#0097: Storm Toad Trooper

Who could have ever imagined that we would be talking about Bucky O'Hare in 2018, and it would actually be vaguely topical? For you see, over the last few years, a company known as Boss Fight Studio has been bringing the Toad Wars back for the modern era, producing an all new line of Bucky action figures. All of your favourites have made their glorious, highly articulated return - from Jenny all the way to Deadeye Duck. Still no sign of my dude Bruiser, though, and definitely no Willy DuWitt, as he is nobody's favourite.

Wave 3 drops this fall, and included among this batch is the villainous Storm Toad Trooper. You can grab a single Trooper for $34, or a two-pack for $65. If, however, you follow my long-term belief that the foot soldiers should greatly outnumber the heroes, they offer a Master Case Pack of twelve toads for the low, low price of $420.

If you have over $400 in expendable cash that you can splurge on imaginary frog enemies, then fuck you, you have too much money. And now, too many frogs.

Look at that! I have two now.

The Storm Toad Troopers were your average minion. They all looked the same, and were mostly there to be disposed of effortlessly as Bucky and his comrades spouted one-liners where they declared them to be 'slimy fly eaters' and whatnot. In hindsight, that sounds racist as fuck, and I don't approve. But it was a different time, and between this and Danger Mouse, it seems as though amphibians were typically considered to be assholes.

I did a quick Google search to see if I could find more examples of toad villainy, but typing 'frog enemies' merely led to this website that looks like it was made in 2000. I fucking love FROGLAND, and I have added it to my bookmarks.

But enough on that. Let's talk Storm Toad Trooper.

He's a little bit dirty from years of lurking around the garage, but otherwise, he's pretty much in perfect condition. No chipped paint or doggy bite marks, which suggests that even Peppy thought he was too gross to bother gnawing on. He is riddled with nice little details, including a K on the side of his helmet that I will assume stands for Karen.

Most significantly, however, this is one of the very few toys where I was able to successfully locate his weapon, putting him in the 95th percentile of most dangerous figures in the entire house.

Fuck yeah, neon orange shotgun!

It fits quite nicely into his hand with a satisfying snap sound (I hope that wasn't actually the sound of it breaking), but his arms are positioned strangely, and his elbows aren't posable. As such, he actually looks more like he wants to engage you in a boxing match, which in and of itself is pretty badass, but likely unwise during a fight in outer space.

That being said, however, I did a quick search for packaged Storm Toad Trooper toys, and I can't help but shake the idea that something here is amiss. No, it's not the fact that it's in French, nor is it the revelation that the French word for frogs is krapos.

What I am now realising is that he came packaged with an entirely different weapon altogether.

So what gives, krapo la (that's Haitian Creole, but bear with me for a moment)?? Whose gun did you steal? Did it belong to Mighty Max, or Ace Duck? Maybe Papa Smurf on a really bad day? In any event, it seems to suit you quite well, so I'll just accept this transgression and feign ignorance when the police come knocking at my door.

After all, when you're hanging out with space toads, you sometimes just have to accept that they'll get drunk and cause all sorts of mischief. I've been dealing with Slippy for long enough to know this firsthand.

#0043: Willy DuWitt

I browsed through the viewing statistics or INAKA today, and was interested to see that the Turtlecycle has garnered the most views of any entry by a large margin. It and the other garage-based toy eulogies have been among my favourites. With that in mind, I made the venture back into the garage, and it was by far the most depressing visit I've had yet. So many spiderwebs, torn old school books and piles of dust and grime. Peppy gamely followed me in there, and ended up with little more than a dirty face and a sneezing fit.

At first, I contemplated going back into the tub of Thomas toys, but I'm lacking in creativity to think up descriptive terms for fifteen different trains. Because like I've said in the past, they're all an interchangeable group of pricks.

Instead, I chose to once again cock tease fan(s) of Bucky O'Hare. As the title and primary photo will indicate, it is not the titular heroic hare. I'd rather build up suspense, because any character revealed after Bucky himself would surely be anti-climactic.

And so, I brought a young blonde boy into my house, gave him a bath, and took photos of him. ...Don't worry guys, I got my Working With Children Check. I'm clean! Just not nearly as clean as Willy DuWitt.


In Bucky O'Hare lore (or as he shall be henceforth abbreviated to: Brohare), Willy DuWitt is a pre-teen engineer who teleported from San Francisco to Brohare's anthropoid-laden universe through use of an accelerator in his room. Seems legit.

He is clearly the lamest character in the show: a lousy human who looks like a nerd, and according to his toy, goes about dressed up in what can only be described as the very flesh of Bruiser. And unlike Frix, he cant even claim that his voice actor was once the voice of Krillin. Indeed, so maligned is young Willy, Peppy deemed it appropriate to gnaw on his foot.


Though initially equipped with glasses, a laser, and a monkey helmet, our copy of DuWitt no longer possesses any of these things. Just what looks like a turtleneck sweater under his armour. It makes the sad even sadder. He's nicely sculpted, but has a few odd inconsistencies in his colour scheme. For one thing, his hands aren't the same colour as his face. Though a logical explanation would be that they're constructed of different materials, I prefer to conclude that Willy has vitiligo.

Another of the many problems I have with this toy is that stupid grin planted upon his face. It just makes him so entirely inappropriate for combat. I know, his helmet would mask that fact, but why must he be smiling? He's smack dab in the middle of a warring universe of angry hares and ducks, with no way of getting home to San Francisco. He never got to see the best of Barry Bonds, dammit!


Maybe it's in an effort to fake out the opponent. I would certainly be wary of throwing down with my opponent if he was a happy child. His offensive equipment being practically nil, it remains for him to fascinate them with the power of his eye...

