Karl's Tumblr of Oddities

Zac's been busy lately- hence the lack of posts- but one finally snuck through! A bit small, but as we'll see, this one has some great stuff.

Critters actually bring a solid 5 newbies alongside the usual Tooly Birds and Gokey (Kong Charm is at least uncommon, and in local sports colors to boot). The orange monkey and red fish are "vintage German", which is a bit of a wide umbrella. Hard plastic and downright charming. The crab and lobster are Hong Kong vinyls, and the lobster at least is still out there in an enlarged form.

If you came here from IG (apparently Zac added a link- thanks, dude!), you may remember him puzzling over this one. With the aid of a magnifying glass, I managed to make out the tiny tiny cursive Bahlsen on the belly, which pegs this as a '99 release from the Arctic Animals collection. Apparently they were packed with cookies or somesuch.

Wow, that's a lot of keshi. Five Kin-knockoff-men, including the title character, are joined by another Lucky Yucky. This one is called Fire Dragon, and will grant any wishes that don't involve fire, since fire safety is his primary concern. No idea which Kitaro character he was originally, though.

Gumby has been a mainstay, but that ancient Dracula finger puppet definitely isn't. Delightfully cheap looking and just plain silly, it's a great accent anywhere you have a 2-inch bare spot. The baby is another German oldie, with an oddly short right leg.

Miscellany are a pair of 90s monster pins, featuring the horrifying Mad Marvin, a pair of totems (that sky blue is pretty rare, actually), and a bootleg Spiny figurine. That last one is a rare treat; my last one was a Bowser a couple years back.

Finally, Arts. The stickers are nothing new (although they do kick ass), but I got two new sculptures! On the left is Muck Monster, a digitally downsized version of a glorious beastie I would not have been able to justify normally. Dripping with slime and bearing at least four friends, he's looking great at MMM scale.

Alien Dog appears to be a tattoo flash in three dimensions, which is fun. It's begging for paint, but I'd have to learn airbrushing to really make it pop, so grey it remains.

The pin is fun. I know nothing of Bite Society, but I do love unusual fish, even if this one looks more like part of a freshwater angelic choir than the real thing. Perhaps that was the intent.

So, here's the latest in my modest collection of 90s drugstore/ Hallmark Halloween goodies. This golden oldie lacks both a release year and an artist credit, sadly, and research materials are slim. But it's got a lot of fun art, so here we go!

Topping out at 14 inches, this thing is absolutely loaded. We got a mummy, vampire, plenty of ghosts, and assorted snakes, lizards and other varmints.

The porch is in permanent shadow, but that's a werewolf answering the door. I like the spider webs in front of it.

Also of note are a few green ghosts, which is the second best kind of colorful ghost, right behind blue. It being Halloween in this scene, this one's making the traditional racket.

Snake-victim ghost is an interesting choice. So is the skeleton, which appears to be holding a candle while hiding under a blanket. No, skeleton! The whole house is a fire hazard!

I don't know what's in that room, but I'm glad the cat got away. That ghost in the bowler hat is probably drunk, somehow.

The sides ain't much, but we do get a ghost with a lolly, a bat in an adorable party hat, and a foul owl on the prowl.

Out back, two ghosts snuggle on the porch as yet another animal goes after a mouse. Oh, and yet another set of mysterious eyes peeking out of gaps. Always a nice touch.

Hat Ghost is double sided, with different expressions. Unexpected! Dapper Skeleton is amused by The Monster's carefree property destruction.

Finally, a witch pranking a cat. I'm just now noticing the "his" and "hers" tombstones. Cute. Also, a decent view of the random "puzzle" cutouts that were haphazardly thrown into the design. Bit of an odd inclusion; this is, after all, mostly a panel puzzle.

It's that time of year! Toni says hey.

We have exactly two new additions. First, a '98 Leia. That's one closer, folks!

And then there's this. It's good old Trim a Home, Kmart's signature brand. It's pre-website, but not by much. Gaudy vac-metallized frame, colors closer to stained glass than Christmas lights. It's a thing of beauty.

The important thing is, the picture window is going for the gold this year with 6 skeletons! Let's break it down.

Please excuse the angles, I'm reaching around the the tulle here. Boris is bringing the cheer with a GameStop holiday sack and velociraptor sweater.

