Lucky for us, this guy was produced. According to a few Power Rangers sites I read very, very, very briefly, this is Eyeguy. He was produced by Bandai in 1994. (Thanks, Chris, for the donation. Without you, I might’ve never known the joy of Eyeguy).
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Here are 5 good reasons why this guy needs to be up here:
1. He’s a monster made of eyeballs.
2. His main eyeball-head has a hinged eyelid, so he can really blink (Or at a second glance, it’s a monster’s head with a large eyeball in its mouth. Cool huh?).
3. He has eyeball breasts that pop off his chest.
4. For those desperate, slightly perverted or into any other weird Japanese stuff (namely hentai), maybe this is an “erotic” creature covered in nippless breasts. Does that make it any more appealing? If that’s the case, the eyeballs on the chest are just launching breast implants with odd, veiny areolae (that’s plural for areola).
5. He’s a monster made of eyeballs.
Well, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed.
Why are you still reading? You waiting for something? Ah. I know what you want. Some bad “eye” jokes or puns or something. Well, I’ll leave that to you. Share your best (worst).
I’ll start you off: “The Eyes Have it.” (Pretty bad eh? Let’s see you do better )
Basic Fun has really dropped the ball (no pun intended… seriously) on the latest series of Madballs. The first series really looked great, but it looks like they intentionally sucked the life out of these classic characters. They’re not nearly as cool as I remembered. Look at this crap.
Dirty Devil – Not as much dirty as he is a devil.
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Blood Bulge – He has a huge blood blister bulging from his eye socket. What else can ya say?
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Lace Face – A sewn-on kisser only a stepmother could love.
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Evil Knievel – Bruised, beaten, and by the looks of it – undead.
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Ugly Ball - His laugh will drive you Bonkers!
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Alright. Ya got me. I’m just kiddin’. These aren’t Madballs at all. They’re some scraggly-ass 80s Madballs bootlegs… and they’re great
As most of you know, in the mid-80s, the Madballs were hugely popular. It all started simply enough with the foam rubber balls, but Madballs didn’t stop there. They pushed the Madballs brand into even more categories: mini-action figures (which will actually find their way to this blog eventually), wind-ups toys, stickers, coloring books, etc. You name it, it probably had a Madballs logo on it. They even made a cartoon! (Luckily, I never saw it, but that won’t stop me from showing it to you )
Of course the success (and overkill) of Madballs merchandising wasn’t overlooked by no-name toy manufacturers. You know the routine. You see something is a success, so you do your best to ride its coattails. That’s where these hideous things come into play.
In general, all of these bootleg balls are pretty bad, but they do have some distinguishable differences that helps them stand-out from your typical Madball. Firstly, they’re plastic instead of foam rubber. Secondly, as far as visual style goes, the details aren’t there. Compared to the real thing, the actually designs of the toy sculpts are less developed, and the paint applications are a lot more minimal and sloppy. But, it is their bad production value that lead them hear in the first place, so I guess I should stop trash-talkin’ ‘em. I have no clue to who made them. All I have are markings marking that read “Made in Taiwan.”
Of the handful of bootlegs balls I have, I really like the goofy devil guy the most. He just seems jovial or jolly or something. It looks like he’s an early 1900s circus announcer. Ya know, something like the Ringling Brothers.
Also, the ball I’ve referred to as “Blood Bulge” is actually kind of gross. He has a huge blood blister bulging out of one eye socket and has blood-coated teeth. At a primal level, he’s actually much grosser then the latest Madballs (mostly because the modern Madballs toys use slime instead of blood. Buncha wusses).
During my search for generic bootleg Madballs, I came across a bit of info of one of our ugly friends. It appears that last ball listed is actually a bootleg of a ripoff. It looks a lot like a toy called Ugly Ball which was created by Bonkers! candy in the 80s to cash in on the craze without really getting AmToy involved. Instead, they made their own horrible, horrible ball toy. Here’s a look at the old Bonker’s Ugly Ball commercial.
As a side note, how I obtained these bootleg Madballs is kind of a goofy story. Over the past several years, I’ve been designing a bunch of CDs and stuff for German industrial-rock band, KMFDM. Well, during that time, I’ve befriended their Production and Marketing Manager (I’m just guessing at his title), Brent. Brent knew about my site and my dorky interest in weird toys, and at some point, he stumbled upon his entire twenty-year-old Madballs collection. Luckily for me, he decided to generously send it to me… including the goofy bootlegs. Thanks Brent!
So, anyone else have any goofy Madballs bootlegs? I know darn well I saw more of them as a child. Share ‘em if you got ‘em.
