I’ve written about video game tie-in merchandise before, but it’s definitely a part of my collection that has grown steadily in recent years. I definitely like the fact that it gives a more tangible quality to the characters that have been trapped in our televisions and cartridges and – let’s face it – our hearts for many years. Let’s see what Mario Claus brought for Ben, shall we?

I grew up in the age of Nintendo, so arcade classics like Berserk and Zaxxon are a little bit before my time. However, you can’t deny that the graphics on these old Milton Bradley board games are amazing. There was really a passion that went into translating arcade games into two-dimensional boards while attempting to recreate the arcade action in the first place. My sister picked these up from a friend in North Carolina. They are both SEALED, which is incredible. It also makes me very glad I passed on an opened, incomplete, and played with version of the Berserk board game I saw at a flea market this summer for $40.

There was a time before Super Mario Bros. 2 when Luigi was just a green and white version of his brother Mario. Therefore, you can date something like this pretty easily to the time in between Mario’s release in 1985 and when Luigi developed his current look. This plush doll is humongous. My mom picked it up for me at a local community yard sale for ten bucks. I don’t have the Mario equivalent (yet), but I kind of like the fact that for the moment, Luigi will get the spotlight in my collection.

Who you gonna call? MARIO BROTHERS! I have actually had several opportunities to purchase this awesome vintage phone, but that’s only if I wanted to spend at least $80 on it. My sister pulled this at a flea market for ten bucks in the fall and it’s definitely one of the most awesome finds she made. And yes, I know it would be more appropriate if the Warp Pipe was in green instead of red. The color is irrelevant. You will look awesome talking on this phone no matter the color.

Street Fighter merchandise isn’t hard to come by…if you’re in the market for action figures. However, there are plenty of other merchandising tie-ins that are much more difficult to find. I’m not saying this pinball game is impossible to find – one just sold on eBay not that long ago – but it’s certainly not something I can say I see pop up that often. It makes sound effects from the video game, too! The artwork is key art, but it’s key art from when the art at Capcom really took a step up in terms of dynamic appearance. My sister found this at a yard sale for three bucks, and I KNOW it’s worth more than that.

Finally, we have something really weird. This is some sort of Sega counter display. I don’t know exactly how it was used. It comes with a pen that had a stretchy cord attached to it. I don’t know if this was for filling out a contest or mail information cards or something, but it’s clearly from the early 1990s and it’s clearly not something that was ever meant to be sold, which is the kind of awesome, interesting, and different piece I love to have to round out a collection and make it unique. If you know anything about exactly what this MIGHT be, be sure to contact me! This, of course, came from a flea market, because how could it not?

The post A Hodgepodge of Video Game Tie-In Merchandise appeared first on The Collector Gene.

(left to right) Crackarm, Hammertail…and that’s it! The complete set of Battle Brawlers!

Battle Brawlers were released in 1986 at a great time for monster action figures. High fantasy lines like Masters of the Universe and Thundercats were still going strong. That same year, Hasbro introduced Inhumanoids, a toy line based almost entirely around the monsters rather than the heroes. In all of these lines, the monsters kept growing and growing in size, which was great for a generation of kids who didn’t grow up with things like The Great Garloo.

Though they were figures, Battle Brawlers were in a sense more like a modified, monsterfied game of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Crackarm has arms that would try and punch his enemies from the sides, while Hammertail swings around his giant scorpion-like appendage to hit people on the top of their noggins. Conveniently, each character had buttons placed in their weak spots that corresponded to the other figure’s actions, so it was a matter of who could knock piece off of the other figure first.

What I love about the line is the fact that you could really use these figures in just about any toy line and they work. They tower above most fantasy figures, so they can serve as foes for He-Man and Lion-O if needed. They are basically just awesome monster designs wearing armor, and they are both very, very evil-looking, like something Les Edwards would have designed for old Games Workshop games.

The series only included these two figures, so if you want to collect the line, the only work you have ahead of you is finding them, which is not impossible. I found Hammertail at a toy show and later found Crackarm at a flea market. A word to the wise, though: the name “Battle Brawlers” is used by Bakguan toys, so if you go searching for these online, you might have to wade through a bunch of stuff you don’t want. However, they are absolutely worth seeking out for any fantasy or monster toy collectors out there!

The post Kenner’s Battle Brawlers: Awesome Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Monsters appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I’ve been asking that question – and formulated several reasonable answers – when it comes to the Primal Rage figure Necrosan.

Here’s Necrosan in all its glory! This figure has gotten really, really expensive lately.

Primal Rage is an arcade game that was released by Midway in 1994. Midway was responsible for the hyper violent yet massively popular Mortal Kombat series of fighting games. To capitalize on both the popularity of fighting games as well as the popularity of dinosaurs thanks to Jurassic Park, Midway created yet another hyper violent fighter starring giant dinosaurs and apes pounding each other senseless with inordinate amounts of gore spouting out across the screen.

Primal Rage ad courtesy of arcade-museum.com

What should have been a recipe for inevitable success in 1994 was not as successful as many had hoped. While Primal Rage could be found at arcades across the country, it was competing against an ever-expanding roster of fighting games that were all competing for hard-earned quarters. A sequel was planned and initially developed, but Midway decided that it wouldn’t be lucrative enough to justify production.

Despite Primal Rage only receiving one arcade entry into the series, there’s actual quite a bit of Primal Rage merchandise available to collect. It was ported onto virtually every system that was available at the time. It also received a board game, a comic book, and, I wish I was kidding, a NOVEL. But of course, it also had a corresponding series of action figures, made by Playmates toys. They were big and chunky and meant to be thrown around the same way you would have thrown around LJN WWF Wrestlers in the 1980s. They all featured actions that helped recreate their special moves in the game.

