Randomly Received: The Trash Man Giveth

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 January 23rd, 2014.

I know this budding blog appears to be turning into the repeated tales of a blogger being showered with gifts from folks all over the internet... but these posts are LONG overdue. The folks who sent me all this great stuff really deserve a big thank you, so I'm dedicated to making sure they get it. 

I want to take a moment to thank the Trash Man over at "Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture" for the awesome package he sent me shortly before Christmas this past December. I felt like such a heel because not only did I not get him anything... I snuck into his house and stole his last can of Who-Hash on Christmas night. FYI Trash Man looks like this when he wakes up in the middle of the night:

"...there's a light on this tree that won't light on one side.
So I'm taking it home to my workshop, my dear.
I'll fix it up there, then I'll bring it back--
You know what? Just shut up and get back in bed." 

But that is neither here nor there. What IS here? This pile of goody-goody-goodies:

As you can see, he was yet again very generous to me, and intuitive to boot as to what would make me squeal like a little girl with bladder control issues. Let's take a closer look shall we:

First up, Trash Man always knows that one of my greatest weaknesses is Choose Your Own Adventure Books. And so, here we have CYOA #66: Secret of the Ninja. In the same vein, we also have Wizards, Warriors, and You Book 2: The Siege of the Dragonriders. I am a HUGE fan of gaming books in general (gaming books = books that require you to make choices and turn to corresponding pages ala CYOA) and I've never read a WW&Y book before so I am intrigued to be sure. Nothing takes me back to my childhood and/or teen years better than a good gaming book. Nothing says "I have maturity issues" like an overweight 35-year-old reading a CYOA on the bus during his morning commute. Like a BOSS. 

Next up... another particular obsession of mine (of course) Golden Books! And not just any Golden Books, but Darkwing Duck and Sesame Street Golden books! I received two copies of "The Silly Canine Caper" starring Darkwing, and "The Day Snuffy Had the Sniffles". I'm not going to go into great detail over why I've become so obsessed with Golden Books right now, as I have a planned upcoming post about them... but suffice it to say that Trash Man has me dead to rights. Because that's what makes this the hottest blog on the NET. Golden books. 

Probably one of my absolute favorite themes in the package was the small collection of Garbage Pail Kids stuff! Trash Man sent me a pair of vintage GPK buttons featuring Crater Chris and Janet Planet. These are destined for the ceiling of my car where all of my other buttons live. There was also a 4-pack of GPK MiniKins which are sooo reminiscent of the old GPK Cheap Toys (With Crummy Candy) that I've made it my life's mission to own them all. I... don't have a lot of legitimate goals like most people. 

Speaking of... Trash Man also included THIS!!! I'm almost 100% sure it's some sort of bootleg... but that just makes it COOLER. This is Petey Graffiti (or New Wave Dave if you're into that sort of thing) from the old Cheap Toys line in a rubbery yellow that I'm certain the toys were never officially produced in. I'm showing him side-by-side with my flesh-colored Petey (He's not actually smaller... I just suck at scaling photos). The yellow is vaguely reminiscent of something produced by the human body... like phlegm or ear-wax or pus or something vaguely upsetting of that nature. I LOVE IT. 

Next up, Trash Man included a cannister of Trash Pack figurines. My two sons collect these like CRAZY so I actually let them have the figurines while I kept the packaging for myself. While I do have a handful of these of my own... I can't afford to go whole-hog into collecting them or I will literally drive my wife insane. But I appreciate their pedigree, to be sure, with ancestors (or at least inspiration) including Madballs and MUSCLE Things certainly. They're like the bastard descendents of Monster in My Pocket and Garbage Pail Kids. They are a welcome addition to my family, THAT'S for sure. 

