blarghhhspot

More Mini Mock-Madball Madness!!

2012-01-23T17:46:00.000-08:00

"No Comment"

Well, dudes and dudettes, I've been managing to upkeep this blog more than I actually thought possible. Today, we have some tiny terrors that I know some of you nerds out there are obsessed with. See, these guys seem to be in higher demand because they overlap crazed collector criteria. They appeal to the maniacal Madball enthusiasts as well as the little rubber toy aficionados. I've heard horror stories about people trying to track these down, but I've managed to amass quite a collection without even going out of my way to do so. Ebay lots that I've won, often come with a few of these crammed in the box as an added bonus...or an added bogus!

Most of these little grotesqueries are minute renditions of larger dudes and seem to be some sort of pencil top eraser or eraser material. These two for example are tiny takes on the classic devil Sadball, and the horrible Horn Head. The problem with these two, is that the material doesn't work well this small. There are crease lines and the details aren't too crisp.

See how small this dude is? Regardless of the loss of clarity, both of these are pretty neat. They would be perfect if you were a really small person...like miniature, and Madballs were too large for you to hold in your freakishly tiny hands. Then again, I guess you'd have other things to worry about besides your toy collection. Like cats, and tarantulas and being so small that you cease to exist on a molecular level. Now I'm sad.

Not anymore! Look at these idiots! Another Madball rip off (Argh) and two more Sadball rip offs (Blood Bulge and Broken Brain). Though, I think at the point you rip off a rip off you become something else entirely...like a rip-rip off. The rubber these three are made of is a little bit sturdier than the previous dorks so they look a little better. They also appear to have been painted at some point?! That's pretty cool. I actually prefer mini Blood Bulge to the adult version, because that design was pretty sparse in the first place. Cramming all those features on a 1" ball makes it look cooler.

Oh god, these triplets. I got them in a lot and I like them but they are uuuuuggggly. Almost too ugly? like the first guy is kind of hard to make out...i guess he's a fang toothed dude with a pig nose? Hogrible will be his name. The second dude is the real problem. I know this isn't the greatest picture but even holding him in my hand in the light I couldn't make out what the hell is going on with his face. At first. My hypothesis (as a Madball academic) is that he's a dude with half a skull and a mouth full of worms? Maggot Mouth it is, until someone else looks at it and tells me what's up. The last one is the most simple but also the easiest to see. He's just a generic monster type. His name is Gener-ick! from now on. The triplets here suffer from the same eraser material syndrome as our first two freaks. But those two, the eraser rubber hardened over time, these three have a porous softness to them that makes me think they may crumble in time...ah crap I'm sad again.

Not any...no I'm still sad. This guy doesn't cheer me up. He looks like a yellow tiger stripped turd (Tiger Turd). Like if Madballs were made the same way as Kopi Luwak but with tigers. He doesn't even have the excuse that he was made out of crappy (get it?) rubber. He's made of rigid hallow plastic. He could be well rendered if some lazy so and so had decided to spend a few extra cents. He had a key ring attached to him at some point but I don't think he suffered much damage from that. I think he was just poorly painted and designed. LAME!

In conclusion, These are fun if and when you can find them. They usually have a lot of rubs in them but are a neat addition to any Mad/Sadball collection. Check above for a family portrait that depicts their relative size.

Gross Out Legend

2012-01-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

I did this interview almost two years ago. Mr. Groman was extremely kind and awesome about it. I was going to post it right away but had to wait for some follow up question answers and permission to use some of Mr. Groman's art. Since he's an extremely busy dude, making some extremely awesome work, I decided to not bother him and let him contact me in his own time. Well, I think, rightfully so, he forgot and then so did I. It's not too important anyway. I never got his permission to use art, and I don't want to overstep my bounds and just assume he'd be ok with it (having had my own art pilfered on the internet dozens of times), so I just sprinkled pictures of some of my collection to break up the talk. It is a very informative interview for Mad/Sadball collectors, but I think any hopes of a Madballs reboot series three have been dashed in the 2 years since he and I originally corresponded.

As a collector of toys, I gravitate towards things that are gross and monstrous. The toys I loved as a child were always the bad guys or the creatures with snarling faces and multiple eyes. Cobra over G.I.Joe, Deceptacons over Autobots, and I always wanted the Mutores to triumph over the Earth Corps, because then we'd live in a monster utopia where everyone looked cool and ate trash. One thing I never considered as a kid was who the hell was designing these things. It also never occurred to me that one person could cross over. Like if anything, Mattel had three creepy dudes locked in a basement that just worked on their stuff. As an adult (now an illustrator myself) I've done research as to who's broken brain spews this sweet stuff out. One name that I kept running into was James Groman. An amazing illustrator, James has been designing toys for 20 years and worked on my favorite line of all time, Madballs. He was kind enough to answer a few questions via email (please excuse the robotic tone of my questions) and add some insight into the world of monster faced balls.

BLARGHHH-Let's start with a simple introduction..

GROMAN-James Groman is the name. I’ve been drawing, designing and sculpting toys and model kits for about 20 years now. I may be best known as a creator and contributing artist on toy lines like: Madballs, Blurpballs, Barnyard Commandoes, Stretch Armstrong, Star Wars, and a sculptor on model kits based on The Mummy, Star Wars, Sleepy Hollow, Godzilla and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I currently work as a Children’s’ Entertainment and Product developer for American Greetings Properties in Cleveland Ohio, as well as sculpt, paint and doodle monsters as personal projects and for gallery shows whenever time allows.

BLARGHHH-How did you get involved in illustration and toy design?

GROMAN-I have been drawing and sculpting since I was hatched. Back in the 60’s when I was growing up, we had what was called Super Saturdays, and Cartooniverse. All the programming on Saturday was virtually owned by the Hanna Barberra studios with shows like: The Herculoids, Space Ghost, Galaxy Trio, Dino Boy, Frankenstien Jr., Mighty Mightor et all. This was usually followed by a marathon of Saturday afternoon monster flicks on the Weekend Movie or Saturday Drive-in Theater. There I was introduced to most of the classic Universal Monsters, Ray Harryhausen, the awesome Hammer Studios films as well a parade of way-cool B-movie monsters. I would sit in the dark like a morlock, eyes glued to the television, sculpting and etching every monster, alien or dinosaur that came across the screen.

It ended up that practice makes perfect, or at least made me good enough to be able to attend The Cleveland Institute of Art. There I majored in illustration and Graphics and minored in Cinematography. I graduated with a BFA and moved into a career as an illustrator and sculptor for major toy product and model kit companies such as: American Greetings, Hasbro, Playskool, Ertl Collectables, Cap Toys/Oddzon, Wild Planet, Playing Mantis/Polar Lights and Geometric design to name a few.

BLARGHHH-It seems like you'd be a big Tales From the Crypt fan. Can you tell us some influences?

GROMAN-I love the old E.C. comics Tales From the Crypt, and have studied the artwork of many of the great artists that worked on that comic magazine. I also grew up reading later day magazines like Creepy, Eerie, Boris Karloff Presents, and the Marvel comics titles: Where Monsters Dwell, Where Creatures Roam, Werewolf by Night, Monster of Frankenstien, Tomb of Dracula and Man-Thing. Artists like: Frank Frazetta, Bernie Wrightson, William Stout, Dave Stevens, Mike Ploog, Alex Niño, Nestor Redondo, Esteban Maroto and Alex Toth were all very highly influential to me. Though many have told me that they can see a big influence on my work from the early adventure cartoons of Hanna Barberra that I mentioned before.

Also, as I mentioned before, I am a huge monster move fan, the original King Kong being my all-time favorite. Just a brilliant film on so many levels. Story, artistic vision, groundbreaking special effects, music and sound effects. I don’t think there has been any one film, (other than perhaps, the original Star Wars) which has influenced more artists and filmmakers than that 1933 classic.

I love the classic black and white films that Universal made in the 30’s and 40’s as well as the films of Ray Harryhausen, who has helped shape (or misshape) me into the man I am today.

BLARGHHH-Pick your favorite Universal Monster.

GROMAN-That would have to be the Gillman from Creature from the Black Lagoon. One of the all-time great monster designs ever created for motion pictures. I was lucky enough to be selected to sculpt the Gill-man for Geometric models official licensed model kit of the character a few years ago. If they only knew I would have done it for free…

And though the choice of the Gill-man as my favorite seemed to come to me rather quickly, it did not. I am also a huge admirer of make-up master Jack Pierce’s incredible Frankenstein Monster that has gone on to define the character.

BLARGHHH-Creech has always been my pick too! I really like Monster Squad version of him. What's your favorite Hammer version of a classic monster?

GROMAN-I love the werewolf make-up used in Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf. What I always enjoyed about the Hammer Studios horror films was as much as they followed Universal’s lead on atmosphere and drama, they always brought something new to the proverbial table. And that could be said of the awesome Victorian style werewolf played in that film by Oliver Reed.

BLARGHHH-I love the werewolf make up in that too but Christopher Lee as Dracula will always be my favorite. I prefer him to Lugosi. Speaking of monsters (clever segue huh?), you worked on a comic called Buce N Gar after school. Was it self-published?

GROMAN-Buce & Gar (now spelled Boose & Gar) was published by my friend Robert Kraus with his company RAK Graphics. We traveled the country doing comic book shows and promoting B&G to the comic-buying public for a number of years back in the early 1990’s. This was a very enjoyable time of my life, talking to all the people who loved the books and the characters across the U.S. I recently ran into a guy in California that used to buy Buce & Gar when he was a kid. I happily handed him the new, collected edition of the books that I recently self-published. It made my day.

BLARGHHH-That's awesome! The new edition was a long time in the making. An entire issue was lost right?

GROMAN-Actually, it was the final 7 pages of the entire 100 page, 5-issue story arc. It was lost at the printers along with two full color pieces of cover art. Broke my heart. Years later Bob Krause showed up at my studio with an envelope he found with my lost pages. I was so happy that I published the complete 5 issue run as a collected volume, which is available through KaBlam comic publishers and my website. Though it was done early in my career, I think it is still a fun read.

BLARGHHH-Then your first toy job was at American Greetings right out of college?

GROMAN-Yup. I always fancied myself doing paperback book covers, comics and film design while attending school, but being hired by American Greetings product development division set me on the path of a career in toy design. Never saw it coming, but it’s kept a roof over my family’s head ever since.

BLARGHHH-Can you tell us the origins of the Madball line? Any significant predecessors?

GROMAN-I was originally hired at AG because my style seemed to be a good fit for the work being done on Madballs and a couple action figure lines they were working on. The idea of Madballs seemed to come from a toy concept based on Hot Potato. Some designers at AG started drawing the toy potatoes with goofy faces on them. This seemed to click with everyone, and before long the concept had jettisoned it’s hot potato origins and evolved into the horrendous monstrosities that we have come to know and love. Most of the artists working on the balls at that time were quite talented illustrators who drew from their knowledge of E.C. comics, Eerie and Creepy horror comics with a wink to Big Daddy Roth. You see, AG is mostly known or cute and cuddly critters like Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and Holly Hobby, so working on something as irreverently horrific like Madballs was a form of therapy for some of us.

BLARGHHH-You worked on BOTH lines of Madballs (80's and 00's). What was your involvement with the 80's line?

GROMAN-I came in after most of wave 1, 2 and 3 had been designed. What I was recruited for was to work on the lesser-known Madballs action figure line. This I dove into with reckless abandoned. I designed a couple of the wave 1 figures, and almost all of wave 2.

BLARGHHH-Who were the other designers involved?

GROMAN-Madballs concepts and designs came from many different people. Some of the ideas came from art directors who never put a pencil to paper, but still were instrumental in their inception. Many of them are still very good friends of mine to this day. The artists were James Elliott, Mark Spangler, Vint Gonsor and Tom Kuebler. Kuebs is a well known sculptor these days, and you can find some of his amazing work on his website: www.tskuebler.com/

Other folks who were instrumental in the creation of the balls were George Chanter and Ralph Shafer. All of us were part of the American Greetings division called Those Characters From Cleveland who was responsible for many of AG’s most memorable characters.

BLARGHHH-Can you discuss your process in designing toys?

GROMAN-Most of the time my approach depends on the project on which I am working. It usually starts with a discussion on what the toy is, and what the expectations are for its features and aesthetic. How big is it? Does it have electronics? What is its price point at retail? I know, it doesn’t sound like that much fun,…but most of the time that is exactly what a toy designer needs to take into consideration when designing most toy product. The cool thing about Madballs was they really didn’t have a ‘demonstrable feature’ or mechanism. The main feature of Madballs was all-aesthetic. It was all about the unique, imaginative monstrous designs.

A lot of times I will brainstorm with other artists and creatives working on the line, or I just sit down and start jotting down ideas and thumbnail drawings. When my concept roughs are approved, I then move into more finished designs, many times moving into color. If the design makes it through the many in-office product reviews, concept and licensee approvals. It more than likely then moves on to the prototype or model stage. Many times I will be called on to create style control drawings, (often referred to as schematics or orthographic views) of the toy and it’s various parts. I will create highly detailed drawings of the character, accessory or vehicle from multiple angles so that the sculptors and model makers can create 3-dimensional versions of the toys I have designed. While at Hasbro toys I usually oversaw the sculpting process as well as the choices of color for paint on the models. Keep in mind that I have greatly simplified the process here as to not to bore your readers with too many details.

BLARGHHH-Haha, I'm actually fascinated by it. As someone who appreciates toys I have very little knowledge about the process of making them. Were there any designs that were deemed "too gross" back then?

GROMAN-I don’t remember too many designs back in the eighties being too gross to be released. But I do remember having to cut back a bit on the red blood paint operations on the balls. We had to turn alot of the bloody deco into the green slime that has become synonymous with the line. But we do have a few designs in the new line that had to be pulled. One was a gangster riddled with bullet holes, and the other (not designed by me, I might add) involved a wonderful mouthful of maggots.

We did have one character whose name had to be changed for reasons that I think most of you will understand. His original name was Crack Head, and that is the name that appeared when he originally shipped in the 1980’s. Later product shipped with a small sticker over that name on the backer card. His new name had been changed to Bash Brain, which it remains to this day.

BLARGHHH-The one I have definitely has Crack Head stamped on the back. Aside from the balls themselves there was a ton of Madball merchandise. And MOUTHFUL OF MAGGOTS?! How much would it cost me to get that made? Oh god. Anyway, back to the questions: What was the weirdest related product you worked on?

GROMAN-Wow. Weren’t Madballs pretty weird themselves?

BLARGHHH-Haha, point taken.

GROMAN-Well, a lot of the other Madball product was designed by whatever licensee had picked up the license from American Greetings. But I will tell you the weirdest stuff I have seen are the countless Madball tattoos on various parts of the human anatomy people have sent me over the years.

And yes, I have considered getting one myself.

BLARGHHH-More in the 80's than now, Madballs had a fair share of imitators and bootlegs. What was it like seeing something you'd worked on be copied like that?

GROMAN-Well, most of us saw it as an educational experience. It taught us at American Greetings that we needed to be prepared to follow up a successful toy line like Madballs with new, fresh product. Because if your not prepared for success with new product ready to ship, you give all the rip-off companies a chance to line the shelves with copy-cat merchandise that waters down the market for your product.

BLARGHHH-Do you have any insight as to why "gross-out" toys (Garbage Pail Kids, Mad Scientist, Boglins, Madballs) became so popular in the 80s?

GROMAN-All of us in the toy industry are constantly trying to find the next big trend in toys. Every once in a while you come across an empty space on the toy shelf that if you fill it, creates a whole new category in the marketplace. I’m not sure who is responsible for the wave of ‘gross-out’ products in the 1980’s, but I know that we at AG and TCFC are partially to blame. I suggest that it started with Garbage Pail Kids collector cards (who were continuing a tradition begun by the wonderfully infamous Mars Attacks cards), and we took it to the toy shelves.

BLARGHHH-You were also the sole designer of Blurp Balls is that right? They may be my favorite toys after Madballs.

GROMAN-Yes, I had the pleasure of being the sole designer of that line. But I must in good conscience remind everyone that an imaginative guy that goes by the name Rick Reising penned the names of the Blurp Balls characters. Rick still works with me here at American Greetings Properties, and has been instrumental in christening our new Madball characters with their perspective monikers as well.

I might mention that one of my favorite Blurp Ball characters was never made. He was an astronaut that fired a satellite from his mouth. His name was Up-Chuck Yeager.

BLARGHHH-You're blowing my mind here. Up-Chuck Yeager is maybe the funniest thing I've ever heard. Whose idea were Blurp Balls?

