Randomly Received: A Timely Valentine's Day Post

All right... the time has come. I am officially getting ready to delete the content from Really Rather Random Guy (dot blogspot dot com) and in preparing for that, I wanted to import a bunch of the content that I know will then be lost forever, by bringing the posts over here to Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks (dot blogspot dot com). So, with that in mind, I thought I would preface these entries with the fact that they are indeed OLD blog posts from an OLD, now DEFUNCT blog, and cross my fingers and hope that folks will still want to read them.

This post was originally published back on February 28th, 2014.

There's nothing like posting about Valentine's Day two full weeks after the fact. And the sad thing about this particular post is that I received its contents BEFORE Valentine's and I honestly had plenty of time to get it up on the blog days before V-Day even GOT here. But erm... I seem to making a habit on this new blog of posting about holidays waaay after the fact. (I assure you that my Halloween Countdown will NOT be taking place in November)

So anyway, I received this in the mail from Tommy Day of Tophat Sasquatch fame: 

He had posted on his site that he'd tracked down a bunch of old vintage Valentine's packs, and he wanted to give them away! I signed up immediately. He even gave the option of selecting the properties I wanted included. There were a LOT of great properties to choose from so I tossed a few ideas his way and promptly forgot about it. Then the envelope above appeared in the mail just a few days later! (Take a moment to appreciate Tommy's pixelated self-portrait on his address labels). 

First up is this AWESOME Top Hat Sasquatch (.com) sticker! Someday when I find a beat-up old Trapper Keeper at Goodwill, I'm totally going to cover it with all the cool sticker's I've collected from sites like Tommy's! 

Next, a Valentine from the Rescue Ranger, Gadget! I was SUCH a huge Rescue Ranger fan when it was a part of the Disney Afternoon. It took second place only to Dark wing Duck when that came along. And Gadget? Well I'm not going to ADMIT to having a weird little crush on an anthropomorphic mouse now am I? Let's just say I was a fan. 

I specifically requested a "Muppets TONIGHT" Valentine because I genuinely feel like it was under-appreciated in its time, and there are a lot of great characters that we've forgotten about from it. When I asked for a Muppets TONIGHT Valentine I was secretly wishing that Tommy would send me one with Clifford (The host) on it... and HE DID!!! In fact, it has both Clifford AND Kermit together!!! Awww KMUP TV... I miss you. 

For some folks, Charlie Brown, Snoppy, and the Peanuts in general define their Holidays. For me, it's Garfield that defines my holiday childhood experiences. The Halloween and Christmas (and to a much lesser degree, Thanksgiving) specials are force-fed to my children absolutely EVERY year. So getting a Valentine with this stripey orange guy on it is especially awesome. It's a great, iconic shot of him too, so I LOVE this one! 

Here's one with just Kermit, which as regular readers of mine probably know, is one of my absolute favorite Muppets and characters in general, of all time. 

And finally, here's a Californian Raisin Valentine, which just BLEW MY MIND. Again, regular readers of my old Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks blog probably already know, the C.Raisins are one of my absolute favorite childhood properties. There is NOTHING I don't love about this valentine. 

So a BIG thanks to Tommy Day, who always has something cool going on over at his Top Hat Sasquatch site. And Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

That's it for tonight kids, but keep your peepers peeled here for more randomness to come!

League Post: My Life in 1X1

All right... the time has come. I am officially getting ready to delete the content from Really Rather Random Guy (dot blogspot dot com) and in preparing for that, I wanted to import a bunch of the content that I know will then be lost forever, by bringing the posts over here to Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks (dot blogspot dot com). So, with that in mind, I thought I would preface these entries with the fact that they are indeed OLD blog posts from an OLD, now DEFUNCT blog, and cross my fingers and hope that folks will still want to read them.

I should also point out that the "League of Extraordinary Bloggers" is also OLD and DEFUNCT. This post was originally published back on March 29th, 2014.

Wow, I've been out of the blogging loop for a little while now... since the last post on here is from a League post... the week before last. 

I can't even begin to tell you all that's been happening here in Really Rather Random Land... but suffice it to say I've barely had time to catch my breath. But enough about all that for now. I'm here to write about this week's League of Extraordinary Bloggers topic! And as you can see above the topic is an interesting one. We have a photo challenge this week!

Arrange items that describe you within a 12″ x 12″ space and take a picture. 

