TOP TOYS: PART ONE

By @hmsbeefnuts

I loved toys when I was a kid, that may not be a shocking statement, but it is a true one. I love toys now if I’m honest, I just don’t buy them any more, but that doesn’t stop me looking. The recent Avengers buzz I was experiencing made me want to check out some of the toys that tie in with the movie. Off I went to Toys R Us, and other toy shops, and bizarrely supermarkets, to check out the toys that today’s kids are into. It was a massively fun exercise. Toys R Us was always my favourite shop when I was little, that and Forbidden Planet, and to be honest, that hasn’t changed. Toy shops sell fun, and there aren’t many more noble causes than fun, even if toys seem to be selling at extortionate prices these days. I thought I would look back at some of my favourite toys from my childhood, and hopefully Google Image Search will be able to provide some great pictures, for unfortunately, I don’t own any of these any more. Lets see what I decide to pick shall we?

WWF

The wrestling figures of my youth are a pale comparison to the amazing fully articulated representation of modern WWE Superstars. But I loved them never the less. I have talked about my Macho Man Figure before, and he was my favourite of the figures I owned. I had the ring, and spent many happy hours bashing them together, reliving Wrestlemanias and Summerslams. These were great toys.

TEENAGE MUTANT HERO TURTLES

To say I was obsessed with TMHT, is something of an understatement. Of course, the toys were worth their weight in pizza. My Dad valiantly waited outside of Woolworths and Toys R Us at some ungodly hour of the morning to secure my Brother and I the fab foursome. I also remember having some very cheap knock offs for a time, before finally getting my hands on them. My favourite, Michelangelo of course. I also was lucky enough to get the sewer play-set, and the blimp, which was simply one of the greatest things I ever owned.

DINO-RIDERS

Every kid loves Dinosaurs. What could be better? How about Dinosaurs that have gigantic guns and other weapons strapped to them, so that two alien species could battle it out on planet Earth? Yeah I thought so. Dino-riders were so cool. They were really nice sculpts of the Dinosaurs, and also the bigger ones could walk!! I remember my Grandmother being quite freaked out by them on Christmas morning. My favourite was the massive T-Rex, or the Dienonychus (a much better Raptor). I wish I had these in mint condition. The video that came with the toys had the greatest toy adverts ever, I could watch them constantly. How come toy adverts always make the toys look amazing? Why couldn’t I have a scale model jungle for my Dino-Riders? Sometimes, life ain’t fair.

TRANSFORMERS

It still amazes me that the cars, planes, trucks and Dinosaurs, turned into robots! What a great idea. My first transformer was Optimus Prime, the G1 original with trailer. So cool. My favourite was Grimlock, a robot that turned into a T-Rex!! Oh hell yeah, best thing ever? Close. I also owned Transformer knock offs, The Go-Bots, and Rock Lords. I don’t see why a robot turning into a rock was so cool, but I thought they were, and had quite a few of them for some reason. They were nothing compared to Transformers though.

GHOSTBUSTERS

Who ya gona call? The Ghostbuster cartoon was the source of the toys for this next entry. The toys were not very well articulated, but they were decent sculpts of the cartoon forms of Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston. The ghosts were the cool things in this series of toys, with transforming figures that turned into ghosts, and amazing cups of slime that came with many figures. The coolest toys, however, were the replica proton packs and traps. I can remember running around a friends house with his pack strapped to my back pretending to bust some heads, in a spiritual sense. Awesome. Busting literally made me feel good.

Here our nostalgic look back must end, but look out for part two, coming real soon, where we will look at a mild mannered Prince, who becomes a barbarian super man, a toy that can be literally anything, more transforming vehicles, and many more. Catch you next time, I’m off to Toys R Us, for research purposes only you understand…

WWE and Me

 A Girl’s View

By Geeky Gem

Now over the last few weeks Mr Beefnuts has been telling you about his love for the WWE, which I have enjoyed reading as I too am a fan of the WWE. This may sound strange to some people, seeing as I am a girl but I kid you not, I too have had an on and off affair with the world of wrestling.

When I was very young, the WWF, as it was then known, was only shown over here very late at night, in a Friday. My Dad used to let me and my brother stay up and watch it if we had been good. So as you can imagine me and my brother never misbehaved on a Friday. A fact my father cottoned on to so we had to be good for more than just Friday.

Back then my favourite wrestler was The Ultimate Warrior or Macho Man Randy Savage where my brother liked Hulk Hogan and Bret “The Hitman” Hart. This alone would cause an argument over who was best. My brother was the one with all the action figures and the ring to play with, which I have found out he still has. Some of them even have action moves. That’s right folk’s action moves, bet you’re jealous. My brother even had a belt, I believe it was the world heavy weight championship belt, which he and my cousin would mock fight for, I was always the referee, not sure why.

Anyway one night there was a competition running on some programme where you could win a t-shirt and a CD if you called and told them why you liked wrestling so much, my brother entered and won. He was so happy but the t-shirt didn’t fit him so he gave it to me, it was a Wrestlemaina one, I forget what year but it was black and gold. I wore it for years.

Shortly after that, my Dad took us to our first wrestling experience. It was low league wrestlers but it was fantastic. We were shouting for the good guys and booing the bad guys, like you should, it was brilliant, but the best was yet to come.

Living in Cardiff it wasn’t often that the WWF came to UK but when they did it was always London and we could never go. Then my Dad (can you see a theme here. Mum didn’t like Wrestling) got wind that the WWF where coming to Cardiff. My brother and I badly wanted to go. But it was a big ask, so we forgot all about it and got used to the fact we weren’t going. Then Dad came home one night sat us down, gave his serious voice which to me and my brother could only mean we had done something wrong, we were pretty sure we hadn’t. Anyway Dad handed me and envelope and said open it carefully. Which I did inside were three tickets to the wrestling in Cardiff, my brother and I have never screamed so much in our lives. We jumped on our Dad and said thank you like a million times.

We waited and waited for the night to come round, we very lucky to actually have seats in the front row, I have never been that close to anything since. We went along with Dad, who bought us both Bret “The Hitman” Hart t-shirts. There is picture evidence of these t-shirts in my parents’ home. Anyway, we sat and waited, every time a wrestler came on we would jump up and run to the barrier sticking our hands out hoping for a high-five from one of the many stars.

 

Then The Hitman came out well my brother and I were really happy, we ran again to the barrier and this time The Hitman high fived us both we couldn’t believe it. I don’t think we wanted to wash our hands for like a week after. We didn’t get his sunglasses but a high-five was good enough for us. When we went home we kept our mum up for a whole hour telling her all about it. Then we went to bed.

Some years after that I became a teenager, I drifted in and out of WWE as I was growing up. Well I thought I was but that is tale for another time.