Alien Robot & Martian erasers from Geddes School Supplies

Alien Robot erasers

Recently I posted about the excellent monster erasers that are being sold by a school supply retailer called Geddes, and while I was on their website grabbing those I discovered some other goodies of interest to mini figure and monster toy collectors.

First is a set that's simply called "Alien Robot erasers." The name's a bit misleading because while they might pass as aliens, there's really nothing robotic about them. They look more like anthropomorphic animal warriors.

In fact, according to posts in a thread on LittleRubberGuys.com, they seem to be modeled after characters in the Gormiti series, specifically lords of Earth, Air and Water.

Like the monsters, they're made of a soft-yet-dense rubber similar to that of pencil erasers. They're each about 2" tall and come in three solid colors: blue, yellow and lime green.

There are four different sculpts in the set. My favorite is the aquatic-looking guy with an elephant head. Another one looks to be some sort of bird creature with horns, and as for the other two, your guess is as good as mine.

At the time of writing this, you can pick up a bag of 24 Alien Robot erasers on the Geddes website for just under $9.

Another cool set with keshi-lover appeal that's currently being sold by Geddes is one that's simply called "Martian erasers."

Pictured above, this set consists of four different extraterrestrial beings that are a bit over 2" tall and also made of rubbery eraser material. They come in four different colors: light blue, dark blue, lime green and yellow-orange.

The sculpts on these are pretty nice, featuring different types of martians including a reptilian one, a classic kind of "little green man" alien, and one in a space suit that looks like it came straight out of an old sci-fi B movie. The only one that is a bit of a letdown is the cutesy, goofy looking one with antenna. He's just not as cool as the others and doesn't look like he belongs to the same set.

You can currently pick up a bag of 24 at the Geddes site for about $5.50.

All in all, these Alien Robot and Martian erasers are pretty great and remind me of the good ol' days of Diener space-themed erasers and strange little figures in vending machines.

What do you think of them? If you picked up the monster erasers, did you go for any of these as well?

Garbage Pail Kids Cheap Toys: Series 2 (rubber reproductions)

I'm a big fan of Garbage Pail Kids "Cheap Toys" mini figures, and still remember getting my one and only Cheap Toy as a kid in a bag of "Crummy Candy" at candy store at the mall (it was a peach-colored Thin Lynn, which I still have). Until a few years ago, though, I was unaware that a second series of Cheap Toys was produced. That's probably because Series 2 figures were made in limited quantities and only available in Canada, so tracking down a set of them is a huge undertaking and costs a small fortune.

Luckily, collector and toy caster Eric Nilla recently made rubber reproductions of the figures available, offering the opportunity for people who don't want to/can't afford to track down originals to add the sculpts to their collections. I picked up a set a while back, and as soon as I received it I was very happy I did!

Probably the most significant attribute that sets these reproductions apart from original Series 2 Cheap Toys is the material. While originals are made of a hard plastic, these reproductions were cast in a soft, keshi-style rubber. With some of my favorite toy lines being the likes of Monster in My Pocket and Neclos Fortress, rubber is my material of choice for mini figures, so without having ever actually felt a genuine Series 2 Cheap Toy, I'm pretty sure I'd prefer them in this rubbery material.

The other difference is color. While these reproductions share the same color scheme as original Series 2 Cheap Toys (red, blue, yellow and green), the hues are slightly different. My versions have a bit more of a neon look--especially the yellows. I really love their vibrant look. I do know that these have been cast by Eric in many other colors, though, including ones that are very different from those of original Cheap Toys.

The 10 characters in the Series 2 set are as follows:

• Berserk Kirk  (based on card 116 from GPK Series 3)
• Fishy Phyllis  (based on card 108 from GPK Series 3)
• Galloping Glen  (based on card 86 from GPK Series 3)
• Still Jill  (based on card 119 from GPK Series 3)
• Catty Kathy  (based on card 159 from GPK Series 4)
• Ali Gator  (based on card 100 from GPK Series 3)
• Mouth Phil  (based on card 140 from GPK Series 4)
• Picky Mickey  (based on card 99 from GPK Series 3)
• Les Vegas  (based on card 117 from GPK Series 3)
• Distorted Dot  (based on card 96 from GPK Series 3)

Maybe someday I'll get an original Series 2 Cheap Toy or two, but even if I never do, I'll be happy just owning these beautiful re-casts.

What do you think of them? Do you own, or have the desire to track down, any Series 2 Cheap Toys?

For more information, check out these links:
GPK Cheap Toys Series 2 at MinifiguresXD
GPK Cheap Toys Series 2 at GeePeeKay.com

Mono Minis of the Day: 1/2/14 to 1/17/14

Here are the latest batches of Mono Minis of the Day--as posted daily on the Little Weirdos Instagram, Twitter and Flickr.

