Category: World’s Greatest Toys
Power Lords Vintage TV Ad! The Coolest Action Figures of the 1980’s?!
I’ve raved here before about The Power Lords action figures from the 1980’s, they were probably some of the most bizarre action figures of that decade and that’s exactly why I needed them all!! Finally someone thankfully uploaded one of the vintage TV commercials that got me all revved up as a kid and I’m starting to think I need to hunt all these down again for myself! The Power Lords weren’t very well known and that’s probably because these action figures were creepy as fuck!
As a kid even I was a little off put by them in the best way possible-I mean the hero of the power lords is Adam Power a decent looking gentleman until he turns into a blue skinned, black eyed, veiny super powered weirdo!! Check out these classic adds, I’ve gotta say I love that animated sequence it opens with, if only they had a full on animated show back then!! Damn!
Now THAT’S what I call some cool action figures!! I must admit I had He-man go up against the Power Lords many times and Adam Power always won, then of course they teamed up and took on Skeletor & Griptogg!! Check out this awesome video to get a full on look at how cool the Power Lords mythos really was!!
It’s really no surprise that The Power Lords were created by Wayne Barlowe who gained a cult following for his book “Barlow’s Guide to Extraterrestrials” way back in 1979. It contains his visualizations of different extraterrestrial life forms from various works of science fiction, with information on their planetary location or range, biology, and behaviors, in the style of a real field guide for animals, such as Roger Tory Peterson’s guide to birds of North America. I may have to hunt down this book too while I am at it!! Barlow has also worked on creature designs for movies like Pacific Rim, Blade II, Both Hellboy movies, Avatar & The Hobbit!
‘Realm of the Underworld’ Action Figures are here to Kick He-man’s Ass!!
I LOVED He-Man and The Masters of the universe action figures as a kid, I just could not get enough of them and all of the cool accessories! The cartoon was a ton of fun, I had almost all of the action figures, mainly the bad guys and back in the day there were even some cool knock offs, the poor man’s He-man figures you could snatch up at places like K-Mart. You remember the Remco “DC” line of figures? There guys were great and quite a bit less expensive than the Masters of the Universe, with cool figures like Warlord and Hercules…
Here’s all of the old 80’s Remco ones together..
They may have been He-man knock offs but they were pretty fucking awesome!
Well there’s a new toy line by Zoloworld called Realm of the Underworld and they totally look like lost action figures from the 80’s. Infact they really remind me of the Remco collection from the 1980’s. They share that same quality of the Knock off and He-man and the Masters of the Universe in the fact that they use basically the same body molds with a different paint job a different rubber head and maybe different costuming.
I didn’t give a shit that they used the same body parts! They were awesome durable toys that could take a serious beating!
This new action figure line takes me back to those days at K-mart when I’d spend my time hanging out in the toy department as long as I could and sometime my mom would buy me a cool new action figure. Check these out they are pretty great!
Oh yeah and it looks like the Slime (as in the same Masters of the Universe Horde green slime- that was amazing!!) will be coming soon to Realm of the Underworld soon too-how rad is that?!!
totally gross and awesome!!!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Vintage Snake Eyes!
Here’s a great blast from the past, GI Joe #53, by none other than Mike Zeck! Duh! You know I am starting to think that he might be the best cover artist of the 1980’s as I’ve seen a trend of consistently posting covers by him during that era. He did a ton of super awesome GI Joe Covers back in the day. You know all of us kids back then were obsessed with Snake Eyes! This was a simple, basic but totally bad ass cover that showcased how cool the character was-proving you just can’t ever go wrong with a god damn ninja!!
What’s even more bad ass is the full picture Zeck originally drew-Check it!!
Maxx FX: If the Ken Doll was a Bad-Ass FX Artist from the 1980’s!!
A lot of people may have forgotten about Maxx FX from the eighties, or most likely never heard of the guy at all- and what a shame that is! Maxx Fx was the guy that Barbie would have ditched Ken for if she wasn’t a total lame-o back in 1989! Unfortunately Maxx had a short lifespan, and the special fx action figure / doll only had one official costume, that of horror icon Freddy Krueger!
But if you’re a little confused let me put it this way the Maxx FX doll came with the clothing, the mask and accessories to transform him into Freddy. This awesome idea was not supposed to stop with Freddy, it was supposed to continue on with many more movie monsters, unfortunately Matchbox put the kibosh on the action figure early on.
