My Old Toys

I will briefly interrupt the current run of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero action figures to discuss breaking news in the Wide World of Sports. 

The Internet informed me today that after a lengthy career, Chicago Bears star Brian Urlacher would not be signing with the team next season.

I then broke the news to my McFarlane Toys Brian Urlacher figure, who responded, “I’m still playing?”

I’m not much of a football fan anymore, but when I was, I loved the Chicago Bears. Really, just the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears, and the The Fridge (when he was a G.I. Joe figure).

I grew up in the northeast where football rules, and I spent many Sundays watching the Bears lose. Actually, I would mostly see the score and find out they lost, because the chances of Bears games being broadcast in Buffalo Bills country were pretty slim.

But I stayed a Bears fan, all the way through my move to Las Vegas, where I gradually lost interest in football and now only occasionally glance at the headlines on the Sunday evening Internets. 

Why have I parted ways with America’s “most beloved” sport? A couple reasons. 

1) I’m kinda over the whole football culture and the way fans and sports media obsess about it. One of my pet peeves is when I hear sports fans use the word “we” when talking about their teams, and that’s all you see if you read Twitter on Sundays during football season.

2) Since I moved out of the snowy northeast, it doesn’t feel like football season on Sundays. Those days used to mean being in front of a television with my family, and maybe the fireplace is going or something, and there’s none of that out here. Sundays in Las Vegas, even in December, are sunny and beautiful. So I just don’t feel like staying inside for the football.

Now, getting back to my Brian Urlacher action figure. I got him a while back, and he’s the only Chicago Bears player I own from the McFarlane line. 

I recall he was a great player for a lot of years, unfortunately the only memories that come to mind right now are:

a) That time he made a spectacle of himself dating Paris Hilton.

b) That time he totally got owned by Tom Brady in some game some years ago. Brady was running and Urlacher stepped in front of him and got faked out. It was embarrassing. 

Oh well, athletes get older and they sometimes run out of steam. They’re only human. At least Urlacher made the fans happy, that’s worth something. 

I wonder if ESPN has around-the-clock Urlacher coverage right now? I’d turn on the TV to find out, but I don’t have that channel.

My bet is no, because that would cut into their around-the-clock coverage of the countdown to next fall’s NFL season, or the NFL draft, or NFL training camps, or the Brett Favre’s “Where is he now?” special.

There was only one way I was going to end Movie Maniacs Month, and I planned it weeks ago.

It’s October 31, it’s my favorite holiday, here’s Michael Myers from John Carpenter’s Halloween.

This figure was released with Series 2 of McFarlane Toys’ Movie Maniacs. As far as I know it was the first Michael Myers action figure ever produced.

Since then there have been many others. McFarlane released an 18-inch version with motion-activated sound from the movie, and the toy company NECA has produced a number of Myers figures as part of their Cult Classics line.

McFarlane kept up its Movie Maniacs line into the early 2000s, but after a while the company started focusing entire series’ on a single film, such as The Terminator and Aliens.

I suppose they didn’t have much choice considering the heavyweights of horror — Myers, Jason, Freddy — had already been released. There were some re-sculpts of old figures, but this is the only Myers version.

If you’re a horror fan who enjoys collecting these figures, I would suggest you look up the NECA lines, if you haven’t already.

Anyway, thanks for reading this month’s posts. It’s about time I got back to G.I. Joe, the one series that remains in the box my parents brought me.

After that, I thought this blog would come to an end. BUT, I have some breaking news!

There is another… box.

What else can you say? It’s Freddy!

I think I was pretty lucky to have been a boy when Freddy Krueger was a major force in pop culture. I remember all the merchandise, the 1-900 line, Freddy’s Nightmares, everything. 

That period — from Dream Warriors to Dream Child — was a blast. Maybe in a few decades Freddy and Jason and Michael Myers will be remembered the way Universal Monsters from the 30s and 40s are remembered today.

So, I’ve been showing you these McFarlane Toys Movie Maniacs all month long. There’s only one more figure to go, and he’ll be posted — appropriately — on Halloween.

