A reminder...

Both children's programming and popular music were vastly superior back in my day. I would totally love to break this out at a Halloween party, but I fear that it would be awkward for both of my guests.

#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.

#0070: Animals!!

Et voila! A post, as promised. In the early 90s, Northern Getaway was one of my favourite stores in the world. It had this awesome rainforest theme, and was stacked to the brim with neat shit, like sand lizards and sweaters depicting kung-foo frogs with the headline 'Marsh-all Arts'. It was also the site where I first learnt about anti-theft barriers. No, I wasn't a roguish thief or a miniature kleptomaniac, I just wanted to show my dad the cool toy I had found, and he happened to be standing outside the store at the time. I remember being so confused by how I was getting in trouble for nothing, but no blood was spilt that day. Crisis averted.

Also, what in the fuck are those anti-theft barriers actually called? I'm sure I know, but the words are escaping me right now. I typically just call them the 'beepy motherfuckers', a versatile phrase that I've also used to define cars and the Bee Gees.

One of the most frequent causes of expenditure at Northern Getaway came in the form of these delightful animals. Aye, a more specific phrase would be preferable, but Googling for 'animal figurines' just opens the floodgates to eleventy billion unrelated products, most of which belong to the Sylvanian Families. And unless these figures are just going through a nude, four legged phase in which they forego tea parties and quaint cottages, I'm quite positive they aren't Sylvanian.

Before I proceed, I thought I'd express that it was an utter pain in the balls to try and get all of these little things to stand for the photo. These motherfuckers are clearly drunk, and yet another reminder to never work with children or animals. At the front of said photo is the very first one I got, the little golden brown kitty I named Chester. According to the underside of his body, Chester is a somali cat. I don't know if I ever realised that at the time, because it was frankly much easier to just call him a tabby. Everything was a tabby back in them days, whether they were a somali, an abyssinian or a corgi. Made things easier for us simple folk.

I took Chester all over the house (most memorably to the supper table, where I insisted my parents refer to him as 'our dinner guest'), and of course, it led to me wanting every single one of the cats we could find, even the ones that looked incredibly similar, and especially the ones that were just differently coloured versions of the same species.

Hey look! Siamese twins.

After we had exhausted the bevy of feline figurines, we moved onto dogs. I didn't get as many dogs for some reason, either because I was obsessed with cats as a kid or the range of mutts was smaller. Can't remember which. Among the collection is an Alsatian I have recently named Baldrick.

All up, I collected at least 26 of these figurines. I might have had more, but these were the ones I could find. Much like an old southern hoarder, I may have twelve more cats and dogs lurking about the house somewhere. I'll be sure to update you if I ever do find any more, and if you ever do happen to care.

They're bound to prove useful in some educational capacity, so hopefully my fiancé will find a role for them in her classroom. I wouldn't be surprised if at least half of them go missing, because the more I look at them, the more I realise that these things are some really steal-able figurines. Christ, I want to put them in my pocket, and I already own them. Isn't it circuitous that the toys from the store I almost accidentally burglarised are strong candidates for petty theft? I like it. I mean, I like the symbolism, I don't like the idea that some little shit's gonna steal my schnauzer.

I also have other animals, not necessarily from the same series (maybe they are? I can neither prove nor disprove this), but with the same concept: animal figurines with their specific genus printed on their belly. These range from five-lined skink juvenile to dimetrodon to epipedobates tricolor to GIANT FUCKING TURTLE.

It was a veritable jungle in my bedroom. And I don't mean that in a sexual way. In that sense, it was more of an abandoned cave: lonely and damp.

At the very least, these things all did an excellent job of filling out my toy chest. You know how sometimes you had toys that you liked, but never necessarily played with? These were the quintessential also-rans, and I loved them for it. Other than Chester, of course, whose major claim to fame was joining my luncheons.

My new favourite, however, isn't the beloved old somali tabby. It is in fact an unrelated animal figurine that I have decided to include in this entry, because this is as close as I'll ever get to finding a relevant entry to slip him in.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for you to meet the hideous bleeding lion.

Is it a haggard Simba after things had turned south in the pride lands? Or is it a battered Aslan, fresh off a most impolite shanking from the White Witch? It's hard to say, but anything is possible. Discuss amongst yourselves. Don't look at his bad eye.

