Gumball Machine Monster Jigglers

So if you haven’t been clued in to the world of jigglers yet, let me bring you up to speed. Jigglers are toys made out of a springy and flexible rubber that literally jiggles when you move it. If you were a kid between the 60’s- the 80’s, you probably had at least one. Though they came into popularity in the 1960’s, you can still find toys made like this today. In fact, you can still find some of the same jiggler designs of 40+ years ago in stores if you look hard enough, but I will address that later. Russ Berrie is famous for making larger gift ware jigglers that were sold in novelty shops and gift shops in the 60’s and 70’s. Most of their jigglers are animal characters with plastic inset eyes. They are made out of an oily rubber that will stain anything it touches if you leave it long enough, but they still have a following today regardless. Ben Cooper also made some cool jigglers including Marvel and DC super heroes and Universal Monsters. Yes, this is the Ben Cooper that made cheap Halloween costumes, but they also did dime store toys in the form of rubber jigglers. The rubber used by Ben cooper is more like the rubber on the toys I am talking about today (less oily). With the success of jigglers in the 1960’s, cheap-toy companies decided to jump on the band wagon and create small jigglers that could fit into a capsule in a gumball machine. You could fold the flexible rubber into a capsule and it would spring back good as new when the toy was removed.  Many of them are in the form of bizarre monsters, and those are the jigglers I am discussing today.

Flat Monster Jigglers just like the ones I had as a kid!

Now I should make it clear that these jigglers weren’t only sold in gumball machines. Some were also sold bagged and carded, and you could probably buy them individually in your local dime store. I remember the ones that my mom gave out at Halloween came in a big bag filled with a couple dozen of them. They were cheap to produce and kids loved them. The ones above are like the ones I had as a kid. They are what I would call flat jigglers, and they were still producing them up through at least the 1980’s when I had them.

Finger Puppet Jigglers.  That sad red fella on the far right is totally a new Jiggler.

One of the most incredible aspects of these small jigglers is that some of these designs, or bootlegs of these designs, are still being produced today. They are often sold as party favors for kids birthday parties. That means that some of these toys have had a consistent run of production for at least 40 years. In many ways that puts them in a league with Barbie, Hotwheels, and G.I. Joe when it comes to longevity, but because they are small and innocuous we never see them that way. The finger puppet jigglers are still made today. Though the designs have changed a bit over time, the concept remains the same.

It can sometimes be very difficult to tell an older jiggler from a new one, but there are a few tricks to help you decipher age. One of the easiest ways to tell age is to look at the markings. This trick I am about to mention will help you date a lot of toys besides jigglers. If the jiggler is marked “Hong Kong” it was made 1985 or prior. If it is marked “China” it is made after 1985. Another way to tell is the rubber. This is hard for me to describe in a blog post, but there is a different feel to the older rubber. When you have a China jiggler and a Hong Kong jiggler to compare you will see what I mean. They feel different. Finally, not every design has been produced over and over for years. In general, the octopus jigglers or spider jigglers aren’t being produced today and probably haven’t been for decades. The frog looking ones are the same. The main two still being produced are the finger puppets and the flat jigglers.

Octopus/ Spider Monster Jigglers.  These are some of my favorites.  Look at those crazy designs!

Frog Monster Jigglers.  Two eyes would just be too normal.  It’s either one or five with these guys.  The frogs are also some of my favorites.  I mean, just look at them.

One of my favorite aspects of jigglers is you can see their progression through time as different companies rip each others designs and make slight alterations. They shrink and grow, and they gain limbs and they lose limbs.   They come in different rubbers and plastics, and they change color as they go. As I find jigglers digging through bins at flea markets I watch them evolve over time, and I feel like a biologist finding a new species when I find a slight variation on a design. Flea markets are the Galapagos Islands of jigglers! It makes them particularly fun to collect. I never find the exact same jiggler twice.

The same jiggler can take on many forms.  Clearly these are the same design, but the one on the right has a horn.  Based on the rubber, the one on the right is also probably the older one.

These two have very similar faces, but different legs.  Another one of my favorite aspects of these toys is their evolution over the decades they were created.

These two may be the closest yet, but if you look carefully you will see that they are two totally different sculpts.  One is most likely a shameless rip off of the other.  They weren’t even trying to make it something different!

That tiny guy on the left was probably created in the 80’s and is clearly based on the guy on the right.  That being said, they made a lot of changes in the leg department.  What a crazy evolution!

