#0119: McDonald's Christmas Taz

Ho ho ho, peons! It's the Crimbo season here at Toy Eulogy, and we're sharing the merriment by bringing you something big, jolly, and red. Don't let the NSFW description fool you, it's merely a plush toy from the 1992 Happy Meal holiday lineup; our friend and yours, the McDonald's Christmas Taz.

...Autocorrect really wanted to change that to McDonald's Christmas Tax — what a fucking Scrooge, am I right?!

This handsome fella came as a set of four alongside Tweety dressed as an elf, Bugs in a snug winter hat, and Sylvester donning a set of pyjamas and sleeping through the whole season (as cats will often do). You might recall that the Tasmanian Devil was hot property in the 90s, so he received top billing, cast in the role of Santa Claus himself.

We were greasy connoisseurs of McDonald's in our youth, and yet this was one of the few times I can confirm we nabbed the complete set. Perhaps we were just into that plush toys. Or Looney Tunes. Or the commercial, which resonates with me to this day. To this day. To. This. Day.

Upon viewing, you'll surely agree that it's a perfectly lovely little ad, offering a selection of fluffy friends at a reasonable price. Upon viewing, you'll perhaps also agree that there's something a bit... wrong... with my personal Santa Taz.

Can't quite put your finger on it? Then please never enter the field of investigative journalism (or food prep, because that lacking attention to detail shouldn't be consumed by unsuspecting innocents). My Taz plush is less hirsute, by virtue of his beard being entirely absent.

No, it's not a factory defect, but a valuable insight into the twisted mind of a bizarre child. At some point, I decided that I wanted a regular Tasmanian Devil plush, and I couldn't wait to procure one at a store. No, I fucking needed a conventional Taz and I needed it now, so I took to the poor blighter with a pair of scissors, removing his beard and hat. Needless to say, neither of those were ever intended to be removed, and now he just looks barren.

I elected to place him in the fridge, either as a reference to his character trait for veracity, or to emphasise that now he looks like a meth-head hellbent on drinking all of your Zymil.

Alas, he's really rather foolish now, and there's little I can do to remedy this folly. He's got a pair of white threads where his facial hair was once attached, and more damning still — he's wearing his fucking Santa boots, Anthony. This is not something a normal Taz would typically have, unless he's cosplaying. Or shovelling snow, I guess.

About the only solace I can take from the matter is the notion that my sister and I almost certainly received one of these toys each. As such, somewhere in our vast collection may lie an unsullied Taz, complete in his merry regalia, that I can look upon with envy and/or claim was mine in the first place.

Until such time, the inferior facsimile you see before you will have to do. I'm sure he's at least mildly enthused by the notion of Christmas. Maybe he likes the sales or something, and enjoys having a few extra days off from work.

With all that being said, I reckon Taz is probably Hindu. I have nothing to base this on other than vague inferences and a surprisingly ribald headcanon.

#0075: Pogs/Tazos/Dizks

I don't claim to be an educator of any sort, but I don't think I'm out of line when I make the assumption that teachers worldwide hate collectible toys with a passion. Because it's so fucking important for kids to gather as many as possible, and if anyone fucks with your collection, there will be hell to pay.

I remember when I was in year 7, and a bunch of year 10s looked through my Pokemon cards. When I came home that day, I realised that several were missing. My mom had sent over some of the new Jungle series cards that hadn't yet reached Australia; Jigglypuff, Meowth and the like, and those motherfuckers stole them. What a bunch of heinous ball sacks! They had no interest in the cards, they probably just wanted to sell them for a couple of bucks. I hope they've since died of botulism. Seriously, fuck those assholes.

It's no wonder the various collectible series are soon banned from the schoolyard. We feel slighted as kids, because we weren't doing any harm, and true enough, we weren't; it was those soulless little shitballs that ruined it for everyone. Fortunately, I didn't go through that kind of distress back in my early collecting days. Because back then, I didn't go to school in the shitty western suburbs of Melbourne. I had a most delightful time gathering Pogs. Then Tazos. Then Dizks. Then spores, moulds and fungus.

