Author Archives: The Pizza

Two words. CASTLE GRAYSKULL.

Castle Grayskull is like the entry-level castle for Masters of the Universe collectors. And I guess that’s me now, a collector. At first, I was just picking up a few loose figures to sell on eBay or trade with a friend for Beatles records, but now I’m buying them ALL FOR MYSELF. I also picked up some more figures including Kobra Khan and Ram Man.

Originally I saw Grayskull two weeks ago when the seller was asking $25 for it at the flea market. I had passed at the time although I was secretly kicking myself. The thing is probably worth that. However I was surprised to see it still sitting on the table this weekend, and I jumped on it for $15. The condition of it is great, with nothing broken and containing several pieces inside. It has the throne, the trapdoor, and the drawbridge. The parts are worth more than the whole. Each of them has sold individually on eBay for $15 a piece.

I love the look of the thing. Old toys have a different aesthetic from contemporary toys, which have a very slick and digital feel to them. Older toys have a warmth and depth. Even the light-weight and brittle plastic lends a certain vulnerability. The artwork of the cartoon and design on the original box make Castle Grayskull seem foreboding, but something was lost in translation when the manufacturers made the mold. I love how the castle has an almost tired and forlorn look.

Okay, I’m projecting.

The 1982 commercial makes this thing look hilariously huge. Either they found miniature children to play with the castle or they…actually there is no “or.” OF COURSE they found miniature children.

Paid: $15
Value: $45

Next I found this Bravestarr figure. Bravestarr was a space-western cartoon that ran from 1987 to 1988. I don’t remember it at all. I only bought the figure because it was an alien lobster in cowboy boots. But it looks like Bravestarr is available on both Netflix Instant and Hulu, so I’m going to watch a few and then pretend I knew about it all along. This particular figure I found is Sand Storm. Apparently he is more walrus than lobster, and his super power is exhaling giant clouds of sand that can put others to sleep.

It was the last series produced by Filmmation, the animation company that also did The Archies cartoon as well as Masters of the Universe. Set in New Texas, a wild frontier in outerspace, the series was also notable for having a Native-American lead protagonist, Sheriff Bravestarr, as well as a laser-toting horse that walked upright. In fact, I think I do vaguely remember the horse. After all, you never forget a biped horse with a gun.

Paid: .75
Value: $10-15

Next I found this nifty Go Bot and a 1981 diecast Voltron figure. The GoBots were a cartoon and toy series about transforming robots, much like Transformers and Voltron. I’m sure there’s some very fine distinctions among the three series that divides the nerd factions these days, but back in the 1980s we loved any and all transforming robot things just the same.

I love the retro-robot look of the Go-Bot. When I got home and did some research on it, I found out he actually transforms into a squirt gun:

Seriously, whoa. This is one of my favorite toy finds, ever. I’m surprised it doesn’t go for more money online. (My wife is surprised it goes for any money at all.)

The Voltron is sort of banged-up and the chrome is wearing heavily, plus he’s missing the wings. But for fifty cents, it was a deal.

Paid: .50 each
Value: $10-15

Here is a Donald Duck bank I found. I already had Mickey Mouse and Figment banks, and now I’m just showing off. I keep finding these for fifty cents a piece at the local thrift store, and they’re worth about $10 each. Old rubber banks are just cool, plus I dig the 1980s style of Disney. I hate the way they draw them now. Mickey Mouse just looks foreign to me these days.

Paid: .50
Value: $10

This is my favorite find of the weekend by far. There’s a lot going on in this clear work of art. For instance, there’s a topless woman, a string bikini, and a pile of obese men in Hawaiian shirts. But for me, I’m drawn to that beach ball with the disembodied and free-floating heads of the Beach Boys on it. What are they doing there? It’s kind of creepy.

I have a sickness for weird and awful Beach Boys records, and basically it’s all weird and awful after Pet Sounds, more or less. Most often more. Which means I can feed my sickness eternally. In fact, I’m even going to see them live next month on their 50th anniversary tour. Mike Love will be in rare form doing his Branson, Missouri-style handwaving and winking, Brian will have the look of a broken animatronic, perpetually frozen in horror sitting behind a piano he’s not even pretending to play, and Al Jardine will be himself, a hobbit who can sing and play guitar.