GROMAN-Once again, ‘success has many fathers, failure is an orphan’, so many different stories exist on the creation of Blurp Balls. I know that I was in the brainstorm at American Greetings that initiated the concept, and that its origins are quite bizarre. As I remember it, a young lady in our group brought a rubber monster prop she had bought in California to our meeting. For some strange reason we ended up putting a Madball into the creature’s mouth. When the critter’s soft rubber body was squeezed, the Madball shot across the room and launched the Blurp Balls toy line.

BLARGHHH-What were the differences in designing Blurp Balls as opposed to Madballs?

GROMAN-Actually the thought processes were somewhat similar. Though we tried to brainstorm characters that inherently involved a kind of ‘side-kick’ character or prop that they might ‘blurp’ out. Like a cat and mouse, dinosaur and caveman, Baseball catcher and baseball, Vampire and heart, ect. And we also decided to pull back a bit on the gross out factor of the AG in comparison to their Madball cousins. I think we had been beginning to see a slight opposition at retail to toys that were too disgusting and gross in nature.

But I believe that we still were able to sneak a bit of that Madball disgustablity into the line.

BLARGHHH- I'd say so! Croaky Bugchuck is really nasty! I mean not as nasty as Splitting Headache. So, what was it like when you got hired on to redesign Madballs?

GROMAN-It was magical. When I came back to American Greetings they had already started bringing back the Madballs line, so I dug in and battled to claim it as my own. I think my excitement an enthusiasm helped everyone believe that I was okay to be trusted with working on the designs for the Madballs brand, so I went to work. Other folks at AG Properties who were instrumental in the relaunch of the new Madballs product line were Jeffery Conrad, Anthony Davila, Rick Reising, and Judi Schuman.

BLARGHHH-So, I've seen photos of a third series of Madballs floating around on various blogs along with the design artwork. Are those ever happening?

GROMAN-The product line at Basic Fun toys (the company licensing and manufacturing the Madballs toys) is on hold at the moment. But artwork of the characters of which you speak has appeared on sticker sheets, greeting cards, wrapping paper, hats, shirts and other print product. I am hoping that they will be made into toy product as well. Truth be told, we have about 80 additional characters that are part of the Madballs brand that have never been seen by human eyes. Even I drew them while blindfolded.

BLARGHHH-80!? There were also sweet King Kong and Godzilla-esque designs (as well as a lady and an android) on some of the new sticker sheets. Also a no go?

GROMAN-Only for the moment, my friend. Only for the moment. They will eventually see the light of day if I have anything to say in the matter. As far as the King Kong and Godzilla designs, they are based on two of my favorite movie monsters. You all know that the original Horn Head Madball is loosely based on the way-cool Cyclops in Ray Harryhausen’s film 7th Voyage of Sinbad, don’t you? Well, now you do!

BLARGHHH-Did you have anything to do with those little European Madballs?

GROMAN-Actually, yes. That company chose a few of our lesser-known designs from the new set of 80 characters that were created last year. I had some help on those designs by some buddies of mine at AG. Artists Carlos Villagra and Saxton Moore. This licensee did a great job on the sculpts, too. If you can hunt those down, I would recommend it. They are awesome, and they squirt water too!

BLARGHHH-Yeah I love them! Will there be more?

GROMAN-As always, it will be based on the sales of the existing line. I sure hope they do more, because of the quality they obtained with their first wave of product. And as I said, we have about eighty more characters for them to choose from.

BLARGHHH-Please stop reminding me that there's 80 Madballs I can't have. What's in the future for you?

GROMAN-Well, at American Greetings we have a number of very cool entertainment projects that I am part of that will be on the air very soon. One of them is an amazing action adventure property with lots of creatures and sci fi hardware. I continue to work with all the incredibly creative folks at AG on the characters, vehicles and backgrounds for all the various shows we will be launching in the coming year!

I have recently got back into sculpting again with a new 23 inch tall resin figure called The Zombot Ghoul which I am producing and marketing on my blog. I have been contacted by a collectable company about a sculpting commission, and begun work on stories for a couple comic book companies. I have also just got copies from the printer of what I am calling ‘an illustrated screenplay’. It is a script I wrote a few years back that I have had published in book form with a number of highly detailed black and white illustrations. It is called ‘Monster Hunter’ and is also available in my blogstore.

I like being busy, and am somewhat schizophrenic. I love to draw, paint, sculpt and write, and try to do all of these on a regular basis. So if anyone is ever curious about what I am working on at any given time, just hop on over to www.jgroman.blogspot.com and find out. And leave a comment while your there. Always love hearing what people have to say about my work.

A Journey Into the Unknown Part 4: Don't Call It a Come-BLECH!

2012-01-11T16:00:00.000-08:00

Hello fiends and revenants! I know it's been a while since I dished up some ghoulish 80's monster ball madness but it wasn't due to laziness. In the 10 (!!) months since my last post I've been on trips to Ireland/England, Maine, Vermont/Massachusetts/Connecticut, and Portugal. On top of that I've been focusing on my H.P. Lovecraft monster blog( Yog-Blogsoth) as well as doing gallery shows and freelance work.

While there hasn't been much time for ball blogging, there has been plenty of time for ball buying! I've scored some gems in the past year and I'm going to start posting them again. The first batch are all inflatable rubber rip offs, about the size and shape of an authentic Madball, much like the 5 original Sadballs. Saint Sadball Of Orb. There's a lot of pics to make up for lost time, so enjoy!
Our first new entry is this dillhole. A creepy wannabe that I scored in a lot on ebay. I've seen this guy around but only just got one for myself. He's an excellently sculpted, super gross skull-thing with a huge bulging eyeball. The scar tissue around said eye and completely covering the other eye makes it look like his face is a huge zit that has just been popped. I think the blue and red color combo helps with that as well. He has a weird set of stitches on his head that may be baseball stitches? I dunno...he doesn't look anything like a baseball except for that. OH! I almost forgot to name him. Let's go with Baseboil...that sums him up!

God, this Peter Lorre lookin' dude (Peter Gory!) that's next kinda sucks. He's not really a monster as much as an extremely ugly guy with a pirate patch. I guess he does have that scar above his patched eye and that patch has a pupil?! He's also not really shaped like a ball, but kinda like a nut. Thumbs down!
Our next malformed mutilated monster, is an extreme mess. Don't get me wrong, Two Eyed Willy here is pretty neat (way better than Peter Gory), but he just looks a bit...off? There's a lot of detail but everything seems wonky, like a child drew the original sketch. Again, we have a skull-thing creature, with parts of his skin still on but sloughing off? He also has an eye patch but for some reason it's covering up, what appears to be, a fully functional eye. It does have some pizza sauce beneath it so maybe he's just a messy eater and the patch is like an eye bib? His gnarly fang mouth is cool, as well as his skeletal no-nose, but they're all crooked and skewed. Definitely a weird one.
These next two are really bizarre. Whoever designed them was on mescaline or peyote or whatever monster ball designers use, but maybe they used too much. Obed Marsh here is a crazy fish-human hybrid, with bulgy (look at the detail) eyes, tiny fins and tropical colors. He also has human teeth, nose and tongue and for some reason two sets of lips? I love this dude, but the back has absolutely nothing goin on. Junkless trunk.
His compatriot (Ball Of Confusion) defies all logic. Same over the top color scheme but with a...ummm....I guess I'll start with his mouth? What's going on there?! Did he get punched and it turned green? Is he half dinosaur?! Why only 2 perfect teeth (not fangs even)?! His one small eye seems to be sheathed in some sort of...skin flap...ew, while his other huge eye has growths on it! The rest of his face is covered in orange scars! Don't forget the huge blue eyebrows and reptile nose! WHAT?! So cool.
Next, Fr-acne-stein is like the Monster Ball Frankenstein was sent through a James Groman machine. Much more gruesome and without that 50's retro style, this guy has a horrid orange color, with red patches of zits on his cheeks. The green scar on his head is super pronounced and delicately sculpted as are the bolts on his neck/chin. The half shut eyes add to his overall deathlike appearance and he's got a cool slick backed hair style. I do miss the classic Frankenstein flat top, but all his grossness more than makes up for that!

Last and kinda not least is this goblin inspired sadball I've named Ballgoroth. He's not the most exciting dude in the world but he gets points for an interesting design. His huge floppy nose and tiny peg-teeth are pretty cool. His face is all wrinkly and saggy too! I checked his bottom (photo coming soon) and he's got a familiar Emson Freaky Fred stamp! He's related to these guys! Why his name is exactly the same is beyond me but he now resides very close to his brothers...what the hell is wrong with me?!

In conclusion, these are all (except for one, and he knows who he is) cool and worth grabbing, but good luck finding them. The only one that I've ever seen pop up before is Baseboil. Anyway, I've got something REALLY cool in store for next week. A two year old interview I did with James Groman himself!! See you next week nerds!

Unwanted and unloved...

2011-03-29T14:16:00.001-07:00

"No Comment"

So there's a little story that goes with this weeks grossos. Not even a story, a blurb really. When I found these guys on ebay, there were two lots of them from the same seller, each lot with 10 balls. They both looked the same so I randomly picked one and bid $4. Then I notice a note from the seller in the description that said (and I'm paraphrasing here, because the auction has been removed) "I don't know why anyone would want these but if you must have them feel free to bid". HA!
I thought that was the extent of the seller's hatred for these dudes until I won and received both lots in the mail! I guess no one bid on the second lot and he couldn't stand to have them around his house, glaring at him and mocking him with their awfulness.

I mean they are weird and ugly but not that bad. When they arrived they were mostly loose but a few were still in their mesh net packaging and there were a couple with the tags on.

Novelty Inc. , a company from Greenfield, Indiana is the responsible party but I'll cut them some slack because it looks like monster headed balls aren't their usual market. They make christian trinkets, energy drinks and smoking accessories. Huh? Anyway, they really did just churn these dudes out and move on. Only three sculpts, no packaging and no names. Like someone at the factory go coerced into making them. Obligation fulfilled, now leave me alone. First off, we have a dude I'll call Randy. He's kinda just a guy with some stitches and a flat-top. Like the rest this guy is soft squeezable rubber that was filled with slime. So when you applied pressure the slime would push out the holes in his eyes and mouth. After years of sitting on a shelf, not only has the rubber hardened but the slime is now just a tacky glistening ball.

Anyway, Other than his cauliflower ear, there's not much to this dude. His features are distorted enough that I don't find him boring but he's not a monster.
This next guy is a cool skull. He was in some sort of accident that knocked out a tooth, cracked his top, exposing his brain and gave him little cuts all over his skull.....which bled. Wait? What? Despite his slime holes, you can see he was once a blue eyed boy...but wait, what's that under his eye then? It can't be an eyeball cus, he's still got those. Well it looks like a Cadburry Egg with the top cut off. Either that or it's a piece of...oops. Let's call him Brown Eye. I may make fun of hte logic of it, but the details and lopsidedness are actually pretty appealing. Frankensloth is our final subject and my favorite. He looks like some disgusting orc from Lord Of the Rings. The oversized tear drop eyes and the wagging blue tongue are really gnarly but what gets me the most are those teeth. Horribly blackened gums and tiny pegs of teeth barely breaking the skin. Ew.

In conclusion, these dudes are kinda simple but neat, especially when you consider how much detail is crammed onto such a small space (1.5" diameter). I don't think you'll be able to find them anywhere but if you really want one I can part with a few. After all I have 20!

Crossover Madness!!

2011-03-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

Hey dudes, I just realized I forgot to post a link to this awesome toy crossover. Toypedia (an excellent site you should bookmark) did a feature on Eraser Bouncing Bad Bad Balls! I reshot them for the post so you should check it out for some more detailed pics. Also, check back regularly for all your tiny rubber toy needs.

Ready...Aim....BLURP!!!!

2011-03-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

"They Retch It! You Catch It!"

Hey dudes! I know it's been a really, long time but I've been super busy with art. That doesn't mean that I've been slacking on the Madballs/ripoffs collecting front. On the contrary, I've scored some awesome bootlegs in the past few months that will make their way on to this blog soon enough. In the meantime, I wanted to do a special deluxe post for my 1 year anniversary of blogging. So.....I present you with the closest thing to an "official" Madballs ripoff...BLURP BALLS!!!What makes them "official" is that they were designed (soley) by James Groman, one of the designers of the original Madballs series and the 2007 reboot (not to mention Food Fighters and Barnyard Commandos). Ertl (famous for toy trucks) brought Blurp Balls to the table in the mid 90's way after the gross out trend had died but they tried to expand on the idea by adding projectiles into the mix. Essentially, making the toys barf or blurp.

These things are slightly larger than Madballs and the material is similar to the soft rubber of Sadballs but a little more durable, which allows better paint jobs.

I managed to get my hands on two of these dudes MOC but as you can see the packaging leaves a lot to be desired. There's huge amounts of open space, the text is blocky and irregular. It just all seems dated. And that drawing...ugh. It reminds me of some 4th tier Image comic that would have a preview in the back of Shadowhawk.
The back is simple in a good way but still...that orange..oof! The back provides pics of the rest of the dudes, and that's where the real joy is. While the packaging may suck, the toys themselves are amazing. They even have funny names like Count Heave-a-heart!
As with any toy that fires a projectile there are some hilarious warnings. I mean, they're soft rubber nubs that shoots out of a ball when you squeeze it, how bad could that hurt you?

Before we get to our actual fiendish friends, I have another version of the packaging for you. This one is an Italian card that I scored from an online toystore. Everything about the toys is exactly the same and the Ertl name is still present but there's another company (perhaps just Italian distributor?) named Giochi Preziosi stamped all over the thing. They've replace the garish orange with a technicolor swirl that I somehow like better?

I know this is gonna sound like I'm making a joke, but I swear to you that the Italian one smelled like cheese when I opened it up.
Babel Fish is basically useless, so I have no name translations for you, although, I'm pretty sure Vampir is just Vampire. Teeth Something, Shark Something, Something Cat...that's all I got. Let's get to it then, shall we?
Biff Barfball is the first one up (get it?). He's probably my least favorite because he's kinda just a guy that got beat up and then caught a cold but went to baseball practice anyway. He's not a zombie or a monster or a messed up animal. Just a dude. I guess it's cool that he swallowed that ball, and he is sculpted very well. All of these have an astonishing (that's right, astonishing) amount of detail.

Here's his blurp (I don't know, what would you call it?!) up close. It's a baseball and it's got his teeth embedded in it as well as splashes of blood on the top and bottom. Ehhh....it's ok but kinda boring. I guess the teeth gross me out a little because I think of getting hit in the mouth with a baseball. My second favorite is the immaculate Count Heave-a-heart. A super wrinkley vampire with pointy ears a bad complexion, and beady little yellow eyes! Despite all the spiders, cobwebs and bats clinging to him, the Count still find time to dress nicely with a purple high collared jacket and dress shirt with skull cufflinks. I wish I looked that good. Oh check out those sideburns too!!
That's all well and good but what makes nasty nosferatu even better is that his blurp is an anatomical heart!! This is actually pretty accurate for its scale and material and even has muscle ridges and veins!Normally I wouldn't really care for monster balls that are modeled after animals but Croaky Bugchuck here is really disgusting. He's dripping with ooze from his mouth, he's covered in bugs and the texture of the rubber he's made out of almost make it feel like you're holding a real frog. Weird! I especially like the contrast of the dark green skin and light yellow eyes. Nice touch.
Croaky's blurp is by far my favorite. It's a gross little fly with huge red eyes and a puckered purple sucker. No shortcuts here, all six legs are present and he's clinging onto some awful black snotball or something. Ewww!
Skulls are always popular, especially when it comes to monster faced balls. Boney Tossteeth is the Blurp Ball version and it's a cool one! He's still got eyes deep in his sockets which is a plus and somehow his brains are coming out through the bottom of his skull?! Not only that but there's a rattle snake in there!! WHAT?! How and why does that happen?! While those are all confusing components, what really throws me for a loop is how a skull has lips, and why is he spitting his flesh covered teeth at me!?Maybe these are supposed to be dentures but I get the impression that they're a separate part of his anatomy that can launch at will! This cheesy smelling dude is my favorite. I love dinosaurs. I also love false history where dinosaurs and cavemen hung out. Tyrannosaurus Retch is an amazing example of all that. He's gorgeously molded and very highly detailed, with a lizard and dragonfly on his back, bumpy ridges and scaled all over him and a spear stuck in his hide! I'm really into how his arms, legs and tail all tuck underneath him to retain the ball shape.
His blurp is also really detailed on par with the fly. A little caveman holding his nose and wearing a Flintstones style one piece! YES! Look at his tongue flapping in the wind! I've already made up my own story about how these two wound up together but I won't share it and ruin it for you. Come up with your own!Retch-a-rat Tomcat is similar to Croaky Bugchuck but not as gnarly. He honestly just looks like some of the strays in my neighborhood, which is sad not cool. I do love the detail of his fur and paw pads but hes honestly a little boring. I think I do like the animal ones but this one isn't doing it for me.