When all else fails, blame the Vaike

I'm sorry, friends. All because I haven't been posting doesn't mean I don't still love you guys. The main reason for my absence lately can be traced almost directly to the 67 hours I have spent playing Fire Emblem Awakening. Oh my god, I love it so. Any scarce fragment of spare time I have, simply has to be dedicated towards playing it and buffing up my paladins. I even ranked the units over on my other blog, if you fancy a peek.

I do however have a bag of toys at my disposal that I have been feeling an itch to dispose of. So bear with me, there will be action (figures). To bide you over, here is my current collection of POP! Vinyls. They represent everything that is important to me, from Canadian superheroes to sea witches to Michael Keaton.

#0069: Jab

When you're a kid growing up, you have your heroes. For a lot of young'uns, that immediately translates to comic book supeheroes: your Batmans, your Spidermans, your Supermans (proper nouns, ergo correct grammar. Doncha be givin' me no grief!), and in my case, I was no different. As I have alluded to ever so frequently, my childhood heroes were, most significantly, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, comic book heroes all the same.

I won't repeat myself, as I'm wanton to do, about how marketers worked furiously at recapturing the lightning in a bottle that was Turtlemania, though I will confess that the Street Sharks were my favourite of the many, many attempts. Whether Biker Mice from Mars were too edgy for my tastes, whether Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa were too irreverent and western (I never dug westerns), none of them seemed to catch my attention.

But Street Sharks somehow succeeded, and from the time of its inception in 1994 to the time of its death in 1996, I wanted me some sharks! Because not only were they cool and badass lookin', but importantly, they were very 90s.

Being an artefact of the 90s is a double-edged sword. Because although it holds nostalgic value, it also feels completely flippant now. Whether it's the tie-died wackiness of the early 90s, or the bubblegum pop and inflatable furniture preceding the millennium, it's not just dated, it's practically groan-worthy.



I mean, shit, I still love it to bits, but I can see why others wouldn't. As an aside, I have no idea who half of those characters are. I didn't know there was a pre-Mario Lopez era, and frankly, I don't like it.

And while we're at it, those lyrics really don't check out, do they? What kind of teacher fails to hand test papers to a student, simply because they were hiding in their chair? Are we to assume that this student is 8 centimetres tall?

But I digress once more. In the case of the Street Sharks, they're simply 'Jawesome'. Had radical, funky, gnarly or tubular been translatable to shark related puns, they'd have been all of those things, too.

So here we have Jab. My memory of Street Sharks lore is obviously waning, because I had him pegged as the brains of the operation, the resident 'Donatello', if you will, but apparently his defining characteristic was that he was lazy. It doesn't exactly grab you as being one of your archetypical roles: the uncertain leader, the rebellious cool guy, the virtuous peacekeeper and the lazy fuck, but hey, at least modern Tony can associate with Jab.

As you may have noted, Jab is a hammerhead shark, which means he's capable of doing neat shit like extending his eyeballs forward. A definite plus on the battlefield, as it allows you to stare at your opposition three inches closer, and could also be a means of showing surprise.

He's definitely a menacing figure, as one of his fists is permanently closed and raised at you in a very threatening gesture, which seems out of character for someone supposedly laidback, but we shan't split hairs. Really, if you're looking for something to complain about, you're more likely to point out the fact that he's a very shiny shade of silver, whilst the source material clearly had him as brown.

I don't know what he's holding in that picture. I just assume he's going to eat it.

His body is made of a fascinating rubbery material, and for the record, this meant that he retained water like a motherfucker. If you were like me, and assumed that shark figures would work well in the water, well then you were a damned fool, because he would then have to sit there for a week as he dripped all over the bathroom shelf.

This choice of material wasn't without cause, however. Because like all of the Boltons (excluding Michael), his trademark feature is his mighty jawline, and pressing down on his fin allows him to open his mouth and to feast upon his enemies! It's... not really that exciting, but if you were the really patient sort, you could actually make it look like he's talking.

I'm almost 100% certain I lifted that line from episode 3.

#0068: Pokemon Silver Version

In April of 2011, I decided to do an odd thing. I scavenged about the closet, unearthed my Game Boy Advance, and popped in my old Pokemon games. Did I intend to play them, seeking a surge of nostalgia? No, not exactly. After all, the first two generations have since been faithfully recreated, and I'm actually still in the middle of my Heart Gold run-through. In actuality, I kind of wanted to look through my legions of old Pokemon, just for shits and giggles.