Here’s one of those random flea market toys I found weeks ago. Another lone, quirky action figure.
I wasn’t quite sure what this guy was, but I knew I liked his style. Looks like he should be an evil, menacing villain, but c’mon! He has an arm-swinging action feature (which is broken), a whale on his head, bling around his neck, barnacles and sea shells all over his body…
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…and he even has a crab for a hand (a truly awesome and hilarious design decision by the way). How menacing could he be?
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I figured he was a Power Rangers character, but I wanna come up with some better (worse) sea-related jokes to introduce this guy.
- He sells sea shells by the sea shore.
- The REAL Aquaman
- He’s sleeping with the fishes.
- He has a bad case of crabs.
- Mascot for Sea World
Yeah, that’s it. He can be the original, retired mascot for Sea World. Since he was fired by Sea World, he’s become old and bitter. That’s actually not an angry, “evil” look on his face, it’s just frustration due to his lack of any other relevant job skills.
Ya know, I actually had no luck figuring out what this toy was. Seriously, I scoured the web for Power Rangers and BeetleBorgs characters for a pretty good while. Nothing.
But thanks to JohnH at the ToyTraderz.comforums, I was able to get some help identifying this guy. Turns out it’s a Saber-Swiping Typhus figure from the BeetleBorgs toy line, and according to Wikipedia, Typhus is a Chimera, humanoid monster who likes to fight. His whale flattop is actually an extra mouth used to eat food and other junk, and he uses a sword (which blasts lasers when held in his extra mouth) that latches to his arm or his mouth. Weird.
I’m not too familiar with the BeetleBorgs. They just look like another set of brightly-colored, acrobatic kids that fight monsters.
I sure as hell hope, the show wasn’t as bad as this music video I found.
Alright. Prepare to be jealous. The toys featured in today’s entry are too cool for words (not literally… how else would I write about them?).
I found these fellas a few years back, at a toy show, lying in a cardboard box among some other generic toys. I got ‘em for five bucks each or something like that. It appears that I’ve really lucked out, because I cannot find these things for sale anywhere.
I need one more figure to complete the set, but I figured I’d show ‘em to you anyway.
Nightmare Warriors
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I’d never seen these charmingly goofy skeleton toys before, but after a quick search online, I found that these guys are from a toyline called Nightmare Warriors produced by MTC(Multi-Toys Corporation) in 1983. They are ghosts of historical warriors (but they look more like ghosts of the Village People)… and they glow in the dark.
Just a side note – I think it’s funny that these guys were buried nude, basically… only wearing boots, a belt and head gear. Weird huh?
Major Bones
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Pancho Villa
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Captain Kidd
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Sir Lancelot
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Geronimo
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It looks like these guys were made to possibly cash-in on the popularity of the Masters of the Universe toyline. One could make the argument that they were inspired by Skeletor, but I think these guys are much cooler (and skeletal). Outside of the “skull face” comparison, they actually do have very similar hand positioning to the MOTU toyline (you know, one “grip hand” with protruding thumb accompanied by one wide-open hand.).
As you can see in these packaging pics, I’m missing the Spartacus figure. If anyone has it and would like to get rid of it, please get in touch with me
So, what do you get when you cross a gamma-radiation contaminated man with a mutagen-induced mutant turtle? You get this guy. Teenage Mutant Ninja Hulk (Well, maybe he’s more middle-aged than teen-aged).
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My question is – Is this guy more of a Hulk toy or a Ninja Turtle toy?
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Green skin: Could be Hulk. Could be Turtle.
3-fingered hands: Looks like Ninja Turtles.
Elbow pads and wristbands: Looks like Turtle gear.
Two toes: Ninja turtle.
Knee pads: Turtle.
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Angry green humanoid: Hulk and Turtle i guess.
Constipated, human facial expression: Hulk
Holes in shoulders?: Neither.
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Blue jean cutoffs: Hulk.
Belt: Ninja Turtles
I’m not sure if that shed any light on the subject. All I know is this is a cheapy-as-hell Mexican toy. It’s flimsy, hollow plastic, and it looks to be made up of random, poorly made molds of TMNT arms and legs with Hulk torso and head. The badly painted-on pants give the toy a nice touch of crappiness, and the holes in his shoulders give the guy a little bit more mystery. Maybe those were places where a cape or parachute connected.
So, the new Incredible Hulk movie is coming out this summer, and this comedic monstrosity is what the unfortunate Mexican children get to play with when they ask for a new Hulk toy.
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