Creature Commandos in "The War that Time Forgot"

 

The Creature Commandos

 

Art of Evil prints available

Most of you know I have a sweet spot for cartoon villains and so, under the banner of Art of Evil I've come up with prints for sale

Skeletor and the Minions of Snake Mountain

Evil Horde

Snakemen of Eternia

The Foot Clan

The Berserkers

The Lunataks

T-Ray and Captain Bizzarly

The Inhumanoids

Escalation of Evil in the Realm of Dungeons and Dragons

Uneven Balance of Power

Now all of these prints and some others can be bought here

Guest Blogger - League of Extraordinary Bloggers - Things I Hate about Pop Culture

Hey folks, long time no blog, sorry about that, got busy with other things but I figured I'd dust off the blog and take part in the League's theme this week... well actually I was going to but then my work partner Lord Bad Guy decided he wanted to write this post so ummmm... here's Lord Bad Guy...

"Move over you small minded pudge butt, go play with your monster toys and leave this to a genius to handle. Hello, cowering citizens it is I, the great and terrible Lord Baron Dr, Prof Bad Guy, World Conqueror, Super Villain and Karaoke Champion at the local TGIF.

The assignment put forth to this so called League of Extraordinary Bloggers was to details what it was that they hated about Pop Culture growing up. Well. I'm an expert on hate, I hate alot of things... but you know what I hate the most about the "Pop Culture"... the damn good guys. Always the good guys in pop culture are showered with cheers and praise but what about the villains hunh? If it wasn't for us GI JOE would be working as crossing guards or off fighting the Taliban, He-Man would be a steroid case with a fancy sword, the Thundercats would be stray kitties squatting on a planet that isn't theirs. Yeah, see, you 're getting the picture now aren't you, the gears are turning in those heads out there, I can smell the smoke of your petty brains starting to grasp the bigger picture. 

You see the cartoons of your pop culture presented a very warped view of what exactly went on during the 80's. To you, He-Man always beat Skeletor, the Joes always triumphed over the cowardly, bumbling Cobra Commander, the C.O.P.S. always stopped the CROOKS. I hope you enjoyed that sanitized account of the events because that's not what happened. Sure, I'll grant you some of my fellow card carrying member of the Lodge of Evil were less then successful... I don't want to mention names or anything... okay, you twisted my arm... Gargamel, that bumbling dumbass wanna be wizard and Mon - Starr, intergalactic crime lord. Gargamel spent years wandering around the same damn forest and couldn't find the bunch of giant mushroom houses with the little blue monsters living in them? Oh and by the way, Smurfs taste friggin' awful, never saw what he thought was so great about eating them, like some awful cross between sardines and spam. Mon - Starr had an entire gang of super powered villain henchmen and he couldn't kill a bunch of idiotic sky diving cyborgs with bird fetishes? The guy had a robotic Minotaur that could grow in size! A shape changing henchmen! A master weaponeer and he still couldn't off these clown... gimme mt death ray and I'll get rid of all of them. Of course they were fighting over a section of space that had a giant flashlight as it's sun so not much of a prize there to be had anyway.

But I digress, you see the villains, most of them anyway, were actually much more successful then the shows let on, Hell, we had a lot of fun with that Weather Dominator. You haven't lived until you've skied on three feet of fresh snow in Hawaii or sunbathed poolside in the 102 degree heat of Siberia. The cartoons made it seem like Cobra had the Dominator for a few days before Joe stopped them and destroyed it. Let me clue you in, CC had that thing for years, Joe never stopped them, thing got fired up every vacation until it's power cell ran out and no one could figure out how to make another so it got junked. Skeletor was and still is a master sorcerer, do you understand the kind of intellect it takes to achieve that? The cartoon would have you believe that He-Man was always outwitting Skeletor and his troops and that Skeletor was a cackling idiot that sat on a throne made of of pointy bones petting a big purple cat. In reality He-Man was lucky he could dress himself, that overly muscled meat head. He wore those furry underpants because he couldn't master pants. Skeletor had a sweet leather easy chair and some matching couches, one was a pull out bed. I know because I crashed on it one New Years Eve. Oh and let me assure you Shredder and Krang served up a mean turtle soup at least twice that I know of...four turtles HA!, more like a bulk bin of 'em mutated by that rat every time one got froggered or skewered.

Even the lesser villains like Big Boss were no slouches, c'mon he was named Big Boss, you don't get them from getting busted by a bunch of gimmicky lawmen every time you pull a job. No, you earn  it by pulling off major heists and holding a major metropolitan city in your metal plated grip of terror! Dr. Claw was never bested by a nine year old girl and her talking dog...there was never an Inspector Gadget to even try and stop him. The people at DIC created that Inspector Gadget character because they were afraid no one would watch the Dr. Claw and Madcat show let alone get any merchandising money. Personally I think a Dr Claw armored fist toy inside a happy meal is much better then a go go gadget ass scratcher or whatever the Hell they sold.

Okay okay I'm rambling... the bottom line is I HATE the good guy and I HATE the way the cartoons represented us villains. So the next time you sit down to watch your favorite bunch of do-gooders smack their villainous opponents around remember...

He-Man is a dolt
The JOEs couldn't hit the broadside of a barn
The C.O.P.S. arrest records was pretty light
Inspector Gadget isn't real
Smurfs are ugly little blue freaks that look like those thing in Del Toro's remake of "Afraid of the Dark"
The Silver Hawks were glorified sky divers
The Thundercats are ill behaved strays
The Turtles live in Poo Water

I could go on but instead I'm going to call up all my villainous buddies and go grab a few drinks, maybe plot a team up to take over the world or something... youjust ponder what I've told you here and uh... watch your backs...."

