Five Random Action Figures, Part 30!
In this edition of Five Random Action Figures: A robot, a lion and a sentient chicken leg. It’s as if Baum toked extra before writing about Oz.
R5-D4
Kenner’s Star Wars Collection (1978)
R5-D4 was Uncle Owen’s first choice, and were it not for the droid blowing its motivator at the precise right moment, R2-D2 might’ve never gotten the chance to save the galaxy.
(Fun fact: Additional Star Wars materials suggest that R5-D4 was Force-sensitive and fritzed out on purpose, all for the greater good.)
The movie version of R5-D4 was kind of inelegant, lacking the little touches that made R2 seem so anthropomorphized. The same can’t be said for the original Kenner action figure, which is totally adorable and one of my favorites from the set. When I divorce myself from Star Wars lore, it’s even cooler than R2’s figure.
Every R5-D4 figure that’s come out since has been more faithful to how “he” looked in the film, but if you ask me, the droid just isn’t the same without candy button eyes. Read More…
Opening a can of TMNT Pasta from 1991.
I don’t know why I’m even bothering with an intro. You’re just gonna skip ahead to the rotten pasta. Hey, I don’t blame you. I’d do the same.
Behold, a sealed can of Chef Boyardee’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pasta, from 1991. Well, a formerly sealed can… DUH NUH NUH NUH NUHHHHH.
I have big collection of still-sealed Chef Boyardee cans, and I’m normally happy to leave them that way. But this one… this one was different. The gloppy pasta had clearly mutated, perhaps as a clever nod to the lean green fighting machines.
When I shook the can, I heard what sounded like a golf ball. Know that scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas, where Lucy keeps jingling her bootleg tip jar? This was the Frankenstein version of it.
The clinks and clanks pleaded for further inspection. I’ll never hear the song of the Sirens, yet I feel I already have. Read More…
Purple Stuff: All About 1988!
There was a whole lot to love about 1988! Even more than just Oatmeal Swirlers.
From Nintendo Cereal to Child’s Play, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit are covering 1988’s greatest hits in the latest Purple Stuff Podcast. We dug pretty deep on this one, as evidenced by the whole section about some random applesauce commercial.
I feel extremely lucky that I got to be a kid in 1988. So much great stuff! See if you remember any of this nonsense by clicking the giant, ugly play button down below.
You can also download this week’s episode by right-clicking here.
Thanks as always for checking out the show! We’re getting pretty close to the Purple Stuff’s one year anniversary, and you know what that means. HALLOWEEN, my brothers. Read More…
Videos of my Bedroom, from 1992.
When I think about my place in the world during the early ‘90s — let’s say from the 5th through the 9th grade — I’m revolted but appreciative.
Revolted, because those were tough, lonely years, when I was as goofy and awkward as I’ll hopefully ever be. Too alien to mesh with the world, but too dumb to make poetry out of that predicament.
Appreciative, because only when we’re absent certain societal constructs can we figure out what we really are. (If you say you don’t spend one moment mixing the real you with some partially fabricated uber version better suited to collect benefits, kudos, but you’re probably lying. I’m only all me when I’m asleep.)
These years were terrible on the surface, but strangely beautiful underneath it. I was 5000 mental miles from where I wanted and needed to be, but I was home.
…and the proof is right there, on that tape. Titled MY OLD ROOM, it’s literally that — my bedroom — from August of 1992. This would’ve been during my summer vacation between the 7th and 8th grades.
I was 13 going on 5.
I recorded these movies using my parents’ big old Panasonic video camera, which even by the early ‘90s was all but forgotten by them. For all intents, that was my camera.
There are two movies on the tape. The second is a comprehensive tour of my bedroom, while the first is a more sincere attempt at, erm, creative filmmaking.
Oh boy… Read More…