In case you missed our most recent episode of The Hour Cosmic (Episode 74: Stung by Bees with J. Bone), we spent a good amount of time talking about various summer blockbusters, and their promotional tie ins. This was inspired by Brian spying these on line in Babies R Us:
That got us thinking – what are our all-time favorite items to spin out of a comics movie? It can be a toy, it can be a Slurpee cup, it could be a t-shirt. If we missed a particularly special item, let us know in the comments!
And, if you want to listen to the show while you do so, you can check out the audio below:
[audio: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thehourcosmic/~5/Y0m1it11BWE/74%20Episode%2074_%20Stung%20by%20Bees%20with%20J..mp3]Brian’s Pick: Bob the Goon Action Figure, from Batman (1989)
Summer reminds me of a few things: the town pool, where I’d run, soaking wet, across sticks and acorns to get to the snackbar for a Chipwich or a slice of pizza, the thunderstorms that would allow me and my brother to have a movie marathon in the living room guilt free, and the boredom of going shopping with my mom. I’m sure it was less than an hour we’d spend at K-Mart, or Caldor, or various other places, looking for shorts or tablecloths, or whatever else it was she had on her list that day.
If my brother and I were good on these trips, we would sometimes get rewarded with a toy at the end of our trip to the store. And, for some reason, the toy I associate more than any other with those trips is Bob the Goon from Tim Burton’s Batman.
I had been collecting toys for a few years at this point – I had all but two of the “Super Powers” figures (Steppenwolf and Cyborg), and a number of the “Secret Wars” figures. But these Batman toys, by Toy Biz, were something really special for me. I needed to collect them all – which means that, more often than not when looking for one, I would just see rows and rows of Bob the Goons in stores.
You see, a random trip to the store didn’t merit a Joker cycle or a Batwing (my 7th birthday took care of the latter, I honestly can’t recall if I had the former), and the Toy Biz line only had three figures: Batman, the Joker, and Bob. Nit pickers will tell you there were three Batman figures, and while they’re not wrong, they’re talking about the shape of his face, and I could not have cared less about that.
The Bob figure was ubiquitous, and seeing it everywhere was a frustrating experience for a kid. However, as I look back, I have nothing but positive feelings for that figure. The fact that there even was a Bob the Goon figure shows you just how toy un-friendly the film was – the Joker’s henchman, who I don’t believe speaks much (or at all) in the film, is the third most appealing choice for an action figure. What, no one wanted a poseable Alexander Knox? A Vicki Vale with camera (which would certainly exist in 2014)? A corpulent Eckhart, longingly thinking of the future?
Fun post-script: two years or so later, I was killing time after school in the pre-school my mom worked at, playing with my Batman and Bob the Goon figures, and who walked in to pick up their kid from the school: Tracey Walter, the Bob the Goon himself! My mom had told me his kid went there, but I never expected to see him in the flesh, and there he was. I don’t remember if we spoke, but I do remember this: much like my figure, he had left his hat at home.
Chad’s Pick: Snare Arm Swamp Thing
So here’s the deal: between 1986 and 1991, things were pretty slim pickings for young comics fans who wanted action figures of their favorite super folks. And let’s face it, who didn’t? Action figures are rad, and if you don’t think so, then clearly you’ve never owned a V2 Snake Eyes or Secret Wars Black Costume Spidey. But it’s important that we never forget the 4/5 years between the end of Kenner’s Super Powers Collection and 1989’s Batman was a comic-toy wasteland, populated mostly by discount store bendies and activity books with shitty paper cut-outs. Times were tough. It was basically like Prohibition.
Continued belowAnd at this point, you’re expecting me to tell you all about how much I cherished my Toy Biz Batman figure, or my Bob, the Goon figure (Note: Brian totally knows the dude’s kid, and he brought toys to Brian’s school. Note 2: Bob is the only figure from the ’89 line that looks even remotely like the actor the toy’s based on), but that’s not going to happen. Because screw Tim Burton’s Batman. I was in daycare that Summer, and had that movie ruined for me by this girl named Charlene whose parents had taken her to an early screening or something. By the time I saw it, I couldn’t have cared less where he got those wonderful toys. Besides, anybody who’s anybody knows the most important DC Comics movie of 1989 is The Return of Swamp Thing.
