Bottom of the Toy Box: Forgotten Relics of the '80s-'90s

[Bennett]

Anybody remember/know the name of those action figures that were a plastic back, but the front was kind of flat with a hologram on it? I remember there was a mummy, and a ghost, and maybe a knight or something.

I never had any, but they sure looked pretty shitty.

[Ninjavenom]

I had the mummy one too.

[Zbu Manowar]

Those were Supernaturals. And honestly, they had their moments...through it was like trying to play with lithographs. One angle off and your Knight is some puss.

[Bennett]

okay, here's another one, when I was really little, like pre-school age, I had these Superhero toys. They weren't the big 8'' or 7'' ones with removable clothes, they were about the size of the star wars figures. I had a Spider-Man and Green Goblin (which were kick ass) But I also had some D.C. characters like Batman and Robin. One thing I remember is that Batman had a rubber head/cape it was all one piece, and for some reason they made it detachable... you could pop his head of and there was a little peg on top of his torso. I used to love those damn things when I was like 4. Could just be some cheap woolworths toy or something.

It wasn't the Secret Wars toys either, although those were pretty cool in and of themselves. If you happen to have a copy of Better of Dead, go to the scene where Layne is opening all of his Tv dinners... Badger is playing with a Secret Wars vehicle in the background.

[FS]

Originally Posted by Zbu Manowar

Why don't you just buy those? Hell, with shipping it was under $5.

Nah, as much as I loved them, I wouldn't buy them now... unless I have a son some day.

[Zbu Manowar]

Understood. Even then you might want to wait, these were the days when a child could kill himself with a Bobo Fett toy.

[Cybernetico]

They should release a 9-11 toyset

NEVAR FORGAT

[Rygo]

Centurions - those niggaz that would turn into robotic shit, one dude had like an airbackpack, one went under the water, one drilled into the ground to find fossilized dinosaur feces. i always wanted one of the figures, but i lived in canada

Rock Lords - so fucking own! own own own own own! I had the purple dino guy

Battle Beasts - awesomely awesome. one x-mas my mom got me the like 100 set, oh man that owned. They were so expensive, 2 in a package for like $8.

Food Fighters - we passed these out as party favors at a birthday of mine (when I was like 12 hah). I had the pizza (the best one) and lost the fucking red machine gun behind my bed. I was so damn bummed.

Army Ants - I totally forgot about these. They were pretty cool. Didn't they do something special? Like light up or something.

Remember that umm bionic family group? And they had a bionic ape that lived with them. Those figures were so goddamn badass, I always wanted one.

Mad Balls were cool.. didn't really make a lot of sense nor were they fun to play with. FUCK BALLS

Barnard Commandos - I remember these, they were cool, but by the time I found them I was too old for toys and disinterested.

Hahaha boglins!! i had one of these guys. He was like really squishy, and smelled like funny rubber.

[Rygo]

anyone remember mighty max and/or mummies alive and/or ghostbusters: the next generation with the cripple ghostbuster? i used to watch those in the morning before i caught the bus for high school

[Bennett]

C.O.P.S.
"Fighting Crime in a Future Time."

These guys always seemed kinda lame, but I always ended up watching the TV show.
In case you need a refresher, here's what I remember:
The main villain was a big fat guy named, quite originally: the Big Boss. His look was a cross between the Kingpin and Boss Hog, and his voice was a cross between James Cagney and W.C. Fields.
There was an evil scientist with a glass jar for the top of his head, through which you could see his brain.
I'm not too sure about the heroes
I think the main guy was a black dude with a trench coat, who had these giant machine guns pop out of his chest.
Anybody else remeber these guys?

also:
Silver Hawks
a.k.a. Thundercats in Space
Although these guys weren't nearly as cool as the thundercats, I always liked the villains in this serious more. I thought Mumbo Jumbo and the Buzzsaw dude were tops, and the fact that you could switch MonStar's head on the action figure was pretty cool too, although if I saw it now I would probably laugh.

[Zbu Manowar]

Sir, you have humbled me! I loved COPS. Especially when Bulletproof entered the series, got crushed during a car chase, then had his brain popped into an indestructable facsimile of his body that somehow was just this badass robot. And they have a few more familiar guys like the guy with the robotic dog, Longarm...and a few others that slip my mind.

The criminals sucked, however. I couldn't honestly find it in my heart to even remember some of them.

Silverhawks on the other hand ruled. Nuff said.

[FS]

Central Organisation of Police Specialists! Rollcall: Highway! Mainframe! Longarm! Bowser and Blitz! Sundown! Hardtop! Mirage! Bullseye! Mace! Barricade! And they call me... Bulletproof.

It's imprinted on my brain. The criminals: Berserko! Rock Crusher! Miss Demeanor! Turbo Tu-Tone! Doctor Badvibes! Nightshade! And this one guy that never made it into the credits, called Boom Boom, who had guns in his chest. I watched the show a lot, but later on I started liking it less. As far as I know, there weren't any toys of it though.

