphone with the orange sponge wind shield also pitched the famous Ginsu Knives (most likely to stab the person on a Mr. Microphone).

They sold like crazy and believe it or not, Mr. Microphone was actually was the founder of Karaoke. We all need a Ginsu to slit our wrists while listening to drunkards butcher Don’t Stop Believing in bars across America. It makes you want to rush the stage and say; After The Fall…

karaoke attack

Who’s Crying Now?

Have you ever broadcast your voice on one of these? Better yet, have you ever sung Karaoke and thought you were in tune? If you have, congratulations! You have been made fun of behind your back.

See how hip you look with one?

Sony Walkman TPS-L2

I realize it’s not really a toy, but it was the electronic device that revolutionized how we listened to music during this era of my toy collecting. The year was 1979, I was the lucky one who introduced the Sony Walkman to my friends at school and they (like me) could not believe the amazing sound! It was the first time that you felt like you had a concert in your head with amazing surround clarity. There is still those that argue that nothing (even today) matches the sound of the Sony Walkman TPS-L2.

It was made of the best quality materials such as a metal case and it had a dark blue leather (or leather-like) cover. The great thing was you could share the experience with another person as it had two headphone jacks. At the time, if you wanted to share music you would make your sweetheart a “mixed tape” with songs typically off the radio recorded in hack fashion on a cassette. The Sony Walkman had an orange button not for recording, but when pressed the “holder of the device” could speak into the mic and talk to the person listening on headphone 2 (it dimmed down the volume) that way you didn’t have to take off your headphones to speak.

Locating the very first Sony Walkman can be somewhat difficult on eBay and when you do find one (that doesn’t have a broken belt or has not been beaten up etc.) it can set you back some money. They are out there and I will eventually get one. How else am I going to listen to the racks and racks of cassettes I have in my garage? Yep, never threw them out and I have had many opportunities to do so. I keep them in hopes that one day I will own this magnificent piece of my childhood again. Getting back this piece of history is definitely on my bucket list.

How cool was it to own one?

I can’t even remember the first song I listened to on my iPhone.

Yeah, the Sony Walkman TPS-L2 was that memorable!

Groovy Baby!

If you ever had one, I bet you always played the demo cassette that came with it to show people the sound. Remember the airplane that soared from one ear then over your head to the other ear? Maybe it was the F1 Grand Prix race car zooming around you or orchestra music? Yep, I remember it to this day because the TPS-L2 was that awesome.

cassette

Zero M Sonic Blaster

The Zero M Sonic Blaster was recalled because it made kids deaf for a period of time.

This is the toy I am always on the lookout for. I figure the Sonic Blaster will be an effective way to get my dog’s attention when she barks at squirrels and refuses to come when I call her and also to wake up my daughter when she sleeps in and misses school.

Besides being extremely cool, The Sonic Blaster had a commercial starring. Kurt Russell.

You remember him in “Escape from New York” as Plissken?

escapefromnyc

“Call me SNAKE”

Who can forget Kurt in “Big Trouble in Little China”?

It had the best Kung Fu scenes ever put on film and one of the funniest death scenes…

My wife has a similar look on her face when she is balancing our checkbook.

If you find a Sonic Blaster in grandma’s attic, please email me!

BulletMan – G.I. Joe

Bulletman came to the rescue when a river overflowed and threatened to flood a town. He smashed through a mountain to remove a piece which he used to block the river. All this was observed by G.I. Joe and Mike Power who suggested that he should join the Adventure Team and Bulletman agreed.

What can I say, Steve Austin was putting a dent in the G.I. Joe sales and they needed an answer? At that same time Mego was kicking out an 8-inch super hero action set including Superman, Batman and Robin, Spiderman as well as a whole line of action figures. G.I. Joe needed to get rid of the military reference and so they renamed the Joes “Action Team”.

The Action Team brought us new Joes such as: Mike Power – The Atomic Man, BulletMan – The Human Bullet and Eagle Eye commander. Eagle Eye had a lever in the back of his head so you could move his eyes.

And this was their commercial to introduce them to the marketplace:

Catchy jingle huh? I bet it is running through your head right now.

BulletMan was a running joke back in the day, I mean really, he looks like a vibrator! Now he commands top dollar for a good one. They even have BulletMan races at Disney. No Joke! People show up with their BulletMan and send them down a string to see who will win.

I had to have one. So now I pay the price, and with him I also purchased the rest of the “Action Team” and proudly put them on display next to the guy who they always tried to be, The Six Million Dollar Man action figure – Steve Austin. I mean really guys; the Action Team was rolling in the dirt with “miniature wrestler aliens” called the Intruders and battling snakes while Steve was nailing every skirt in town on his show. He even has the Bionic Woman and Fembot as an action figure. Who does the Action Team have? Looks like they were the “No Action Team”.

Overall, they won the war as G.I. Joe lives on and the Bionic Man has fallen out of grace after a horrible “Biff Pang Pow” creation that has no resemblance of him at all and you can’t sell those figures if you offer a free Rolex watch in the bundling. I won’t even show you a picture of this figure, some things in life are better unseen.

If you are a comic head and are thinking; “What about Bullet Girl” Sorry, BulletMan was unlicensed for the G.I. Joe line so she doesn’t count.

The Star on the forehead for best overall look at the G.I. Joe Adventure team goes to: plaidstallions.com

The Gold Star for taking it to a new level of “You need to get outside more” goes to: bulletman.org