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Alright, let's get on with the show. Waiting down upon the underworld to smash gangland, come a friend of the unfortunate enemy of criminal. In a serious, all powerful character, a problem to the police, but a good state of law. Hey everybody, what else was exchanged?
Classic edition, I'm Sal. I'm Joel. Back again. Back again.
Tag team, back again. We're gonna be talking about action figures today. This is a Joel idea. So if it tanks, blame Joel.
But no, for real, I'm excited because I love action figures. Or rather, I did. You know, it's, let's change since I like, crossed 20. Yeah, there comes a point, and it truly is one of those sad moments of growing up, and I'm pretty sure a lot of our fans can relate to this.
It's when you lose that imagination to play with action figures. Like there used to be a point where you could have, you know, like amazing sagas take place between your action figures, and then one day, it's just gone. It's just over. And I've actually, there's a episode of Back Issues that I think is coming up where I talk about like, the phenomenon of reaching a limit.
I likened it to, I think I cut it, but I likened it to serial killers. And it's like, stay with me now. Because I had a friend who was really like, weirdly obsessed with serial killers. And one of the things that he shared with me, not that he was a serial killer.
Just really into it. That in his research, he discovered that like, serial killers were not found. The ones that they don't actually catch. Yeah, like the story, I can shit.
Right. The ones that they don't catch usually aren't caught because they stop killing, and they were really good at it. And what they've discovered, or rather one popular theory, about psychoanalytical theory is that serial killers reach a limit. Really?
Where they're like, they're like, I'll kill them. They got it all killed out. And they're like, I've killed enough. I've killed enough.
I've left enough cryptic messages. That's what he actually, he was the guy who got me into Garthonist's Punisher Max. Oh, nice. He wanted to, he was like, I think I want to write a Punisher story.
It's a dude who by the way, like outside of Ben Ethan, this guy likes comics, even less than them. That's amazing. Red, fewer comics than them, and he regularly read Garthonist's Punisher. But dude was like, I think I want to write a Punisher story where Punisher, thank you Austin for your Super Chat conversation, you rock man.
Where Punisher reaches the kill limit. Like where he's just like, I can't kill anymore. Like I just don't. That's the title right there, Punisher kill limit.
Kill limit. I'm copyright, that's mine. But yeah, like he reaches the limit and he can't kill anymore. He just, I don't want to anymore.
It's a lot of my system. And it's like, oh, and I go, well, so you're writing the last Punisher story. And it has a kind of happy ending because he hasn't killed by police or by like a monster in a fucking boat or something. And he's like, yeah, I guess.
And I'm like, yeah, well, they're not going to go for that. You would need to do it. You would need to be like, how Stella got her grew back. It would be how Frank got his murder boner back.
How he learned to enjoy murder. Yeah. Yeah. And really what you do is you just do a story about human drafting or something where he's just like, these people have to die.
Like always sets him off. Like that slaver story is still probably one of the most hardcore books ever written. You know what? You know what set him back on that you would do this whole story where he reaches the limit.
And then you launch the story where the dude exhumes the bodies of his family and the peas on. Oh, yeah. And you have that last page image of Punisher Frank just like, just like that look at his face is so freaking amazing because it's just otherwise it just looks like a friendly dude. But because you know it's Frank, it's like, oh my God.
There's the shit they never do in the movies, but I hope they eventually tell that story on Netflix. Because it's like that guy is like Nikki something. He wasn't even a super villain. Yeah, he was just a random dick.
Exhumes the bodies of Frank's family, desecrates them and then puts it on the internet. Yep. And then they just show it on TV and they're like, holy crap, I would not want to be Frank Castle right now. Yeah, you just called down the thunder, sir.
Yeah. But anyway, so like Frank Castle hasn't or like most serial killers, I reached the action figure limit, but there was a time and there was a time when I was all about action figures. So Joel, let's get into it because I'm sure you were like me and you dug the shit out. It was just like, and by the way, because Marvel was run by Toymen in the 90s, we had I think no, you know, Marvel's had Marvel publishers like 50 stories a month.
But I feel like I've probably written more Marvel stories with Toymen's action figures than the entire Marvel comics history. Let me tell you about one of the greatest Christmas gifts I ever received. I can still see the commercial in my head right now. That was another thing part of action figures, the commercials that were like the mini, excuse me, 30 second movies.
The Waterworld X-Man line, which you know has nothing to do with the Kevin Costner movie, Waterworld. Although looking back on it now, I'm like what the fuck were you thinking? Yeah, no, you shared with me the commercial and you could just if you type in Waterworld or Waterworks X-Men figures, you'll find the commercial and it's great. So good.
We're like, oh no, a set will came out of the water. What are we going to do? Well, Wolverine's on his badass X-Men jet ski. And then they got the Hydro Mobile Command Center with a little awkward thing where you would pull the thing on the side and then it would fill up with water and it would drop your action figure down.