However, his blurp is really amazing. He's a cute little rat with a bandaide on his butt! I'm sure he was so filthy that even that disgusting tomcat had to spit him out. The look on his face! Love!Last but not least is the best of the animal designs. Sharky Skullsquirt wins points just for being a shark but he's also really well designed. He's covered in wrinkles and jabbed with a hook and a harpoon (we won't talk about the really poorly rendered blob-of-a-lamprey on his butt) as well as drooling blood all over hmself!

His blurp is amazing too. A skull (with eyes again....I love that) of a diver, maybe the d-bag that tried to harpoon him and failed.

Before I wrap this up, I thought I'd show you some close ups of some of the more impressive monsters so you could see why I'm so impressed. In conclusion...DO IT! These toys are really amazing and surpass most nonbootleg monster ball toys. The level of intricacy and design are top notch. James Groman's signature gross-out style come delivers the goods. Not to mention they hold up really well due to the rubber they're made out of.

As much as I love these dudes, it's hard for me to recommend them to other collectors solely for the fact that they are super expensive. Most of the ones I've seen on ebay MOC are $75. Most of mine I hunted down in vintage toy stores, message board trades, and craigslist. That's actually a funny story.

I google-searched "Blurp Ball Craigslist" and actually found a listing for Retch-a-rat Tomcat and Croaky Bugchuck from some dude in Rochester, NY who was asking for $10 for both! Not only did the purchase go smoothly but I also discovered he's in a power metal band called Children Of The New Sun!!!

A Journey Into the Unknown Part 3: Motley Spew

2011-01-29T15:21:00.000-08:00

If you guys have been reading this blog for the past few weeks, you know that I had a very fruitful two month Sadball hunt. For some unknown reason ebay has been a gold mine for the crud. A crud mine. Working in the crud mine. Ummmm....anyway, this week's post is gonna be dedicated to seven (!) inflatable rubber Sadballs I scored in December and January. Most of these dudes I'd never even seen before they were auctioned, but there's a few that I'd been coveting for a lonnnnngggg time. Either way, get ready for some bad made up pun names.
First off is one of the dudes I've been eyeballing since I started collecting Mad/Sadballs. I initially saw him in a pic on the Skullbrain board of a bin of Madballs at the Mishka headquarters. I have absolutely no idea what the hell this guy is or what line he's from but there's been rumors that he's from some sort of Ghostbusters line? Google searches have provided little info and by little I mean none. Despite his elusiveness, he's awesome and I shall name him Face Face! I love the two faces, and not just double faces but faces that share an eye! It's like a Frankenstein but not stitched together. More like he's grown that way as some sort of orange mutant! He does have stitches, but not sewn together ones. He was probably in a bad car accident and got fixed up. I suppose driving with three eyes would give you a better view, but maybe not. I'm glad he's ok. This dude (Pain Toad!) is amazing! I absolutely love him, like I would marry him if I were a Madball. He's well painted, sculpted and has beautiful eyes. Wait, what?! Is that a frog in his freakin' eye!? Yes, yes it is. I mean that frog is genius. Without it he'd be another Argh mimic, but with it, he's got an amazing mysterious back story. Was he on a joy ride in a convertible and a toad slapped him in the peeper? That would explain his grimace and car accident stitches. Why are they all driving? None of them have arms? I should rethink my theories.
Next up, is a toothy Skull Face imitation. I'd seen him only one other time in a huge overpriced ebay lot but admired his exaggerated smile, buck teeth and horrible head gash. Seriously, it looks like someone's making meatballs in a wound. That's nasty. I probably wouldn't have called him out as knock off if it weren't for those eyes. He's got lips and even veins on his head, but the keyhole shape sockets is one of the Skull Face's signature features. I mean, either way its a pretty cool stylization of a skull and very well designed and painted. I'm having trouble namin-wait! Brain Ball Bill! Yes!
Toot-enkamen here is obviously an homage to our dear friend Dust Brain. He doesn't have as much detail but I enjoy the crisp edges of his paintjob and the fact that his one eye is all out of whack. He must've had some serious birth defect, because that thing is way high and poppin' out through the bandage! Not to mention they're both weeping rust colored goo, even the squinty one. The ancient Egyptians may not have had proper eye care but dang did they have good dentists. Look at those pristine chompers! Well, there's some gaps, but they're beautifully white and square.
Our new friend actually isn't that new. We talked about him a few posts ago in a smaller format. I just had no idea they made a full sized version of him. Weird.
I'm naming this sorry nerd Snaggle Fink due to his prodigious incisor and his ho-hum appearance. Not much goin on here. Just a green dude with a chip on his shoulder. I still like him though..
Actually, I felt similarly about Winnie the Puke here. I don't know if they're from the same line but they have a lot in common. Snaggle Fink is completely new to me. I only know he exists because a fellow collector on Little Rubber Guys sent him to me out of the kindness of his heart. Or because he knows I'm an idiot that gets really excited about stupid balls. These last two are two of my favorites out of this recent haul. Full of detail, gross barfy colors, odd accoutrement. You know, when you go out on the town you need your dressy bat hat and centipede veil. This guys is obviously yet another Skull Face rip off but there's so much flare and weirdness. Honestly, the more I look at that hideous color and that deformed ear, the more I wanna barf. Which is the point.
This handsome fellow is a bit familiar though. We looked at his striking younger brother in the same post as Toot-enkamen's sibling. Yup, it's a giant Trog! He stole my heart as a ping pong sized grosso and now he's doing it as a regular ball sized dude. Up close, and with this paint job, he also bears a resemblance to Purple People Eater, to the point that I'm almost positive that they're from the same manufacturer. Last but certainly not least is this bizarre, football shaped moron. I love Gridiron Grin but jeez what a weirdo. He's got those lazy grape shaped eyes, that tiny nose, and those bizarre domino teeth. But seriously, the most disgusting part is the double set of lips. What sick weirdo would think of that and make me look at it? I hate/love it. As with all these acquisitions, Gridiron has no markings. There's no "Made In", no manufacturer stamp, no date, nothin. Mysterious indeed.

In conclusion....don't try to get stuff like this cus you'll probably be bidding against me on ebay and that pisses me off. Seriously though, I think there's another Brain Ball Bill up right now and he's well worth the price. Go for it!

Un-bead-lievable!

2011-01-26T09:11:00.000-08:00

"No Comment"

Madballs. Their existence prompted so many forgeries by so many no name companies trying to make a quick buck, that it boggles the mind. To this day I still uncover monster balls that I had never seen before. They inspired a staggering plethora of mimicry, making the gross-face-ball collector sigh in frustration. And while the copies similar in shape and size are plenty enough, there's the smaller bouncy balls to contend with too. And as I recently discovered. The microscopic!

A member of the Littlerubberguys forum posted that she had a bunch of these Sadball beads for sale and I hopped on it. Each one is about half and inch in diameter and has a hole on one side and a peg on the other so you can string them together as a necklace when you go to your next debutante (mad)ball.
There are eight different characters here, some varying slightly and most recognizable from other sets and series. It's not the character design here that's impressive, it's the sheer tininess! These are the smallest Madball ripoffs I've ever encountered!
Ok, so our first friend is a very surprised pink ape that I'm dubbing Gore-illa. I really like this design (especially the fangs) and I've never seen this design before! I'm really shocked that there aren't more gorilla themed sadballs. Secondovly, is a screwy vampire-ish guy. He's not really that special but an ok monster. Bug eyes, gnarly teeth..the usual. We can call him...Nosferatooth. His neighbor is a generic Argh rip off, so he doesn't get named. Be more original if you want a name, nerd! Argh forgeries are always fun though so I can't completely hate on him. The detail is there at least, which is impressive for dudes this small. They're all highly rendered.
This dental duo are variations on the Skull Face theme. The blue dude being more of an outright copy than the yellow. Bone Brain, as I'll call him, has more of a lip that Skull Face and one eye in a large socket and an empty smaller hole on the left. He's even got a vestigial nose. Still, not the most impressive alterations but a nod for trying.
Our last trio starts off with a pair of Dust Brain copies. Like the Skull Face ones, the first is an exact (though tiny) duplicate, while the other has subtle changes. Band Ache (ooh I like that one) is a little more rotten and has less bandages. His teeth are less perfect as well, making him look like a putrid mummy rather than a dry one. Last but not least, is this fake Horn Head. He looks extra familiar because he's not only a Horn Head rip off but a copy of this dude we covered a few weeks ago.
He's got those same bulgy eyes, a nose that grows out of his palette, gap teeth, and that odd sunshine design on his forehead. Unlike, his big brother he's got ears and an actual horn, but neither are cyclopses.

In conclusion...get these! They're fun, cheap, really well sculpted with more detail than they ought to have. You can try here at Sherrie's store Kinikumart. I'm not sure if they're still up but she's really nice so inquire!

A Mystery Of Ep-ick Proportions!

2011-01-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

"Collecte 12"

Hey dudes! I've got a sweet mystery for you this week. Actually, it's not a mystery as much as an observation, because I solved the mystery part already. It's probably not that interesting of a story either, unless you're into fake Madballs...which, if you subscribe this blog, you are!
This duo of bouncy blasphemies were auctioned off separately by the same seller on eBay and advertised as unopened, mint condition Madball knock-offs called Odd Balls. I've seen Odd Balls before and they're usually the six original Sadballs repackaged. I had never seen either of these molds before so I attacked those auctions with nerdy force. And prevailed!

When they arrived, I got a sneaking suspicion that these weren't Odd Balls after all. I mean I've seen those Sadballs packaged as Horror Balls and Monster Balls but it's always the same six guys. So the new designs were my first clue but then also.... the packages had been opened then restapled.
I can't necessarily blame the seller for this because a company set on bootlegging Madballs probably doesn't have any scruples when it comes to repacking stuff. But I also notice that the Odd Balls card says "Odd Balls are re-inflatable". Well, these guys are not, they're straight up foam. The final nail in the coffin was vague sense of familiarity. The Horn Head specifically. In my many "rip off Madballs", "imitation Madballs", "fake Madballs" google image searches, I came across the above image, from an X-entertainment article about monster balls. I remember gazing at the vertical two eyed Horn Head (aka K-6) with longing. It's a cool design! To further prove my point, I'll ask the jury to look at exhibit K-1, who's unique head injury matches our "Odd Ball" exactly! We have Krazy Balls in the guise of Odd Balls in the guise of Madballs! Ohhhh the villainy!!

Anyway, check this crap out! This guy rules!! Known in monster circles as K-6, he's obviously gunning for Horn Head's position in the gross ball world. It's too bad he's so budget though. While, I love the two vertical eyes design, it's not executed with much precision. It kinda looks like a brain damaged 8 year old drew a Madball and had no capital for production. I do like the blobby brains coming out of the back of his head but that's not enough to make him good.
Oooofa! When you look at them side by side you can really see why AmCo garnered all that praise from kids looking for something gross. The detail and refinement is unparalleled (aside from Rude Ralph and Weird Balls). K-6 is painted without the subtle gradients that Horn Head displays. You can also see the teeth not only go back in space but have gums showing. K-6's are clumsy triangles and that's all.

I should say that despite all this bashing I am quite fond of these dummies. They have a vulgar charm all their own. And I have to applaud them for trying to elaborate on an idea rather than just stealing one. Next up, K-1. This dude is kind of a counterfeit Crack Head but in subject matter only. They're both victims of some sort of horrid beating or accident but they don't really look alike. K-1 has a garish vacant tooth smile and one long stitched wound bisecting his face. He's also got hair and...gulp...that disgusting gash on his head! That's really the perk that sells this jerk. The bunched up skull in the front and the straight smooth divot from front to back...ew. It almost looks like someone was looking at actual corpses while they designed this. Maybe Tom Savini drew it up or something.
Again, you can see the contrast in quality from one to the other. The paint variations and accuracy are so beautiful on Crack Head and K-1 looks like garbage! Totally unprepared for the photo shoot!

In conclusion....if you can get these guys as either Krazy Balls or Odd Balls you should. You shouldn't pay a ton, but they're a great addition to any knock off collection. Way better than Super Bouncing Weird Balls, Foul Balls and even some of the smaller knock offs Krazy Balls have a unpolished allure much like Sadballs. Happy hunting nerds!

A Ball To Arms!!

2011-01-03T10:55:00.000-08:00

"Wild Bizarre Bounce!"

First things first. I should apologize for my current photo set up. I broke the bulb in the lamp I usually use so I have to use Jeanne's super high powered Gremlin thwarting light. It works but it casts some crazy shadows. I'll get a new bulb and pics for the next post should be better.

You can see what I have to work with here, and why it's so hard to get a picture without hair in it. That's Vinegar and luckily he has no interest in Madballs other than when I'm photographing them. Enough talk about stuff that isn't balls. Jeez!
This week, we have an awesome Xmas score from eBay. I found these Bizarre Balls while present hunting and managed to grab an entire set for $2! I had never even seen these dudes before the auction so...yay!

They arrived in a box with the manufacturer's logo on it, making me think an ex-employee was ditching some basement surplus. You can see a pic in this post.
Look at that 90's graphic design! Holy crap the colors! Swirls and explosions and that notebook print thing...it's like the opening credits to Saved By the Bell or a Trapper Keeper on acid!

I do love the mascot/logo of the Cool Products Corp. A little ice cube with shades? Yup. It's cool figuratively and literally.

Looking at the back you can tell Cool Products took this stuff seriously. Not only are there multiple characters, but they've all got names and drawings. They even tried to branch out from the other guys by adding new types of monsters and putting twists on the standards (eyeball, smiling guy). Not only that but they went all out and added......gasp....arms!

I usually like my balls to be just balls (ha!), but this is a pretty cool innovation on what, at the time, was a toy line that seemed to be dead. They're also smaller than a Madball (1.5" in diameter) and made of bouncing ball rubber. Good job Cool Products!
First up is Eye Gore. I want to take a second to appreciate how awesome that name is. It's a double pun, playing off both eye sore and Igor while adding a gruesome twist.

Soooo.....this guy is pretty neat. He's a standard eyeball bouncy ball, with lots of details in the blood vessels and a little highlight painted on his iris, but all the good stuff is in his arms. They got a surprising amount of detail in essentially two dimensional appendages. Much like the Oculus Orbus head popper, Eye Gore's arms have no skin. Just muscle and tendons. Twisty muscles and tendons with gnarled up hands and the end! Sweet!
Mutiny here is my favorite of the bunch. This was before Madballs had introduced Blech Beard, so this is a new monster face ball character. Not bad for a fourth rung rip off line. His face is really neat with lots of details like stitches, an earring, an eyepatch and cracked teeth. Those teeth are really cool. I love the way that color green pops on the red. This guys arms may win the neatest prize. One's a muscly hook arm and the other one is a skeleton arm! Ahhhhhhh! So good.
Snorrreeeee....I could do without this guy. He's supposed to be a punk or extreme sports dude or some such malarky. Well, his name's Punky, so I guess they were goin for punk. There's nothing really gross about him or monstrous aside for his beartrap green teeth. Not even stitches...even the lamest of fake Madballs have stitches. He's actually lacking on detail altogether. Meh, I'd've chosen another monster design instead of this garbage. I hope the designer of this dude reads this and cries.
Yaaaaayyyyy!!!! That's what this guy looks like he's yelling! I'm into him! he's not a monster in the normal sense but he's beat up and kinda sculpted the way Garbage Pail Kids are drawn. Swollen shut eye, a bunch of stitches, missing teeth and a giant crazy grin. That's what I like to see! His arms are kinda boring but I suppose the gloves really push the boxer thing and set him aside from a guy that just got beat up. And being from Philadelphia, I have to give Rocky some extra points for the name.
Cool, stylish, simple....classic. Frank, isn't breaking new ground but he's really well designed and sculpted. He's full of wrinkles, covered in stitches and I love those jack-o-lantern teeth. His arms are kinda lame, though. I wonder if they ran out of "arm budget" after they drew up Eye Gore and Mutiny. They have the coolest ones. It is kinda fun to make them high five each other...wait, what? No, I didn't do that. HIGH FIVE FRANKENSTEIN!!
Ok, now we're getting weird. This is just strange. I think he's supposed to be a riff on Screamin' Meemie but they just went all teeth. Like, so much teeth that they had to put dude's eyes on the back of the ball! His teeth aren't even cracked or fangs or discolored. Just huge! Oh, and he's giving us the peace/victory sign with both hands. Maybe he's Nixon inspired? I can't really say what the heck is goin on with Smiley but I think I like him. I wouldn't vote for him though.
Check out this dude's butt. The 90's for sure. Cool Products were classy. They put their stamp on each of these dudes unlike Super Bouncing Weird Balls (bane of my toy collecting existence) or Foul Balls who any of the nameless imitations that couldn't be bothered. It's nice to see someone take pride in their work. It's the monster face ball factories that power America! Well, China, and Taiwan I guess....sighhhhh.