Oh, Pogs, you crazy little pieces of cardboard. They were veritable schoolyard currency twenty-some years ago, and I remember that no Pog was to be left behind. At a school event with various games and activities, one of the stands gave out Pogs as a prize. So long were the lines, they eventually had to implement a three-game limit. We were being told we'd had enough Pogs, man.

Here's the family. As you can see, I had a whole bunch of Lion King Pogs. The lion's share, if you will. One of my less proud moments was when someone threw away their Power Rangers Pog, and I frantically chased it down. Who in the flying fuck is Aisha? Who cares, she was a Pog - she was a GOD. And I know you're all super jealous of my slammers and my limited edition 'secret weapon' Pog. Although I'm fairly sure they just put the limited edition line on there for shits and giggles, and it held no actual bearing on the rarity of the Pog.

In case you're wondering, no, I never played the actual game of Pogs. Especially not for keepsies - are you crazy? They were far too important for such frivolity!! From my Nickelodeon Gak Pog to my magic 8-ball hatching from an egg Pog, from my Ren & Stimpy Pog to my piece of styrofoam Pog depicting some kind of robotic foot.

Nowadays, Pogs are a relic of a time long gone. Most kids would have no idea what you were talking about, and anyone brave enough to explore pogs.com.au are led to the disappointment that is the Perth Obstetrics Gynaecology Specialists. That's no fun. I want to study Pogs, not vaginas.

Much bigger in Australia was the Pog equivalent, Tazos. As you can see, I entered the game far too late, and didn't really garner much of a collection. I like to think I got the most important ones, though, representing Space Jam and the significance of Duff beer.

Eventually however, they grew wise to the morning viewing habits of kids around the country. What happened next would boost the sales of chip packets by some astronomical percent. Possibly over 9,000...!

Meet the Dragon Ball Z Dizks. These sons of bitches were (figuratively) huge, and kids bought snacks in bulk not for their daily intake of potato, but for the chance to increase their collection of Dizks. As you can see, they were separated into three categories: the red good guys, the black villains, and the yellow 'super characters'. Unveiling a mighty Super Saiyan Goku or Super Namek Piccolo was cause for celebration, as you triumphantly thrust that silly little yellow circle into the air. You were cooler than cool! You were the hip happenin' thing, baby. Do a boogaloo shuffle!

In case you were wondering, yes, I collected all 40 of them. It has led to a better life for me and my children. But sadly, even the most complete collection is waiting to be dwarfed. While we thought the yellow Dizks were top of the pops, we later discovered glorious Dizks with bright orange backgrounds. We knew these were irregular, and hence, more important. As you can see, I only had three. And beyond that, there were even rarer gold ones that I only once ever saw in person - walking through a forest in the rocky mountains one day. I tried to snap a photo, but alas, it was gone.

Later on, they introduced newer characters in fascinating new shapes, as well as branching on to other shitty animes like Beyblades, but the magic was gone. We had already invested enough time, energy and cholesterol into the fine art of Dizk collecting. In my youth, they told me that I had had enough Pogs. All those years later, I was able to tell the distant Pog relative... 'nah, bro - I've had enough of you.'

#0071: Bugs Bunny Limo

It's rare these days that you're able to tear me away from my 3DS long enough for me to make a blog entry, but I'll try my best not to get distracted... Though I must confess, there's a noise outside my window right now that was actually distracting me throughout the duration of that opening sentence. I might take a look, and bring my 3DS with me, just in case.

So many of the curios I share with you are devoid of any sort of backstory, and we find ourselves in that familiar territory today, as I unveil to you the sheer majesty of the Bugs Bunny Limo. It is fantastically bizarre, and I'm already struggling to piece together the words necessary to describe its splendour. The first three words that spring to mind, however, are 'what the fuck?'

What we have here, clearly, is Bugs Bunny in a limo. He sports a bow tie, and clutches a carrot closely to his chest, as if it were some kind of trophy. Yosemite Sam is the driver of this limo, and his expression is one of pure fury and hatred. I don't know why Sam is so vexed, whether it's because his nemesis has claimed this prestigious carrot award, or simply due to being stuck in traffic, but whoa nelly, Sam be pissed. He reminds me a little bit of Dr. Robotnik, but that's neither here nor there.