Despite not receiving a second game, Playmates actually produced a second series of action figures. Some of these were repaints of first series figures, but there were two new characters who would have shown up in the second arcade game: Slash Fang (a sabretooth tiger) and Necrosan (a…uh…a skinned…dragon…thing?).  Had the second arcade game been made, Necrosan would have been the final boss, which is something the first arcade game was lacking.

Here’s a look at the back of the package showing Necrosan, Slash Fang, and some of the other repainted Series 2 figures.

The toy series was scrapped after this second series of figures, and they were quickly discounted at Kay Bee Toys at rock bottom prices.

So why has this figure suddenly been selling at various points of the year for more than $500?

Yes, that is a real number. While most collectors of 1980s action figures scoff at the notion that anything made beyond 1989 is worth anything at all, there’s a figure from the latter part of the decade that collectors really, really want to have. To be fair, more recent sales put it closer to the $100 to $200 range for boxed, mint examples, but still, that’s much more than just about any other action figure from that particular era.

I have a couple of reasonable theories.

1.) It’s definitely a short-run figure, and I’m basing that on personal experience. I remember seeing piles of figures on clearance at Kay Bee, including the aforementioned Slash Fang. However, maybe I saw Necrosan in a store once if at all when it was a new toy. While scalpers of the day added to the rarity of certain infamous figures like the first Princess Leia, the truth is that they’ve all been very easy to obtain and aren’t worth much at all. Necrosan is one of the few domestically action figures of the 1990s that is legitimately rare.

2.) Primal Rage is picking up steam as a collectible. When I started collecting Primal Rage toys about six years ago, it was because I remembered them fondly, but it was also because they were so darned cheap, even on eBay! I could pick up large lots for $20 plus shipping without difficulty. It seems like people have come to appreciate the line (anything with dinosaurs seems to be collectible these days, if the prices on Dino Riders and Jurassic Park toys are to be believed), and so if they want a complete series of figures, then they have to track down Necrosan.

3.) He provides some of the only evidence that a second game was planned. Now, for years, Primal Rage 2 was sort of an urban legend and almost no information on the game could be found. However, my favorite arcade currently in operation, Galloping Ghost, installed a copy of Primal Rage 2, and now, you can see gameplay videos of the unreleased arcade game. Many unproduced games have found second lives through emulators, but while you can finally play Primal Rage 2 today, you couldn’t back in 1996 like what had been planned. The fact that Necrosan got released as a tie-in for a game that never got produced is pretty remarkable, as is the fact that…

4.) He is just plain crazy and horrifying. What parent would encourage their children to play with this thing? It absolutely looks like it came straight from Clive Barker’s nightmares. You have a dragon WITH ITS SKIN RIPPED OFF, revealing its innards, it’s musculature, and it’s skeletal structure. Yes, there’s a ton of merchandise today for Attack on Titan’s Colossal Titan, but all of it is meant for adult collectors, not children. I think it’s appealing to those who like monster figures, and that includes plenty of collectors out there.

A face only a collector could love…

Now, I think all of these reasons provide a more than plausible explanation as to why Necrosan has gotten to be such an expensive action figure lately. I think some combination of the four reasons is responsible for this, but I couldn’t tell you which ones carry the most weight for the people willing to spend that kind of money for it.

As for me, I bought it for $15 at a toy show last summer. I knew that was a fair price – I think maybe it was selling for $50 to $75 at the time – but I didn’t realize how much of a bargain it would be in the long run. It goes to show that the market is constantly in flux, so if you really want something for your collection and can comfortably afford it, it’s best to do so as soon as possible, because you don’t know when it’s going to become the next impossibly expensive thing that everyone else has to have!

The post Primal Rage Necrosan: A Terrifying 90s Figure that’s Terrifyingly Expensive! appeared first on The Collector Gene.

It seems as though every Happy Meal toy is a promotional tool used to get children to beg their parents to see the latest computer animated theatrical release or buy them the latest Mattel ™ toys. However, it wasn’t always like this. McDonald’s use to come up with their own ideas all the time so that kids would be sold on their love for Ronald McDonald and his friends at an early age.

The best promotion by far had nothing to do with Ronald and the gang. Instead, it had to do with transforming things, which was an inevitable recipe for success for toys in the 1980s. McDonald’s released Changeables, a series of robots disguised as your favorite McDonald’s meals. Sure, like all Happy Meal toys, they weren’t QUITE as good as their expensive, branded counterparts, but for FREE toys, they were amazing. We hadn’t seen anything quite like them. A hot cakes box and a French fry container transforming into robots?

Courtesy of neogaf.com

Who would have thought that you could have food containers transforming into awesome robots?

The Japanese. That’s who.

Yes, if you grew up in Japan in the mid-1980s, you had us Americans beat by a couple of years when it came to the transforming food objects market. That’s because if you grew up in Japan, you might have owned Telecoma toys!

This amazing artwork let's you know about the eternal food war going on in Japanese supermarkets.

These toys, affectionately known by American collectors as “Canned Food Fighters,” take containers of popular branded foods and meals in Japan and turn them into an army of food fightin’ warriors! Unlike Food Fighters, which definitely took their inspiration from the American military, Telecoma figures were more akin to Kinnikuman or M.U.S.C.L.E., where a wide variety of characters settled their differences in a stadium for mealtime dominance!

What I love about the toys is that they actually use real food products on their labels. When McDonald’s made Changeables, they didn’t have to worry about licensing their own food. With Telecoma, this was more like Computer Warriors using a Pepsi can in their toy line or Monster in my Pocket featuring Tony the Tiger, except on a much grander scale. The Pepsi can is certainly the most recognizable design for us Americans.

