A Rad Surprise!

We started Christmas shopping today, and I ended up spending as much money on myself as I did on anyone else.  It's not my fault!  It's the same thing each year!  They start bringing out all the cool new stuff and expect me to only buy for other people.  It's just not fair (and not meant to be).  I made a nice haul today, finding the new Hobbit Lego sets (I got Escape From The Mirkwood Spiders), the last two Walking Dead Minimates (series 1) sets that I was looking for, and even a wicked metallic-purple dragon, among other things.  But as usual, the best things are the ones that take you completely by surprise.  In this case, THESE guys (although the dragon was pretty surprising):

Gettin' Wound Up

I don't know if these next toys have anything more than passing similarities with each other, but they deserve to share the spotlight.

Yeeeeeaaaah!  Some more eyeballs to show off here at The Plastic Eyeball!  These nearly eyedentical twins were acquired separately over the course of (I don't know how many) years.  They're just your basic wind-up toys that hop across the floor when wound up and let go.  And they glow in the dark!  The more transparent of the two was the first one I got, way back when from a place I can't remember.  The less transparent one was a gift from my friend Alexx at Toys and Tomfoolery.  He sent me a bunch of random eyeball-themed toys, and this one is different enough from my first one that I kept them both.  I love the weirdness of them, so the more the merrier.  Plus, two eyes are just natural.

Here Come The Canadians!

I'm taking a little break from my Savage Mondo Blitzers spotlights to shake things up.  Just a bit.  Every now and then I like to pop into a dollar store and see what cheap wonders they have to be found.  And sometimes nothing beats a nice army man toy.  I usually get my army men by cashing in tickets won at arcades on vacation, but today I decided to grab a few bags just for fun.

I knew going in that I was looking for some army men, but I didn't expect to find any local boys!  I suppose it makes sense selling Canadian army men in Canada, but they still surprised me!  These guys are from the Combat Force "line" (or Forde de Combat if any of them are French Canadiens).  I found two teams - the red squad and blue squad.  Blue's not exactly a traditional Canadian color, but let's not get picky with dollar store stuff.

Let's Crunch Some Skulls!

In my last Savage Mondo Blitzers post (The Mondo Of The Mondo), I said that only the Scars and Spikes Gang and the Dudes of Disaster got to have two characters represented in the card art.  Well, that's true, but The Skull Crunchers actually have three members in the card art.  That's only one character short of the whole team.  And it makes sense (as far as my storyline for Mondo Blitzers is concerned), because they're my main villains.

THE SKULL CRUNCHERS

The Mondo Of The Mondo

It's Mondo time again!

Back in my Butt Kickers post I talked about how my brother and I got our first Savage Mondo Blitzers toys in a goodie bag from our other brothers birthday party.  He got Secret Weapon from the Butt Kickers and Lug Nut from the Scars and Spikes Gang.  My original two were also from Scars and Spikes:  Kiss My Bat and Aping Wound.  Now no matter which figures I like most in terms of looks, this team will always be THE Savage Mondo Blitzers as far as I'm concerned.  But the best looking figure's here too.

SCARS AND SPIKES GANG

It should be obvious by now that one of the main themes in my Mondo Blitzers spotlights is to give a backstory to a line that doesn't have one.  Of course everyone's entitled to their own, but in my story I picture the mutant and alien freaks of the Mondo Blitzers universe using Earth as their battleground.  I actually tried to write a Mondo Blitzers story a few years ago.  Back then I was making the Scars and Spikes Gang my heroes, just because they're the original cool.  My storyline now has the Concrete Breakfast Gang as the heroes, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let these guys fall by the wayside.  Maybe they can join up with the CBG early in the story.  There's room for eight heroes!

These Chunks Were Made For Blowing

Wait...  What?...

I think I'm going to run out of funny titles for these posts before I run out of stuff to stay about Savage Mondo Blitzers.

For example:

THE CHUNK BLOWERS

In my last post, I talked about how I got my first Mondo Blitzers as a kid.  Well, would you believe that there was a time not long before I got my first Mondo Blitzers where I ACTUALLY TRIED TO TALK MY MOM OUT OF BUYING SAVAGE MONDO BLITZERS FOR US!?  Apparently as I kid I didn't deem them appropriate for kids.  I pointed out that there were characters named Loaded Diaper, Barf Bucket, Bad Fart, Snot Shot, etc.  How milquetoast is that!?  Somehow my mom saw through my temporary insanity and got us some Mondo Blitzers anyway, and I've loved them ever since.

These Locos Kick Your Butt...

I saw Short Circuit a few times as a kid, and that's still one of the only references I can remember.

Moving on...

THE BUTT KICKERS

In my last post covering the Concrete Breakfast Gang, I talked about how there was no real story to tie the Savage Mondo Blitzers line together.  You just have to make up your own, which is fine with me.  I also mentioned how some teams just felt like good guys to me, while others just felt like bad guys.  The Butt Kickers feel like bad guys.  Snot Shot and Gun Runner don't really have that "hero look" (although Snot Shot does have a certain Toxic Crusaders thing going on).  Cleat Meat is the only one that doesn't scream villain to me, but just like Barf Bucket is a good guy because the rest of his team is, I guess Cleat Meat is a villain because he's one of the Butt Kickers.

Concrete For Breakfast? Mondo!

Ah, the early 90's!  Never was there a better time to be a scummy, slime-covered mutant (or a fan of similarly gross toys).  Back then, if it was weird, wild and neon, I wanted it.

Some things never change.

The Savage Mondo Blitzers are awesome.  If I had to choose, Mondo Blitzers would be on my list of top 10 all-time favorite toys.  They're the weird toys that got me into weird toys.  The Ninja Turtles had their freaks, but there's just something about the Mondo Blitzers.  These are like the mutant hybrid of TMNT and Hot Wheels.  They just have this attitude.  With names like Barf Bucket, Loaded Diaper, Bad Fart, etc., these are rude dudes.  And there's a TON of 'em!  In fact, there's so many that I'm going to cover the line in a series of posts, just so I can get around to everybody.  I'll be doing them a team at a time, so every character gets his moment in the spotlight.

Might as well start off with some breakfast.  It IS the most important meal of the day, after all.

New Setup

Movin' on up!

Another month since my last post?  What does it take to get me to talk about toys?  Turns out, the way I take photos makes a big difference.  Up until this point, I've been using an incredibly low-tech setup for taking the pics I use in my toy spotlights.  Check it out.

Oooooooooold schoooooool!