Weirdo Toys

So, last week marked a historic time in United States history. A controversial time. I’m sure you all remember the moment you heard the big announcement.

Yes.

Yes we can.

Yes… we can induct a stick into the Toy Hall of Fame.

What a time we live in. A time where sticks are considered toy equals to the likes of Barbie, Play-Doh and Etch-a-Sketch.

Yeah. That’s right. As of last Thursday, THE STICK (along with the Baby Doll and the Skateboard) is now in the Toy Hall of Fame. How cool is that? It’s a bit weird, huh? It’s true that every kid plays with sticks I guess. Now it’s come to the point of acknowledging their iconic play status (now that’s what I call progressive).

So, this little piece of toy history actually reminded me of some little weirdo toys I’ve had put away for a while.

They’re not real toys. Well, they are, but… They’re fictional toys in a sense. They are toys of toys. Hmm. I’ll just get to the point.

It’s Log! (from Blammo!)
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Yep. You remember Log don’t you? It is a toy that was featured in commercials on The Ren & Stimpy Show. A lot like the Stick, the Log is just a huge chunk of wood, allowing kids’ imaginations to go wild. The commercial basically spoofs classic kids’ toys like Slinky, Barbie and Mr. Potato Head.

Maybe this will jog your memory.

So these Log toys are pretty goofy on their own, but they actually came packaged with a Ren & Stimpy toy series that was released in 2004 by Palisades Toys.

Unfortunately, the toyline never made it past Series 1. Luckily, I was able to get some before they were gone. The toys were pretty nice I guess, but no matter how many Stimpy toys I bought and returned, the left hand would always break off. Pretty frustrating.

As you can see on the back of mini toy package, there are five Logs to collect in the series: Action Log, Log for Girls, Secret Agent Log, Log of the Klondike, and my favorite of the bunch, Civil War Log.

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BUT… the logs on the toy package don’t line-up with the ones that were actually packaged with each figure. I’m not even sure if they made them all. Can anyone confirm if these were randomly placed in with each figure, or were these future Logs that were never released?

Action Log
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Sure, there is Action Log, which appears to be the rugged, G.I. Joe-fuzzy-beard inspired log.

Log for Girls
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And then there is Log for Girls, which appears to be the a combination of a Barbie doll and Mr. Potato Head.

Puppet Log
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But here we have a Log that doesn’t appear on the package at all. It looks to be a Puppet Log or a Ventriloquist Log.

Invisi-Log
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And Lastly, we have what I call the Invisi-Log. Not sure what this thing is. The Ghost of Log? Actually, it’s more likely to be a spoof of the rare “chase” figures that are released with various “collector’s” toylines. You know, the repaints or clear ones or gold ones or whatever. It’s a pretty funny gag if you ask me.

On a side note, the creator of Ren & Stimpy and the frontman for Spumco Studio, John Kricfalusi, writes a fantastic blog featuring various tips, techniques, history and all kinds of stuff on the topics of drawing, animation and old toys. It’s a truly entertaining and informative website, and I recommend you check it out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 1:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.