While most of what I write about it something that I know quite a bit about and feel the need to get the info out on the Internet, I can’t say that I know a whole lot about Telecoma other than they exist. My collection is rather small, and all of it has come courtesy of a series of Japanese online auctions. I learned about the line through the Little Rubber Guys message board and decided I would see what was out there.

These characters all resemble cans...

...and these are more bowl-based characters.

Two of the sets that I have fall into the “keshi” or little rubber guy category. I’m guessing one boxed set is one faction and the other contains the guys they fight with or something. They are packaged very similarly to most kinkeshi lines of the era. I don’t know if these two boxed sets represent a complete set of figures or not, but it must put me pretty darned close.

The third boxed set I own is a deluxe set of sorts. In addition to containing a handful of the kinkeshi figures, it also contains two of the transforming figures that are very similar to the way McDonald’s constructed its Changeables line.

These figures came in the above boxed set.

There is a whole line of these figures numbering almost as many as the keshi line, and I have seen a transforming shopping cart vehicle, which as you can imagine is amazing. This deluxe set comes with a wrestling ring, which is not quite as amazing as a transforming shopping cart.

Now, some of you might say, “Wait a second, Ben, I’m pretty sure I had these figures as a kid, and I never lived in Japan!” And you know what? You’re absolutely right.

Though I own one of these, this image comes from dinosaurdracula.com!

This is a card that would have been placed in a grocery store vending machine. As you can plainly see, the designs of these characters come right from Telecoma. Several collectors have documented finding these figures in a wide variety of colors, and a few of them have found examples with the stickers still attached, which feature more recognizable American food brands on them. Sadly, I have not stumbled upon any examples of Telecoma knock-offs at any flea markets in the couple of years that I’ve been on the lookout for them, but they are definitely out there.

While Telecoma has a much richer universe than the McDonald’s Changeables, it’s funny to see how East and West developed what is essentially the same idea. Throw in Food Fighters to the mix, and there’s no question that kids will never get tired of playing with their food.

The post Telecoma Canned Food Fighters by Takara (Yet More Mealtime Combat) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This was made all the more incredible by the fact that I grew up in a time where knowing how to properly skateboard inevitable made you the coolest person. Bart Simpson did it. Marty McFly did it. Wally Bear did it in an effort to warn you about the dangers of drugs. And by the time I had grown too old for cartoons and teddy bears telling me not to smoke marijuana, there was a newfound skateboarding popularity craze thanks to Tony Hawk.

It’s no surprise that toy companies tried to capitalize on the coolness of skateboards. One of my favorite toy lines of all time is Kenner’s Savage Mondo Blitzers, basically a hodgepodge of grotesque and wacky creatures who traveled in “gangs” on their skateboards. (The line was even called Skateboard Mania in Greece.) But an even stranger toy line appeared years prior, and in many ways, toys like these might justify why I never mustered the courage to really try and become good at skateboarding.

In 1986, Playtime Toys (not to be confused with Playmates Toys) decided to capitalize on the “gross out” craze that had made Garbage Pail Kids and Madballs into overnight success stories. They created a toyline called Skateboard Smack Ups. There is no accompanying storyline, so we’re not sure what the relationships are between these characters. The package simply states that these toys feature “Real SKATEBOARD action! Hi-Speed Wheels!” and that you should, of course, “Collect them All!”

This amazing collection was sold on eBay recently.

But then you take a closer look at the characters themselves. For example, Wally Wallbanger met with an unfortunate accident when he skated head first into a brick wall. Ouch! Then there’s Patty Plate Glass, who looks like she skated through a window and is still riding despite the fact that shards of glass have punctured her body and split her head open. While these injuries no doubt sent these children to the emergency room, none are quite as disturbing as Tammy Tailpipe, who not only has a tailpipe that went THROUGH her head, but she’s quickly billowing out as she gets filled with exhaust fumes. SHE SHOULD BE DEAD!

Collectors of these 80s curiosities love the designs because, let’s face it, a toy line like this probably wouldn’t get made today, although if you didn’t want your child to skateboard, I’m pretty sure he or she would be completely turned off from the hobby via these outrageous toys.

Because of their relative obscurity, obtaining a set is a difficult-but-not-impossible task. I was able to collect all 12 figures without too much trouble…assuming that those 12 figures were the only ones made. Little did I know a fortuitous set of circumstances would lead me to the rarest of all Skateboard Smack Ups toys.

Last year, my sister and I acquired a large collection of Toy Fair catalogs from the mid-to-late 1980s that were given out at the International Toy Fair. These catalogs show what companies have planned out for their various toy lines, but because these are meant to showcase what will be produced if they have the means of producing them, they often serve as a showcase for several rare unproduced toys that simply did not see any time on shelves because toy stores didn’t order enough to justify it. One of the catalogs we obtained was the Playtime Toys 1986 catalog, which showed the Skateboard Smack-Ups line.

Imagine my surprise when I saw one I didn’t recognize: a deluxe, motorized one called Manny Manhole. Based on the image, this battery-operated toy was significantly larger than the rest of the toys in the line and therefore couldn’t have been packed alongside the other 12 figures in the series. I said, “Well, I guess they never produced that one!” and went about my day.

Since I had completed my set a while ago, I hadn’t thought about what the figures were worth, but I decided to take a look at what they were going for on eBay just to see if people were still interested in them. Imagine my surprise when someone had actually listed a boxed example of Manny Manhole! By gar, it was produced!

After being listed at a rather high Buy-It-Now price for close to a month, I contacted the seller about making an offer. Clearly, he appreciated the rarity of the item as much as I did. We came to an agreement, and while this item was on the expensive side, I knew the likelihood of me finding another boxed example was relatively slim.