Bertha looks amazing with those snowflakes on.

Timmy's stocking looks a lot better from the front, but there's really no room up here. You can just see Brom's hand putting the garland on Bertha.

This Dollar Tree find is sporting a few "selfie kit" accessories I found at a party store. He looks quite dapper.

And my personal favorite, Dollar Tree Reaper, swoops above, delivering a wreath. I love tulle; hang a few strips, and you can add all kinds of stuff with enough paper clips.

From the top, L to R, the pale yellow critter appears to be a terror pig. 90s lambeosaurus pals around with a one-horned trike from a box of Fruity Pebbles. Also, very old Schleich trike, and an unusually large GeneriCo ptero being pestered by a monochrome 90s number.

Down one, Drunken Dimetrodon, Diener Ankylosaur eraser, Marx Brontotherium (and his smaller cousin), and the Worst Stegosaurus.

You can kinda see a shrunken Allosaurus and a rubber stego down there.

Ground level! Starting with the duckbill, she and the Allosaurus were bagged with the yellow ptero, and similarly oversized. Nice paint, too. A couple more vintage Schleich dinos are present, though the smaller plesiosaur is a hard plastic knockoff. It does have the average length molded into the underside, though. A few 90s rubber specimens full things out.

Finally, a Marx Moschops, Post Cereal Dimetrodon, and a pair of (Marx?) brontos. Also a few boulders; any good dino set includes a few for enrichment purposes.

And since there's room for more photos, here's the rest of the shelf. Pride Rock may be the only modern thing here, apart from that playmat.

I just love those blue pelicans, for whatever reason. Eyeless Kitty is amusing.

Tiny Shepherd (Noah?) is keeping an eye on things. The ostrich is one of those oddities you just don't see too often. Same goes for the monkey with a banana.

Why so serious?

There's the anteater I mentioned last time. The gator is hilariously blocky, but very much the exact color of the preserved crocs they sold as souvenirs back in the day. The horse is only here because it has a horrible, nubbly, plucked-chicken kind of texture.

Sea life is mostly 70s jigglers: a couple of lobsters, a red whale, and one of those derpy gators. Also the turtle. The pig is another Diener, the warthog is unknown, and the moose is majestic. Lizard is an undersized clone of a larger one, while Black Frog is a far glossier, softer rubber than any I've encountered. Jumping Frog is quite old, and far more detailed than I'm used to seeing. The canine could be any number of things, given the crude sculpt and half-assed paint.

First off, this big ol' snek. Now, this mold has been around for a while (I had a nearly identical one in the mid-80s), and seems to have been retired in the early aughts. They're always the same old-school jiggler rubber, weighing in at about a pound and a half.

Reasonably detailed top and bottom, they're damn good for decoration, costume props, whatever you want a big rubber constrictor for. Personally, I'm trying to turn a plastic jack o' lantern into a Halloween 3 reference.

But that's not even the star of the show. You see, I collect vintage animal toys. Specifically, the surprisingly good.....

Seriously, it looks like two parts until you get in close.

To the hilariously bad.....

Flat rat, yes, but the Holstein Grizzlies send me.

To the extremely unlikely....

A Schleich terror bird, circa 1980. How many toys have you ever seen of these? I also have a 70s assassin snail and an 80s giant anteater.

Anyway, I think I found The Worst Pterodactyl.

It's a tad warped. And so bad, I initially thought it was a bootleg Rodan. It may actually be one, but we'll come to that.

What we appear to have here is a classic rubber bat mold- the etched kind. The freestanding legs are positively raptorial, however.

It has tail feathers, too. Very hawk-like. Just jutting out of the bat fur.

And then there's the head. They did a decent job fading in the texture, but it's still got fur. The prominent tongue and strung-out eyes make it look like it's choking on something. That's an oddly droopy snoot, too. Almost bulbous.

You'll notice this is an Imperial product. Yes, they had a Godzilla license around that time. But they never did Rodan, just a dragon that resembled him. So this is officially a pterodactyl, despite the Frankensteined design. Another Awful Dino has joined the ranks!

Why, yes it will. Two more of those fun "bobblehead" skeletons are quite welcome, one significantly darker than the other. Variety is key with old cheapos like these.