It was really cool. Yeah, I had a membership to a lake when I was a kid, or rather my parents did. And I went to the lake every damn day and I actually participated with a lot of kids who also had action figures. Thank you, my king, my king, my man.
And we would share and trade our action figures and play in the water constantly. And it's like, they must have noticed at some point. Hey, these kids are putting the action figures in the water. We got to start making them more modded for Waterworks like in the tub, at Lakes pools everywhere.
I know every action figure of our own has been submerged in some significant body of water. But the worst thing is that G.I. Joe did it first with their scuba steves and all those other types. Oh yeah, I mean like even pro-to-at like G.I.
Joe, when they were dolls, had like aqua versions of them and you could be aqua salt gear. Yeah, I mean like they know, like because you're trying to distract your kid and making them like, yeah, it's rubber duckie logic as I say, I mean, it's just like, it's just you got to you're trying to get your kid clean. And if he's if he's using his hands doing this, you can wash them and then get them the hell bed. But but yeah, action figures were a huge part of my life, almost more so than comics at some point or another.
Like just and by the way, do you have this phenomenon when you go to cons or anything like that, where you see an action figure that you always wanted or that you used to have? And you just go like, and you have this moment where you're like, I have to get that. Constantly, yes, when we were at Seattle, I was looking through the $10 action figures and they had like the toy biz cable. And it was like cable who came with bone crusher and like, oh man, I played with this dude all the time.
Oh my God, I'm pretty sure this guy's still in my mom's basement somewhere. And then I'm just like, should I spend $10 for cable a toy that I had all these years ago? No, no, I'll just leave that memory there. But in the back of my mind, I'm like, maybe I'll come back in 15 minutes.
Yeah, oh no, I was at East Coast Comic Con. This old couple had just stacks of toy biz and like the old school Marvel figures with like, okay, so toy biz made these old Marvel action figures. They looked horrible and they like really stiff, Captain America really stiff, Punisher. They had a Spider-Man who had like ball bearings in every joint so that he could like, he could be superposable.
I had that one. Me too. They also had the other Spider-Man action figure where he had like, he had a straight arm and there was a, he was doing the web swinging thing. He had like a spider tracer at the end and you could like make him web line by running a string through his arm.
Similarly, it's just like they had, they were so crappy, but because you had nothing, your imagination made them even more awesome. Absolutely. Thank you, Tetsuo, for your participation in this. Tetsuo.
Canada. But yeah, man, like this old couple had a whole bunch of them and one I never got because it was always hard to find was the human torch. Love the human torch. I thought he was the closer inaccuracy the action figures got the better.
Oh yeah. I always wanted that human torch because a couple of my friends had human torches, but I could find them because my participation with the action figures was always in my neck of the woods. There was a store. It was called the Bradley's.
They don't have Bradley's no more. The Bradley's was an apartment store. I don't know where you got your action figures Joel, but like my parents hated going to toy stores. So I learned to go to department stores and my mom loved to go to department stores and she was the home buddy.
So she took me when she was like going to get like supplies or clothes and I'd be like, I'm going to the action figure section and then go into the Bradley's, which I think is a lower end department store. It's kind of like a calendar. But they always have like a huge wing of action figures, Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, Toys's Marvel and DC Superpowers came right before my time. I missed the DC Superpowers era, but I loved them and I would get them in like garage sales.
So yeah, let's talk about some of these because I just touched on like a million different variations because your water works one is an interesting thing because so they made toys is and Marvel have a really funny and dicey and disgusting history because I'm. Early to have the alright producer of Spider-Man movies and rumor of Marvel. Yeah was in charge of Toy Biz. And he encouraged Marvel to create more and new and various mutants to turn into action figures.
Didn't he toy coin the term toy nettix? I think we might have or at least he was around it. Yeah, same time of it. Incidentally, by the way, you know who else was a toy man who worked directly with Avi was like Pearl Mutter.
That's right. He was. So it's funny actually having a wizard magazine where there's a very small article. It just says I'll be all right and co partner and toy Biz like Pearl Mutter have now become like president of Marvel's Marvel like incorporated and I'm like, this is it.
This is my Save the Clock Tower moment. If I go back in time and I go to this to the writing of this article, I can stop it from happening. It's a then like we wouldn't have bitch in action figures. True.
It's a real sad trade off is it that some of your most beloved childhood memories and most favorite pieces of plastic were created by these people with nothing but darkness in the room. Yeah, yeah, beautiful money. But yeah, I loved my action figures and they start out with these big proto regular superheroes and then as the X and I got more and more popular, they start spinning out even more. They made X-Men figures.
They made X-Force figures and X-Factor figures. And then once they read out of teams, they were like, okay, I guess we should start making like variants. And so they started making like waterworks, action figures, like projectile launching action figures. Yep.