In person, he’s pretty interesting. The box is fairly sizable to accommodate a figure that is at least twice as large if not three times as large as every other figure in the line. He’s also the only character in the entire line to have artwork created exclusively for his character, as everyone else was thrown on a generic blister card. Because he’s significantly larger than the other characters, Playtime Toys actually added stickers to his t-shirt. The back features the classic skull-and-crossbones design, while the front simply has the phrase “Trash” on it. Awesome!

The box also gives me a clue as to how this figure could have been obtained. There is enough price tag residue for me to determine that this had to be sold at Toy Liquidators. The toy soldier on the “alkaline batteries” sticker also gives it away, but I know enough about the look of various stores’ price tags to know that this was sold by Toy Liquidators and not Kay Bee Toys. The seller said it was obtained from a comic store that had acquired a large selection of “dead stock” toys, so while this toy is unused, it must have seen at least some shelf time.

It’s very possible I could have remained patient and found this toy for a much better price at a flea market or yard sale (and given my track record, it’s entirely possible). However, while I’m more a fan of loose toys than packaged examples, I don’t mind having a packaged example of old Manny here. If I found one loose, he probably wouldn’t work, and considering the stickers on his shirt are peeling even with a plastic bag keeping him all together, I doubt a loose example would have both of the stickers intact.

In addition to educating the public on Manny Manhole, I hope that readers found this page through appropriate means. While I encourage you to Google Manny to see that nothing really comes up, unfortunately, other instances of Manny Manhole are not so PG-13 in nature.

The post Skateboard Smack-Ups Manny Manhole appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Basically, anything that was released by Tonka after the initial two series of action figures is incredibly difficult to find. Series 3 contains a subset of figures known as “Jewel Lords.” These were still transforming stones like the previous series, but they were supposed to represent more precious rocks. Like the rest of the Jewel Lords line, the three figures were initially released in Japan. Over there, they were known as Amberman, Rubyman, and Diaman or Diamondman. Once they hit the States, they were known as Sunstone, Flamestone, and Solitaire, respectively.

Solitaire has a rather interesting history. She’s the only female character among the Good Rock Lords, and there’s no question she’s supposed to be a woman based on the physique of the figure. She’s also the only female character present in the movie Go-Bots: Battle of the Rock Lords, which was released theatrically to coincide with the release of the new toys, despite the fact that her toy did not appear until very late in the line. If any children actually saw and enjoyed the film, they probably questioned why they couldn’t get their hands on the toy when the majority of other characters from the film received figures in their likenesses. (She also had a bit of starpower associated with her, as she was voiced by Margot Kidder, who you might remember from her role Lois Lane from the Christopher Reeve Superman films and her heavily publicized manic episode in 1996.)

Here is my loose example of a Rock Lords Solitaire figure.

Lo and behold, she did get released, and while all three Jewel Lords are quite desirable, Solitaire is far more desirable a figure to be had than Flamestone or Sunstone. It took me a while to find one, but I did get one through a collection I found online. Sadly, none of my Jewel Lords have weapons, but the example of Solitaire I have is in very nice shape. I didn’t get a tremendous bargain, but I got her for what I believe to be a very fair price.

However, you might find yourself asking, “Wait a minute, Ben, didn’t you say earlier that Solitaire was released in Japan as DiamondMAN?” Yes, I did, and that’s not a mistake. For some reason, in Japan, Solitaire released as a male figure. I know action figures in general place a heavy emphasis on trying to appeal to boys, but female characters were often very important on a lot of cartoons that were designed to sell toys. And the sculpt is exactly the same, too, so the features that make Solitaire look clearly like a female Rock Lord are still present.

Diamond...man? Here's what Solitaire looked like in Japan!

However, unlike the other two Jewel Lords, Diamondman is quite a bit different than Solitaire. A different type of clear plastic is used to create the diamond effect. Solitaire has yellow eyes, Diamondman has red eyes. Diamondman also has a deep blue paintjob on his (her?) head, suggesting that the design is like a crown or helmet or something, whereas with Solitaire, it appears to be more of a feature of her character.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of both versions of Solitaire.

You can go nuts collecting certain action figure lines. I’ve found that many of the toy lines I enjoy collecting often have pieces that were released only overseas, so while flea markets, yard sales, and local toy shows are my primary means of amassing my collection, items that were never released here are much more difficult to find. For those pieces, the only thing I can do short of moving to one of these countries is buy them directly from other collectors and pay full retail price (which I justify since it’s less than the cost of a plane ticket and a hotel room). In other words, I never expected to own Diamondman, or at least get one at an affordable price. While one foreign exclusive piece in particular (the mighty Fossilsaurus) is on my most wanted toys list and has been for years, here I am taking pictures of the two figures side-by-side for your viewing pleasure. How did this happen?

Three days before Christmas, my sister and her boyfriend ventured to one of the local flea markets here in New Jersey. We were about to do a fairly normal person holiday activity together once they got home, but when they arrived, I got an excited call from downstairs saying, “Come take a look at what we found!” And there was Diamondman, staring at me. My sister knew well enough that she had found one of the elusive Jewel Lords, but she didn’t know she had found the Japanese exclusive variations. The figure was in a bag mixed in with a bunch of odds and ends that clearly came from Japan. It was not being sold by a toy dealer but rather a video game dealer who had imported a few games. Given the low, low price of ten bucks for the entire bag, my guess is that they were much more well-versed on the video game market than the toy market.

So yes, I have both versions of Solitaire, and the much more difficult to obtain version ended up being found for much less money than I would have expected. The lesson? Educate your siblings AND don’t underestimate your local flea markets, even in the bitter cold and right before Christmas!

