Vintage Month > The California Raisins (Applause, 1988)

February 18, 2009 | Poe

raisins

Back in the late 1980s, the California Raisins were huge. Like so many pop culture characters of the decade, they began as a marketing gimmick. Within a year or two they had toys, albums, TV specials, and they were even awarded that epitome of 1980s pop culture adoration, a (short-lived) Saturday morning cartoon. They even got a freakin’ videogame, although it was never actually produced. My personal favorite Raisins-related production was Meet the Raisins, a clever Beatles send-up which, sadly, remains unavailable outside of old VHS tapes.

Of course, young Poe had some of the Raisins toys–mostly just the little Applause figurines. They weren’t articulated, but they served their purpose of offering Poe a plastic totem of some beloved marketing icons.

Vintage Month > Ten Things I Always Wanted Toys of

February 12, 2009 | Poe

dangermouse_02_200x250When I encounter something cool–a TV show, a movie, a book–I often end up wanting action figures from it. That’s not an unusual trait among toy collectors, but it’s something I’ve been doing ever since I was a wee tyke.

Here’s a list of ten things a young Poe always hoped to get action figures of, but never did. (more…)

Vintage Month > Vintage Reviews

February 6, 2009 | Poe

This is your one-stop shop for all my reviews of vintage (that is, pre-1995 or so) toys. I’ll continue to add to it as I write new reviews over the course of the month. (more…)

Vintage Month > Dinosaucers

February 4, 2009 | Poe

dinosaucers(All the toy photos you see below, and many more, can be found at Alex Bickmore’s Super Toy Archive.)

I’ve often explained the reason I love Grimlock so much is that he’s both a dinosaur and a robot. What could be better? Nothing. But a close second is the combination of dinosaurs and aliens, and for that, there was Dinosaucers.

I remember catching the show as an early-morning treat before I went off to elementary school (it came on around 7 a.m., while at 7:30 I would watch Dennis the Menace). Dinosaucers followed a very similar formula to Transformers: two warring groups of aliens come to Earth and have at it, causing lots of collateral damage to our planet (of course, the good guys befriend some human children). Rather than giant transforming robots, however, Dinosaucers featured giant talking alien dinosaurs. (more…)

February is Vintage Month at PGPoA!

February 1, 2009 | Poe

Maxx Steele(First off, if you’re not seeing some noticeable tweaks to the site design, be sure to hit “refresh” on your browser.)

Welcome to Vintage Month at PGPoA! All this month, I’ll be highlighting toys from my youth and beyond. Some you may be very familiar with, others may be long-lost gems.

The idea comes from something we sometimes do at OAFE, though we call it “Retro Month” there. For the first Retro Month, we had this great 1980s Miami Vice look based off on the then-popular GTA: Vice City game. I decided to go with an 8-bit NES look this time around.

If there are any specific toy lines or random 1980s toys you’d like to see a post about, let me know below and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks to Red Kryptonite and OB1 for the redesign work!

ToyFare #135, Blackstar, and the Alien Demon

September 10, 2008 | Poe

A few of you have remarked on the little pale green goblin who appeared on the menu a few weeks ago. Yes, he’s from the old Blackstar line, and yes, there’s a reason he’s there.

In this month’s ToyFare #135, which hits newsstands today, there’s an article by yours truly about the Blackstar toy line. I decided to make sure I had a Blackstar character on the menu to commemorate the occasion.

For those who aren’t familiar with Blackstar, it was a cartoon show that predated Masters of the Universe by a year or two and was produced by the same company, Filmation. The two shows have a lot of similarities: both feature a barbaric hero in a land of science and sorcery who battles a demonic overlord.

Blackstar carried the Starsword, which was one half of the “Powerstar”; the other half, the Powersword, was controlled by his foe, the Overlord. This is similar to what the early MOTU media (comics and storybooks) depicted, as He-Man and Skeletor both had half of the Power Sword–which is why the original figures came with those two half-swords that could be put together.

I don’t remember ever watching Blackstar as a kid. I don’t think many kids did–it lasted only one season, and the toys came out years after the show was cancelled, as Galoob tried to capitalize on the success of MOTU. (more…)

On the Menu > 339/1

June 12, 2008 | Poe

Way back in late 1997, a new magazine caught the interest of then-teenage Poe, who was in his first few months of college. Called ToyFare and produced by the folks behind Wizard magazine, it was the first periodical I’d come across that was devoted solely to action figures. Having just come off a years-long obsession with Magic: the Gathering, I found my interest in toys was once again waxing, so ToyFare‘s appearance was fortuitous.

Now, get me talking about the early days of ToyFare and I will always mourn the death of a feature called “Castaway from the Island of Misfit Toys.” Slipped in at the end of the monthly Top 10 Hottest Action Figures countdown, the sidebar always made fun of some lame figure. It was always funny, full of sarcasm and wit, but the one in issue #5 was some sort of bizarre masterpiece.

The figure?

339/1. (more…)