Here you see a set of ghosts with the most! The two viloently purple and orange fellows in the front are a pair of Real Ghostbusters toys from when I was a kid. These are actually spring loaded traps that bite down on Ray, Egon and the others. Open their mouths to set them and then touch their tongues to snap the trap. I used to torture myself as a kid by snapping them on my fingers repeatedly. I was some sort of pain freak at an early age. Man those suckers left a mark on my knuckles. ANYWAY. Then we have Beetlejuice there in the middle. I remember Trash Man posting about this guy on his own blog at one point, and being fiercely jealous of him. Now he's MINE. This is Beetlejuice from the animated series, and he appears to be "snake-charming" a Sandworm. I love this rubber figurine with a fearsome passion that rivals the love of a mama bear and her cubs. Is that weird? It doesn't feel weird. It feels RIGHT.

Probably the most AMAZING item to come out of that box was this INTACT piece of glassware. Another of my fatal flaws is a deep love for all things McDonaldLand, and the collector's glasses are a HUGE piece of that. GRIMACE YOU GUYS. I don't even care that he seems creepily somnambulant in this image, in a sort of "I'm approaching you like a Romero Zombie but with NOSTALGIA" kind of way... I love this glass with every fiber of my being. I actually know right this moment where I can go and find a Hamburglar glass for 3 dollars... and now that I own Grimace and Ronald... I may need to make the 1.5 hour pilgrimage out to buy it sometime this weekend. Or actually next weekend. 

After I get paid. 

And I get permission from my wife. 

This motley trio from left to right: Plutor from the Trash Bag Bunch, a Two-Face vehicle Happy Meal premium, and a Battle Beast that has been painted in some sort of bizarre black and gray camouflage pattern. I was convinced at first that the guy on the far left was a Z-Bot to begin with... and it turns out I was close. Galoob was responsible for both the Trash Bag Bunch and the Z-Bots lines. In fact Plutor here was produced in 1991 and the Z-Bots debuted in 1992. I'm genuinely shocked that Galoob didn't reuse the mold for the Z-Bots line. In fact, a number of the Trash Bag Bunch figures (yet ANOTHER mini-fig line that I failed to collect for some reason, and that would have been PERFECT for me... I mean I collected the HECK out of Monster in My Pocket, and they came out in 1990!) would have made perfect Z-bots. The Two-Face vehicle actually transforms a little so you can flip over the front and rear of the car to show good and evil qualities. Aaaaand... I'm seriously thinking about trying to strip the paint OFF of this Battle Beast... but I'm not sure I can do it without ruining the original paint job. I hope that Brian didn't paint this thing specially for me because I would hate to think that I am stifling his artistic voice. But hey. Omelet. Eggs.  

Who is the most adorable Anti-Life equation hunting lord of Apokolips? This Darkseid from the Funko Pop! line, that's who! What is hilarious about this you ask randomly without really knowing why except for narrative reasons? Let me tell you! I stood in Hot Topic the first week of December and AGONIZED over whether or not I should buy this guy for myself. I ultimately decided not to at that time because I don't have a ton of DC Funko stuff (or didn't at the time anyway) and even though he's a Jack Kirby boy and ultimately one of if not THE baddest BAD-@$$ of the DCU... I just wasn't sure where he'd fit in with my collection... and I wanted some Funko Horror Classics figures more. So I bought those instead. But I have never been so excited as I was the day I heard the BOOM and saw my package from the Trash Man drop from a tube in the sky because I knew that Darkseid was here to STAY. I have to say, he is beautiful. I plan on buying a Funko Hordak to go up with him and the two shall have an EPIC friendship to last the AGES!!! Plus, Darkseid rocks that go-go girl outfit pretty nicely. He looks like an Austin Powers fembot a little bit.

And HOLY COW IT'S... that OTHER... transforming... Masters of the Universe... rock guy... (Googles for a moment)... Stonedar! Now I have the pair!!! I have a pair of stones!!! They really have a great heft in my hands. This is actually, seriously one of my favorite things in the box (not counting all my other favorite things in the box) because I LOVE tracking down old MotU toys! And Trash Man gets that! I love that he gets that! And I love that I have the TWO transforming MotU rock guys now! (I recently found Rokkon in my HUGE MotU/Goodwill score back in mid-December) I love how stoic and disinterested he appears to be... as if he had a hard made of... something... hard and cold... I got nothing.  