I also want to take time to point out how weird and awesome some of these designs are. They are brilliant! As an artist, I love every one of them as these incredible and interesting sci-fi monsters. This is because many of these designs are based on work by well known artists such as Wally Wood and Basil Wolverton that were done for a line of Topps trading cards (the jigglers are clearly bootlegs). Others are based on other toy line such as The Outer Space Men by Colorforms, and some designs were done in house at the cheap toy companies based on these designs. Of course, as bootlegs of work by popular artists, these toys have garnered quite a following.

Does Barry look familiar to you? His doppelganger is in the top left corner of the photo of the spider/ octopus jigglers.

My fried Ed is in the top row second from the right.  You can probably thank Wally Wood for these nightmares.

Remember those multi-eyed frog jigglers?  You can call them Steve!

Finally Iris shares a striking resemblance to the rat bug jiggler in the next photo down.  This is the least obvious of the bootlegs, but the idea is still present.

These Jigglers are more figural.  Two monkeys, a bootleg of a larger jiggler line called De Horribles, and a rat bug.  I like the rat bug (but really, I just like them all).

Thanks to having a bag of flat jigglers as a kid from a Halloween party, I became hooked on monster jigglers. Their wacky and wonderfully disturbing designs intrigue me and keep me searching the depths of dirty boxes at flea markets to rescue them from obscurity. It is a worthwhile pursuit as far as I am concerned.

Some teeny tiny jigglers.  I put a big one in the back for comparison.  These guys are less than half the size of their counterparts, and therefore are even harder to find!  They are less than an inch long!

Finally, some really cool jigglers that probably weren’t in gumball machines.  These are probably from a dime store based on their size.  Still, these are really great and were well worth sharing!

The post The Amazing Variety of Gumball Machine Monster Jigglers 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.

When most people start collecting little rubber and plastic figures, part of their reasoning for buying tiny toys often stems from the fact that these collections don’t take up a lot of space. You can fit hundreds of tiny figures in a shoe box if you want to, and they don’t take up a lot of shelf space if you choose to display them (and why wouldn’t you!). Beyond their ability to occupy very little space, most little figure toy lines have dozens if not hundreds of designs to collect, as well as tons of color variations. They also tend to come in all sorts of wacky and wonderful character designs, which make little rubber figure collecting very popular with both kids and adults.

One of the more popular little rubber figure lines from my childhood was Monster in my Pocket. They came out in 1990, and found success all over the world. The line consisted of a bunch of small, solid colored rubber monsters based on popular monsters from international folklore and popular culture. Everything from Frankenstein’s Monster to Baba Yaga are represented in the line. If you don’t remember Monster in my Pocket yourself or you want to know more, here is a quick pictorial crash course on the line.

A Sampling of Series 1 Monster in my Pockets.

A Sampling of Series 2 Monster in my Pockets

A Sampling of Super Scary Monster in my Pockets

U.K. Kellogg’s Sports Monsters in my Pocket

A Sampling of Monster in My Pocket Wrestlers

Now that you have met some of the Monster in my Pocket gang, I can get to the main focus of this article. Clearly I have spent a little bit of time collecting Monster in my Pocket. The photos above represent a small fraction of my collection. Monster in my Pocket were made by Matchbox and were sold in retail stores everywhere in the country. They were popular and cheap to produce, so they naturally found their way into promotional tie-ins with restaurants and food products. Most of the Monster in my Pocket figures that were produced for product tie-ins were Series 1 figures cast in different colors than the red, green, yellow, and purple seen above. Many were produced in Series 2 neon colors, with occasional oddities in slightly different shades of bright colors, or a dark forest green color.

Monsters in strange colors.  These Monster in my Pockets were packaged with food tie-ins and other Monster in My Pocket products other than the main figure lines.

Monster in my Pocket had an American cereal tie in with Nabisco Frosted Wheat Squares. They also had a promotion with Bob’s Big Boy.

The tie in that is really the point of this article is a promotion run with Spaghetti-O’s. Every kid loves Spaghetti-O’s, and what could be better than getting a free toy with your purchase? Of course they didn’t put a Monster in my Pocket in the actual can of Spaghetti-O’s. That would make a mess. You had to mail away to get them. Since kids are impatient, and Spaghetti-O’s needed to get you excited to have to wait to receive your toys, they had to find a big way to get kids attention. Behold the inflatable Spaghetti-O’s Monster that is the size of an actual child!

This inflatable display is based on a Series 2 monster design, Dryad. I wouldn’t call this figure the obvious character choice that kids could relate to, but it kind of looks like it could be made out of spaghetti when you color it red-orange like this, so I am going to go along with Spaghetti-O’s decision making process on this one.

