#0065: Koosh Lings

I find my lack of progress disturbing...

Gotta be honest, clearing away a minuscule toy once every thirty days is simply not going to cut it - and now that I've moved out of home, progress will be slowed even more, because I'm literally having to take toys to my new place in order to get rid of them. So when I'm going to such effort, I want to create more space than that which was left by a tiny finger puppet. What kind of entertainment system can I fit into that vacated area? A comically small one?

So basically, I'm going to ramp up my efforts, and create more multi-toy entries, a la the Cocky's Circle books. Which, in actuality, turned out to be one of my favourite entries. Might have had something to do with the constant references to fapping.

Here for your consideration, lie the Koosh's best chance at returning to relevance in the mid 90s - the Koosh Lings! If in case you've forgotten who they are (my last Koosh Ling article was written more than a year ago), they're effectively a group of fun-loving Kooshes who go on zany adventures. They're a tight-knit group, and as such, you must buy all of them. Otherwise you run the risk of completely alienating their circle of friends.

If this commercial featuring the Mowry twins didn't get you excited about owning a Koosh Ling, then I don't know what would. After all, as they so creepily state, Koosh Lings can make you feel good. Physically? Emotionally? Fiscally? I don't know. I guess they made me feel okay.

They also make a rather audacious statement that the enigmatic 'Cool Scenes' Koosh Lings (which I had never even heard of before) do the same stuff that we do. How many young children were jamming on guitars? If they really wanted to make Koosh Lings we could associate with, they'd have been eating cereals in long johns and watching Garfield.

The first fun fella at top left, his name is T.K.

It's never established what T.K. is short for, it was just cool in the 90s to be called by your initials, but I like to think his name was something stupid like Todd Krautz.

He's the leader of the group, and as such, he's brave, adventurous, compassionate and vanilla as fuck. He has an intense wide-eyed stare that borders on menacing, and his favourite colour is probably purple.

To his right is Skye, and like most women, her hair is really, really fun to play with. Whether it was based on factuality, or just a notion I came up with for no apparent reason, she seems to be the sporty tomboy. She can kick around a football with the best of them, she won't back down from a fight, and she digs Caster Semenya's style.

Front and centre is Teeter, and as evidenced by his untamed mane, great big grin, and simply scandalous lack of footwear, he's the crazy party animal. He probably would have been my favourite based on personality and appearance alone, but took second place to the almighty fiery hue of...

Tugs. Tugs was the best, because he was red. I know, it's starting to become redundant, but when you're an idiot kid, you pick favourites for idiotic reasons. Tragically, my collection of the original quartet was slightly incomplete, because as you may have noticed, Tugs is randomly riding a skateboard. No, he wasn't just different in an effort to be an attention-seeking prick, this just happened to be one of the spin-off series: I never could find the original Tugs.

As you can see, he's borderline safety-conscious: he's adorned with flamboyant elbow and knee-pads, but is defiantly absent a helmet. It's funny, actually, how the helmet is the most important protection, and yet the part most commonly missing from children's toys. Look at that big ol' smile, he's pretty fucking ecstatic to be without a helmet.

Once I completed my little motley crew, I think that was pretty much it for me. Despite their advertising scheme, they were much more fun and practical to play with individually. I took Teeter to the beach one day, that was excellent. I pretended Skye got turned into a frog during one adventure, that was quite epic. You put them all together, and you've simply got too many Kooshes for your mortal hands to handle, and in the end, the only recurring storyline becomes how they keep relying on Tugs as the designated driver, since he was the only one with a mode of transportation. He'd love to decline, but unfortunately, his hand is permanently moulded into an affirmative thumbs-up.

Afterwards, they just kept adding more and more friends, and more and more variations of the same characters. Completionists no doubt scrambled to collect such exciting things as a Koosh Ling engaging in gymnastics, but my interest began to waver, until finally, the Lings were toy chest fodder like so many other fads.

They may be forgotten curios from a bygone era, but they're not without their charm, I think. They'll go down as one of the good points of 1996. Good like Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong Country 3 and No Diggity by Blackstreet. Maybe someday soon I'll explore the bad things that happened in 1996. ...in fact, here's a preview...

#0064: Universal Studios Monsters Mike & Don

Tread softly, me lads, for it be the season of ghouls and specters! Where creatures go bump in the night, witches whizz by with a cackle and an odour, and Khloe Kardashian could be lurking behind any corner!

…I mean, ideally, that’d be the case (except that last one). In actuality, nobody really gives much of a toss about Halloween down here in Aus, so you’d be excused for forgetting it even existed. No eerie decorations. No pumpkin spice latte. No Garfield Halloween special, and that is truly the biggest misgiving of them all.