And last but definitely NOT least... a Funko Horror Classics Mini-fig! This came sealed and they are blind-boxed, so Trash Man didn't know he'd sent me Jason Voorhees... but I couldn't be happier!!! There were only a very small handful of these that I really felt were MUST-haves... and Jason was one. I can now add him to my collection including Pennywise the Clown and Sam from Trick R' Treat! I wasn't initially a huge fan of what they'd done stylistically with these characters, but I have to admit having them in hand, in person, they look VERY cool. Jason here looks ready to go menace some of my other mini-figures, like the Indiana Jones crew or whomever... Ch-ch-ch... Ah-ah-ah...

So Oh MY GOSH that about wraps up this post! What a haul! The Trash Man is an incredibly generous gift-giver, and I will have to find the time and the resources to put together a fitting thank you package sometime in the future. Be sure to check out his blog over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture, and keep your eyes peeled for our future plans for a big Gremlins blogging event coming up this Summer! ALSO at the time of this posting, he is currently starting up another one of his EPIC Trash giveaways... which are filled with ANYTHING BUT TRASH!!! Go enter the contest right away!!! I really can't begin to thank him enough for all he's given me, stuff-wise and blogging-buddy-wise as well. I truly appreciate his humor, his heart, and his... h... he... haiiir...style...? Some other h word. Thank you man. I truly mean it.

The next post I plop on here will be about the package I received from a certain Texan Lady who I also adore... so keep your eyes peeled dear readers! It's gonna get random up in here.

Randomly Received: A Package from "Dave"!

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 January 17th, 2014

So back in May of last year I was contacted by a gentleman named "Dave" via e-mail. It was all very clandestine and mysterious... but what it boiled down to was that he wanted to sort of set up a "Toy Karma" trading system. So he'd send me a bit of stuff and I'd send a bit of stuff back. I'm still working on my bit of stuff (there's a handful of stuff he's asked me to keep an eye out for and I am diligently doing so (Not sure if I ever sent Dave his package of stuff, to be honest... Dave... Dave? Did I send you your stuff?)). Dave doesn't have a blog of his own so he asked that I keep the details on him light, personally, but I definitely plan to show off the great stuff he sent me this past November:

Honestly, when Dave contacted me to let me know he's sent out the package, I had forgotten about our agreement. So it was with great curiosity and profound excitement that I tore open the box. As you can see from the picture above, it was an eclectic mix... but not one so hard to figure out. Dave obviously paid close attention to the things I've featured over on the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks blog, such as Sesame Street stuff, McDonald's toys, and various other sundry items. 

First up was this AWESOME advert for the Sesame Street movie, Follow That Bird! It looks like it may have come from a press junket or maybe just something handed out an movie theaters to get people jazzed about the film? I don't know but it is awesome. I love little pieces of promotional history like this that remind you of a time when films that NOW have been around for ages were still something "COMING SOON". 

Two particularly exciting items were this Ewok PEZ dispenser and a LEGO Batman McDonald's Happy Meal toy! I'm a big Star Wars OT fan, and PEZ enthusiast... so Wicket here is a welcome addition. And LEGO Batman is absolutely one of my favorite games of ALL time. LEGO Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter... pretty much ANYTHING LEGO is my favorite game of all time.  But Batman ESPECIALLY. This was VERY exciting for me. I'm... not really a gamer.

Here is an assortment of mini-figs that Dave tossed into the mix as well, knowing that I ADORE mini-figs. I think my absolute favorites of the bunch are the bendy Ronald McDonald, the Adventure Time BMO figure, and the absolutely AWESOME washing-machine/robot figure in the middle there, who, when rolled back and forth, agitates the teddy bear inside it. I was also particularly excited to add the Flash's ring to my collection of DCU rings (even though it was technically just a Lantern Corps ring collection before now).

