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07/17/2015 · 9:24 pm

The Year In Mask: 1987-1988

Originally published on Mike the Pod, 12.16.09

I think we can all agree that this has been a mean year. Personally, the sudden and recent death of a close friend has tinged so many things with sadness; favorite movies, toys, books, comics… it feels endless. These are the trying kind of times that make us crave nostalgia, possibly out of a desire to return to when life was just simpler.

It was this craving that resulted in hours of NewsRadio-watching as of late. It was my favorite show when it originally aired, and I was a struggling actor commuting to Hilton Head for puppet shows and murder mysteries where I always ended up playing the killer, back when you could simulate gunplay in a comedy club without causing a serious problem. I had to do caricatures too, which I hated, but the tipping involved was unbelievable; after one particularly crowded gig on that shoe-shaped island, I thought I was going to get jumped on the walk to my car, due to the baseball-sized wad of twenties that was barely contained in my jeans pocket. I wouldn’t trade it for now, but there are certainly moments I recall fondly, often for their quaint simplicity.

But enjoying NewsRadio in 2009 requires a few mental concessions. You have to forget that one of the brightest stars of its ensemble was murdered, in his prime. You have to forget that producer Drake Sather, a talented comedian in his own right, killed himself about six years ago (although it’s possible you didn’t know about this until now, in which case, sorry). And the opening credits, spotlighting a New York that almost looks idyllic, prominently feature a pair of buildings you might have heard about that don’t exist anymore. To really enjoy the show, one has to climb into its 1990s comfort bubble, and revert to a simpler mindset free of the ugly truths we now know. Heck, people still laugh at Hogan’s Heroes, and there’s a whole movie about what that guy did, and what grim fate ultimately befell him. Also, that whole comedy-Nazi bit.

This is why so many folks come back to toys for mental comfort. I mean, sure, that’s what toys are designed for in the first place, but also, toys don’t suddenly snap and commit murder-suicide, or rob gas stations for coke money. Toys don’t join political cliques that make you lose all respect for them and finally come to hate them and their ass faces. Toys don’t make sex tapes, or hang themselves in a closet while beating off. People get attached to toys easier than they do to other people because toys are far less complicated. It’s a piece of plastic; you’re either entertained by it, or you’re not. Continue reading →

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish

Tagged as #tbt, 1987, 1988, Kenner, MASK, Mike the Pod, vintage toys

10/30/2014 · 7:55 pm

Kenner’s Action Toy Guide 1988

*Originally posted on Mike the Pod 05.01.2008.

Twenty years ago* was a pivotal point in the “male action” aisles (get your head out of the gutter) of toy stores. Hasbro’s venerable Transformers and G.I.Joe lines were still popular, but also beginning to feel the strain of their expanding lineups. In two short years, after infusing just about every conceivable gimmick, they would both be discontinued in the US. Micro Machines and a certain group of mutated sewer turtles were exacting their kudzu-like stranglehold of toy shelves, and it seemed like a new batch of hyperactive plastic-mongering cartoon shows hit the air every week. Street Sharks. The Fake Ghostbusters. Madballs. It was all a desperate cacophony designed to seek out the Next Big Kid Craze that would replicate the boon times of 1985, wallets flying from parents’ pockets like startled pigeons, compensation for all manner of arcane electronic injection-molded crap.

1988 was also the year that those of us who were young at that time learned that Nothing Lasts Forever. Children nowadays have the luxury of always seeing Star Wars figurines and Transformers on the toy shelves at Target, unless they’re sold out. In most cases, those toys have been available since the parents were kids. This was not the way things were in 1988. You could be wined and dined by a cool new toyline, read the comics and watch the cartoon, become a veritable wizard of the details of it, and then one day it would just be gone. And there sure as hell wasn’t an Internet to tell you why, or whether it would ever come back again. Anyone who loved “StarCom” as much as I did knows exactly what I’m speaking of.

But in 1988, no one had a clue of what was, inevitably, to come. Kenner themselves would be subsumed into Hasbro three years later. They went out more or less on top, with M.A.S.K. and many other beloved lines completed or underway by the end. Kenner’s plastic wasn’t always the greatest, and not every toy they made has stood the test of time, but twenty years ago, they were still bringing kids the ACTION. Luckily, I was young enough at the time to still rely on relatives willing to fund my expeditions into new and uncharted toys.

If you’re within this site’s recommended age group, hahayeahright, you may fondly recognize one of the logos on the cover above. I used to think that maybe the Silverhawks inhabited the same conceptual galaxy as the Thundercats and Tigersharks, but I was probably overthinking it. I won’t be covering Starting Lineup, not just because I don’t care for sports, but because looking at little plastic statues of ballplayers is legally the most boring thing ever. I would literally be breaking Internet law by posting it.

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