This was right before the internet was invented so there's no website for the Cool Products Corp. and Google searches yield nothing. I hope they're somewhere still making cool products and putting as much love into them as they did these bouncy bruisers.

In conclusion...these are great! If you can get your hands on them, go for it. They hold up pretty well, they're full of detail, painted well and are an original spin on an old idea.

King Kong Played Ping Pong...

2010-12-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

"Once More...No Comment"

Hey boils and ghouls! I know I said I was gonna post about Bizarre Balls next but I think I'll save that for my first post of the new year. Especially since I already had the photos of these turds ready to go.

These are a type of fake Madball I've never seen before. They're about the size of a table tennis ball, hollow and poorly painted. I don't think they're a set, since they have no manufacturer stamped on them and the colors of the plastic vary. There are three distinct sculpts, one of which we're already familiar with. Let's look.
First up is a melty Slobulus-style ball in two colors . She's got a bunch of gross stuff, like missing teeth, bandages, a wandering eye and stitches. It's too bad the paint jobs on these are sooooo bad, because no paint at all would probably be less distracting from the cool design. That eye really bothers me. In a cool way. It's disturbing to think of how it got that high and crooked.
Next up is my personal favorite. He's an angry looking dude that's biting a snake that wraps around his head and goes under his eye and out again!! Ewwwww! The under-the-eye thing may be the grossest thing I've come across in the monster head wrangling business. His paint job is the best out of all of them (he's still go an unexplained patch of black on his nose) and it makes me wonder if the hard plastic they're made out of just doesn't hold paint very well. In honor of my friend Josh (who's obsessed with G.I. Joes), I'll name this guys Snake-Eye (or Veyeper Pilot, or Serpentorn)!
Next up is a small red version of the Sadball, Blood Bulge. You should recognize him! You guys have met before...thousands of times! Ok, maybe once before on this blog...
As you can see there is no difference between the two other than size. The gross mouth muck is still there and the odd triangle nose complete with his three hair mustache! The paint really didn't hold to this dude but the sculpt is good despite being unoriginal.

In conclusion, these are neat little monster heads and cool designs. They're also pretty durable (excluding the paint). I'd recommend them but I've hardly ever come across any. The one's I've gotten were from a trades on Little Rubber Guys and with Justin from Weirdo Toys.

__________________________________________________________________

UPDATE!

So, I won a few more of these guys as parts of lots in a recent Ebay bonanza (December and January have been good months for Madball hunting!).
This first guy is probably my favorite out of all of these ping pong guys. A ton of detail but not muddy like Slobulus and well sculpted. He's a bumpy skull with a pig nose and a disgusting centipede crawling on his face. The teeth are very reminiscent of Skull Face but other than that he's a pretty new spin on the skull ball idea. Not to mention that he's got a bat on his butt! Maybe he's some sort of gross skull head taxi that takes night creatures to their seedy destinations.

Next we have the standard Argh rip off. He's well scuplted for how small he is but nothing new. Yawn. However, both these guys have stamps on their rears! A "PG" in a circle and...gasp...names! Turns out our vermin infested friend is named Trog (this name delights me), while our Argh wannabe is named Boo. Boo-oring is more like it. You're friend is way cooler than you, Boo.

All searches for "PG Toys" are fruitless. Unless, family friendly toys are your idea of a good time. Anyway, I'm into these guys despite Boo's lack of motivation to be innovative. Trog rules the day!

Merry Christmas To Mike, and To Mike a Good Night!

2010-12-26T12:00:00.001-08:00

Hey dudes, this is just a preview of some stuff I recently found myself while shopping for other people. It all arrived 2 days before christmas! Those Bizarre Balls were an excellent score, and will probably be my next post. The water squirting Oculus was a sweet gift from a person who follows this blog in Australia! And that little suction cup Swine Sucker was an ebay purchase. Sorry to keep this short, but I'm gonna go watch Gremlins for the 4th time this season, hope your holidays are gross and yucky!!

Small Round and Out Of Control!

2010-12-13T07:28:00.000-08:00

"Still...No Comment"

Ok buds, this week we have another mystery set I scored on eBay...and they're tiny! As much as I love the full sized rip offs, the tiny bouncy balls are probably my favorite because everything is cooler in miniature.

The seller had a bunch of these and said that anyone who purchased them would get a random six, so I'm not sure if this is a full set or not. When they arrived I was surprised at how detailed they are for being 1" in diameter.
Here's our lineup, and it's a pretty handsome group, if you ask me. First off, there's the fake Dust Brain, but with bulging eyes and a really pristine grin. I like his Christmas colors! He's followed buy a mutated gorilla of some sort with a gnarly overbite. The twisted flesh around his eye and the jagged irregular teeth really get me. The next two friends look a little familiar.
They're almost exact replicas of these tiny Japanese dudes I wrote about a while ago! The only difference is the color, size and lack of pencil hole at the bottom. Buck Tooth Terrance and Yellin' Meemie make me wonder if this entire set is just a redux of those pencil toppers.
Bringing up the rear, are these amazingly monstrous twins. This guy looks dangerous, like a Critter. I really like his bug eyes, which seem to be a signature of this set, and his fangy mouth. I'm not really sure what the symbol is on his head but it does look like something that would be on a M.U.S.C.L.E. figure, furthering my Japanese theory.

Anyway, I wish I could tell you where I got these and forward you the link to the eBay store, but it was so long ago that my history has erased it. Since they're nameless and have no manufacturing info, this post is especially useless. Oh well, sighhhhh. If you can find 'em, get 'em, cus they're neat.

Something Weird This Way Comes

2010-12-01T15:28:00.000-08:00

"Dissatisfaction Guaranteed"

Hey boils and ghouls! It's been a very long time since I updated this disgusting blob of a blog. A lot's been goin' on since August. I had a show at Benna's Cafe (20 drawings of monsters inspired by D&D Monster Manuals), I went to Romania with Jeanne to hunt for Dracula, and had a bunch of last minute freelance work. Anyway, I'm back now with a second cool post about Weird Balls!

We've already discussed (or disgust) Mel Appel's unsurpassed dedication to knock offs in a post about the giant sized Weird Balls. A quick recap, TMAC (The Mel Appel Company) not only copied Madballs and Super Madballs, they also had a Garbage Pail Kids-esque trading card series, a M.U.S.C.L.E. style little rubber guys line and even a WWF inspired action figure set. I think it goes without saying though, that their attempt at fake Madballs was by far their most inspired moment. Not only did they manage to create their own stable of vile characters but they even delved into football shape before TCFC (Those Characters From Cleveland) got around to it.
Aside from the toys themselves, the packaging for Weird Balls was also top notch. A drippy logo, putrid slime colors and similar blisther packaging helped this gross group seem legit. While Madballs went for clean drawings (clean line work but still gross stuff), the Weird Ball drawings are looser and grimey, reminiscent of Mad Magazine (and Tales From the Crypt) artist Jack Davis. TMAC also realized the value of the art itself, allowing kids to "own" the art in trading card form. This is a big plus for me, since i love the drawing and design part of these dudes so much.
There was no stone left unturned...Madballs packages said "Freaky Fun For Everyone"? Well, Weird Ball packaging has about 5 crude slogans and boorish phrases (not including the ones on the trading cards!). Their marketing technique is to highlight their production flaws, knowing kids love stuff that's cruddy and half assed! "That's right you won't be satisfied with our stupid unoriginal toy...what're you gonna do about it?" Any connoisseur of awfulness, such as Ren and Stimpy or Beavis and Butthead, will let you know, the worse the better.
Let's check out the first group of dudes here, the traditional round guys. First up is Shrink Head, a guy that I first thought was a half-ruined android, but it turns out he's a dessicated zombie-type thing. His skin is all wrinkley and shriveled and his skull is showing through in parts. His upper lip skin does kinda look like a Burt Renolds' mustache but his red bulging eyes make up for any lack of creepiness his faux facial hair may have caused. The second guy here is Sewer Face. He appears to be a Muppets-type purple monster with a slimey, pus-caked nose. He's maybe the least defined out of all the Weird Ball, because he looks like a ball of clay that someone rolled up in their hands and then painted yellow eyes on. He's cool but lacks details. Snot Nose is the third roundy and probably my favorite of all. He's a giant ball of boogers with a bulgy eye and buck teeth. Where his other eye should be is a gaping socket filled with maggots! Great!
Here's where Weird Balls get really innovative (as far as monster shaped balls go!). The football shaped dudes. Wart Hog is the hideous Frankenstein on the the left. His stitched shut mouth, plentiful warts and bulging blood shot eye are super gross. His friend Spit Ball Louie has the counterpart bulging eye with a really nasty heavy lid and some sort of mustard slime oozing out of his goofball mouth. This is also where things get weird. I have no idea where this guy came from. He's obviously a Weird Ball (he's stamped with the Mel Appel logo on his hinder) but the packaging has his name listed only as Spit Ball and he's round. I would've thought that there was just a packaging error but I've seen pics of the round Spit Ball. I also don't know about a second series, but perhaps he's from that. If you have any insights into this mystery let us know!
Lastly, is my favorite of the oblong nerds, Worm Skull. He's one of the better sculpted and executed of all the Weird Balls and a pretty cool stylization of a skull. When I reviewed the giant version of him a few posts back I mentioned how I thought he would look better scaled down and you can see in that comparison photo how he looks much better tiny.

Sooooo.....Weird Balls are probably my favorite of the Madballs rip off family. They took the Madball formula and ran with it. They were definitely copying but they were creative enough to make their own characters, sculpt them well and up the insolence. If you can get your hands on some of these guys, go for it! They're pretty hard to come by, but I think there's one up on eBay right now. Again, sorry for the delay, expect the next post soon!

Savings and Groan

2010-08-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

"Wacky Cash"

Hey dudes and dudettes! Sorry for the lapse in posts but I was on vacation in Maine, tirelessly hunting in New England flea markets for toy balls with monster faces on them. Alas, I came up short. Before I left though I won these two bad boys in an eBay auction for one smacker! A single buck for these two gems of gross out nostalgia. Check it out!

This recession has us all concerned about the safety of our money. Just like a Depression era grandmother, many of us no longer trust the big banks to hold our money securely. Well you don't have to rely on them any longer! What could keep your money safer than Screamin Meemie's horrible visage? What bank has the security of Swine Suckers bile coated lips? WHICH BANK I ASK YOU?! That's right Arco, the people that made the Water Squirting Madballs are back with another Madballs licensed product...piggy banks called Wacky Cash!!
These dudes are super cool. Made from a hard sturdy plastic and really well painted. Check out Screamin Meemie here. This character doesn't have too many details to begin with but the ones that are present are well sculpted and exquisitely painted. Exquisitely? Yup, exquisitely. They even put him on a pile of slime!
Here you can see the size difference between the balls and the bank. The Wacky Cash Meemie looks much more like their Water Squirter mold (which I like better) than the original design. Maybe he's a little more wall-eyed than he needs to be but whatever. He's still cool!
Of course, you couldn't make a Madballs piggy bank without using they're ungulate incarnation Swine Sucker! This porky monster has a lot more detail than Meemie and it all looks great. From the bile and snot to the warts and stitches, this guys got it all.
Arco resculpted Swine Sucker for Wacky Cash and I have to say I think I like their version better here too. The gums are a little more enflamed, the teeth a little more jagged, and even the pupils and retinas have texture and depth. They also go the extra mile and really make the warts pop out.
Here's some detail shots of Swine Suckers hinder. Both Wacky Cash banks, have the Arco logo stamp and a sticker with the Madballs logo and characters name right beneath the slot.
The base of both have this wrap around sticker with Wacky Cash printed next to the logo. Also a really cool Madballs seal of approval, so you know you're not trusting your savings to a Super Bouncing Weird Ball bank. Or god forbid a Foul Ball bank. Ugh. Instantly bankrupt.

In conclusion, these rule! One of my favorite bits of Madballs memorabilia. If you can find them on eBay I suggest you snap them up.

80's Mash-up!!!

2010-07-26T12:35:00.002-07:00

We've got some sweet sweet Madball art from a friend I met on Little Rubber Guys, named Chris Tupa. He totally went the extra mile and did four(!) 80's cartoon characters as zombie monster balls. Let's have a look!
First off, Deady Ruxpin (Chris didn't provide names so hopefully I'll do them justice)! I barely remember this dude except that his electronic bear mouth could actually hurt you if you put your finger in there. Chris's watercolors are great and add a level of dirtiness and grit.
Jane Retchson (best put I could come up with for Jane Jetson, sorry). Love the skull and cockroaches!
Hmmmm....blood vomiting Monchhichi....ummm.....how's about, Vomchhichi? I like it! (thanks Jeanne!) This thing looks like she went to town eating someone's guts. Blood is something you don't see to often in monster faced balls but I like it! Come to think of it, there aren't many female monster faced balls (girls like gross stuff too!).
Rigor Mortis Smurf. Done! I think that may be my best pun this week. Frankensmurf or Smurfenstein were also considered. This one's my favorite of the bunch. He looks really sinister and gross. The standard big/small eye are present and I really like the crappy grin he has! This also reminds me of that sweet Unicef commerical!

These are great and Chris has them for sale on his website, so go get 'em!

His Face Sucks

2010-07-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

"No Comment"

Remember the wonderous world of vending machine toys? When you had to suffer through a trip to the grocery store (even though riding in the cart was really fun) with your mom or dad, you most likely got some small compensation in the form of a 25¢ piece of plastic. I'm discovering, a surprising abundance of quarter machine knock offs were Madball related.. Maybe it's not so surprising. The Super Bouncing Bad Bad Balls were just the right size, as were plenty of those other mini balls and the Euro mini Madballs are a modern take on that (but $1 instead of a 25¢). What we have today is a weirder monster.

These dudes are floppy rubber suction cup backed replicas of Madball faces. There's no attempt at all at creativity or expanding on the concept, these are straight stolen. I'm assuming so. There are no markings whatsoever on any of these guys. No, TCFC, no date, no Amtoy...nothin'. However, the molds and likenesses are really good! Definitely a step above the Foul Balls, and Super Bouncing Weird Balls of the time.

The paint jobs are awful, but that adds to the grotesqueness of them. Slobulus is gross enough green, but that pale white rubber with garish splashes of red for his mouth and hair make me queazy. Horn Head's white puckery eye isn't a treat to look at either. Actually, this rendition of Oculus Orbus may be one of the most truly disgusting monter face balls I've ever encountered. The texture and coloring conjures up images of Schwarzenegger plucking his eye out in Terminator, or a real sheeps eye. Ugh...

The one downside of these is that they don't retain their original shape very well and considering they've been crammed in quarter machine "eggs" for decades, it's no shock to see some are a bit lopsided.
In conclusion, these are cool! They're available cheap from some dude on Ebay (which I can't find right now, but these were still for sale a little while ago), and well worth it if you're into Madballs or quarter machine toys.

Blood On the Ice

2010-07-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

"Obnoxious and Gross!"

I've never used my Madballs for sport. As a kid they would get thrown AT someone but never to them, or they played the part of giant spherical monsters that Cobra employed to constantly harass G.I. Joes with barf and boogers. As an adult, my Madballs (and rip offs...don't ever forget the rip offs) sit majestically on shelves as an homage to children's gross out culture of the 1980's (one nickel will get you into the Bukowski Madball Museum). Point being, they never got tossed around in a game of catch or baseball, they were usually used mischevously. TCFC designed a toy that would be perfect for misbehaving little boys and girls. We all knew instinctively to peg little Jimmy in the back of the head with Oculus Orbus or try to get the bolt on Touchdown Terror's nose (the hardest part) to hit your sister directly in the spine. Well, this hockey stick made in conjunction with the 2007 Madball line is a testament to the spirit of misbehavior.

That's right. A padded hockey stick (and puck) with monster faces printed on it! You could use it to pretend you're on the ice in your parents living room, but most likely you'll be thwapping someone in the back of the knees with this bad boy!