Next up, this Ghostbusters mini-book, right out of an 80's Scholastic book order. (I have no idea if that's where it came from, but that's all it makes me think of) this went up in a place of honor on my Ghostbusters' shelf. 

Then there's this 6 hour-long DVD of "Old School" highlights from Sesame Street years 1979-1984, which would actually account for a pretty large chunk of my actual viewing years as a child. I haven't popped this in yet, but I can't wait to sit down and watch it with my smallest boy, who is my one true Sesame Street convert out of my three kids. 

And finally, I have the first volume of the Sesame Street Treasury. This is a later version of the Sesame Street Library, both of which were sold serialized in supermarkets. Since there were so many reprinted stories from the "Library" books in the "Treasury" books, I've never taken the time to track them all down... but after looking through this first book, I may just need to change my position. 

Well, that's it folks! I can't thank Dave enough for the great goodies, and I can't wait to get a package together and off into the mail for him. I have a HUGE BACK-LOG of exciting stuff that has been sent to me from fellow bloggers so I'm going to be focusing on that for a little while here on RRRG... but soon enough I'll be posting some other stuff in other... more random areas that I'm pretty excited about as well! So keep your eyes peeled here dear readers! 

Randomly Received: The Boo Bobby Blogger Box

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 January 30th, 2014.

So... this package showed up. And it was from my friend Laura over at the Boo Bobby Blog. If you've never been to the Boo Bobby Blog, you really should go and check it out. It is a sort of combination between a slice-of-life confessional blog and a "hey look at this cool stuff I found for CHEAP!!!" sort of blog. And somewhere between those two is where the magic happens. I dare you not to go over there and simply fall in love with Laura and her husband Jerome, and their kids and their friends. Join them for a family game night of charades or out roller-skating, and then see how Laura has decorated the built-in bookshelf in their new house with cool vintage toys and kitschy knick-knacks that you've seen a million times at old antique stores but NEVER LIKE THIS. I have so much respect for Laura and her natural photography talents and her easy, effortless way of writing like she's talking directly to you. It ENRAGES me with pure JEALOUSY that her blog is so ridiculously good. 

And then she sent me some stuff in the mail and it just made it WORSE because she's GENEROUS TOOOO!!! Will she stop at nothing? Let's take a look at what she sent me, shall we?

First up, we have to take a look at the decorations on the box. I get the feeling that Laura literally doodled on this package while she stood in line at the post office and did I mention that she is also an incredibly talented artist who recreates giant-sized Disney-and-other-kids'-characters decorations for parties? 

Spider-Man, ladies and gentlemen. And we haven't even gotten INSIDE THE BOX YET.

Here we go! Look at this pile of goodies y'all! Let's look closer.

First up we have these adorable little Mini Bean Sesame Street Characters! Laura and I share a deep and abiding love of all things Sesame, and she knew these little guys would be a shot right through the heart! Bert and Ernie are great, that's a given... but a Twiddle Bug? Come on! That is the cat's pajamas people! What a random character to give the mini-bean treatment! I love it!

Next up are these seasonal Snoopies. These guys are just spectacular. I actually have a bunch of these Snoopies for the Christmas tree already... but amazingly NONE of these ones! And the Halloween Snoopy stirring a bubbling cauldron of green slime? Excellent. These are Russel Stover premiums that were (and may still be...) sold attached to little boxes of chocolates around their respective holidays. Obviously the Christmas ones are meant to be hung on the tree. 

Mini-figures! Little plastic guys! Gotta love these. I've seen these featured all over the internet in the last couple of years. The bigger guys, the astronauts, Turtle/snail/alien guys, and the white robot are all from a set of Tim Mee toys "Galaxy Laser Team" figures which I must now track down the rest of. The little tiny arm men? No idea. But I LOVE them. I mean, look at those beautiful bast**ds. 

Laura is a big fan of old, kitschy items and uses them in ALL of her decorating. So naturally this overflows into her Christmas decorating as well. So it was no surprise at all to me to find these fun little guys included. These are going on the tree next year! 