I lifted that line from a political comic illustrated in 1920. I pull odd ones out like that, sometimes.

You know, I'm really torn about what I should do with this DuWitt fella. He's dirty, he's ugly, and he's the partial victim of attempted vore. Will any charity even accept him? Will they take one look at him, frown, and shake their head? The fabricated man working at the theoretical charity is holding the pretend DuWitt before my very imagination. Willy DuWitt? Or won't he?

...I'm assuming that pun was intentionally written into the name. It's his only redeeming quality. Another quality (redeeming or otherwise) is that, in my opinion, Willy looks a lot like Jake Lloyd. Remember him? Galavanting about our theatres in the late 90s before people finally realised the kid was no good?


Yeah, that's totally a DuWitt doppelgänger there. And if that's any indication, DuWitt will not be meeting a good fate. Having effectively 'retired' in 2001, Jake Lloyd's career is more stagnant than a bog. To hold a parallel of any kind is to effectively condemn DuWitt to the scrap heap. From whence he will construct a pod racer, become a Jedi, and then betray his master, becoming the mighty Imperial overlord.

All the while, wearing a monkey helmet. Because that would have been funnier had it happened in the movies. Your move, George Lucas.

#0012: Bruiser

For a program I never watched, it seems as though I have an awful lot of Bucky O’Hare toys. In fact, I feature a robust portfolio of three.

I know, it’s not quite a smorgasbord. If I tried hosting a Bucky O’Hare party, my guests would probably be sorely disappointed with the sparse roster on selection. But I emphasise the fact; I never once watched the show. Never. It’d be like buying a My Pet Monster toy for your fifteen-year-old brother today, even though the blue gaffer hasn’t been seen for about twenty-four years, and he lacks the fond memories of Beastur et al.

And frankly, the selection of Bucky toys we own is bizarre. So we’ve got Bucky, who’s a necessity of course, but beyond that, there’s no Deadeye Duck or Jenny the telepathic pussy.

No. We got gypped. We got a hideous pre-teen Willy DuWitt toy, who my sister and I have been trying to pawn off onto each other’s toy collections for years. And the last of the trio is a character I don’t even recall ever existing. Christ, he’s trumped by that stupid ass robot Blinky. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Bruiser.


My knowledge of Bruiser is distinctly lacking. He’s clearly the muscle of Bucky’s team, but what secrets does he hold? He is dressed akin to an extra from Mad Max, and he has distinctly placed protruding elements from his chest plate that I can only assume are for his erect nipples. With that being said, perhaps I don’t want to know about Bruiser’s secrets. They’re naughty secrets.

I’m just going to get it out of the way now, because otherwise it’s going to bug me. In my anal retentive world of paint jobs (I should get into car detailing), the only thing that irks me more than a lazily coloured toy is one where they’ve completely miscoloured something. In Bruiser’s case, it’s his left hand. He’s clearly wearing a glove, spikes and everything, yet it’s the exact same colour as the rest of his body. I often wonder how such omissions occur, but I guess it’s not really something I should be dwelling on. It’s not like I’m going to fix it in the hopes of a Bucky relaunch.

I’ve just now noticed he appears to actually be wearing Speedo’s of some sort that have also been left uncoloured, so let me just declare that these items of clothing are in fact simply orange-coloured. Either it was a silly coincidence that Bruiser hadn’t noticed when purchasing the items on sale from Wal-Mart, or it was a tactical ploy he is using in order to disguise the fact that he’s wearing a dangerous glove of destructive power, and also to disguise the fact that his junk is not flying solo.

Bruiser features holes in his feet, typical of toys from his era so that he can be stood up in his team’s vehicle. He also has a curious hole planted directly in his back, which remains a mystery to us all.


Does this mean that he was also intended to lie down in the vehicle, in case of injury or naptime? Or was he supposed to have an unreleased accessory that allowed him to breakdance? What a glorious sight that would have been! A studded, potentially orange-Speedo wearing breakdancing gorilla! It’s like Donkey Kong gone wrong. It’s everything I ever wanted to be in life, only if I had my way, he would also be shooting fireworks from his shoes. And, considering the holes he has in his soles… Who knows? Another world, another time, Bruiser may have been synonymous with my very existence.

Beyond that, Bruiser’s strange physique is actually rather posable. We’ve seen his stereotypical ‘ook ook I’m a gorilla’ stance, but check out his range!


Stand him upright and he becomes an educated, liberal-minded member of society. He enjoys poetry and political debates.


Throw his limbs to the air and he looks like he’s making a bold proclamation for the people. Is he a rock star, or is he Winston Churchill? You decide!


He can even dance to Tarzan Boy by Baltimora. I’m unclear exactly how a Tarzan Boy dance would look, so I lifted this particular boogie from the third Ninja Turtles movie.


Falcon PAWNCH! Oh ho, fooled by my camouflaged glove, were you, Pikachu?

The final question that Bruiser presents, and it is indeed a big one, is what was supposed to slot into his right hand? There’s a dandy little hole in there, and it has to be filled with something. It’s not like he’s going to use his fist as a pretend telescope, after all.

At first, I assumed I had simply lost the particular accessory, but a quick squiz at fully packaged Bruisers reveals that he never came with anything at all. So you can stick whatever you damn well want in his hand really, just don’t expect a cool club or massive gun or something, because it’s a tiny little hole. He can only place small things that he feels affectionate towards in there. You know exactly what I’m talking about…


It took twenty-one years, but I feel good to know that I can finally reunite him with his lost child, Chimchar. It’s a beautiful thing, that monkey love.