It’s going to be an alternate universe where 80 year old men sing about sun and fun, with a little bit of melancholia and schizophrenia thrown in. And maybe if we’re lucky, John Stamos. It’s going to rule.

Paid: .50
Value: Absolutely nothing to normal people

The Omega Virus. You had me at the words talking electronic game.

Take a minute to soak all that amazing artwork. The inside of the box could have been filled with dust bunnies and dead mosquitoes, and I still might have bought it without question.

I used to overlook board games at yard sales and thrift stores, until I realized some of these games can be worth a nice chunk of change. Don’t get me wrong—most board games, 99% of them are worth a dime a dozen. But every now and then, there’s something that catches my eye and hits the right nostalgia mark. The Omega Virus nails the nostalgia mark for corny “evil computer taking over fears” and gobblety-gook science involving plasma weapons and probes.

The Omega Virus was a game released by Milton Bradley in 1992. It was a science-fiction game set in the future, 2051 to be precise. An evil alien computer virus is trying to destroy the planet earth and it’s up to you, chosen commando, to stop it. Actually, the back story is far more detailed than that, meticulously described in a fully-illustrated comic book included inside the box. The game was designed by Michael Gray, who was also behind other innovative electronic board games Mall Madness and Dream Phone. The Omega Virus was like Mall Madness for boys. But let’s not forget there were plenty of boys who would secretly jump at the chance to get in on a little Mall Madness action, because hey, it was “the mall with it all.”

The centerpiece of the game was a talking computer that players used to input codes to advance between the rooms of the game board in search of the virus. Meanwhile, the virus would tease and taunt the players as “human scum” and “fools” while counting down the time left before the virus would take over and destroy earth.

The production value of this game is immense. From the comic book to the game board to the individual pieces, everything is full of detail and quality. Just look at the game board, fully set up. The picture doesn’t do it justice in showing how huge it is. It’s at least three feet across. I could barely fit it in the frame.

And check out the game pieces:

Those things are as cool as real action figures. Those pieces would have been lost in about eight minutes after opening this board game because I wouldn’t have been able to resist not adding them to my general “play with” toys. That the game still had all twenty commando, probes, guns, and lazer pieces is more than a rarity. It’s a modern wonder of the world. No wonder this game has commanded over $200 dollars in brand-new, sealed condition on eBay.

And then there’s the twenty-page instruction manual. That’s right TWENTY-PAGE.

Words. So many words. And diagrams. Someone online rated this game’s difficulty as “moderate” for a child and “easy” for an adult. Uh, yeah right. I’m rating it “impossible” for a child. Okay, well impossible for eight-year-old me. And make that impossible for adult me as well. In some ways it’s a shame that this game ended up in my hands, because I will never play it. I can’t even get past the first page of the instruction book. It would take me far longer to read the instructions than it would to play average length of the game, which is ten minutes.

So instead, I’m just going to privately worship the art work and baffling complexity for a children’s game. And sometimes I might secretly put batteries in the computer and let the electronic voice mock me. But only sometimes.

Paid: $4
Value: $50

Alright, I’m finally going to contribute to The League of Extraordinary Bloggers, a fellowship of pop-culture-minded bloggers who contribute to a weekly topic. This week’s topic is:

What is something you absolutely hate or love or just don’t get, or maybe it’s something you have never even seen or read. What is your deepest, darkest geek confession?

Deep breath.

Here it is. I’ve never beaten Super Mario Bros. on the NES. Never got to the end of the game. Never reached the final castle. Through countless issues of Nintendo Power Magazines and the invention of the Game Genie; through game guides and multiple cartridges, ports, and emulations, through childhood to adulthood, I have failed to do one thing: save the princess. Not with warp zones and infinite lives tricks. Not with cheat codes and secret tips. Not even with the Power Glove. Although let’s face it, you couldn’t do anything with that.

“Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!”

It’s the story of my life.