Muppets and rodents are both woven intricately into my life. Laura is yet another of my online friends brave enough to mail me glassware. This Rizzo the Rat juice glass is actually a Smuckers Jelly jar from back around '99, promoting "Muppets from Space". The mice are... well they're just mice. But they're PULL-BACK mice!!! 

I had a bunch of these Dick Tracy action figures as a kid. I think I liked them back then because they were made by Play-Mates in the same style as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures. I had them pretty much working for the Shredder and Big Boss from C.O.P.S. (both of whom, in my imaginary universe answered to Hordak). I wasn't a huge fan of the Dick Tracy movie, but I loved the bizarre nature of the gangsters in the Dick Tracy canon. They weren't quite supervillains... but they were close enough. And most of them ended up with powers when I played with them anyway. Flattop was one of my absolute favorites! This is a straight-up blast from my past! 

I think this is probably my #1 favorite item from the package. ZOAR!!! Laura knows of my deep and abiding love for all things MotU and this little lady-bird is proof of it! Fun-fact: Zoar started off as a boy-bird, and a completely independent character on his own in the mini-comics packaged with the action figures. Then he became a lady-bird when it was revealed on the TV show that this was an alternate form of the Sorceress. When I was just a little guy I actually pulled the wings completely off of my Zoar and cried for DAYS. I probably won't be doing the same with this one. But I am a huge man-child... so who knows?

Aaaand now we're onto the REAL reason you people come to my blog... The freaky-tiki stuff. Or in my case, the Advertising Mascot soft-goods. These oven mitts featuring the Poppin' Fresh Doughboy and Sprout are honest-to-goodness ALWAYS going to be on display in my cave. There will be no scorch marks or boil-over stains for these mint-condition mitts! These paw protectors are staying pristine! And Mr. Peanut? Well I have documented in depth my love for this chap. He's going on the shelf with the other bean-bag mascots. 

Who ya gonna fall... asleep on??? That was terrible. But this pillow case isn't terrible at all! I'm assuming this was from a Real Ghostbusters (cartoon) sheet set... but I really don't know. (I'm so lazy... hold on.. I'm Googling it...) Yes! RGB indeed! loveLoveLOVE the Real Ghostbusters cartoon and toys and memorabilia... so this one is a real coup! Not sure if I'll display it or just go ahead and USE it! I'm leaning towards using it though. I ALWAYS forget to check the bedding sections at second-hand places but I totally should because I'd love to find some old Star Wars sheets or Ghostbusters, or even California Raisins! 

Christmas Golden books! Here we have the version of the Night Before Christmas that I remember the best from when I was a kid... Disney's Santa's Toy Shop, which is loads of good fun, and Frosty the Snow Man! If I'm being honest, this version of Frosty always creeped me out. I couldn't really put my finger on why until it dawned on me: The weird coal-chips for lips. They look... sinister in some way. 

And a couple of non-seasonal Golden Books, including "I Think That It Is Wonderful" from the Sesame Street collection, and "The Neatos and the Litterbugs in the Mystery of the Missing Ticket" which sort of sounds like there would be other mysteries in the series, right? Like Nancy Drew in the Mystery of the Cackling Cankles (or whatever) is just one in a series. But nope. This is the only appearance I can find of the Neatos and the Litterbugs, mystery solving or otherwise. It looks fun though. 

And this is a book about Mountain Monsters. Because Laura just... "gets" me.

And look at this thing. This is a vintage Christmas Card in which Laura wrote an incredible message to me in AND bemoaned the fact that she was defacing a beautiful vintage Christmas card! I felt her pain believe me, but I'm so glad I was card-worthy, because this beautiful reindeer has earned itself a spot among the valuable wall-space items of the CAVE. I only have 4 Christmas cards hung up in my cave, and this is one of those 4. Because... look at it. Just LOOK. Bask in its glorious light. 