So here you have it. Now... full disclosure... this is not EXACTLY a square foot. The surface I grabbed to set everything up on was slightly shorter than a foot up and down and slightly longer side-to-side... so it's not a true square foot... but I was in a hurry so you'll have to forgive me for being close-but-not-quite. 

Some of the highlights:

1. Anything Halloween or Horror related. You'll find Jack Skellington, Sam from Trick R' Treat, Garfield from his Halloween TV special, and various other little Devils, skeleton pirates, zombies, and Horror Icons in the mix. I am such a big kid when it comes to Halloween and Horror, both for similar but sometimes different reasons. Halloween is all about darkness and light melting together like orange candle wax, blurring identities and swirling danger and fun together like autumn leaves on the wind. Horror is all about tension and relief, shock and electricity, and reminding yourself that you're alive. The best horror and the best Halloweens are a perfect balance of wry humor and fear and the sense that when it's all over you'll still be (mostly...) safe and sound. 

2. Anything Comic book or Super-Hero related. Imaginext Harley Quinn is a new (and beautiful) acquisition in my collection, and you'll also find a custom-painted Red Lantern Dex-Starr done by Reis O'Brien (of the now OLD and DEFUNCT Lair of the Dork Horde blog) a Super-Hero Squad Iron Man figurine, and of course one of my all-time favorite and personally iconic issues of Uncanny X-Men, #234. Comic books saved me as a child. I rode out some of the hardest, loneliest, horrific and painful times of my childhood with my nose (and the rest of my face... and let's face it my brain) buried in a comic book. They allowed me to celebrate my otherness, my misfit nature in a way that no other medium did at the time. Comics play out in your mind like reading a book does, but it also bolsters the imagination with visuals that support and enhance the experience. 

3. Saturday Morning Cartoons! Well... cartoons in general. You'll see some classic in there, like Velma from Scooby-Doo, Egon from Real Ghostbusters, Darkwing Duck, Finn from Adventure Time, Lil' Leo from TMNT, Scrat from Ice Age, and Emmet from the recent LEGO movie. Bert from Sesame Street is in there, and I lovingly include Garfield in some of my warmest childhood cartoon memories too. Animation is sooo important to me, as is anything created with a child's imagination in mind. 

4. Toys! So many toys are represented here, (too many to talk about ever single one) including my burgeoning love of LEGOs, my fondness for old action figures and mini-figures from my youth, and pretty much any cool, plastic representation of any character I have loved. Cheap toys, expensive toys, bootleg toys, licensed toys, vintage toys, brand new toys, it does not matter... I just LOVE toys. You may notice I have included every single one of the old gang that I used to play with almost exclusively, including Petey Graffiti, Chicky Baby, a green LEGO man, a yellow Ghostbusters Ghost, a gray and purple robot, and a blue MUSCLE man... their story can be read here. They were six of my absolute favorite toys of all time. Fisher-Price Little People, Construx, Adventure People, Battle Beasts, Dino Riders, Funko Minis, Imaginext figures, Mini-Mates, cereal premiums, fast food premiums... they're all represented. 

5. Books, science fiction, childhood, nostalgia, Goodwill... you name it. I have a couple of examples of Star Wars toys in there, one fairly old, one relatively new. California Raisins which were an obsession that branched out to many other food-related mascots... I even have ol' Ronald McDonald in the mix as well as a mini PEZ dispenser, childhood obesity be damned. Petey Graffiti is in there to represent a dual love of the toy itself but also Garbage Pail Kids in general, which I collected like an ADDICT as a child. I have a flyer from a Goodwill store (you guys do know I like shopping at Goodwill, right?) and while not my favorite book from the Borderlands/Bordertown series, definitely my favorite cover from that series... which is quite possibly my favorite book series of all time. 

This foot by foot picture is a snapshot of the geek me. There are lots of other square feet I could fill with my family, or my job, or the secret wishes that I make in the night of what I wish my life could be. But one square foot can't hold all of that, so I just went with the geeky stuff. 

Let's see what the other members of the League have squared away:

- D.I. Treasures

- AEIOU and Sometimes Why 

- Cool & Collected

- Achievements in Gaming

- Happy Haunted Sunshine House

- Stunt Zombie

- Jathniel

- The Nerd Nook

I guess it's hip to be square! Anyway... I'll be back soon! Keep your peepers peeled for more randomness right here!