Critters! Spiders and rats have long been Halloween staples, as were frogs and lizards in days of yore. King Kong, unlicensed though he may be, is quite monstrous indeed. The rubber frogs rarely come in green, so that's pretty cool.

Peeps! Kitaro himself (and his dad!) leads the pack, an undead human/demon child who defends his homeland from rampaging yokai and incursions by Western monsters. This bootleg was marketed as Shorty, and he scares away devils. Good enough.

Apart from that, there's a particularly old Munch Bunch dude, looking for all the world like a Deiner eraser. The scrawny Rick Dom and Bizarro Gyan are alright. Those new/old wrasslers are showing some variety this time, with a surprise martial artist. Okay, I'm anxious to see where this goes in the future.

Machine Robo / Gobots bootleg number three! Good old Dive-Dive, in an appropriate blue. This one was kind of a pain to assemble, with a lot of stubborn slider joints, but keep an X-acto handy and you'll be fine. Robot mode (above) is passable, allowing for the huge shoulders and birthing hips, but the altmode really shines. Even without paint, it just works.

I guess the tiki heads are kind of creepy looking. Particularly since most of them have spikes coming out of their eyes. Tool charms are splitting the difference between calmer, more realistic colors and screaming chartreuse. Horseshoe Game is news to me, at least.

Now, the pins are definitely nice. Two California Raisins are huge with your dads, the bootleg monsters continue to impress (although Bot Eye still feels obscene), and two remnants of damaged ads, posters, or some such may or may not get this flagged.

The dragon is pretty cool. Apparently it's from Bone Brigade. Tony Hawk's old team? Alright, I'm down with that.

Arts! Almost entirely monsters, so we're ending with a bang. Saucerman is sporting some interesting discoloration. All that is certain is that it is not mold. Blank Bug is beyond my paint skills, but may become a magnet.

I'd been eyeballing one of these online for a while, but the $20+ with shipping was a bit of a sticking point. Lo and behold, one of the mid-century vendors at the local market had a few for $17. Good enough!

Hailing from the 50s, this tagboard party hat is completely unbranded, sporting red cellophane streamers and trim. This would of course be rather boring, so a chaotic pattern of uncredited art was applied. And what art it is!

Drawing the eye immediately is the odd inclusion of a watermelon monster. You can tell it's a monster because it has actual teeth. Not unheard of at the time, but certainly almost forgotten now. We get a harlequin Caterwaul hiding in the trim, and a sweet devil face, but the rope-limbed corn man is a real oddity. You just know he moves like a Cuphead character.

A truly freaky gourd face (and a treat pail too!) spice up this side, along with an accusatory witch, a skull cradled in a skeletal hand, and what appears to be a haunted pocketwatch. Simply amazing.

Finally, while it's a shame the feathered devil mask is obscured, that leaf critter is all kinds of interesting. I've never seen the like.

Also, the clown monster confuses me. Another pocketwatch? Balloon? Cheap plastic medallion? The world may never know.

One of the Lanterns has a pencil mustache. Good for him.

Oops, I hit something solid. Hope that wasn't important.

Nah, it was a vending machine egg. Anyway, Varmints! A pair of tooly birds (always a hit with woodworkers) are silly fun, the (90s?) bat had a good thing going with the colors but stumbled on the dismount, and the Bug-a-Boos are festive as always.

Of course, I have several pounds of rubber bugs, so these will eternally be extra, but I just finished the Trinket Sacks for Halloween, and a small start on next year is appreciated.

The Wee Folk are a good twist: among the randomly colored (but not out of place in the series overall) Gundam also-rans are a Kitaro keshi and some sort of bootleg wrestler with glasses.

The skeleton was a sealed 90s number, now free to stink the place up for a day or so. The head, interestingly, is separate, strung on the string to create a bobblehead effect. Simply charming. This is a bag charm waiting to happen.

Miscellania are a Sweden-flavored pair of tiki heads, two more tool charms, and a pair of buttons: GeneriCo beastie Sad Lad, and a bit of Chinese menu. I've been setting aside vintage Chinese zodiac animals for the old restaurant in town here; they'll love this.

