In which the author steadfastly ignores the obvious innuendo
Okay... I acknowledge that I have a tendency to write hyperventilating posts about esoteric subjects that mean little to all but one or two people who read this journal. This entry, however, is a little different. It is entirely possible (maybe even probable) that this will mean nothing to anybody reading this.
That said... MONSTERS IN MY POCKET ARE BACK!!!
For those of you who weren't up on your early-90s failed fad toys, Monster In My Pocket was a series of tiny, rubbery, monochromatic monster figurines, distributed in packs of various sizes and assigned "point" levels, ostensibly to boost their collectibility. What made the series remarkable (beyond the profoundly badass sculpts) is that it wasn't a tie-in to any sort of cartoon, nor were the monsters made up on the fly. Each of the monsters was based on a genuine, folkloric beast, and rendered with remarkable accuracy to the source material. In addition to the standards (vampire, ghost, mummy), the series included monsters from Norse mythology (Kraken, the Jotun Troll), Hinduism (Kali), supposedly actual people (Spring-Heeled Jack, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon), and the Bible (Behemoth, the Great Beast), with a tyrannosaurus rex thrown in for good measure. It was a surprisingly brainy concept for a toy line from the people who later brought us Mighty Max. And since, perhaps oddly, I had been reading all that stuff for years by age six (well, apart from the Bible), I was all over that shit.
I have little gauge of how popular these toys were anywhere else, but in my circle of friends in kindergarten and first grade, these things were huge; this might just have been a result of my refusal to shut up about them, but I'm pretty sure I was actually turned onto them by another friend, so I might have just been in a monster-friendly hot pocket. In any event, we spent an inordinate amount of time collecting these things, discussing them, pretending to be them (I was usually the griffin, but could also rock the cockatrice or hobgoblin), and trading them (either for monsters we didn't have, or for better colors of ones we did). Still, even then I had the feeling that the Monsters weren't a universal fad, and after a couple of years of hoping that series 2 and 3 would show up at Child World in Fitchburg, I eventually moved on.
So you might be able to comprehend my astonishment that, over 15 years later, they're actually back. Even more shockingly, most of the new monsters are updated versions of the original line-ups, albeit with paint-jobs, more intricate sculpts, and added gothic flair (Also, some of the more religiously oriented monsters have been renamed; this is presumably out of cultural sensitivity, though I question whether renaming the Chinese monkey god from "Hanuman" to "Monkeyman" really accomplishes that). Sadly, they seem to be currently only available in the UK, though their website promises that North American retailers are "coming soon."
Does anyone else remember these things? Were they anywhere near the phenomenon-status that we gave them?
That said... MONSTERS IN MY POCKET ARE BACK!!!
For those of you who weren't up on your early-90s failed fad toys, Monster In My Pocket was a series of tiny, rubbery, monochromatic monster figurines, distributed in packs of various sizes and assigned "point" levels, ostensibly to boost their collectibility. What made the series remarkable (beyond the profoundly badass sculpts) is that it wasn't a tie-in to any sort of cartoon, nor were the monsters made up on the fly. Each of the monsters was based on a genuine, folkloric beast, and rendered with remarkable accuracy to the source material. In addition to the standards (vampire, ghost, mummy), the series included monsters from Norse mythology (Kraken, the Jotun Troll), Hinduism (Kali), supposedly actual people (Spring-Heeled Jack, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon), and the Bible (Behemoth, the Great Beast), with a tyrannosaurus rex thrown in for good measure. It was a surprisingly brainy concept for a toy line from the people who later brought us Mighty Max. And since, perhaps oddly, I had been reading all that stuff for years by age six (well, apart from the Bible), I was all over that shit.
I have little gauge of how popular these toys were anywhere else, but in my circle of friends in kindergarten and first grade, these things were huge; this might just have been a result of my refusal to shut up about them, but I'm pretty sure I was actually turned onto them by another friend, so I might have just been in a monster-friendly hot pocket. In any event, we spent an inordinate amount of time collecting these things, discussing them, pretending to be them (I was usually the griffin, but could also rock the cockatrice or hobgoblin), and trading them (either for monsters we didn't have, or for better colors of ones we did). Still, even then I had the feeling that the Monsters weren't a universal fad, and after a couple of years of hoping that series 2 and 3 would show up at Child World in Fitchburg, I eventually moved on.
So you might be able to comprehend my astonishment that, over 15 years later, they're actually back. Even more shockingly, most of the new monsters are updated versions of the original line-ups, albeit with paint-jobs, more intricate sculpts, and added gothic flair (Also, some of the more religiously oriented monsters have been renamed; this is presumably out of cultural sensitivity, though I question whether renaming the Chinese monkey god from "Hanuman" to "Monkeyman" really accomplishes that). Sadly, they seem to be currently only available in the UK, though their website promises that North American retailers are "coming soon."
Does anyone else remember these things? Were they anywhere near the phenomenon-status that we gave them?