Sal got me this at a Marshall's (of all places!) as a surprise. I was super pumped because this harkens back to the days of Madball merchandising mania (folders, lunchboxes, cups, mugs, sleeping bags) where their ugly likenesses were plastered on anything and everything. The more I thought of it, though, the more disappointed I am that this wasn't more like the Gruesome Creatures wiffle bats. Those were molded plastic with HUGE monster faces on them. Kinda like Madballs but in bat form. It would be really cool if TCFC broke the baseball/football mold and started making pucks, basketball hoops, etc with sculpted monster faces. Oh well.

This set is fun and I'm sure any nerdy kid would love it. It's not the sturdiest thing in the world (which is good for whoever's on the receiving end of it) but it's cool because it's basically a vehicle for the sweet Madball design art. Repvile takes center stage, with his ugly mug occupying boths sides of the puck, and the stick is graced with the revamped versions of Slobulus, Skull Face, and Screamin' Meemie !

Upon closer inspection, it looks like this set was made this year and by Kellytoy who make nothing else I want. It is encouraging to see that Madball merch is still being made. Maybe that Series 3 really will come out....sigh.

In conclusion, pretty fun. Mostly for the absurdity of what it is and where it was found. I really do wish it was sculpted though. Thanks Sal!!!!

A Journey Into the Unknown Part 2: This Time It's Personal

2010-07-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

"No Comment...Again"

In the A Journey Into the Unknown post from a month ago, I showed you a bunch of iconic fake Madballs. Rip offs that are almost as ubiquitous as their predecessors. Today, we go into the dark bowers of Madballs domain, the slimy underbelly of Orb. These are rip offs that aren't part of any series, have no morals, usually no manufacturing markings and can even be knock offs of knock offs. Welcome to the dark side of Madball collecting.

First up is one of my favorite fakes ever! Let's call him Dracenstein (that's right I'll be naming these anonymous creeps!). He's made from Sadball inflatable rubber and painted in only 3 colors, but he's sculpted really well! I also like the Frankenstein/Dracula combo. Fangs and stitches go together really well...who woulda thought!? He's also got some cool touches like the one bug eye and the volcano-esque warts under his chin. Dracenstein is simple enough that he's not a mess to look at (Slobulus) with lovingly crafted details to make him interesting.

Ohhhhh man. Here we go. This guy is a jerk. He's a rip off of a rip off (a combo of Weird Balls Wart Hog and Worm Skull), and he's made out of a really crappy material. Not Madball foam and not Sadball rubber, Wart-worm is made of a hollow, semi-rigid plastic that makes him really unfun to play with...not that I play with these..oh whatever. Like you can't throw him at your brother's head or step on him at all without causing permanent dents or chipping. The paint comes right off this dude. Like Slobulus, he's got too much goin on. The elements they stole from both Weird Balls are cool on their own but its hard for me to tell what I'm looking at now that they're all crammed onto one tiny football.

Up next we have two MORE imitations of imitations. We'll name them Allergic Reaction and Ghost Mummy.

Allergic Reaction is most definitely a poor attempt at a Shrink Head Weird Ball but molded in the same semi-rigid plastic as Wart-worm. He's really bad. Just poorly designed, no flourishes and an odd choice of colors. I prefer Shrink Head, but when Josh finds this guy for you in a flea market bin for a dollar you can't go wrong!

Ghost Mummy is where things get weird. The dude on the left is Fantasma from the La Pelota Del Terror Argentinian line. Ghost Mummy is the same exact sculpt but inflated more, made from a different rubber and painted better. He's pretty neat, but I prefer the crappier Argentinian dude. He's funnier.

Now what really makes things weird is Purple People Eater. Though he's barely painted (and what's there is sloppy) he's a really cool mold! However....

These dudes look kinda similar. Which is making me question which dudes came first. The Pelota Del Terror guys or this unknown purple freak. He's rendered better and with more care but painted poorly and, as far as I can tell, not part of a series. They both have the same mouth, nose and eyebrows! Yeah they don't look too similar in the above pic but the paint and color of the rubber may be throwing you off. Check this out..

Broncudo has a weird worm on his head in the same spot that Purple People Eater has that hitchhiking gecko. They also have those "worms" breaking out of their skulls right in front of their ears. The stitches are in different places but they're there. It almost looks like someone got hold of Purple People Eater and imitated him in a rush OR someone got a hold of Broncudo and saw his glorious gross potential and took the time to make him better. Either way I'm confused.

Get ready for really bizarre now. John McEnblow is pretty gross with his pink skin, huge irregular teeth and bulging eye. What really puts him over the top is the disgusting bundle of bloody tendons falling out of his eye socket! Ew! They're all red and shiny. It grosses me out. He gets his name cus I think he's supposed to be some sort of athlete. The headband is giving me that impression. Yeah, he's got a headband, that's cool. But it's not as cool as this...

BAM! Just give ol' Johnny a squeeze and out pops his balloon tongue! What?! Yeah it's odd. He's a little smaller than a Madball so maybe the manufacturers thought they had to jazz him up a bit...with a balloon tongue. Again, no markings so I guess I'll just have to dream of more of these, cus this guy rules.

Haha! I always forget about this guy cus he's the Eeyore of Sadballs. Just a goofy nerd that's put together poorly and everyone ignores. We'll call him Winnie the Puke. He's some sort of lizard with fangs and the standard Madball asymmetrical bug eyes. But he's also got a weird exposed skull with veins on it? Or it's a white brain? Or it's just poorly made? Yep! That's it. I do like this guy despite his faults. Mostly because of that lackadaisical look. I'd pet him.
Last but not least are two dudes from an unknown series. I scored these idiots over at Monster Collectibles. Unlike the rest of this motley crew they actually have names! On the left is Vampire Vinny and on the right is Freaky Fred. I personally think they got the names mixed cus the dude on the right totally looks like a nosferatu!

Both these guys are really cool, filled with gross details and painted really well with lots of colors. Vampire Vinny's puffy eyes really disturb me as does Freaky Fred's big warty nose. While Freaky Fred looks like a gross old Dracula, Vampire Vinny doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before. Maybe a mutant human/insect hybrid? Look at those jacked teeth!

Both of them have their names and "Emson" stamped on their hinders but Google searches have yielded little information about the makers. It makes me sad because they seem to be part of team whose other members I want to own and put on a shelf!

In conclusion, cool and suck but overall cool. There's a lot of these mystery monsters out there and some are poorly made while others have the love and horror of an actual Madball put into them but all are great examples of the 80's gross out phenomena. Even the really really bad ones tend to be funny. So, happy hunting, and let me know if you have any info on these dorks or spy any others!

Frankenstein's Monster(ball)

2010-07-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

"Famous Monsters From Your Favorite Horror Movies"

Hahahahahheheheheheeee! I'll never stop laughing at that name...Monster Balls (not to be confused with Monster Ball)! Ahem. Like I mentioned in the Ghost Ball post, there aren't too many monster faced balls made of licensed characters but these are my favorites.

Made by Illco in the late 80's (from what I can glean off the internet, because the only dates on the package are the copy right renewals) these four gruesome dudes are taken right from Universal's classic monster movies and crafted into ball form. I can't find much info on Illco but they did make a bunch of Muppets and Disney toys.

They're sculpted with super high detail (made of Sadball rubber rather than Madball foam) and in a cool 50's style fitting for these creeps. While Madballs went for gross-out, these seem to go for nostalgia and class. That's right, classy Monster Balls.

The package has a TON of slogans for a four toy line. "Famous Monsters From Your Favorite Horror Movies", "Monstrous Fun For All", "Collect Them All" and of course my favorites, "Throw", "Catch", "Bounce", and "Hit". I know Madball packaging was crammed full of stuff but there were 18 (if you count Super Madballs) of those and various merchandising offshoots. This is just four toys! Not to mention one of the "slogans" is encouraging you to whip Dracula in your friends face. I mean, I would've done that regardless but it's strange to see a printed instruction. Anyway, let's get to it.

First up is Roxy's favorite, good ol' Dracula! He's pretty cool. They did a really good job of getting the essence (Eau De Drac) of the Lugosi Dracula without being tied down to his likeness. I like his scary red eyes and bloody mouth! His smug expression is a bit weird though. He looks like you just walked in on him biting your fiance and he's like "What? I'm Dracula. What are you gonna do about it?" Oops sorry, it's more like this "Vat? I em Drac-u-la. Vat are you going to do a-bout eet?". That's better. The fine detail of the hair is pretty amazing and the added touch of the collar to his cape make me squeel with delight! We're off to a good start Illco!

So Frankenstein's Monster (I will continue to refer to him as Frankenstein's Monster to bother Jeanne), must have been designed by someone else. The hair is flat and the paint job not as good but he's also designed in a way that makes it work. He looks like a toy you would get in the 50's. The pale green color and the garish red and purple add to the vintage feel. He kinda looks like Karloff but not really, which, again, I don't mind. However, he does look like Bugs Bunny just did his makeup. The scars/stitches are cool and all but everything else looks like he's Frankenstein's Prostitute, not Monster. The purple eye shadow, the red lipstick, that one side even has some dark green blush. The red around his eyes even looks like ghoulish mascara! Perhaps Frank's Monster was just looking for someone else to practice makeup on, and that's why he had the doctor create The Bride.

Up next is Karloff again! This time as a resurrected dead guy...wait. Well, this dead guy is desiccated and African, that's different. There's some weird stuff goin on with the Mummy. I'm not really sure what those blue-green lines on his nose are supposed to be or why his one eyelid is longer than the other, but he's still pretty neat. the detail of the wrinkled skin is incredible! The back of his head even has hints of bandages on it. For some reason The Mummy's eyes are closed like Frankenstein's Monster. Maybe Karloff was so busy the only time they could get to see him for reference was when he was asleep (despite the fact that he was already way dead when they made these). This one does look more like Karloff despite being bizarre and droopy.

Last but not least is the Wolfman! This guys got tons of hairy details, and look just like the Jack Pierce makeup (thank god it didn't have to look like Lon Chaney Jr.'s ugly mug). The hair on this dude is top notch. It goes from straight and form highlighting to curly and messy in the back. Wolfman bed-head. He looks more stylized than the Mummy or Dracula but a bit more realistic than Frank's Monster.

In conclusion, awesome!! Illco did a great job using limited paint colors, the vintage look, and getting into minutia. My only complaint is that I wish there was a Creature! He and The Invisible Man (I wish they made him too, all covered in bandages with sunglasses!) are my favorite Universal monsters. If you can find these guys on Ebay pick em up, if not, there's one at The Pop Top Shop or contact me cus' I have two extra!

Slime Time!!

2010-06-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

DUDE! this awesome painting just came to me via email from Patt Whelan. He's an illustrator and tattoo artist at Baker Street Tattoo in Media PA. He's also in the sick band The Claw.

He's renowned for his love of Madballs as evidenced in his various Heart Show pieces. Here he combines my two favorite things. H.P. Lovecraft and monster faced balls. He dubbed this dude Cthulubus, referencing Oculus Orbus and Cthulhu. My name for him would be Ball Of Cthulhu, though and he would come with madness insurance.

Hideous Heat Wave

2010-06-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

"Gross! Ghastly!"

Madballs were marketed like crazy and I've even listed some of the ludicrous items that were plastered with their ugly likeness in past posts. What we've got here are two very rare Madball items that were hunted down on two continents by two intrepid Madball hunters. Like Indiana Joneseses but for toys. And no one was trying to rip out anyone's heart.

Now, they may look like regular Madballs but these are actually Water Squirting Madballs! Much like the Euro minis or Squirt Devils, They're made from hollow rubber so you can fill them with water and then blast your unsuspecting nerdy friends in the face! Hopefully knocking their glasses to the side (not off, that would be mean). Both of these were loose when I got 'em but you can rub your slimey eyeballs all over the packaging here.

The first one is Screamin' Meemie and was brought to me from South Africa by Justin of Weirdo Toys (see? monster ball adventurers!). The material allows for greater detail, a better paint job, and greater size! They're different sculpts and I'm not sure of TCFC did the modelling or if someone else did (these were farmed out by American Greetings to Arco), but whoever it was did a great job.

You can see a bit of the detail in the mouth here along with the hole for water blasting. The "rump" shows the detail of the stitches as well as how you fill these guys up. You pull that little tab to remove the plug and it has a "T" shaped piece of plastic on the other side to prevent it from falling out (like a squirt gun).

Screamin' Meemie's a very streamlined Madball but even so, his eyes look buggier, his mouth more realistic and his nose more Groucho on the Arco version.
This Slobulus was spotted in a lot of 4 Madballs on Ebay by yours truly. I know, not as exciting as a South African flea market hunt but still. The seller didn't know what they had and no one else seemed to notice or care. But this is where the Waters Squirters really shine. Their version of Slobulus is much bigger than his foam counterpart and painted so much better! There's even details that weren't there at all on the first. Like the bugs on his face and those awful puckered ears!
The eye socket really really grosses me out on this one. The way the tendons lay really makes me think of an actual eye hanging out! The retina's and pupils are actually raised on each eye creating a layered effect. And the bugs...oh the bugs....The one in his hair is present in both renditions but the one on his face is a formless bump in the original. Here its got a head, legs, antenna and spots!

In conclusion, buy these if you can! But don't buy Oculus Orbus because he's the only one I'm missing. So, just tell me if you see him. Yeah, the high detail in sculpt and paint, bigger size, and durability of these make them some of my favorite Madball products of all time. And you can blast bullies in the face when they try to shove you in a locker!

__________________________________________________________________

UPDATE!

Thanks to an amazing reader of this blog and fellow collector, I've completed my Water Squirter Collection! Josh from Australia mailed me this dude for free!

You can see the difference in paint detail and fortitude. The plastic of the Water Squirter takes to the paint much better and holds up over time without rubs or chipping. Granted, my Oculus Orbus has seen better days (if you have a mint one, I'm in the market) but the water dudes are just crisper even without wear and tear.

Thanks again Josh!

The Land Of the Retching Sun

2010-06-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

"ホラーボール悪魔の目玉"

Oh man! Japan loves Madballs. There are tons of Madball inspired vinyl collectibles but they're usually wayyyy outside my price range and have bodies and stuff. Not monster headed balls, strictly speaking. The triple feature I've got lined up for today, however, are straight up ugly faced balls without extraneous arms and legs.

The first two sets of dudes were purchased when Gom-Taro (an online toy store) was having a 70% off going out of business sale. Given the usual price of Japanese toys, I pounced on this opportunity.
We'll start with Takara's Horror Balls. Well, actually, as far as I can tell the second set are called Horror Balls too, but that's because I can't read a lick of Japanese. But these first dudes are pretty crazy pencil top "erasers", though I haven't attempted to use them as such.

The packaging is neat! It's got lots of splats and drips and even a cool looking bat. Unfortunately, it also has that little racist caricature (which is Takara's mascot). Siggghhhhhh.....These dudes are numbered and the highest I've seen is 18, but it seems like there's really only three sculpts in different color variations. The back of the package has a cool coupon that I wish I could cash in at Shop Rite. "Yeah, I'll take some kale, some soy milk and a disgusting Japanese Madball rip off." It shows you how to use them too, which is absurd. I don't think anyone would mistake these for anything other than toys that go on the ends of pencils. Like, you can't unclog a drain with them or ride one down the street. Anyway, let's check them out up close.
I don't know what any of their names are so we're gonna call this dude, Metric Menace. I should say that these three Horror Balls are academically themed, which is funny. "School can be gross kids! You don't just need to play with your vomit inducing grotesqueries at home anymore!" Metric Menace is a geometry themed vampire, made up of rulers and triangles and whatnot. I guess just plain old stitches and wonky eyes were too lowbrow for Takara.Up next is Pencil Pusher. He's the grossest of the bunch with a swollen eye, crooked teeth and blue barf! His academic theme is....pencil's. I like his little eraser nose, it's cute but not too cute. All of them also have some sort of clear plastic right eye and a tiny nub or button on the top of their heads. If I could read kanji or hiragana, I'd probably be able to explain what the hell both are for. Alas, I can't, so....maybe it's a lazer eye? When in doubt, go for lazer eye.
Our last dude is a sloppy mess...in two ways. First off, I can't make out what the hell is goin on with his face. I think he's supposed to be scarred where his left eye would have been, but its hard to say. I also had a hard time figuring out what his theme was. Turns out it's text books (Book Worm!). Kinda obvies but a little dumb. B, his paint is terrible. These things came out in the 80's and mine were still sealed when I got them and his silver paint was still tacky! Whatever, I still think these are awesome, android-esque school related Madball knock offs and well worth the money I paid for them. I've seen Book Worm on Ebay for $50 which I'd say is toooo much. So try to find a Japanese online toy store that's having a going out of business sale. Yeesh. Our second batch are more traditional pencil top eraser ugly balls that arrived in unmarked plastic bags. These are a tiny bit smaller than the first set but the same size as the Eraser Bouncing Bad Bad Balls. I'm really like these dudes. Their psychadellic coloring and snaggle teeth are really awesome. I think the first is some sort of old man vampire (Old Manpire) and the second is a Screemin Meemie-esque insane face. That third dude, though, he's my favorite. He's a drunk deformed gorilla (Gore-illa!)!
Next up are two of the same dudes in different colors. I can see some Aargh influence there with the drooping eye but he's got those beever teeth! Buck Tooth Terrance looks pretty gross in flesh colored but the translucent blue with red teeth and yellow eyes make him look downright Lovecraftian!

