Five Random Action Figures, Part 6!
Jeez, it’s been over a year since the last edition of Five Random Action Figures?
On it, chief. Here are five more toys plucked from my shelves and bins. Some of them hold deep, personal meaning for me. Others are just cool killer robots.
Slimer
The Real Ghostbusters, 1986
While I’d argue that Stay Puft was the quintessential Real Ghostbusters figure, I think Slimer (alternatively, “Green Ghost”) was a close second.
I got him on Christmas Eve in 1986, along with several other RGB “ghost” figures. If I’m remembering things correctly, and that’s likely as I’m infallubel, those were the very first Ghostbusters toys I ever received. So began a love affair!
Kenner’s Real Ghostbusters stood apart from every other line of its era. The toys felt brighter and inexplicably higher-tech than competing action figure sets, and the play value was simply enormous. The good guys came with accessories that actually did stuff, and even if some of the ghosties didn’t, they were so big and neon that nobody noticed.
This is actually the same Slimer figure from that fateful Christmas Eve. I’d recognize that chipped tongue anywhere. Slimer originally came with three pieces of rubber food, marking this as the only action figure in history whose “weapons” were meat, pizza and watermelon.
More intensely detailed Slimer figures arrived in the years that followed, but I’ll always prefer this one to the rest. Mainly because you can hold him like an ice cream cone. Read More…
The return of sooo many Kool-Aid flavors!
And the hits just keep on comin’!
Last November, my ears perked up during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast. As a giant Kool-Aid Man rolled down 34th Street, one of the hosts casually announced some of upcoming flavors for 2014. Among them was SHARKLEBERRY FIN.
The host didn’t know this, but Sharkleberry Fin wasn’t a “new” flavor. It existed many years ago, delighting Kool-Aid lovers with its adorable mascot: A pink shark wearing sunglasses. It was just one of several “character-based” Kool-Aid flavors that I’ve been gushing about for my entire goddamned internet history.
Well, as most of you know, Sharkleberry Fin did come back. That shark is out there and ready to recapture the hearts of untold millions.
But brother, he didn’t come alone!
I’ve been trying to cut down on my textual expletives, but HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Sharkleberry Fin! Purplesaurs Rex! The Great Bluedini! Rock-A-Dile Red! Pink Swimmingo! That’s EVERY character-based Kool-Aid flavor in HISTORY, brought back at the same time!
Having collectively run their course by the end of the ‘90s, it seemed that these flavors would only live on in our memories. (Unless you’re like me, and dedicated too many nights and far too much money to tracking down the original packets.) The combination of great flavors and wild mascots made them some of the most beloved Kool-Aid flavors ever. With my long history of Kool-Aid reviews, I can’t tell you how many times people have emailed begging for packets of Purplesaurus Rex or Rock-A-Dile Red. My answer was always “SORRY MINE.”
Many openly pined for them, but few expected Kool-Aid to actually bring them back, and nobody expected them to bring back ALL FIVE AT ONE TIME. Read More…
The Ninja Turtles invade Pizza Hut!
Wackadoo promotions for the new Ninja Turtles movie are all over the place, and I couldn’t be happier about that. I know a lot of folks are feeling “cautious” about Michael Bay’s take, but whatever. A movie you don’t like is just a movie you don’t like, and it needn’t spoil the parts of Turtledom that you do like.
Even if it ends up being terrible, I’ll be glad it exists. Without that movie’s need for mass awareness, I wouldn’t be able to drink baby blue Crush soda with pictures of Leonardo on the bottle. Nor would I be able to order NINJA TURTLES PIZZA.
Yes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pizza! On a tip from a reader (thanks, Derick), I learned that Pizza Hut has released FOUR special “Cheesy Bites” pizzas, each intended to be the “favorite” of one of the Ninja Turtles! Read More…
Yard Sailin’, Volume III.
Another weekend spent shamelessly rummaging through strangers’ trash!
We only went to a few yard sales this weekend, owing to a late start and temperatures that could melt steel. Even so, my luck held. This is the third time in a row that I found dusty gold on foreign front lawns.
Side story: A yard sale that looked great in the classifieds turned out to be a dud, especially because it required a twenty minute drive. But the guy manning it was this old dude in a wheelchair, and his boundary-crossing verbal asides reminded me so much of my late father, I couldn’t bare to leave without buying something. And that is how we came home with a six-inch ceramic elephant with a chipped tusk.
I always feel so rude and awkward when I don’t buy anything from a yard sale. There’s just no easy way to say, “Sorry, madam, but your trash is not my treasure.” Half of the time, I force myself to buy some cheap thing that I have absolutely no interest in, just so I don’t have to do the walk of shame. (Of course, that leads to an entirely different walk of shame — the one where I have to cross a bunch of seventeen-year-olds playing touch football while carrying an incomplete Holly Hobbie board game.)
Overall, I think I did well. Here are my five favorite finds from this weekend: Read More…