Random Ramblings: The Saga of the Replacement Turtles

All right... the time has come. I am officially getting ready to delete the content from Really Rather Random Guy (dot blogspot dot com) and in preparing for that, I wanted to import a bunch of the content that I know will then be lost forever, by bringing the posts over here to Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks (dot blogspot dot com). So, with that in mind, I thought I would preface these entries with the fact that they are indeed OLD blog posts from an OLD, now DEFUNCT blog, and cross my fingers and hope that folks will still want to read them.

So time for me to ramble a bit. Something I promised I was going to let myself do with this "new" blog that took the place of the of Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks site. And one of the things I genuinely enjoy thinking and writing about is how I played with toys as a kid. I mean the ways I used my action figures imaginatively to create whole worlds and epics that took place in those worlds. I had a lot of drama and action in those sessions. I was pretty complex...

...or something.
This wasn't even Halloween.

When I was a kid, I loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I loved the cartoon, I loved the toy-line, and I loved the idea of a group of ass-kicking mutant ninjas. But I have a major confession to make:
I found the original four turtles a little boring after a while. My style of play incorporated a LOT of different characters from a LOT of different toy-lines. The main gist of most of my imaginative play was based on the comic books I was reading at the time, the majority of which were from the X-Men family of titles. While all of my other random action figures were developing optic blasts or berserker rages,  Leo, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie had a hard time fitting in with teams of super-powered misfits. They were so insular... so designed to be together... that I had a hard time working them into my interior storyline. They didn't get a lot of play honestly.

And that made them sad.

Until I read parts of this storyline:

Which blew me away. I never actually owned these comics as a lad, but I had flipped through enough of the stories while browsing the bookstore that I knew the basic gist: The main protagonists of the story are incapacitated and a REPLACEMENT TEAM is called in to clean up the mess left behind and save the day. The replacement team is made up of a seemingly disparate group of loners who come together to fight in honor of the fallen heroes. And from this seed an idea grew in my head....

Yeeeeeeah... we're the replacements! Rock n' rollin' 'til the break of dawn!

The Replacement Turtles! You will of course notice that with the exception of Mondo Gecko and Metal Head being sorta-kinda-close... NONE of these characters are actual turtles. But IT DIDN'T MATTER. All of a sudden when I would be playing with my action figures, the four main Turtles became VERY clumsy. They repeatedly became extremely susceptible to being taken prisoner by Shredder and his goons. And whenever that would happen, an alert would go out to four of the Turtle's closest allies: Usagi Yojimbo, Mondo Gecko, Metal Head, and Casey Jones! This alert went out... like... once or twice a day I would estimate. The four core turtles became more damsels in distress than heroes very quickly. This was right around the time that April O'Neil developed light-control powers ala Dazzler (Dazzler was a part of the Australian X-Men squad at the time so...) and started kicking ass on her own terms. 

This was happening in my head.

Where was I? Oh yeah... let's take a look at those replacement turtles!

First of the replacement turtles was the robot that was designed to emulate a Ninja Turtle as closely as possible. Metal Head! Metal Head was the replacement Donatello. He was the science-guy of the group, but with all the benefits of a super-strong android with lots of gadgets and deus ex machinas up the butt (sometimes literally). My Metal Head wasn't the robot-run-amok spazz they showed on the TV shows at the time, but he did have a bit of a Max Headroom (or, let's be honest, Konky of Pee-Wee's playhouse) stutter that he had no control over when communicating with his team-mates. 

Next up we have everyone's favorite psycho-sociopath... Casey Jones! He was my surrogate Raphael. Again, my Casey Jones was much less informed by the cartoon show, which had him portrayed more as a Dirty-Harry-Travis-Bickle-Punisher mashup played for comedic effect. I had him behaving more like the movie version of Casey Jones played by Elias Koteas (which was in turn, a bit more informed by the original comic-book version of Casey Jones) AAAAND Wolverine. Casey Jones was prone to random berserker rages in battle. I think he also developed a healing factor. I may have even tried to convince myself that he could sprout adamantium claws from the backs of his forearms. Yeah... he was pretty much just Wolverine. And let me tell you, it was HARD to have him develop a romantic relationship with April O'Neil when his hockey mask was not removable. But they managed... sort of?

The foundation of all my future relationships was this comic panel.

But I digress. 