I would totally recommend these to buy but I have no idea where you'd get them now. Sorry.
Last but certainly not least is this horrible beauty of a keychain from Psycho Wheels (which I think is a Japanese motorcylce fetish accesory store). The sculptor signed the back as (and is noted as such on the Psycho Wheels website) Sketch but I can't seem to find any other info on him, though he has designed 3 or 4 other keychains for them. This one is a Rat Fink/Madballs mash up and what a doosey it is. Stitched shut and bulging eyes combined with Big Daddy Roth style jagged teeth and floppy tongue! These highly detailed monstrosities come in 6 different colors and one will only set you back about $30. Oh god, I'm obsessed. However, it is a really cool design and made of a hard durable plastic.

In conclusion, if you like Madballs and you like Japanese toys and you have some extra money to spend all these little dudes are awesome!

Me Gusta "Balls"

2010-06-10T07:49:00.000-07:00

"El Sonido Del Terror"

From what I can tell Madballs really took off in Argentina. Whenever I do an Ebay search for Madball items, without fail an Argentinian deck of Madball cards, or an Argentinian Madball activity book comes up. I don't really know why. If anyone out there has a South American studies background and can provide some insight into the psyche of the country in the late 80's, and why gross ball toys were so popular, this would be a very valuable use of your time.

Anyway, the Argentinian company Miluplast also made their very own knock off versions! I've been eyeballing these guys for a while now, but I only recently managed to get a full set into my slime stained hands and ohhhh man, I think they're my favorite imitations to date!

These are all the same hollow inflatable plastic that Sadballs are made out of, and they they seem a bit goofier. Like, more cartoonish but still retaining the requisite grossness of actual Madballs. They're all packaged in a similar style as well but these are part of a series. The cards all say "El Sonido Del Terror" which translates to "The Sound Of Terror". I'm not really sure what that has to do with Madball fakes? I mean, I guess they would make pretty terrifying sounds. Farts and whatnot.
However, I'm inclined to think it was some sort of mistake. All of the packages have smaller stickers over the "Sonida" part which say "La Pelota Del Terror". That translates to "The Ball Of Terror" or "Terror Balls". Look at that logo! Those little skulls for the "o"s are really classy. Each of the balls also comes equipped with one of those stickers on its rear, covering it's shame, over the air hole that was used to initially inflate them. Ew. The stickers have the logo and each balls individual name (unlike Sadballs). Pretty cool! It makes me think the designers were pretty into making them. We'll talk about the packaging more in a bit.

Just a note, although I've been to Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Spain I speak very little to no Spanish. So my translations are not to be trusted. Most of them are gleaned from various internet searches and Babelfish. Forgive me.
First up is Tuerto Loco (One-eyed Crazy Person) and if that Babelfish translation is accurate then hat's off Miluplast! This dude seems like a Bash Brain copy but with his eye actually hanging out (a la Slobulus), a skull nose and his tongue waggin in the wind. You can see the similarities of the mouth shape, stitches and skull exposure in this pic. I'm pretty sure a forensic specialist has typed that sentence before.
Fantasma (Ghost) is a wacky Dust Brain. There's barely any difference, except he does have some sweet buck teeth and a bulging eye! You can also see that the paint job is way better on Dust Brain, but this guy still has a stupid charm and there was some effort to distinguish him from his American counterpart.Dientudo (Toothy) is my favorite and probably the most bizarre. He's some sort of skull with a cartoon nose, dog ears and two horns wayyyy at the top of his head. He reminds me of Charlie Brown's skull. Or maybe if Snoopy and Charlie Brown were genetically spliced and then in some horrible acid related accident that melted the flesh of most of their face. And gave them horns.
Check out the similarities to Skull Face here. Those tombstone-teeth are really similar, but actually the resemblance ends there. I mean, I know Miluplast was just aping all the Madballs characters but a lot of these are pretty original. Weird, but original. Pesadilla (Nightmare) is a sweet name! He looks pretty nightmarish to me! He also looks pretty original. Granted there are some similarities to Slobulus and Aargh but I think he's got his own thing goin on here. Like he got punched in the eye (so hard that it popped the other one out a bit) and is really really angry about it.
Broncudo (Angry) is probably the most unique of the whole gang. He looks simultaniously frightened, shocked and mad. Maybe because worms are busting out of the sides of his head?! He's full of stitches too but they may be baseball laces or Madball-type wound stiches. Either way I dig him. I dub thee second favorite!
Lengua Larga (Long Language, my best guess Big Mouth or Long Tongue) is our last guy and ohhh man is he a rip off. The other guys were very strongly "inspired" by other Madballs, but this dude is straight imitation. Aside from the material used to make him and the missing tooth this guy is EXACTLY Screamin Meemie. But, I do think the missing tooth is a great touch! Shape of the nose, mouth, tongue, teeth and the placement of the stitches are all identical. His eyes are a bit different making him look a little less sinister than Screamin Meemie.
I also wanted to showcase some of the fine grosserific details of the Terror Balls. As you can see, most of Tuerto Loco's Skull is exposed and then a portion of that is cracked revealing his brain (which kinda looks like meal worms). Dientudo's odd brow ridge peaks in some sweet curvy horns while Pesadilla's skin is split (very vaginally...ew) to show the bone beneath. Gross and cool details! More often than not only a monster ball's face is used to display horrid details, it's good to see someone making use of all that surface area.
I couldn't talk about these nerds without mentioning the sweet cards they come on. I already mentioned how cool that logo is but look at those illustrations! They look like bizarre 70's stlye cartoons run amock in grossout land! The toys themselves seem pretty faithful to the illustrations making me think that that's where the cartoony element of Terror Balls comes from.

In conclusion, BUY THESE! They're super fun, detailed, not extra hard to find and they've held up well over the years. There's still a few available on Ebay or you could contact me because I accidentally bought doubles!

You can check out more of them on this sweet Argentinian Madball page.

A Reading From the Book Of Weird

2010-06-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

"Ugly Face Mask Included!"

The all powerful Gross Face sent his testament down to men in the year ninteen hundred and eighty six. And he said unto men "GGGGLLLLAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH"!

The testament was, of course, the glorious Ugly Faces coloring book. Ugly Faces is the bible of Madballology, and much like the Christian bible it makes no sense, but at least it takes place in space and comes with a mask! I would've made my confirmation if I could've done it wearing that cut out!

Released in the mid '80's Playmore Inc's coloring book was sold at Kmart's (that's what the sticker said on the one I got from Ebay) and Bradlees around the country (for one paltry dollar!) to skim a little off the the top of the Madball mania. Norman Nodel, known for the "Classics Illustrated" series he worked on in the '50's , was hired to illustrate the book. It may also be noted that good ol' Norm had a few stories in Creepy and Eerie, upping his cred for this project.

The "story" starts much like a Manowar song, with some children asking Grandfather to tell them a story. Except these children aren't American kids feigning British accents but instead floating monster heads.

The story he goes on to tell, suggests that Grandfather used to party back in the day and is having trouble telling hallucination from reality. I know the dudes an elderly disembodied monster head but still. I also wonder what kind of drugs Madballs would do? Maybe snort lines of puke or free base some pus. And how do you wear a trench coat as a Madball drug dealer? You've got no body! Anyway...
Gramps starts yarnin' about these intergalactic slugs that start exploring space. Yup. While they're on their mission they go through an asteroid belt that actually turns out to be "ugly faces". The ugly dudes, don't say anything but lead them on a stellar journey.

Why are there monster faced balls floating about in space? Why is one of them a fleshy doughnut with an eye in the middle? Where is Gramps now? None of these questions are answered within. However, we should take a second to look at some of these faces and soak in how cool they are. Lots of jagged teeth and extra eyes! The dude below with the two faces is one of my faves.
They go to the oval planet where they meet oval headed dudes...
They go to the square planet where they meet square headed guys and the triangle planet where...you guessed it...they meet triangle headed guys. The whole journey the slugs can't get over how ugly everyone is. The ovals, squares, triangle and of course their chaparones, the ugly faces.
We also take a short break for a CENTEFOLD!!! I love the oppressive all seeing monster head and that awesome Tri-face! The dude in the lower right is a bit more confusing. So his face houses one giant eyeball, and that eyeball acts as an upper lip for his mouth and the lower lip acts as a lower lid for the giant eye?! His ears are normal though. The last part of the story the ugly faces lead them to earth where some humans see them and then start talking about how ugly the slugs are. Like that Twilight Zone episode Eye Of the Beholder, that's supposed to teach you to not be mean to people who look different. However, the tool that's used to teach the lesson are bigoted human children. So, it's almost as if the moral is "be a jerk so that other space races will know not to be jerks themselves".

So after you're done reading the story and you don't color in the pictures, cus you know some 31 year old dork will want to pay 12 times the cover price in 24 years, you get ready to put the book down, satisfied with the sermon that you've read. Then BAM! the back cover hits your eyeballs so hard they almost pop! What the heck is that?! Why, it's only a sweet sweet cut out paper Madball mask! IN FULL COLOR! AND EXTRA GROSS! Drippy flesh, dastardly fangs, bubbly green warts, veiny brains, and oh so many bloodshot eyes will make you the envy of all your friends. Well, I'll let you know how it goes November 1, 2010.

In conclusion, this book is really cool. The illustrations are great, the tens (!) of monster balls that Nodel created for this book are all sweet looking and really gross, the centerfold is oppressive and creepy and the mask...god that mask! So, if you come across this thing, BUY IT! You won't regret it and then you can pray to the mighty Gross Face from the privacy of your own home.

Listen..Do You Smell Something?

2010-06-03T10:13:00.000-07:00

"They're Scary With Ghostly Glow"

The success of Madballs in the 80's led to many a knock off as can be witnessed in this blog. However, not many licensed characters got rendered in ball form. The only ones I could think of were the Universal Monsters as Monster Balls. Then I found this on Ebay. Actually, I found it and tried to ignore it for months, because it's stupid. But then that same ungodly stupidity kept drawing me back to it and I became obsessed, cracked under the pressure and bought it. I present to you one of two Ghostbusters Ghost Balls.
Where, oh where, to begin with this piece of crap? Like the Sadballs discussed in my last post, this nameless dude (let's call him Sammy) is made of inflatable rubber and very sparsely painted. Actually there's four colors on there but they're barely applied. Maybe a ghost of a pissed off sweat shop worker painted them. "OOOOooooOOOooo screw you Colombia Pictures.....Herreeesssss a crappy paint job for your stupid rip off tooyyyyyyy" or something.

It's just a crotchety old man with demonic cat eyes, second-thought fangs and fancy ears. Seriously, those ears are cool, very Art Deco which fits with the movie. NO! I can't give those bastards that sort of credit. Even if the ear is cool, when the ear of a monster headed ball is the coolest part then you severely botched it. Yeah he's got gross warts on him and a pretty neat head ridge but those only slightly distract me from his Ernest Borgnine mug.
The packaging is slightly better than the item itself. It is pretty bare bones but it's got a "cool" explosion on the right of the ball and Egon looking shocked and appalled on the left. The Ghost Balls logo is my favorite part though. That Slimer rendition is pretty sweet. I'm not sure if that's reused artwork for something else or made specifically for this hunk of ass but its neat. In fact, I'm not too up to speed on Ghostbusters toys in general, so Sammy could be an actual charater. Like the ghost of a Ernest Borgnine. I doubt it though.
The back side reveals that there's actually two of these idiots. "Collect them all". There's only two. I don't even have the energy to italicize that because I'm so exasperated by this awful toy.

The bummer is that most Ghostbusters toys are pretty cool and unique. This degenerate seems like a sad attempt at sponging off a much smaller market even though Ghostbusters toys were raking in the money. The copyright on here says 1986, just about the time Madballs came out making me think that it was a rush job. End result crap. I still haven't been able to get it to glow in the dark! Granted it's over 20 years old at this point but I didn't thing glowing stopped. I should look that up.

In conclusion, avoid at all costs. I mean we're not talking Super Bouncing Weird Ball level garbage but not too far removed. Not worth the money they were charging for them in '86 and certainly not worth the Ebay price I paid in '10.

A Journey Into the Unknown

2010-05-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

"No Comment"

The world of Madball imitations is seemingly limitless and ranges from disgustingly gorgeous to dreadfully abysmal. Lovingly designed creeps like Weird Balls, Blurp Balls and Wacki Balls may lack originality but make up for it in detail and style. Then there's the bottom of the barrel dudes like Super Bouncing Weird Balls and Foul Balls that were obviously churned out to make a quick buck but are worth while for their clumsy awfulness.

As you get deeper into the world of monster face ballery, you realize there are some fakes out there, that just don't have names. They're not part of any series and were molded and remolded, packaged and repackaged, painted and repainted a million times. They have no brand name or individual names, but have been dubbed "Sadballs". The attributes they share are that they're the general size and shape of Madballs, they're all made of soft inflatable rubber, they're limited to 3-4 colors, and they usually have "Taiwan" stamped on their underside.

Many of them are also packaged similarly in a plastic bag stapled to a card, but the cards vary from ball to ball. In fact some of the exact same balls have been packed with different cards or on the same cards but made with different colored plastic.
While there are a dozens of these nameless dudes there are six that are almost as recognizable as Madballs themselves and have even been bootlegged and imitated.

First up is one of my favorites. Dubbed "Blood Bulge" at Weirdo Toys (I really like the names Justin gave them so I'm sticking with them), this purple dude is a grotesque....thing. Maybe a vampire skull but probably just a lazy attempt at a monster, Blood Bulge at least isn't a direct knock off of a particular Madball. His skull(ish) nose and cracked back side contrast with his fangs and gore filled mouth. Let's not skim over that.
His features may be pretty simplistic but that mouth is really highly detailed and makes him look like he's been chowing down on disgusting viscera. That combined with that disgusting bulgy eye makes him on of the grossest rip offs I've ever encountered.
Even though the Ugly Ball is inspired by Skull Face and Evel Kneival is reminiscent of Dust Brain, there was some minor attempt to redesign them. Not well, mind you, but redesigned nontheless. "Lace Face" on the other hand, is a stolen mold. I doubt there was espionage in the world of monster faced balls involving men in black masks jumping over lasers to get to the secret Madball sculpts, but someone definitely remolded this dude directly from Aargh.
The shape of the mouth, the pig nose, the furrowed brow and the the stitches are all directly taken from Aargh. The ONLY difference, aside from the paint job, is that Lace Face has a smaller eye, while Aargh's non-bugged eye is squinted shut. It's odd because Aargh is one of my least favorite Madballs, but tends to be one of the most imitated.
"Evil Knievel" is one of the more baffling of the Sadballs. I think he's supposed to be wrapped up like he's hurt as opposed to mummified, but he does still look like Dust Brain.

Now why he's wrapped up is a different question. The fangs poking out and the blue skin suggest that he's a vampire, so maybe he's got a really bad sunburn? Or he's a tooth daredevil that's had a run of bad luck. Very similar to Blood Bulge and the Ugly Ball, this dude doesn't have a lot of detail, but he is a cool specimen of 80's fakery.
This one is my absolute favorite and I've often wondered why there weren't more devilish Madball rip offs. It seems like such an obvious monster figure. The sculpt on this demon is a bit different from the others. While it shares the simplicity of them, it's a better stylization. The rendered mustache and cracks in the horns help carry the basic nose, teeth and eyes. Along with Blood Bulge "Dirty Devil" is the only truely original Sadball.
Up next is a nerd I've named Broken Brain. He's an odd rendition of Bash Brain just with a Screamin' Meemie face and one eyeball larger than the other. He's not particularly painted or designed very well and his face is uncomplicated except of a few wrinkles but he makes up for it in his exposed brain! It may be the texture of the rubber or the oddly spray painted colors but this gray matter icks me out more so than any Madballs with bust skulls. It reminds me of Hellraiser II when Dr. Channard is performing surgery and talking about labyrinths or Josh's obsession with "maggot brain". Most of these guys are nameless imitations made by faceless companies trying to make a quick buck. This last dude, however, isn't so mysterious. He was a promotional gift released by Nabisco for their Bonkers candy during the height of the Madball craze. There were even nightmarish commercials advertising the "Ugly Ball" with a family that had lifesize Ugly Ball heads! All you had to do was mail in ten Bonkers wrappers and they would ship one to your doorstep. He does share all the other characteristics of Sadballs though.