I remembered another toy that was based on a cartoon about guys in mechanical bodysuits, who each had an animal emblem they could turn into. In the first episode they went into some kind of temple or something and were awarded animal powers for their bravery. I remember there being an eagle, a bear, and one guy becoming a cockroach or something for being cowardly. The toys were basically tall GI Joes, with holograms on their chest and a staff with a big hologram of an animal mask on it. Can't remember the name.

[Zbu Manowar]

Yup, they did.

Through the bad guys don't really look like anything more than either '80s punk stereotypes or Dick Tracy villains that someone smushed.

[Milkman Dan]

How about Muscle Men, those little pink plastic guys. Man, my brotherr and I used to beg my mom to buy us some every time we went to Wal Mart.

And does anyone remember Air Warriors? "The power is in the air!" There were the orange guys and the purple guys. I had some kind of plane that sorta resembled a cloud car from Empire Strikes Back with a big air bladder in the center that shot two missles when you squeezed it.

[Zbu Manowar]

Odd this is the place you mention if anybody remembers MUSCLE. Haven't you checked the main page where Mockery renames all the little guys?

As for Air Warriors....now that strikes a memory, but I can't place it.

[Milkman Dan]

I havent seen that thread but then I did just stumble across I-mockery yesterday while looking for info on Metal Slug 4. But I will try to be more atentive in the future.

As for Air Warriors you can find some pics on ebay.

Also Iremember some toys that I think were called Skyraiders.
All the vehicles could be atached to chairs or tables and they had strings and ribons that came out of the backs and atached to another chair or table. And they had motorized things that would crawl across the ropes. All the action figures had strings comming out of their backs with hooks.

[Skulhedface]

Wow, someone else remembered the Captain Power toys (If you look in the gaming post, you'll notice I pointed out how Captain Power resembles the box art for the original Mega Man)

I will mention two VERY pale imitations here:

Go-Bots and the Ghostbusters.

Go-Bots PISSED ME OFF. Blatant rip-off in the good name of Transformers, JUST TO MARKET SOME FUCKING ACTION FIGURES? But I can't talk about that, I loved He-Man

And the Ghostbusters. Not the ones we all know and love, but the "other" Ghostbusters. Who decided making a gorilla a Ghostbuster was a good fucking idea? What made it even worse is that the other series had to resort to calling itself "The REAL Ghostbusters" after that. Kinda lackluster, eh?

The Ghostbusters movies always owned, though.

And, unless lack of sleep has caused me to miss it otherwise, I'm damn surprised no one else mentioned the GARBAGE PAIL KIDS.

[Bennett]

Man, Go-bots were not a relic...
The Ghostbusters w/gorilla... I'll give you that.
Garbage Pail Kids not a toy OR a relic.

get it together, man.

[Bennett]

oh yeah, and that "other" ghostbusters show had a top-notch theme song:

"let's go, ghostbusters...
let's go,
let's go, let's go.

let's go, ghostbusters...
let's go,
let's go, let's go!"

Very inventive.

[Skulhedface]

Originally Posted by Bennett

Garbage Pail Kids not a toy OR a relic.

To each their own. I consider it a relic because well, I'm stretching the definition to mean any toy or collectible, basically anything entertainment oriented geared towards children in the 80s. By that definition you can at least partially forgive me for that.

But man, I still have a whole shoebox of that stuff. Rotting in storage now, of course...

And thinking of that theme song brought back some memories. Very inventive they were, indeed.

[Loki]

Bucky O'Hare....specifically the Frog Spaceschip thing.

Oh yeah how bout Toxic Crusaders?

[Jeanette X]

She-Ra, Princess of Power!
"For the honor of Greyskull, I am SHE-RA!"

Even cooler than Xena.

[Bennett]

Oh Jesus God Mary Sweet Bastard.
The name of the thread is "Bottom of the Toy Box: Forgotten Relics of the 80's-90's"
There is nothing Forgotten about She-Ra, There is nothing Toy Box about Garbage Pail Kids. Sweet A-pook the Destroyer, get it straight people.

Loki, Bucky O'Hare rocks the space jocks.

[Jeanette X]

What about Jem dolls? Anyone remember those? (Hopefully Jem will be obscure enough to qualify for this thread)

[Zbu Manowar]

I actually remember Jem because she had that cartoon that was fairly realistic...until you realized that hologram technology basically meant you could stick a hand through that mass of pink hair she had and realize it was some sort chick that, oddly, looked a lot like Jem but not as glittery.

But the thing I'll always remember about Jem is how they squeezed in those videos which were really really bad half-rock tunes and had the balls to put a video caption in the corner of the screen just to con some sucker into thinking that it was REALLY a video that you would want to watch outside of the show!! Oh yeah, the Misfits are really a band! It was really produced!! Right.

Ah, the pristine days when MTV would air just videos and be done with it.