Mondo Gecko filled the Michelangelo-shaped hole left by the missing turtles. He was the party animal of the group and quite often his skate-board functioned as a hoverboard allowing him to fly into action. He also shared a power-set with Nightcrawler and the Toad. He was able to cling to surfaces using hands and feet, and his prehensile tail was a deadly whip in battle. He was agile and bouncy, a whirling dervish in combat, and he snapped off surfer-dude one-liners much like a Point Break Spider-Man. I just want to take a moment to appreciate the sculpt on this guy as well. Mondo Gecko was-and-still-is one of my absolute favorite TMNT action figures.

And finally, we have the Leo of the group... Usagi Yojimbo. I know that this guy was really only a sort of fluke guest-star on an episode of the show (having his own successful comic series completely unrelated to TMNT), and this begat a couple of action figures as well... but in my mind Usagi Yojimbo was Leonardo's best friend the way Raphael and Casey bonded in so many of their iterations over the various incarnations of the show. Ironically, my Usagi Yojimbo never developed many super-powers. I believe he was able to channel energy through his sword ala Silver Samurai... but that was about it. Basically his power was to kick EVERYBODY'S ASS ALL THE TIME. He was the leader of the replacement turtles because he was pretty much just the bunny version of Leonardo.

And here's everyone all together. I chose to photograph the vintage turtle allies with the modern-day turtle figures for a couple of reasons. 1.) In my personal opinion, the newer versions of the turtles are superior to the old in almost every way. I can't imagine as a lad EVER growing bored with these four turtles. This is how I wanted my turtles to look as a kid. 2.) My vintage turtles are WOEFULLY incomplete. Raph and Donnie are missing their belts and Raph has extensive paint-loss damage to his belly. Almost all of the quartet's weapons are lost to time. 3.) I really wanted to see how the sculpts on the vintage ancillary characters stood up to the modern turtles. And they look AWESOME. I think the only real weak link here is Casey Jones in his weird sweat pants and lime green tennis shoes... and hairy mid-riff. (Side-note... I am STILL on the hunt for a modern-series Casey Jones. If anyone spots one, e-mail me or message me on Twitter or something. WANT. UPDATED TO ADD: Since this was written, I have found the new Casey Jones action figure. No worries. Crisis averted.)

That's all the crazy I have in me for tonight kids! Be sure to keep your peepers peeled here for further ramblings, rants, and other random ravings in the near future!

Cassettes and Devils and Dragons... Oh my!

So I'm still playing A LOT of catch-up here at Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks. The stuff I'm sharing today was actually found last October. The book Old Devil Wind got a place in the countdown, but the rest of this post is very light on the Halloween fare, so it didn't make it under the wire. 

First up we have a couple of nice little Halloween books to add to the seasonal bookshelf. "Spooky Hayride" by Brian James and Bryan Langdo, and "Old Devil Wind" by Bill Martin and Robert J. Lee. These are both great little books, quick reads, and good for young listeners. 

"The Practical Guide to Dragons" is set in the AD&D Dragonlance world of Krynn, and is authored by a kender named Sindri Suncatcher, a character in the "Dragonlance: The New Adventures" from Mirrorstone Books. In reality, the author is Lisa Trumbauer. I've only thumbed through the book so far, but it looks like a lot of fun.

This particular visit to Goodwill yielded some soundtracks on cassette! Here we have the 60's themed soundtracks to both Platoon and 1969. Love me some 60's rock and R&B so these are both big wins for me. Platoon has a BUNCH of Motown classics alone. So good.

I've never seen "The Commitments" but I heard it was an amazing movie with an amazing original soundtrack. Cocktail I bought JUST for "Kokomo".

Two of my favorite bands in highschool were U2 and INXS. To clarify, INXS was one of my friend's favorite bands, and sine he was constantly listening to them, INXS became part of my highschool soundtrack by default. But I do genuinely like their music. U2 has always just been a favorite.

"One Headlight" has long been one of my favorite songs from the 90's because of this part:

"Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn
Well it smells of cheap wine and cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn
I'm so alone and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think of death, it must be killin' me"

Except back then I always thought he was singing "It smells of cheap Hawaiian cigarettes" which I actually still think sounds much cooler than the actual lyric. Checking out  KissThisGuy.Com I see that I was not alone in my assumption.

I want to be this kid. So. Bad.

I am actually insanely excited to read the stories about Inspector Mantis by William Kotzwinkle and "profusely illustrated" by Joe Servello. I forgot I even owned this book until I started this blog post. I will be tracking this down very soon.