When this 4ft tall pile of inflatable awesomeness found its way onto eBay several years ago I made it my mission to make him mine. In a collection that could otherwise fit in a shoe box, he is certainly a stand out. I have always liked store displays, and when I can find a display based on something I specifically collect it becomes a must own for my collection. I only wish that my local super market had had one of these guys on display when I was a kid. I am pretty sure a Monster in my Pocket taller than I was would have made my day. It sure made my day when I found one as an adult.

The post Spaghetti-O’s Monster in my Pocket Display: One Monster That Won’t Fit In Your Pocket… appeared first on The Collector Gene.

It seems fitting that cats are associated with Halloween. We especially think of witches and their black cats. Often thought to be “familiars” to witches or malevolent assistants who could assist in the witch’s magic spells, being a black cat in Medieval Europe could lead to the loss of all nine lives in a hurry. The Pilgrims in early America weren’t too fond of them either. Owning a black cat in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600’s didn’t help if you wanted to avoid going to the witch trials.

Of course both witches and cats can be scary at times and both can be diabolical in their own ways. Why is it that a cat can enter a room full of people and always give the greatest affection to the person who hates cats the most? Coincidence? I think not. Why will the cat then go to the center of the room and start licking their butt in full view of everyone and look up with that “you gotta a problem with this” look. Attitude – cats are full of it.

These soft, cuddly creatures that we give unlimited access to our homes also happen to be carnivorous killing machines with sharp talons and fangs. My father used to say that if they were bigger than us they would eat us. I don’t doubt it for a second! Yet, I am a cat person. We share our home with two of them and I grew up with cats. They can show real affection on their own terms. They know where the litter box is and they are also self- cleaning. They can be a little annoying when they are hungry which is just about any time they aren’t sleeping, but who among us doesn’t enjoy eating and sleeping?

I’m just glad we’re bigger than they are.

Please enjoy these pictures of some of our cat Halloween decorations. Most are German and made in the early twentieth century. Our cats have sniffed them and approve!

A combination of candy containers, flat cardboard decorations, a Steiff black cat, celuloid roly poly, and ceramic cat.

Some more elaborate black cat candy containers (and a red cat).

Embossed cardboard fighting cats with moon.

This lovely lady wouldn’t fit on the scanner, but the main goal is for you to see her beautiful black cat friend in all of his glory.

Let’s be honest, cats don’t like to smile.  This is a more realistic interpretation of a typical cat expression.

Cardboard black cat door hanger.

Don’t try this at home with a real cat.

The post Halloween Cats 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.

I love monsters.  I always have ever since I was a kid.  They are colorful, creative, weird, and interesting.  The great thing about growing up in the 80’s and 90’s is that there were all sorts of cool monster toys not only in toy stores, but floating all over the flea markets and yard sales just waiting to come home with me.  “Gross” and controversial monster toys found a market during my childhood in the form of Mad Balls, Weird Balls, Savage Mondo Blitzers, and all sorts of other smaller toy lines that caused a stir with concerned parents, but kids couldn’t get enough of.  I was lucky enough to have parents who didn’t see the problem with ugly and disgusting monster toys, so I had many of them.

When I walk down the toy aisle of my local departments stores I have to say that I find myself a little bit disappointed.  It is great to see some of the classic toy lines of my youth still thriving and exciting kids today, but there is hardly anything new and interesting happening in the mainstream toy world.  Small toy companies hardly exist as the giants buy up as many licenses as possible to cut out the little guy.  No one wants to take a chance on the next big idea when they can just re-market the same things year after year and make money at it.  I grew up in an era where everyone wanted to find the next big thing, and they would throw out any idea that sounded interesting to see if it stuck.  Then the small companies would make weird copycat toys to capitalize on those popular lines, and it was awesome.  Creativity was everywhere, and whatever you were into as a kid, there were plenty of toy lines capitalizing on your interests.

Recently some dealer friends of mine asked me to identify a toy line.  They are very knowledgeable on 80’s toys, so I was surprised that there might be something I knew about that they didn’t.  I certainly don’t consider myself to be an expert on the 80’s, but they knew I liked weird stuff so they thought I might have come across this toy line before.  I hadn’t.  I was just as stumped as they were.  We showed the toys to a few other very knowledgeable dealers in the room, and no one knew what they were.  This is a very rare occurrence as even a lot of the obscure and weird toy lines from the 1980’s are fairly well documented and researched among the collector community.  All I knew after seeing these bizarre plastic figures was that I wanted them for my collection. I needed to own these things.