Regardless, I shall do my best to press on and embrace the Halloween spirit as ably as I can. We watched Jumanji last night, and I guess that’s kind of creepy, isn’t it? I have also unleashed the beast(s), and I now present to you my dear friends, Universal Studios Monsters Mike & Don.

One year removed from Universal Studios' 80th anniversary (so kind of an 81st anniversary celebration, if you’d like), these toys hit shelves in 1993, and were no doubt met with a degree of confusion. Modeled after classic monster movie stars, these Turtles figures featured Raphael with rotting flesh, Michaelangelo ironically brandishing the very torch that kills him, and GLOWING PARTS.

The first friend – or fiend? – we’ll take a look at is Mike as Frankenstein. Sort of. As kids, very few of us realized that Frankenstein was actually the man who made him, and it’s more or less become a cultural staple to dub the monster by the same name. I guess Frankenstein sounds more threatening than ‘Adam’ or ‘Bruce’ or ‘Mr. Bob Dobalina’.

Otherwise, Mike looks every bit the part: he’s got a vacant stare even in those little white lifeless eyes, he’s dotted with wee stitches and bolts, and my favourite aspect: You can outstretch his arms to look like he’s lumbering. That’s a nice little feature. I tried it with Don too, but it looks more like he wants to cuddle.

My main gripe with this series of figures is that they don’t particularly fit in, which I suppose is quite appropriate for Frankenstein’s monster. All of the other series of Turtles can be seen as interchangeable costume swaps of our four heroes: oh look, they’re going to the beach – they’re dressed for summer now. Oh shit, they’re in the army – so they’re all decked out in army fatigues. But where do these ones fit in? Oh my, they’ve traveled back to the 1930s – best to suddenly become various monsters. Rawwwwwwwwr motherufcker!

You could in theory substitute them as villains for other toys, but come on… who has the heart to bash the living shit out of the Turtles? Other than Shredder? I might be overthinking this. I don’t know if anyone has ever overthought the Ninja Turtles Universal monsters toys. Maybe I should be proud?

This here is Dracula Don. He’s probably my favourite, because he has sideburns, a ‘WTF’ expression on his face, and his spatterdashes remind me of Scrooge McDuck. Perhaps life is like a hurricane here in Donburg.

As should be expected in a toy representing Dracula, this one is quite dapper, and has a cape that I could almost swear is removable, because it really feels removable. I’ve learnt in the past though that removable sometimes translates to ‘broken off’, so I’ll refrain from undressing Don with anything other than my eyes.

My sister owns the Wolfman Leo figure, and I still have the Mummy Raphael, strangely making this one of the few series in which we own all four Turtles. If memory serves, the only other completed collections were the original set, and a few of the various iterations of the wee little miniature ones.

So what else is there to be said about these guys? Not much, I’m afraid. They’re really just minor oddities in a toy collection famously loaded with major oddities, the likes of which wouldn’t be reached again until Pokémon really hit its stride. Like I said, they look really nice, so that’s always a plus, but I don’t recall them ever getting much mileage. In fact, now that I think about it, not many of the various Turtles sets did get much playtime. Sure, I’d play with ‘em after we got them, but ultimately, I would just revert back to the classic set. It’s apparent just looking at those originals, with their missing accessories, chipped paint, and in some cases, a missing arm, that they certainly got around.

As for these fellas here, I lost their weapons (because that’s just what I do), but they’re otherwise in good nick. Be that as it may, I salute them for their efforts! It’s now reached 100 years of Universal Studios, and I sit back and wonder if we’ll ever again see a crossover of the two franchises?

Moneyball Leo? Blues Brothers Don? Bridesmaids Raph? Nanny McPhee Mike? I would totally buy any of those, for the record.

#0063: Tick Tock, You're Dead!

Now that winter has finally passed here in the southern hemisphere, the weather has begun to turn, and the chilly dismal days are becoming warmer. As such, it is now a requirement that I give myself goosebumps.

This is (obviously) the second book in the series. The kid in the dapper button-up shirt dangling in terror from the clock face is us. The sinister grimacing maw is the enemy. The title represents the precarious flow of time which is to be the epicentre of our story. It probably also severely crippled sales of Arnott's Tic Toc biscuits for a short period of time. It could also potentially be a dire foretelling of the incredibly shitty premier of Kesha fourteen years later. You might think this concept ludicrous, until you delve deeper into the time travelling nature of this tale...