Thorough Googling (or Yahooing if you sleep with your sister) comes up with bupkis. There is another 'Bugs Bunny limo' out there; most appropriately a Happy Meal toy from 1993, but it is not what we see here. This fine automobile, circa 1990, definitely didn't come complete with a cheeseburger and fries.

I think it might actually be a pull-back car, since it makes the appropriate clicks when put in reverse, but it refuses to launch forward afterwards, leading me to believe that it's broken. Possibly another reason for Sam's fury. Due to this, its major function is now to roll in 3 centimetre increments, and to bemuse. It does one of these things much better than the other.

Beyond that, I've got nothing. It's got nothing, frankly, so don't blame me for not coming up with a more verbose way of describing it. So instead, I thought I'd point out an odd coincidence I noticed recently: my favourite Looney Tunes things both have to do with basketball. I loved Space Jam to bits (we all did, I know), and Looney Tunes B-Ball is a great game that would have gotten more attention, had it come out earlier in the SNES' tenure. Its main theme is splendid, and when blasted out of your speakers, makes even the Bugs Bunny limo look fucking PIMP.

#0061: Taz in Escape from Mars

Back in my youth, I played a lot of video games. Shit, I still do, I just don’t brag about it in the schoolyard so much anymore (a court order tends to put a halt to such fun).

Because we were borderline rich, spoilt kids who shunned the outside world, my sister and I each had a television in our bedrooms, a little treat that I will selfishly not be paying forward to my own offspring. My parents did it out of love, but to this day, it has instilled within me this instinctive urge to retreat back to my room as some sort of lair, and frankly, I’m not enough of a virgin to get away with doing that anymore.

Coupled with those televisions was a console: for my sister, the Super Nintendo, and for me, the Sega Genesis. That’s right, folks, we had the early 90s console war waged right between children’s bedrooms. Maybe it’s part of the reason I have always had a soft spot for Sega. Sonic was my boy, my man, my confidant, he chilled with me, he went on adventures with me, and he’d run faster than fuck and leave me behind. Because he’s kind of a dick like that.

The Sega Genesis lives today in a state of retirement: it did not age nearly as well as the SNES, unfortunately. The cartridges are more temperamental and the god forsaken ancient DIN connector only plugs into one television; a television that I am forced to keep for the sole purpose of playing Sega. To its credit though, the controllers have fared much better than their Nintendo counterpart. We’re up to our fifth SNES pad, whereas we’re still operating with the original two we had for the Sega. Also, the six button controller is boss as fuck, even though I don’t recall ever playing a game that necessitated the extra three buttons.

It was only a matter of time before I opened up that little VHS/game cupboard, and plucked a Sega game from the snug comfort of darkness like a babe in the night, and today, wedged between Virtual Pinball and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, was Taz in Escape From Mars.

In the gaming sense, the Tasmanian Devil was the Looney Tunes’ golden boy. Whereas Bugs and Daffy didn’t have a definitive skill set other than cross-dressing and getting shot in the fucking face, respectively, we all knew what Taz did. We all loved what Taz did.

He span in circles, and he ate fucking everything. He was Chris Farley in cartoon form, and he was ready for action.

Never mind the fact that he neither looked nor operated much like an actual Tasmanian devil, and when he mutters out speech, it’s entirely devoid of any sort of Australian accent, he’s still one of the nation’s most recognizable celebrities. Because of his penchant for spinning rapidly, he is also one of our most enduring incorrect stereotypes. So let’s clear some things up… no, Tasmanian devils do not turn into miniature tornadoes. No, we do not ride kangaroos and throw boomerangs at our enemies. Yes, we all wrestle crocodiles. In fact, I’m wrestling one right now. Crikey!