And finally, a Little Golden Book, "The Friendly Book" by the classic team of Margaret Wise Brown and Garth Williams. I love the sustained eye-contact going on between the little girl and the rabbit in the foreground. They're really intense.

So there you have it folks! Some stuff I found at Goodwill last October! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies... so until then, Happy Hunting!

A Package from John Gaither

Today's post is yet another horribly overdue post where I've waited MUCH too long to thank someone for sending me an AMAZING package of goodies. Today I'd like to focus on one of the absolute nicest guys you'll meet on the internet: A fellow who goes by the name of John Gaither. John also runs the Robot Monster Space Super Hero blog, where he features the AMAZING assortment of toys in his vast collection. 

I'll blather on and sing John's praises later on in this post, but for now I want to give you all a look-see at what he sent me! 

Here we have a carded "Willy Du Witt" of the Bucky O'Hare toy line. I almost ALMOST popped this little guy out of his prison to play with, but I Still haven't quite done it yet. Usually I am a "I put the PLAY in DISPLAY" kind of collector, and I always open everything... but Willy here is still stuck to his card and I can't bring myself to change that just yet. The packaging here is almost as great as the action figure itself!

Here's a look at the back of the card too.

John also included a couple of the villains from the line, the first of which is this squat, ugly little guy, Toad Air Marshall. He looks like he'd like to be chomping on a stogie right now.

And then this "Toad-Borg" is a menacing son-of-a-mother ain't he?

This fella's not a Bucky O'Hare figure, but a "Walkabout" action figure from the TMNT line. He even has his little sidekick buddy, "Kid Kanga!" This Walkabout is in MUCH better shape than the one I had found in the Bin of Awesome I bought this same summer, and he comes with his buddy, so I swapped him out for the one I already had.

These guys were some of the only GUTS figures I owned as a kid, so it was trippy seeing them again! I had all but forgotten this toy line! I had some of the ninjas too.

What HAS to be the piece de resistance however is this guy right here!!! This is No-Zone of the Toxic Crusaders! He was an absolute favorite action figure of mine in the final years of my action figure phase as a kid. All the Toxic Crusader figures were amazing actually, but No-Zone was by far one of my favorites. THIS item right here folks... this is the one that made me let out a laugh of surprise and delight! The whole package was great, but this guy made me feel 12 years old again.

So that wraps it up folks! I can't thank the awesome John Gaither enough for thinking of me and sending this great package of goodies! I have to say that John is probably one of the nicest and supportive guys I've met online while writing this blog. He is one of the best examples of how great our community of geeks and nerds and toy collectors and pop culture enthusiasts can be. He always has a kind word to say about whatever anyone has to share, and he is jut the BIGGEST kid when it comes to being excited about toys. Be sure to check out his blog, and follow him on Instagram as well!

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies (they will ACTUALLY be from Goodwill next time!) so until then... Happy Hunting!

A Whole New Bin of Awesome Pt. 3: Closing the Lid

So we're finally hitting the bottom of the Newest Bin of Awesome Stuff to have entered my life this past summer. This last post in the series of three (find part One here and part Two here) will be a sort of random mish-mash that makes up the final pile of stuff. There's a lot of junk in this post, but there are some legitimate awesome finds as well.

I will also finally reveal the toy that caused me to desperately WANT this bin upon seeing it, and finally deciding that paying 25 dollars for the whole lot was a deal I would be CRAZY to pass up... but more on that later.

I know that one of the toys that took me crashing back into my childhood the HARDEST was Dinah here. She is a "Tinosaur" from a 1986 McDonald's Happy Meal. I owned 4 or 5 of the 8 available Tinosaurs back in the day. They were a strange collection of non-licensed PVC characters that were dinosaurs, bizarre looking creatures, and a couple of primitive looking humanoids. Dinah was one of my very favorites, though I got a LOT of flack from other kids for loving her so much. She was generally regarded as either a girls' toy, a babies' toy, or both by my peers. But now I'm a grown-@$$ adult and I can own whatever toys I want. So nyah. 

This guy is named Maggot and he is from the Little Dracula action figure line, based on the cartoon of the same name. I have no idea what his background is... maybe a flasher who has a hard time getting his coat open because he has suction cups for hands? If you're into that sort of thing I guess. He's a fun little guy, but he eventually made his way on to another home.

