I know I posted one of these already, but here’s—what appears to be—Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs doing a Halloween Costume review. But is actually Jim Silver doing toy reviews. I wish I could explain to you why these make me laugh. Maybe it’s all the snow, and being stuck inside. Maybe it’s a man in a giant Big Bird costume. Who’s to say.

Featured: BIIIPPPITY  BOPPPPITY BOOOOOOO….

Shown: If the first thing you notice is this 25th Anniversary Pac-Man/Galaga cabinet, welcome to my world.

As you’re no doubt aware, today is Pac-Man’s birthday. I’m more than a little overwhelmed. With my wedding anniversary tomorrow (I swear I didn’t plan it that way), I’m never sure where my loyalties should lie this time of year. You know around Christmas, when they interview that crazy woman who fills her trailer with a shit ton of Santa Claus stuff? Except she’s had it up all year, and she says something like “Everyday is Christmas at 432 Orchard Alley Lane!” and you feel sick and sad for her? Well, that’s me. But for Pac-Man. My house is a little like wandering into Leatherface’s house, except instead of chicken bones hanging from the ceiling, it’s just Pac-Man stuff. Pac-Man is such a part of the backdrop in my house, that I forget how much I’ve actually accumulated from friends, family, eBay, flea markets and fans. Once you’re a known collector of something, it makes it easy for everyone to buy for you on holidays, which is nice. I’ve already covered some of my most coveted possessions in this NOT SAFE FOR WORK post from Joystick Division, but I took a stroll around my house and just took pictures of stuff I could actually see in front of me. Something I promised to do months ago. If I actually start digging, there’s hundreds more items strewn about…this is only scratching the surface.

So why Pac-Man?

Pac-Man is pure. Pac-Man is Pizza Hut breadsticks and a borrowed quarter from mom. Pac-Man is universal. Pac-Man is challenging and addictive 30 years later. Pac-Man is a warm yellow memory. Ok, scratch that last one. That didn’t sound right.

It’s the ghosts and blood, dust and mud, and the roar of an arcade crowd.

I made this Pac-Man beer cooler for my Pac-Man themed going away party in New York. I used my crappy cell phone video camera to capture this little magic event.

INSERT COIN AND CLICK THROUGH FOR MORE PAC-MAN CRAP THAN YOU CAN HANDLE

Shown: a rare Ms. Pac-Man addition to my collection, stolen from a Indianapolis Head Shop wall. Check out the ticket price, $12! This was before Feed The Animals changed the world.

(more…)

If I were any more excited about Halloween, I’d be pissing candy corn. I’ve been hitting the Halloween stores pretty hard just to breathe it all in, and here’s a random sample of great crap I’ve found so far. More in the days to come….

The birthday party section of The Party Tree (our local Halloween/bachelor party/Cinco De Mayo superstore) is pretty neglected this time of year. Here’s the reason why.

Shown: He’s just letting this happen.

My favorite sign since the “Do not defecate in the restroom” sticker where I used to work.

“Excuse me, sir, did you find that Halloween fright wig right here at Best Buy?”

“It’s not a wig.”

“HOLY SHIT!! GARRGFARGBLEAHRCHHDASFH!$$!@$@$%!!!!”

Polyester Boning is:

A.) A flexible material good for girl’s Halloween costumes

B.) $0.99 a yard

C.) What Miss Piggy hopes for on her Wedding Nite. HI-YOOOO! ZING!

There are lots of embarrassing pictures of me all over the internet. It just kind of happened….It just kind of happened as soon as I scanned them in, and put them everywhere online. My brother is the exact opposite of me in many respects: he’s well-respected for things like “business” and “trying to be a good person.” I have failed—FAILED, I say—on both counts. So since it’s my brother’s birthday today, I’ll bring him down to my level: here’s there embarrassing pictures of him. Actually, two are kind of awesome. Ok, and they’re not that embarrassing. I couldn’t do that to the guy. I might need a character witness in court someday. Can’t burn that bridge. Happy birthday, man.

Sig Heil Splinter! Wasserchildkroten aufgeZOGEN und SLAUGHTERED in DER TECHNODROME!

One of the best cakes of all time. Look at that thing. Mom had a Super Mario cake mold and I really wish we still had it. This is before it was cool to make “geek cakes.” The only thing is, my mom used to put all these cakes on top of that cardboard-covered-in-foil thing, and I would cut a piece and bite down hard on foil EVERY TIME. I believe this cake is the first time that happened. To this day, I look at the bottom of my cake pieces before I eat them (not kidding).

My aunt had these nightgowns that we insisted on wearing at sleepovers because they had cartoons on them. I found out years later that A). Boys should not wear Snoopy and Smurfette nightgowns and B.) My aunt isn’t a fan of little boys. She likes little nieces and was never big on little nephews. So she was more than happy to let us saunter around in these (This is EXACTLY the backstory to Sleepaway Camp, by the way). By the time I had figured this out, the damage was done: I was a full-blown transsexual with a Brainy Smurf fetish. My brother developed a phobia of sitting on top of giant strawberries. Thanks alot!

Now that he’s thoroughly shamed, please visit my brother’s website at least, and get yourself a big mouthful of Foil Super Mario cake: www.bluefuego.com

Surprise! The Steve Irwin Crocodile Hunter toy is still on shelves at weird discount stores, some time after the man’s grisly death! Not to be confused with The Grizzly Man’s death. Either way, the lesson is clear: don’t fuck with nature.