Aside from his association with human-assaulting candy the Ugly Ball is pretty uninspired. He's a monstrous skull dude with a big red tongue. Kinda boring especially when you compare him to Skull Face who's got awesome flair (I seriously love those keyhole eye sockets)! The nose and teeth are surely lifted from the Madball design, but the rest of him has nothing goin on. I'm not really sure why he doesn't work as well. Most of the vintage Madballs are really simple, but their imitators almost always fall flat. I half expect it from the nameless imitators but from a company like Nabisco that's using a toy for a promotional gimmick? Nothing better?
That said, these ugly buggers are pretty neat and considering the depths that some fakes sink to, these aren't actually THAT bad. I do like these a lot, and maybe my reviews have been a bit harsh. They have a certain budget charm that Krazy Balls are missing.

In conclusion, try to find these guys. They're very odd, hold up fairly well to againg and are some of the more iconic examples of Madball fakery. Some of them go on Ebay for a decent amount but others slip through the cracks and sell for a few bucks.

Greetings From Bogarrrhhhtá

2010-05-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

"Los Monstruos Del Amor"

Hey dudes and grossos. Sorry, it's been a while since my last post but I was just on vacation in Colombia! Now, you may be asking yourself what that has to do with Mad/Sadballs and I'll tell you. In between museum hopping and Caribbean beach swimming, I dug through some sweet Bogotá flea markets.

I haven't really been toy hunting in other countries because I don't speak any other languages and "How do you get to the vintage toy store" is not in my pantomime repertoire. However, the Lonely Planet Colombia book actually lists two flea markets held every Sunday and mentioned how full of old junk they were! Barely any work for me to do except walk there!
The first one was right off of Carrera 7 near the National Museum (where the mummy section was closed..sigh) and it was a great one. There was some newer bootleg stuff BUT most of it was old crap! We're talking books, clothes, furniture, various parts to various machines, and above all...toys. LOTS of toys. Of course there was an abundance of Happy Meal toys but a lot of it was old bootleg action figures, vintage toy cars, and so weird homemade stuff.
It was a chance for me to practice the age old art of haggling. And I'm kind of good at it. I bargained my way down on some stuff for Jeanne and also a few gifts for people. It is kind of sad thinking that you're bartering over the equivalent of a 50cents, but it's the way things work.

Our next stop was a flea market just off of Avenida Jiménez near our hostel, Cranky Croc (turns out it was an accurate name. The dude that ran it was a very grumpy Aussie). This one was way more sprawling and filled with the same sorts of stuff. Jeanne was the winner of the day, scoring a metal Hand Of Glory that used to be a belt buckle, a deck of really funny Colombian tarot cards, and a few small frames. Madball collecting has made flea markets a little difficult for me. There was tons of fun stuff but since my focus is so narrow it's way harder to find something I want to buy. The flea markets yielded some gifts for Josh and Justin from Weirdo Toys, but my big find was actually at a small book store on the way to the flea market. Jeanne spotted these nasty things hanging under some old activity books and we swooped in for a closer looks. I'll admit these aren't exactly Madball ripoffs but they are definitely in the same spirit. The first guy really looks Madball inspired and either way they gross me out. Look at the details. Everything is pulpy and covered in veins.
They're also not really cards, even though they come with giant envelopes. They're a single piece of embossed plastic that have snarky sayings on them. Maybe they're intended for anonymous creepy Valentine's Day gifts?

That first dude is really cool. He's riding his bike so fast that his rotten flesh is ripping off his face and appendages! AND from what I can gather he's saying "Cycling Is My Life...So What!". Damn dude! Not only are you a bicycling monster but you have an attitude about it. This guy evokes thoughts of Bash Brain and maybe even Slobulus. I don't know if that was the intention but it seems so.

The next guy is really gross too. He reminds me of the H.P. Lovecraft story The Thing On the Doorstep. Just a rotten pile of sloughing flesh and bubbling innards. Ew. Definitely a zombie, and not so much a Sadball, I wouldn't have included him here if it weren't for his cycling friend who seems to be some sort of Madball imitation. This guy has the same 'tude as his buddy. If my translation is correct (which I'm sure it isn't) he's saying "What Are You Looking At...Idiot!". You're a rotten pile! What do you think we're looking at?!In conclusion, I love junk hunting in other countries. You can find bizarre out of print or discontinued stuff that would never find its way to Ebay. Expect a more Madballs relevant post soon!

Speak Of the Devils

2010-05-03T14:01:00.000-07:00

"Horrible Series"

The new line of Madballs re-piqued my interest in monster-shaped balls, but it was actually these awful dudes that got me into the spiraling world of knock offs. Squirt Devil's are available (even still) at every Dollar Tree I've been to, and are surprisingly cool. I still don't know why they're called Squirt Devils though. They are hollow rubber that you can fill with water to "squirt" at friends, but none of them are devils, or even demons. I guess Squirt Monsters didn't sound as good?

If you can make your way past the broken frames and cheap dish soap to the toy aisle in your local Dollar Tree, you may still be deceived by the Squirt Devil packaging. Not a single solitary package is uncrushed. Which makes it look like you're buying a red piece of "fake vomit" with a rip off Madball logo. I still can't figure out why this is. Other items at dollar tree are fine, but ALL of these are squished in the same way. Perhaps the vacuum sealing at the factory worked too well? But fear not intrepid monster ball purchaser, they will resume their spherical form once released from their plastic prison! There is something else misleading about the packaging. The image in the upper right suggests you fill these idiots with water, then they explode when squeezed. Not so. They have one hole in their mouths or eyes that shoots water, not five.

One thing that isn't a lie is the "Horrible Series" moniker. There is another set that is more like the "Sick Series" of Madballs, where you squeeze them and brains or gross pops out of a spot in their heads. Lame. As I've stated before, I hate that kind of tacky dust-collecting rubber. The odd thing is that those are called "Crazy Ballz" and are also in the "Horrible Series". Maybe that is a lie? I don't get it. OK, let's get to the dudes.

First up is the Crack Head (Bash Brain) imitation I've dubbed Frankie. All these sculpts are pretty cool and very well detailed despite very limited paint jobs. Frankie has the protruding eye and exposed brain of Crack Head but also some stitches, sloughing skin, hair, and a sinister grin. The color is almost exactly the same as the revamp of Bash Brain from 07, but he still has his own charm. The designer that sculpted these definitely had his own style.
Sniffles is next on our list. He seems to be the least derivative of all the Devils ans looks more like a straight zombie than any Madball or imitation I've seen. Maybe it's the sunken cheeks and exposed teeth? He's also got a LOT of sloughing skin and general slime. This paint job is particularly bad though. I'm assuming that's an eyebrow and NOT a caterpillar above his left eye but that color makes it hard to tell. And is that a piece of skull or a pyramid coming out of his head (all these shots are face, one side and top of head at the end)?
Bounce-bounce is my favorite. He's also less plagiarized than some of the others and looks like a general monster. I really like the bizarre Klingon-esque ridge atop his head. The screw that goes all the way through is a ice touch as well as his slimey face. Come to think of it, his face reminds me a lot of a Boglin. I like that. I wish there were more Boglins in ball form. Last but not least is the least original of the crew, The Claw. If he doesn't look like Slobulus I don't know who the hell does. The green skin color, the hanging eye, the creepy oddly spaced teeth. The only differences between the two are his really cool soft looking exposed brain and again his lone eyebrow. Seperated at birth? Maybe death. The Claw is lacking the greasy hair that Slobulus has but the similarities are too much to be ignored. Like Slobulus found a pod with an alien that was trying to assimilate him but wasn't quite done. Had it had more time it would've looked and acted just like Slobulus.

In conclusion, though a big smaller than Madballs, and painted poorly, these dudes are a steal for a single dollar! The sculpts are amazing with a lot of really fine details and interesting stylizations. They hold up well because of the rubber they're made from and they do squirt water, if you're into that sort of thing. Buy them!

All Wound Up

2010-04-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

"Wind Up With Double Action Movement"

Madballs weren't the biggest or most lasting trend of the 80's, but it wasn't for lack of trying. The more I get into this bizarre world of monster headed ball collecting, the more I realize how much merchandise there is. Bop bags, cups, bowls, lunchboxes, sleeping bags, erasers, gumball banks, knee pads, Halloween masks....and thats just the licensed Madballs stuff. Weird Balls had all those cards, action figures and bicycle seat covers! So, not only were there rip offs of the actual balls but there were rip offs of the various merchandising offshoots.

These little dudes we're looking at today are AmToy's foray into wind up territory. Sold individually and marketed as having two separate mechanical motions, they also were two different types of wind ups, "spinners" and "hoppers".

Screamin' Meemie and Slobulus were "spinners". So when you wind them up they roll around and kinda spin. They mostly just shoot off in arcs wide arcs. The double action feature they have is that their tongues go in and out while they tool around. Ew. I imagine them soliciting ladies and getting lawsuits filed against them. They're sculpted really well for how large they are too. Screamin' Meemie looks pretty neat and just like the ball version but the Slobulus is what you read this for. This ugly bugger looks just like this larger brother BUT his eye looks even grosser than the foam version. I think it has something to do with the shinyness of the plastic that makes it looks like actual wet tendons. Even his hair and warts are all sculpted and painted.

Then we have Skull Face and Horn Head in "hopper" form. When you wind these nerds up, they bounce around like the someone's givin them a hotfoot. The top of their heads also open and close as they hop much like chattering wind up teeth. My only complaint about these guys is that the paint on Horn Head's teeth is a little sloppy. Other than their other details are really cool (Horn Head even has a tongue!). Especially their feet. Skull Face has little skeleton feet and Horn Head has gross lumpy ones!

In conclusion, these wind ups are really neat and all of the ones I have all work great. If you can hunt them down you should pick them up. They age better than Madballs because of the materials they're made out of and the wind up parts seem pretty sturdy. You can find them on Ebay easy enough but maybe not always for a reasonable prices.

Like I said, rip offs of even the minor Madballs merchandising schemes were everywhere. These wind ups are some of my favorites. Made by Soma (purveyors of little ninjas), these dudes were definitely made to cash in on the monster ball craze. How can you tell? What sets them apart from other wind ups? Check out the packaging here. They're called Monster Balls for one, and they look like Madballs but with feet!

I'm missing one of these dudes, but we'll talk about the three I have. A nice little chat. The purple dude is pretty cool. He's some sort of purple fangy muppet with big feet. As with all of these dudes, the paint job on him is really well done. No fuzzy edges, no bleeding, and lots of colors. His brother, to the left, is the grossest of the bunch. He looks like a burn victim of some sort. Or a piece of mold. OR a piece of mold that was set on fire, was GONNA be a Madball, but didn't make the cut and got feet as part of his lawsuit against the flamable warehouse where he worked. The final grosso is my favorite. His mouth is really cool! He looks like an old man that got turned into a lamprey.

These nerds are of the hopping variety of wind ups and don't have a second action like a bobbing mouth or a flicky pervert tongue but they are really neat. I don't come across these too often and when I have it's at the bottom of a flea market bin or on Ebay for way TOO cheap. So, keep an eye out.

So in conclusion, get all of these. They're all really cool and made to last.

__________________________________________________________________

UPDATE!

I recently scored (what I think is) the last of the Soma wind ups over at Monster Collectibles. He looks a lot like the "purple fangy muppet" above but with scales and and underbite instead of fur and overbite. He's pretty cool and rounds out the set nicely!

Friday the Squirteenth

2010-04-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

"Scary 18 Ft. Squirt!"

Most of the ugly faces that grace monster balls are the creation of toy designers who are, no doubt, inspired by creatures in popular culture. It's rare that an existing creep finds its way into the monster ball pantheon, but that's not to say that it doesn't happen. Monster Balls were Madball sized rubber ball representations of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Wolfman, but those are almost monster archetypes like a zombie, ghoul or a demon. Entertech, purveyors of fine water-based entertainment, stepped up to the plate in the late 80's to give us what we all wanted for so long; likenesses of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees in ball form! What? Was I the ONLY one asking for that?

I'll admit, their addition as children's toys is a bit weird. I mean, as a nerdy kid that was obsessed with horror movies way too young, I was excited that dudes from my generation were being immortalized and somewhat, legitimized as pop culture icons, however, unlike the Wolfman, or Dracula these dudes were BRUTAL murderers and both almost exclusively KILLED CHILDREN (well teens)! Even their appearances are way more nightmare-inducing than Karloff as Imhotep! Well, it must have been easy to disassociate the toys with the actual murderous movies because these weren't the only toys. Jason had a Nintendo video game and Freddy had a board game! Still? Children's ball toys?!

I was hesitant to include these guys in my collection, or on this blog, because they're not traditional Madball type balls. However, the new Euro Madballs are exactly the same make and model so the decision was made for me by the priests of Madballology.

Both Freddy and Jason come packaged with a nameless victim whose only crime was being manufactured in a world where Jason needed to be packaged separately from Freddy. They're about 1.5" in diameter and really are good and holding and squirting water.

Before I start, I want to thank the designers of Spitballs for including a tiny square part on the bottom of these that allows them to stand up straight without outside help. It's really hard to keep most of these jerks upright in order to take photos but these guys were easy. First world problems. Cry for me.

Jason's up first and I'm so pumped on him. Hold up. They somehow managed to make a mentally challenged rotting zombie cute! Look at his round little head! Awwww does mister man wanna murder me with a weed whacker? Yesh you do! This is obviously Jason via part VII: The New Blood as you can tell with his axe wound (upper right) and boat propeller wound (lower right) and the packaging (the small photo on the right is from VII). This is by far my favorite Jason incarnation, cus he's the gnarliest. He looks like a creepy jacked up zombie that's been killed 6 times. I guess that doesn't have anything to do with this toy but whatever. His victim buddy is kinda lackluster. His cartoony face is pretty neat but I'm not exactly sure what Jason did to him to make him a "victim". His eyes are squinty and pink to imply he got stabbed in them? Or maybe Jason just gave him pink eye when he was at that sleepover?

I may be biased in my saying that I like the Jason one's more because I like the Friday the 13th movies better but this Freddy ball actually is disturbing and weird. First off, they didn't try to make his face fit the ball shape, rather they make his face grow out of the ball! That fleshy color and those burns that look like veins make him look like someone with a peculiar testicular growth dressed his junk up with a hat! Look below! Awful!

I guess that IS a pretty good likeness of Robert Englund in the make up but still. I do like the tiny tiny teeth and the angry snarl but he still looks like a nad. His victim is WAY cooler than Jason's though. There's no misinterpreting what happened here, that dude got sleepy and then slashed! It's also cool that he looks like a Ken Doll head. We all know that Barbie lives on Elm Street and her parents burned Freddy alive.

So let's get back to the packaging and its boasting. "Scary 18ft squirt" huh? While this does sound like something accidentally viewed on Redtube, I tested it out and it's true! They really do shoot about 18 feet! You may say, "yeah but that's not scary". Well it is if you're my cat. They don't shoot that far for long but it is pretty cool. My absolute favorite parts of the packaging are the illustrations on the back of each. A) like you couldn't figure it out B) how cute! C) someone got paid for that, D) alliteration, E) rhyming!
In conclusion, these are really cool. I remember these from when I was a kid and tracking them down was worth it. They don't go for very much on the internet if you can find them and they come up fairly often. They're surprisingly well detailed and entertainingly stylized (that Freddy one is soooo weird). If you're into 80's monster movies OR Madballs these are for you!