The post Solitaire for Two (I’m talking about Rock Lords again) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I was born in 1983, so I was about six years old when the Ninja Turtles phenomenon had really swept the nation. They were inescapable by 1989. Knowing the names of the four turtles was as essential as knowing the alphabet by the time I hit kindergarten.

There have always been hard core Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans, but I think that fandom has become much more mainstream in recent years, and a lot more collectors are hunting for key pieces. Certain vehicles and playsets in mint condition are commanding prices that I couldn’t have dreamed of years ago, regularly reaching hundreds of dollars. I think for many years, collectors were turned off because there’s just so much TMNT merchandise to collect. It was a very successful franchise and while not as daunting to collect as something like Star Wars, it’s certainly up there in terms of popularity and the breadth of items to collect.

I was very heavily into Ninja Turtles in 1989 and 1990, but by 1991, they were replaced by Toy Biz’s X-Men figures in my house. Like any phenomenon that gets as popular as Ninja Turtles, there are a few key years where EVERYONE is into them, and then they move onto other things. But my friend Brian was different. He was completely loyal to Ninja Turtles well into their popularity and stuck with them long after most of my friends had given up on them.

Brian and I remain friends all these years later, and since we bonded early on by our shared love of toys like Battle Beasts and checking out flea markets, we often bring up those subjects in conversation all these years later. During one of these conversations a few years ago, Brian made the kind of claim I hear a lot as an action figure collector: “I had EVERY Ninja Turtle figure.”

Not to brag, but I consider myself a pretty well-versed expert on the topic of action figures, so whenever someone claims they had EVERYTHING in a particular line, I immediately become suspicious. There are several incredibly rare Ninja Turtles figures that were released after most kids collected them, and even if a kid was still actively adding Ninja Turtles to his collection as late as 1994 or 1995, it’s entirely possible that they might have missed one of these rare figures.

Knowing that I was suspicious, he said, “What’s the rarest figure?” And without hesitation, I said Scratch. (I know some people will certainly debate this, but he is certainly among the top five rarest figures and is at the very top of most collectors’ want lists.)

Released in 1993, Scratch was one of a handful original characters released very, very late in the Ninja Turtles line. By 1994, the line became mostly variations of the main characters, both heroes and villains, so Scratch was one of the last completely new action figures to be released. He is literally a “cat burglar,” a mutant cat in a black-and-white jailbird outfit. While several other characters who were in the same assortment as Scratch are also very, very difficult to find, Scratch appears to be the absolute most difficult figure to find from this particular assortment.

When I described to Brian what the character looked like, he said, “Oh, I have that.” He probably knew that wasn’t good enough for me. After all, I had been led onto claims like fellow classmates owning Rocket Firing Boba Fett figures before. But Brian did have a particular advantage when it came to toys growing up: his mom worked at K-Mart, so whenever new Ninja Turtles figures were put on the shelves, his mom got first dibs. So it was entirely possible that with a connection like this, he could have gotten his hands on Scratch as a kid.

During one of his trips back home, he had me go down with him to his parents’ basement to look for his boxes of Ninja Turtles toys. We started rooting through, and sure enough, he held up a figure and said, “Is THIS the figure you were talking about?”

That moment was the first time I had ever held an honest-to-goodness example of Scratch. Brian wasn’t lying. His mom probably picked up the only Scratch figure that ever hit the shelves of our local K-Mart. While Brian clearly loved his toys, he was also about 11 or 12 years old by the time Scratch came out, so he was in much better shape than the rest of his childhood collection.

Seeing my excitement, he let me have the figure. Pretty cool, right? Still, I don’t consider myself the owner of the Scratch that I display on one of my toy shelves. Instead, I consider myself more of a caretaker. If I’m ever tempted to sell it, Brian gets the money. I mean, I HIGHLY doubt I would get rid of such a rare figure, and I’m honored that it’s getting proper display instead of sitting neglected in a basement. And it’s very cool that I can trace the lineage of the toy back to the original owner.

The moral of the story is that you should keep in touch with your childhood friends and pick their brains about their various toy memories. You might be surprised what you’ll find! Just don’t resort to Scratch-like antics and wind up in jail trying to get your grubby paws on some rare items!

The post Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Scratch (A “Tail” in Friendship) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Cosby’s career spans for decades, and the number of different roles he’s played over the years is seconded only by the number of different sweaters he must own. Depending on when you grew up, Bill Cosby was either a secret agent on I Spy, a wildly successful stand-up comedian, Dr. Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show, or a ubiquitous pitchman for Jell-O, Kodak, Coca-Cola, Texas Instruments, or any one of a number of companies that paid to have Cosby as their spokesman.

But there’s a lesser known part of Bill Cosby’s career that has developed a rather passionate fan base (and no, I’m not talking about Leonard: Part 6…how dare you even think that). In the early 1980s, Cosby took over the hosting duties of a program called Picture Pages. The program began as a children’s television show on a local Pittsburgh affiliate before being assimilated into the Captain Kangaroo program. The show was based on the idea that children would have workbooks with images that matched what was being shown on the screen, and the host would walk the children through these segments to teach them simple lessons about the differences between inside and outside, shapes and sizes, colors, animals, and a bunch of other lessons aimed at a very, very young and impressionable audience.

During Cosby’s time as host, Picture Pages was shown in the very, very early days of Nickelodeon on Pinwheel, which ran until 1989. Nickelodeon also used short segments from the show as filler in between their programs, and so segments of Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages were being shown into the early 1990s. In other words, there is at least an entire decade where Picture Pages was shown on Nickelodeon for a nationwide audience, and it coincided perfectly with Cosby’s tenure on his self-titled NBC sitcom, despite the fact that they were not being taped simultaneously.