Also included were these Aliens toys from the mid-90's. The one on the left is the "gorilla alien" and the one on the right is the "Scorpion alien" who unfortunately did not come to me complete. (he explodes when hit and some of his pieces are missing). These also had a new home destined for them as I am not a huge Aliens toys collector.

Next there were these Supernaturals action figures, produced by Tonka back in 1987. I never owned any of these as a kid because quite frankly they scared the pee out of me back then. The tall fellow on the left is a guy named Snakebite, and the shorter guy on the right is Weird Wolf. Snakebite has none of his accesories, including his headpiece, which resembles a cobra's hood, his chest piece, and his weapon. Weird Wolf, being a Ghostling pretty much came as you see him. (I found the holograms to be exceedingly difficult to photograph, so what you see is what you get... sorry).

To round out the action figure collection coming out of the bin, there were these guys from the Bucky O'Hare series. First up we have Bucky himself, and then Bruiser the Berzerker Baboon. I never owned any of the Bucky O'Hare action figures as a kid either, but they looked amazing, and seemed like they would fit in with the TMNT line perfectly. I haven't exactly become OBSESSED with this line, like I have with some others... but I definitely appreciate them and think I will be tracking more of them down in the future.

So here's the whole gang. These were the last of the action figures that I found in the bin.

But that certainly wasn't the end of the fun!!! These two Swamp Thing vehicles from 1990 were produced support the cartoon show. (None of the action figures in these pictures came from this bin... in fact, Swamp-Thing came from Goodwill and Anton Arcane came from an antique mall near here) 

I didn't own the March Buggy (left) or the Bayou Blaster (right) as a kid, but I did have a couple of the Swamp-Thing action figures!

Now for a bit of weird, and in some cases almost heart-breaking stuff. This Real Ghostbusters lunchbox was a huge disappointment considering the damage to the sticker on the front. If it just didn't have that cut going right down through Winston's face, I would have actually been pretty happy even if it was a little water-warped. Sigh.

There was this ancient toy cash register and this old erector set in the bin as well. Nothing I was all that excited by, to be honest. 

The accessories in the pile on the left here are all from the Sectaurs HYVE Playset. When I realized what they were I lamented like a grieving widow that the rest of the set was not including in the bin as well. I don't recognize the RC car from 1985 on the right, and I'm too lazy to spend ALL that time googling it to find out what it is... so feel free to go at it internet!

There was also this collector's case full of rusty old cars as well. Some of them are pretty neat... but most of them are just kid of junky. The items that caught my eye the most were these:

Hip-Hop Big Bird, Grover flying a rocket ship, and a Micro Machine car with monster truck wheels. After some Googling (I wasn't as lazy this time) I discovered it is a Micro Machines Chevrolet 65 Corvette 4×4 Monster Truck. There you go. 

All right! GIRD yourselves. For beyond this point you will witness the two items that MADE me buy this bin in the first place. These were the nails in the coffin. The straws that bro the camel's back. These were the selling points for me. 

First up we have Talking Robie from Radio Shack. Back when I was a kid, I owned a Robie Jr. and I LOVED that thing! I actually dented the bubble over his head but it did not deter my love for him in any way, shape, or form. This is not the same robot of course, but it is a direct relative, and all of these robots had a kind of uniform style and appearance that makes them lovable in the same way. This guy is proudly displayed on my shelf as a testament to childhood and all the over-hyped toys that didn't work that great but still made it magical. 

And finally, this motherf**ker. Metlar of the Inhumanoids!!! I always DESPERATELY wanted to own Metlar as a kid, but for some reason I never got him. Castle Grayskull, yes. Ewok tree village, yes. Metlar... hell no. But I own him NOW!!! Metlar was a giant lava-spewing BASTARD who would flatten you as much as look at you. I remember being TERRIFIED of the inhumanoids, but watching it anyway. I mostly watched it paired up with Jem and the Holograms, and some other cartoon shorts-episodes. Fest your eyes ladies and gentlemen:

Now, full disclosure: Metlar's head is broken completely off. I have to just rest it on his shoulders and set him up for display. He is no long fit for play... but I don't care!!! I am so psyched to own this piece of 80's childhood HISTORY!!!!

So that's it folks! That's the entire contents of the Bin of Awesome. Hope you liked falling down this rabbit hole with me!

That's it for tonight kids! But I'll be back with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies soon enough! So until then, Happy Hunting!