Just just a crazy time. If you were a Marvel fan, you were going on insane headcanon Marvel Avengers with like your thousands of action figures. You just reminded me to have the Avia around toy Biz thing. You want to know how scummy and money focused these guys were.
They had a whole scam figured out for the importing of action figures from China where they didn't want to pay an extra tariff because they were transporting what was at the time considered dolls, which a doll in the dictionary is any human-esque figure. So a rod and toy Biz and all his people were like, oh, they're not really dolls though. They're mutants. So they're not really human.
You shouldn't have to pay that extra tariff. And this went to like the Supreme Court they fought. That's messed up. That's messed up.
It's even funnier because it's like, well, isn't the whole idea of mutants in the comics that they strive to be human and we're impressed of humanity? Not as far as a rod in that tariff is a huge. It's like to save myself a dollar. Not fucking humans.
It's even funnier though because he actually got that expanded to other characters. So the human torch and Spider-Man as far as a rod was concerned for this, we're not considered human. Right. Goddamn it.
Nice. I think they eventually had to lift that tariff law just because like, well, too many people are abusing this now. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Plus, like, it's just at this point, at some point you just go, all right, well, there's too much money to be had. We're going to wrap that up. But what were some of the stores that you got your action figures from and what were some of your earliest memories with action figures? It's not around anymore, but Zellers here in Canada.
They sold out to Target, then Target is bringing shit to the bed here in Canada, so they're not here anymore. Damn. But yeah, Zellers was the one I really remember because again, it was like a department store. Right.
An 18 answer to a department store very similar to you and ever my mom would do shit. It's like, OK, off to the action figure section. Then you're right. Was ruled by Marvel, was ruled by the DC powers and everything else.
Yeah. What's interesting, though, and this is actually very important to like my identity as a comic nerd. There was a comic store. The first one that I ever went to a couple, what was it called?
I was so young, I can barely remember this. It was like when I was just coming up and loving all the cartoons and everything. And this place, I knew this place was cool because it had the McFarland toys. Man, yeah.
OK. The Kaldor in my area in my grandma's neck of the woods was the first. It was the first store that I saw that had McFarland toys, which they were extremes. They had to have their own special store.
Yeah, not only that. When I was one of the first beta testers for the McFarland toys figures, because when I got them, they were called Todd toys and I got them all like the first wave, Spawn, Media will Spawn, Violator, the Spawn, Mobile, Spawn, Ali, Angela. And the only thing that I couldn't get was Mel Bulge, which is why whenever I see Mel Bulge figures, I go, I got to get it. And then I just don't because I'm like, I don't have any room for him.
First, it was huge. Secondly, he's disgusting looking. So let me blow your mind. I had Mel Bulge.
Damn it, everyone else had Mel Bulge. I had Mel Bulge, but here's the thing though about these Todd toys, these McFarland toys. They really weren't meant to be played with. They fell apart incredibly easily.
Oh, big time. Violator had a horn on top of his head when you pull the horn, his jaw opened up. That horn came right the hell out. Yep.
Every single time. Also, Violator's body, because he was drawn by McFarland, was like bizarre. And he's basically just one of those bendy action figures, one of those bendy figures. Um, yeah, just nice.
I had Zombie Spawn. What else? I had so many. I think I had like OG original Spawn with like the big cape that came out around the same time as the movie.
Yep. They all fell apart on me and I look back on it now and I'm like, fuck me, I wish I kept those because they probably wouldn't be worth so much money now. They are not because I see them for sale everywhere. Okay, then I don't feel so bad.
If you ever go to Somerville, New Jersey at the Comic Fortress, no plug. I like these guys and they always, there's a table. It's full of old action. It's full of old spawn figures.
If you want the first spawn figure, boom, it's there. You want the gold variant version of that figure? It's on that table. You want to know what's on that table?
Because it's been on that table for the last year. That sounds like an invitation. I got to check that out. Seriously, it's great.
There's just nuts with spawn figures. When spawn came at a time, it was right before I hit my action figure limit. But before that, man, I started out with Ninja Turtles. That was my crack.
It was Ninja Turtles figures. There was more than enough variants and everything to keep you coming back. The Tech of Donnie, Slam Dunk, Michelangelo. Oh, the sports variant.
Green Lorraine, ref. There's a million different versions. I had a lot of them. I'll tell you what happened with all of them too because I had so many that it got to be obsessive.
When I hit, I think, 10 or 11, there was a kid, a younger kid, who, okay, so I did a lot of volunteer work at my church. It wasn't really like volunteer work in as much as I was on the books. When the parents all wanted to socialize, I would watch and take care of the kids. They were all deeply obsessed with Ninja Turtles.
One time, I just realized I wasn't playing with them as much as I used to. I didn't really care as much about them. I made a pinata. I had the main kid who I had a little friendship with.
He had the pinata. All my Ninja Turtles actually figured it out and he could keep them. He took them home with him. That was your Andy and Toy Story 3 moments.
