Toy Bender

Since the entire world has stopped after the release of Grand Theft Auto IV except for those places where people have better things to do like starve to death, live under an oppressive dictatorship, or be lucky enough to experience both situations (I’m looking at you North Korea), toy news has seemingly ground to a halt. I haven’t seen a whole lot to report on and much worse I’m pretty apathetic, because I’ve got a vacation coming up so toys are the last thing on my mind. What better time then to share a YouTube video of cowboys fighting robots?

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I want to just put it out there that sometimes I have odd tastes in things that I think are funny, therefore this video is both funny and extremely entertaining to me. Since I don’t have much else going on this Sunday and I thought I’d share it if you are in the same boat:

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If you plan on attending the Philadelphia Wizard World convention and you dig toys (and why would you even be on this site if you didn’t like toys?), the first ever ToyFare Hall of Fame Awards will be held there. For the first year’s inductees include Randy Falk of NECA, Clayburn Moore, and the Four Horsemen. For details on who each of these folks are, I’ve included the press release below.

I think this is a cool idea, although I’d think for the Hall of Fame that there might be a few inductees who contributed to the toy industry less recently. Where’s the guy who invented G.I. Joe? Or the one guy that… okay I really don’t know much about the people that created the toys that we collect (or play with) today, but there’s got to be some figures from the past that could get a nice nod. I asked Adam Tracy, Creative Director Wizard World Conventions, if this is possible and he said that the Hall of Fame includes all of toy history, so chances are that past legends can be recognized. The recognition could even be given posthumously, so toy creators who are either zombies or have turned into vampires or werewolves are eligible. Not directly his quote, mind you.

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Word up, Peeps. Either toy news is almost non-existent or I’ve lost my passion for toys, which I find hard to believe. In order to keep up the best in free entertainment, I thought instead of not having any posts at all today, I’d share some link love with the rest of you. If you’re an interweb friend of mine and I missed you in this post, I’m sorry.

While this is just a bunch of links, you’ll really miss out if you don’t click on the more button!

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This is the coolest thing you’ll probably see… ever. It’s a fan made scene from Tron involving stop motion, cardboard, and a metric shit ton of awesome. No this is not related to toys, but I’d be doing a huge disperse by not sharing it with others. It’s like Christianity. I’ll go to nerd hell if I don’t force you all to check out what I know is sweet:

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The following post is brought to you by fellow blogger and part time friend (he’s part time because he never invites me to any of his fancy society parties in San Francisco), Great White Snark. I wrote a post over on his site, so go over there to read it, but only after you finish his post here and eat your meat. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?

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This month I’ll continue our look at the mighty toy collecting magazine known as ToyFare, because you demanded it! And by you, I mean Tripper McGee. Oh yeah, her and whoever strayed here by accident looking for Popeye porn (and by that I mean Esbat). Crack open your issues of ToyFare, because we’re going for a ride!

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HANQ is back! After a bit of a bit of an absence (read: I got tired of writing this feature) I thought I’d revisit the nerdy questions hurled at Hasbro like a convict throwing man mayo at a visiting FBI agent. I’ve searched for some of the most interesting/annoying questions of round 47 and have got some great ones. Now let’s get down to it!

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When you’re down one Clone Watch it seems like you get hit by a few so let’s take a moment to catch up on the clone action that slipped through the cracks recently.

In more recent news, StarWars.com revealed that German fans that go to the Jedi-Con in Düsseldorf, Germany from March 21st through 23rd will get to see the debut of a really cool looking pair of clones in an Order 66 style cylindrical package (what I also just happen to call my wiener).

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It was brought to my attention by Poe Ghostal that my spam filter may have become overly aggressive. I did the best I could and dug through a few pages of the nearly 2,000 comments in the spam filter and pulled some out from you guys. However, I had to clean out the folder. I can only take so many links to computer viruses disguised in what promises to be super awesome porn before I have to clean it all out and start over.

I won’t be able to resurrect comments that you may have left, but this might be a problem that I will have to bring to my blogging overlords for them to fix. So please, please let me know if you’d had problems lately.

