Look, I have no way of beating around the bush. What I have here is simply the most horrifying thing I have ever owned, excluding perhaps the crawling army man doll that scared the bejeezus out of me as a toddler. I see no reason for this to be in the possession of any man, woman or child, and I apologise for my selfishness in unleashing its curse upon whomsoever is its unfortunate recipient.
After all, for the briefest of moments as I was shifting through my toy chest, when I first laid eyes on this, I thought that somebody had ripped Wario’s face off. And that’s never a good sign for a child’s toy, now is it?
This is the destroyer of worlds. The gobbler of souls. The buyer of Roseanne DVDs. Observe, if you dare, the face of evil.
AAAAAAUUUUGGGGHHH!!!
Why in god’s name does this heaven-forsaken thing exist? If you were unaware due to nervous distraction (or possible premature fatality), this thing is actually a finger puppet. You stick your fingers in the four holes in its back, and wiggle them around to make its hideous maw flex and contort. Whether or not you actually get your fingers back afterwards, is anybody’s guess.
Evil faces are always scary, of course, but this guy here really takes the cake. He should have been the major villain in all of my playtime adventures; the wicked puppet master pulling the strings for the lesser nemeses. Jeez, if Andross looked like this, I would have simply torn out of the room in terror, leaving Fox McCloud unguided and causing the downfall of the Lylat system.
I suppose it was for a lack of functionality, predominantly. Whereas enemy numero uno (Beetlejuice) could kick and fly and jettison his head for nefarious reasons, this finger puppet fiend really only comes with the ability to bite. Unless you count looking really frightening as a capability, in which case he had that in spades.
Actually, I’m seriously considering sending it to somebody in the mail. That would be a really excellent way to freak people out, wouldn’t it? Is it a death threat? A foreboding warning? A voodoo hex? It truly has the capability of making you assume the worst. If I ever received a package with this inside, I’d call all of my friends and family to make sure they’re okay. Then I’d tell them to lock all doors and windows, and call the police.
I wonder how I ended up with this thing? I can’t see my parents gazing upon its visage and deciding, ‘yes, our son will adore this delightful new friend’. Has it been in my family for generations, like some dark, sinister family secret? I suppose that would be the more interesting possible origin, though it makes me worry that when I do try to dispose of it, it’ll end up right back on my pillow the very next morning.
Fortunately for me though, I have a wide arsenal of heroes to lay waste to this beast. I don’t know about other kids, but my good guy to bad guy toy ratio was about 20:1. You needed to have the protagonist and all of his plethora of friends ready to save the day, and you only rarely nabbed a villain or two for plot reasons, or with the sole purpose in life of being brutally thrashed.
When I have kids, I should arm them with no more than Shredder and Dr. Robotnik, forcing them to play with them to day’s end, only occasionally introducing auxiliary characters in an effort to increase the children’s bond with these misunderstood foes. What a terrible, tyrannical father I shall be.
But I digress (heavily). Let’s see if my stable of light can best this wicked evil-doer?
Poor Garfield scarcely put up a fight. His green kneepads and effeminate flowery shirt might have seemed like suitable protection against the dastardly puppet, but in the end, they’re little more than mere chew toys.
Streex came in with a lot of confidence and a collection of broken street signs to do battle with, but a simple stare-down with his opponent led him to shriek in horror, tearing down the street as fast as his rollerblades would take him.
PIDGEY used GUST!
It’s not very effective…
BADFACE used JUSTIN BIEBER MIXTAPE!
PIDGEY fainted!
Poor Pidgey. It couldn't grasp the true form of the face's attack.
…Toykind… is doomed…
In the process of writing this entry, Bach's Toccata & Fugue came on. Jesus Christ, that's a creepy coincidence.
ReplyDeleteWow - I'd totally forgotten until I saw it, but I used to have that exact same toy when I was a child (two of them in fact, although the other one wasn't as scary.)
ReplyDeleteI always thought of it as an authority figure, either a teacher or a sergeant-major. Although it also has a bit of a Terry-Thomas vibe about it...
WOW. Out of all the toys I've ever had here, this is one of the ones I would have least anticipated anyone else ever having. That's fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI too have this guy. In fact, there were multiple different faces available and I believe they still are in finer novelty stores everywhere.
ReplyDeleteHere I am, linked here from your more recent blog post, and I, too, had one or two of these!
ReplyDeleteNo idea where they came from, or why, though... weird that they were apparently so popular.