Released one month before Batman, Return was the sequel to legendary horror director Wes Craven’s 1982 Swamp Thing, but it’s sooooo much more. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it, you really should — it’s beyond terrible, but it was the Wild Strawberries of my ten year old brain, and effectively, my introduction to the character. I’d seen the ’82 movie plenty of times, and have fond memories of spending Saturday afternoons with my dad, glued to the FOX Movie Machine, trying to figure out exactly what Louis Jourdan was saying. But that movie was scary. Return was fun, and had an incredible CCR soundtrack to boot! Oh, and Heather Locklear as Abby Arcane.
What’s all that have to do with my favorite movie tie-in? Well, if not for that movie, I would’ve never gotten these:
It’s almost unbelievable to think about it now, but there was literally a period of 4 years — 1989 to 1992 — where we had a Swamp Thing movie, a 72 episode live action television series, a 5 episode spinoff animated series, and a 14 figure toy line with 3 vehicles and 2 playsets. FOR REAL!
And I was so in love with these toys, I can’t even tell you… but my favorite of them all was Snare Arm Swamp Thing.
A little background on the toys. For most of the 80s, Kenner had the license to produce toys and action figures based on the DC Comics properties, and did so in the form of the amazing Super Powers Collection (arguably the best superhero toyline of all time). But somehow, someway, Kenner lost the DC license, and with it, the lucrative Batman movie toys that would put then newcomers Toy Biz on the map. Unwilling to just sit out the toy race, Kenner successfully secured the licensing rights for the Swamp Thing animated series, and just like that, they were back in the business of making DC toys again!
To me, what makes the Kenner Swamp Thing toys so special is that they’re basically an extension of Super Powers. In fact, Super Powers fans have long suspected Swamp Thing was slated to have been part of Super Powers unproduced fourth series of toys. And while there’s now some evidence to the contrary, Snare Arm (above) fits the Super Powers formula perfectly — an extending left arm that retracts when his legs are squeezed together — so it’s not hard to see where the speculation came from.
I might be fudging things a little bit here calling these toys direct movie tie-ins. But to me, they were just that. It was years later before I saw the animated series, and I’ve yet to watch all of the live action show. But as longtime listeners of The Hour Cosmic know, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing is maybe my favorite comics run of all time, but the truth is, I loved the character before I loved the comics. And I owe it all to a terrible movie and an awesome toy or two I owned because of it.
Matt’s Pick: Taz Space Jam plush from McDonalds
In 1996, the world changed forever when Michael Jordan traveled to Looney Tune Land to help Bugs, Daffy and the entire Looney Tune gang get enough game to take down the Monstars, a group of mutated aliens called Nerdlucks who were tasked by their evil boss Mister Swackhammer to capture the Looney Tunes for his latest amusement park attraction at Moron Mountain. An unforgettable cinematic tour de force, this Joe Pytka film helped define basketball for a generation.
Continued belowOf course, what’s even cooler than that and the R. Kelly song that earned two Grammys featured in the film was that McDonalds put out a line of high quality plush figures that you could get for just $2.99 with the purchase of one of their burgers. Imagine that? $2.99 and you get to forever have the honor of housing a member of the Toon Squad (or even one of the Monstars/Nerdlucks!) in your home — and to this day, I still have with me the Tasmanian Devil plush that I was purchased 18 years ago.
The relationship a child has with their favorite toy is a special and unique one, and one that’s hard to define (though Toy Story certainly did its best). For me, though, there was honestly nothing better than having a toy that featured not only my favorite Looney Tune character but also my favorite sport, forever meshed in a unique way that the fates had aligned in order to share. While I can not speak towards the affinity a real tasmanian devil has towards basketball, this iteration of Taz loved the sport almost as much as me, and together we played many faux games, with Taz always reluctantly letting me win, of course. Because that’s what friends do. He was always the first one to say, “Hey, Matt, come on and slam, if you wanna jam,” and together we believed we could fly.
While it saddens me that not every child will have the same opportunity that I did in 1996 when I got such a high quality toy for such a low price, seeing my plush Space Jam tie-in Taz doll that still sits proudly within my home full of various pop-culture toys is one that always brings me great delight and nostalgia in particular. Not only is Space Jam a film that placed a unique marker within my childhood, it gave me a lifelong friend to go with it.
And I’m sure if Taz could speak, he would say “eeeaaenahphbbbtluhhhiicchphbbbt-hah-hah-hah-heehaahaha” in agreement.
This week, our guest is Robert Wilson IV, artist of “Knuckleheads,” and a returning visitor to the Hour Cosmic.
Make sure to visit @TheHourCosmic and retweet this tweet by 10pm Eastern Time tonight (Thursday), which will enter you in a contest to win a prize if Rob wins the game!
Thanks for listening to us blab about toys, and make sure to check back on Monday for the new show!