See you Wednesday.

Sleepy Hollow is a nice movie to watch this time of year.

I haven’t liked most of Tim Burton’s films, but I would say this is one of the better ones. In my opinion, Ed Wood is the best thing he’s ever done. Then you got Batman and Beetlejuice, and that’s just about it for me.

But this isn’t a Tim Burton film blog, this is My Old Toys, and what you see above is the McFarlane Toys Headless Horseman figure released in 1999.

This figure is not part of the Movie Maniacs series. It was one of the four Sleepy Hollow items in stores around the time the film hit theaters.

There was also a Johnny Depp/Ichabod Crane figure and a witch and another version of the Horseman.

I should go back and watch Sleepy Hollow. I used to own the VHS but, you know, those are long gone. 

I’m down to the final two figures for Movie Maniacs Month. Those posts are coming Sunday and Wednesday, on Halloween.

Then it’s back to the G.I. Joe figures. There are still a ton to get to.

So, this was the very first Movie Maniacs figure I ever bought.

Judging by the mask, this looks like Jason Voorhees from Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday. But the clothing looks more like Jason from Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood.

I’ll let you all decide.

Only three more figures left to display for Movie Maniacs Month. I’m going to cheat a little bit on Wednesday and show you a McFarlane Toys figure that wasn’t part of the Movie Maniacs line, but he should have been.

See you then.

Bates. Norman Bates.

Thought this was appropriate not only for Movie Maniacs Month, but because I saw the trailer for the Hitchcock biopic today.

Wanna see it? Click here. 

Good old Bruce Campbell. He’s pretty cool.

Here’s Campbell as Ash Williams from Army of Darkness, a figure released for the third series of McFarlane Toys’ Movie Maniacs toyline.

I got a kick out of that movie, it was the one that really introduced me to Campbell and as years went on I became more away of his cult following.

I think he’s done some funny stuff and that first book he wrote was an enjoyable behind-the-scenes look at struggling actors in Hollywood.

As far as the Evil Dead series goes, I’m actually more of a fan of the EU than the flicks. I’ve read a bunch of the comics featuring Ash, and I loved playing the video game Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick.

The figure above wasn’t the only one released by McFarlane Toys. An “Evil Ash” from AOD came out about a year later, along with a two-pack featuring Ash versus the Pit Witch.

Here’s a link to McFarlane’s website if you want to check them out.

It’s finally October, my favorite month of the year. That means it is time to take a break from G.I. Joe and celebrate Halloween… McFarlane style!

This month I’ll be posting figures from McFarlane Toys’ horror lines, primarily the Movie Maniacs line that began in 1999.

The figure above — Ghostface from Scream — is part of the second Movie Maniacs series. I got this figure at the old Media Play in Greece, which used to carry all the McFarlane lines. 

Other figures in that second series included Michael Myers, Norman Bates and Chucky.

Ghostface was released during the slasher horror renaissance of the late 90s. I was the biggest Scream fan in the world, until the third one came out in 2000 and totally let me down.

So, I’m looking forward to posting the rest of these figures, building all the way up to Halloween on Oct. 31.

If you’re a Halloween fan like I am, you might be interested in checking out a new Tumblr blog I started for the month, it’s called 31 Days Til Halloween.

Coming Sunday, the story of a man and his boomstick.

This toy Shaft is a bad mutha… Shut yo mouth! I’m just talkin about toy Shaft!

It’s gonna be tough to write this post without just writing the lyrics to the Isaac Hayes song, but here we have Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft from the 2000 sequel to the Richard Roundtree films.

He’s a complicated toy, but no one understands him like his woman. Toy Shaft!

Okay, enough of that. So this is another McFarlane figure, from the Movie Maniacs line that was popular at the turn of the century. 

I have no idea why Shaft is in the Movie Maniacs line, which also featured Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Candyman, but here he is.

I did not like this movie. Samuel L. Jackson was fine, but everything else about it felt weak. It felt like it could have been a TV movie, and that was disappointing.

You know, this could also be a Nick Fury figure. Maybe I’ll go assemble the Avengers again.