I'd sunk about 200 hours into Pokemon Silver Version, and boy, what a time I'd had. Back in the days when Pokemon was still the exciting thing, the second edition certainly delivered on all fronts: new Pokemon, new abilities, the revelation that your darling little princess Clefable may actually have a wang... It was all terribly exciting, wasn't it?

And so, I fondly surveyed the contents of my PC boxes. My Typhlosion, the starter Pokemon who would join me as I trekked through this uncharted new region... Reddy, the cleverly named shiny crimson Gyarados... and of course, my Quagsire was in there somewhere. I adored that Quagsire. She was dopey as fuck, with this great big grin on her face; a veritable Brad Garrett of Pokemon.

But where in the hell was she? She wasn't among my party. She wasn't sitting in the Water or Ground-type boxes. She wasn't even on a vacation over on my Crystal version. She was nowhere. ...My Quagsire... was dead. In my misery, I wrote her a touching eulogy.

Pokemon Silver claimed my Quagsire far before her time. She was going to be celebrating her eleventh birthday this year. She was so beautiful. She loved to Rollout. So young, so innocent.

In memory of Nautica the Quagsire
2000-2011

Fast forward to today, and I thought I'd pay the Johto region another visit. But it would seem as though the cruel hand of fate has plagued this once pristine part of the world, and claimed another victim. And this time, that victim was the Johto champion, ANTHONY, trainer #15939.

Yes, it would seem as though the entire save file has disappeared, and with it, the Typhlosion, the Umbreon, the Crobat... Every last one, gone. Professor Oak approaches, but he's practically unrecognisable. He once lived an existence of great joy and unbridled passion, reviewing the progress ANTHONY had made on his Pokedex. But now, he is a shadow of his former self. He asks you for your name. He mutters something about the world of Pokemon. He hands you the ghastly corpse of a Chikorita. Then he shuffles off into the dark recesses of his dilapidated laboratory.

The world that once looked so vivid seems to only contain 56 colours, all of them melancholy. New Bark Town has only a few scattered inhabitants, who are all wandering back and forth aimlessly, their eyes glassy and pixelated. Strangely, though, people seem to be going about their day in much the same way they had back at the turn of the millennium.

They tell you about recently discovered Pokemon like Marill and Natu. They talk about the exciting new technology of the Poke Gear. They're listening to Sisqó as if he were relevant. However, mentioning the name ANTHONY only receives confusion and indifference. Why, it's as if you've jumped back in time to a perverse version of the past, one where ANTHONY never received that Cyndaquil, never bested Lance at the Pokemon League, and never prevented the uprising of Team Rocket.

He's been erased from the memory of everyone in the world! ...Which is odd, considering that he's also the champion of Kanto, Hoenn and Unova. He would have been the Sinnoh region champion as well, but I decided to name him MR. BUTTS instead. Hahaha! Butts.

I shan't dally for long. Clearly, my very presence here, with my fancy new iPod and Terrence Ross Raptors jersey, is causing suspicion. I'm a practical paradox, and my Game Boy Advance isn't backlit, so I can't make out a damn thing anyway. Tears in my eyes, I take out my Poke Ball, and release my Swellow, ready for it to fly me away from this horrible place.

Unfortunately, Swellow doesn't exist yet. The save file is now corrupted, and New Bark Town is renamed HW!%RRR!PWWW. Fuck.

I hope you're out there somewhere, ANTHONY. Still farming those Charmanders. Still giving those Pokemon the horrible movesets you thought were so tactful as a twelve year old. Still nicknaming Hoothoot as Lugia, and trading it to unsuspecting children. You old dick, you.

#0067: Snoopy World Tour

Fast food toys are a mixed bag, in all honesty. Occasionally, you'll go through droughts where the prizes are uninspiring: generic cars for the boys, generic miniature dolls for the girls. Most of the time, they're modelled after whatever television show or movie is hot at the time, and even then, it's hit or miss: for every fantastic Sonic the Hedgehog, there's about three auxiliary characters with lesser intrigue. I was six years old, I didn't want Robotnik! He was a fat, bald man, and I had been conditioned to hate him.