Grosser Than a Speeding Booger

2010-04-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

"Freaky Fun For Everyone"

The revamp of the Madballs line in 2007 and the following rip offs (Squirt Devils, I Poppers etc) are what got me back into collecting these ugly monsters again. I kinda forgot how awesome those original dudes were. They were gross and monstrous but their simplicity is what made them amazing. Most of them aren't too complicated or detailed, they're just really well designed monster balls. It wasn't that big of a surprise because I had many of the ones that I've recently reacquired (and carried around until there was no paint left on them), but I never had the three Super Madballs. Sigh. Just the name evokes a feeling of awe and splendor. "Oh, you thought those little creeps were cool? Check these guys out...they're SUPER! Yeah you COULD gross out your little brother with this teeny tiny Slobulus, OR you could BE A MAN and SCARE HIM TO DEATH WITH FOUL SHOT!!!" Ok, maybe that's not exactly what it's like but whatever, you're no better than me.
As with Rude Ralph, I had NO IDEA how big these guys were or what they were made out of. I actually had more referance with Rude Ralph because I had at least seen him in stores when I was a kid. Again the scale shocked me. Check out Goal Eater with Skull Face there. These were actual ball size! Well, I guess Madballs were baseball size but these were like big ball size! ANDDDD I also had no idea that Super Madballs were INFLATABLE! They're made from the same material as a football or basketball. I thought from pics they were just larger foam balls (like Worm Skull) but it turns out they're pretty usable rubber balls. Well, usable until you get hit on the brow with one of Foul Shots hard rubber worms.

There are only three Super Madballs, probably because it takes a lot of Madballology and Scare Science to create one. AND they're harder to contain because they're big. If they formed some sort of monster ball union you'd be screwed.

The three that exist are all modeled after real sports balls. Goal Eater here is a soccer monster of some sort. He's my least favorite but he's actually been growing on me. I think it's mostly because he's a cool monster but not too gross. His design reminds me of My Pet Monster rather than a Madball. He's got a gnarly grin and some CRAZY eyes but there's not too much slime and only a few stitches. I guess he's way better than a plain ol' soccer ball.

Actually, even in the time it takes me to write this Goal Eater has endeared himself to me a bit more. I love his absurdly giant teeth and especially the broken one with the exposed nerves. That's pretty gnarly. And what the hell happened to the tooth above that?! it looks like he got hit in the face with an icepick! Being a Super Madball is rough business.

His caveman brow cupping his bulging bloodshot angry eyes are pretty neat too. I guess he may not be the grossest but he looks like he may be the meanest.

Also, all the Super Madballs have customized butt-stamps that say their names and brands. Just in case they get lost you can send them home to Orb.

Foul Shot here may not looks so good in pics..well, I was unimpressed when I saw him on the internet (oh I wish he had a Facebook page), but in real life this dude rules! It's as if someone killed a guy and tried to hide his corpse in a basketball, then that dude came back to life all messed up and wormy and then busted out of the basketball! I wish I could come up with some Crypt Keeper-esque puns.Both this dude's eyes are wrecked and basically unusable but the worm one is really really nausea inducing. It's a puckered empty socket filled with pink squishy looking worms! I think that alone wins this guy the Grossest award for Super Madballs, but the other eye is all bulgy, veiny and useless too!

His teeth are more sculpted in a more Ghastly comic book style than most other Madballs but I think it works. Oof and his nose! Or rather, lack there of. It's all bubbly in the middle for some reason?! What would that even be?! Zombie boogers? I bet that smells awful.

Last and most certainly not least, is Touchdown Terror. Hand's down he's the coolest of the three, being a combo monster, football AND missle! I wish I had this when I was a kid. He's so cool! He's got the angry and gross bases covered and covered well. His menacing maw and burly brow make him look like he'll attack the hell out of you if you even attempt to catch him.
Both his eyes are pretty intense but the one in the detail is nastiest. It's like Madball pink eye, or maybe he got punched and his eye got infected. One of the other tiny details that really disturbs me is the screws holding his shark teeth together. I hate the idea of a Madball dentist! He'd probably only have a saw, one of those old timey hand cranked drills and a GIANT needle that wasn't filled with anything. The last detail up there is the thing that really really grosses me out. The bumps on a regular football kind taper off and become warts or zits on his lip! Ugh, add a skin condition to the list of awful sicknesses afflicting Touchdown Terror.

In conclusion, these dudes are totally cool. Larger, more usable and more detailed than their baseball sized siblings, Super Madballs also hold up better over time. The paint on the one's I have is still intact and the only thing really wrong with them is that they don't hold air very well. They show up fairly often on Ebay and are totally worth the price they go for. Do it! And check out this commercial!

I Am Not the Only Nerd!

2010-04-19T05:57:00.000-07:00

Here it is folks! Our second fantasy Madball and I must say this one is totally awesome and gross! Justin Gray is a Philadelphia based illustrator that I've been great friends with for about 8 years and you should check out his stuff at Burn To Build.
His fantasy Madball is named Henry Ballins or as Jeanne D'Angelo suggested Up the Chunks. I was going to point out "the one thing I love about this is.." but it turns out there's about a million things I love about this. For one, the finger in the barf is super gross. How'd that get in there? AND the broken bottles and syringe hark back to Garbage Pail Kids but seeing them this big makes me wonder what it would be like to not only swallow them, but then regurgitate them. Ouch. The tiny zits look so full that they're going to rip off Henry's face and the skin pulling around the safety pin makes me wanna get this guy a band aid. My absolute favorite is the bullet going through his head that I thought was just a bloody wound the first time I looked. Ew.

In conclusion, this is amazing! Justin IS a totally sweet dude who's stuff you should check out. And fantasy Madball art is fun so send me something!

Bells and Whistles

2010-04-07T09:21:00.001-07:00

"To Avoid The Shar Matter & Point"

The success and endurance of the monster shaped ball is not a difficult thing to wrap your head around. Kids like to throw stuff. Kids like monsters. COMBINE THEM! YES! Young Mike is happy (and subsequently old Mike)! Things get weird when you try to throw a bunch of other useless crap in there. While Rude Ralph IS amazing, it's to his detriment that you can't throw him BUT his eye and noises are pretty cool. It's also pretty cool that Squirt Devils shoot water, but Head Poppers were too fragile to be knocked about. What I'm getting at is, you can add some stuff to the monster-faced ball equation, but you're taking a risk when you do.

Which brings us to these dudes. Simply named "Monster Ball" (note: singular), whoever made these decided to make them light up. It turns out this actually worked. Too bad for the nameless bootleggers that everything else about Monster Ball sucks. These dudes are crappy. They're made from semi sticky rubber, they're poorly painted and about half didn't work. More importantly, they were rip off designs OF ALREADY EXISTING RIP OFFS! (We'll compare later.)

The only way I've seen these dum-dums for sale was by the box-load on Ebay. I've been tempted for a while but knew I didn't really need them AT ALL, much less a box of 12. I made myself feel ok about this by having my brother buy them for me after doing an illustration for his band, Barfly. Conscience at ease.
As it turns out, the acid trip of a package is one of the more entertaining things about Monster Ball. The whole sha-bang reminds me of fireworks packaging. "Monster Ball" is totally just a font with some curvy stuff goin on and some drips added for grossness. The real mystery is the pattern IN the letters. It almost looks like calendar pages shrunk down and run through some filters. It adds mystery to the whole thing if you start asking "what calendar"? It could be a hunky fireman calendar, a Kuddly Kittens one, The Far Side or even the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Calendar.

You may also notice the star light shooting out of fake Aargh's nose. That is NOT how they light up. It's more of an inner glow than a lazer light show. This version of the dude also has no pupil. This is hard for me to understand because the actual toy DOES have a pupil which means someone took it out for the package. "Screw those dudes, they don't get to see his full eye until they buy the box!" say the mystery manufacturers.

Ok, get ready. Take a deep breath. Release. Now read the cautionary text. "To avoid the shar matter & point". WHAT?! I tried really hard to come up with something funny and clever that those words are supposed to mean, but I have nothing. I can't fathom what I'm supposed to be careful about or how I'm supposed to avoid shar matter. Is that like...no. I can't do it. I can't even laugh it off. I am a bit scared of these things now. Like in the middle of the night they'll explode sending soft rubber flying through my torso. The package also reads "safe" though.

Which brings us to our last and most alluring mystery of the packaging. There is NO info at ALL about who the hell made these buggers. No copyright, no date, no nothing. No fine print anywhere and I even pulled the box apart. There's not even anything stamped on the balls themselves! Maybe they're not copyrighted because they're STOLEN molds?!
This first goofball is a rip off of a nameless guy I've seen before but who I don't really know anything about. You can see him here in the bottom left of this bin. As with all of these they're sculpted ok but not nearly as good as the guys that inspired them.
This guy I know a little more about because I actually own the dude he's based off of. In the Weirdo Toys blog about Sadballs they dubbed him Blood Bulge.
Now I would think the similarity could be an accident cus hes a skull-ish monster with pointy teeth but he does have one eye bigger than the other and his incisors painted differently than the rest of his teeth.
LOOK AT THAT. Same three lines under the skull nose!
That brings us to our last dude. He's a rip off of Lace Face who's a knock off of the Madball Argh who's the most imitated of all those original dudes. Look at his family history!
In fact, I don't know why I'm angry that ANY of these dudes are imitations of imitations. Maybe it's the laziness that disappoints me? You couldn't even make your own crappy sculpts?!
Anyway, the lighting is their ONLY cool feature. Up above you can see how they light up. NOT like a Terminator eye, more like an E.T. glow. I thing this part is kinda cool. The lights inside flicker too. However, it doesn't make up for the lack of trying in other departments.

In conclusion, AVOID AT ALL COSTS, unless you're an anal retentive collector like me.

Geekery Gone Out Of Control

2010-04-07T07:15:00.000-07:00

As an illustrator, one of the often overlooked things I love about Madballs, are the little drawings that adorn the packages and various merchandising offshoots. James Groman and the others that worked on the line really had a great way of making two dimensional circles look gnarly but at the same time fill them with personality.

When the relaunch of the line happened in 2007, I really loved seeing the art for the revamps of old characters and the handful of new ones that got made, like Blech Beard. He wound up being one of my favorites overall and got me thinking of how I'd like to see Madball versions of EVERYTHING. Now that the line is cancelled (or in limbo, who knows), I'm taking it upon myself to add new dudes to the pantheon! I will raise that banner! ALL HAIL ORB!
Ok guys. We've been foolin around here for about two months. It's time for the real deal. The nitty gritty if you will. Or the Gritty Kitty. We're entering new dimensions of Madballology, out of the realm of pure research and headlong into development. I give you Er-ick the Retch-ed. My very own fantasy Madball. If there can be a pirate, why not a viking?! (And before you say it, Allen, I KNOW they didn't actually wear horns on their helmets but a wing wouldn't have been able to poke him in the eye like that). I'd like to think of an entire world where there are Madball versions of EVERYTHING. Not just cool things like pirates and vikings, but office workers, CEOs, painters, teachers, etc. How much cooler would your coworkers be if the constantly made barfing noises and were covered in drool and stitches?! Ok maybe that's not that appealing. Whatever, I still like to day dream about it.

Ok, so I have a few more of these that I'm working on in between actual commissions that you can expect soon. I'm also working on getting some guest artists to draw their own fantasy Madballs, and I'll be taking submissions as well! Send them!

Jurassic Barf!

2010-04-05T07:19:00.000-07:00

"Squeeze Me, I Scream!"

Madball creationists suggest that God created monsterballs somewhere on the 4th day. Recent studies, however, have suggested that they are the result of eons of selective grossness. The most compelling proof of this theory are Dino Balls.
I've always loved dinosaurs. From when I was a kid to now as an adult. They probably have a big hand in why I love monsters so much. I mean, they're basically nature's monsters! Ancient, full of fangs, mysterious and ready to eat us (theoretically).
I honestly don't know squat about these idiots. They were found during one of my many time-killing Ebay search sprees at work. The packaging says "Placo Products" and has a date of 1996 but the most lucrative search for Placo yeilded to this. Not much. WHOEVER they were, they really made some bizarre monsters here.

Mostly dinosaur but partly ball, the three different Dino Balls are awesome! They're really well sculpted and finely detailed dinosaur heads made out of durable squeezable rubber and just kinda grow out of baseballs?! That's right. The fronts are these monstrous dino heads and the back sides are like fleshy, scaley baseballs. Ew. The most terrifying thing about them is their "scream". It almost gave me a heart attack the first time I squeezed (squoze?) it. It's a really high pitched party favor-esque squeel that drives cats into a frenzy (it's true, I tested it).
We'll go for the most famous first. T-Rex! He's really neat. I'm really into the balance of cuteness and menacing detail they perfected on these. The front of this T-Rex is kinda cute with rounded features and a semismile. However, the side reveals that flappy leather skin and shiny gums! They even sculpted the tongue and the roof of his mouth! There's one more detail they all have that I'm confused by:
Each one of these morons has "CRUSHERS" stamped on its head-butt (or butt head). The series isn't called Crushers it's called Dino Balls. Was there a larger series that these were a part of?! Who knows. We won't. It's a mystery for the Madballologists.
After him is a dude simply named "Carnosaurs", which is definitely not a dinosaur name. It's the name of a GROUP of dinosaurs, and an awful Roger Corman movie, but not a single species. However, I commend the dudes at Placo for goin all out with the colors on this dork. Dinosaurs could have been any color and the bland grey and green ones are snooooorrrrrinnngggg. Carnosaur has two shades of blue and two shades of green on him as well as black spikes! From the front his dude is pretty gruesome, but from the side he looks like a mutant caterpillar. Maybe that's how dinosaurs mature? Someone call Science and let them know the "egg" theory is incorrect. He's also the only one of these nerds that has any blood. That gash on his eye must smart!
Lastly is good ol' Triceratops, friend to children. He's the cutest out of this bunch but he's still pretty gnarly. The dude is screaming and he's REALLY wrinkly. His neck flap and baseball ass are super gross too. I get the feeling that the blunt horns and spikes and whatnot that give the illusion of cuteness are actually just practical, so kids didn't lose and eye or two while tossing these at their siblings.
I really do appreciate how well these dudes are painted. Check out these details. Scars and fangs!
Summary. YES! Monster ball/dinosaur combination is a great idea. The screaming is really unsettling and they look so cool! My only complaint is that they could be a little grosser.

All Encompasing Rip-off Artists

2010-04-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

"You Can Miss, Fumble and Strike Out!"

Weird Balls....where to start? For some reason the 80's saw an explosion of weird and/or gross-out products aimed at young boys. They ran the gamut of toys; there were trading cards (Garbage Pail Kids/Dinosaurs Attack), balls (Madballs), little rubber figures (M.U.S.C.L.E.s), larger action figures (Masters Of the Universe) as well as many many others. The Mel Appel Company (also known as TMAC) bootlegged them all in what was possibly the biggest toy coup of the 80's. Well, not really but it sounded cool didn't it?

They had a host of characters that they translated into about 6 different forms of toy. Weird Ball Wrestlers were their answer to M.U.S.C.L.E.s while the Collectums seem to be He-Man knock offs. The Weird Ball Trading Cards were a more gritty version of GPK. You can read about it more comprehensively at Toypedia.
What I'm mostly concerned about are the Madballs fakes. There were about six Weird Balls, the size and shape of Madballs and packaged in a similar style. Now, that's nothing new. Plenty of schmoes copied those things but Mel Appel went one step further. Like, when American Greetings made knee pads for skating and biking, TMAC made a bicycle seat covers. So, it's no surprise that when American Greetings produced Super Madballs (football and basketball sized monsters), there was a Weird Ball answer.

I'll hand it to the Weird Ball design team, while most d-bags were content to minutely change existing Madball designs, they went ahead and put a lot of effort into constructing their own original barf brigade. Even including some football shaped dudes scaled down to regular Madball size. However, when it came to their "Super Weird Ball" they kinda dropped the ball (get it?). On his own he's pretty cool, but if you've seen the smaller version of Worm Skull (I've heard the larger version called "Punt Grunt" but his packaging says "Worm Skull"), you know that this guy is just a scaled up version. Nothing new. It's also just more foam. The Super Madballs were actually inflatable balls.
I'm not gonna complain though, because I'm sure their versions were cheaper. As with Rude Ralph, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into with this nerd. I actually thought I was bidding on the regular sized Worm Skull when a much bigger box came in the mail (see above for brother to brother comparison). He was still "packaged" but that packaging consisted of nothing more than some shrink wrap and a sticker.
I do admit I like this nerd's design. He's a pretty neatly design skull that looks like he may have been the son of a skeletal pig that mated with a football. Ew, pigskins. I really like his cavernous eye sockets and beady little Amityville eyes. And obviously, those worms are cool. Worms are always cool. Except when they're in your egg cream.
His backside leaves something to be desired. A few bone-like pockmarks and one crack with one worm and a tiny bit of slime....snoooorreeeeee. It's a bummer to me that with a larger canvas, so many of the super-sized balls don't add more disgusting bits and details.
In conclusion, this dude is cool but I think he's much better smaller. There aren't enough details to make him worthwhile as a giant. However, he is a cool testament to the rip-off mastery of TMAC.