Welp... that's it for this addition of RRRG kiddos! I want to send a huge THANK YOU!!! Out to Laura at the Boo Bobby Blog for the amazing gift-package. I LOVED it. Everything you sent me was obviously thought about and considered for quite a while before selecting it to be included. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. It was so thoughtful! 

I'll be back soon with a reveal of the new-and-improved Geek-Cave, which has been undergoing renovations since I revealed it last year! I'm pretty excited with the semi-new look (although a lot of it remains mainly unchanged... there's still a LOT to share!) and I can't wait to post about it here! Before that happens I may hop on here and post some stuff about books I like, or characters I've been thinking about, or heck my favorite flavors of Jelly Beans... who knows? Keep 'em peeled here folks!

Random Rant: My Love/Hate Relationship with Ice Age

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 online back on March 9th of 2014.

I love the movie Ice Age. I have since it came out. I think I watched it about 200 times with my daughter when she was young, and I have since watched it a few MORE times with my sons as they are getting bigger. It's a Blue Sky Studios picture, not Dreamworks as many folks seem to get it confused. Blue Sky studios has also done movies like Rio, Epic, and Robots... so they've had a pretty mixed bag. But Ice Age is definitely the cream of the crop.

The first Ice Age movie was simply structured, had a small cast of characters, and was focused on a clear objective. The story was set somewhere around or in the Ice Age, so the color palettes are fairly muted but not drab, and the character designs are sort of angular-yet-organic and lumpy-yet-endearing. And because of all of this, the story had lots of room for themes and subtext, and space for the comedians playing the lead roles to riff and have fun with each other. Portions of the movie feel improvised, and there's a nice natural rhythm to most scenes that doesn't feel too rushed or too desperate to move on to the next big thing.

The story also manages some semi-sort-of-realism... which, yes, is hard for me to justify when we're talking about anthropomorphic prehistoric animals... but there's an internal logic at work, and some rules are followed about what animals are, and are not, allowed to be included. The consultants they used for the "science" of the film all pretty much agreed on one major point: Just don't use any dinosaurs. Any prehistoric mammals were fine because they were still fairly fuzzy on the timelines for when some of those lived... but dinosaurs are a big no-no.

This guy doesn't count because he's frozen solid.

There is a real story with actual character development for all of the three lead characters. We have Manny the mammoth, who has gruff, humorless and despondent after losing his herd tragically, who by film's end is able to let others in emotionally, and form bonds with others in a way he thought he was no incapable of. Sid the sloth, who is a bumbling, needy, useless, clingy imbecile at the beginning of the film finally finds motivation and purpose, and in doing so develops a little bit of backbone and self-respect, and to a lesser degree the respect of his peers. And finally we have Diego the sabretooth tiger, who has never known respect or friendship or honor in any form who then bonds with animals he would have looked down on as "lesser" before his experiences in the film. 

What we have is "Three Men and a Baby" starring Tallahassee from "Zombieland", Derek Vineyard from "American History X", and... Pestario Vargas from "The Pest" (I guess...?) all on a "Road-Trip" where they become dude-bros forever. It's actually way better than that... but this is what we're going with. Through the film we have fun. Not ridiculous, over-the-top, non-stop gimmicks, but legit fun. From the campfire scenes where the characters nettle each other, to the travel montage set to the rousing, made-a-classic-by-this-movie song "On My Way" by Rusted Root, to the scenes of both tragedy and intense action peppered throughout... we have a really well balanced and fun-loving film. 

And then we have this guy. Scrat. Quite possibly one of the most brilliant pieces of modern animation this side of Tex Avery or Chuck Jones. He is a perfect homage to the classic Merry Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts where you have one hapless protagonist with one very clear and desperate goal... and an entire world fraught with danger and misfortune working against him. The Scrat sequences woven in throughout the film are nothing short of pure genius. 

But now...? Now we have SEQUELS. And the sequels are NOTHING compared to the original. 