Yes, I'm like, well, here you go. These are all my Ninja Turtles. Every single last one of them gone. My ghost busters figures though, forget it.
You cannot have these. You cannot. Oh, nothing. I loved the toy business figures.
I loved the Kenner Superpowers figures. I loved them so much. I love the one of my favorite ones was Robin's surprisingly enough and they're plastic capes. They were nice.
They were really nice. They're cloth capes. They had these little cloth capes with a great plastic neck ring. You snapped it back on their neck so they could come off and on.
Shredder also had a cloth capes. He did. You're an emaciated hobo looking shredder. He looked like he was kept in a cage and just tormented for years.
He got the coolest looking bad guys. He looked so fucked up. He looked awful. In my head can, my shredder was the super shredder action figure.
I'm like, he's cooler and never did anything with him in his name shredder. But those cloth capes were great. I know Wizard had a real problem with non-cloth capes because when DC stopped making those superpowers figures and Toy business dominating the market, DC tried to get him on it. And they were amazing poses but they couldn't do anything or move or articulate and their capes were solid plastic and used as kind of like stands basically.
Weird and terrible. But man, I love those figures. Nothing could compare to the joy of opening a Ghostbusters figure. That was my first love.
I will never come again. There was so much Ghostbusters merch too when I look back on it. You could get the trap. You could get the acto won.
Funny thing was, the trap came so much. You get the proton pack like day freaking won. You want to be a Ghostbusters? Well, here's the thing.
You want to make the jumpsuit until Ghostbusters 2. But if you really want to get on this, here's the proton pack. A proton pack came with a big blue proton pack with the particle accelerator and a big green piece of foam. You can stick in the front and you squeeze the trigger and it made a car starting sound effect.
But number one with that, kids always wore it upside down. Yup. I was like, it's not like that. No, but it doesn't make any sense.
It's a nuclear reactor strapped to your back. Yeah. And secondly, the trap came like a good, I want to say five years later. Like forever, I'm like, well, I got to pretend I have a trap and then eventually they made it.
And the trap is fantastic. It was, you have a little plastic trap. You got the tube and the foot compressor, the foot compressor. When you compressed it, sent air through the tube and then opened the trap open.
I remember that. And they tried to like market it as a, it's like a little feature where if you put your little action figure of a ghost from your ghost box, it goes on top of the trap doors and then hit the foot compressor, it would open up and then it would drop the ghost into the trap. Number one, never worked. Number two, the foot decompressor, like six of those stomps and that thing was done.
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's just toys and toys commercials in general, right? You could never get them to do what they did in the commercial all the time. You know, all these got me, the action figures always looked awesome because they had like these destructible sets.
Yes. Just like all these blocks. I'm like, can I buy the blocks? Where do I go for the blocks?
I was hoping we were going to talk about the actual commercial sets because the sets were legit and I always was like, where can I get whenever it was digital? For example, it was like amazing looking street set, like this whole place out of a street with like storefronts and garbage bins. And I'm like, dead art isn't it. It's kind of like claymation stages.
It's like, like, I got like a bunch of craftsmen to build the old. I've seen action figure commercials since then. And outside of the Paul D. Kevin Smith Batman action figure, retro commercial, the rest of them, they abandoned the set entirely.
It's a dead art and that's unfortunate because that's half the fun. Yeah, but the set for me, I'm like, where is it? They made it. It must be available for purchase.
No, you know, make it yourself. Man. Yeah, I always wanted like those play and the place they made available were never, they never lived up to the hype. You know, like Batman's bat cave.
Yeah, it was way manor one end. The X-Man headquarters, which is actually in the recommended videos for the water world. Yes. I had that too.
In fact, I got two versions of that. You want to know why? Because the first one I got was actually defective because it didn't have the little Wolverine with the blue and the red in it. Oh, and so my mom took it back to the store and complained it.
I got another one. Nice. So I flew X-Man headquarters. They didn't want the other one back.
No, they did. They're just like fine. You're just like, whatever lady. That's amazing.
Really good at complaining to retail people. That's fair. Listen, if they promised it came with an action figure and you didn't get it, fuck that. No, that is messed up.
They also made a blackbird figure. They made a great sentinel figure that came way too late. But yeah, man, let's talk about this action figure commercials for a minute because nothing can be the hype that was generated from classic action figure commercials. And that is a 90s thing because in the 80s when Kenner's Secret Hours figures came out, they tried, they didn't know.
All you needed to do was take the figure, put it in the child's hands and have them go, oh no, here comes the crush. It was so I think they did animation. A couple other random things. They would just show the figure.
They'd be like, oh boy, the store. But later they were like, no, you got to do a whole sketch where we show off their features and we can kind of lead the kid into a, this is what you're supposed to do with them. Time points of articulation. Yeah.
But they didn't just, well, okay, the Kenner's Secret Hours people were like, this is an action figure. The figure has several points of articulation. You'll note that it also looks like the character you're familiar with. It's available at fine retail outlets in your comic book stores.
