It’s Thanksgiving in the US, and that means a lot of us will be partaking of heaping helpings of turkey. I thought we’d pile on here with a couple turkeys of our own. Enjoy! If you’re like me, you also might want to check out more turkeys with ShoutFactory’s LIVE MST3K special right here.
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First, an apology is in order. This figure wasn’t properly cleaned before its time before the camera. I like to think the buried in sand look adds character. I’ll admit that I’m a lazy blogger sometimes. Okay, most of the time. Back in 1986, I picked up quite a few of the American Defense two-packs. I genuinely enjoyed them,
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The CORPS! Bio-Wing Battle Squadron is a unique set of figures/vehicles within Lanard’s Joe competitor brand. Most importantly I believe, it’s a fairly original concept that doesn’t borrow from established Hasbro material. Okay, maybe there’s some Cobra CLAW influence, but only in relation to the concept of a one-man glider. I could have easily featured this entry on Power of
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Special Force comes to us from Sungold, a company perhaps best known for the Galaxy Warriors series, a Masters of the Universe knock-off line that is now beloved for collectors of me-too cheapness. These days there’s a cottage industry of custom bootleg art toy offerings that take their cues from what were once the odd castoffs of the past. We live in
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As we’ve often covered on this blog, GI Joe has not been without its imitators over the years. While it’s easy to see such things as me-too cash grabs by competing toy manufacturers, I am impressed when the imitations carve out their own niche. I am particularly fond of the subjects that get weird. Such was the case of Big
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Somewhere in an alternate dimension, there’s a Bizarro version of 3DJoes that catalogs and restores the artwork of lines like Devil Warriors. Wait–that’s happening right here, today. Whoa. There’s a scummy sort of beauty to these knock-off packages. They certainly deserve to be seen in better condition than they’re often presented, if only for historical purposes. However, I doubt many
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Last year, Lanard surprised collectors with their first-ever female CORPS! action figures. While these girls wowed fans with their added articulation (including more mobile ball-jointed hips), other new offerings joined them on shelves. Alongside new vehicles, Lanard introduced two new scales of toys to their CORPS! universe. One was a bucket of traditionally-sized “army men” and the other was a
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Bet you didn’t know the Yeti had a bio. Okay, so it’s not the actual mythical creature. This does however make me want to track down old episodes of In Search Of. The American Defense line from Remco went bat excrement crazy after starting out as a bunch of me-too copies of concepts made popular by GI Joe. The amount
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So you don’t think the toy business can get nasty? Check out this Mattel trade ad from 1982. While Star Wars seems to be the most obvious target of the most powerful man in the universe, you can also spot a couple of straight-arm Joes in the mist, namely Scarlett and Flash. There’s also a figure from Sgt. Rock, and
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In the 90s, I was back into collecting toys, and buying all the latest issues of Tomart’s and Lee’s to check out the latest releases. Both frequently published bits of Toy Fair catalogs each season. I’m amazed that I missed the fact Kenner re-purposed the Firebat for its VR Troopers toy line. Then again, I wasn’t exactly impressed by yet
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