The setting is the Museum of Natural History. I'm on vacation with my family in New York City (kids reading this who actually live in NYC are left to assume this vacation was on a remarkably tight travelling budget), and frankly, it's shithouse.

I figured I'd be checking out the Statue of Liberty, kicking it on Broadway, and getting stabbed in Hotel Carter, but unfortunately, I've been dragged around museums the whole time. If this were an accurate recreation of the Museum of Natural History, I'd find myself accidentally heading towards the exit on multiple occasions, because the layout is frankly infuriating.

This is experience talking.

And worst of all, I'm left in charge of looking after my stupid little red-head brother, Denny. I guess the emphasis on his having red hair may later become a plot point, but for now, let's just assume it's supposed to make us hate him more.

The little fucker runs off, and bolts into a room with a sign that warns of dangerous experiments being conducted inside. The scientist, Dr. Peebles, assumes I'm the volunteer for his time travelling experiment. He doesn't ask why a prepubescent child is the guinea pig, he just wants results, dammit.

He gives me a magical stopwatch, and is about to make the final settings on the time travelling machine, but before he can finish, Denny charges into the device. I try and stop him, but he snarls that 'You're not the boss of me!', and in he goes. In all honesty, I didn't try very hard to stop him. I don't really care if he gets lost in time, hopefully he'll end up in the time when he's not a dick.

Maybe in the future he'll be somebody?

I've got two hours to save him. Two hours to travel through all time and space. Excellent. I like those odds.

I decide to head to the past, mostly so that if I find him, I can tell him that we have to go 'back to the future'. That'd be great. I step into the Chronoport, and then must choose whether to go into the time of knights and castles, or dinosaurs. In the end, I figure, I've already been to England, it's probably going to be pretty much the same, so let's check out some dinosaurs and shit.

No sooner do I arrive, when I'm confronted by a tyrannosaurus rex. Needless to say, that's horribly unlucky. After it decapitates a nearby dinosaur like Johnny Cage (it even puts on the sunglasses and crosses its arms defiantly), it begins to head my way. I run as fast as my little legs will carry me, when, in a swamp, I encounter an even more horrific monster - Denny.

Apparently he's stuck in quicksand. In the process of yanking him from the muck, the stopwatch that holds the key to returning to the present and not dying several million years before my birth, falls into the scuz.

We do a little bit of evasive manoeuvring (accompanied by Yakety Sax) and lose the t-rex, before heading back to search for the crucial timepiece. A volcano goes off, which is no biggie, because we're able to find it and jump in time.

Unfortunately, we're still in the era of dinosaurs. Crikey, weren't they only around for like, 30 years? Tops? Denny thinks 'no more o' this shit', snatches the stopwatch and skips ahead in time, meaning that I can't stick around and watch some eggs hatch. Which sucks, because I really wanted to pretend I was Richard Attenborough, and coo words of encouragement.

It seems that we've arrived in a futuristic city. Winged cars whiz through the sky, the buildings are made of shiny metal, and all around town, they're doing this new dance called the Charleston.

I'm keen to explore further, but I'm immediately arrested by an angry robot, which seems eerily reminiscent of encounters with customs at JFK. I guess I only travelled as far into the future as 2012?

The robot judge (in association with the robot devil) sentences me to either school or the zoo. I consider my options closely... what will my role in the zoo be, exactly? Will I be an exhibit, left before the leering eyes of all robot kind? Or will I be relegated to the role of zookeeper? Will the animals talk to me, like in the Kevin James movie of the same name? Will they show me the light? Will they advise I throw poop at them, because that always works?

Too many questions, too little time. I opt for school, because school is COOL.

In the classroom, the robotic teacher quizzes the human children with impossibly hard questions.

What is the capital of Ulan Bator?
What is 43,000,000 divided by 7.645328?
What is your favourite colour?

One by one, the students fail to correctly answer, and they're put into a metallic box called the frammilizer that seems to make them disappear. 'Frammilized', as the book so aptly puts.

When it's my turn, the teacher asks a question that fills me with bemusement. It's about an ancient wizard Morgred, who used three magical objects to travel in time. My heart sinks, just like it had when I was standing atop the Doom Slide. Another Goosebumps question? What the fuck, man! Has literature diminished so much in the future that R.L. Stine books are considered historically significant?

I stand there, tapping my foot and tilting my head slightly. Were they three white stones? Or a pin, a pipe, and a potato? The stones sounds less ludicrous, but shit, that'd be fun, wouldn't it? Travelling through time with the power of a potato? I guess, if I'm going to die anyway, it may as well be the result of having given the stupidest answer possible.