Go buy it. The marble figures and then by extension, like even like the alien figures, the predator figures, the GI Joe figure, every figure from there, they're like, okay, this is what you're supposed to do. And they give it to like, they give it in the hands of children that are dressed way better than you'll ever be dressed. And they go into either like a jungle habitat that you'll never have or an amazingly crafted like Hollywood set made specifically for your figures.
And then they were like, here's what you do. And you're like, oh, no, Magneto's attacking the city. Well, don't worry, Wolverine's got his Adam and Jim clothes and we haven't thought that I make it would rip them out yet. So that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a okay attack.
That story's coming kids. Yeah. Stay tuned for Wolverine with Adam and see him ripping out of flesh action. That reminds me too, when Wolverine got the Adam and Jim ripped out of him became that weird feral beast man.
Well, I had that action. Oh, yeah. And by the way, like that's the thing is if you wanted like current figures, if you want to figures that were like the comics you were reading, they made them, but they made them in like a weird variant thing. If you ever wanted a female action figure, you were shut out a lot.
They didn't make those things or if they did, they made really, really few of them. The Toyota's one they had like She-Hulk, they had invisible woman, couple others. I got a storm from McDonald's and I felt really happy that I got that storm. I just do it.
I'm not going to get them anywhere else. No, they made a storm where you pull the tab in the back, a lightning bolt in their chest like load. That was the one. Yeah.
It's like, yeah, that was it. I'm like, great. If you get her in water, it's destroyed. Same thing with Magneto where it's like, if you click the thing on the back of Magneto, spark shoot out of this little block in his chest.
Unless you get in water and then it's destroyed. Hey kids, be sure to play with Sparky Magneto next to the oily breath. Sorry. I just need it.
And unlike Ethan, I'm not just going to say to you, I'm going to sneeze and then just not sneeze. It's literally an episode of Back Issues. We're in the middle of a story that Ethan just turns and goes, I'm going to sneeze. Nothing.
And then didn't. And I'm like, thanks. But it's Jesus with the sneeze man. So funny and so weird.
I kept it in the episode. Nice. No, it's going in. That's always the best stuff.
It's like, I'm not cutting this. I hope you know. Right, exactly. But with female action figures, later on the line they realized that people needed female action figures because especially with the X-Men, every third new character, every second new character was a girl.
Like half the team. Yeah. Which is kind of progressive when you think about it. Like how the Avengers have one person, she has no powers.
Or the just like one person and she's the only one. And the X-Men, you could literally have a whole team of X-Men with just women. They have. Yeah, they have.
And it didn't last, which is frustrating. But yeah, like if you wanted female action figure down the line, they were like, okay, we'll risk it if we couch it in like a weird kind of like variant version. You know, like if you want a Black Cat figure, you want to get like the Spider-Man monster movie collection version where it's like you can get Venom and Madness and Black Cat and it was just this weird wave where they would like throw in a female character. Or they were Aquavennum.
Aquavennum, exactly. But if you took all that shit off, you got like comic book accurate Venom. Like that's where they hid your comic book accurate figures under the guise of all of these enhancements and additions. I had a war pack that was just that.
It was like a weird future Scarlet Spider on Aquavennum. Like some weird hydro version of Spider-Man. Yep. And then like I think Silver Sable was in there too.
Yeah. Exile State comics said they made eight, uh, age of apocalypse figures? Like yes they did. And the apocalypse, they made three apocalypse figures from my recollection.
One was the worst. It was the first one where he's the same size of everybody else and he looks like a doofus. And his enhancement powers were he could get bigger. But how can he get bigger if that's how big he is?
Well you pull his arms and legs and then little shoots, like he looks like he's being drawn in quarters or stretched. But that was a growth enhancement. Then the next one was a more comic accurate one with a big A belt buckle and he looked a little cooler. Then the age of apocalypse one was he was even bigger and he had weird like macho man rainy savage like ribbons all over him.
Nice. But, uh, but in that run you could get blank, you could get apocalypse just amazing. But by that time I think around age of apocalypse and spawn, you know, I got my spawn figures, I played with those and then I was like, all right, well, like the next wave came out. I remember my comic book retailer was like, hey, they're making this new spawn figure.
It's spawn 10 or something like that. But it was spawn and he got a cape that like telescoped in when you push up his skull and his belt buckle. It flapped out and it was like a figure where it's like spawns this big and his cape was this wide. Just like it is.
Yeah. And I'm like, that's cool. I guess I never be like that's cool. I guess.
And he took that to mean I'll reserve it for you and you have to buy it. So I got it. And I was like, thanks. And he's somewhere in the basement of my parents house.
He only figured that no, that's not true. Because then McFarland started making movie maniacs figures and my enjoyment of my love actually could be preserved by being carried over into, no, I'm not buying edge figures. I'm getting mini statues of movies I like. There you go.