As the awesome Maxx Fx website states Maxx Fx was a make up artist and a crimefighter and could become anyone he wanted! I highly suggest getting the whole story and taking a look at what could have been with the entire toyline, it was a brilliant idea and Matchbox totally dropped the ball!! In the meantime enjoy this cool ass Maxx FX commercial from 1989! Eat it KEN! And Barbie you BLEW it!!
This one too!
Urban Legend Monster Action Figures!
I stumbled upon this cool new toy line which met it’s Kickstarter goal recently and these action figures look pretty awesome! These monsters are based on urban legends such as The Mothman, The Jersey Devil & Chupacabra.
Each set includes a monster, victim, diorama base and eyewitness account. It’s a pretty neat idea and the they could really go crazy with all of the other creatures out there obviously Bigfoot, Nessie, Montauk Monster, the Wendigo ect ect.
The possibilities are endless! Anyway these cool toys called The Legendary Monsters are available from Nevermore Toys. It looked like they had a Slender Man toy in production as well, but right now that seems like it could be a little to controversial.
Either way check out the Kickstarter page, it has a ton of cool info on it!
Vintage Monster Toys: Gre-Gory The Vampire Bat – He’s FUN!
Toys back in the 1970’s were pretty fantastic, they had a particular look & feel to them that the toys of today just can’t match! I’m sure there are some pretty bad ass toys out these days, but back in the 70’s it was pretty random. A toy was created pretty much for the hell of it often times, as just something cool a kid might dig. Thus bringing us to today’s showcased toy- ‘Gre-Gory the Big Bad Vampire Bat”. He wasn’t part of a popular movie franchise, he wasn’t in a cartoon or a comic book-nope he was just a cool ass vampire bat made for the kids!
The cool thing about this bat that made it a must have for all the cool kids was that you could see it’s inner organs through a see through plastic chest piece, but that ain’t all-it had a button you pressed on it’s back that pumped blood through them!
1979-80 was a cool time to be a toy vampire bat-you could use gregory to terrorize your GI Joe’s or attack Ken & barbie on their honeymoon! Gre-Gory is a classic toy monster that should never be forgotten!!
Check out this rad video! Get the scoop on Gre-Gory!
The Most Awesome Remote Controlled Robot Spider Ever!
Wow, talk about cool shit, check out this incredible little video featuring the Robugtix remote controlled Spider! This thing is beyond cool and it better be for $2950.00! Think about how much fun you could have with this thing at night time on a side walk – seriously creeping out any passerby.
Someday when I’m rich blogger I’ll get one of my own, in the meantime I’ll have to just watch the videos- check it out!!
Vintage Elastic Superheroes STILL Rule!!
Stretch Armstrong and Stretch Monster were all the rage in the 70’s and early 80’s, so natural Marvel & Mego had to get on board with the trend! Sure having Stretch Spider-man and Hulk really didn’t make any sense!
To me it would at least make sense to have a Mr. Fantastic stretch figure wouldn’t it?! I guess they did it far later in the game, but still these were a time when toys really were something special-either that or I’m just a nostalgic geek!!
Finally Mr. Fantastic from 2005, not sure if he was filled with the weird goo that the ones from the 70’s were though!
Oh How I Miss Super Joe & The Gang!!
I was having a flashback today of one of my favorite toy lines of all time! Hasbro’s Super Joe!!! Yeah Super Joe Adventure Team was the absolute shit back in the late 1970’s, I owned these as a kid and they still remain some of the most cool toys of time in my opinion. Ok so I may be a bit partial because of the nostalgia factor, but you gotta admit they are some pretty rad vintage action figures!
I still have Terron back in storage at my parents house. Super Joe could stop the monster reptile Terron in his tracks by shining a light at him, it perplexed and amazed me back then and still does! Don’t even get me started on how in love I was with Gor! So in honor of these awesome action figures, here’s some cool pics I found and some commercials from 1977/78!
Terron! I made him fight my Giant Godzilla all the time too, those were some epic battles!!
In action!!!
The mighty GOR!
Hulk Smash Colorforms!
I loved the hell out of Colorforms as a kid! I had an Incredible Hulk Colorform set and a Spider-man one too. For being such a simplistic toy it sure kept me busy! I had to post this groovy commercial from the 70’s for a Hulk Colorform set. This was the same one that I had and it brings back some great memories.
The best thing was if you had more than one set you could have the Hulk and Spider-man and hell even Superman all meet in the same setting! Check it!
Superman! Wait only 98 cents?!!!
Batman!! Don’t forget The Penguin’s umbrella!!
Universal Dork 