Arts the First! The stickers are new, smaller than the previous but thankfully still good solid vinyl. This gives me two fresh ones, just enough to finally fill out the ol' beverage bottle.

Repop Palmer Frankenstein has graduated to fully painted rubber, and once again, a few oddballs have been popping up. This one's missing some fingers, but was granted paint at least. Zac, if you're reading this, it straightened up somewhat, but has a ways to go. I may experiment with warm water.

MMM Wolfman is the dead-flesh rubber kind. This one stands better than my current specimen. Trinket!

Arts the Second! Another delightful rubber skull (molded from a vintage specimen) is big fun, but terribly overshadowed by a couple of early-draft Gillmen. Part of Zac's recent efforts to master digital sculpting (an approach I'm generally leery of, but this is definitely going well), these are the 2nd and 3rd passes of Series D, and I for one am thrilled. I have nothing against Wolfman, Kong or Frank, but fresh blood is exciting, and Gillman is my homie. There are subtle differences, mostly in the.... nodules? Do fish have warts? Anyway, I may actually buy one when they come out instead of just trolling the Monster's Booty.

Well, since I have room for a few more images, I may as well show off the Sacks. Each contains something of play value (a simple action figure, bubbles, a windup toy, Halloween fast food toys) and four bits of filler (spider rings, rubber critters, small sticker sheets, etc). Got 94 made this year, which means my average 75-80 kids will leave leftovers for next year.

This one's got a mystery in it, too. We'll get there.

Critters! The old Bug-a-Boos are testing my ability to keep these descriptions interesting, but the stag beetle is at least closer to a natural color this time. The rat is a a reissued Gigantor jiggler, while the Styracosaurus appears to be a late-model of the same 70s molds that keep plugging away to this day. Perhaps a few years behind the current crop. Frog is frog. Weirdly human skin tone this time around.

Peeps! Munch Bunch is represented by a cantaloupe in heels. The 70s, ladies and gentlemen! Green Gouf has been seen before, but I did score another Machine Robo candy toy bootleg.

Some of you may know him as Loco from Gobots, but in half scale and solid red. The engineering is identical to the normal toy, though. If anyone else pulls these and plans to assemble them, I must advise you to have nippers and a knife handy; a lot of the parts have minimal but obstructive flash on them.

The soldier is a bit of a mystery. No identifying marks apart from "made in China", but the plastic feels quite old. He's roughly in 4" scale. Lens is no help, and he wasn't mentioned at all in the preview video.

Miscellany is fairly button-heavy again, with an upcycled bit of poster, an indie artist I'm not familiar with, Angry Beavis, two California Raisins (if you're not old enough to know them, I promise you they're groovy as hell), and two more Monster Faces.

Tiki Heads illustrate my previous observation on colors, and the tool charms continue to surprise: a classic charm and a magnet are variations I don't think I have yet.

Arts is good. An improbable second Glow Werewolf in a row, a fully painted Kong and a Saucerman rep the usual Minis, and another Freakie has popped up as well: possibly the best pull of Cowmumble I've seen yet. Had to shave off a bit of flash on the base, but so it goes.

Natural Wonders are nice. The grasshoppers are different releases of the same mold, probably mid-90s, that don't quite match my existing specimen, so that's a couple winners right there. The spider is new to me, and has an amusingly crude face. Pokey and Gokey have officially outcompeted Gumby and Pumby, driving them nearly to extinction over the last few months. There's a whole herd in my Trinket Fund lately, since I prefer to hand them out in sets. Perhaps I'll simply donate them to a thrift store or somesuch, get 'em away from here so nature can heal.

This is a weirdly robot-heavy batch. Two Goufs and an RX-78, similar to current knockoffs, but in a softer material. Could be original releases for all I know. Either way, they're joining the skinny unknowns on the shelf.

Oddities are coming on strong with a delightful Kaiju button (with a yonic mouth, no less) and some adorable old tool charms. They're clearly from one of those mixed vending machine lots, a mix of keychains, pins, bracelets and charms. I know enough crafters to brighten at least 3 people's day with relevant trinkets here. Also, the Kewpie doll kind of blindsided me, but it has some charm.