As an adult, looking back on Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages has been rather interesting. Obviously, the show was done on the cheap side. Cosby has made it clear time and time again that believes in the importance of educating the youth of America, but in this show, rather than go about it with the kind of unbridled enthusiasm seen in most children’s programming, Cosby appears sleepy and possibly drunk most of the time, slurring his way through dialogue with the excitement of watching bananas rot. If you caught episodes in their entirety, he would do improvised transitions, most of which seemed to result in Cosby getting progressively more annoyed at an unseen gaggle of children imploring him to provide them with more Picture Pages. Also, I know it’s a show aimed at children, but you have to question the educational value of drawing lines from one thing to another. It’s the kind of mindless busy work given to nursery school and kindergarten students while the teacher grabs a smoke or quick glances at the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, not something that can be broadcast on national television for 22 minutes at a time.

I think a combination of vague but positive childhood memories of Picture Pages coupled with nostalgia buffs like myself who look for subversive, unintentionally hilarious vintage programming are responsible for a cult-like following of Picture Pages today. When you mention it to someone between the ages of 25 and 40, either you’re met with a look of utter confusion and no concept of what the show is like or a juiced up enthusiasm from someone who truly understands the nature of Picture Pages.

Now, not surprisingly, there is not a whole lot to collect if you want to start a Picture Pages collection. I discovered the program by stumbling upon VHS tapes at various thrift stores in the area, and you shouldn’t plan on paying more than a couple of bucks at most for each one. If you’re lucky, you might find one of the workbooks tucked in with the VHS tape. This is crucial if you’re hoping to follow to follow along with the program, especially when Cosby asks you to flip to page J-5 or something like that. The show works without the workbook and essentially because participatory in the same way something like Sesame Street or Blue’s Clues does, but Cosby references the book and the use of a writing utensil just enough to seem confusing to anyone that doesn’t realize a workbook is required.

However, one piece of merchandise in particular is very, desirable, and that’s a fun little character named Mortimer Ichabod Marker. Mortimer Ichabod (or MI for short) is an anthropomorphic bee or insect-like creature that acts as a gatekeeper between universes: our own world, and that of Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages. While crayons and pencils will serve just fine for drawing lines from object to object, MI was blessed with special powers. Specifically, he was able to make what has been described as a “doodly doo” sound, an ascending or descending scale of beeps and boops as the line was drawn.  To children of the 1980s and early 1990s, this sound was like the voice of an angel, soothing, familiar, gentle.

A company called Kusan was called upon to recreate Picture Pages’ closest thing to a mascot. In doing so, they created an object that is highly prized among collectors of everything 1980s.

Mortimer Ichabod Marker

This is the official Mortimer Ichabod Marker. If it seems big an unwieldy, that’s because sometimes, you have to make certain sacrifices to get things perfect, especially if it was the early 1980s and electronics were involved. MI takes one 9-volt battery, and then you insert your own pen, pencil, marker, or crayon into the tip. Press it down to a piece of paper, and the descending “doodly doo” noise will follow. So simple, yet so elegant in its execution.

I’m not the first person to document the rarity and the desirability of this little guy. One just sold on eBay a couple of weeks ago for $163, and that one had condition issues (although it did work). I’ve seen them sell for as high as $290 in nice shape, so clearly, this is a valuable item with a track record of high sales for what is essentially an electronic attachment for a pencil-shaped object. I think so few were saved because the show is meant for a preschool audience, and so once you are too old for picture pages, why save it? So how are you supposed to stumble upon one outside of something like eBay?

I guess you get lucky like I did recently. Very, VERY lucky.

I was checking out a neighborhood yard sale in South Jersey. Since I finished up earlier than expected, I decided to drive about 20 minutes to a local flea market. On the way there, I noticed that a mini flea market/community yard sale was being held by the Knights of Columbus. Since it was only a slight detour, I decided to pop on by.

My, my, that's quite a lot of Picture Pages videos!

The first thing I noticed at the first table I checked was a box of seven of the VHS tapes with the original sleeve that was clearly designed for them. As I alluded to earlier, I collect the VHS tapes when I find them cheap. I asked how much the set of tapes were, and the seller said two bucks. I said, “Sold.”

These Picture Pages workbooks are worth it just for the Coz's various insane expressions on the covers!

I found a few other things, and as the seller was getting ready to bag them, I noticed that they had a pile of the Picture Pages workbooks behind them. They said they would throw those in with the two bucks I already spent. Again, I don’t consider these to be terribly valuable, but it’s nice to have them.

So I asked them if they had “the pen” (I didn’t want to look like too much of an obsessive Picture Pages fan), and they said they didn’t think so. Just as I was about to leave to look around at the other tables, the seller said, “Hey, look what I found!” And sure enough, there was Mortimer Ichabod Marker, in fantastic shape, in the original clear plastic sleeve he had been shipped in so many years ago. The battery cover was intact, and when I got home, he worked perfectly.

The box that brought everything together

After I got home, I noticed that the VHS tapes, the workbooks, and Mortimer all fit in rather snugly in the seemingly random cardboard box the seller had given me. That’s because it turns out it was in the original mail away box, complete with an image of Mortimer Ichabod on the shipping label (ah, the effort companies used to put into packages for kids), and in the bottom of the box was a mail away form with Bill Cosby’s visage on it if you wanted even more Picture Pages tapes. Sadly, the former owner did not ever use it, but instead, they left me with a piece of ephemera that I’m pretty sure is not all that easy to find.