Beating Mario Bros. was something of a prowess in elementary school. There were kids who could beat it no mushrooms, no one-ups, and no warp zones. Kids who could beat it in one turn, no damage and no deaths. There was even a kid who claimed he figured out how to jump over the flag pole, but nobody believed that.

It’s not even a difficult game. Mario Bros. invented the archetype for platformer games to come. The game is comprised of just thirty-two levels with intuitive controls that are easy-to-learn. The basic controls are just two attack moves, stomping and shooting fire balls. The beauty of the game is that it does have a deeper complexity, however it’s also simple enough that it can be beaten in a world record five minutes and eight seconds.

It wasn’t like I’d run blindly into the first Goomba I’d see in World 1-1. It wasn’t like I was a slouch at video games. I knew the Contra Code. I knew the code to Mike Tyson. I knew the secret cave in the Legend of Zelda, the secret to beating King Hippo, and the secret to the Power Pad by pounding your fists onto it instead of your feet. We didn’t call it cheating. We called it efficiency.

Our Nintendo was hooked up to the television in the family room—a television that was shared by my mother’s daily appointment with Judge Wapner and The People’s Court, my father’s sports, my sister’s cartoons, and of course, my own schedule of cartoons. Some families run their lives by a calendar. We ran ours by the TV Guide.

Between television, catching up on my Choose Your Own Adventure books, devoting time to advancing our plots in the ongoing saga between the Ninja Turtles and Barbies with my sister, and spending time outside riding bikes and collecting sticks in the woods for my “top secret” project, getting in quality time with Mario was difficult. Not to mention quality time with Link, Pac-Man, Jimmy and Bimmy.

No wonder I didn’t have time for extracurricular activities, organized clubs, and summer camps. Sure, I’ve paid the price as an adult being a social weirdo who doesn’t know how to swim, pitch a baseball, or play nicely with others in board games of Monopoly, but at least I can score 50,000 points in Double Dragon on an arcade machine at a bus station.

And seriously, you put a hotel on that Boardwalk and I’m flipping this board upside down and scattering the pieces everywhere.

Mario and I drifted apart by my teenage years. We didn’t move on together to Mario World or Mario Sunshine. Mario went into the back of the closet for twenty years, and though I had a brief affair with one named Sonic and his cool 16-bit Genesis ride, for the most part I moved away from gaming. That’s not to say I didn’t suck at my other hobbies. Alright, I’m about make a couple more gory confessions. I’m a writer, and I’ve never read Hemingway. I’m a rock fan, who’s never listened to Hendrix. And I’m a vegetarian, and I don’t like vegetables.

Seriously. And what the hell are my excuses? Oh you know, the usual: lazy, tired, working, too much delicious bread to eat, playing Minesweeper obsessively until eyes bleed, For Whom The Bell Tolls too heavy to lift off bookshelf, busy listening to corny 1980s R&B instead, busy wiping blood from tear ducts, still collecting sticks for secret project.

Jesus, I’m a horrible person.

People, I’m going to do it. I’m going to read Hemingway, eat some baby carrots which are very good for my complexion, take Bell Biv Devoe off my record player, and beat Super Mario Bros. In the end, I’ll be a better person. I’ll be nicer to old people and kinder to animals. I’ll have ten percent fresher breath. I’ll go better with Coke.

Or I’ll die in world 4-1 after getting hit by a Spiny, curse the game, throw the controller down, and sulk—because I never learned how to lose games with dignity, a skill that I would have no doubt picked up at summer camp, along with swimming and macaroni art. And I’m talking precision macaroni art, which is a true art form, not the kind where you get glue smeared all over the paper.

But just you wait. One day I’ll reveal my big secret stick project and I’ll take the art world by storm.

Here’s another installment of this weekend’s yard sale and flea market finds. Well, it’s more like the last two weekends. First up are the McDonald’s Changeables Happy Meal Toys. I scored these for a quarter a piece. The Changeables are some of the most fondly-remembered Happy Meal toys. They were toy versions of McDonald’s foods that transformed into robots, a total cash-in attempt at the height of the Transformers popularity.

However the Changeables also became popular in their own right. Kids begged their parents for return trips and Happy Meals to collect all of the toys, and McDonald’s responded to the sound of cha-ching with three different series of them in 1987, 1989, and 1990. Today they are one of the few Happy Meal toys that even warrants its own Wikipedia page.

