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’m running this toy ad for about only one reason and that is because it’s fugging awesome:

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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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So you probably don’t know or care that I haven’t updated in the last two days, but I’ll just let you know that I’ve been sick and the last thing I want to do is sit behind the computer and type away. But, I still love you so here’s a lazy video post of Thor rocking out. Enjoy:

If you want to get a quick taste of what a live action G.I. Joe film could be like, then look no further than this old G.I. Joe commercial.

If you don’t know much about G.I. Joe, this commercial came about as the toy line was starting to become a line based purely on gimmicks. Yep, the Joe train was almost off the rails. Don’t get me wrong, I like gliders as much as the next guy but the figures were starting to be made in exclusively neon paint schemes. The Ninja Force line also seems cool on paper. Who doesn’t love ninjas? Well too many ninjas can spoil the ninja soup. Plus the Ninja Force figures all had some stupid gimmick that ruined their poseabilty, one of the strongest points of the A Real American Hero line.

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I ran across the video on Brothers Brick.com. It is a former Lego community team manager, Jake McKee, giving a talk about how Lego changed it’s non-interaction with it’s fans into a company that communicates with and pays attention to its adult collectors.

Yes, this video is boring, but if you’re in the least bit interested in how the toy industry works it’s a great watch. He goes into detail of why Lego made the change from a company that seemed almost clueless to one that is more open and tries to please it’s core audience. McKee gives a great example how Lego was a bit clueless about it’s own deep history and the knowledge it’s fans had about it’s products, “What’s funny is that… five years in my work at Lego I could not find one person that even remotely approached the level of knowledge that the dumbest fan had about our product line.”

Near the end of the video McKee gets into Lego’s first big set, the three hundred dollar Star Destroyer and how everyone had said they would never sell anything that large and that expensive. Wow, how times have changed, huh?

UPDATE: I want to thank all the Lego fans coming to see this video at the moment. I hope you like my site and I welcome you to check out any other articles that may strike your fancy.

Since I’m completely obsessed with G.I. Joe lately, there’s going to be a few more Joe commercials in Toy Ads that Time Forgot than usual. Sorry, but thems the breaks. This time I’d like to take a moment to go into one of my favorite Joe vehicles, the Rolling Thunder.

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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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In honor of Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors first session hitting DVD, I figured that it was high time I said something about the line and shared a couple of TV ads from it.

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I’m a big fan of Dune. I’m not just a little fan. I’ve got a huge veiny nerd-on for Dune. Not the book, but the David Lynch mega bomb of the nineteen eighties featuring both Kyle MacLachlan in one of his greatest roles (although it is hard to beat Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks) and an almost nude Sting. If you only ever see one movie with a nearly nude Sting, make it David Lynch’s Dune. Don’t forget other mega stars like Max von Sydow and the preeminent British actor, Captain Picard. But I could go on all day, I love that damn movie too much. That’s why I love this little Lego custom:

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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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I’m about a month or two late on this one to be relevant considering the last Rambo movie was out forever ago, but this ad for Rambo toys is still flipping sweet. Not because of the actual toys or anything, but because the whole idea of the Rambo franchise being aimed at children is frightening hilarioius. Here it is though, one of the bloodiest most violent action franchises being marketed for the kiddies:

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While this week’s commercial isn’t exactly the kind of toy I usually cover here, I decided to do a TAtTF on it mainly because I’m obsessed with the game Rock Band. Okay, I’m not as obsessed as I was because my Xbox 360 is in the shop (sigh, I miss you baby) and unable to play it, but I’m wishing I had the game so I could play the new downloadable songs by Paramore and Serj Tankian this week, not to mention the STP song released a few weeks back… okay enough about that… I apologize. The Star Stage is a “toy” that cashed in on nearly everyone’s dream (especially kids) of being a huge rock or pop star in an extremely lame way. Well maybe it’s not that lame. It could just be the kid singing the terrible song making it seem incredibly lame, I mean it does have flashing lights, a working microphone, AND an echo function.

Nope, it really is that lame.

Star Stage also serves the duel purpose of being an incredibly effective torture instrument for parents who had children that owned the Star Stage.

This isn’t toy related. I just feel like shoving a big fat proboscis of awesome in your face. How’s about Christopher Lee singing a song titled called, “The Magic of Wizard Dreams” with the lead singer of European metal band Rhapsody of Fire? You bet I’m there.

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The fine folks that bring you ToyFare have been messing around a bit and they came up with a classic Twisted ToyFare Theatre that’s animated. I like it. In fact, it’s what I had really hoped Robot Chicken would be. Yeah it’s funny, but sometimes there’s a lot of misses in with the home runs. I might also help that this video is one of my favorite Twisted ToyFare Theatres ever. Check out the video for yourself:

What do you think? You can leave a note to the ToyFare folks on their board and give them some input, or you could probably leave it here and they might see it. Rumor has it that the ToyFare staff has a room full of small Asian children that Google mentions of ToyFare all day long.

Anyway, this first outing is pretty cool and I’d love to see more. Perhaps we will start seeing some of everyone’s favorite characters like Spider-Man, the Hulk, drunk Iron Man, Dr. Doom, or the Star Wars Expanded Universe? Pretty please?