And then I create dioramas where it's like the T 800 fighting snake pliskin with Norman Bates and the scream killer like, okay, that was good to me. Yeah. And then eventually I just I reached the limit and I was like, all right, I got stuff. I don't care about any of this anymore.
I just all went to a trunk and all my parents house. But yeah, to talk about commercials there, you know, I'm sure I know you weren't into it. But of course I was a those power Rangers, actions, figures, commercials, man, where the toys were so powerful, the commercials would end with the kid literally getting blown up and being covered in ash and explosive residue. Yeah.
And for reference, by the way, these figures were the most basic. So you know what, like they were lame. I mean, I hate to say it because like I knew kids who had them and like, you, okay, there's there's Tony, right? But you push a button, his head flips back and then he becomes the green ranger.
They were the first ones, then they had the ones that were, you know, bigger. They were the six inches closer to die cast, closer to dolls. They were a little bigger. For me, though, it was all about the Zords because the Zords were the fucking coolest and they were the most expensive.
Most of their money. They looked super sweet. Like again, like, you know, from that whole like statue point of view, I stuck with them a little longer because of that. Right.
I remember like getting to the point where it's like, okay, this is too much now for me, but I got it good because it's really cool. Time for us had the Quantosaurus Megazord, which was like a big giant ass dragon with tank guns on it. But you got like your own little morpher thing that was like a remote control. Oh, that's cool.
And then you could press a button and it would transform when you told it to. That's nuts. Like, see, I never did any more like that. And like that was such a good idea.
Why did you never do more of those? Probably prohibitively expensive to make. Oh, sure. Man, you know, those Zords, the Zord figures were the fodder for comedians at that time.
I remember like every every comedian, armchair comedian or like fun dad would make this damn joke about these freaking power range figures. They're like, I can't distinguish between them, you know, like, so no, dad, you got the wrong one. I wanted the green one. Like it's just a piece of plastic and they're all in the same shape.
It's like, they're they're they're they're dinosaurs. If you don't know the difference between pterodactyl dinosaur and a fucking Tyrannosaurus dinosaur, I can't help you. But it's not my fault. Like, that's not the failing of the action of your companies.
That's the failing of you not knowing colors and shapes. Like screw you. It's funny to, you know, looking back on it now, the other big problem with the Zords is that to make it just right, they give you the little sticker decals you have to put on to like make them look truly accurate. Yeah, which is impossible.
Thanks. It's impossible. They would always peel. They would always bunch up and it really upsets me, but it's also really awesome.
Now you can buy special awesome die cast versions of all your favorite mega Zords from all the eras past and they look a hundred percent accurate and they're all statue quality. And every time I see them on Amazon or on eBay, I get a little itch and I'm like, no, you're a big boy now, Joel. You don't where will you put that? That's that's the thing is that, okay, so we had this obsession with action figures.
We love playing with our fingers. We love and not just because they were fun and you can use her imagination and all that. There's a bit there's like that's like 80%. But there's also this really significant 20% that was I like seeing the things I find interesting or care about or my fiction realized in physical form.
I like seeing them physically there. And no matter how cool these action figures were or how much they matter to you as a child, in today's world, not only do they look a little bit like cheap or old, but they've made current versions of them that rival even like screen accuracy. Like now if I want to see like my imagination of Spider-Man looking cool and in an operating physical space will never be rivaled or will always be beaten by a way more bitch and statue or current action figure or a hot toys collectible. You beat me to a hot toys is like Hey nerds, we know you're older now and have money.
How would you like an amazingly photo accurate version of the thing you like? You know what's destroying me is a New York Comic Con last year Ben and I fucking freaked out because I don't remember if it was hot toys. I feel like it must have been made screen accurate original instrumentals movie act figures and they had like smaller ones. They had huge ones and they both looked both versions looked like you just reached another movie and pulled them out just unbelievable.
The texturing the coloring the the accuracy is unfreaking fathomably good and I want them so badly and the other day I was at a FYE believe it or not and they had Donatello and it was this pretty big other than NECA and they're so great, but it's like over $100 and it's not and it's a freak at the end of the day. It's a giant Donatello. It's like where would you put it? It's like I could put it on my mantle piece if I really wanted.
Yeah. You'd be getting some weird looks from the pizza guy. Well or the pizza guy would be like Hey, it's our number one all time seller. That's really really true story.
So I signed for a package the other day and of course you know it's early in the morning. I'm wearing my robe which is a Captain America robe. That's what else would it be right? I got it for work.
Okay. I signed for the package and I'm still happy with it. Whatever. It's like the delivery guy laughs a little I didn't know Captain America lived in this building and I'm like it's for work but before I could finish that Hey, I'm a comic book YouTuber guy.
He chuckles and goes Oh, I'm sure and then leaves and I'm like, Hey, come back fucking UPS man. I got to finish telling my story. God damn it. Well, thank you for perpetuating this negativity you fucking jackass.