Here I have a mixture from each of the series, including the third series which transformed into dinosaurs instead of robots. Yet the transforming aspect of the toys was never the appeal. Each only has one or two moving parts, and the robots themselves kind of suck. It was having miniature plastic versions of the foods themselves that was so neat.

We loved the foods. No, I mean, we loved them. McDonald’s has been demonized and dismissed in the last decade, sometimes rightfully and sometimes not. Today, the Big Mac is at best thought of as a greasy processed food, and at worst, a symbol of an obesity epidemic. But in the 1980s, it was a symbol of American popular culture and capitalism. It was iconic. The Economist coined the Big Mac Index as a reference point for comparing the cost of living in different countries. “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions all on a sesame seed bun” was more than a commercial jingle. It was a rallying cry.

Kids love icons. For the same reasons we loved Mickey Mouse and Paul Bunyan, we loved the Big Mac and the Egg McMuffin. Even the packaging itself—the yellow boxes of McNuggets and airy styrofoam trays of Hotcakes—was something altogether more, something beyond fast food. Now add in the fact that they transformed into robots and dinosaurs—ROBOTS AND DINOSAURS—and it’s a slurry of lost American nostalgia that’s particularly unique to a generation of kids that grew up in the 1980s.

Paid: $1.75 for all
Value: $1-4 a piece

(I’m nabbing this paid/value thing from one of my favorite blogs, Cool and Collected, and if you like these yard sale finds posts, check this blog out.)

Next up: Z-BOTS!

I didn’t find all of these Z-Bots this weekend, because if I had I’d have died from awesomeness overload. I could have just picked out the ones I did find to show off, but instead I chose to show off my entire collection, which cannot be shown off enough. Seriously, I feel like inviting random strangers into my house just to show them and scream I HAVE LOTS OF Z-BOTS. I HAVE LOTS OF Z-BOTS!

Paid: .25 to .50 each
Value: $1 a piece

Next: PVC figures!

I’m like a nut for random PVC figures. I’m always having to muscle little kids out of the way to dig through the big plastic tubs of toys, and I’ll be there digging for ten minutes, since the world is always against me and the good ones are always buried obscurely at the creepy, dusty bottom. I really hope that’s dust.

The California Raisins, Snorks, and ET represent some of the most popular PVC figures released in the 1980s. I find them all the time. I’ve got a load of each of these guys. The girl Raisins are my favorites to find because they’re a bit rarer and funkier than the other Raisins. Well, except for the Raisin in the orange glasses who, of course, defines funk.

Paid: .25 each
Value: $1-2 each

The Chuck E. Cheese figure was a particularly cool find because it’s marked 1985 Showbiz Pizza on the bottom. Chuck E. Cheese was originally founded by Atari mastermind Nolan Bushnell in 1979, but later merged with Showbiz Pizza. Eventually by the 1990s, they turned all the branding over to Chuck E. Cheese and CEC Entertainment.

I’ve started collecting some of the old Showbiz Pizza stuff after watching an amazing documentary on Netflix, The Rock-afire Explosion, which is about the cult fans of the animatronic character band, although that’s a bit misleading because documentary is really about something more. It’s a documentary about a sort of human truth that you can never quite place your finger on—and yet you know it’s there.

Here’s the best way I can explain this haunting documentary: Joni Mitchell recorded her classic album Blue in 1971. It’s sad, spare and beautiful. It will knock you on your ass if you let it. She is a genius of human confession. She sings about her disintegrating relationship with Graham Nash, the out-of-wedlock baby she gave up for adoption, and about pain and life and everything in between—she lays it all out there, bare. Once, Mitchell played it for Kris Kristofferson who listened speechless until he finally said, “Jesus Christ, Joni save something for yourself.”

Then I watched this documentary and I thought to myself, Jesus Christ, Joni never even got close to it. This movie dives into a whole new realm of some human truth, the sort of realm where only a warehouse full of rotting, melting animatronic bears could exist. Watch the documentary if you haven’t seen it yet. I felt profoundly unsettled for days.