To this day, I can still remember the two most thrilling toy offers from my youth: McDonald's Teenie Beanies, and Burger King's Pokemon plushes. Seriously, if you want kids to gobble shit up, make it a plush item. This applies to all range of toy exchange, really: in gaming arcades, plush toys go off like nobody's business. Whether it's as a redemption item, or a claw machine prize, stick it in there. I don't know why I'm informing you of this as though you're likely to make these decisions.

One of my favourite range of prizes, plush hysteria notwithstanding, were these charming Snoopy World Tour figurines that did the rounds of McDonald's in 1998 and 1999. The premise is simple: each week, four new international Snoopy's would be released. The sheer collectibility of these little gaffers made people go crazy. Apparently they became a hot commodity, which is hilarious when you consider the apathetic expression of the Snoopy's themselves: the population of Hong Kong is ripping each other apart for a small plastic toy. Snoopy don't give a shit.

In two series, a whole slew of nations were represented, ranging from a Norwegian viking to a Canadian Mountie. Personally for the latter I would have just had a despondent looking Snoopy crying into his beer like a Leafs fan.

It would have been hilarious if they had gone with a Peanuts character other than Snoopy. Imagine how much less hype there would have been if they had made it Pigpen's World Tour? In fact, just jettison the Peanuts license entirely for a moment, and make it someone completely random. ...No, more random than that!

...What about Margaret Thatcher's World Tour? I love it! The English one would be totally easy, it would just be Margaret Thatcher, I guess. The Libyan one would be brandishing a bomb in a sort of self-destructive omen of things to come. The Jamaican one is still being workshopped.

I myself didn't manage to assemble that many Snoopy's, (and by that, I mean my poor dad who had to fork out the dosh for something that would ultimately be shoved into a drawer within the month), or (m)any Margaret Thatcher's, for that matter, but I'm rather fond of the little sampling I do have.

#1 is the United States of America. Here, Snoopy is adorned in traditional American garb: like all Yanks, he struts his shit about while dressed like the Statue of Liberty. I'm being facetious of course, though now that I think of it, I did see at least three people dressed up like that in New York City. No, I'm not including the Statue itself.

He's supposed to be holding the Declaration of Independence in his left hand, but it's much smaller than I would have imagined. He might just be holding Tuesdays with Morrie.

Next up is local boy Australia, or if you want to say it like the locals, 'Straya'. He originally came with a detachable slouch hat, but unfortunately in typical Tony fashion it is lost and will never again be tachable, leaving uninformed tourists to assume that it's Australian tradition to have just been assaulted by the Driller Killer. He's still got that fantastic stereotypical bandanna that Aussies are always associated with, though I've never actually seen being worn in real life, and not one but two boomerangs. It would be entirely impractical to try and dual-wield boomerangs, but fuck it, let's suspend our disbelief: Snoopy makes it possible.

The laidback chum on the right is Hawai'i, leaving excluded nations frowning that there were two American entries. In their defence however, Hawai'i is one of the greatest places on Earth, and Snoopy's fairly generic surfer attire could be applied to your nation, if you really wanted it to. I'm sure there's a big surfing scene in Kazakhstan.

Now we enter Fiji: a tiny collection of islands that I vaguely remember as being very rocky. My sister stepped on a shellfish in Fiji, and I think we tried to touch some kind of venomous reptile before being deterred by a local. Christ, Fiji seems really dangerous the more I think about it in retrospect. Despite the many hazards, the Fijian Snoopy seems cheery all the same, tappin' his toe and sporting a grass frock, just 'cause he can. I can't think of many more things to say about Fiji, but apparently the most popular sports are rugby, boat racing and varieties of wrestling. And I suppose the Fijian Snoopy looks about ready to rassle, so that holds true enough.

The last one is the Swedish Snoopy. He's dressed like a traditional Swedish leprechaun, holding a Swedish pot of gold, and appears to be as drunken and loutish as your typical Swede. But I kid, simply because I wanted to make this paragraph bigger. This is obviously the Irish Snoopy, and when it's all said and done, he's likely my favourite. It's probably the pointy shoes that do it for me.

Overall, I'd rate these Snoopy toys fairly highly in the echelons of Happy Meal toys. They certainly did the job (of making money), and allowed cultures from around the world to have their own personalised little beagle. Hopefully they'll resurface someday with even more nations, and fresh new takes on existing models. After all, Aussies are also occasionally known to disguise ourselves as other nationalities...