The only information we had to work from was a toy company name and a date on the bottom of each figure.  They were marked “Creata 1986″.  If you haven’t heard of Creata, it is because they were a very small company that didn’t make much.  They capitalized on other successful toy companies by making knock offs to fool grandmothers and weird aunts who had no idea what the kids in their lives were really looking for.  Mostly what you will find if you do a Google search on Creata is a Gem doll knock off that they made.  Now, hopefully, since I am writing this article you will be able to find this incredibly weird toy line that they created called “Ugglies”.

Is this a full set of ” Ugglies”?  As far as I can tell, it is not. According to the card back for the Ugglies, there are twelve in the set. Since these are the first I am seeing, I cannot tell you for sure whether or not every single figure was made, but if they were it will most likely be a long a tedious task for me to try and hunt the rest of the set down. The carded examples I am showing below were sent to me by another fan of the toy line. The figure examples they show are all among the figures that I bought, so until I see examples of the other six in the set I can’t be completely sure. It is not uncommon for toy companies to show toys on the back of a blister card that were never made. If anyone has any of the other figures I would love to share them with the world, and if you ever want to part with them I know a good loving home you can send them to.

Here are some individual shots with names so you can get better acquainted with the Ugglies that I was able to obtain.

Ol’ Blue Eyes

Ol’ Blue Eyes is one of my favorites, though it is very hard to pick a favorite. I think with the overalls he is wearing that Creata might be trying to make Ol’ Blue Eyes out to be a child? What a weird and wacky toy!  Also, he has a bolt in the back of his head.  I just wanted to make sure you noticed that.

James Gag-Me

I think the name of this figure simply comes from the fact that the creators felt very clever for coming up with the name “James Gag-Me”. I love the eye in the back of his head. It kind of makes the figure for me. Also the fact that he has one giant foot.  These things are great!

Fly Speck

This figure is a little more basic and a little less gross than the first two, even though it is eating bugs and has worms for hair. You know a toy line is weird when one of the “less gross” figures is eating bugs and has worms for hair.

This is another one of my favorites. I go back and forth over which one is my favorite. Clearly I can’t choose. I am pretty sure Reject will haunt your nightmares. That poor cat.

Split Head

This one is most gross in concept, yet most simplistic in execution. For a second I thought all of these were supposed to be children, maybe knocking off of Garbage Pail Kids more specifically, but this one is wearing a business suit. Maybe I am over thinking the Ugglies a little bit…

Phoul Pharoah

You might be thinking I spelled “pharaoh” wrong in the name there. Well, Creata spelled it wrong on the package. Maybe they did that on purpose, but I doubt it. A mummy isn’t exactly a creative concept compared to the other figures in the line, but I think this guy has a great design.

Creata managed to reference all sorts of great gross-out and monster images in these weird toys.  They are a little bit Garbage Pail Kids, a little bit Mad Balls, a little bit Weirdos, and a little bit of a whole bunch of other interesting monster ideas from the 1980’s and the few decades prior.  I think these things are so cool and I am so lucky to have been able to obtain such a large group in one shot.  Now that I have met the Ugglies I am definitely obsessed with them. Now that you have met the Ugglies, you are probably at least a little bit obsessed with them, too.

The post Meet the Ugglies! 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.

As a kid of the 1980s, I was inundated by product after product of all the various popular movies, television shows, and toys that a kid had to choose from in terms of entertainment. I didn’t have to see the movie Gremlins to know what Gizmo looked like. His adorable furry mug was plastered on a wide assortment of toys and plush dolls.

But Gizmo was a Mogwai. Those Gremlins (the creatures Mogwai transform into if they eat anything after midnight…I’m assuming Eastern Standard Time) terrified me. Ugly scales, sharp little teeth, evil red glaring eyes…to me, wet little monster puppets are far more realistic than anything anyone will ever be able to recreate with CGI these days. And because I was so exposed to entertainment as a kid, it was difficult for me to differentiate between reality and fantasy. So I knew that if I avoided watching either of the Gremlins movies, I wouldn’t have to fear them when the lights went out at night.

Here’s the thing: my fear of Gremlins is exactly what the filmmakers of the 1984 movie wanted me to experience. Not just anyone can create a piece of cinema where you can completely lose yourself in the moment even though you know that you’re watching puppets. As such, Gremlins holds up quite well today.

Several toy companies are churning out Gremlins collectibles in large quantities, and they’re all quite popular. In many cases, items that were released as collectibles in the last 15 years (as opposed to items contemporary to when the movies were released in 1984 and 1990) are quite a bit more valuable and desirable than their vintage counterparts.