In the second movie we are introduced to Manny's new love interest, Ellie, and her uninteresting otter-or-possum-or-whatever-they-are twin adoptive brothers. Hungry, freshly-thawed aquatic dinosaurs show up in this one, and the whole movie looks like a technicolor acid trip. This movie doesn't feel like it could possibly have taken place in the same world as the first film. Plus the additional characters just make the movie feel hyper and cluttered. I don't even really remember the goal or objective for the group in this one. Build a boat to escape a flood maybe? 

When I found out Simon Pegg would be in the third film my hopes went up... but unfortunately this movie was just one giant wow-scene after another. The dinosaurs, the environments in the ridiculous subterranean tropical world... it all suffered from ADHD and there were no real moments to breathe and let the characters be characters. Oh, and we meet Manny's kid in this one. Peaches. Plus cute T-Rex babies. Ugh.

Still haven't actually watched this one. Glacier pirates... even MORE characters... I mean come on already. And don't even get me STARTED on the Ice Age Christmas special!!! 

Since the first movie became a franchise, the creators have done everything in their power to excise what made it such a great film. The ONLY element in the first three movies that feels consistently great are the Scrat sequences. They introduce a female antagonist/potential love-interest in the third film, "Scratte", that was simply BRILLIANT... but let's be honest, the Scrat shorts and sequences are a bit of a gimme. 

GIMME!

The first Ice Age film felt like an introspective indie-flick, free of expectations and formula (for the most part... I mean it's a kid's film so... formula is sort of the standard shorthand... but still) it had real tragic moments that felt free of melodrama and actually asked the viewers to confront some hard truths. It had genuinely menacing villains that made the movie feel like there was something at stake. It didn't pander to the business-executive's idea of a vat-grown child. The fun scenes were fun and the emotional scenes were emotional and the tense action scenes were... well... tense and full of action. The first movie is accurately described as a "darker" film... and it's funny how they've spent the rest of the franchise back-pedalling from that darkness as much as they can. But darkness mixed with sweetness mixed with substance can give you chocolate fudge, where sweetness and brightness and hyperactivity just tends to make rainbow-crunch funfetti with nothing to sprinkle it on. 

Some of you will choose the funfetti. I don't care.
There is only one RIGHT answer.

I choose FUDGE!!! The movie holds a lot of good memories for me as a dad, but it genuinely holds up as a quality film as well. This isn't me looking back with rose-colored glasses, this is a true animated classic in my estimation. That's really all I have to say about it.... except to shake my head sadly at what has become of the sequels. But of course, this wouldn't be one of my blog posts if I didn't tie toys or other merchandising in somehow, right? So here are some Ice age toys I've managed to accumulate: 

First up, a couple of random miscellaneous pieces. The Dodos were a hilarious part of the first film, and this Burger King premium was actually a part of a set that could hook together with other sets and trigger off a series of events. The Scrat roller is a Kellog's Cereal premium promoting Ice Age 2. 

These three came from an Ice Age 2 DVD board game set. The scale is slightly off between the three characters, but I don't really mind. As I've mentioned in the past, I love mini-figures, (as long as they're well done) and these are right up my alley. 

I think style-wise these are my absolute favorites in my collection right now, to the point where I have a Sid the Sloth on his way here as I write these words. I like stacking these guys up totem-pole style and once Sid gets here I'll probably poster-putty them all together. I love the urban-vinyl vibe to these, as they are obviously NOT urban vinyl toys, but are very similar to in style to lines like Dunnies or Munnies. 

Finally, I have these four toys that my daughter and I used to play Ice Age when she was a little girl. The mammoth and tiger are obviously not licensed items, but to me they will always be Manny and Diego. The other two figures are actually pieces to other toys and were not designed to stand on their own feet. Scrat there was actually inside of a squishy water ball toy that popped... and I just cannot remember what Sid used to be inside of. A snowball or something maybe? I think he was supposed to roll at one point. ANYWAY, these toys are some of the most special to me because I remember many a tub-time with my daughter playing Ice Age in the bubbles. 

So that's it kids, that's all I got. Keep your peepers peeled here for more rants, ramblings, and random ravings!