The hilarious thing is that what he was delivering to me was a book from DC fan channel. I had to review early. I was going to open it up in front of him and be like, No, see look, this is my job. They sent this to me.
Yeah, I have to play with this man. Come on. Yeah, come on Jesus. And I'm like, what I care about the UPS man thinks about me.
Right? Fuck you. You're delivering UPS packages you dick. It's cold out.
Yeah, exactly. That's funny. I will say I don't think I've ever ever ever. Apropos buying action figures and getting them.
I've never been given a hard time getting actually big years look like buying them having them. Nobody ever ever like even like by the way, as we established as the nature of this channel, I didn't grow up with convo fans. Like I didn't have any compo fans to action like actually your fans. All my friends did other things and none of them were like, you're you're lame.
Like never made fun of me. Never made me a hard time about it. I got to say like that's that's a rarity. I feel much the same way.
Yeah, it's kind of amazing. I will say I did almost convert a friend of mine because he was really big into a show called exo squad. Oh, yes. And they had they amazing action figures.
The exo squad figures were phenomenal. First of all, they looked great. Second of all, they were incredibly intricate and very, very well crafted. Third of all, they were all usable.
You know, like if they had a if you saw a missile, you could shoot it. If you saw cage, some aspect, you could open it. Like you could swap out characters. It was just it though.
And he loved those. But I think it was because like the dude is now like he's been in the video game industry for a long time and like he makes like models of 3D models and things. So like clearly that was that spoke to his sensibility of like I want to make I want to make the aliens power loader real or the very least I want to be able to manipulate it in a virtual space. And I mean really video games are just toys, very expensive digital toys.
Exactly. But yeah, like just just incredible that world and that life action figures man. I can't believe we've talked this long about it. We haven't talked about transformers.
Yeah, it's funny when I was a kid I didn't really get into the transformers. Neither did I. Here's the weird thing. I came in super late.
I had way more beast wars than I had transformers. If everyone was gonna get you in beast wars was a was a great show. Especially if you if you were a kid during that time and you watched the X-Man anime series the Beast Wars was the same thing because it was about very colorful characters capable of great power doing ineffectual things and basically dealing with interpersonal drama. It was a soap opera.
I had I wish I still had I had the purple T-Rex Megatron that you turn around you do all the stuff and I could never transform it all the way because I was a dumb kid. Me too. I worked. You know I've heard some people complain because they've made like transformers easier to transform now than they used to be.
Yeah. And you hear like adult nerds be like man they're coddling this younger generation man back in my day it was an accomplishment when you transform to transform all the way. It was by the way they were hard to make. Very.
And that might have been a big deterrent for me was why I didn't like transformers figures. I was just like it's hard to transform them. As the chat is quick to remind me no Joel it was called Beasties. Yes it was called Beasties in Canada because that was a weird thing for Canadian.
Couldn't say wars. Couldn't say war. Same with war of the planets. We didn't have war of the planets.
We had shadow raiders and actually I had the planet from war of the planet. The big thing that like opened up and reached out and ate all the planets and shit. That's cool. That was a cool piece.
I wish I had that. I had like the ridiculously huge Galactus with like the thing and everything. Oh yeah. I really wanted it but by the time that came out I was like nah I'm done.
It was stupid bulky I could never put it anywhere. No and like I've never seen a Galactus that wasn't totally broken. Yeah. Or the side helmet thing he's not broken off or he wasn't missing his planet drilling device or whatever.
Never seen a little slit. It was little slits he had to put it and they were poorly made. There you go. That loud and you never found them against it.
Did you have Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in Canada? That was a UK thing. We were allowed ninja. Okay you could have ninjas.
Alright I think we've established it before but I had to ask because like that is the Ninja Turtles Hero Turtles thing is a contributing factors to the Mandela effect. It's hilarious. Yeah. Weird.
So we haven't even talked about Star Wars figures yet. Oh my god. The granddaddy of figures in many ways but when the movie hit was so popular you sent away for it in the back of like a magazine that we promised when they're done kid we'll send him to you. Yeah.
As a kid, as a very young kid a friend of mine his father bought all the Star Wars figures and so growing up with this kid as a good friend of mine I had access to all the original action figures of Star Wars and vehicles like the original ATST and the original Millennium Falcon and they were big. They were big. They were functional. They were pretty screen accurate and just great.
Like just delightful. I love Star Wars figures and when they made the re-releases when Kenner Superpowers figures came out I didn't really care for them. I thought they were weird and bulky but you know that I bought them anyway. Like I got Boba Fett because I was like Boba Fett because he's who doesn't want the Boba.