Now Go check out Bubba Shelby, he knows the score on the Real American Zeroes

And if you're super cool you'll come check me out as I conquer the world....again...slowly....painfully slowly

This week’s topic from the League: Saturday Morning Cartoons!

Been a while since I had a chance to take part in one of these but I just had to this week. See growing up I have vivd memories of watching Saturday Morning cartoons and I wish my daughter could have had the same experience but alas those days are gone forever... anyway here's the set up:

You’ve been hired to program the ultimate Saturday morning experience for kids across the nation–create your own ideal Saturday morning cartoon schedule.

C'mon kids, it's Monsterfink programing this station, Channel 13 WGHOUL so get those bowls of General Mills Monster Cereals and sit down in front of the TV in your jammies, cuz here we go....

7 - 7:30 The Hilarious House of Frightenstein



Yeah, sorry no Captain Kangaroo or Kookla, Fran and Ollie to start your morning here, we're going to start this Saturday morning off with a show that featured guest appearances from the great Vincent Price and was one I used to watch myself as a kid...

7:30 - 7:45 : Mini Monsters


Something for the younger audience to watch, still not bad and a good foundation for future Monster Kids

7:45 - 8: Bigfoot and Wildboy



Possible one of the most underrated Kroft productions, I mean it's Bigfoot.... fighting crime.... and he acts like the Bionic Bigfoot

 8 - 8:30 : Thundarr the Barbarian

 

 C'mon it's the King's work here and a cool post apocalyptic setting with magic and super science... and Ookla the Mok!

 8:30 - 9 : The Herculoids

 

Oh how I love this show, a team of monsters fighting bad guys and other monsters, how could you not love it?

9 - 9:30 Frankenstein Jr and the Impossibles



Quite possible one of my favorite cartoons of all time.. the 60's craziness... giant monster,,, goofy superheroes... pure heaven

9:30 -10 : Monster Force



I know I know, it's not the greatest but it is a licensed Universal Monsters cartoon

10:30 - 11 : Tales from the CryptKeeper



Nothing like some animated tales from our favorite story telling ghoul, it's like the moral spouting version of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids in my line up

11 - 11:30 The Real Ghostbusters




Ah I remember when this premiered, still a great great cartoon

11:30 - 12 Mystery Incorporated


One, if not the greatest reboot of a cartoon series. Great writing, huge overall story tying together the separate mysteries

12 - 12:30 The Aqua Bats Super Show


The modern day heirs to the legacy of both the Kroft Brothers and the Monkees, combining humor, great music, cheesy costumes and general silliness.

We now turn your programming over to your favorite Horror Host Monsterfink and his Midnight Monster Spookshow bringing you the greatest monster movies of the past... from Gamera to Frankenstein, The Creature to The Crawling Eye we screen 'em all here on the Spookshow.... 

now check out these other league members programming line ups

That Figures has a great line up here
Dex has a lineup that features some of my choices here
Of Flying Monkeys and Ewoks has a great setup of programming blocks here

Monster in my Pocket

Back in 1990 while perusing the toy aisles after work at K-Mart I found a small peg display of boxed figures with the colorful logo of Monster in my Pocket printed on the dark blue box. I picked up a pack and headed for the checkout. When I got home and tore into the box I was immediately taken back to my younger days of finding Trashcan Full of Monsters at my local Toys R Us. That started me on a mad dash to "collect them all".

The actual line released by Matchbox was a line of rubber figures cast in bright colors and depicted famous monsters of Legend, Mythology and Cryptozology, each with an assigned point value for a game that could be played with them and to denote how rare the figures were.

The First Series consisted of:

Great Beast

Hydra

Werewolf

Behemoth

Griffin

Tyrannosaurus

Cockatrice

Cyclops

Tengu

Triton

Kraken

Jotun Troll

Monster

Manticore

Karnack

Coatilcue

Bigfoot

Baba Yaga

Kali

Catoblepas

Harpy

Haniver

Hobgoblin

Windigo

Red Cap

Medusa

Goblin

Cerebus

Zombie

Chimera

Ghost

Ogre

Vampire

Roc

Gremlin

Vampiress

Ghoul

Phantom of the Opera

Mad Scientist

Winged Panther

Mummy

Charon

The Beast

Witch

Spring Heeled Jack

Invisible Man

Skeleton

Hunchback

Series 2 consisted of:

49. Dragon

 

50. Jabborwock 

51. Warlock 

52. Ymir

 

53. Swamp Beast

 

54. Golem

 

55. Scorpion Man

 

56. Loch Ness Monster

 

57. Tarasque 

58. Bishop Fish 

59. Herne the Hunter

 

60. Ancient Gorgon

 

61. Ectoplasmic Phantom

 

62. Ganesha

 

63. Elbow Witch 

64. Minotaur 

65. Merrow

 

66. Nuckelavee 

67. Spectre 

68. Bloody Bones

 

69. Sebek 

70. Dryad

 

71. Undine 

72. Gargoyle

 

Series 3 monsters came as premiums for three different products. #73-80 were premiums for Nabisco Shreddies in Canada and Bob's Big Boy had a Secret Monster Pack with Series 3 figures #73-80. #81 was a premium for the Nintendo M.I.M.P. game.

73. Leviathan

  

74. Abominable Snowman

  

75. Anubis

  

76. Amphisbaena 

77. Centaur

  

78. Orobas

  

79. Siren

  

80. Jimmy Squarefoot

  

81. Blemmyea

 

We'll Pick up with Series 4 - Super Scary tomorrow, in the meantime here, suffer the pilot for the unsold Monster in my Pocket cartoon