I recently wrote to the man behind the Rock-afire Explosion (also the man behind the aforementioned warehouse) and asked him to autograph some Showbiz Pizza 45s I have. He was very happy to oblige and include some weird but sincere inscriptions:

Next – COLLECTING FAILS #1

I’m calling this my collecting fails because this is part of my ongoing sad attempt at trying to collect the stuff that people want. You know, the stuff that sells on eBay. The stuff that pro collectors collect. Stuff like Masters of the Universe, Transformers, GI Joe, and Thundercats. People can make big bucks off it and I want in on the game.

My first problem is, I couldn’t identify a Transformer or GI Joe if my life depended on it. I know nothing about these lines. I blame my age. These cartoons had the height of their popularity from 1984-1987. That was when I was between three and six years of age. I watched these cartoons but geez alright, I just liked Scooby Doo better. Okay? Okay?

So those smaller figures in the picture are not GI Joes, but instead Visionaries. It’s actually another collectible line from 1987, except the holograms are missing. Dang, why’d that kid have to peel the hologram stickers off the chests for his notebook?

My second problem is, I eagerly hand over two or three bucks a piece for these things thinking I’ve scored some rare figure that I can sell for twenty bucks online, only to realize no one wants Mantenna with his eyeballs scraped off. Or that Sectaurs bug with half a wing ripped off.

COLLECTING FAILS #2

Hey look, it’s a G1 Transformer! G1 is the nerd-speak for “this Transformer is worth a hundred dollars.” Except this is one is what an eBayer might refer to as “as-is” condition, which brings down the price drastically. Like to two dollars.

By the way, my favorite and/or saddest moment as a collector was the time at a toy show with three bucks left burning in my pocket, I was like, “hey how much is that robot dinosaur thing?” and the dude was like “that’s Grimlock, Dinobot Commander complete and in mint condition. It’s two hundred dollars.”

Also, hey look, it’s a Voltron figure. Those things are worth big dollars. Until I realized it’s a freaking POWER RANGER toy. God, I suck at collecting.

There’s also a broken Go-Bot toy in there. I’m not gonna lie. Broken or not, that thing is awesome.

Paid: $1-3 each
Value: Maybe $10 for all if I’m lucky

Next: Video Game Stuff!

Alright, now we’re back in my comfort zone. I got that table top Galaxy Twinvader game for $9. I rarely pay that much for anything at a yard sale. Five bucks is my price limit for stuff. But I didn’t have a vintage table top game yet, so I couldn’t leave it behind.

I scored the Atari 2600 games and Mario Goomba toy for a quarter each. I paid a dollar for the How To Win At Video Games guide. I love it because it only features arcade machines. The copyright is 1982. In the back they devote about a half a page to home video game systems, but at the time they were still thought secondary to the true versions in the arcades. There’s no screenshots or photographs of the games, and instead all the screens and diagrams are beautifully hand-drawn just like on the cover.

Paid: $10.50 for all
Value: $30-40

Next – Turtle Stuff!

Now we’re talking. Ninja Turtle crap is my favorite. I paid a quarter for each of these guys. Any idea what those hockey-stick wielding figures are? I have no idea. All I know is I now own Genghis Frog in hockey-playing form. Then I’ve got some Turtle survival gear with that Turtlecom and compass. Doomsday preppers can stockpile all the bottled water and canned meat products that they need. I have a compass that will lead me to the Ninja Turtles and a proprietary device for communicating with April.

Paid: $1 for all
Value: Priceless when the apocalypse comes

Finally, look: The Surfing Pizza sticker exists!

Whoa! The people at Build A Sign hooked me up with some Surfing Pizza stickers, and I’m giving them away. I want to send you one FOR FREE. This thing is soon to be collectible when I’m famous. You know, when I finish my book and it gets published. Or when the Hoarders people call me up to feature me on their show. Whichever comes first. The price is free but the value is more like a million future dollars. Future dollars is a very real currency.

So email me at surfingpizza@gmail.com and I’ll hook you up! (Also if you’re reading this way after the fact when I posted this, I still have stickers. Seriously I have like a million. Just write me and ask!)