The lineup in the photo is as follows, from left to right, top to bottom:

1. Decrepit Katie from SLUG Zombies
2. Creature from Warriors of the Galaxy playset
3. Buck Rogers Twiki vending machine pencil topper
4. Namahage from Neclos Fortress 
5. Vampire from set of Halloween monster keshi
6. Robot from L-Gaim vending machine bootlegs
7. Anubis from Monster in My Pocket
8. Wizard from Toyco fantasy playset
9. The Mari from MUSCLE
10. Ninja warrior from Cosmix
11. Boss Moss from Freakies
12. Elephant warrior from Geddes School Supplies "Alien Robot" eraser set
13. Still Jill from Garbage Pail Kids Cheap Toys (rubber reproduction)
14. Tell from Mini Boglins
15. Ogre from DFC fantasy playset
16. Michelle Muck from Garbage Pail Kids MiniKins

Terrible Monster / Monsters & Goblins mini figures (revisited)

I did a brief post on these little weirdos in the early days of this site, but thought it was about time to come back to them. For one, I've since taken new, better photos. Also, they're so bizarre and cool that they deserve more discussion!

For those not already familiar, these are hard plastic, Monster in My Pocket-sized figures that were sold (I believe) during the 1990s as bagged sets under a couple different names: "Terrible Monster" and "Monsters & Goblins." I've seen them associated with a couple different company names, including Hing Fat and Fishel.

There are 12 different figures that came in four different colors: red, blue, green and yellow (no yellow ones are pictured here). The sets came with a larger monster tree to go along with the other figures (sadly, I haven't been able to get a hold of one of those yet but you can see it in an auction photo if you go to the older post linked above).

They show up in lots of mini figures every so often, but their origins are still kind of mysterious. When exactly did they come to be? Were they sculpted specifically to be sold under these names, or were they bootlegged from something else? Are those supposed to be fat rolls on that one guy? We may never know the answers!

Let's take a look at all of these crazy hunks of plastic more closely:

LEFT: This guy is basically a blob with a gaping hole in the middle of his abdomen and birdlike limbs. It makes absolutely no sense (like most of these figures), and I dig that.

CENTER: Here's the fat roll guy I was referring to. They're probably actually supposed to be snake coils or something, but whatever. This four-armed dude is another of the strangest monsters in a set full of strange monsters.

RIGHT: To me, this is actually the creepiest figure of the set. There's just something about a wheeled robot with serpentine arms and a somewhat human head that has its eyes wildly boinging out that I find unsettling. It's like something you'd see in a nightmare after spending the night getting drunk and watching '50s sci-fi movies. I love it.

Mega & Mini monster erasers from Geddes School Supplies

Recently I stumbled upon some new monster figures that made me geek out in a major way. They're the kind of thing that's pretty much tailor-made for lovers of the kind of stuff you see here on Little Weirdos. I'm talking about new monster erasers that are currently being sold by school supply retailer Geddes!

There's four really cool designs that make up the set of "Mega Monster Erasers," and they come in four different colors--neon blue, neon orange, neon green and neon purple. They're about 2" tall, but once I had them in hand they felt quite a bit bigger than what I expected--probably because the dense eraser material gives them some serious heft and the sculpts are on the bulkier side.

So who's in the lineup? First we have a potbellied cyclops-alien thing, which is shown above in green. As you can see from his mouth, he's the happiest of the bunch. There's a lot of great detail on this sculpt, like the creases and bumps all over his body. Next we have my personal favorite, a crouching skeleton dude in shorts. There's nothing too new or different about a skeleton monster, but I just really like the sculpt--check out his super sinister expression. Then there's a fanged furry beast with pointy ears with a dopey expression that makes him look like he's either braindead on some powerful stuff. I love all the personality this figure has. It kind of reminds me of the Spanky Stokes mascot monster, Stroll. Finally, there's an awesome battle-ready monster with a big, gaping mouth that looks kind of like a cross between a Blemmyae and a viking. Excellent stuff.

These guys are sold in bags of 24 on the Geddes site here.

And there's more! I also found out that the same company is selling mini versions of the monster erasers as well.

They're called "Collectible Monster Mini Erasers," and they're sold in a little plastic container of 200 pieces. The color scheme is the same as with the big figures, with each sculpt coming in all four colors. For some reason, though, the purple used for the mini erasers is a deeper purple than the one used for the Mega Monsters.

These guys are about 3/4" 1/2" tall. They're very, very tiny. Their larger counterparts tower over them.

While the Mega Monster set is made of of four sculpts, the Mini set features 10. Here they all are close up:

Slurfies

If you're into the kinds of toys covered here, chances are at some point you've seen jiggly rubbery creatures like the ones shown in this post, even if you didn't know what they were called. I had all of mine ever since I was a kid, and until a couple years ago was not aware they were known under a specific name--Slurfies!

According to collector and Flickr user Astronit, the original Slurfies came out in the 1970s (click here to see a photo of them). Then, over the years, they were reproduced and bootleged into various shapes, sizes, colors and levels of quality. Some look like they had their paint apps applied by a blind monkey, but their goofiness and crapiness gives them a certain charm.

Here's a photo showing a few different varieties of Slurfies:

Slurfies are similar to Topps Rubber Uglies, but aren't based on sticker artwork like Uglies, and the designs are somewhat less bizarre and more "friendly"-looking.