The spooky GeneriCo buttons are good fodder as well, and the tiki heads are perennial favorites. Oddly, nearly half my (massive) stash is some shade of red. Clearly, at least one factory had a surplus.

Arts is entirely little duders this time: two Kongs and a Saucerman in various rubbers, a glow Wolfman (apparently produced in lower quantities), and another dirty hippie. I'm gonna have to start doubling up the Mini Monster Men in the display if I can't decide on which versions I like best, and new variations just keep coming. First World problems?

Blacklight check! Man, I gotta get a proper fixture instead of the mini flashlight I keep using. Also, I made the mistake of taking this photo in daylight hours.

My first package from the inimitable Rev Retch, what retches wretchedly and whatnot. @humansbgone if you're a YouTube person. There was a cockroach sticker on offer, and I used to have one as a pet, and of course I got the deluxe version.

Firstly, the point of the thing: Dr. Gregorsa, mid-lecture and captured in kiss-cut vinyl. Nice durable stuff. I've been enjoying his entomology refreshers. A string of grateful bee stickers was included. They will be gifted to the next beekeeper I buy from.

As promised, there are bugs. The ladybug reminds me strongly of my 70s jiggler, but is a smoky translucent black with some glitter. Fabulous. Glow Gryloblattid delights me to no end. Wasp and spider are a nice high mid, good filler on a shelf around the holidays. The ants are ants, although they have the unusual trait of looking skyward. This will mix well with my forward-facing ones.

This, I assume, is the promised "bug paraphernalia". All four have been earmarked for future projects, but for now.....

Gregorsa is teaching a public service course on the dangers of certain plants. Wasp has heard this one before, and is taking a snack break while precocious young Hector gets into another fine mess.

This one was apparently a limited run, but there's still plenty of fun to be had. They got opillione charms!

Carrying on with the oddments, here's some milk caps. Among the usual sea of 8-balls are a visual pun, an anime girl with strong 80s vibes, Mirage cosplaying as RX-78, and what appears to be an early NFT. The "crossbones" slammer does not feature crossed bones, but it does have a snek. Monopoly Coin is interesting, I suppose. The 90s flying saucer is just here because it's flat, along with a pin I'll touch on momentarily. The saucer, incidentally, will replace my red one. This looks so much better.

Arts, part one! Zac's taken to tossing unpainted Monster-nik heads into the eggs, with a bin of random bodies nearby. Pull a head, get a possibly mismatched body, which may or may not be extremely NSFW. Hence the appropriate sticker balanced upon Wolfman's wolfmanhood. Repops of a Mini Boglin and Rust Monster (in plastic and rubber, respectively) are looking pretty good, and the sprawling tumor-monster (Maybe an oversized cottage cheese Trashie or something?) is unpleasantly soft and sticky. As it should be.

Edit: that's my first ever Fungus Amongus toy! Meat Mail is a license-free Spam pun, a gob of processed meat amiably dragging itself along the floor to deliver an assuredly greasy letter. Freaky yet fun!

Little Arts! Soft Mini Monsters in a nondescript sort of corpse-skin color, a fully painted Humpty Dumpty looking for all the world like a mutant Munch Bunch toy, another keshi hippie, and a few of those GITD mix figures: another Freakie, and two Sunigators. This is a hell of a spread. I may have to restructure things.

Hadda get creative with the setup here: these pins do not play well with my lighting. Anyway, we have a couple artists' work, a generic Halloween pin, part of the tag on a grow toy, and a segment of damaged Beistle decoration. More pins are always welcome.

Which is good, because here's four more. Greasebat is the only one I'm not already familiar with, but it looks fun.

Lastly, the rest of the Flat Fun-two of the three current tattoo flash stickers. Also 100 Ton King, who was left out of the group shots for space reasons. He's another of those knockoff "thumb wrestler" toys that basically made thumb wrestling feel awkward and look ridiculous. I can always use a few more for the shelf.

Blacklight check! The glowy ones also glow, but that's not exciting. Mostly.

Because of the deeper textures, figures like the Boglin look amazing if they're charged from one direction only: the natural shadows really work for it. This one got it from a few other angles, briefly, but you can still see it.

Okay, it isn't, but it is loaded. So loaded, this'll be a 2-parter.