The Taz renaissance kicked into gear during the 1990s (Wikipedia told me so), and it coincided comfortably with the rapid progression of gaming technology. After the NES had evolved our heroes into clear, defined sprites as opposed to ‘green blob’ and ‘ambiguously naked yellow man’, the SNES and Genesis ushered in a colour palette so robust, developers could really flex their muscles, and make the happy little trees they’d always yearned for.

Our game opens with Marvin the Martian taking a stroll through his Mars zoo. He makes the executive decision that his collection would really benefit from a Tasmanian devil, and proceeds to abduct our boy Taz. Taz seeks revenge as he busts up Marvin’s zoo, wrecks shit all the way to Mexico, and then invades Marvin’s house and blows his brains out like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. (SPOILER ALERT. LOL)

So you start in a cage in the zoo. To your right is a cracked wall, the kind that Link would love to plant a bomb up against, but Taz prefers to simply spin… at… and make his escape. So really, Marvin’s downfall lied in lackluster construction, and that’s just too damned bad. Me personally, I liked to actually just jump up and down and play in the enclosure for a solid five minutes, because I’m pretty sure it was my only gaming opportunity to be a zoo animal. What fun.

The game is a lot of spinning about, bouncing off of walls, and making blind leaps of faith that could lead to your destination, or a speedy death, accompanied by a hilarious Taz ‘grah!’ and a mildly horrifying musical track that sounds like an instrument farting. There are a whole slew of maze-like environments to navigate about, and of course, famous Looney Tunes characters to throw down with. I distinctly recall frequently getting lost, because I was a mere six year old with only a passing knowledge of the layout of Mars, and I responded by eating everything I saw.

Because most excellently, the game features a lot of eating. Taz can eat almost anything, whether it’s a box of rocks, a birthday cake, or a bomb that then blows up in Taz’s stomach. So you’ll want to avoid the bomb for safety purposes, though I don’t know how healthy it is to eat some rocks or random baked goods, either.

Finally, I escaped from Mars, as the title so specifically requested, and ended up in Moleworld. …Oh god, Moleworld…

In the second level of Moleworld, you’re being pursued by an enormous, terrifying digging machine, and you have to press onward to the end as quickly as possible (an exit sign that Taz also decides to eat), or else you’ll be brutally murdered. Yep, there’s no two ways about it, this kooky little cartoon character will be ripped to pieces by the cruel mole people. It’s simply horrifying, and to be honest, I never did pass that stage. I never got to see Planet X or the haunted mansion, and just like Thelma and Louise, I never made it to Mexico. That’s all, folks! I’m fucking dead.

If that’s too heavy for you, at least you can watch the little Taz icon in the bottom left corner. It’s the entirely superfluous indicator of how many lives you have left, and it is simply marvelous. It grins, it peers, it throws little tantrums, I wish it was in every game!

Overall, the game is your standard fare for platformers of its day, but it has enough little extras to keep it fresh. Hopefully, someone will see it next time they stop by Gametraders, and this eighteen-year-old relic will liven up their day. …Assuming they have a North American Sega Genesis, which may be wishful thinking.

GRAH!

#0059: Tweety Bird Airplane

In the inimitable words of the pilot of Star Fox 64’s Meteo Crusher, ‘I admit defeat.’

For today, we encounter a rare beast; a toy so dreadfully obscure and confounding, thorough Googling yields no answers. I have hopes (or fears) that soon after making this post, someone will cite their wisdom, share their story, and solve this mystery with the panache of Tin-Tin, but me personally, I got nothing. I didn’t even have an appropriate way of associating this thing into my playtime session due to it’s nature: ‘Oh look, Raph, here comes an airplane with a small bird on it – Cowabunga!’

So what do I have? I have, for lack of a better term, the Tweety Bird Airplane.

And it is exactly as advertised: a blue airplane toy with Tweety perched on the hood. And sure, that would be perfectly reasonable, except for one sinister question: Who in the flying fuck (pun only 12% intended) is sitting in the cockpit?

I’m neither a historian nor a Rainman of Looney Tunes lore, and this guy here, he is entirely unfamiliar to me. With his untamed red mane and square-rimmed glasses, he looks to all the world like an adult Chuckie Finster.