One of the most interesting details about this box is that it was shipped in 1992. While Picture Pages was still being shown, I’m a little shocked that the mail-in offer was still valid that late into Picture Pages history. Then again, The Cosby Show was still on, so why not continue to capitalize on the rather fortuitous association? While it’s shocking, I did find advertisements that said the Picture Pages tapes were still available in 1994.

In other words, Mortimer Ichabod is clearly not easy to find, but he also seems to have been available for several years, so with enough persistence, patience, or just plain ol’ dumb luck like what I had, you may be fortunate enough to add one to your own collection, and when you do, it will truly be time to let Bill Cosby do a Picture Page with you.

The post Mortimer Ichabod Marker from Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Don’t scoff at Chinatown knockoffs. One day, you’ll be paying through the nose to get them.

For as long as toys have been popular, some lame, almost-certainly-sweatshop-like factory has been churning out toys that vaguely resemble the ones you genuinely love/want. But while very successful toy companies would map out a detailed release plan each year for their most successful lines and distribute catalogs to make sure every child knew every product that was or would eventually become available, these smaller, rather unscrupulous companies would churn out chunks of plastic vaguely resembling much more popular toys and get them out to market as quickly as possible. They weren’t thinking of longevity. They were looking for every dollar they could scrape up before the toy they were copying wasn’t popular anymore, thereby rendering their similar product completely obsolete.

In recent years, some of the best collectors have gone absolutely nuts for these toy lines. They were so ubiquitous that it was almost inevitable a couple of knockoffs would have ended up among your Masters of the Universe collection when you were a kid. Because of an utter lack of documentation and wildly uneven geographic distribution, collectors love the challenge associated with knockoffs. Besides that, many of the best, craziest knockoffs have designs that are so childish, garish, and disproportionate, that collectors can’t help but fall in love with them. It’s like watching a bad movie like The Room on purpose. You know it’s horrible, you know it’s not constructed properly, and that’s what makes it more enjoyable than something that was done right.

This is very much one of those cases. Behold: WATCHFUL OWLAMO and BERANINO from SATYR MASTERS FROM ABYSS!

Satyr Masters From Abyss! SATYR MASTERS FROM ABYSS!!!

I know, I know, you probably have never heard any of those names/words spoken in succession, and therefore, I may have accidentally just opened a gate to another dimension just by typing them out. Sorry ‘bout that, time-space continuum!

I made it my mission to find these very, very, VERY strange bootleg/knockoff toys when I read about them on Evan Dorkin’s blog. Evan has a nice if strange history behind the line, and thank goodness he had the foresight to preserve the cardback so that we know a.) what the heck this toy line is called, and b.) the ridiculous names for the characters.

Examples of horrible “Engrish” are well-documented all over the Internet, and it’s easy to think that with crazy names like “Cheeky Mummiah” and “Silly Cocky” that it’s entirely possible that these figures had similar Eastern Asian origins. Not surprisingly, the cards are dated 1990, so these were undoubtedly meant to capitalize on the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The name also sort of brings forth the “evil” connotations associated with the Ninja Turtles phenomenon. This video shows just how Christian groups rallied against the “false gospel” of the Ninja Turtles. When the name of your toy line includes the words “satyr” (mythical creatures depicted in Greek and Roman mythology that loved wine, women, and any type of physical pleasure) and “abyss” (in philosophy, and endless chasm that leads to the underworld or hell), it’s as though the nameless company that forged these figures through black magic wanted the same kind of publicity for these oddball figures, probably assuming that any publicity would be good publicity.

A better look at Beranino. Better is of course a relative term.

The construction is everything you’d want in a crappy, Chinatown ripoff. The mold lines are not only clear, but they don’t seem to have been sanded off properly. The two figures essentially feature the same body and are only distinguished by their heads. The paint applications leave a lot to be desired, and while it’s obvious these figures are not in mint condition, I tend to think that even in their current state, they don’t look much different than they would have appeared 23 years ago.

I do like how these are clearly inspired by sort of tough-guy stereotypes. If the card art is to be believed, these figures were armed with knives, baseball bats, and machine guns. It’s as though the toy line’s designers (I use the term loosely) played Double Dragon a couple of times and said “LIKE THIS BUT ANIMALS.” Watchful Owlamo even has a baseball cap turned sideways! He’s dope like that!

Watchful Owlamo hopes that his cool sideways cap distracts from his otherwise terrible construction as an action figure.

These showed up online labeled as “animal head wrestler action figures.” I don’t expect every toy collector to know what Satyr Masters From Abyss are off the top of their heads (until they read this article of course), but I certainly knew them from following Evan’s blog, so even mislabeled, I knew exactly what I was looking at online. Will I be able to amass the full set of 12? Will anybody ever? Has anybody tried? Does anyone want to bother to try? These questions will probably yield answers that are as mysterious as the Satyr Masters From Abyss themselves.

The post Satyr Masters From Abyss: Watchful Owlamo and Beranino appeared first on The Collector Gene.

In the mid-1980s, a trend started where toys weren’t just based on heroic adventurers or transforming robots or military strongmen or ninjas or what have you. Instead, many smaller companies found success in producing shocking toys that often featured grotesque appearances, silly names, blood and guts, decayed skin, and a bunch of other things that almost seemed market-tested to offend parents in the worst way possible.

The best and most successful example of this trend is the Madballs line by Amtoy, but there were many other successes in its wake. The Weird Ball series spawned a line of non-poseable figures, poseable action figures, M.U.S.C.L.E.-like wrestlers, and additional minifigures. The Garbage Pail Kids went from wildly successful trading cards to “cheap toys” sold with “crappy candy.” The Mad Scientist toy line had you literally dissecting an alien and pulling out his innards.