If I remember correctly, most of my Slurfies came out of vending machines, although they very well could have come as arcade prizes, variety stores and other places. I don't think I have any of the original '70s versions, but the yellow one in the upper right of the above photo looks like a very close reproduction (I remember getting that one and a few others like it sometime in the '90s).

Below are a few more photos showing various types of these classic little weirdos.

Do you have any Slurfies, or do you remember ever coming across any?

Neclos Fortress: Lovecraftian monsters

While most of the many monsters in the Japanese keshi line/RPG Neclos Fortress were inspired by mythological creatures and Dungeons & Dragons-type characters, at the end of its run creatures from the works of H.P. Lovecraft were introduced.

The main villain of the line was the title character Neclos, but in the eighth and final set/series, the storyline seemed to take a turn so that famous Lovecraftian cosmic entity Cthulhu appeared and became a new "boss" foe for the heroic characters to battle. It's hard to tell exactly what the storyline was as any overview of it that can be found online is in Japanese, but whatever it was lead to a handful of Lovecraft-based monsters being added to the line.

I'll admit that my knowledge of Lovecraft's works is limited, so it's hard for me to tell exactly how many Neclos monsters are based on one of his characters. Plus, most of the Lovecraft character names used in Neclos were misspelled, making it even more difficult to tell what's what. Here are the characters I could identify (all from Part 8 of the Neclos line):

• CTHULHU: The most popular Lovecraft creature is represented in Neclos as something that looks like a cross between an octopus and a tree trunk. I've seen some people say they don't care for this figure, but it actually works for me. Cthulhu is one of the rarest Neclos figures, and probably the most sought after of them all. 
• TSUATOGA (TSATHOGGUA): This character was created by Clark Ashton Smith and first appeared in print in Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness." He was described as "squat and pot-bellied, his head was more like a monstrous toad than a deity, and his whole body was covered with an imitation of short fur, giving somehow a vague sensation of both the bat and the sloth," which is in line with how the character was interpreted for the Neclos line.
• GAUNT: I'm assuming this is supposed to be based on one of Lovecraft's Night-Gaunts, but as far as why it has Ultraman's head, your guess is as good as mine.
• NYALRATHAP  (NYARLATHOTEP): Another Lovecraft deity, this one with an Egyptian-sounding name. I'm not sure what his role was supposed to be in Neclos. Maybe one of Cthulhu's henchmen?
• INSMAUS (INNSMOUTH): It seems that in Lovecraft's works, Innsmouth was a town, not a monster. In Neclos Fortress, it's a fish-man baddie.

What do you think of the Neclos interpretation of these characters? Can you identify any other Lovecraft-based characters in the Neclos lineup? Check out all the figures at neclosfortress.com and let me know if I missed any!

Monster in My Pocket: White Castle monster wrestler premiums

WHAT:  The Monster in My Pocket line spawned many promotional tie-ins during the 1990s, with figures being released in cereal boxes, fast food kids meals and as mail-away premiums. One of the more obscure promotional releases was a set of six Monster Wrestlers in My Pocket offered at fast food chain White Castle.

The overall style of the figures is similar to the MIMP wrestlers that saw a standard release in the U.K. However, the sculpts for the White Castle set are original and slightly smaller. They're also not as detailed, both in sculpting work and color. Each of the six figures has only one color paint over a flesh plastic base. 

Here are the six characters, as listed on the paper insert that came with each of the figures:

• Sarge:  cop-themed guy in a dark blue suit
• Stomper:  a pig-like monster with light blue skin
• Bulldog:  as the name implies, a dog guy. He's in red.
• Gargoyle:  probably the one that looks most like a monster, in a purple suit
• Grunt:  the wrestler in black. I'm not sure exactly what he's supposed to be. I guess just a generic monster brute
• Goonie:  the wrestler in the green suit who looks like an ogre-type guy

WHEN:  1996

WHERE:  While the standard Monster Wrestlers in My Pocket came out in the U.K., these particular figures were exclusive to the U.S, as White Castle is an American fast food chain. The figures were available as toy prizes in kids meals called "Castle Meals."

WHO:  Released by White Castle, with the Monster Wrestlers in My Pocket name/characters coming via Morrison Entertainment Group (as all releases under the MIMP franchise did).

Mono Minis of the Day: 12/17/13 to 1/1/14

Happy New Year! Here are the latest batches of Mono Minis of the Day--as posted daily on the Little Weirdos Instagram, Twitter and Flickr.

The lineup in the photo is as follows, from left to right, top to bottom:

1. Unnamed mutant monster party favor figure
2. Thin Lynn from Garbage Pail Kids Cheap Toys  
3. Skeleton warrior from fantasy playset   
4. Mapman from MUSCLE
5. BRAK from Diener Space Raiders
6. Purg from Mini Boglins
7. Deadface from Universe of Violence
8. Moai from Neclos Fortress
9. Gargoyle from Monster in My Pocket
10. Catty Kathy from Garbage Pail Kids Cheap Toys (rubber reproduction)
11. Bonehead from Toxic Crusaders (bootleg figure)
12. Weird Ball Wrestler
13. Witch from Terrible Monster
14. Mandarin from Handful of Heroes
15. Sewer Sea Gull from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
16. Shirtle from OMFG