…But wait, what is this? A quick inspection of the young man’s buttocks yields a clue: copyright details I originally thought missing! So it would appear as though this was a Burger King toy from 1990… Wow, was I going to Burger King in the year 1990? Or was my dad just a big fan of kid’s meals?

Now armed with this crucial nugget of knowledge, my Google search shifts from searches about ‘Looney Tunes character red hair’ and getting 1,000 different results of fucking Gossamer, and focusing instead on ‘Burger King 90s mascot’.

…Bingo.

So this is the Burger King Kids Club Gang, a group of culturally diverse and politically correct friends who, if my recollection of 90s children’s advertising serves, are fit, active, healthy, promote safe sex and, coincidentally, eat every single meal at Burger King.

The Wikipedia article for the Gang is pretty thorough; it describes at length each member’s personality, as well as their ethnicity, for some reason. I mean, how exactly is that relevant? Do Jaws and Lingo have to sit at the back of the BK bus?

This particular ‘male Caucasian nerd with ginger hair and freckles’ is known as I.Q., and I can’t imagine him as having been anyone’s favourite. He’s the archetypical nerd, and if there had been a cartoon, he would probably ‘do machines’, or some shit like that.

He actually reminds me a fair bit of Arnold from the Magic School Bus, who in turn had a corresponding redheaded equivalent in Wheeler from Captain Planet, so perhaps this is the awkward middle phase, transitioning from wussy Jewish boy to environmentally-conscious heartthrob?

Gracious. What a thinker. Now that that riddle has been un-riddled, the only question I’m left with is, shit, why is I.Q. trying to kill Tweety Bird?

Personally, I can relate; I was a big Sylvester fan as a kid, so I’d revel in any opportunity to see Tweety squashed between a large piece of chalk, and what appears to be the Bible, but isn’t it a strange marketing ploy to represent one of BK’s mascots as a malicious villain? I don’t think there’s much room for interpretation here. You could claim that he is just really enjoying his flight, and is making a grandiose scientific declaration, or singing ‘Pure Imagination’ from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but you’d be stretching more than Mr. Fantastic himself.

Otherwise, the toy is bog standard. Its propeller spins, which is marvelous, and the wheels operate in order to make your dreams of I.Q. taking off and touching down complete, and I.Q. himself is removable, but is tragically a single plastic cast. So he can hobble around in his uncomfortable seated position like someone with really bad hemorrhoids, but little beyond that.

Me personally, I’m just chuffed as chips that I was able to unravel the origins of yet another stupid toy from the Bush administration. Could its ‘HTF’ nature render it invaluable? Frankly, I don’t care. I just know I won’t be missing it much after this.

Because fucking hell, I wish I had gotten Kid Vid instead. He was awesome.

PS: If you're hungry for more info on that crazy Gang like they hunger for burgers, take a squiz at this entry from Diary of a Dorkette: it's much more factually accurate, and not laden with swearing, unlike the blog of another fucker who shall remain nameless.

More swag!

Here are some other things I've gotten rid of lately. Things that are relevant to this blog, but not important enough to merit their own entries. Though you could argue that things like my sticker book didn't deserve their own entry, either. In which case, touché.

Old console/controller boxes! These things have been in the garage since before you were born. The spider inside the Genesis box was enormous and terrifying. If this was a 90s commercial, it would have yelled 'SEGA' at me.

This excellent poster details the hot new games you can get for your Game Boy. That Donkey Kong Land III looks pretty revolutionary, doesn't it? It kind of looks like James Bond is in Cerulean City.

A breakfast cereal collectible card from Babe 2: Pig in the City. I don't know in what sense it is collectible, but dear golly, my collection of one certainly included Thelonius.

One of these books supposedly contained 1001 cool jokes, but I'm not quite positive as to what qualified these jokes as being 'cool'. I certainly didn't feel cooler for owning it. The other book was my secret spy book. And clearly now, the secret is out.

This magical Sylvester head holds stunning secrets. You can keep candy in there! I mean, I'm sure there are other things you can put in there, too...

"No! Just candy, Ned! Ninety dollars!!"