However, my eyes have been focused on finding vintage Gremlins toys in the last couple of years, and there is some truly amazing merchandise that was made for the two movies. I would say a good 90-95% of the merchandise is based around Gizmo, and that makes a lot of sense, since he’s literally the cutest fictional character in a horror movie ever and easily marketable to children.

Today, I’m spotlighting a pair of plush toys that, as far as I can tell, were only available in the United Kingdom. It’s a set of plush dolls of Mohawk and Daffy, two of the evil Mogwai that were spawned when Gizmo gets wet in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) and the first Gremlins movie (1984), respectively. Like I said, the vast majority of Gremlins merchandise was based around Gizmo with a couple of items based on Stripe from the first film, so it’s nice to see Gremlins toys based on other Mogwai. There are an awful lot of plush Gremlins out there, so it’s not as though these are standouts, right?

Wait. Bear with me. It gets a whole lot better.

See, according to the rules established in the movies, if you feed a Mogwai after midnight, that’s when they transform into the titular Gremlins. Even though these are plush toys, you can pretend that these little guys got out of hand by literally pulling them inside out and exposing their true, horrific nature.

Yes, these plush toys are reversible, which allows you to transform Mohawk and Daffy back and forth between Mogwai and Gremlins. These. Are. INCREDIBLE. I was simply doing a search for vintage Gremlins toys on eBay and these popped up. I had no idea they existed. The auctions for the two plush dolls were both were in the United Kingdom, and as far as I can tell, every other example of these that I’ve been able to find has only been for sale over there, leading me to believe they’re an overseas exclusive. Much like the Japanese JUN Planning toys from the late 1990s, it seems like the best merchandise is never available in the market where it makes the most sense.

Plush toys are a tough call in the collecting world, since they’re not something that can easily be displayed on a shelf. However, once I knew these existed, I knew I had to own them, proper display space be damned. To my knowledge, they are the only transforming Gremlins toys ever made, and in this case, it makes perfect sense. The “action feature” of these toys is built around what happens to Mogwai in the films.

To my UK readers, be thankful that you have a pretty easy shot of getting these. For everyone else, time to add a saved search to eBay!

The post Reversible Plush Gremlins (Mohawk and Daffy) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Yes, that toy is constructed of a tiny baby doll shoved inside a larger doll leg. This little beauty was made by legitimate toy company Uneeda toys. Uneeda made dolls from 1917- 1991. They also made Wishniks, which were knock off Troll dolls, but were still very popular and are sought after today.

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the pitch meeting where someone pitched the idea for the Toe-Kin, which sounds like a clever name until you think about the fact that this doll is in a foot, or even more a lower leg, not a toe. Uneeda toys tried to disguise the fact that this toy is clearly made out of a left over baby doll leg by putting a pretty yellow ribbon around the mushroom plug at the top of it, but they aren’t fooling anyone. For those of you who might not be as familiar with toy construction techniques, mushroom plugs are often placed where two movable joints connect on a toy. If you have ever pulled the head off of one of your Barbie dolls or action figures, you will most likely find a mushroom plug where the neck connects to the body. It looks kind of like a mushroom most of the time, hence the name. In the case of this doll leg, it probably would have been sewn onto a soft doll torso and the indentation from the mushroom plug would be where they stitched it into place. Now, if you thought that the cute little doll sitting inside of the foot, which is about the size of a Kiddle doll, was removable you would be WRONG. That little lady is permanently fixed to that doll foot for better or worse.

There are so many questions I have about this ridiculous toy. Is the concept of this thing supposed to represent a little girl with a hideous deformity where instead of having a normal lower torso she just has one giant leg? Is she piloting a giant leg as her own mode of completely awesome transportation? Is she just chillin’ inside a giant leg just because she can? The poor execution and lack of a back story make it impossible for us to truly know. Do Toe-kins come in both right and left feet? Are there more Toe-kins in the series? Probably, but I haven’t found any more to prove whether or not that is true yet.

I know it might seem like I am hating on Toe-kins, but I can honestly tell you that I was truly excited when my brother found this for me at a toy show. Yes, Uneeda toys deserves to be scolded for trying to market such a lame concept to children. And I pity the poor kid whose grandma or weird aunt gave them one of these things for their birthday. At the same time, this toy is hilariously bad, and any object that can make me laugh or put a smile on my face is worth owning in my book. That is why I am sharing the Toe-kin with you, internet community. I hope it makes you laugh and puts a smile on your face, too. If so, the Toe-kin is doing its job.

The post One of the Worst Toys I Have Ever Seen: Toe-kins appeared first on The Collector Gene.