For starters, we're back in black for critters, mostly those plastic 90s oddballs. The ones with the ridiculous rats? Yeah. The bee is a fair bit older, and actually has painted eyes. Pretty fancy compared to my current specimen. Special mention goes to the far left spider, apparently from a different line altogether.

But wait, there's more! Neither dino is one I have, but both are pretty charming. Not Quite a Ladybird is looking better than ever in two-tone red, while the other beetle is almost patriotic. Frog looks worried, while the Tooly Birds wander about, as is their wont.

Duders! A few Lucky Yuckies showed up with a stray Kin-Knockoff-Man (King Neptune, looking more than usual like Hulk Hogan), Pumby and Gokey are fun as always, and the Munch Bunch and Pocket Skeleton are.... well, odd. Even amongst this lot.

You may feel a sense of familiarity with the green robot. This is because it's friggin' Fitor.

Yep, it's a generic Gobot. Or, given the quality level, more likely Machine Robo candy toy molds, leased out to DVS.

It really is a wonder to behold. Every mechanism, every sculpted detail is replicated here. The exhausts even poke out as you collapse the legs! If you ever wondered what a disassembled Gobot looks like, certain vending machines had you covered back then. I ended up with two (which is why I risked building one), and now I kinda want the other three. I recognize Loco and Dive-Dive (hey, at least they had a damn submarine, Hasbro...), but I'm drawing a blank on the truck. Love that classic DVS diamond, too.

Odd that they chose to brave the wrath of Hasbro's lawyers rather than Tonka's with that name.

I'll leave off Part One with assorted oddness: just, all the rubber skull rings. Happily, this includes one new-to-me sculpt in three colors. Springy Old Spaceship looks nice in red, but the real surprise here is the Theodore Roosevelt celluloid penny whistle. Notoriously fragile (and this one freely falls apart, the glue long since having given up the ghost), these things are just weird enough to please me. Naturally there were others, but very few wear a mustache quite as well.

Now, this is all McDonald's, and mostly the 1990 Changeables collection. After two years of robots that turned into food, they decided to shake things up with dinosaurs this time around. The fact that a fourth series never materialized may or may not be proof that this was a mistake, but they have some charm, as we shall see.

Chicken Nuggets-o-saurus and Happy Meal-o-don are a mixed bag. The names are pretty awful, and the sculpts are definitely silly, but the fantastic pun of literal Dino Nuggets is certainly a plus.

Tri-shake-atops stands taller than most, but also falls on its face in terms of being at all like a Trike. It also literally falls on its face a lot, thanks to poor weight distribution. McDino Cone is adorable, not least because it looks like a costumed mascot at a prehistoric restaurant.

QPC-o-saur (I am not typing the whole name) is delightfully warty, and a lovely shade of blue, but also very assumetrical. Fry-ceratops is possibly the most deserving of its name, possessing several fries on its head. The feet are a little iffy, but oh well.

And finally, Under 3. These never seem to get names, which may be for the best in this wave. It's a delightfully derpy iguana/fry hybrid in durable vinyl, with fairly tight paint apps. This is a permanent kitchen decoration now.

And that's the class of '90. Minus the Big Mac, which wasn't included, and doubles/triples of just about all of these. Into the Trinket Fund they go!

Also included were almost the last two '89 pieces I needed (still after Fry Force, although I have its antecedent), Fry Bot and Turbo Cone. Shame about the paint, I really miss that old bag design.

Fry Force is a walker, the only one without arms. Turbo Cone's face is mildly disquieting, and unlike any other in the line. Like a clown carved from marzipan.

That said, Fry Force has an articulated jaw for some reason, and a tongue besides. What does the robot put in there!? It's people, isn't it?

Also spooky are these '92 Mcnugget Buddies, part of a swarm of human-faced gobs of breaded meat that gleefully sold out their kin for several years, much like Mr Peanut before them. Among the dozens of interchangeable costumes were a few Halloween assortments, and Mummy and Vampire are as classic as it gets: fun faces, a 2-piece costume, and the Golden Arches worked neatly into the sculpt.

They're quite a pair, actually: a lascivious-looking vampire, and a cross-eyed woman with heterochromia. Both have creatures of the night perching upon them, but we know they're friends because neither of them eat chicken.