UPDATE: It seems that all comments are being marked as spam and it’s pretty much happening to everyone on the 451 network. The Overlords are aware of the problem. I’ll regularly check the spam folder to make sure that I don’t miss your lovely comments. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I don’t usually write about things that don’t fit under the “boys toys” or “man child” category, but this article I ran across the other day is a great look at the behind the scenes world of the toy industry. The article is on Boston.com and it details the creation of what could be called the ultimate girl’s toy, Butterscotch the practically life sized, three hundred dollar, robot pony. If you haven’t seen it yet, then I’m not sure where you’ve been. It’s in almost every large retail store and it’s usually surrounded by little girls that are not at all put off by the Pony’s non-life.

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A long, long time ago a company named Super Rad Toys sent me a press release talking about a contest where the winner could get their hands on some of their merch. I appreciate getting notified of such things, but this was one of the toys you could win:

Sometimes… the terrorists have a point.

This is by far the most hideous toy in existence and I never thought I’d say that after seeing the ICP figures. I’d almost believe that Super Rad Toys was trying to give me a heart attack by sending me an image of this thing. If you somehow brought this back in time and showed it to HP Lovecraft he would have immediately stopped writing and gone into gardening knowing that nothing he could create in his literature would even compare to how monstrous this thing is.

Who the hell would want to own this thing? Is there a big following for angel clown gangster merchandise? I have never once thought to myself that what I really needed was a gangster combined with a biblical deity and a children’s entertainer.

I realize that there are a lot of small companies making their own toys for a niche audience. The vinyl toy craze has become popular and has led to some pretty great stuff, but at a certain point you have to take a step back and ask yourself as a designer, “Am I doing the right thing?” In this case I’d have to put a big no on this one and start over.

You know what kids don’t have enough of? Games that simulate suicide. That’s where the Asians have it right with this ad:

That look on that young child? Oh yes, that’s pure excitement. You’re never going to get that kind of fun from games that don’t involve simulate taking your own life are you? The kid is so into this freaking toy that he looks like he just shat himself. Now, that’s an awesome toy. Hell, I bet that if you got a big group of kids together and had two of them facing off with this thing, then you could have one great pretend gambling den. Not that you’d want kids to pretend betting and murdering themselves, but you’ve got to train them somehow when they grow up and find themselves in an underground, secret Russian Roulette gambling ring. How will they know how how to place bets, how best to not crap themselves when holding a gun to your head, or how exactly they should lose their will to live. It’s also that very important time during adolescence where you must learn that you never want to bet on Christopher Walken. Di-di mau!

Liked this Post? Here’s the Best of Toybender:
Top Ten Weirdest Toy Ads
Eight (untrue) Facts about the Magic Eight Ball
Defending Toy Collecting

toy, toy collecting, advertisement, Asia, weird, odd, bizarre

If you follow mainstream news coverage of toys, it’s a bleak world of Communist toys murdering red blooded American children. There’s even more death and disaster, this time tainting Marvel and one of my favorite monkeys of all time, Curious George. According to the L.A. Times, an activist group sent a letter of complaint to Marvel due to a Curious George toy supposedly containing dangerous levels of lead paint.

This all fine and dandy (aside from the fact I had no idea Marvel had anything to do with Curious George), except that the group is, “…brandishing California’s Proposition 65 environmental law in its drive to get lead out of the toy chest.” Let me tell you something about California. Aside from the ungodly high cost of living and the fear of a brutal power raping looming over me, it’s a pretty neat place. I came from a rural environment, so having like, actual stuff around me is pretty cool. One of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen since moving here, coming from a normal society, is these dumb signs that are in almost every store warning you of various cancerous dangers that basically are ignored by everyone. Even if you did get concerned when you see a sign like this there’s no other information than you could die from something mysterious in the area. I’m sure you could ask or do some research in order to identify what fatal chemical may mutate you like the Toxic Avenger or cause you to bleed profusely from the anus (there has to be a Game Fuel joke in there somewhere). You might as well label all containers that contain liquid with the words, “May Drown You” and be just as effective.

What was I talking about again? I think the cancer fumes in my apartment are getting to me.

toy, toy collecting, action figure, Hasbro, Indiana Jones

Here’s another guest article courtesy of a fellow 451 Writer and super awesome person, Allison Boyer.

- Paul

These guys can help you. No, really.

Collecting “Up”

I’m not a toy collector. Well, unless you count sentimental teddy bears from ex-boyfriends. And I’m guessing that most of you don’t. That said, I do watch a lot of Bravo television. Stay with me here, I promise I’ll be relevant at some point, since Paul was awesome enough (Looks like we are off to a great start here - Paul) to let me write for you all.

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