Please, Retail Bargain Chains, do the man the honor of pulling the toy completely, instead of trying to make 0.00025% of the original retail price. Even though Steve Irwin did the celebrity death thing before it was suddenly cool to do the celebrity death thing (ahem…Capt. Lou Albano, I’m looking at you. Why did you have to jump on that bandwagon? I’ll never forgive you for that), there are 6 clear reasons I shouldn’t be allowed to buy this toy:

1. The toy is not in scale with his daughter’s toy: Unacceptable from a toy collector’s standpoint. From a moral standpoint, it really ruins the impact of any tearful reunion of a action figure daughter and her impaled, action figure father.  Also, these are both available at the same discount store, just shelves apart. Somehow, that’s just sick.

2. I can make deceased TV star Steve Irwin hold his own head

3. I can stuff the corpse of deceased TV Star Steve Irwin into the crocodile accessory.

4. I can fashion the head and limbs of once-living TV Star Steve Irwin into a sort-of meat-swastika that rides a crocodile off a cliff

5. I can re-animate the decomposing visage of TV Star Steve Irwin and make it do this…

…And then I can make an animated Gary Coleman show up….

…and then we’ve got a real fiasco on our hands.
Look, I’m not doing this to be crass, but to prove a point. If I can do this stuff with the Steve Irwin toy, tarnishing his legacy, just imagine what some sicko out there could do? It’s too hard to even think about. So please, I implore you bargain bin stores….take this toy off your shelves. Additionally, every single part of that toy is a choking hazard, which is probably why it’s in bargain bins in the first place.

I’ve just noticed that my last three posts or so have been incredibly lurid in nature. I don’t know why. Expect this to continue until all figures and molds of the Steve Irwin toy are destroyed.

Hey, let’s make it an inappropriate toys two-fer, whadda ya say?

When I worked at Wizard Magazine in the Research office, it was our job to round up the photos that would go in each month’s magazine. One of these tasks included gathering up the photos for Toy Wishes, the annual kid’s catalog showcasing the year’s “must have ” toys. My jaw dropped when WATER WORMS images hit my inbox from the company. There was no way they were going to put these pictures in a catalog of kids toys, right? Whose Responsible This???:

Then there was the smaller one. You know, for first time water gun users who might be anxious, scared, or shy about handling a full-size water worm.

In a rare moment of restraint and intelligence by Wizard Magazine (actually, thanks to the good sense of long time Wizard designer ex-Wizard designer Arlene So), these promotional art shots of, ahem, “water guns” never ran. Something along these lines finally ran:

Well, that’s a little better, I guess. Still looks like what Cliver Barker keeps underneath his mattress, but okay.

www.waterworms.com is now a defunct website, and even though this was “Australia’s Toy of the Year 2003,” it never caught on here. This vibrating Harry Potter broom, however? Big hit with the teen set.

from http://www.davesdaily.com/

Also, I believe the FCC cracked down on Water Worms, and whoever put out the “Oozinator”:

Christmas is coming quick, and there’s only one hot toy on every kid’s list this year: Finger Pupies!!!

“Cuddly Pets you Wear on Yours Fingers!” I’ll take two, please. And does the big Choking Hazard sticker on the side come standard? Then I’ll take all you’ve got.

I found Finger Pupies in High School not at a Dollar Tree, not at Dane’s Discount, but at Wal-Mart in a big end cap display. And I’ve gotta say, I’m pretty shocked this came from Imperial Toys: they’re the Microsoft of bargain bin toys. They license low-end Spongebob and Marvel stuff, for crying out loud. I would expect this kind of behavior from the company that makes The C.O.R.P.s GI Joe ripoff figures, but c’mon….

And check it out, bargain bin toy company Imperial is the only bargain bin toy company in the world with a (SPOILER ALERT) website! And on that website, a fun “poll zone” question!

What year was Imperial Toy founded? A.) 2008 B.)1986 C.)1969

The correct answer is D.) who gives a shit. This is the crappiest “poll” I’ve ever taken, even topping Facebook’s “Which Lil’ Wayne lyric are you?” poll. The worst part about this “poll?” THEY DON’T TELL YOU THE  ANSWER.

Listen assholes, “What Year Was Our Company Founded” is not the kind of thing that’s up for popular debate. Just because 58% of idiots are so bored out of their mind from fingerbanging their Pupies that they take a poll like this, doesn’t make it true or interesting. Is Imperial Toys so shitty, that no one remembers when their own founder woke up one day and said, “Hey! Let’s mass market a finger fucking dog toy!”??

Maybe this poll has a more sinister purpose. Maybe Imperial Toys has secretly designed a time machine so they can take the most popular year to be founded, go back, start their company at that most lucrative of dates, and become retroactively more popular than Hasbro or Mattel. But since they can’t even spell “puppies” right, I think the Flux Capacitor is a few years off.

I’ve got a better poll for Imperial Toys:

How would you not like to die? A.) Choking on Finger Poopies B.) Wearing digit-fornicating pets on yours fingers C.) All of the above.

Ok, so they spell “Puppies” right on the back of the card. I would have just spelled it “Pupies” again to save face, and make it look like I was launching an X-Treme new spelling of “Puppies.”

It doesn’t change the fact that if you sit on a public bus and read aloud “FINGER PUPPIES! FINGER PETS! FINGER PONIES! FINGER ELVIS! FINGER FRITZI AND TABITHA!” you will immediately be tackled by the other passengers, detained until the cops arrive, and forced to go door to door every time you move to a new neighborhood to explain yourself.