Tag Archives: best 80’s toys

Dirty Horror Memory Lane: The Evil Horde’s ‘Fright Zone’ (1985)

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I am a self-proclaimed He-Man junkie.  Growing up, I pretty much had every figure and every playset, including the dangerous (according to my Mom) Slime Pit.  But one of the playsets that got lost in the shuffle was The Evil Horde’s ‘Fright Zone‘!

Well that was fun.  I’m actually thinking of grabbing one of these off of eBay soon just based off of the nostalgia alone.  I don’t have kids, so I would be playing with it by myself. Don’t judge.  But anyway, I was always more in favor of the ‘bad guys’ in the He-Man collection – so I gravitated towards things like The Slime Pit and Snake Mountain before I would go to Castle Grayskull.  Which is why I loved the Fright Zone so much.  And I could actually control the giant snake with my hand and gobble up all of the good guys.  If you need any more proof as to why Fright Zone is amazing, just look at that kid’s face below in the pic!  He’s having a blast.  And how about that hair too?!

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Dirty Horror Memory Lane: ‘Rude Ralph’ Toy (1986)

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I remember being a jealous 10-year-old boy in my small Indiana neighborhood.  While I was at home playing with my boring Etch A Sketch, the kid down the street was pulling the eyeball on his Rude Ralph.  And no, that’s not code for something else.  He was literally pulling the eyeball on a toy named Rude Ralph and hearing it make gross and disgusting noises.  Oh the envy I had of him and his newfound ugly toy friend.  I wanted to hear something make gross and disgusting noises other than my sister.

So what exactly was Rude Ralph?  Think of it like a Madball on steroids that belched and farted.  And if you don’t know what a Madball is, then please take your eyes elsewhere.  Rude Ralph came out in 1986 and didn’t last very long due to the complaints of snooty parents.  Hence why you have to shell out a decent amount of dough on eBay to snag one now.  If you’re still curious and a bit in the dark of what Rude Ralph was, please take a look at the old commercial below.  Oh – and it has a special bonus appearance from the Breath Blasters!

Do You Know About The ‘Super Secret Fun Club’???

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Shhhhh…..it’s a secret!  Well not really, since I was able to find out about it on the internet.  But yes, I came across a website for the Super Secret Fun Club, which seems to specialize in creating limited toys and figures based on memories from your TV and movie childhood.  One of the reasons I’m spotlighting the Super Secret Fun Club on my site is because they seem to have a love for horror and sci-fi movies.  Case in point?  This ‘Kuato’ Total Recall figure in the guise of a M.U.S.C.L.E. toy figure from the 80’s:

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Any Total Recall or forgotten 80’s toy fan would want that!  Unfortunately it’s sold out now, so tough luck.  But I have good news!  There will be more released soon including one for the three-boobed chick from Total Recall, Large Marge from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and even blobby Paul from The Blob remake!  Stay tuned to the Super Secret Fun Club Instagram page for more details and announcements and feel free to browse their store page HERE to see what’s available now.

Dirty Horror Memory Lane: He-Man Evil Horde Slime Pit (1985)

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Have you wanted to pour bad smelling green slime all over one of your enemies?  It’s ok, you can admit it.  Well back when I was a kid, you could do just that!  But only if your enemies were He-Man action figures.  I always gravitated towards the more creepy and disturbing He-Man characters and products, so it wasn’t really a big surprise that I was all about The Evil Horde Slime Pit that came out in 1985.

Oh trust me – it was as much fun as it looks in that commercial.  A couple of fun facts about the slime though:

1.  It smelled like a mixture of glue and piss.

2.  It didn’t taste that good.

3.  An unused can of slime goes for around $100 on Ebay.

Now, you can find the actual playset on Ebay as well for around $100, but the can of slime doesn’t come with it, hence the higher price tag on a can of that.  I have to say that it’s moments like this when I take a stroll down memory lane when I realize just how early of an age I had gotten into horror-related products.  And it only snowballed after that ladies and gentlemen.  So a big thank you to The Evil Horde Slime Pit for shaping up what has become a great horror mind.  Ok – great might be overstating it a bit, but it’s a pretty good horror mind at the least.  Now let’s end this thing by looking at some of The Horde’s minions, shall we?

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Dirty Horror Memory Lane: Gremlins Gizmo Toy Commercial (1984)

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1984 wasn’t just about the introduction of the one and only Freddy Krueger into the horror world, it was about the introduction of the equally frightening Mogwai named Gizmo from Gremlins!  Ok, that lovable little creature is nowhere near as menacing as a burned-face child molester with razor fingers, but if you feed a Mogwai after midnight – bad things happen, man.  Luckily, I never had to worry about that with my Gizmo plush toy that I had as a kid.

Well wasn’t that just a happy little commercial!  A bit too happy if you ask me – especially knowing that terrible things that could occur if you don’t follow the rules when caring for a Mogwai.  But like I said, this was a toy – and toys can’t multiply if you get water on them.  Based off of the commercial though, it seems it’s ok to put sunglasses on Gizmo because that protects him from the sunlight of course.  You know what watching that commercial put me in the mood for?  No, not the porn movie parody starring Jizzmo, but the terribly tasting cereal that came out to promote the movie.  Here’s a clip to remind you that if you ate the cereal, you would grow Mogwai ears:

Dirty Horror Memory Lane: My Pet Monster (1986)

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I’ve mentioned before that I’m a total sucker for retro 80’s toys, especially when they have any type of horror theme associated with them.  Case in point: My Pet Monster!  Oh sure, he wasn’t that scary looking in my opinion (minus the fangs) and the mostly purple face wasn’t helping the cause.  He was still a monster though, and apparently had to be handcuffed because of his ill-tempered behavior.

According that commercial, My Pet Monster was indeed pretty scary when he wanted to be – but take off those handcuffs and he would help push you on a swing!  So overall, not a bad guy at all.  If you happen to still have one of these from 1986, you could be about $150 richer because that’s what they’re going for on Ebay.  Here’s some news I didn’t know regarding My Pet Monster:  It had it’s own short-lived cartoon that aired on ABC for one year.  And as a special treat, here’s one of the episodes below titled ‘The Masked Muncher’. I’ll let you giggle on your own about that title…..   

Dirty Horror Memory Lane: Count Creepyhead Play-Doh Set (1984)

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My Mom didn’t like me playing with Play-Doh when I was a kid because I would always try and eat it.  Sure, it looked appetizing due to the different colors and interesting texture, but apparently it’s not good for your digestive system.  Much to her chagrin though, in 1984 I was already getting into my horror phase and Play-Doh must have known, because they released the awesome Count Creepyhead & Friends Play-Doh Playset.

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Oh I had hours and hours of fun with this playset, until the next distracting toy for an 8-year-old came out and Count Creepyhead got tossed into the closet with He-Man.  You have to love the fact that especially in the 80’s, the horror toy business was booming and it was more than refreshing to see Play-Doh jump on board. Writing about this pulled at my nostalgic toy heartstrings and made me search Ebay to see if any of these babies were for sale.  Sadly, all you can buy that’s associated with Count Creepyhead is a purple scraping axe that came with the original package.  No offense to the purple scraping axe, but that alone just doesn’t satisfy my craving.  So until Count Creepyhead pops up on Ebay…..I shall wait.  And while I wait, I can just watch this commercial to get my fix and see how much fun the kids are having in it.