While some larger toy companies got into the disgusting toys game – such as Kenner and their line Savage Mondo Blitzers from the early 1990s – many of these toys were released by fly-by-night companies as an inexpensive cash grab. As such, many of these are highly prized today. Collectors remember this bygone era fondly, as it is very doubtful we will see toys like these hitting stores again anytime soon.

Toys like these were hilariously parodied by Ren and Stimpy. The childlike Stimpson J. Cat collected a line of…toys?…called Magic Nose Goblins. They were obviously his boogers, which he stuck under benches, tables, and other various surfaces. “I picked them myself!” What was funny about it was that no one would actually make those toys…OR WOULD THEY?!?!?!

One toy line I became fascinated with was one I never remember existing as a kid, despite being the perfect age to appreciate it. The line was called “Boogers from the Planet Nose,” which literally sounds like a Mad Libs title for a B-movie created by a 6-year-old obsessed with humor related to bodily functions. My friend, knowing I specialized in obscure toys, asked me if I had ever seen or heard of these figures, and I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. Even thorough searches on the internet proved utterly boogerless. A saved search on eBay that would alert me anytime someone put one up for sale yielded nothing for years. The fingers of research came up dry when reaching into the nostrils of collective toy knowledge. What the hell were Boogers from the Planet Nose?!?

I look at rare toys as a challenge. My knowledge of toys far exceeds the actual budget I have to spend on them, so my hope is always to turn up something very, very unusual at a flea market or show because no one else is looking for it or even knows what it is. What made this search especially challenging is that I genuinely had no idea what I was looking for.

Then, out of nowhere, a local auction house that regularly holds live auctions dedicated to modern toys had one for sale. It was the first time I had ever seen an image of this mysterious, gooey toyline. Though you could leave a bid online, I figured it was better if I went in person to bid on the first Boogers from the Planet Nose I had ever seen. I had dug for gold and came away with a finger full of fun!

Truly a "pick" of the week: Boogers from the Planet Nose!

Since then, I’ve gotten four of the six characters, and as far as I know, this is the first time pictures of them are being made available online. I am literally showing you the used tissue holding the fruits of my labor. Behold one of the weirdest toy lines ever manufactured.

Here is the wonderfully silly story behind Boogers from the Planet Nose:

Boogers are aliens from the planet Nose. Nose has a terrible environment (toxic waste and slime everywhere). So the Boogers decide to “blow” out of town in their Nose Cones in search of greener (their favourite colour) pastures.

Made of a grotesque, sticky material, these little wonders are sure to delight, amuse, and gross out! A periodic bath in warm water will clean the Boogers and keep them sticky.

Within two paragraphs, we’ve been given a guilty message about aliens leaving their home planet because of pollution, they have spaceships shaped like noses, and if you want them to live, you’d better give them a warm bath every once in a while. It’s exactly the kind of details I want on a toy line called Boogers from the Planet Nose.

I tend to collect loose toys, but I feel like if you want to collect this line, you almost have to find them carded. The reason for this is that the rubbery, sticky material they’re made of is prone to having dust and dirt latch onto them like crazy. I remember this being a problem when I had Tacky Stretchoid Warriors as a kid. I had fun for a couple of days with them, then they got dirty, and then I never wanted to touch them again. Chances are, once these things got dirty, they were tossed, unless you properly stored them in their “nose cones,” which have a suction cup on their back so you can stick them on the fridge and annoy your parents by keeping them in plain view. I think they were not meant to last, and that’s why they’re so incredibly difficult to find.

The back of the card introduces you to the six lovable Boogers characters!

Unfortunately, because all of my examples are carded, it’s going to be a little difficult to tell what the sculpts look like. The back of the card gives you some idea that these are all slimy creatures. For our benefit, each one has a little backstory.

Snotley Grue

Snotly Grue: The most famous rap star on Nose, he is very rich. Unfortunately for him, bacteria are not money on planet Earth.

Mukomoto

Mukomoto: From the Far Eastern part of Nose and thoroughly versed in all the nostil arts; “Muke” is the leader.

Sputo-jock: Sputo-ball is the most popular sport on Nose and this athlete is the best sputum pitcher on the planet.

Clem and Phlegm

Clem and Phlegm: Twin brothers, these jaundiced looking weaklings could really use a good infection to fatten up.

So there you go. You have a “rap star,” a martial artist, an athlete, and crazy twins…except they’re all boogers. Also, let’s face it, the color choice is a little disgusting. I understand that if they were all green that we wouldn’t be able to tell them apart, and sometimes, your sputum can come out in all different colors, but two of these characters are red. I don’t think that’s something you should be proud of in your toy line. You don’t want some impressionable youth to say to his or her parents, “Look! I made my boogies the same color as Sputo-jock!”

Boogers from the Planet Nose is a line that is almost too crazy to possibly exist, so of course it does. It is there to remind us that no matter how crazy a toy line aimed at children got, there was always a line that much weirder.

As some of you astute readers have probably already noticed, these toys are all on Canadian cards with text in both English and French. A collector friend of mine was able to find two on American cards, where instead of Grand Toys (a company that only releases toys in Canada), the toys were released by THQ, a company more known for video games. However, I almost feel like these toys were only sold in the Northern part of the United States. The friend who told me about them remembers them being sold in Spencer’s Gifts in the early 1990s. Since they used to carry awesome and oddball toys like this, that doesn’t surprise me.

So far, I’ve obtained four of the six. The last two I need are Gobby and Clotto. If you have carded examples of these figures, please let me know, as I would very much like to add them to my collection and share them with my readers. You might have to dig deep into your collection, but you may end up pulling out something very special…albeit very, very disgusting!

The post Boogers from the Planet Nose – An Actual (and Very Disgusting) Toy Line appeared first on The Collector Gene.