Everyone have a good Christmas? Yeah, not so bad here either. There was a little too much travel that the family and I had to deal with, but it was okay. But I’ll tell you one thing though – I wish the eighties had stayed where they were and not come back to dump all over my life.
Now here’s the part that bugs me. I liked the eighties. The eighties kicked ass. I know this because I grew up in ‘em, and had a pretty damn good time. But now, these shades of the eighties are coming back and it’s just pissing me off because the people that are bringing ‘em back are fucking it all up! How so? Let me make a case with what I had to deal with while Christmas shopping: Now, you know I’ve got a little kid, and like all the little guys his age, he’s ready to start playing with some cool ass toys. Being what I like to think of as a somewhat decent dad, I want to go and get him some toys that will make him the envy of all his little buddies. This leads to a trip to a toy store, where my brain full of happy memories was thoroughly shit upon.
 Now, I knew they’d brought He-Man back. I’d not seen the new show, but I’d heard about it. Stands to reason there’s a new toy line to go with it. The issue is, these toys kind of suck. I mean, the first ones weren’t that great either since they used the same body for everyone (but just used different heads), but these are just another set of ill-proportioned guys that – while different toys– are just the same old stuff that’s been twisted around. There’s no charm to them at all. That, and Skeletor looks way, way too sinister. I mean, yeah, he’s the bad guy, but EVERYONE knows he’s really a total fuck-up and really the only source of entertainment in the cartoon. Don’t bullshit me and say that it’s Orko’s job to do that. There’s not an ounce of comedic potential in that Skeletor figure. Breaks my heart.
Also on that “break my heart” list is the new line of another of my top shows; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Now, these actually are pretty decent. The figures themselves were totally redesigned to look a little more like Japanese Animation, but they’re pretty groovy and seem to actually be better than the originals. The totally wrong thing here is that everything about the turtles’ world has just gotten so…market driven. Used to be really simple, with things like the “Turtle Blimp.” See? Easy. But now we’ve got things like Fantastic Turtles Driving Battle Wagon and the Hi-Flyin’ Jet Pizza Plane. I dunno. I just made those names up, but it was something really like that, I swear. And aside from the turtles themselves, the rest of the character redesigns don’t look that great. April looks like she should be teaching a yoga class, not being a reporter, and I didn’t see Bebop or Rocksteady figures anywhere. Again, no comedy. Bastards.
The absolute worst one was what they’ve done to the Transformers. Now, I know these have been “back” for a while now, but I’d not really looked at ‘em until I was on this trip and pissed off about the other stuff. This is the one that really took my eighties cartoon memories and ripped them from me like a Bon Jovi patch torn from a denim jacket. It was awful. It was unrecognizable. Optimus Prime was a goddamn firetruck.
 What the hell?
When has Prime ever been a firetruck? Ever? And who were all these other transformers that were with him? Now, like every dedicated fan I’d seen the movie where they wiped out the entire known Transformers universe so they could bring in new characters and sell THOSE toys instead, but I have no idea who these new guys are supposed to be. To throw some salt in that wound, the toys themselves are total shit. Undetailed lumps of plastic. Cheap, badly colored plastic. If I were still a kid, I could deal without knowing who the actual characters were if the toys were cool, but there’s no way these could pass that test. They probably don’t transform that well, and since they’re plastic you can’t even hit your friends with them when they try and cheat you while at play (“That’s crap, Tommy! I totally shot your guy!”). There was no fight you couldn’t win when you had a fist full of metal “Starscream” with all his pointy parts. With all this lightweight plastic bullshit, it’s no wonder the kids these days are trying to get their parents’ guns.
Oh yeah, the guns thing just reminded me; G.I. Joe. Almost had forgotten about them. Yeah, everything there is cheap plastic too, but I think it was like that the first time. I think the difference there is that the vehicles aren’t based loosely off the real-life counterparts anymore. Now there’s a bunch of weird bug-looking things for Cobra and some generic sci-fi stuff for the Joes. Couldn’t really tell you since I wasn’t allowed to have them because of the violence factor. I guess cartoon robots shooting at each other is okay, but cartoon people isn’t. Weird.
And yeah, I see the girls also get to have a fresh shot at the Care Bears. Don’t know much about ‘em, and don’t plan on learning. Just saw them there and it made me start looking around for Rainbow Brite crap or worse… you know, all this is probably leading back to the first really “collectible” toy fad ever. Pretty soon, we’ll be seeing the second coming of Cabbage Patch dolls. Arrrgh! I can’t think of a fate worse than that. It’s almost enough to make me wish for a return of the nineties and all that Power Ranger shit to sweep this twisted crap away.
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