Yeah who doesn't love the fat man he doesn't do anything and he gets eaten by a giant sandwich on it like who doesn't want to fucking. He looks so cool. He looks so cool he doesn't do anything like who doesn't love Boba Fett. I regret to say and this was like right near the end for me I regret to say I had quite a few prequel figures because they had the big rollout of figures like by your figures now before you see the movie.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah they were trying to sell that shit early on. Which I mean I guess they still technically did with Force Awakens. I have a big talk and Kylo ran like on Star Wars day before I even saw the movie.
Yeah well I deliberately avoided that shit I remember people were buying their BB8s. I'm like what if BB8s a bomb? Like what if BB8 is a crappy character? What if he's a new George R.
Banks? You don't buy these characters before you even know who they are? You don't know man you don't know nothing. Yeah now the stands I think BB8s are like so great I actually have Mickey Mouse ears of BB8.
Nice. But you know after I saw Force Awakens though and you were an informed purchaser. And I will never own a Kylo Ren figure because like while he's an interesting character he's not cool enough to ever be posed or like I'm never going to be like wow Kylo Ren's cool. I do believe he is as the internet calls him a fuck boy I do believe.
Yeah Kylo Ren is a huge cook. He is a Darth fuck boy is what I do. That drives me crazy. No he's just he's a you know he's an emo character I like him.
I think he's I think it's kind of cool. He's the opposite of cool and that's what makes him interesting. Yeah that's what I think it's cool that they didn't work on how cool he was. Captain Fazma however has the Boba effect and was like it's played by a character by an actor from Game of Thrones and she has a really cool silver outfit like but she's immediately defeated and doesn't do anything and like then loses like who cares.
She's getting a tie in comics so maybe we'll see more about her. Oh good just like a just like a soaker or not a soaker. The albino bounty hunter that you see for like maybe a tenth of a second in the beginning of this. Oh yeah that guy.
It's chick. I don't remember what her name was but like they they they make a whole thing about her and how important she is. I'm like well in the movies she's there for a tenth of a second and nobody cares. What do they expand it universe.
She's very important and very cool and blah blah blah blah. Yeah well that's not real as it's as evidenced by how much of it was thrown away when like either George Lucas didn't want to do it or Disney was like I want to do that. Thank you. There you go.
Oh yeah that's right. She got like a book to finish her off. Oh yeah big long thing from the Clone Wars to everything else both Clone Wars the gendy ones and the later ones yeah I have some rebels figures from Rebels just because they were like really cheap one Christmas. And I'm like yeah you know it all I'll put Ezra in Canon up on the mantle because boy not.
Yeah somebody makes me be like is it's like a Star Wars is good again this was like when the show was going before the new movie like you know let me enjoy these two things that I like about Star Wars. Yeah rebels a good show. There's a there's a share there's okay because we're talking about actually because I just want to address. There are some action figures that existed.
And I used to know the name of them, so I'm gonna throw this out to the chat because I need to know. There was a first run action figure line. Came out in the 80s. They had Oction comic book, or at least they were going to be a comic book, but they only got the first run out.
And they rode things. And they had a great, they had a great, you know, synonymous name, it was a double entendre. And they were really ornate and interesting, and they had a huge castle type playset. And I've seen these things at toy conventions, and I'm like, what the fuck are these things?
Are you talking like dragon riders? No, it's not dragon riders, but it's like dragon riders. Okay, because there was dragon riders for boys, and then Deek the same company made skydancers for girls. And it was like, they would play them both back to back, which was actually kind of a cool idea.
Yeah, they're like that. But they were, but they were very specifically something else. And I can't remember. Maybe it was a sectoids.
I want to say it's that I'll take a look. Boy. Yeah, I remember insectoids. But I don't think it's insectoids.
Do you remember in humanoids? I do remember humanoids, yeah. Humanoids were huge. Well, like, it's funny, it reminds me of all the, after what's it called?
No, it's not insectoids. The, when the Ninja Turtles hit, and everyone was like, oh, you want like anthropomorphic teenage super characters? How about biker mice from Mars? Or the, or the, what's it called?
The, the, the, the moo mason ones. Cowboys and moo mason? Oh, that's a deep old street sharks. Street sharks.
Great. I had two street sharks. I think I had Slamoo and I can't remember the other one. Andrew Stewart got it.
It's sectores. Sectores, yeah. Sectores, okay. First of all, everything about sectores was great.
Okay. Number one, the tea was a sword in sectores. Two, they were these great keen and ask action figures. Three, they came, they all ride giant insects, but the insects were gloves you put on.
Oh. Like, so it was a glove, black glove with an act, with like a, you know, a plastic mold distinctly different insects. Oh, yeah. I'm looking at them now, yeah.
With a saddle and then you put them on, and you could like, ride them around, and they came with their own action figures in sectores. I, okay, so this is a great convention. If you never get to Jersey and you come out November or June, come to ToyCon. We do videos about with them every once in a while.
ToyCon is unfreaking, it's the biggest nostalgia. Like, it's the closest thing to going back in time, you'll ever get. And it's so great. And every time I go, and the first time I went, I saw sectores.