"A pin, a pipe, and a potato!" I blurt, puffing my chest proudly and shooting a fist to the air. There's a hushed whisper among the students around me, and the teacher considers my answer for a moment, whirring quietly. Either I was right, or I had said something so unorthodox that it took time to process. Or maybe the teacher was having a network error. That would be a winning scenario, too.

...Tragically, Morgred the wizard did not use three random objects that happened to be lying around the house to travel through time. I go down in history as having given, in technical terms, the worst fucking answer of all time. I shrug, strutting towards the lethal box and offering my hand for a high five with the other students as I pass by them. None of them take me up on it.

I climb into the frammilizer, and mysteriously tap my head a few times, as if to say 'I know something'. In the end, the gesture meant nothing, I was just trying to look clever. I die a horrible death of frammilization. On the plus side, my final words are both pensive and meaningful.

"OH SHIT!!"

Final result: 21 pages.

#0062: Big Ears

A new home brings many new experiences, and it's been pretty hectic so far. But I've finally found an opportunity to bring over a geriatric toy for your enjoyment. You know what they say; out with the old, and in with the nucleus!

This one is a little strange, I must admit. Here, we see Noddy's dear friend Big Ears. Big Ears is everything to Noddy: his teacher, his protector, his lover. The nights they spend together in that bed are pure magic. Then, they go about their day, teaching those cheeky Gollywogs a lesson.

But the issue I have with this particular offering of Big Ears is a pretty glaring omission... The fucker ain't got no ears, bro.

It would be like Tails having no tails. It'd be like Slippy Toad represented as some form of obtuse skeletal zebra. It'd be like Billy Joel playing Piano Man on the triangle, foregoing any solos to simply stare intently at the audience.

Christ, it's a bit of a major cock up in my book, and I've never quite forgiven the gnomish bastard for it. In the sake of verbal padding, however, we will attempt to put this shameful fault aside. After all, he at least can't hear all of the nasty things we say about him.

Big 'Ears' is able to stand freely of his own accord, putting him in roughly the 99th percentile of plushes. Unfortunately, other than posing him for voyeuristic photography (such as I'm doing right now), plushes don't really have a lot of need for being able to stand erect. In actuality, it makes me want to kick him in the face, simply because I can. He's like an Ike Broflovski of my very own, and punting him through a window would be such a delight. I'll refrain from fulfilling such fantasies for now, because I've only been renting this property for a week, and I don't think the landlord would like it. Next month, perhaps.

Big Ears features a lovely paint job on his face. He's got a little bit of blush on his cheeks and nose (because he's drunk), as well as a sly little smile. He's just happy to be here, isn't he? Happy to be 'ear', indeed...

...Occasionally, I discover something midway through making these posts, an earth-shattering revelation that makes me want to practically scrap the whole thing and start over again. However, I like the imagery of Billy Joel menacingly playing the triangle too much to bother, so I'll just be frank: I haven't read the Noddy books for approximately thirteen years, so my recollection of Big Ears' appearance is a little hazy.

A quick Google image search has just unveiled that Big Ears never wore such garb, leaving me to conclude that this isn't him at all. It is, in actuality...

A gnome doll.

My very first INAKA doll! How (mildly) exciting. Unfortunately, searching for 'gnome doll' yields more entries than grains of cocaine in the nostril of Charlie Sheen. So, until someone is able to enlighten me on who or what this gnome actually is (which has happened a few times so far), he will remain anonymous.

Really, I'll just be glad to get rid of him. He's been lying in my closet like a smiling corpse this week, and it's freaking creepy.

'Where's the Wii balance board? Is it in here...? Gahh!! Tiny little body!!'

I'm almost half expecting some kind of Child's Play horror, though at the very least, my grisly murder would at least be amusing to watch from afar. Because he's so cute and bearded, and he's got that million dollar smile. Who would ever expect him of being a gnomicidal maniac?

Movers 'n' Shakers

You'll have to pardon my lack of updates lately; I've recently moved out of home. What a terrifying, exhausting and expensive venture it has been, and I'm still in the process of settling in, running around frantically like a headless chicken, or a Blemmyes, if your knowledge of old European lore is up to snuff.

And through it all, my main concern is where exactly I'll be able to display my horrifying Chamberlain figure. Jess isn't too keen on the idea of brandishing him proudly at everyone who enters the abode. But I'm sure she'll come around.

...Wouldn't you?

Counter-productivity

One-armed Raphael has made himself a fun new friend, and it would seem I'm not very good at this whole 'clearing out room' thing. I blame the wicked temptation of BubbaShelby.

Booyakasha?

#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!